Life Row

Former inmates call for a capital-punishment moratorium in Pennsylvania.

by Tom Namako

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Published: Apr 18, 2007

criminal justice

NOT GUILTY: At the largest gathering of cleared death-row inmates, Wilson was a living testament to the need for a moratorium debate. Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

After Jay C. Smith spent more than six years waiting to be lethally injected at the Huntingdon state prison, he said it was a box of detective's notebooks, found in the officer's dusty attic, that showed there was evidence to question his guilt. Then, there's Harold Wilson, who spent 16 years at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center with a death sentence for a triple axe murder. He was acquitted in November 2005 when DNA evidence revealed another person's blood at the scene of the crime.

On Friday, both approached a crowd of reporters and said, "If it were up to the state of Pennsylvania, I'd be dead today."

Wilson and Smith are two former Pennsylvania death row inmates who have been commuted from their death sentences. They gathered near the Liberty Bell with about 20 others once sentenced to die to support a temporary death penalty ban so its effects could be studied further. That's the goal of the Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition, a determined group of about 15 organizations across the state. The rally showcased that the local movement has finally become quite organized: It was the first time so many death row exonerates gathered in one place.

What was missing were death-penalty advocates. Think about any high-charged political or social issue. Gay marriage. Immigration. In Philly, those casinos. Each of them can evoke fierce arguments.

Even if polls show they're in the majority, people aren't rallying for capital punishment. (Which raises the question of why their stance still holds.)

Still, Gov. Ed Rendell's spokesman Chuck Ardo recently said, "The governor continues to believe that the death penalty serves as a deterrent, although he does agree that death penalty cases deserve the best legal representation possible and the use of DNA evidence whenever possible. In certain cases, it is the only punishment that fits the crime."

And Ronald Eisenberg, head of the law division of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, said that instead of banning the punishment, every case should be examined individually. "The fact that one person claims error in their trial doesn't mean the error is in everyone else's trial," he said.

He added that the legal decisions that have overturned many death sentence convictions "were on grounds that didn't determine guilt or innocence. You don't have to show innocence to get a new trial. And you don't have to show innocence to get a discharge."

Many times it's a legal technicality or mistake that frees someone, not a new trial, he said. The issue is a bit more political for Kurt Rosenberg, director of Witness to Innocence, a national anti-death penalty group started by Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean. "It's difficult for politicians to change when things have been entrenched for so long," he said. "It's partly the fear of not being re-elected and partly not being popular."

Support for the death penalty, in polls, usually clocks in the 60 to 70 percent range. "Politicians are acutely aware of it," said Terry Madonna, a political analyst at Franklin & Marshall College.

Even so, New Jersey legislators are close to joining the District of Columbia and a dozen states that have a ban. A recent study there showed that capital punishment is expensive and ineffective. The difference between those states and our own, Madonna said, may be Pennsylvania's hunter-and-sportsman culture. "Every year, there are about 800,000 hunting licenses issued, about a million supporters of the NRA, and a huge number of gun permits. I think the culture in our state tends to be more supportive of the death penalty."

Those unorganized, but strong, feelings are what Eisenberg called a "grassroots majority phenomenon."

But that logic isn't enough for Rosenberg. He said that people support alternatives to the death penalty when given the choice. "It should not be surprising that politicians are out of touch on this issue, being they've been out of touch on numerous issues across the country," Rosenberg said.

Smith couldn't agree more. He was accused of killing teacher Susan Reinert at Upper Merion High School, where he was once principal. In 1992, the state Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution withheld crucial evidence. (Another teacher at the school was found guilty of the murders.)

"They gave me a train ticket and told me to go home," the King of Prussia native recalled. "They said I could pick up my things the next day. I never went back."

At the ceremony, Smith, dressed in a beige trench coat, big eyeglasses and a felt fedora, went through the routine: A makeshift bell was rung, a declaration of freedom was signed and, in brief statements, each survivor noted how long he spent on death row "for a crime I didn't commit."

It was an intense event, but that doesn't mean it could, or should, change anything.

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)

 

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