Think Humanely

The case of a man executed in Texas has recently gained an unusual amount of media attention. Why unusual? Texas, after all, is #1 when it comes to putting people to death, executing 440 people since 1976. That’s 337 more people than the runner-up, Virginia. There were 131 executions just under one Governor, George W. Bush, in his five years in office. But it was only one of these 440 people who managed to catch the nation’s attention, albeit five years too late.

Cameron Todd Willingham was accused and eventually found guilty of murdering his three children by setting his house on fire. Prosecutors offered him life in prison for his guilty plea. He refused, repeatedly telling them that he didn’t do it. And so he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. On February 17, 2004, he was strapped down on a table and pumped full of toxic chemicals. He died seven minutes later. Cameron Todd Willingham was innocent.

Forensic evidence cleared Willingham of any wrong-doing. Defenders of execution like to brag that, despite all the criticism from the “far-left radicals” and people who are “not serious about crime,” it’s never been proven that an innocent person has ever been put to death. One such obnoxious individual is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote in one of his opinions that there has never been “a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” Now there is.

Yet there are those who would still like to assume that the case of Willingham is an exception rather than a rule. Consider this :

● 242 people have had their convictions overturned due to DNA evidence.

● 17 of these people, or 14.24%, were on Death Row waiting to be killed like Cameron.

Keep in mind that these statistics, as alarming and disgusting as they are, are likely much worse. DNA exoneration is still in relative infancy. Those advocating more wide-spread testing and easier access by inmates to DNA evidence face many uphill battles. In June, the Supreme Court decided that individuals do not “enjoy a constitutional right to test biological evidence” that was used to convict them or that could prove their innocence. The aforementioned Justice Scalia was in the majority of this particular ruling. Rather amazingly (or not, actually), he wrote this in another opinion: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

Let’s return to Bush and the 131 deaths he oversaw during his tenure as the Governor of Texas. The Chicago Tribue examined these cases and found the following:

With their client’s life at stake, defense attorneys in 40 cases presented no evidence whatsoever or only one witness during the trial’s sentencing phase.

In at least 29 cases, the prosecution presented damaging testimony from a psychiatrist who, based upon a hypothetical question describing the defendant’s past, predicted the defendant would commit future violence.

In most of these cases, the psychiatrist offered this opinion without ever examining the defendant. Although this kind of testimony is sometimes used in other states, the American Psychiatric Association has condemned it as unethical and untrustworthy.

While capital cases make the greatest demands on defense attorneys, the lawyers in these cases do not always represent the legal community’s best.

In 43 cases, or one-third, a defendant was represented at trial or on initial appeal by an attorney who had been or was later disbarred, suspended or otherwise sanctioned. Though most were punished after they handled these cases, their disciplinary records raise questions about their suitability for such a complex job.

In at least 23 cases, the prosecution’s evidence at trial or sentencing included a jailhouse informant form of testimony so unreliable that some states warn jurors to view it with skepticism.

The prevalent use of jailhouse informants in capital cases was one of the central problems Gov. George Ryan cited when he declared the moratorium in Illinois.

In at least 23 cases, the prosecution presented a visual comparison of hairs, a kind of evidence so inexact that it is restricted or barred in some jurisdictions.

In many of these 131 cases, justice has been shaped by witnesses, experts and lawyers of questionable merit.

They include a forensic scientist who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to provide incriminating testimony in a capital case; a pathologist who has admitted faking autopsies; a psychiatrist, nicknamed “Dr. Death,” who was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association; a judge on the state’s highest criminal court who has been reprimanded for lying about his background; and a defense attorney infamous for sleeping during trials.

Yet all 131 of these cases cleared every hurdle designed to prevent flawed cases from proceeding to execution from the trial court through appeals to the governor.

To assume that despite all of this gross incompetence, corruption, and indifference, all 131 of these individuals, and all the individuals convicted before and after Bush, are and were and will continue to be guilty, is to completely delude oneself to avoid the inevitable and ugly consequence of supporting State-sponsored murder: innocent people have been killed. And innocent people will continue to be killed. Willingham was not the first and he most certainly will not be the last.

What can we infer about California based on the way it has handled its economic crisis?

You can tell a lot about a government based on what they do with their money. America, for instance, spends 19% of the federal budget every year on defense. The expenditure of the Department of Defense was $439.3 billion in 2007, $29 billion more than in 2006, and $137 billion more than in 2001. This, by the way, does not include the costs of our current wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and on “Terror.” It should not surprise anyone, then, that the US, for all the good that it can and does do, is a militaristic country that has been involved in a minimum of 148 wars
in its relatively short history, not counting our many assaults and wars during our systematic attempt to exterminate Native Americans. It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that this same government, time and time and time again, has been willing to compromise civil liberties in the name of defense.

So what do the funding priorities of Governor Schwarzenegger and the state’s legislature tell us about them? Once one of the world’s most powerful economies, California has now been mismanaged to the point of a $20+ billion deficit. One of the longest contributing factors to this disaster has been Proposition 13, which Kevin O’Leary of Time actually calls “the root of California’s misery.” Prop. 13 returned property taxes to 1975 rates and placed a cap on both the tax and how much it could increase. Phil Ting of California Tax Reform told Mercury News, “I don’t know how we can talk about reforming the California budget without reforming Prop. 13,” and estimated that the state would immediately have an additional $7.5 billion if it did.

Another significant obstacle to fixing the budget involves a rather corrupt Corrections system. I previously wrote about some of these issues here and want to reiterate some of the points that I made. The prison system is an economic black hole, estimated to cost California $9,858,435,000 in 2009-10, or 7.3% of the state’s budget. This is due in part to a zealous quest to imprison as many people as possible, which is one reason why California has the largest prison population of any state. And yes, that does include Texas. The horrid three strikes law is one of the prime culprits. From my earlier post:

“1 in 4 prisoners are currently jailed for overly-long periods of time as a result of California’s infamous three strikes law. This cynical and callous law will cost the state almost $20 billion just to house those currently serving sentences, a price tag that will continue to rise as more and more prisoners are sentenced under it’s mandatory prison sentences.”

Also, the lobbying arm of the Corrections industry has dumped enough money into Sacramento to make ridiculous overtime figures possible for its staff:

“Custody staff costs,” the audit found, “include the $431 million Corrections paid in overtime for inmate custody operation during fiscal year 2007-08. Overtime is so prevalent that of the almost 28,000 correctional officers paid [overtime], more then 8,400 earned pay in excess of the top pay rate for a correctional lieutenant – the level two ranks above a correctional officer.”

So what does the great state of California do to solve its largely self-inflicted economic wounds? Does it reform Prop. 13 and gain at least $7.5 billion in just one year? No. Does it halt prison construction? No – in fact, the legislature proposed $12 billion to build more prisons. Does California do something about the $431 million in overtime? No. Does it reform the three strikes law, saving itself a minimum of $20 billion? No. Someone, after all, has to fill up all those new prisons.

So what does the state do? Rape higher education.

Politicians decided to go after colleges and universities. The cuts made to the CSU system have been catastrophic and the repercussions will no doubt be felt for years, possibly even decades if the situation isn’t rectified. In fact, when given the choice, the state has consistently chosen to protect the corrections industry while defunding and undermining higher education.

The ACLU found in 2007 that “for the first time, and unique among large states, California will soon spend more on its prisons then on its public universities. It has been projected that over the next five years, the state’s budget for locking up people will rise by 9 percent annually compared with its spending on higher education, which will rise by only 5 percent.” This figure, however, was before politicians took a chainsaw to CSU funding, which is now operating, or trying to, under a $564 million shortfall. And this is what’s happened as a result:

The state Legislature’s spending cuts for the CSU system triggered the California State University Board of Trustees to increase student fees twice this year for a total of 32 percent […] Kevin Wehr is a sociology professor at Sac State and a CFA chapter president. “There is another 10 percent student fee increase slated for later this fall or early in the spring,” he said, “with student fee increases totaling 182 percent over the last seven years. This means that when faculty are furloughed two days per month, students are paying 32 percent more to get 10 percent less (class sections).”
Further, the CSU plans to reduce student enrollment by 40,000 over the next two years.

To recap: students now have to pay 32% more in tuition for less education. The ability of current high school students to seek a college degree has been significantly compromised, stunting not only personal growth but also class mobility. Faculty members are being fired and their hours and salary reduced.

More:

It is noteworthy that the CSU deficit of $564 million is roughly the annual cost to state taxpayers of locking up 11,300 people in California’s 33 prisons, which hold 167,000 prisoners now. That figure represents double the prison system’s design capacity, which a federal, three-judge panel ruled is unconstitutionally overcrowded on August 4. Their ruling calls for a reduction of California prisoners by 40,000 over the next two years, the identical number of CSU students who, due to spending cuts, will be locked out of enrolling for classes during the same time period.

California prisons have been garnering tax dollars at a vastly higher rate than higher education in the past quarter century. From 1984-1985 to 2009-2010, state spending on postsecondary schools has increased 159 percent versus an increase of 685 percent for incarceration in the same 25-year period, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

A 159% increase versus that of a 658% increase for the prison system. I think Schwarzenegger’s and the legislature’s priorities are quite clear. H.G. Wells claimed that “history is a race between education and catastrophe.” Sadly, the race appears to be over. Catastrophe has clearly won out.

An audit of the California prison system was released this Past Tuesday and shows both the soaring costs of a system corrupted by mismanagement and irrational penal laws. While important in a number of ways, it is perhaps most significant because of the dire economic crisis that the state currently finds itself in.

The audit found that prison expenditures have increased by almost 32%. It’s cheaper for California to imprison its inmates in other states rather than its own. Overtime is abused both by correction officers and officials. And 1 in 4 prisoners are currently jailed for overly-long periods of time as a result of California’s infamous three strikes law. This cynical and callous law will cost the state almost $20 billion just to house those currently serving sentences, a price tag that will continue to rise as more and more prisoners are sentenced under it’s mandatory prison sentences. What the audit somehow mentions to neglect, even in its official recommendations to help curb and control costs, is the disproportionate influence that the CCPOA, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, has had on lawmaking and attempts at prison reform.

UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies concludes that “in recent years the CCPOA has become a mayor player in California politics. Its political influence has grown to the point that it is widely considered to be one of the most powerful political forces in Sacramento. Its lobbying efforts and campaign contributions have greatly facilitated the passage of legislation favorable to union members.” Such favorable legislation includes an exorbitant benefits and pay package for officers.

“Custody staff costs,” the audit found, “include the $431 million Corrections paid in overtime for inmate custody operation during fiscal year 2007-08. Overtime is so prevalent that of the almost 28,000 correctional officers paid [overtime], more then 8,400 earned pay in excess of the top pay rate for a correctional lieutenant – the level two ranks above a correctional officer.” The obvious solution to this problem would be to cap overtime hours, hire new staff, and/or decrease the prison population so less guards are needed for less working hours. Doing so, however, would actually cost tax payers more. “The cost to recruit and train new correctional officers, combined with the significant increases in the cost of benefits in recent years, makes having a new correctional officer slightly more costly per hour than paying overtime to the highest-paid correctional officers.”

This is due almost entirely to the lobbying efforts of the CCPOA. The group’s influence is so pervasive and so corrupting that in November 2004, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson “ordered an investigation into the state’s labor contract with California’s correctional officers, asking whether it gives the CCPOA too much control over prison management.”

Take, for instance, the three strikes law, Proposition 184. The CCPOA was one of the propositions biggest donors. A report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center details the how the CCPOA manages to prevent any and all reform on the issue:

Three Strikes’ disparate impact on non-violent offenders and its huge costs inspired reformers to introduce Proposition 66 in 2004, which sought to limit felonies that could trigger second and third strikes to violent or serious crimes. By 2004, the political climate in California had shifted considerably – crime no longer dominated voter concerns and the public seemed receptive to pragmatic, cost-effective solutions. A June, 2004 field poll found 76% of respondents in favor of Prop. 66 […] [T]he CCPOA contributed over half a million dollars to defeat the measure and funneled additional support to victims rights groups.”

The proposition ultimately lost by five percentage points. Thanks to the CCPOA’s ignoble and self-serving actions, the state continues to sentence people such as Gary Ewing to 25 years to life for stealing three golf clubs. They are why Leandro Andrade is currently serving 50 years without the possibility of parole for stealing nine videotapes totaling less than $200. Kevin Weber was given a sentence of 26 to life for stealing a handful of chocolate chip cookies while homeless and unemployed. Rene Landa stole a spare tire and was sentenced to 27 to life. Johnny Quirino got 25 years after stealing some razor blades. George Anderson is spending 25 years to life for falsely filling out a DMV application. And on, and on, and on.

Dual loyalty is a political term describing an individual or group who has incompatible, conflicting loyalties. The CCPOA appears to care not at all about the state of California, the economy, voter concerns, people such as George Anderson, or the rehabilitation of prisoners. All it cares about is gaining more power, more influence, and more money. Its actions demonstrate that rather than protecting workers rights against exploitive employers, it actively and aggressively seeks to create a massive prison-industrial complex that serves its own narrow interests. “[T]he CCPOA,” the Stanford report argues, “will continue to exploit voter prejudice against prisoners to undermine reform efforts.” The CCPOA does not merely oppose reform, it hates it. It is willing to use scare tactics and legislative bribes to make sure that the corruption rampant in both Sacramento and the prison system is maintained.