In a move that echoes the work of Bishops and other Church Hierarchy, George W. Bush has declared January 21 a day to remember the “sanctity of human life.” Even for an administration known for its use and abuse of religious forms, it’s “over the top.” But for Bush–a man who is blind to his own mistakes–it’s even more incongruous. Do you suppose there’s any chance he’ll spend Sunday thinking about capital punishment?
As Governor of Texas, Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States. Today, DNA evidence is showing us that the Texas judicial system may be the most error-prone in the nation. Yet neither Bush, nor his “religious base” have suggested that the “culture of life” should look at that issue.
Little by little, all across the nation, it’s become apparent that there are very serious problems with our system of justice. In one study ( J. Liebman, S. Rifkind, J. Fagan & V. West, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995 (2000), Executive Summary) the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was found to be 68 percent. And that was before DNA evidence became the norm! Now, a new wave of re-hearings has demonstrated that Bush’s Texas may have an even higher error rate than other areas of the country.
So far, about 3% of the convicted prisoners have been exhonerated in that county, with many more investigations pending.
This new information becomes evident at a time when Bush is probably readying his pen for the second veto of his Presidency–saving the life of a few of the 400,000 embryos that will be discarded in the next few months. The effect on life? Here’s just one quote at last week’s senate hearing from NIH Director Story Landis:
“We are missing out on possible breakthroughs…[The ability to work on newly derived stem cell colonies — precluded from federal funding under the Bush plan –]would be incredibly important.”
Bush’s action on stem cells will be lauded by Roman Catholics (among others) whose theology condemns capital punishment, but whose heirarchy often suggest that abortion and other reproductive issues should be prioritized as the only litmus tests for politicians.
For what? Advocates claim that capital punishment deters crime, but the evidence says otherwise. Experts say capital punishment doesn’t work because murderers don’t have the sense of “fate control” that others do, and our system doesn’t make such penalties certain or prompt. There is simply no evidence that capital punishment saves lives.
And then, of course, there are the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been lost because of the mistakes which were made in Iraq, both before and during this war.
But George Bush doesn’t admit mistakes–even those that haunt the death rows of Texas.
