archived: 27 Feb  - 5 Mar, 2005         Back                 Next

Updated:  March 3, 2005 

                        COMING UP SHORT 

Democrats in the North Carolina State House are counting the votes on the death penalty moratorium.  TPJ’s sources indicate that Democrats are short ten votes or less of passing the moratorium.   

If TPJ’s sources are correct, progressive Democrats have to go to work.  The North Carolina moratorium effort should get some momentum from the United States Supreme Court decision yesterday banning the death penalty for minors.  The US Supreme Court’s decision affects only four NC death row cases.  As one sage observer noted:   

This is long overdue, and all it does is bring the United States in line with every other civilized country in the world," said Daniel Pollitt, a lawyer with the state Office of the Appellate Defender who represents one of the four North Carolina inmates. – News and Observer 

Dennis Rogers, a columnist with the News & Observer, writes insightfully: 

How much longer are we going to pretend that the death penalty in North Carolina makes any sense at all? The high court had already ruled that we can't execute mentally retarded people or those who were younger than 16 when they committed their crimes.

There has even been a case recently in which a prisoner on North Carolina's death row, Alan Gell, has been found to be innocent.

Nobody's watching, so you can be honest with yourself: Is there any doubt that we have executed innocent people in North Carolina?

To believe otherwise is to swallow the fantasy that Gell is the only innocent person in North Carolina ever sentenced to death. Not likely, is it?

I admit to being a latecomer to the anti-death penalty camp. Heck, there have even been a few condemned prisoners I would have been happy to put down with a 12-gauge.

My problem now is that I no longer trust the legal system to deliver honest justice. I always believed, as they say in legal proceedings, that prosecutors represent the people. That's me and you. So those lawyers who sent Gell to death row were working for us.

But after what happened to him, would you trust the justice system with your life or the life of someone you love?

That's a fair question, because if we've sent at least one innocent person to death row, what's to keep the next one from being you or me?

And do you trust a legal system that sends a poor man like Gell to death row while Durham's murdering columnist Mike Peterson gets a life sentence? If the system can take a life, it must be perfect, not just pretty good.

Some people complain it costs a lot of money to keep an inmate locked up. It does, about $30,000 a year at Central Prison, Walker said. But what does it cost to look at yourself in the mirror and know that the state, acting in your name, likely killed an innocent person?

Some also complain that inmates have it easy in the Big House. Any fool who believes that has never been inside a maximum security prison.

I have. They are loud, dangerous and terrifying madhouses. Anyone sentenced to life without parole inside those walls is already in hell. – News & Observer 

Rogers asks a valid question, why was Gell sentenced to death and Peterson sentenced to life.  For those who have worked in the criminal courts the answer is rather obvious – death sentences are usually a matter of socio-economic class.  Yet, one group supporting the death penalty in NC is circulating letters in the General Assembly claiming that the death penalty is not racially biased.   

The simple fact, as Rogers notes, is that the death penalty has come under serious question in North Carolina.  The questions being raised deserve the most serious study and public debate.  Until the General Assembly can undertake that study, Democrats need to call on the elected officials to pass the moratorium.

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                        A REASON WE ARE DEMOCRATS 

Brock said he knows the bill could die in the pocket of a committee chairman but he felt compelled to introduce it.         -- NBC 17 (emphasis added) 

But Talbott said Tuesday the group will be bipartisan -- the N.C. director, to be announced later, is a Republican, for example. Talbott also pointed to well-known figures from both parties -- including Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska; Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, a Democrat; and Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- scheduled to appear at a kickoff for the young voter project tonight at the Kennedy Center in Washington. – Charlotte Observer           

From a civic perspective Generation Engage is a wonderful idea.  They are hiring young leaders, and Democrats need to be represented in their effort.  I you know of someone who would be interested in employment, clock on this hyperlink: -- Generation Engage  

However, as a non-partisan effort, Generation Engage cannot carry the message of the Democratic Party when registering voters.  Democrats need to become actively engaged in the effort to register younger voters.  Only 14% of North Carolina voters in the 2004 election were 29 or younger.  Sen. Kerry performed well among this age group: 

The point, at this stage, isn't that the rank-and-file are so much more progressive than the Easleys and the Bowleses, though the progressives obviously think they are. It's that, since they've never really been organized, what they'll come up with as policy is a big unknown. – Independent Weekly

Last Update: 03/23/2006