Et cetera
Fund, Catholic Intellectual
On-line discussion group Commonweal will be sponsoring an e-mail discussion Catholic intellectual found Daria Donnelly, group from now until July 1, 2000. The group...
...Longtime readers (are there any overturned nationwide, some only hours before the sentence other kind...
...about this, and you should be too...
...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...
...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...
...such an imperfect and unprecedented scale...
...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...
...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...
...Commonweal 6 February 25, 2000...
...Since 1973, eighty-five death sentences have been a (gasp...
...Texas has uses on a daily basis to keep his mother apprised of what she no public defenders at all...
...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...
...Somewhere along the trail of given inadequate-and sometimes criminally negligent-rep- these picaresque adventures, she married Steve Weissburg, resentation...
...translated into realities only when there is the political will to Daria and Steve, skilled negotiators apparently, are the do so...
...spective to our deliberations...
...In Florida, for example, twenty death row convic- manism in all its hideous seductiveness at Wesleyan Unitions have been reversed since 1977...
...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...
...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...
...may remember Daria's first appearance in the was to be carried out...
...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...
...A Ph.D...
...defendants must rely on court-ap- is missing at home...
...We are very pleased Happy e-mailing...
...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...
...patent attorney...
...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...
...Lewis, fables, selves of these services-that seems to have frequently been the poetry, fairy tales, and much, much more...
...versity in Connecticut...
...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...
...Nationwide, the situation may also be ripe for rethinking...
...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...
...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...
...pointed lawyers who are given few resources with which to Not the least of Daria's contributions to Commonweal is mount a defense...
...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...
...Leo is also, we case in Illinois...
...We are grateful she has What is to be done...
...bate in Illinois, and Ryan's moratorium has been widely applauded...
...On-line discussion group Commonweal will be sponsoring an e-mail discussion Catholic intellectual found Daria Donnelly, group from now until July 1, 2000...
...Daria hails from Pittsburgh, where she learned the art of reasoned disputation growing up with six siblings...
...That change is most likely to come about in the political arena, rather than through the courts...
Vol. 127 • February 2000 • No. 4
