Terms of the Death Debate

Poor Thomas Capano. On the same day last week on which Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, under pressure from the Pope, decided to commute the sentence of a convicted killer from death to life in prison, a jury voted to send Capano--a convicted killer in his own right--to Delaware's death row.

The Capano jury's recommendation, coming on the same day as the pope's unusual appeal for clemency, threw into stark light the difficulty death penalty opponents face in convincing the rest of the nation to end the relatively barbaric practice.

First, a brief on the Capano case: In a saga that captivated Delaware residents for years, Capano, a wealthy and well-connected former state prosecutor, was accused of killing a former lover, Anne Marie Fahey, who was a secretary for the governor. Capano initially denied any involvement in the 1996 incident; but in a plot twist worthy of a TV movie, he changed his story at the trial, claiming he was present as another of his ex-lovers killed Fahey. He then stuffed Fahey's body in a cooler, he claimed, and dumped it in the Atlantic to protect the other former mistress. After prosecutors mocked the story and family members testified against him, Capano was convicted of the murder. Last week, jurors voted 10-2 to put Capano to death.

While it is easy to have no sympathy for a well-heeled man who apparently murdered a woman out of jealous rage, there are reasons to harbor lingering doubt about the verdict. Capano continues to deny he committed the crime; the fact that he was more defiant than remorseful at his sentencing hearing perversely hurt his chances to live. (The jury apparently expected another sudden switch and admission of guilt.) No body or murder weapon was ever found, and the prosecution relied entirely on circumstantial evidence.

That should be enough to make the judge think twice before ordering Capano's death. Not to mention another mitigating factor--the testimony of Marguerite Capano, the convicted murderer's 76-year-old mother. "My son is not a murderer," she pleaded at the sentencing hearing. "I don't care what anyone says, they will never convince me of that. I love him. I need him." What good will it do to kill him?

The Pope can certainly see none. In his homily before 100,000 people in St. Louis' Trans World Sports Dome, the pope spoke eloquently. "Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform," he said. The death penalty is "cruel and unnecessary," he added, "even in the case of someone who has done great evil."

But in a nation where nearly three of four people support the death penalty and far fewer than one in four is a devout Catholic, another sermon is unlikely to change many minds. Worse, the pope's words were further undermined by his actions. Both in person and through an aide, he lobbied the Missouri governor to grant clemency to Darrell Mease, a coldblooded killer of three.

The Pope came with the right message, but in picking Mease to be the beneficiary of his work he chose too extreme, too "evil" an example to persuade people in Missouri and nationwide to change their minds on capital punishment.

Mease had stalked out his victims--a former drug partner, his wife and their paraplegic 19-year-old grandson--for three days, according to the New York Times, "hiding in a hunting blind, wearing camouflage and face paint." Finally, as his three victims drove past, he shot and killed them all. He then got up from his hiding place and shot each one in the face. Mease was to die by lethal injection in two weeks, and Carnahan, the governor, had approved 26 executions since he took office six years ago. Yet he could not be expected to withstand the pressure of a personal request from John Paul II, and last Thursday he granted Mease clemency.

The local reaction was swift and negative. One friend of the victims told the Times "that if he could get close enough to the pope, `I'd cock him straight and sure in the mouth."' One of Mease's own defense lawyers admitted: "Quite frankly, this case was probably one of the weaker clemency cases...There were no real claims of mental illness, no question of guilt. It was a triple murder. He had one argument dealing with post-traumatic stress from Vietnam, but really he had a snowball's chance in hell."

To the pope, it might not have mattered how gruesome Mease's crimes were. But then, the pope's argument against capital punishment rests not on politics but on a thoroughgoing reverence for life--a hardline, traditionalist stance that also entails calling for an end to abortion and to assisted suicide and that therefore puts him and the American majority on different sides on at least two of the three issues.

It also suggests that foes of capital punishment may do best to keep His Holiness at arm's length. Outlawing the death penalty will be an uphill fight that will not benefit from religious appeals based on foundations that have been rejected by the vast majority of citizens, even when delivered from as respected an authority as the pope.

Geoffrey C. Upton '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.