Thursday, September 22, 2011
If current trends continue, next year’s presidential race promises to be a close one. The president’s natural advantages of incumbency likely will be offset by a weak economy and low public approval ratings, thereby creating an opening for a strong challenger.
Most agree that the focus will be on a handful of battleground states. Among these states could be several in the Midwest -– Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and perhaps even my home state of Minnesota.
There is something else distinctive about the “purple” states I’ve listed above: All but Ohio have abolished the death penalty. And, in Ohio, there is a strong tradition of clemency granted to those on death row, the chief justice of the state supreme court has called for a review of the administration of the death penalty, public opposition is growing, and only half a dozen executions are scheduled for all of 2012 (each of which is likely to draw considerable and controversial attention in Ohio).
Now in the typical presidential race, the death penalty never becomes a salient issue or provides a distinctive basis for choosing between the candidates. There are very few federal death penalty statutes and very few federal death penalty sentences. There have been only three federal executions since 2001 and none since 2003. Moreover, not since Michael Dukakis in 1988 has any Democratic nominee for president opposed the death penalty, thus taking the issue off the table.
Election Year 2012 could be different –- not because a majority of Americans are opposed to the death penalty (that sadly is not yet true) or even because President Obama and his eventual Republican challenger will have meaningfully contrasting positions on federal executions. Instead, as a more subtle and sub-surface factor, an aggressively pro-death penalty candidate, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, could face a small but steady erosion of support in key states, perhaps just enough to tip the election to President Obama.
Consider states like Iowa and Minnesota, in each of which I’ve spent about a decade of my adult life. Neither state is a high crime state, despite long since have abandoned executions as a form of punishment. While Republicans in each state occasionally make noises about restoring the death penalty, it tends to be a rhetorical device to signal toughness on crime, not a serious policy proposal. With some exceptions, Iowans and Minnesotans across the political spectrum are more or less satisfied not to have a death penalty and pleased that their state governments are not spending tens of millions on death penalty cases (in contrast with states like Texas and Illinois).
Proudly pointing to hundreds of executions in one’s home state may be an applause line before a partisan Republican audience, especially in the South. But in states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio, on which the presidential election is likely to hinge, that record induces queasiness in a not-insignificant number of Republicans and even more Independents.
First, Republican and Republican-leaning voters, especially in the upper Midwest, are not uniformly in favor of the death penalty. Republicans and Independent from Catholic and other perspectives often question or reject the death penalty as a morally legitimate tool of criminal justice. To be sure, given his unacceptable views on protection of life for the unborn, President Obama is unlikely to be the beneficiary of Catholic and other pro-life voters who are uneasy with an aggressively pro-death-penalty Republican nominee. But some of these voters might simply withhold support from a Republican candidate who is too readily and energetically associated with executions.
Second, in tight budgetary times, Independents who otherwise would trend Republican might look askance at a candidate who has made the financially foolish decision to spend millions of dollars on each execution, rather than choosing to devote those increasingly precious dollars to hiring more police officers, creating alternative juvenile sentencing schemes, etc.
Finally, given that at least one innocent person likely has been executed in Texas under Governor Perry’s watch (here and here), his denial that he has lost any sleep or struggled over these cases is disconcerting. If he becomes the Republican presidential nominee, we may expect powerful film documentaries and a plethora of reports about "Texas Justice" in death penalty cases to hound the candidate throughout the fall.
To be sure, given that the number of lives taken by the death penalty in the United States (even including Texas) remains a tiny, tiny percentage of those taken each year by abortion, protection of life for the unborn remains a much more pressing question in the national forum. Still, the prospect of even a small slippage of the Republican voter base in the Midwest for a candidate seen as overly aggressive and unduly callous about dealing death should prompt careful consideration, thoughtful evaluation, and soul-searching by both the candidates and voters in the upcoming Republican primaries.
Greg Sisk
Prof. Christopher Kaczor (Philosophy, Loyola-LA) joins the conversation, here (at Public Discourse), with Dennis O'Brien about abortion. (I linked, here, to the Commonweal discussion among Peter Steinfels, Cathy Kaveny, and O'Brien.) Kaczor writes, in the reponse to the (I think entirely unconvincing) claim that principled opposition to abortion requires that one be committed to punishing abortions in the same way, and to the same extent, as one punishes the intentional killing of a human being who has been born:
[A] penalty’s severity is not determined solely by the wrongness of the criminal act, but also by the likely consequences of that wrong for the community. . . .
So, one can hold that abortion and the murder of an adult both intentionally kill an innocent human being without being forced to also hold that abortion and the murder of an adult should be punished in exactly the same way by law.
Read the whole thing!
There are not many books that meant more to me, when I was in college, than G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and The Dumb Ox. I must have read hundreds of his essays, poems, books, and novels over the years. What a great writer, and what (I think) a perceptive thinker. Entertaining, too! Anyway, I enjoyed this piece, "Rethinking Chesterton," in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Chesterton, we learn, was a "beery supporter of small-scale government." Right on! BSSSG's of the world unite!
Courtesy of Sandro Magister, here is a link to Pope Benedict's speech to the German Parliament. The speech focuses on the foundations of law. Benedict's emphasis is on reason (properly understood) and the necessity of striving for justice. Here is a key paragraph near the conclusion of the speech--
"The culture of Europe arose from the encounter bewteen Jerusalem, Athens and Rome--from the encounter between Israel's monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man's responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Richard M.
I suspect that some MOJ readers -- and perhaps also some MOJ bloggers? -- will be interested in this announcement, about a position that, in my view, is of great importance to the enterprise of legal education, and to the "Catholic university project", in the United States:
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
Invites nominations and applications for the position of
Dean, The Columbus School of Law
As the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the Holy See, The Catholic University of America is committed to being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, faithful to the teachings of the Church, and committed to academic excellence. Dedicated to advancing the dialogue between faith and reason, The Catholic University of America seeks to discover and impart the truth through excellence in teaching and research, all in service to the Church, the nation and the world.
The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law seeks a distinguished legal scholar or member of the legal profession to serve as its next dean. Established in 1897, the Law School is a national leader in preparing students for the practice of law. With 822 students and 57 full-time and 100 part-time faculty members, the Law School has nationally recognized clinics, and outstanding programs, institutes, externships, and study-abroad sessions. Located in the nation’s capital, the Law School is housed in a beautiful modern building specifically designed for contemporary legal education, with state-of-the-art technology throughout its classrooms and library.
The University seeks a candidate who will continue to advance the national standing of the Law School and provide strategic vision at an important time in its history. Candidates should have a demonstrated capacity for leadership, administration, and fundraising, and a long-term vision for the continued growth of the Law School. All candidates are expected to meet the qualifications for appointment at the rank of full professor with continuous tenure by virtue of their scholarly publications and/or distinguished contributions to the profession.
The University seeks candidates who, regardless of their religious affiliation, understand and will make a significant contribution to the university’s mission and goals. Applications from minorities and women are particularly welcome.
Confidential review of applications will begin immediately, and all applications received before November 15, 2011, will receive full consideration. Applications should include a curriculum vitae, a statement of application, and names and contact information of five references. Candidates will be notified before references are contacted. Materials should be submitted to:
Dean George Garvey
Dean Search Committee
Columbus School of Law
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C. 20064
Confidential inquiries may be directed electronically to Dr. Michael Mack, Chair of Dean Search Committee at [email protected].
The Catholic University of America is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer.
Following up on Rob's recent post about "lethal autonomy" for machines and drones: MOJ readers might want to check out this paper, "Seductive Drones: Learning from a Decade of Lethal Operations", by my colleague, Prof. Mary Ellen O'Connell. Here is the abstract:
The world’s fleets of unmanned combat vehicles (UCVs) are growing exponentially. This contribution aims to raise awareness that the very existence of UCV technology may well be lowering the inhibitions to kill. At least two sets of data indicate a problem: First, we have evidence from psychological studies that killing at a distance using unmanned launch vehicles may lower the inhibition to kill on the part of operators. Second, we have a decade of evidence of US presidents deploying military force where such force was unlikely to be used prior to the development of UCVs. This evidence indicates that the availability of UCVs lowers political and psychological barriers to killing. At the same time, an increasing number of international law specialists are arguing that it is lawful to kill terrorism suspects wherever they are found or to kill them if they are found in ‘weak states.’ These arguments seem intended to support policy decisions already taken, rather than providing rigorous analysis of the relevant international law.
International law establishes a high bar to lawful resort to lethal force. That high bar is derived from the Just War Doctrine and so reflects not just a legal norm, but a moral norm as well. Much policy on resort to lethal force, by contrast, appears to be related to Realist power politics ideology rather than international legal authority. Within Realism, resort to lethal force, killing, is acceptable to send a message of strength or to promote the perception of power in the form of military power. Even among policy makers not committed to Realist power projection there may be a belief in the utility of lethal military force to suppress terrorism that is not warranted by the record.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Professor Michael McConnell has a comprehensive and incisive review of the Supreme Court's 2010 decisions at First Things. He says that as a whole, last year was comparatively calm when one takes a peek at the cases on for 2011. I got pretty excited about some of the decisions that McConnell discusses (and I found it very interesting that he would have signed on to Justice Alito's concurrence in Brown v. EMA, the violent video games decision) but I certainly agree with him about this term. A must read!! [x-posted CLR Forum]
