Your Turn                                                                        

Capital punishment: It's time for a little humanity

By DAVID PROTESS

In March, Gov. Jim Edgar made doubly good on a political promise that was the hot-button issue in his reelection campaign: He refused clemency for two Death Row inmates, paving the way for the state's first double execution in 42 years. With 154 prisoners still on Death Row in Illinois, it is becoming increasingly appropriate to ask what considerations (if any) will move the Illinois Prisoner Review Board to recommend, and the governor to accept, a plea for mercy.

Take the case of Girvies Davis, a 37-year-old East St. Louis man who is the next inmate scheduled to die. His execution is scheduled for May 17. In some respects, Davis' case appears to make him an unlikely candidate for clemency. He was convicted of armed robberies in which four persons were murdered in 1978 and 1979. The one crime for which he is facing death involved the murder of an elderly man who was confined to a wheelchair.

But a closer look at the circumstances surrounding the convictions, and Davis' life since his incarceration, raises serious questions for even the staunchest supporters of capital punishment to consider.

In 1980, a St. Clair County jury found Davis guilty in the shooting death of 89-year-old Charles Biebel and concluded Davis was eligible for the death penalty. The evidence against Davis consisted of his apparent confessions to the crime, and testimony connecting him to goods stolen from the victim's trailer.

The "confessions" took the form of an unsigned handwritten note (written in flowing, cursive style) that Davis purportedly gave to police while in jail for another offense, and a statement that he later signed. Davis, however, was an elementary school drop-out who could not read or write, crucial facts that his court-appointed attorney failed to raise at the trial. Moreover, the confessions show Davis admitting responsibility for 11 crimes — an impossibility, since different perpetrators were found guilty of at least three of the offenses.

In a videotaped interrogation with the prosecutor, Davis vehemently professed his innocence in the Biebel murder — the crime for which he is to be executed. He explained possessing stolen goods by saying he was a "fence" who bought the items from others, a fact that has been corroborated by several witnesses (none of whom was called by the defense to testify).

Believing the authorities' version of the crime, the jury also voted for death without hearing any mitigating circumstances, including that Davis had an IQ of 76 and an organic brain disorder.

In these and other respects, Davis' case is entirely different from the recent double executions, where both men acknowledged guilt in the face of incontrovertible evidence and virtually no mitigating factors. Thus, one issue to be considered before May 17 is whether a man should be executed if a guilty verdict is based on evidence that proves to be shaky and incomplete. A related issue is whether a man should be executed if there is no evidence that he actually killed the victim.

Then there are the troubling racial issues raised by the case. Disparity in death penalty cases, long a national issue, is problematic in Illinois, where 63 percent of Death Row prisoners are black (compared to 40 percent nationally).

Davis, who is black, was tried by a white judge, a white prosecutor and an all-white jury (with peremptory challenges used to exclude blacks) for a crime committed against a white victim in a largely white community. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional death sentences that resulted from racial bias. Unfortunately for Davis, this decision was rendered after his case and was not applied retroactively.

Finally, although many believe that rehabilitation is not a realistic goal for America's prisoners, individual success stories abound. Davis is one. While on Death Row for 15 years, he taught himself how to read and write and went on to attain a high school equivalency diploma. He also has a ministry degree from an accredited Bible college.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board and the governor will decide Davis' fate. They justifiably will consider the fact that he is a convicted murderer, and that society believes, at least presently, that capital punishment is appropriate in such cases.

Yet one hopes that Girvies Davis is not lost in the seemingly steady march to execute Illinois' ever-expanding Death Row population. The difficult choice of the state in this case is not between freedom and confinement (Davis cannot be released), but between life and death.

Davis' death would serve no purpose other than short-term political gain. The governor has amply fulfilled his campaign promise. Now it's time for a little humanity. *

David Profess is a professor of journalism at Northwestern University who specializes in legal affairs issues. This article was prepared with the research assistance of Lara Flint, Deepti Hajela, Ryan Owens, Greg Shea, Crystal Yednak and Su Yim, students at NU.