"Williams v. Williams," is Lincoln Kaplan's post at the New York Times Taking Note blog.
Pennsylvania is scheduled to execute Terrance Williams next Wednesday, Oct. 3, the first time in 50 years that it will put someone to death who is still fighting his sentence.
Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Seth Williams, could ask for a stay and a fuller review of evidence. Instead, he’s crusading in favor of the death penalty, even writing an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer called “Making the case for Williams’ execution.”
Terrance Williams’ life is on the line, and so is Seth Williams’ reputation.
"Death penalty morally wrong," is the Philadelphia Inquirer OpEd by Jonathan Zimmerman. He teaches history at New York University. Here's the beginning of this must-read:
Terrance Williams was sexually abused by the two men he killed, according to his lawyers. He was poorly represented at his trial, where jurors never heard about these circumstances. And the widow of one of his victims wants Williams' death sentence commuted.
But those aren't the strongest arguments for sparing the life of Terrance Williams, who is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 3. The best reason is the simplest: Capital punishment is inherently wrong, no matter the circumstances. And Philadelphians should understand that better than anybody else.
That's because the movement to abolish the death penalty in America began right here, in the City of Brotherly Love. On March 9, 1787 - just a few months before the drafting of the Constitution - Philadelphia physician and patriot Benjamin Rush delivered a stinging rebuke to capital punishment at a lecture in the home of another famous local patriot, Benjamin Franklin.
Part of Rush's argument would be familiar to us today: The death penalty won't deter the most vicious criminals. But his real concern - repeated until his own death in 1813 - was the effect of capital punishment on the rest of us.
At its root, Rush wrote, the death penalty "lessens the horror of taking away human life." Conducted in public, executions often devolved into drunken revelries of mirth and revenge.
Worst of all, the death penalty allowed human beings to determine life and death. Rush wasn't worried about whether capital cases were correctly decided, which is the issue that dominates our debate today. Instead, he insisted, the decision wasn't ours to make.
"'Vengeance is mine,' said the Lord," Rush declared, quoting Scripture. "A religion which commands us to forgive, and even to do good to, our enemies, can never authorize the punishment of murder by death."
Spearheaded by Rush, the movement against capital punishment scored some impressive early victories. In 1786, the year before his lecture at Franklin's home, Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish the death penalty for robbery, burglary, and sodomy - all capital crimes at the time.
"Public support for the death penalty 'is not what it used to be,' expert says," is Robert J. Vickers' Harrisburg Patriot-News column.
Though most Americans still favor the death penalty, public support for executions has dropped in the past few years.
Recent disclosures indicating death row convictions were made erroneously have caused many citizens to be more reticent about putting a convicted killer to death.
“The death penalty is not what it used to be in terms of public opinion,” said Frank Baumgartner, an expert on capital punishment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the former head of political science at Penn State.
“People are not as certain about all these cases,” he said. “A majority of Americans still are happy to see an execution go forward, it’s not as many as a while ago because of the problems of innocence.”
A Gallup poll in 2011 shows 61 percent of Americans surveyed favor the death penalty, a solid majority to be sure. But that figure represented a 39-year low.
In Pennsylvania, the issue is murkier.
Only three convicts have been put to death since the punishment was reinstated in 1976.
Terrance Williams could become the first person executed in Pennsylvania in 13 years. Williams faces the death penalty for killing a Philadelphia man in 1984. His attorneys argue that Williams should be spared because the victim sexually abused him for years.
“Pennsylvania has not been an execution state traditionally,” said Robb Austin, a former Democratic state legislator now working as a Republican media consultant. “It has not been an issue in the public domain. I don’t think it would rise to the level of a campaign issue.”
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins with the preceding post.
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