Angel of death

Cellucci's capital-punishment push betrays a backward-looking vision of hatred and revenge

This past Tuesday, Governor Paul Cellucci filed legislation to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts. His endorsement of such barbarism was no surprise. After all, bringing back capital punishment was a principal theme of his simplistic, heavy-handed campaign, and Cellucci's bill is similar to one that failed on a tie vote in 1997. In reductionist terms, he is merely following through on a campaign promise.

Cellucci's consistency, however, demonstrates a disturbing unwillingness to learn and to grow. The fact is that the legal landscape has changed considerably since the last time the death penalty came to a vote. Much of the credit for that belongs to Anthony Porter, an unprepossessing 43-year-old Chicago man who spent 16 years on death row for two murders he did not commit.

Porter was within days of being executed last September when his lawyers won a stay, arguing that, with an IQ of 51, he was not mentally competent enough to be put to death. It was only after that stay was granted that a group of Northwestern University journalism students investigated the case and found evidence that led to another man's confession. Shockingly -- or, perhaps, not so shockingly -- Porter was the 10th death-row inmate to be proven innocent since Illinois reinstated capital punishment in 1977. Cellucci talks blithely about legal guarantees that no innocent person would be executed here; but the only real guarantee is to prevent the death penalty from being enacted.

By pushing for capital punishment, Cellucci espouses a backward-looking vision of revenge that does nothing to prevent future horrific crimes. By contrast, consider the response in the cases of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man brutally murdered in Wyoming last year, apparently because of his sexual orientation; and James Byrd, an African-American who was dragged to death in Jasper, Texas, last June, allegedly by three men with ties to a white-supremacist prison gang.

The prosecutor of Shepard's two accused killers has announced he will seek the death penalty. But last week, 11 major organizations representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities announced that they oppose capital punishment. Said Katherine Acey, executive director of the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation: "The death penalty has no place in a civil society. As a community we must take every opportunity to speak out against violence, including capital punishment."

Likewise, the NAACP -- a long-standing opponent of capital punishment, which is disproportionately meted out to minorities and the poor -- has spoken out not for retribution in the case of Byrd's brutal murder but, rather, for the passage of federal hate-crimes legislation. At the local level, the NAACP, the Lesbian and Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, and the American Jewish Congress have pressed Texas governor George W. Bush to endorse the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which would target civil-rights violations based on race, disability, religion, and sexual orientation.

In Massachusetts, the death penalty, as ever, hangs by a thread. The Senate is solidly pro-capital punishment, but the House is evenly divided. In late 1997, following the heinous murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley, capital punishment would have become law had not Representative John Slattery (D-Peabody) switched from "yea" to "nay" at the last moment. Now he and House Speaker Tom Finneran, a death-penalty opponent, have had a falling-out. Of such personality conflicts are life-and-death decisions made.

The perennial push for the death penalty is based on the assumption that it's what the public wants. So here's what you can do. Call Governor Cellucci at (617) 727-3600. Call your senator and representative. (You can find legislators' names and phone numbers on the Web at http://www.state.ma.us/legis/legis.htm.) The message: No killing in our name. It's vital not just to avoid the tragic mistake that nearly befell Anthony Porter, but to build a more humane and just society. "Why should I hate in return?" said James Byrd's 17-year-old daughter, Jamie, to the Houston Chronicle recently. "That would be what the men who killed my dad did, and I'm not like that."

Neither are we.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.