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This is a response by Matt Hayes to the letter I sent him regarding his column on FoxNews.com:
Hi Robert -
I think that you have to re-read the article. It's not an anti-death penalty article. It's an article by a conservative that calls for a new and improved death penalty, which may require a moratorium.
First, you are angry with the wrong guy, because we're without doubt on the same side. Second, it should be clear in the article that it does not address the "deservedness of capital punishment in particular cases," and that it does not pass on the morality of capital punishment. What I hope to do, and what I' think I've succeeded in doing, is to provoke a response. I actually favor an expansion of the death penalty to include three-time violent felons. It's vital to the survival of the death penalty that its supporters bear the responsibility of that support, and that we get behind mandatory DNA testing in capital cases where it is appropriate. I'm the son of a cop and Marine who graduated from the FBI Academy, my wife was tied up, raped repeatedly, stabbed and left for dead, and before I went into criminal defense I spent three years in a DAs office. Lots of people have tried to show me the error of my ways by linking the article's assertions to September 11, victim's families, etc., let me just say that my first office was on the 46th floor of 1 WTC, and one of my co-tenant's
employees was killed, along with many acquaintances. So you don't have to question my support of capital punishment, or my knowledge that the world is filled with truly evil people. I know, perhaps more intimately than others do.
We are, in my view, in imminent danger of losing the death penalty forever. I'll tell you why. Judge Rakoff is smart as a whip, but he's a real lefty, in my view. I know for a fact that he has hopes that his recent decision - which declared the death penalty unconstitutional - will go to the Supreme Court. In my view, given the fact that he credited evidence that 20 (I believe) innocent people have been executed since 1905 (which is debatable), and that since 1994 ten people sentenced to death have been exonerated through DNA testing, there's a real good chance that the Supreme Court will declare the death penalty unconstitutional once again. This may not happen, but I don't think that we should chance it. Another huge concern I have is that the direction of public debate for the last thirty years has been trending heavily to the left, and if the death penalty is declared unconstitutional, there's almost no chance that we'll
get it back because it will be real hard to find any legislative support for it. Look how long it took to get it back after the last Supreme Court decision.
Also, let me tell you about a sentiment that has infected conservative rhetoric recently, and which will leave us exposed to liberal attack until we get behind something like mandatory DNA testing in capital cases. I'm finding more and more that there is a kind of pseudo-conservatism out there whose adherents go nuts if an innocent man loses his home because the government wants to build a highway off-ramp, but who simultaneously find it perfectly acceptable if the same government handcuffs that man and executes him for a crime he did not commit. Not only is this a complete contradiction, it appears to the layman to be very, very callous. If you think that Gingrich's manner gave Republicans a bad image in the press, just wait and see what will happen when DNA and the
death penalty dominates public debate. There will be people on TV who will say, with a straight face, that the fact that courts sentenced ten innocent people to death is just fine. I don't see how any concerned person, much less a conservative, could possibly tolerate that.
It's my wish that someone in Congress will get behind mandatory DNA testing in capital cases. It's a great thing because it can demonstrate both guilt and innocent to a near certainty. And right now, it's the responsibility of defense counsel, who are by and large underpaid, overworked, and careless. These guys are the ones that are, as we speak, creating the next poster boy for abolishing the death penalty.
Maybe you know legislators. Maybe you know a national columnist that can spark a flame. I think that unless we act preemptively, we're going to lose it forever. It may require a moratorium, however brief. States like Illinois are doing this now. Unless people like you and I seize the momentum of this debate and get supporters to think a little and take responsibility, we're screwed. I know at least two ACLU lawyers here in New York that are relying on death penalty supporters to either ignore this or to come out and say that the death penalty, in its current state, is just jim dandy. If we do this, we'll lose.
Matt
If, as he claims, he supports the death penalty, why did he write:
is it not utterly contradictory for a conservative to espouse a government of limited power, but one that can also kill Americans?
popular will alone cannot justify capital punishment
If capital punishment as the ultimate in "big government" power is not enough to convince conservatives to oppose it, recent developments should.
Conservatives who stand as the guardian against this danger should want to rid government of a power that has possibly resulted in the execution of 78 innocent people.
This does not sound like a man who supports capital punishment.
Posted by Robert at June 07, 2002 11:42 AM