Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 4, 2006 12:02:06 GMT -5
Ultimate penalty on the ballot----More than 150 years after Wisconsin
abolished the death penalty, voters will now weigh in on whether it should
be restored.
It was 155 years ago last week when more than 2,000 people in Kenosha, Wis.,
watched John McCaffry dangle from a noose, writhing for several minutes
before his body went limp.
McCaffry, who had drowned his wife, Bridgett, in a large back-yard cask, was
the last person to be executed in Wisconsin. And from that moment on, his
legacy has been controversy over the death penalty.
Now, that recurring debate is escalating as Wisconsin voters face a
referendum in November asking whether the state should resume executions.
Such a vote is rare nationwide.
Other states are fine-tuning their death penalty laws.
South Dakota and Illinois, for example, are adjusting their laws to
incorporate new technologies in DNA evidence and execution methods. But
Wisconsin's showdown cuts to the essence of the arguments over capital
punishment.
"It is time for this state to correct a 150-year-old mistake and bring back
the death penalty," said Mike Tellier, a junior at the University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse who leads a College Republicans chapter. "It's a simple
matter of justice. If someone close to me was killed, I would demand
justice."
Tellier is poised to mobilize like-minded students as classes begin
Tuesday.
In Hudson, though, Jose Vega is joining a campaign that death penalty foes
started last week.
"Reinstating the death penalty is a backward move, and it goes against the
whole progressive history of this state," said Vega, who is a professor of
education at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. "If we say we truly
value life, we have to value all life."
Ending executions
Wisconsin abolished the death penalty two years after McCaffry's hanging. It
is one of 12 states, including Minnesota, that does not execute criminals,
although certain federal cases can end in death sentences. Wisconsin has
kept its ban even through grisly cases that would probably have sent killers
to death row in other states.
Ed Gein, a farmer in Plainfield, inspired Alfred Hitchthingy's movie "Psycho"
after 1957, when authorities found one of Gein's victims beheaded, gutted
and hung from a ceiling beam. He confessed to killing 2 women and robbing
graves for body parts he used to make lampshades, furniture and dishes. He
was found insane and sent to a state hospital. He died of cancer in 1984.
Gein's case came at a time when national support for the death penalty was
dropping dramatically, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
By 1966, a Gallup poll found support at an all-time low, 42 %.
In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court in effect suspended executions after a series
of cases challenged the constitutionality of state laws. States revised
their laws, and the penalty was reinstated in 1976.
By 1991, national support had rebounded. Wisconsin held its course, though,
even after police found severed heads and other parts of 11 men and boys
in Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment in Milwaukee. Dahmer, who had cannibalized
and sodomized some of his victims, eventually confessed to killing 17
people. In 1994, a fellow inmate beat him to death in the bathroom of a
state prison.
Meanwhile, Sen. Alan Lasee, a Republican and rising force in the Wisconsin
Legislature, was pushing to restore the death penalty. The rhetorical fuel
for his drive was the Dahmer case and others in which children had been
victims.
"It deeply troubles me that the only punishment for these killers is life in
prison," Lasee said. "The punishment should fit the crime."
Now he is president of the state Senate. Even from that influential
position, he said, getting votes to put the referendum on the ballot was a
struggle in the Republican-led Legislature. As in Minnesota, politicians
have shied away from the issue because opposition is so passionate, he
said.
His compromise was to make the vote advisory, leaving a final decision to
the Legislature. He also agreed to language limiting the penalty to cases
where DNA evidence supported a conviction.
Campaigns slow to heat up
So far, campaigns on both sides have been low-key. Many activists were
distracted by another referendum on this year's ballot to amend the state
constitution to ban gay marriage.
Lasee is counting on public opinion to carry the death penalty vote. In a
Badger Poll this summer, 56 % of Wisconsinites favored his
referendum while 37 % opposed it.
But opposition is gearing up, led by a coalition called No Death Penalty
Wisconsin. It includes district attorneys in Milwaukee and Dane counties,
the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and other
organizations.
The group is circulating research contending that the death penalty does
not deter crime, that members of minorities have been executed in
disproportionate numbers, and that an execution is more expensive in the
long run than locking a killer up for life.
"This is a very expensive law enforcement tool, and it would take resources
away from other more effective tools," said Ann Heywood, a retired teacher
who is organizing the campaign in the Eau Claire area.
Wisconsin's Catholic bishops recently issued a letter that priests around
the state are reading to congregations: "We oppose the death penalty because
we value human life, even when that life might seem unworthy to us."
The opponents also assert that the referendum is a ploy to attract
conservatives to the polls in a year when Republicans are fighting to unseat
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, dismissed the accusation. Her point in
voting to put the referendum on the ballot was to prompt the type of
dialogue that is engaging Wisconsin right now, she said, and to give voters
a voice in the Legislature's final decision.
If the voters approve the ballot measure, she said, some legislators will
see it as a mandate to reinstate the death penalty. For others, the final
decision will depend on the margin of the vote.
"I'm still looking at the pros and cons myself," she said.
(source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
abolished the death penalty, voters will now weigh in on whether it should
be restored.
It was 155 years ago last week when more than 2,000 people in Kenosha, Wis.,
watched John McCaffry dangle from a noose, writhing for several minutes
before his body went limp.
McCaffry, who had drowned his wife, Bridgett, in a large back-yard cask, was
the last person to be executed in Wisconsin. And from that moment on, his
legacy has been controversy over the death penalty.
Now, that recurring debate is escalating as Wisconsin voters face a
referendum in November asking whether the state should resume executions.
Such a vote is rare nationwide.
Other states are fine-tuning their death penalty laws.
South Dakota and Illinois, for example, are adjusting their laws to
incorporate new technologies in DNA evidence and execution methods. But
Wisconsin's showdown cuts to the essence of the arguments over capital
punishment.
"It is time for this state to correct a 150-year-old mistake and bring back
the death penalty," said Mike Tellier, a junior at the University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse who leads a College Republicans chapter. "It's a simple
matter of justice. If someone close to me was killed, I would demand
justice."
Tellier is poised to mobilize like-minded students as classes begin
Tuesday.
In Hudson, though, Jose Vega is joining a campaign that death penalty foes
started last week.
"Reinstating the death penalty is a backward move, and it goes against the
whole progressive history of this state," said Vega, who is a professor of
education at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. "If we say we truly
value life, we have to value all life."
Ending executions
Wisconsin abolished the death penalty two years after McCaffry's hanging. It
is one of 12 states, including Minnesota, that does not execute criminals,
although certain federal cases can end in death sentences. Wisconsin has
kept its ban even through grisly cases that would probably have sent killers
to death row in other states.
Ed Gein, a farmer in Plainfield, inspired Alfred Hitchthingy's movie "Psycho"
after 1957, when authorities found one of Gein's victims beheaded, gutted
and hung from a ceiling beam. He confessed to killing 2 women and robbing
graves for body parts he used to make lampshades, furniture and dishes. He
was found insane and sent to a state hospital. He died of cancer in 1984.
Gein's case came at a time when national support for the death penalty was
dropping dramatically, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
By 1966, a Gallup poll found support at an all-time low, 42 %.
In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court in effect suspended executions after a series
of cases challenged the constitutionality of state laws. States revised
their laws, and the penalty was reinstated in 1976.
By 1991, national support had rebounded. Wisconsin held its course, though,
even after police found severed heads and other parts of 11 men and boys
in Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment in Milwaukee. Dahmer, who had cannibalized
and sodomized some of his victims, eventually confessed to killing 17
people. In 1994, a fellow inmate beat him to death in the bathroom of a
state prison.
Meanwhile, Sen. Alan Lasee, a Republican and rising force in the Wisconsin
Legislature, was pushing to restore the death penalty. The rhetorical fuel
for his drive was the Dahmer case and others in which children had been
victims.
"It deeply troubles me that the only punishment for these killers is life in
prison," Lasee said. "The punishment should fit the crime."
Now he is president of the state Senate. Even from that influential
position, he said, getting votes to put the referendum on the ballot was a
struggle in the Republican-led Legislature. As in Minnesota, politicians
have shied away from the issue because opposition is so passionate, he
said.
His compromise was to make the vote advisory, leaving a final decision to
the Legislature. He also agreed to language limiting the penalty to cases
where DNA evidence supported a conviction.
Campaigns slow to heat up
So far, campaigns on both sides have been low-key. Many activists were
distracted by another referendum on this year's ballot to amend the state
constitution to ban gay marriage.
Lasee is counting on public opinion to carry the death penalty vote. In a
Badger Poll this summer, 56 % of Wisconsinites favored his
referendum while 37 % opposed it.
But opposition is gearing up, led by a coalition called No Death Penalty
Wisconsin. It includes district attorneys in Milwaukee and Dane counties,
the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and other
organizations.
The group is circulating research contending that the death penalty does
not deter crime, that members of minorities have been executed in
disproportionate numbers, and that an execution is more expensive in the
long run than locking a killer up for life.
"This is a very expensive law enforcement tool, and it would take resources
away from other more effective tools," said Ann Heywood, a retired teacher
who is organizing the campaign in the Eau Claire area.
Wisconsin's Catholic bishops recently issued a letter that priests around
the state are reading to congregations: "We oppose the death penalty because
we value human life, even when that life might seem unworthy to us."
The opponents also assert that the referendum is a ploy to attract
conservatives to the polls in a year when Republicans are fighting to unseat
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, dismissed the accusation. Her point in
voting to put the referendum on the ballot was to prompt the type of
dialogue that is engaging Wisconsin right now, she said, and to give voters
a voice in the Legislature's final decision.
If the voters approve the ballot measure, she said, some legislators will
see it as a mandate to reinstate the death penalty. For others, the final
decision will depend on the margin of the vote.
"I'm still looking at the pros and cons myself," she said.
(source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune)