#capital punishment

BIG PUN

Qualified death penalty lawyers don’t grow on trees:

In response to The San Francisco Chronicle’s recent editorial “Fight crime, not futility: Abolish the death penalty,” a thorough evisceration of Proposition 66 – the Grim Reaper ballot initiative seeking to speed-up state-sponsored executions – Sacramento D.A. Anne Marie Schubert promised California voters that, “[t]he overall changes” needed to repair the state’s discriminatory and horribly dysfunctional death penalty are, “easy fixes.”

To anybody who believes that: Not only do I have a snazzy bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, I’ll throw in a bridge to nowhere too.

The Chronicle, which published Schubert’s glib and disjointed talking points under the header “dissenting view,” was also clearly unimpressed. It excerpted just one devastating paragraph from its prior full-length blistering editorial to run beneath Schubert’s superficial response.

The Chronicle reminded Californians it urges a “No” vote on Proposition 66, and a “Yes” vote on the counter-initiative, Proposition 62, which would end capital punishment forever in California: “Prop. 62 offers a straightforward and certain solution: abolish the death penalty, and replace it with a punishment of life without the possibility of parole. The other [ballot initiative], Prop. 66, proposes a highly complex, probably very expensive and constitutionally questionable scheme for streamlining the appeals process in hopes of shaving years off the timeline between conviction and execution. Even the most ardent advocates of capital punishment should be wary of the promises in Prop. 66.”

Perhaps the biggest of the false promises made by Prop. 66  that The Chronicle alludes to – one that all Californians should be wary of – is Prop. 66 proponents’ claim (led by Schubert), that “Prop. 66 would expand the pool of qualified lawyers to deal with [capital] cases.” Again and again, this mantra has been repeated in their op-eds and public statements campaigning for more and quicker state-sanctioned death. I guess they figure if they keep repeating this claim – without a shred of evidence to back it up – that this canard of Prop. 66 will be plum overlooked by California voters. It won’t be.

As explained in “Proposition 66, The ‘Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016,’ is Fool’s Gold for Californians” qualified death penalty lawyers don’t grow on trees. Nor will a gigantic stork suddenly deliver them on November 9. There simply“are not enough willing and qualified lawyers in California to take these kinds of cases – the most difficult, emotional, time-sensitive, resource-draining cases our legal system has.”

Prop. 66’s “easy fix” for this catastrophic flaw in the death penalty system is, by its express language, to: (1) pressure defense attorneys who don’t currently handle death penalty cases to start doing so, or risk their livelihood, because if they refuse, they won’t be eligible for court appointments at all, and (2) handicap the quality of capital defense representation in California by decimating the independence and the leadership of California’s Habeas Corpus Resource Center (an agency which has been zealously and competently representing death row inmates in the state for decades).

Beyond windy platitudes and rehearsed talking points, not a single Prop. 66 proponent has articulated to voters just how, in practice, Prop. 66’s proposed shotgun-style-appointment of defense attorneys in capital cases, or its ruination of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, will “expand the pool of qualified lawyers to deal with [capital] cases.”

Yeah son!! It’s Big Pun!!

I’LL TAKE THE CHAIR

قهرمان [A Hero] (Asghar Farhadi, 2021)

Today in Hip Hop History:

Big Pun released his debut album Capital Punishment April 28, 1998

Barbara Graham was born in 1923 in Oakland, California. As a teenager, she spent time at a reformatory and attempted to change her troubled ways. In 1939, she married but within two years, the marriage had fallen apart. She then drifted into sex work and eventually married a mobster by the name of Henry Graham.
It was Henry who introduced Barbara to Jack Santo, who was a gang leader.

 Barbara, her husband, Jack Santo, and two other accomplices - Emmett Perkins and John True - set out one night to rob a wealthy elderly woman, Mabel Monahan. Enraged that they could not find any valuables, they smothered and beat the elderly woman to death.

They were quickly apprehended and Barbara became known as “Bloody Babs” in the press. She was sentenced to death after John True testified against the group. She was told that she may receive a stay of execution, to which she replied: “I never got a break in my whole goddamned life and you think I’m going to get one now?” 

On 3 June, 1955, her execution was pushed back from 22:00 to 23:30, to which she said: “Why do they torture me? I was ready to go at ten o’clock.” She was led to the gas chamber and pronounced dead at 11:42. Her last words were:
“Good people are always so sure they’re right.”

On 19 August, 1989, police officer Mark  McPhail was shot and killed in a Burger King parking lot in Georgia after attempting to intervene in a fight. 20-year-old Troy Davis, who was there at the time but fled before the shots were fired, was apprehended after nine witnesses claimed to see him shoot the officer.

Despite missing crucial evidence, which included the murder weapon, Davis was convicted of the murder. Over the years, seven out of the nine witnesses retracted their claims that they witnessed Davis shoot the officer. Nevertheless, Davis was executed on 21 September, 2011.

He had many supporters who believed in his innocent and due to this, his execution had been successfully delayed twice, but sadly not for a third time regardless of the fact that nearly one million people had signed a petition for clemency. His last words were:

“Well, first of all I’d like to address the MacPhail family. I’d like to let you all know, despite the situation – I know all of you are still convinced that I’m the person that killed your father, your son and your brother, but I am innocent. The incident that happened that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun that night. I did not shoot your family member. But I am so sorry for your loss. I really am – sincerely. All I can ask is that each of you look deeper into this case, so that you really will finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends that you all continue to pray, that you all continue to forgive. Continue to fight this fight. For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on all of your souls. God bless you all.”

ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE PUN DIED.

“In Colonial Times a hanging was a major social event. People came from miles around with picnic lunches and wine to watch the guilty be punished. The mood was festive and the hanging was an all day affair.”