Spotlight on the death penalty - drama about capital punishment

Progressive, The, August, 2003 by Brian Gilmore

You forget that the actor is Ben Vereen; you are meeting Delbert Tibbs. Robert Vaughn isn't Robert Vaughn; he's Gary Gauger, sentenced to death in 1994 for killing his parents, exonerated in 1996. Connie Britton is Sunny Jacobs, sentenced to death in 1976, exonerated and released in 1992. In a matter-of-fact tone, Britton says, "In 1976, I was sentenced to death row." Then that story fades out and another story emerges, and you begin to wonder how the system could have broken down so many times.

But the answer is there, too: overzealous prosecutors, ruthless law enforcement officers, lying witnesses, the deliberate withholding of evidence, coerced confessions, public hysteria, and, most importantly, poor or nonexistent resources for proper criminal defense in a capital case.

Eventually The Exonerated comes to that joyous part where the individuals talk about how they finally won their freedom. It is a recitation of how America's modern, efficient system of capital punishment is slowly losing its credibility. Death penalty defense projects around the country are taking on questionable cases and finding all kinds of problems. DNA technology has freed more than a few individuals.

And then there is the rising tide of public concern that is catalyzing greater scrutiny of these cases and forcing lawmakers and political leaders to move cautiously before they allow someone to be put to death.

The Exonerated does what no newspaper op-ed piece I know of has ever been able to do: It gets people talking to each other rather than at each other about capital punishment. Blank and Jensen report that conservatives who have seen the play have come up to them afterwards and announced that they were pro-death penalty before walking in but now are rethinking their position.

Blank is thinking of the upcoming opening in Texas. She is acutely aware that this is the state where our current President, George W. Bush, presided over 152 executions when he was governor.

"It will be interesting to see," she says, "what will happen when the play goes to Fort Worth."

Poet and public interest attorney Brian Gilmore is the author of two collections of poetry, including his latest, "Jungle nights and soda fountain rags: A poem for Duke Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra."