Debating death row

Convicted killer and former gang member Stanley “Tookie” Williams is scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 13. Many are calling for clemency because of the direction Williams’ life has taken since he was put behind bars. He has become an anti-gang crusader and has helped craft treatises between gangs. He also maintains his innocence. His story raises this question: At what, if any, point does someone earn redemption and forgiveness for past sins?

It is a gruesome irony that our holiday season this year will coincide with the execution of the 1,000th person since the Supreme Court legalized the death penalty 30 years ago.

Claims of innocence, religious conversion and good works done while in prison are relevant in parole hearings, but I do not think they are crucial to the capital punishment controversy.

People tend to be convinced that either it is just for prisoners to be executed if they murder someone, or it is simply wrong based on religious and humanitarian principles. My support for Stanley Tookie Williams’ petition for clemency is based on the latter.

In Zen, we view wrongdoing as stemming from ignorance of who we truly are. The Zen Buddhist precepts are not taken literally, but they call for careful awareness about not killing or doing harm. It is our nature to try to do our best, to fall short and cause suffering, to feel sorry for it and to recommit to doing better.

In Zen we steer clear of words like “redemption” and “sin.” To atone -- to be “at one” -- is accomplished by responding fully to the needs of the present moment.

We cannot claim to have a humane and decent society while we put people to death, however horrible their crimes. Many nations have abolished capital punishment. In the U.S., 12 states, including my home state of Iowa, have abolished the death penalty. Williams is one of California’s 648 death-row inmates. There have been 11 executions here since 1976 and one in 2005.

A life sentence without possibility of parole is one alternative that would be most likely to receive widespread support.

The reasons for support of capital punishment bear reexamination. In recent years the public has become aware that the death penalty system is not fail-safe. Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from death row because of evidence proving their innocence.

It is also beyond doubt that race and poverty are factors that unjustly influence whether a defendant will receive the death penalty.

Those who are concerned about costs and the burden placed on social services should take note of studies showing that the cost of death penalty cases far exceeds the cost of life imprisonment. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported in March of 2005 that the California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the cost of keeping convicts in prison for life.

The majority of professional criminologists reject the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder.

The Southern states account for 80% of the executions, yet states in the South have the highest murder rates.

Research indicates that whether a perpetrator thinks he can get away with his crime or whether he knows he is very likely to be caught is a more relevant deterrent than the severity of the consequences.

Governors are given a broad power to grant clemency. They should not sidestep their duty by claiming they can’t interfere with the jury’s verdict because it is the will of the people. It is their specific responsibility to give further review to the person and situation, and to choose whether to show mercy. For those who are concerned about reelection as well as conscience, the facts show that since 1993, 15 governors have granted clemency, mostly on humanitarian grounds, and all but one were reelected.

Our Zen Center has a prison project. We have found that some inmates are drawn to Zen meditation as a means of transformation as well as a way to live as fully as possible while incarcerated. We have several practitioners who are serving life and double-life sentences. These men can be a positive influence on other prisoners who will be returning to mainstream society.

Stanley Tookie Williams seems to be an outstanding example of someone who has been able to make a contribution to society despite his past crimes.

There is much to be gained by sparing the lives of those on death row.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

Capital punishment is the only law repeated in all five Books of Moses, but the ancient sages of Israel all but precluded its application. Two thousand years of Rabbinic aversion to applying the ultimate sentence have conditioned many Jews to oppose the death penalty.

Judaism champions life. Man must not, many claim, declare his own judgments infallible through an irreversible process and trespass on God’s prerogative to take life. The maximum sentence an Israeli court may hand down in the case of a Palestinian suicide bomber is life in prison.

Still, a substantial Jewish minority supports imposing the death penalty, concluding that the criminal assumed a risk he could have avoided by not committing the crime. Through capital punishment, the offender learns that his fellow men deem him unworthy of living. Society’s recognition of his self-imposed degradation is the punitive essence of execution.

The logic that life in prison is sufficient punishment eludes me. Allowing murderers to live places an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of victims and the lives of those who murdered them.

Should a murderer be granted a long and sheltered life? Should he rest secure that, no matter how heinous his deed, he will still feel the warmth of the sun, enjoy reading a book, be blessed by the love of family?

No number of good deeds or revolution of his spirit can wash the blood from a murderer’s hands or bring back his victims. He must be punished for what he actually did then, not rewarded for what he is or appears to be now.

Consider that if the criminal is rehabilitated, why should this upstanding citizen be kept behind bars at all? Why isn’t he freed to live among us, next door to us and do his good work unfettered?

All of the murderer’s apologies, spiritual enlightenment and potential to be of benefit to his fellow man is meaningless to those to whom restitution cannot be made and whose futures cannot be restored. He can memorize the Bible; sing hymns morning, noon, and night; kneel until his knees are raw; wear a beatific smile; write children’s books; and love his mother and it will not raise the dead out of their graves or mend the blasted lives of those left behind.

Imagine if Osama bin Laden was captured and sentenced to die. Suppose that during a lengthy incarceration he renounced his terrorist past and resolved to teach those he once inspired to do evil to now seek the path of peace. What if he could, by example, now elevate the lives of thousands of Muslims from barbarity to civility? Could this compensate for those who leapt to their deaths from the World Trade Center? Should he continue to enjoy the gift and blessing of life? Hardly. It might be asked: What if he has achieved redemption? I would answer: Only God can judge redemption. But can he be forgiven by society? No, forgiveness can be extended only by those he murdered.

Why should the life of the murderer be elevated above that of the murdered? It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

We human beings tend to assume that commandments and rules are most basic in this life. “Be good,” “do the right things,” “love one another” teach us a beautiful order for living, one that respects the rights of others and seeks the well-being of the whole human race.

Yet, there is something much more basic that undergirds reality, something that even the commandments depend on for their existence: God’s love. We cannot “earn redemption and forgiveness” any more than we can “earn” love.

The message isn’t a matter of: “Be good and God will love you! Oh, and by the way, God forgives you too.”

It’s a matter of: “God loves you and forgives you. Now, what else needs to be said? How are you going to respond to that?”

The only useful response is to take in this surprising reality and let it assume its rightful place at the center of your world.

The message of forgiveness says to us: “Get over yourself! Get over your goodness and righteousness if they threaten to keep you from full participation in your humanity. Get over your faults, your inadequacy, if they’re what hold you back. Get over whatever it is that makes you self-obsessed, whatever makes you feel like you belong to some separate and superior race of beings, whatever makes you feel like an eternal victim, whatever keeps you from living a real human life, whatever makes you imagine that there’s something in this world more important and more fundamental than love. Instead, be loved. Why would you refuse? Perhaps out of pique because you think God isn’t taking you seriously enough. Perhaps out of shame and embarrassment because God is being kinder to you than you think you deserve. Either way, get over yourself. You are forgiven. Start there. In the whole universe, it is the only starting point there is, anyway. There is no reality deeper than God’s overflowing love.”

One receives redemption and forgiveness when one accepts this message of God’s love. I hope that your acceptance of God’s love was at the top of your list of blessings on Thanksgiving Day.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON) PETER D. HAYNES