The Poor and the Powerless

The execution of Charles Brooks, Jr. in a Texas prison last week was handled in a bizarre manner by the mainstream news media. In the New York Times and on network television news shows, the fact that Brooks was the first American to be executed by lethal injection often sidetracked the press into focusing on the “ethical questions” raised by a doctor’s participation in taking Brooks’s life. A second tangential issue that received prominent play was whether or not pumping deadly chemicals into Brooks was more “humane” than giving him a lethal dose of electricity or forcing him to inhale poison gas.

With a few notable exceptions, such as The Boston Globe and the McNeil-Lehrer news show, only minor attention was given to the implications of the Brooks case itself. Had more people bothered to do so, it would have been clear exactly why the renewed nationwide use of the death penalty should disturb anyone with even a passing interest of justice morality, or the value of human life.

When Brooks was killed at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas, his legal appeal was still pending before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike every other death-row prisoner in history, Brooks was denied a chance to go through the full appeals process called “three tiered review.” Brooks had, in fact, already gone through most of the procedure. His last appeal could have taken several more months, but the Fifth Circuit Court refused to grant a stay of execution.

At the last minute, the Supreme Court sanctioned the judicial shortcut by voting 6-3 not to stay the execution Conservative Justice William H. Rehnquist had long sought a way to speed up the pace of state executions; he now found help from the newest justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. Justices Marshall, Brennan and Stevens protested the decision: “The court of appeals... still has not acted on the merits of the [Brooks] appeal.”

The long appeals process in death penalty cases is intended to minimize the chances of an error. In the Brooks case, Texas may have killed the wrong man. Brooks and a partner were both convicted in 1977 of murdering an automobile mechanic the year before. It never came out in trial who actually fired the bullet that killed the mechanic. But Brooks’ partner, by using the appeals process, was allowed to plead guilty last year to having committed the crime. He was given a 40-year sentence, and could be eligible for parole in just two years. Brooks, who maintained his innocence, was slain.

Inmate Richart Houston, who lives in a cell on Florida’s death row, has summarized the flaws in the judicial system that led the Supreme Court to declare all statewide capital punishment laws unconstitutional in 1972: “Being on death row depends so much on class status, economic status, the ability to get adequate representation, how seriously the prosecutor seeks the death penalty, what kind of jury you get. It’s all pretty arbitrary, really.”

The system may be arbitrary in individual cases, but a few overall trends stand out clearly. Between 65 and 70 percent of prisoners on death row are in states of the Deep South. About 42 percent of the approximately 1150 inmates awaiting execution are black, like Charles Brooks. Some historians call the racial bins an extension of the period between 1890 and 1920, when black men were lynched by mobs at a rate of one every 41 hours.

Death row is full of the poor and the powerless. At the same time, as sociologist Jefferey Reinman has pointed out, government leaders such as Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon have never even gone to trial for their involvement in military actions abroad which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans in southeast Asia.

Clearly, race and class biases of the American judicial system have yet to be ironed out, which is the strongest argument against an action like capital punishment. Those who enjoy referring to moral philosophy to justify the ultimate penalty should remember that such theories do not apply in a country where both populace and government have shown an unfailing historical tendency to illegally discriminate, often violently, against blacks and poor people.

An official at the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated last summer that executions will be stepped up in the next two years, and may approach the frequency of the Depression era, when there were three executions a week. Any attempt to stop the spate of killings must begin quickly. Public debate has nearly ended—the Times buried Brooks’ execution on page 28. Unless those with an interest in justice step forward soon, we will see the issue turned over to people like the pro-execution demonstrators outside the prison in Huntsville. They posed for the cameras with signs saying “Kill ‘em in vein,” while brandishing a large Confederate flag.