Pending Execution as Ethical Watershed

The pending execution of Indiana death row inmate David Woods on May 4^th is a milestone in the history of Indiana’s death penalty. Our nagging doubts and fears about the death penalty system being Indiana’s “other lottery” have now been confirmed and thoroughly documented in a recent report by the American Bar Association. Out of this report rises an opportunity to show that Indiana will not stand by while a man is executed as a result of so flawed and suspect a system. Instead, we must show that Indiana stands for fairness and true justice by demanding a hold on executions until the ABA report’s recommendations can be further examined and the death penalty system as a whole can be judged.

A moratorium is not only advisable, but is also overwhelmingly supported by 61% of Hoosiers as demonstrated in an ABA commissioned poll. Once the ticking clock of impending executions is silenced, objective examination of this system will expose the inhumanity, inefficiency, and injustice of capital punishment. I urge all who are concerned about ensuring the legitimacy of our justice system to petition their legislators and Governor Daniels for a stay of Mr. Woods’ execution and a moratorium on capital punishment.

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ABA Indiana Report Breakdown

The report sitting in front of me is a veritable gold mine of information regarding the death penalty in Indiana; a wealth of knowledge which points to the inevitable conclusion that a moratorium on executions is the way to go. However, the Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Report, issued recently by the American Bar Association, is also 318 pages long (not including the executive summary and appendices). The summary alone is about 30 pages, more reading than most of you are likely willing to venture into unless you're seriously studying the death penalty in Indiana.

So, as a service to you, the readers of this blog, I will do my best to read and deliver the essential statistics and analysis of the ABA report's 13 chapters. Likely I'll be going at the pace of one-two per week so it should be easy to keep up. There's lots of information here that will likely serve as the foundation of a renewed push for a moratorium here in Indiana and most of the stats speak for themselves.

Check back soon for my breakdown and excerpts of Chapter 1 which addresses the history and current death penalty system here in Indiana.

The full report can be found here on the ABA's website.

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X-Row: Where Common Sense Goes to Die

Conversations with death row inmates are never really as casual or pedestrian as they would appear to be on a simple written transcript. In fact, it's when the topic is the most common or mundane that it always hits me that the person I'm talking to has committed a horrible crime; a crime horrible enough that the state has sent them to death row to await execution.

My latest visit left me --as these visits usually do-- with so many more questions than answers: What does it feel like to wake up in a prison cell? What is it like to wake up missing a part of your family because they've been murdered? How can these two different sides of the equation be reconciled? What is this system of capital punishment supposed to achieve in all this?

For some clarity, I turn to these simple facts:

My friend on death row killed people.

He is sorry for this every day; at times agonizing over his crimes.

He wants to learn and ultimately to educate others about his mistakes and the dangers of drug use. He wants to give back to society somehow in an effort to try and repay his debt to society.

The state, on the other hand, is going to spend more taxpayer money and judicial resources to fight his every appeal until they've killed him.

Does this make any sense? Does it make any sense whatsoever that this guy who has done something terrible and wants to attempt to make up for it is being obstructed from doing so? Does it make any sense that the state is pouring tons of money into trying to kill this guy that they have safely locked up and that gives me a handshake and hug each time I visit?

He has a debt to pay. Killing him would be the easy way out. Let's make him write an autobiography about how drugs destroyed his life and pitched him into prison. Let's make him tell his story about how he wakes up each day with the guilt and pain that only a repentant murderer can know. Let's force him to invent a constructive means of reducing recidivism; a program built from the perspective of a repeat offender.

Make him pay with his life, not with his death.

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