TEXAS AND THE DEATH PENALTY
by Dr. Pierre Duterte of France
On May 19, 1998, the state of Texas made Robert Anthony Carter its second juvenile offender executed this year. Sad but true, Texas may become the world's leader in the execution of juvenile offenders for the 1990s.
Robert, 34 at the time of his death, had spent nearly half of his sad life on death row, awaiting the Huntsville gurney, but remained intellectually comparable to the 17-year-old held in isolation and without a lawyer during a police interrogation, the juvenile who confessed to shooting a Conoco cashier during a robbery.
A psychiatrist who examined Robert as part of a study of the medical histories of death row kids found him to be "childlike" in his thinking, with an I.Q. of 74. He was also extremely submissive to authority figures, raising unexamined questions of whether he knowingly waived his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning.
Robert's mental retardation is readily explainable in light of serious brain damage and a history of abuse and neglect appallingly common in death row inmates. Reared in a poor area of Houston, Robert and his five siblings were routinely beaten by their mother and stepfather with wooden switches, belts, and electric cords. Sometimes they were awakened in the middle of the night to receive thrashings for no reason.
Robert also sustained several serious head injuries that severely impaired his mental development. He was struck on the head with a brick at age five and later hit over the head with a baseball bat so hard that the bat broke. His mother once hurled a dinner plate that smashed into his head. None of these injuries were ever treated. Shortly before the murder, Robert's brother shot him in the head, and the bullet remained lodged near his temple. He suffered seizures and fainting spells afterward.
Nevertheless, the 10th-grade dropout worked hard to overcome his soul-crushing upbringing. A series of employers described him as obedient, hard-working and trustworthy, and he escorted an elderly woman home from the local cafe she owned with the day's revenue (usually $500 to $1,000) every night until his arrest.
Evidence of Robert's impaired mental facilities was never presented to the jury which, duly purged by the prosecutor of even the slightest reservation about capital punishment and cowed by suggestions that a life term would see him speedily paroled, took only 10 minutes to return a death sentence during the penalty phase, even though he had no prior criminal record. Isn't it sad and stupid!
I knew Robert quite well from writing to him since 1993. I met him 4 times for 4 hours in the visiting room in Ellis One, Huntsville, Texas--an infamous row of shame.
When I remember our first meeting, his smile always comes to my mind, the warm way he looked at me when he was talking, his questions about my daughters, about games, about sports (he was not lucky with me on that topic!), the so touching way he had of asking me if I would allow him to call me "Daddy Pierre." I will never forget the way he told me, "Today I am fine" because he was allowed to play basketball outside and to have a shower! He is a child, a nice cool child with a wonderful smile, a candid mind, asking about basketball, video games. I will never forget his satisfaction when I was late because of some administrative problems with prison security, so, he was able to watch a match on TV and to be with me on the other side of the bullet proof screen! No choice to make!
When the guard first brought him and he came to sit in front of me, I thought there was a mistake. I was expecting a kid, not this tall guy looking like a basketball player. I still see in my mind the kid that lived in this man's body. I can imagine how frightened he was about his execution date and the terror that was his when the "grey angel of death" (as Larry Anderson, executed April 24, 1994, called them) came for him.
I will never accept the death penalty. I will never understand that a man can be murdered this way by the hand of "society" in my name! When I think of Robert Anthony Carter's execution, I feel really sick! I think a country can be sick too when it thinks it is just a legal, normal, standard process to assassinate juveniles--kids like my friend Robert.
This is the question that came to my mind when I read that Texas Representative Jim Pitt proposed that Texas impose the death penalty on kids as young as 11 years old.
Is it not enough to be the first state to murder its own citizens, to be responsible for half of all the U.S. executions, to have the world record in killing juveniles--better than Iraq or Iran? What else? Is life really a race to enter the Guinness Book of Records? Is that the only real value left?
Fortunately Rep. Pitt's idea is probably not all that popular. That's why Gov. Bush quickly rejected it--not acceptable enough to be added to an election platform or a White House campaign. Can you imagine an elephant (the Republican Party) killing kids? The thought is grotesque.
A kid 11 or 12 years old is not old enough to drive or vote or even to watch most movies. Most kids that age haven't even finished their puberty. Yet Rep. Pitt thinks they are old enough to sit in an electric chair or be shackled on a gurney.
This idea is coming from a mad brain!
Two kids killed schoolmates in Arkansas. But instead of murdering the two kids, wouldn't it be instructive to discover how this can happen? Why are kids this age handling guns? What society can bring kids to such a state of mind? Why do these kids think that killing will solve their problem? Why is the rate of gun-related deaths 14.24 per 100,000 people in the USA but only 5.15 in France and only .05 in Japan? Isn't that a disturbing question? And wouldn't facing it be more useful that just blindfolding one's eyes and trying to forget it?
This sort of crime doesn't demand other crimes as horrible. It requires introspection, a national question: "Why have we reached such a level of crime? How can this happen?
P-r-e-v-e-n-t-i-o-n! Try to learn and pronounce this word, Mr.. Pitt. Just for a few minutes, forget the words crimes, revenge, murder, and try to imagine what Texas could be with a high rate of prevention of crime, maybe the leader in reducing the murder rate in the U.S. Unfortunately, the media have already spread your brilliant image of a child-killing society! Children don't deserve adult prisons. Children don't deserve adult sentences. Why? Just because they are children.
The best way to show youngsters that killing is wrong is by refusing to kill them instead of pushing them into a spinning wheel of violence! Just show them that life still has a value!
By the way, Mr. Bush, what about a psychiatric test for Mr. Pitt? Or can the state pay him to take a little rest in a suitable place? Not a bad idea, no?
Cloning human beings is strictly forbidden in Europe! It seems to be a matter of discussion in the USA. Frightening! As an MD, I consider this one of the most dangerous experiments human beings can try, but it is no surprise because the grooming code for prisoners in California is a way of cloning people living in this state's prisons.
There are not many places as dehumanizing as prisons, where people are losing everything that makes them different from their neighbors. The same cell, the same meals, the same shower, the same guards, the same place to relax or walk, the same noise. The only difference consists of your body and your spirit.
Prisoners don't have much opportunity to express their differences, but their appearance is one way to do that. When the State makes it mandatory for prisoners to wear uniforms and to have their hair and beard cut, to have the size of a mustache trimmed to the corner of the mouth--the State is making them lose another important part of themselves
Is this for security reasons? Obviously not! You are not more or less dangerous if the size of your mustache varies!
Since I know U.S. prisoners, I am following the progressive toughening of prison living conditions--the limitation of visiting hours, limitation in belongings they can keep in their cell, limitation in canteen. In some states death row prisoners won't even be able to make a final statement, and the text they write to be read after their execution will be filtered by the warden's censorship!
Prisons don't have to be holiday resorts, but there is no reason to transform them into living nightmares! The only result will be an increase in violence, an increase in prisoners' anger.
Prisons are supposed to be rehabilitation places, not human destruction factories.
Does having prisoners dress in more "conventional" uniforms mean that they will have to wear stripes? Will all U.S. prisoners look like Laurel and Hardy in one of their most famous films?After restoring the chain gang in some prisons, this will be another jump back to the past. Why not bring back the ball and chain too?
Discipline does not mean humiliation. It means mutual respect of humanly acceptable rules. Whatever a prisoner has done, whatever the length of the sentence, if he doesn't get a chance to live like a human being, what's left? Violence, riots, revolt--this is human!
Most prisoners can accept being punished for what they've done. They will never accept being considered animals. They will never accept losing their last property, their own image. It is unbearable to see oneself as a clone!
Dr. Pierre Duterte works in a French association taking care of refugees, victims of torture or repression in their homeland. He writes to death-row prisoners and prisoners in general population in a number of states in the U.S. He has been to the Texas death row twice.