(MintPress) – Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry oversaw the 250th execution during his 12 years as the governor of Texas. The execution of Donnie Roberts, a crack addict found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in 2003, marks the 1,240th execution in the state’s history, the highest by far of any state in the U.S.
While the majority of Texans remain steadfast in their support for capital punishment, voters in California now have the opportunity to abolish the death penalty altogether by ballot referendum in the upcoming general election.
A vote to end executions in America’s most populous state could bolster the abolition movement. However, a majority of Americans still support the practice despite evidence showing the uneven, disproportionate application of capital punishment in cases involving poor citizens of color.
There remains two divergent views of execution in the U.S., the only developed democratic state to execute those found guilty of murder. Texas continues to be the model of state execution with impunity. Conversely, Californians have the opportunity to provide a more humane model for a legal system based upon the equal application of just punishments.
Texas justice: not an effective deterrent
For many citizens, supporting the death penalty is about providing a sufficient deterrent, preventing would-be criminals from committing murder and other violent crimes. Despite the liberal use of the death penalty, Texas consistently ranks among the states with the highest rates of violent crime and homicide.
According to the 2010 U.S. Peace Index, an annual statistical measure of violent crime, homicide and incarceration in the U.S., Texas ranked 44, among the most violent states by the measures of the study. Only six states — Missouri, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee and Louisiana — were less peaceful.
A large proportion of violence in Texas is attributed to cross border clashes associated with the flourishing drug trade. However, lax government regulation of firearms possession also contributes to soaring violent crime in the lone star state. The lackadaisical legislation conforms to the small government model that many Texans support as upholding citizen freedoms.
Indeed this translates into an overall increase in citizen “freedoms.” According to a 2009 study by the George Mason University Mercatus Center, Texas is among the five “most free states” in the U.S. The state government has historically taken a hands off approach to the sale of firearms, alcohol and other potentially dangerous goods.
An individual rights based approach fails to assess the overall impact such deregulation has on an overall society. Texas, like many Southern states, continues to promote a small government approach to the detriment of overall public safety.
While Texas remains the enduring model of rugged individualism, millions of voters in California recognize the public imperative to eliminate the death penalty, a practice that many rights groups have labeled as barbaric and unjust.
The trend of abolition
More than 500,000 California residents have already pledged their support for the SAFE California Act, successfully putting the question of death penalty abolition to voters in the upcoming general election. Thus far, a bevy of labor unions, rights groups and faith based organizations have backed the initiative calling for a ban on state executions.
Like many Californians, Franky Carrillo believes that the initiative is key to establishing a just legal system that prevents the wrongful execution of innocent civilians. In 1991, Carrillo was given a life sentence for a murder he did not commit. After all six witnesses recanted their testimony, Carrillo was freed after spending 20 years in prison. However, Carrillo, if sentenced differently could have been wrongfully executed.
“I am a full, willing participant in this movement to replace the death penalty in California to life without parole,” said Carrillo in a recent video statement.
California could become the 18th state to abolish the death penalty this year, continuing a trend of abolition stretching back several decades. Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the practice earlier this year, a decision heralded as a major victory for the pro-abolition movement.
Since 1978, when California reinstated the death penalty, taxpayers have paid $4 billion to support an unjust system that statistically provides no deterrent effect to dissuade violent crime. Replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment will save California taxpayers an estimated $100 million per year, allowing legislators to direct funding to education, infrastructure repair and job creation.
Moralistic considerations aside, many fiscal conservatives who originally supported the death penalty have become key supporters of the SAFE California Act, the current ballot initiative that could become law if more than 50 percent of voters support the initiative.
Bill O’Reilly, a well-known conservative political talk show host on Fox News, has publicly supported abolition, becoming one of the most famous backers of Prop. 34.
Exoneration projects
With two divergent views of execution in America, one overriding legal principle called the Blackstone formula states, “It is better to let 100 guilty persons escape than to let one innocent suffer.”
This notion, one of the enduring foundations of the U.S. legal system, has been supported by DNA innocence projects across the U.S. Founded in 1992, the Innocence Project, based in New York City, has helped to free hundreds of innocent citizens serving time for crimes they did not commit.
According their website, the Innocence Project “was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 292 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.”
While the Innocence Project has helped to free many innocent civilians, dozens of others were not fortunate enough to be exonerated. Carlos DeLuna, a Texas resident, was executed in 1989 in for the murder of a woman from Corpus Cristi.
After an exhaustive investigation by the Columbia University Human Rights Law Review, DeLuna was posthumously exonerated on DNA evidence. DeLuna’s case, like many others, proves the unequal, tragic misapplication of the death penalty in the U.S.
Above all else, preventing the continuation of state sponsored murder is a moral imperative for California voters and all those who believe in a civilized legal system that abstains from “cruel and unusual punishments” that constitute blatant barbarism.
By abolishing the death penalty, California voters have the chance to save lives and prevent the gravest miscarriage of justice — the execution of innocent civilians.