Editorial: Fatal Error
STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Daria Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior...
...STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Daria Donnelly Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Editorial Assistant: Maurice Timothy Reidy Copy Editor: Susanne Washburn Business Manager: Gregory Wilpert Fatal error Poetry: Rosemary Deen Screen: Richard Alleva Stage/Media: Celia Wren Columnists: John Garvey, otoriously, a substantial majority of Americans supports the death penalE.J...
...Leo is also, we case in Illinois...
...ly compelled to act when confronted with the astonishing number of Illinois death E-mail: commonweal@msn.com...
...Telephone: (212) 662-4200...
...defendants must rely on court-ap- is missing at home...
...ly impossible to attain in many cases...
...Short of that unlikely reversal of opinion, however, ern Hemisphere, $84...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Texas Governor George W. 1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Bush, still the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has MI 48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, presided over 119 executions...
...Until now...
...made supporting the death penalty almost a sacred duty...
...foreign, $50...
...Display advertising corre- Since 1977, thirteen death row inmates have had their convictions reversed...
...Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly changes to Commonweal, 475 Riverside Dr., guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facRoom 405, New York, NY 10115...
...Despite the publicity the death penalty attracts, it is safe to assume that most Americans are not now fully aware of how chaotic and arbitrary the criminal justice system can be...
...3, 19, Ralph Nelson...
...Yearly subscriptions, the abstract could be convinced that, as John Paul II has recently argued, the death U.S., $44...
...I canspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, not support a system, which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...translated into realities only when there is the political will to Daria and Steve, skilled negotiators apparently, are the do so...
...may remember Daria's first appearance in the was to be carried out...
...Commonweal 6 February 25, 2000...
...Even though persons accused of murder magazine ("Into the City of Faithfulness," June 18, 1993), an have had the right to legal representation since the Supreme article about the travails and joys of "negotiating a JewishCourt's famous Gideon v. Wainwright decision in 1963, rights are Catholic marriage...
...Fax: (212) 662-4183...
...Many states have highly professional public defenders doting parents of Leo, age five, who is, needless to say, an available to the poor, but defendants do not always avail them- avid listener and reader of picture books, C.S...
...One indication of how haphazard the defense work can be is that nine of the thirp. 6, Baloo, Rothco...
...It is especially hard to attain given the feeble Illustrations: Cover design: Christopher quality of legal representation poor and minority defendants are too often accorded, Young, cover art: Valerry...
...Schooled at a formative age by states where the death penalty is even more enthusiastically the Sisters of Mercy, she went on to confront secular huembraced...
...other parts of it may still be possible to convince the American people and their elected officials that the world, $99...
...p. 7, Haefeli/ teen convictions overturned in Illinois benefited from the work of enterprising jour©Punch, Rothco...
...Texas has uses on a daily basis to keep his mother apprised of what she no public defenders at all...
...We are grateful she has What is to be done...
...Dionne, Jr., Sidney Callahan, ty...
...bank...
...405, who in fact favors the death penalty, halted executions in his state...
...Longtime readers (are there any overturned nationwide, some only hours before the sentence other kind...
...Canada, $47...
...Somewhere along the trail of given inadequate-and sometimes criminally negligent-rep- these picaresque adventures, she married Steve Weissburg, resentation...
...With the continuing decrease in crime rates, this is a propitious time to ask Americans if the risk of putting an innocent person to death-3,625 people are now facing execution in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center-is worth the satisfaction of "seeing justice done" on "He looks exactly like his father...
...Opponents should press the case put forth by Ryan, urging Americans to think again about what the death penalty entails in a criminal justice system chronically short of money, occasionally corrupt, and, like all human institutions, prone to error...
...In short, she promisand state legislatures continue to pass measures to streamline es to put an extra spring in our step and bring a fresh perthe appeals process for those facing execution...
...POSTMASTER: send address Ryan said...
...foreign, $87...
...Portland, ME 04106 (207) 7994387, classified advertising correspondence to and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life," 475 Riverside Dr...
...ing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate...
...p. 31, Chariot...
...about this, and you should be too...
...lished biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...man, Rothco...
...A Ph.D...
...patent attorney...
...p. 3, Engle- especially from court-appointed and poorly paid private lawyers...
...Moreover, the Chicago Tribune reports that 33 death row inmates-Illinois now has 161 people awaiting execution-had been represented http://www.commonwealmagazine.org by lawyers who have been either disbarred or suspended...
...in English literature followed Principled proponents of the death penalty cannot ignore the from Brandeis, and then a term of teaching the same to stufact that too many people now awaiting execution have been dents at Boston University...
...To join, simply send an e-mail ly stated but strongly held opinions, has joined Commonmessage to commonweal-subscribe@egroups.com weal's editorial staff as associate editor...
...Serials it is necessary and just: the egregiously flawed criminal justice system that deterData program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...p. 21, Ross, Rothco...
...Last month Illinois Governor George Ryan, a moderate Republican and monthly July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 475 Riverside Drive, Rm...
...We are very pleased Happy e-mailing...
...Ryan felt moralNew York, NY 10115...
...Web: http: / / www.commonwealmagazine.org...
...Johns, Bush and Bill Clinton, when then-Governor Clinton made a point of interrupting Quanda Williams his campaign for the White House to return to Arkansas to preside over the execuAdvertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher Emeritus: Edward S. Skillin tion of a retarded man...
...Congress itself, as recently as 1996, elimi- that she has brought the average age of the editorial staff nated funding for twenty Death Penalty Resource Centers, down to a nearly adolescent forty-five...
...versity in Connecticut...
...bate in Illinois, and Ryan's moratorium has been widely applauded...
...Special two- penalty is not needed to protect society, and the state's willingness to take life unyear rate: U.S...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...such an imperfect and unprecedented scale...
...The group will ex- children's book reviewer extraordinaire, woman of many change messages dealing with articles and topics pre- (bonnet-like) hats, scholarly accomplishments, and politesented in the magazine...
...And even if there are public defenders, they can attest, an adept operator of the fax machine, which he may not be sufficiently skilled or properly funded...
...Copyright © 2000 Commonweal Founda- It would be good if Governor Ryan and others who support capital punishment in tion...
...Since 1977, when the Supreme Court permitted the reinstatement of the death penalty, few elected officials at any level have been willing to Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is pub- risk the wrath of the public by calling the gruesome practice into question...
...Since 1973, eighty-five death sentences have been a (gasp...
...Nationwide, the situation may also be ripe for rethinking...
...Canada, $81...
...The story is no prettier in Commonweal 5 February 25, 2000 On-line discussion group Commonweal will be sponsoring an e-mail discussion Catholic intellectual found Daria Donnelly, group from now until July 1, 2000...
...Lewis, fables, selves of these services-that seems to have frequently been the poetry, fairy tales, and much, much more...
...Outrage over wrongful convictions, in- consented to plunge into the fray here, and wish to assure cluding convictions orchestrated by police and prosecutors, Leo that Mom will be safely returned to him, at least most has dramatically changed the nature of the death penalty de- nights, in time for the story hour...
...Commonweal articles also are stand points to the inherent problem with capital punishment even for those who think available at many libraries and research facilities on CD-ROM and in electronic data bases...
...petence or neglect did not...
...Single Copy, $2.50...
...pointed lawyers who are given few resources with which to Not the least of Daria's contributions to Commonweal is mount a defense...
...postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional offices...
...Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Peri- Despite the overwhelming facts supporting his decision, Ryan's action still reodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Di- quired political and moral courage, especially coming from someone whose party has gest, and Book Review Index...
...The students turned up exculpatory dron, Rothco...
...In Florida, for example, twenty death row convic- manism in all its hideous seductiveness at Wesleyan Unitions have been reversed since 1977...
...dollars by Inter- the "moral certainty" concerning guilt that Governor Ryan rightly demands is nearnational Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...9, 12, 17, Schwanalism students at Northwestern University...
...That change is most likely to come about in the political arena, rather than through the courts...
...columnist portraits, Elaine evidence the original lawyers could easily have discovered but because of incomMills...
...But more important, Ryan's obviously principled Wooster, OH 44691...
...Daria hails from Pittsburgh, where she learned the art of reasoned disputation growing up with six siblings...
...spective to our deliberations...
...At no Circulation Manager: Sandra Smith time was this more apparent than during the 1992 presidential race between George Staff, Elia M.C...
...Annual rates for air-mail delivery outside U.S.: West- dermines the sanctity of all life...
...Europe, $89...
...Death penalty opponents must remember, however, that the practice will only be abolished when a majority of Americans becomes convinced it is wrong or hopelessly flawed in practice...
...One indication of this sobering fact is that no presidential candidate William Pfaff, Daniel Callahan, Jo McGowan from either major party is willing to express even tentative doubts about N Intern: Christopher Ruddy capital punishment, lest he be accused of being "soft on crime...
...penalty convictions that have been overturned by subsequent judicial inquiries...
...Periodicals mines who ends up on death row in the first place...
Vol. 127 • February 2000 • No. 4
