Frontiers of Justice, Volume 1: The Death Penalty. - book reviews

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 7, 1997 by Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick

Claudia Whitman and Julie Zimmerman, eds. Biddle Publishing Company (PO Box 1305 #103, Brunswick, Maine 04011), 270 Pages, $15.95 paperback

Even before I read Frontiers of Justice, I had told my family that if ever I were murdered, I would not want the perpetrator put to death for killing me. Stopping the violence starts at home and in the community.

But it won't be easy. So many people want medieval vengeance. Why did people cheer when Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing? Is it because this society needs scapegoats? Actor Michael Farrell (no relation to NCR's editor) believes it is. He writes in Frontiers of Justice: "Because today we have no more convenient scapegoat, the target of our fear and loathing is killers."

The death penalty is a winning political issue. Matthew Regan, a Catholic priest, laments in the book that "the surest way to be elected today, be this in California, New York State, Arkansas, or wherever, is to make sure that the ultimate in scapegoating -- simple elimination from the face of the earth, killing because someone has been found guilty of having killed -- be the order of the day."

Reading the powerful articles in Frontiers of Justice challenged my intellect and lit a fire of passion for reform of the justice system in my heart. Once I got my breath back, I determined to oppose execution, not only for moral and ethical reasons but also simple justice -- including racial, sexual and economic justice.

It is strange to find myself on the side of the pope, to the degree that we agree the death penalty is uncivilized and unethical. But reading this book is different from reading papal pronouncements from on high. Frontiers of Justice reads the signs of the times and does theology from the bottom up -- from the stories shared by not only murderers but also governors, wardens, prison doctors and relatives of murder victims. The writers in this anthology are as articulate as Mario Cuomo, and as concrete and well-researched as San Quintin's death-row artist Stephen King Ainsworth.

Their writings are filled with hope and love. Religion is woven throughout the book, although it would not be filed in my library under that category. Illustrated by those incarcerated, the book shows the redemption of the spirit is possible in all people and sometimes can only be expressed through art, poetry or spontaneous prayer. The convergence of the writings cuts through numerous stereotypes.

Tekla Dennison Miller, Warden at Huron Valley Men's and Women's Prisons, writes: "Most of the executions in this country take place in the Bible belt because that population believes in an eye for an eye. Gandhi said, `If everyone took an eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind.' I believe Gandhi."

But the dominance of the Bible belt in the execution business is changing along with these mean-spirited times. Executions all over the country are increasing. State governors grant fewer stays or clemencies. New federal laws curtail appeals procedures and financing for defense lawyers. The New York Times notes that the count last August was 3,269 inmates on death rows in the U.S., and their average stay before execution is eight and a half years.

Frontiers of Justice, by putting a human face on these cold statistics, makes us realize that by telling our stories the world can be changed. This is not easy reading. But no matter how many times I laid it down, I felt compelled to pick it up again in order to walk with the issue.

How shocking to learn from U.S. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.) that the U.S. is the only country besides Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran to have executed juvenile offenders in the past decade.

Gonzalez, who for the last ten years has introduced a resolution to ban capital punishment, notes: "The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights stases `No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.' The death penalty is torture, and numerous examples exist emphasizing the cruelty of the execution."

As one who has worked for over 20 years to stop torture in Argentina and other Latin American countries ruled by dictators, I hated to read the descriptions of how men (rarely women) on death row are killed in my own country. Even the so-called humane methods of death by injection are anything but humane.

With the 50th Anniversary approaching, it is sadly clear that the U.S. will be unable to claim observance of the UN Declaration of Human Rights as long as it holds on to its barbaric death penalty. The authors write not only about physical torture but also the psychological torture involved in last-minute phone calls from governors' mansions, holding off the execution for a short while. Or no call.

Prophet-of-our-time Sister Helen Prejean has recommended reading Frontiers of Justice as a way "to encounter the real inside stories from people who have had a lived experience of the death penalty."

We learn from Eugene Wanger, a lawyer with probably the largest private library in America on capital punishment, that "many people are astonished when they first hear that the death penalty system costs far more than the life imprisonment system."