We Are None of Us Innocent

The State of California has executed Stanley “Tookie” Williams: We have all become partners to his death. Our state has legalized the execution of criminals for capital crimes. The governor has acted in the name of the people, as have the courts and the penal system. Mr. Williams was put to death in our name. We are all partners in his death; we are all responsible.

A Cynical Political Gesture?
Gov. Schwarzenegger convened a hearing to consider clemency. Predictably, it was denied. I do not know if the governor was sincere in his actions or indulging in high drama with the aim of justifying his decision to allow the execution to proceed. At worst, having convened a hearing to consider arguments when a conclusion is predetermined is cynical and despicable. I hope that this is not the case. I do not know. The comments made by the governor seemed very scripted: “Had he apologized…” As if words of contrition are of greater value than acts of repentance.

The governor had the most convenient of covers: it is the law of the land. This was invoked: the governor that made his election on the claim that he would reform how California did business claimed to be without recourse as he enforced the mandate of the court. There is something disingenuous here. But this is not the central issue. It is only dressing on the stage on which this danse macabre was performed.

The Letter and Intent of the Law
I am not a legal scholar and make no pretense in that direction. What I offer are my thoughts. It seems to me that the death penalty is intended only as retribution. There is no redemptive value in it. To argue that it is the right of the families of the victims to see the perpetrator tortured and executed is to pander to our most base instincts. It is to make their suffering the justification for the deprivation of life. I do not believe that this is the issue: an eye for an eye is what stands at the root of this thing. The quote is attributed to Gandhi: an eye for an eye leaves all of us blind.

The intent of the legal system is to safeguard justice. Justice is not the same as retribution. Indeed, retribution should have no part of justice. To be just is to place a fair value on the rights and lives of all, even those that are the least of us; it seems to me it has as its goal the redemption of human life rather than its destruction. To ritualize the sacrifice of life on the altar of retribution and primitive justice is to deny what could be. Perhaps most importantly, it is irreversible and irrevocable. We are only able to play God to a given degree. Our finitude does not allow us to restore time or life to the erroneously condemned.

The Mark of Cain
All murder is fratricide. We are all our brothers’ keepers. We are all charged with the welfare of all humanity. That is an onerous charge and a daunting responsibility. The State executes a convicted felon. It does so in our name and, presumably, by our consent. There is not a one of us that does not bear the mark of Cain. Stanley Williams was no different.

The Crips is a murderous organization. I was a pastor is South Central Los Angeles for several years. I saw firsthand the violence and the mayhem that gangs leave in their wake. If Williams was innocent of the crime for which he was condemned and executed it was a miscarriage of justice. But to presume that a man who is responsible for the founding of a criminal organization that racked a community with terror, spilling blood and causing mayhem is not guilty of capital crimes is to ignore the reality created. I am a liberal. I wear that label proudly. I must say, however, that the excuse that gangs are victims of oppression is ludicrous. These are thugs, nothing more. Can a thug repent? Certainly. Does that repentance ameliorate responsibility for crimes committed in the past? Certainly not. Does this justify the intentional and systematic extermination of a life in the name of justice? No. And we are marked as truly as was Mr. Williams.

Repentance
The killing needs to stop. AB1121 is a bill pending in the California legislature. It calls a hiatus through January 1, 2009 of executions in the state. This is not a solution. This is a step in the right direction. The bill calls for a review of procedures and application of the death penalty. It is a travesty of justice, in my mind, as this bill works its way through the legislature that dates are being set for still more executions, still more blood being spilt, still more lives snuffed out to satisfy our sense of entitlement for the blood of those who’ve spilt blood.

And the our brothers’ blood cries to God from the ground. And we all stand guilty before Life Itself, bearing the blood of the guilty mingled with the innocent on our hands.