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The Death Penalty in the United States, a Polymorphous Torture

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The Death Penalty in the United States, a Polymorphous Torture 999 THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE UNITED STATES, A POLYMORPHOus TORTURE Ensemble contre 999 la peine de mort THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE UNITED STATES, ECPM 3, rue Paul Vaillant Couturier A POLYMORPHOUS TORTURE 92320 Chatillon - France ARNAUD GAILLARD Tel.: +33 (0)1 57 63 03 57 Fax: +33 (0)1 57 63 89 25 www.abolition.fr This mission report was elaborated with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents are the sole responsibility of the author and cannot in any case be con- sidered to reflect the position of the European Union. Analysis & Redaction: Arnaud Gaillard, sociologist specialized in criminal justice issues. Translation: Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner Ensemble Photography: © Arnaud Gaillard contre la peine © ECPM, 2011 de mort ISBN : 978-2-9525533-5-1 Acknowledgements This study was conducted with the assistance of Florent Vassault and Emile Carreau, whom I wish to thank warm-heartedly. They were daily collaborators to complete this fact-finding mission, sharing the many issues that did not fail to arouse during the encounter, sometimes aggressive and violent, with the reality of the death penalty in the United-States. Prior to this mission and throughout the data analysis and drafting, I would like to thank Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, tireless activist and wife of Hank Skinner sentenced to death, whose insight steadily enriched this analysis. Thank you to Claude Guillaumaud-Pujol, activist, researcher and author specialized in American civilization. Beyond their skills as translators, they accompanied and guided my questions about the death penalty in the United States. Finally thank you to the association Together against the Death Penalty (ECPM) and its team, employees and volunteers, for trusting me and especially for the power of their faith in a universal abolition to come, which must now be achieved. Their commitment to all, humble and selfless, remains a driving force and effective in this battle for civilization. This fact-finding mission was often fed by the work of abolitionists in the United States; more specifically the Death Penalty Information Center and the StandDown Texas Project. The data collected are due to the generosity of these people, lawyers, journalists, activists, families of victims, researchers, death row prisoners, etc. All accepted my many curiosities nourished by so many ques- For Hank Skinner, Troy Davis, Tony Medina, Abu-Ali Abdu Rahman, tions aroused by the use of capital punishment in a democracy like the United States, a nation that Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jonathan Marcus Green, Kevin Cooper, prides itself of freedom as one of its founding values. The road towards abolition is initiated by the and to the thousands of other prisoners confined on death row in the United-States, American people. Let us hope that justice will, in terms of an accessible horizon, find ways not to anonymous and unknown in most cases. squander its original definition. Among the many speakers who inspired this field survey, I wish to thank particularly: Abu-Ali Abdu . Rahman, Alan Rubenstein, Andre de Gruy, Barbara Becnel, BettyWilkinson, Bob Walden, Brandie Gardner, Cliff Johnson, Crystal Bybee, Curtis & Jo McCarty, David Atwood, David P. Weeks, David Voisin, Debra Saunders, Delia Perez, Dennis Longmire, Eric Moffett, Gloria Goodwin-Killian, Gloria Rubac, Golda & Tony Medina, James Rytting, Jamie & Tammy Stewart, Jay Gross, Jeanne Woodford, Jessica Mederson, Jim Willett, Jordan Smith, Kent Scheidegger, Kevin Cooper, Ricky Bell, Lindy Lou Wells, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Norman Hile, Patricia Lykos, Rick Halperin, Robert R. Ryan, Roderick Green, RoySanders, Steve Hall, Steven Kreytak, Steven Shatz, Terry Pitchford, Veldean, Mandy & Barb Kirk, William Redick, Willie Manning. Arnaud Gaillard 999 ECPM 4 The death penalty in the United States, a polymorphous torture 2011 5 Foreword It is not unusual to hear that the United States, far from leaving us indifferent, constitutes a nation generating feelings split between love and hate; as if everything in this country lead to a variety of passionate excesses. In the work presented here, it is not so much about the feelings, without connection to a sociological study, than a true analysis of a penal phenomenon based on capital punishment, still present in 34 states. Nonetheless, I am absolutely aware that empiric research, which justifies the lines that follow, would lead to believe that this report would be extremely severe toward this vast country, its culture, its population and its generous paradoxes. However, and at the opposite of an anathema thrown at the New World in its entirety, I encourage the readers to moderate their impressions while restituting the actual point of view developed here. All narration and analyses here are elaborated from the prism of penalty and the legal functioning in terms of criminality, in comparison with capital punishment. This approach should suffice to ponder this report from the moment there is no vocation to hold on forth on the United States in an exhaustive and absolute manner, but all the more so to understand the meaning and the functioning of a sentence that all other democracies in the world – except for Japan and India – have chosen to set aside along with barbarity and the past. Whether we look into the personal backgrounds of all individuals concerned by the death penalty, whether one incorporates the data, or whether one observes the most factual aspects of capital punishment at the heart of the states that maintain capital punishment in the United States, in all instances, the analysis can only generate radical conclusions, that the local actors do not fail to note. Thus it is certain that observing the United States under the prism of capital punishment, the functioning of criminal justice, the living conditions on death row, the cultural and historical justifications, which underline this situation, leads to the emergence of an extremely violent vision of this country. However, in the face of penal situations that frequently reveal torture more than justice, any shyness of expression of the context observed in 2010 would be counter productive. Following the example of other publications, often based on quantitative analysis, but revealing the same reality, it must be possible to prove wrong the too often formulated excuse for a sentence: “we did not know…”. It is why the ambition of these pages is to offer something to see and to understand. 999 ECPM The death penalty in the United States, a polymorphous torture 2011 7 Many American organizations, in terms of abolition, but also attorneys, most often court-appointed, do not ignore the conclusions of this report. There are in fact numerous publications1 which review the functioning of capital punishment, most often based on numbers, outlining the discrimination, the financial inequity between the defense and the California Utah Oklahoma Texas Louisiana Tennessee Mississippi Pennsylvania Total prosecution, and a large number of statistics which came to feed the mostly Death Row prisoners 1* 1* 5** 1* 8 qualitative analysis of this report. This is the reason, in order not to repeat Former Death Row prisoners 1 1 2 the uncontested efficiency of existing research, but also because this study Victims’ Families 5 2 7 was conducted, of course with groundwork, but with a European approach, Death Row Families 1 4 5 why the choice was made as a form of sociological curiosity to translate into Attorneys 1 2 1 4 8 words the eloquence already revealed by the numbers. Therefore, I hope Journalists 1 2 3 these pages will bring to the consciences a capacity to comprehend and to Employee of department of corrections 2 2 bring an acute perception of the context to favor a struggle for justice that, Court Employee 2 1 3 one day in the near future, will stop to kill. Academics/Criminologists 1 2 3 Citizens 2 2 11 2 2 2 21 At the opposite of a point of view that would be strictly European, Total 7 5 4 25 2 6 12 1 62 the conclusions of this report, based on empiric research, rely and justify themselves from the intense groundwork, as much as in terms of encounters, * Death Row prisoners interviewed on death row methods as in terms of geographical coverage. Eight states were visited, about ** Semi-directive interviews conducted by phone in the presence of attorneys fifty interviews were conducted, some based on a semi-directive questionnaire (see the appendix), and participative observations were made in numerous stratum of American society, far beyond the context of penalty. To these encounters, were added questionnaire filled anonymously by death row prisoners. The graph below summarizes the groundwork done during six weeks, between June and July 2010. 1 The Death Penalty Information Center (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) offers most of the publications about the death penalty in the USA. More specifically on Texas, The StandDown Texas Project, based in Austin, (www.standdown.typepad.com) also offers a huge quantity of information, studies and links to be informed on issues about capital punishment. 999 ECPM 8 The death penalty in the United States, a polymorphous torture 2011 9 Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................................15 THE UNEVEN SITUATION OF THE STATES ............................................................19 CULTURAL AND SOCIETAL PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG NATION ............................................................................................23 • Public
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