Deathwatching

Senate Bill 1018

Several weeks ago a group of people began to talk about the possibilities of a bill to establish a Commission along the lines of the New Jersey Commission in Oregon. Much encouraged by the mixture of commissioners in NJ who had nevertheless concluded that the death penalty there served no legitimate purpose and should be abolished, this group of scholars, attorneys, legislators, activists and others wondered if the time was ripe for such an enquiry here.

What had made them think so? Opinion polls have not indicated much shift in Oregon support although data about prosecutor charging behaviours and jury sentencing behaviours have indicated a trend that sees fewer people charged with aggravated murder and fewer sentenced to death even if they do go to trial. Indeed last year, a Multnomah jury determined that someone convicted of a double murder would go to prison for life rather than be executed, a first for a Multnomah jury.

But national trends also reflect this loss of enthusiasm for sentencing. And this is the behaviour to watch. The ebb and flow of executions in states are a playing out of past problems with death penalty statutes and refinements of state death penalty machines. It is current charging and sentencing behaviour which reflect public confidence in this controversial policy.

Despite a continuing swing toward retributive responses to crime, and increasing incarceration and harsher punishments, a rise in the concomitant concern with wrongful conviction and the exonerations of over 123 people who were sentenced to death is giving even the most committed supporters pause.

But apparently not sufficiently to ensure a bill requesting an enquiry even a hearing. I would love to know why the hearing was so vigorously opposed, and by whom.

Interesting.