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published July 30, 2007
Karen Conti, Chicago Attorney with Adamski & Conti
Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine, who will try the case himself, repeatedly objects to an executive moratorium on executions when our laws explicitly provide for a death penalty and our courts routinely uphold its constitutionality. The situation, Devine contends, sends the wrong message to the community: our lawmakers and prosecutors are compelled to seek the ultimate penalty for certain crimes, but the penalty will never be enforced. It's like shooting to kill in self-defense but only getting to use a laser beam.
I agree with Mr. Devine that the drapes should match the carpet. However, I also agree with the Tribune that "[i]t is time to stop killing in the people's name."
While we watch the Brown's Chicken jury selection, consider how the use of the death penalty skews even that initial process by resulting in the selection of jurors who do not necessarily reflect the community's standards. The moral compass of the community is something that the United States Supreme Court consistently cites in upholding the constitutionality of capital punishment. If the people want it, it can't be cruel and unusual.
During voir dire questioning, jurors who say that they could never vote to put someone to death are automatically excluded from the jury for cause, meaning the prosecutor does not have to use one peremptory challenge to eliminate those citizens from jury service; it happens automatically. It also means that even if 99% of the Cook County jury pool thinks the implementation of the death penalty is wrong under any circumstance, the court will get rid of those jurors one by one until the panel is made up of persons reflecting the views of the minority 1% who believe in the death penalty. Doesn't sound fair when it comes to death sentencing, does it?
More unfairness? Studies have shown throughout the years that jurors who are in favor of the death penalty are much more prone to find a defendant guilty in the first place. Pro-capital punishment jurors are more apt not to question law enforcement testimony and more likely to disregard the presumption of innocence and the defendant's Fifth Amendment right not to testify. This, again, skews the jury toward a finding of guilt and does not present an even-handed sampling of the community.
Prosecutors will argue that jurors on a death case are less likely to convict because of the seriousness of what they know is at stake—literally life or death. The facts and figures, however, simply do not bear this out.
The Brown's Chicken case is an important one—seven people were brutally murdered. It took nine years to finally accuse two defendants. It took another five to get them to trial. The victims and the public have a right to the truth. The extent to which the use of the death penalty impairs that right—in any way—is just another reason to abolish it once and for all.
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