[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14301-S14302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, we recently passed a disturbing 
milestone in this country. One morning just a few weeks ago in North 
Carolina, Kenneth Lee Boyd was put to death by lethal injection. Mr. 
Boyd's was the one thousandth execution since the death penalty was 
reinstated in 1976. While a jury decided that his guilt was not in 
doubt, confidence in the extraordinary punishment he received 
increasingly is.
  Across the Nation, people are reconsidering capital punishment. 
Recent polls, jury verdicts, and actions taken by all three branches of 
government in States across the country reflect the changing attitudes 
about the death penalty in this country. Americans are increasingly 
concerned about the use of this very final punishment.
  With advances in DNA technology, numerous exonerations of people on 
death row, and new revelations that innocent people have actually been 
put to death, more and more people are questioning the accuracy and 
fairness of the administration of the death penalty. In addition, more 
and more people have qualms about the very concept of state-sponsored 
executions. This trend is a hopeful sign, as I believe there continue 
to be numerous moral, ethical and legal problems with the death 
penalty.
  According to a series of Gallup polls, opposition to the death 
penalty has grown from 13 percent of Americans in 1995 to 30 percent in 
October of this year. Think about that. In just 10 years, we went from 
a vast majority of Americans supporting the death penalty, to nearly 
one-third now opposing it. That is the highest level of opposition 
since its reinstatement almost 30 years ago. And a CBS News poll from 
April indicates that when people were asked whether they prefer the 
death penalty or life without parole for individuals convicted of 
murder, only 39 percent supported the death penalty.
  Evidence of the changing attitudes about the death penalty can be 
seen across America. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently 
launched a campaign to end the use of the death penalty. In New York 
earlier this year, the State's highest court struck down the State's 
capital punishment statute, which had passed only 10 years earlier in 
1995. The legislature then declined to reinstate the law, making New 
York the first state to abandon capital punishment since 1976. That is 
a remarkable sign of progress.
  Meanwhile, just over the river in Virginia, the death penalty was a 
key issue in the last gubernatorial election. Tim Kaine, the current 
Lieutenant Governor, has long been personally opposed to the death 
penalty, although he pledged to enforce the law in Virginia. In the 
final weeks before the election, his opponent Jerry Kilgore began an ad 
campaign that heavily criticized Kaine's opposition to the death 
penalty. Kilgore strongly supports capital punishment and during the 
campaign he said he would push to expand its use in Virginia. But when 
Kilgore went after Kaine on the death penalty, Virginians did not take 
the bait. Despite Kilgore's attack ads, the citizens of Virginia 
elected Kaine Governor, and he will become Virginia's Governor in 
January.
  I think what happened in Virginia strongly demonstrates how far we 
have come. This issue can no longer be used as a political grenade. A 
majority of Americans may not yet oppose the death penalty, but the 
electorate understands what a serious issue this is, and it will not 
stand for capital punishment to be exploited for political purposes.

  Yet another example of the seriousness with which citizens and 
politicians alike are treating this .issue is outgoing Virginia 
Governor Mark Warner's recent commutation of the sentence of Robin 
Lovitt to life in prison. Mr. Lovitt was convicted of robbery and 
murder and sentenced to death, but before he had exhausted all judicial 
remedies, a court employee destroyed the physical evidence in his 
case--the very evidence that Lovitt said would exonerate him if 
subjected to new advanced DNA analysis. Under Virginia law, the 
Commonwealth must keep all physical evidence until the defendant has 
exhausted all posttrial remedies. Although Governor Warner is a death 
penalty supporter, he decided that he simply could not put a man to 
death when the State itself had destroyed his ability to prove his 
innocence. As he put it, he believed that the case ``require[d] 
executive intervention to reaffirm public confidence in our justice 
system.'' In his almost 4 years as Governor, this was the first time 
Governor Warner granted a clemency petition.
  On the other side of the country, we have seen a great deal of public 
debate as Governor Schwarzenegger considered a clemency petition for 
Stanley Tookie Williams. Williams was a founding member of the Crips 
gang and was convicted of four murders in 1981. During his years in 
prison, however, Williams, by all accounts, worked to turn his life 
around. He denounced gang violence, tried to keep kids out of gangs, 
and even helped broker peace deals between rival gangs. Governor 
Schwarzenegger denied clemency and refused to commute Mr. Williams' 
death sentence to life without parole. The State of California put Mr. 
Williams to death on December 13.
  Much more is happening at the State level that has not received 
nearly as much attention. North Carolina and California recently 
created commissions to study the administration of the death penalty in 
their respective States, joining many other states that have already 
done so. Moratoriums on executions remain in place in Illinois and New 
Jersey, and are under consideration in other States. Many State 
legislatures have worked to address flaws in their systems or even 
rejected

[[Page S14302]]

efforts to reinstate the death penalty. State courts have limited or 
banned the death penalty, including the Kansas Supreme Court, which in 
2001 ruled that State's death penalty law unconstitutional. That case, 
Kansas v. Marsh, was heard in the U.S. Supreme Court just last week. 
Even in Texas, the State that executes by far the most people every 
year, a life-without-parole sentence was recently enacted, giving 
juries a strong alternative to the death penalty. And Texas Governor 
Perry also established a Criminal Justice Advisory Council to review 
the State's capital punishment procedures.
  These signs of progress have coincided with critical new restraints 
imposed by the Supreme Court, which in recent years has issued two key 
rulings that limited the application of the death penalty. In 2002, the 
Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that applying the death penalty to 
mentally retarded defendants was excessive and constituted cruel and 
unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. And just this 
year, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court made the same decision with regard 
to individuals who commit crimes before their eighteenth birthday. 
Capital punishment for mentally retarded defendants and juveniles is 
now unconstitutional in the United States.

  Mr. President, as I mentioned before, there are many reasons people 
are questioning the death penalty in ever-increasing numbers. A common 
concern is that innocent people end up on death row, and we cannot 
tolerate errors when the state is imposing such a final penalty. More 
than 120 people on death row have been exonerated and released. Think 
about that. Just over one thousand people have been executed in the era 
of the modem death penalty, while a number equaling 12 percent of those 
executed have been exonerated. Those are not good odds, Mr. President.
  Even more horrific is the prospect that we have already executed 
individuals who were, in fact, innocent. It saddens me greatly to 
report that information has come to light strongly demonstrating that 
two men put to death in this country in the 1990s may well have been 
innocent. That sends chills down my spine, as I'm sure it must for my 
colleagues.
  Earlier this year in Missouri, local prosecutors in St. Louis 
reopened the case of a 1980 murder because the evidence against the man 
convicted of the crime had fallen apart. That man, Larry Griffin, was 
sentenced to death, and he was executed by the State of Missouri more 
than 10 years ago. Yet now, 25 years after the crime and more than 10 
years after his execution, very serious questions about his guilt are 
being raised. CNN recently reported that a University of Michigan law 
professor who researched the case found that the first police officer 
on the scene now claims the person who testified as an eyewitness gave 
false testimony. A victim of the shooting, who was never contacted 
before Mr. Griffin's original trial, stated that the person claiming to 
be an eyewitness at the original trial was not present at the scene of 
the crime. Samuel Gross, the Michigan law professor who supervised the 
new investigation of the case that led to the St. Louis Circuit 
Attorney's decision, was quoted as saying with regard to this man's 
innocence: ``There's no case that I know of where the evidence that's 
been produced in public is as strong as what we see here.''
  The second case is from Texas, where a young man named Ruben Cantu 
was executed in 1993. He was just seventeen at the time of the murder 
for which he was executed. Again, in this case, the only eyewitness to 
the crime has recanted his statement, and told the Houston Chronicle 
that Cantu was innocent. The Houston Chronicle also reported that the 
judge, prosecutor, head juror, and defense attorney have since realized 
that, as the newspaper put it, ``his conviction seems to have been 
built on omission and lies.''
  The loss of one innocent life through capital punishment should be 
enough to force all of us to stop and reconsider this penalty. These 
cases illustrate the grave danger in imposing the death penalty. 
Whatever the new evidence that might come to light, it doesn't matter. 
There's no going back.
  Mr. President, I know that many people in this country say that it 
doesn't matter what other countries do or say, that we should not look 
abroad for ideas. But the fact is that attitudes are changing around 
the world about capital punishment, and the United States is in poor 
company internationally on this issue. We are the only Western 
democracy ranked in the top ten countries in executions in 2004. And 
increasingly, other countries are rejecting capital punishment. Over 
the past 10 years, according to Amnesty International, an average of 
three countries per year has abolished the death penalty.
  In closing, I urge my colleagues to take a long, hard look at capital 
punishment. Years of study have shown that the death penalty does 
little to deter crime, and that defendants' likelihood of being 
sentenced to death depends heavily on whether they are rich or poor, 
and what race their victims were. We have experienced again and again 
the risks, and realities, of innocent people being sentenced to death. 
I believe that is it wrong for the State to put people to death, 
especially when we can achieve our public safety goals by sentencing 
them to life without parole. It is heartening to see so many people 
reconsidering the death penalty, and it is my hope that in time we will 
end it in the United States.
  I yield the floor.

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