A MOCKERY?
Stop talking about the French Revolution and the guillotine! I will tell you about the gas chamber, the electric chair, lethal injection, and a government that has become the new Fouquet Tinville, sending people to the big show. Louis the XVI was executed publicly on the Place de la Concorde, which just a few months before was named Place Bourbon (Louis the XVI dynasty). When I talk about capital punishment with people from the United States, they always remind me of Madame Guillotine. Okay, it happened. Terror wasn't the nicest part of our history, but just try to remember that it was 210 years ago. The American Indian genocide was just starting, and what came next?
Of course, you have much more technological ways of killing people: modern gas to suffocate human beings, electricity to fry them, and now the much more technical anesthesia! What progress! It would be real progress if you hadn't gone backward. Before being killed in some states, prisoners have to work in chain gangs--a 17th-century practice, but there is a much better way. Ridley Scott probably inspired himself to shoot (I forgot that some states are using a firing squad).
Who is the gladiator today? The prisoner who is going to be executed! Who is the Caesar? The Governor! Who plays the role of the mob? The Polls, technically the Board of Pardons and Paroles! Of course, they don't give their answer by thumbs-up for life, down for death. That is not modern enough. They send a fax--simple as a thumb: Yes or No. You have to be modern! It sounds like a lottery, a bit cheap for human life, but in fact this lottery is faked, faked because you can count on few thumbs to recommend life! I would say that this is the final cheating.
Let's see what is going on in Texas. Robert Carter, a friend of mine who was executed without any attention paid to his mental retardation, had a lawyer. Gary Graham, known also as Shaka Sankofa, had a lawyer. They are both dead, executed by Texas. In the new housing for Death Row prisoners in Terrell Unit, I have been told that a wing is nicknamed "Mock Wing" because around 12 death row prisoners have had Ronald G. Mock. I have never met this man. I had seen him on French TV and was surprised to see how unconcerned he was about his clients' lives. This lawyer was appointed by Harris County judges to "help" indigent defendants in capital cases. The execution of Gary Graham brought to light that the guilt phase of his trial lasted only two days, that Mr. Mock didn't call any witnesses, did not challenge before the jury the testimony of the single eyewitness who sealed Mr. Graham's guilty verdict. Is this really a way to try to save someone's life?
My purpose isn't to judge this Mr. Mock--he doesn't deserve such attention! Others have already done that. The Texas Bar Association has reprimanded him several times for professional misconduct. His legal career shows that he was jailed during jury selection in one capital murder trial for failing to file court papers on time for a condemned client's appeal.
On the contrary, my purpose is to ask again and again, what is the price of life? Is it possible to decide in as quickly as two days someone's fate? Is this decent? Is it normal for a lawyer who is supposed to dedicate himself to defend people to declare, as Mr. Mock did, that he stopped handling capital cases 10 years ago because there was not enough money in them?
This attitude demolishes the claim that the death penalty is democratic! This is real bullshit. You can't talk about democracy when there is such a vast difference between the judgment you get if you are poor and the one you get if you are rich. This has nothing to do with democracy. This is arbitrary justice. All democratic countries except the US have got rid of executions. In France, it was the Parliament which erased this infamy from our Constitution, declaring this isn't the way a democracy acts. I don't remember reading anywhere that the basis of democracy was a Poll, an instant opinion test! To take the life of someone never shows regard for life, no matter where it comes from.
We don't want 30% of executed people to be revealed as innocent, nor do we want 10%, nor 5%, nor even 1%. We want the right to know that no one will be murdered in our name. End the death penalty!
--Dr. Pierre Duterte, <p.duterte@wanadoo.fr>, <www.associationrupture.org>