NEW VOICES: Veterans and the Death Penalty

Two for­mer mil­i­tary ser­vice­men raised con­cerns about the use of the death penal­ty for war vet­er­ans who have endured trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences while serv­ing in the United States mil­i­tary. Karl Keys, a for­mer Marine, and Bill Pelke, a for­mer sergeant in the First Air Cavalry, cit­ed the exam­ples of James Floyd Davis and Manny Babbitt, vet­er­ans who received Purple Hearts for their ser­vice in the Vietnam War but were sen­tenced to death nev­er­the­less. Davis and Babbitt were both suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der when they com­mit­ted the crimes that result­ed in their death sen­tences. Babbitt was exe­cut­ed in 1999 in California short­ly after he received his Purple Heart. Davis cur­rent­ly resides on North Carolina’s death row. Keys and Pelke wrote, ​“Soldiers are com­ing home trau­ma­tized by the car­nage they’ve seen. As vet­er­ans, we believe those who com­mit crimes due to severe men­tal prob­lems should be treat­ed, not killed.” They go on to say, ​“Capital pun­ish­men­t’s costs to states drain our tax dol­lars away from smarter and more effec­tive approach­es to law enforce­ment and crime pre­ven­tion and from addi­tion­al qual­i­ty, afford­able men­tal health ser­vices.” Read the entire arti­cle below.

Purple Hearts On Death Row:
War Damaged Vets Should Not Be Executed By the State
By Karl R. Keys and Bill Pelke, AlterNet
Posted on December 4, 2009, Printed on December 11, 2009

Mental exhaus­tion. Battle fatigue. PTSD. Whatever it’s called, many of our sol­diers who served in wars over the years came home with com­bat-relat­ed men­tal ill­ness, trau­ma­tized by the car­nage and destruc­tion they saw and experienced.

Unfortunately, too many vet­er­ans’ men­tal con­di­tions have fueled crim­i­nal behav­ior result­ing in their impris­on­ment. Dating back to the Civil War, vet­er­an incar­cer­a­tion rates increased after each conflict.

This is not a small, mar­gin­al prob­lem. Government sta­tis­tics for the 1980s show that 21 per­cent of state prison inmates then were Vietnam vet­er­ans. The U.S. Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration esti­mate that two of every five of the 800,000 new Iraq and Afghanistan war vet­er­ans exhib­it post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) symptoms.

The sto­ries of two such vet­er­ans illus­trate this tragedy. This fall, Vietnam vet­er­an James Floyd Davis was final­ly pre­sent­ed the awards due to him — a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct medal — in a small cer­e­mo­ny held in a hear­ing room in a North Carolina prison. Davis, now 62, was not per­mit­ted to keep his medals after the ceremony.

That’s because Davis was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for shoot­ing and killing three peo­ple at an Asheville, North Carolina tool com­pa­ny from which he had been fired. At tri­al, evi­dence was intro­duced that he lived alone, talked to him­self, insti­gat­ed argu­ments with co-work­ers and shot imag­i­nary ground­hogs on his front lawn with his .44 mag­num. Further tes­ti­mo­ny revealed that when he was a child, his alco­holic father threat­ened to cut Davis’ and his sib­lings’ throats while they slept and burn down the house. Davis’ father beat him with a mop han­dle, and would lock the refrig­er­a­tor and hide the key while Davis went hungry.

What was­n’t intro­duced at tri­al was that Davis, who attained the rank of sergeant in Vietnam, fought on a Central Highlands fire­base dur­ing the Tet Offensive, where he lost his hear­ing, was hit with shrap­nel, some of which remains in his leg, and went home with depres­sion, para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia and PTSD. His mar­riage fell apart, and he attempt­ed sui­cide. It isn’t cer­tain if Davis will be exe­cut­ed, but he has giv­en up his legal appeals. North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Appeals and one of its attor­neys, Ken Rose, con­tin­ues to advo­cate for him.

Manny Babbitt, anoth­er Vietnam War vet­er­an and a Marine, earned his Purple Heart for courage under fire in the bat­tle of Khe Sanh, where 737 Americans died and more than 2,500 sol­diers were wound­ed. Hit by rock­et shrap­nel that opened his skull, Babbitt lost con­scious­ness and was thought to be dead. He was loaded onto a pile of corpses by heli­copter oper­a­tors where he regained con­scious­ness sur­round­ed by sev­ered limbs and bodies.

He returned from Vietnam suf­fer­ing from PTSD, exhibit­ing bizarre and vio­lent behav­ior. Eventually he broke into the home of Leah Shendel, an elder­ly woman, and beat her. She lat­er died of a heart attack.

His broth­er, Bill Babbitt, turned him in to author­i­ties believ­ing that he owed it to the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty, and expect­ing that his war hero broth­er would get the med­ical atten­tion he need­ed and deserved. But not long after being award­ed his Purple Heart, Manny Babbitt was exe­cut­ed one minute after mid­night, May 4, 1999, in the state of California, on his 50^th birthday.

As vet­er­ans our­selves, we believe that peo­ple who com­mit crimes as a result of severe men­tal impair­ments should not be exe­cut­ed. In 2006, the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates adopt­ed that rec­om­men­da­tion, which was offi­cial­ly endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in Atkins v. Virginia exempts cer­tain per­sons with impaired men­tal capac­i­ties from the death penal­ty. But not all states employ this exemp­tion. Many of the same fac­tors present in the cas­es of indi­vid­u­als with­out men­tal impair­ments who are exe­cut­ed are also present in the cas­es of those with them: Inability to afford effec­tive legal coun­sel, police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, unfair and racial­ly biased appli­ca­tion of the pun­ish­ment, and unre­li­able and false wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny at trial.

Capital pun­ish­men­t’s costs to states drain our tax dol­lars away from smarter and more effec­tive approach­es to law enforce­ment and crime pre­ven­tion and from addi­tion­al qual­i­ty, afford­able men­tal health ser­vices. Abolishing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment would be a major step for­ward in crim­i­nal jus­tice and men­tal health reform. In November the nation observed Veterans Day and on December 7^th it will observe Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, yet anoth­er occa­sion for hon­or­ing war vet­er­ans. As you do so, please take a moment to remem­ber James Floyd Davis and Manny Babbitt — and to work to ensure that no oth­er men­tal­ly impaired vet­er­ans are treat­ed as they were. We owe that much and more to our men and women in uniform.

Karl R. Keys is a for­mer Marine who has served on the Board of Journey of Hope … From Violence to Healing. 

Bill Pelke, who was a sergeant in the First Air Cavalry infantry unit, is President and co-founder of Journey of Hope … From Violence to Healing, an orga­ni­za­tion led by mur­der vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers joined by death row fam­i­ly mem­bers, fam­i­ly mem­bers of the exe­cut­ed, the exon­er­at­ed, and oth­ers, that con­ducts pub­lic edu­ca­tion speak­ing tours and address­es alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty. He is on the Board of Directors of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. 

(K. Keys and B. Pelke, ​“Purple Hearts On Death Row: War Damaged Vets Should Not Be Executed By the State,” AlterNet​.org, December 4, 2009). See Mental Illness and U.S. Military.