The Death Penalty in 1997: Year End Report

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 1997 eas­i­ly sur­passed the high­est fig­ure for any year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. As of December 15, 1997, there were 74 exe­cu­tions in the coun­try this year, 18 more than in 1995, the pre­vi­ous record year. The last time more peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in a sin­gle year in the United States was 1955, when 76 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed. The exe­cu­tions this year brought the over­all total since the rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to 432. The nation­al death row pop­u­la­tion also reached a record high of 3,269.

To a large extent, the high num­ber of exe­cu­tions was the work of a sin­gle state. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Texas this year equaled that of all the oth­er states com­bined. While the exe­cu­tions in Texas reached an all-time high of 37, com­pared to only 3 last year, the num­bers out­side of Texas actu­al­ly decreased from 1996. Twenty-one death penal­ty states, includ­ing Georgia, North Carolina and California, had no exe­cu­tions this year. In addi­tion, nei­ther the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment nor the mil­i­tary con­duct­ed any executions.

The Massachusetts leg­is­la­ture nar­row­ly defeat­ed an effort to restore the death penal­ty fol­low­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly noto­ri­ous mur­der in that state. After an ini­tial vote indi­cat­ed the mea­sure would pass, one leg­is­la­tor changed his vote when the results of the au pair tri­al of Louise Woodward con­vinced him of the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the jus­tice sys­tem and the dan­ger of exe­cut­ing the innocent.

Over 80% of the exe­cu­tions occurred in the South, a pat­tern sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous years. Interestingly, the FBI Uniform Crime Report released in October showed that the South was the only region of the coun­try to expe­ri­ence a rise in seri­ous crime from the previous year.

No women or juve­nile offend­ers were exe­cut­ed this year, but at least one men­tal­ly retard­ed man, Terry Washington, was exe­cut­ed in Texas. Three states, Texas, Florida and Virginia, exe­cut­ed for­eign nation­als this year.

As exe­cu­tions rose around the coun­try, a num­ber of main­stream orga­ni­za­tions from the legal, reli­gious and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties called for a halt to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America. At its meet­ing in Texas in February, the American Bar Association vot­ed by a two-to-one mar­gin to endorse a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty because of the per­sis­tent inequities in its appli­ca­tion. In its res­o­lu­tion, the ABA not­ed the inad­e­qua­cy of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion, the racial dis­par­i­ties on death row and the cur­tail­ment of the appeals process as rea­sons for tem­porar­i­ly stop­ping the death penal­ty. This res­o­lu­tion has been echoed by state and local bar asso­ci­a­tions also cit­ing the unfair­ness of the death penalty process.

The reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty was par­tic­u­lar­ly vocal in oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Despite the fright­en­ing mem­o­ries of the Oklahoma City bomb­ing, as recalled by the tri­als of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, church lead­ers expressed their increas­ing­ly firmer oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. In the lead­ing death penal­ty state, the Texas Catholic Bishops called for an end to the death penal­ty. Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa reflect­ed this oppo­si­tion with pleas for clemen­cy in particular cases.

The U.S. also faced grow­ing inter­na­tion­al pres­sure to halt its pur­suit of more exe­cu­tions. In April, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly (27 for, 11 against, 14 absten­tions) to urge mem­ber coun­tries to move towards abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The U.S., along with such coun­tries as China, Bangladesh and Indonesia, was in the minor­i­ty in oppos­ing this resolution.

Russia and the Ukraine, for­mer­ly among the world lead­ers in exe­cu­tions, pledged to halt the death penal­ty as they sought entry into the Council of Europe, which requires abo­li­tion as a con­di­tion of mem­ber­ship. Mexico strong­ly protest­ed the exe­cu­tion of some of its cit­i­zens in the U.S. because the defen­dants were not noti­fied of their right to con­sult with their home coun­try in con­for­mi­ty with the Vienna Convention. Italians took up the cause of Joseph O’Dell in Virginia, whom they believed was exe­cut­ed with­out a fair hearing.

In late September, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions made his first vis­it to this coun­try. This spe­cial envoy from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights exam­ined exe­cu­tions which are alleged to vio­late inter­na­tion­al law, includ­ing the exe­cu­tion of those who were juve­niles at the time of their crime and those with men­tal retar­da­tion, both of which are allowed by most death penal­ty states in the U.S. He also looked at the repeat­ed alle­ga­tions of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty. Senator Jesse Helms (R‑NC) called the Human Rights Commission vis­it ​“an absurd U. N. charade.”

Ultimately, the future of the death penal­ty in this coun­try will be decid­ed by its cit­i­zens. Polls that were con­duct­ed this year show a grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the polit­i­cal promis­es made about the death penal­ty. In sev­er­al polls, Americans showed a pref­er­ence for the alter­na­tive of life with­out parole as a suit­able sen­tence for murder.

Ohio: An Ohio State University poll in September report­ed that 59% of Ohioans sup­port life with­out parole, plus resti­tu­tion to the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly, as an alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty. Almost half of those polled believe that the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son is likely.

New York: A Qunnipiac College Poll of New Yorkers in September report­ed that 57% sup­port alter­na­tives, either a life sen­tence with no parole or life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, over the death penal­ty, which received 37% sup­port. Two-thirds of those polled did not feel that the death penal­ty has made N.Y. safer since it was brought back in 1995.

Kentucky: A statewide poll by the University of Louisville in June report­ed that 42% favored a sen­tence of life with­out parole, plus resti­tu­tion, for mur­der­ers, while 35% would still choose the death penalty.

Virginia: Virginia Tech’s Center for Survey Research in July report­ed that 57% of Virginians sup­port­ed life with no parole for 25 years, plus resti­tu­tion, while only 38% sup­port­ed the death penal­ty when giv­en a choice of alternatives.

On a nation­al lev­el, a num­ber of polls were con­duct­ed around the time of the tri­al of Timothy McVeigh. Despite the fact that this was arguably the worst crime in U.S. his­to­ry, only 61% of Americans in a CNN poll would have select­ed the death penal­ty for McVeigh. This was con­firmed by a Harris poll which report­ed 63% for death, far low­er than the usu­al 75% sup­port which the death penal­ty receives in the abstract.

The prob­lems with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment emerged in a num­ber of oth­er nation­al polls. Time Magazine report­ed that 52% of Americans do not believe the death penal­ty deters peo­ple from com­mit­ting crime and 60% reject­ed anoth­er lead­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for exe­cu­tions: vengeance on the part of the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly. A Newsweek poll found that half (49%) of Americans, and three-quar­ters of non­whites, believe a black per­son is more like­ly than a white per­son to receive the death penal­ty for the same crime.

Politicians, how­ev­er, large­ly ignored this dis­con­tent. When Pedro Medina caught fire as he was being elec­tro­cut­ed in Florida, the state’s Attorney General, Robert Butterworth, actu­al­ly claimed that Florida’s faulty elec­tric chair served as an effec­tive warn­ing to poten­tial mur­der­ers. (After a flood of cov­er­age high­light­ed the hor­ror of this event, Butterworth retreat­ed to a posi­tion favor­ing a change in method of exe­cu­tion to lethal injec­tion.) The State Supreme Court held up all exe­cu­tions in Florida, final­ly decid­ing by a nar­row vote that the elec­tric chair does not con­sti­tute cru­el or unusu­al pun­ish­ment. One of the three dis­sent­ing jus­tices wrote: ​“Florida’s elec­tric chair, by its own track record, has proven itself to be a dinosaur more befit­ting the lab­o­ra­to­ry of Baron Frankenstein than the death cham­ber of Florida State Prison.”

As the num­ber of exe­cu­tions reached a record high, the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry nature of the death penal­ty became more appar­ent. Of the 74 exe­cu­tions this year, only 10% were pun­ish­ment for the mur­der of a black per­son, yet blacks are vic­tims in about 50% of the mur­ders com­mit­ted in the U.S. Their deaths rarely mer­it the atten­tion and the expen­di­tures asso­ci­at­ed with the death penal­ty. Since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed, six white defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed for mur­der­ing a black per­son, while 112 black peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of a white person.

Lack of com­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion con­tin­ued to con­tribute to the arbi­trari­ness of the death penal­ty. Exzavious Gibson, a poor black man in Georgia, went before the Georgia courts to appeal his death sen­tence with­out a lawyer to plead his case. He lost the appeal. In Mississippi, a fed­er­al civ­il rights suit was filed on behalf of death row inmates against the state, which pro­vides no mon­ey and no attor­neys for the post-con­vic­tion appeals process. The suit cit­ed the results of psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing giv­en to the inmates which showed that one-third suf­fered from men­tal retar­da­tion. The inmates also were giv­en the Law School Admission Test to test the assump­tion that they could act as their own lawyers (none of the inmates scored above the 1% level).

In the past, rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Georgia and Mississippi might have been pro­vid­ed by the death penal­ty resource cen­ters which were estab­lished to help with appeals. But fed­er­al fund­ing for these cen­ters in 20 states around the coun­try, was cut off in 1996, leav­ing many inmates unrepresented.

Part of the increase in exe­cu­tions this year has been due to a faster appeals process. Last year, on the anniver­sary of the Oklahoma City bomb­ing, Congress passed the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which had lit­tle to do with ter­ror­ism but much to do with speed­ing up state exe­cu­tions. The law is already restrict­ing inmates with new evi­dence of inno­cence from obtain­ing review because of its strin­gent time lim­its and bar­ri­ers to con­duct­ing evidentiary hearings.

In July, the Death Penalty Information Center iden­ti­fied 69 peo­ple who have been released from death row since 1973 after evi­dence of their inno­cence emerged. Many of these defen­dants came close to exe­cu­tion and only were saved as a result of extra­or­di­nary events out­side of the nor­mal appeals process. Fortuitous DNA test­ing, enter­pris­ing research of jour­nal­ism stu­dents and reporters, and vol­un­teer legal exper­tise avail­able to few on death row, exposed this large num­ber of mis­tak­en con­vic­tions. Four more cas­es have been added since the pub­li­ca­tion of the report bring­ing the lat­est total of inno­cent peo­ple released to 73. However, quick­er appeals, cou­pled with the elim­i­na­tion of fund­ing for fed­er­al death penal­ty resource cen­ters, will like­ly mean that oth­er inno­cent inmates will be exe­cut­ed before they can prove their innocence.

Among those released this year was Ricardo Aldape Guerra of Texas. Guerra had been sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of a police offi­cer in Houston in 1982. After new evi­dence revealed that wit­ness­es had been pres­sured and abused to tes­ti­fy against Guerra, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Reagan appointee, over­turned the con­vic­tion in 1994, stat­ing that the actions of the police and pros­e­cu­tors in this case were ​“out­ra­geous,” ​“inten­tion­al” and ​“done in bad faith,” and that their mis­con­duct ​“was designed and cal­cu­lat­ed to obtain … anoth­er ​‘notch in their guns.’ ” Judge Hoyt’s rul­ing was unan­i­mous­ly upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. A new tri­al was grant­ed to Guerra, but in April of this year Houston District Attorney Johnny Holmes dropped charges instead. Guerra returned to his native Mexico, where iron­i­cal­ly he died in an auto acci­dent a few months later.

As usu­al, the sto­ries of many of the peo­ple who were exe­cut­ed this year illus­trate the unpre­dictable and freak­ish nature of the death penal­ty. Among those killed this year were:

Coleman Wayne Gray, a black man, was con­vict­ed by an all-white jury of the mur­der of a white gro­cery store man­ag­er in 1985. At the time of his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, the pros­e­cu­tion intro­duced sur­prise evi­dence impli­cat­ing Gray in two mur­ders for which he had nev­er been tried. Gray had no chance to refute this high­ly inflam­ma­to­ry evi­dence and was sen­tenced to death. Evidence con­cealed by the state lat­er showed that Gray may have been inno­cent of these addi­tion­al mur­ders. Before Gray’s exe­cu­tion, U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer stat­ed that he did not believe Gray had received a fair tri­al, but that his hands were tied by the new restric­tions on appeals. Gray was exe­cut­ed in Virginia on February 26.

Pedro Medina, a Cuban nation­al who came to the U.S. as part of the Mariel boatlift in 1980, had been con­vict­ed of killing a for­mer neigh­bor who had befriend­ed him. There was con­sid­er­able doubt about both Medina’s guilt and his men­tal com­pe­tence. The vic­tim’s daugh­ter, Lindi James, said that she nev­er believed Medina killed her moth­er, and that her moth­er would not want Medina exe­cut­ed in any event. Pope John Paul II also made a plea for mer­cy on Medina’s behalf. The Florida Supreme Court con­clud­ed that Medina had men­tal prob­lems but still could be exe­cut­ed. He was killed on March 25 in a fiery electrocution.

David Spence was exe­cut­ed in Texas on April 3 for the mur­der of two teenagers. N.Y. Times colum­nist Bob Herbert inves­ti­gat­ed his case and con­clud­ed: ​“Mr. Spence was almost cer­tain­ly inno­cent.” Marvin Horton, the police lieu­tenant who super­vised the inves­ti­ga­tion of the crime, stat­ed: ​“I do not think David Spence com­mit­ted this crime.” And Ramon Salinas, the homi­cide detec­tive who inves­ti­gat­ed the mur­ders, said: ​“My opin­ion is that David Spence was inno­cent. Nothing from the inves­ti­ga­tion ever led us to any evi­dence that he was involved.” The case against Spence relied main­ly on prison inmates who were giv­en gen­er­ous favors in return for their testimony.

Terry Washington, a men­tal­ly retard­ed man, was exe­cut­ed in Texas on May 6. He had an IQ of between 58 and 69, with an intel­lect com­pa­ra­ble to an 8‑year-old. The jury that sen­tenced him to death nev­er learned about his retar­da­tion. Eleven states and the fed­er­al death statute for­bid the exe­cu­tion of those with men­tal retar­da­tion, but not Texas.

Scott Carpenter was exe­cut­ed at age 22 in Oklahoma for a crime he had com­mit­ted 3 years ear­li­er. Carpenter, a Native American, plead­ed no con­test to stab­bing the clerk of the Duchess Creek Bait and Grocery Store. He waived all his appeals and asked to be exe­cut­ed. Carpenter had no prior convictions.

Harry Charles Moore was exe­cut­ed in Oregon on May 16. Moore had been mar­ried to two of his nieces and was con­vict­ed of killing his half-sis­ter and her for­mer hus­band. He threat­ened to sue any­one who tried to stop his exe­cu­tion. Moore said he had killed his rel­a­tives because he thought they would move to Las Vegas with his estranged wife and infant daugh­ter, and expose them to a life of pros­ti­tu­tion and drugs.

Bruce Callins was exe­cut­ed in Texas on May 21 for the mur­der of a man in a top­less bar. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun used this case in 1994 to announce that he would hence­forth oppose the death penal­ty in every case. ​“From this day for­ward, I no longer shall tin­ker with the machin­ery of death,” he wrote. ​“I feel moral­ly and intel­lec­tu­al­ly oblig­at­ed sim­ply to con­cede that the death penal­ty exper­i­ment has failed.”

Irineo Montoya, a cit­i­zen of Mexico, was exe­cut­ed in Texas on June 18. Over 300 Mexicans protest­ed on the bridge con­nect­ing Texas and Mexico. The Mexican gov­ern­ment also for­mal­ly protest­ed the death sen­tence because Montoya had not been told of his right under the Vienna Convention to con­tact his home coun­try when he was arrest­ed. His sup­port­ers main­tained that Montoya was a labor­er with a fifth grade edu­ca­tion who signed a con­fes­sion in English which he did not understand.

Harold McQueen was the first per­son exe­cut­ed in Kentucky in 35 years. McQueen was tried along with his half-broth­er, Keith Burnell, for a rob­bery and mur­der. While Burnell’s father paid for a pri­vate attor­ney, McQueen had a court-appoint­ed lawyer who, at the time of the tri­al, could be paid a max­i­mum of only $1,000 for han­dling the case. McQueen was elec­tro­cut­ed on July 1; Burnell was sen­tenced to prison and has already been paroled.

Joseph O’Dell was exe­cut­ed in Virginia on July 23, despite pleas for clemen­cy from the Pope, Mother Teresa and the Italian Parliament. O’Dell had rep­re­sent­ed him­self at tri­al. Subsequent DNA test­ing threw con­sid­er­able doubt on the blood evi­dence pre­sent­ed at tri­al. At sen­tenc­ing, the jury was not told that O’Dell would serve a sen­tence of life with­out parole if spared death. Today, the jury would have to be instruct­ed about that fact, but the U.S. Supreme Court held that this require­ment was a new rule of law which did not apply retroac­tive­ly to O’Dell’s case.

The increas­ing fre­quen­cy of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. has done lit­tle to set­tle the issue in the eyes of the pub­lic. Opposition has moved from can­dle­light vig­ils out­side of pen­i­ten­tiaries to nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cri­tiques of the con­tin­u­ing arbi­trari­ness and inequity in the imple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty. Public dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the polit­i­cal promis­es made for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is evi­denced in the high sup­port for alter­na­tives to exe­cu­tions. While the trend toward more exe­cu­tions will like­ly con­tin­ue because of the vast num­ber of peo­ple on death row and the short­er appeals process, there are signs that the pub­lic may be shift­ing its focus away from the death penal­ty as a solu­tion to crime.

The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion serv­ing the media and the pub­lic with analy­sis and infor­ma­tion regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Center pro­vides in-depth reports, con­ducts brief­in­gs for jour­nal­ists, pro­motes informed dis­cus­sion and serves as a resource to those work­ing on this issue. This report was writ­ten by Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Center. The sources for infor­ma­tion in this year end report are avail­able from the Center.