California’s Attempt to Execute Alfred Brown Revives Death Penalty Debate

Nancy Mulane, an independent producer at the KALW public radio station in San Francisco, where I work once a week, has been asked by the State of California to be present at San Quentin State Prison to witness the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, who raped and strangled a 15-year old in 1980.

A number of members of the media have to, by law, be present at state executions to serve as witnesses to the procedure.

Mulane has been to San Quentin prison over 50 times. She recently completed a documentary on lives of men convicted of murder. From her blog about preparing for the experience:

I never thought I would be asked to witness an execution. I imagine it to be one of those dark and hopeless moments that happens out of sight in a room deep inside a prison. The state’s execution of a fellow human being is something you read about in the paper, or see out of the corner of your eye on television, but you never imagine yourself sitting in the room while another person is put to death.

The execution was stayed on Tuesday (Sept 28) by a San Jose federal judge just two days before Brown was scheduled to be administered a lethal injection. Unless reversed by a higher court by Friday (Oct 01), the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will not be able to execute anyone until Jan 2011 because the state’s stock of lethal chemicals used in the injection cocktail will expire on Friday and it reportedly won’t be possible to replenish the stock until sometime next year. Most likely, Brown will have at least a few months’ reprieve.

However, Mulane’s invite to witness a state conducted, pre-mediated killing filled me, as well as some of my newsroom colleagues, with deep unease. And made me think again about why I’m not in favor of capital punishment.

Given the way race, politics, location and economics plays out in the criminal justice system, it’s hard to ensure that the guilt of those who are sentenced to death is beyond doubt, and also far worse than the culpability of other murder convicts who aren’t given death verdicts.

A few facts about death penalty in the US from Amnesty International to help explain my point:

- Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (79 percent) have been executed for killing white victims, even though African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims.

- Since 1973, 138 people have been released from death rows across the country following new evidence of their wrongful conviction (such as DNA testing and proof of official misconduct). Several of those released were within hours of being executed. In this same time period, more than 1,000 people have been executed.

- Almost all death row inmates could not afford their own attorney at trial. Local politics, the location of the crime, plea bargaining, and pure chance affect the process and make it a lottery of who lives and dies. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 80 percent of all executions have taken place in the South (37 percent in Texas alone).

In Brown’s case, there is little doubt that he is guilty.

According to the prosecutor’s report, waylaid 15-year-old Susan Jordan as she walked to Arlington High School in Riverside. He dragged his victim to a nearby orange grove, then raped and strangled her with her own shoelace. Later that night he called Susan’s mother several times, taunting her with messages like: “Susie isn’t home from school yet, is she?” before finally telling her where she could find her daughter’s body.

The evidence was compelling too. Several witnesses had been seen him approaching Susan. Among other things, police found semen-stained clothes, Susan’s missing schoolbooks and phone directory open to the page with her parents’ phone number in Brown’ possession. At the time of the murder, he was on parole. He’d been released four months earlier after serving four years in prison for the 1977 rape of a 14-year-old girl.

As I discovered the details of Brown’s crime, my rage boiled over. Despite my intellectual opposition to death penalty, part of me felt he deserves to die.

Then I took a second look at the figures. Brown’s lawyers have managed delay his sentencing for 30 years. Which means Susan’s family has been waiting for three decades for some kind of closure to their pain. They’ve had to relive their trauma over and over again through years of appeals and two reversals of the sentences by the California Supreme Court. And it’s still not over.

Surely, life without parole provides certain punishment without the endless reopening of wounds for victims’ families?

Apart from the emotional toll there’s also the question of finances. Death penalty costs more than life sentences and diverts resources from genuine crime control.

In California, for instance, seeking a death sentence costs counties over $1 million more than seeking permanent imprisonment, according to a report by the California Commission on Fair Administration of Justice. The commission estimates the state could save about $125 million per year if it used the alternative of permanent imprisonment rather can capital punishment. That money could be spent on solving more murders and fund programs that could help victims’ families deal with their trauma.

California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty , a coalition of families, friends, and loved ones of murder victim who oppose capital punishment sums it up best on their website:

1,000 murders go unsolved each year in California due to lack of resources for criminal investigations while we spend hundreds of millions of dollars pursuing death sentences for a small percentage of killers. We need justice for all victims, not just symbolism for a few.

Update: The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has removed the scheduled execution from the calendar after the California Supreme Court on Wednesday (Sept 29) afternoon  denied the state’s request to move the execution forward as scheduled.

Photo: Prison mug shot of Albert Greenwood Brown