SPRING 1998-- - HOME

WOMEN ARE EQUAL WITH MEN.

PLEASE, NOT NOW--NOT FOR THAT!

Is it politically correct to execute a woman? Even if women are only 13% of murder arrests, they are only 2% of the death sentences imposed at the trial level. They are 1% of the people "surviving" on death row, and they are 2% of executed people since Furman.

Until now, the only woman executed since Furman was Velma Barfield in North Carolina on November 2, 1984, one woman among 432 executions since the end of the 4-year moratoria! Prior to the execution of Velma Barfield, the last woman put to death was Elizabeth Duncan in California on August 8, 1962.

There are other data showing some strange differences: there have been 116 death sentences imposed on women since 1973, and only 48 females are still inside death row. This is 1.5% of the 3,200 people in such places, and less than 1% of the 50,000 women in prison. Where is equality for all the U.S citizens? Is this constitutional?

Texas is a real record winner. Half of 1997 U.S. executions took place in the Lone Star State. Then Texas executed the first woman in this state since the hanging of Chipita Rodriguez in 1863! Let's face it -- what a lovely opportunity to sell newspapers and magazines, what a good way to interest radio listeners and the TV public. If only the execution could be on the tube!

This makes Hunstville the center of USA for one or two days, and the media may erect a big statue to the bureaucrat who had the fantastic idea of scheduling executions just when people are sitting in front of their TV sets. The price of commercials is at the highest. Some executions are really a bargain! Do you remember when people were stupidly executed while most U.S. citizens were sleeping? What a waste! It was a sort of routine, a few executions every month.

A little interest and some excitement arose when Arkansas executed three men on the same night, but no state made it four in one night ,so we quickly went back to the same boring routine! A few lines in the Dallas Morning News: "Another execution, the last words were the family of the victim was present." Nothing more. Maybe soon no one will mention this "non-event."

Then, suddenly came Karla Faye Tucker's scheduled execution! She was 38 years old, and had already been 14 years (38.9% of her life) on death row. Karla's fate, as CNN titled its execution evening, is proof that our societies have slipped into the power of image, the power of appearance.

Even in France, I have been contacted by at least 4 TV channels and 4 newspapers, and have given 2 radio broadcast interviews. Why? Just because she was charming, talked so well, had a wonderful smile, had a way of waving her hand when she said good bye to TV journalists. She was so much like the U.S. image! Yes, she looked so American.

The French TV crew came with me in Huntsville, and when my patients saw the film, many of them fell for the "charm" of one of the prisoners. It was not a question of the death penalty, but of how someone so charming can be down on death row.

What you look like, your image, is now more important than what you are. No wonder big companies are fighting so hard to get media control! No wonder the last James Bond film was on that subject. What power has the image!

True equality for all the U.S. citizens would mean every state without a death penalty. Is it fair to be condemned to be murdered in the U.S. if you commit the crime in the South, and to be sent to prison if you commit the crime in the North-East? Just a question of location? You are talking about Justice? It should be the same sentence, wherever you are judged, the same justice, whether white, black, latino, male or female! What could be better for the U.S. image than equal human justice for all?

A former Home Affairs Minister of Guinea, when I asked him about the youngsters condemned to death, said, "Where is the problem? The biggest democratic country has the death penalty!"Yes, you are right, but no other democracy has it. The United States is the last democratic country to use barbarity and death to try to solve a very old problem. It never worked in the past, so why should it work suddenly now?
Executions will never be a solution, so let's just get rid of this monstrosity! Then, the U.S. will not be an excuse for any Ministry in the world to murder its citizens.

Spring 1998-- N.C.Xpress -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor