Changing Minds in Japan and China

Board member Toshi Kazama, who coordinates MVFHR’s work in Asia, just returned from a trip to Japan and China. In Japan, he met with several colleagues as part of the planning process for MVFHR’s 2010 Speaking Tour, which will take place next June. While there, Toshi also addressed a group at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Here’s a photo showing the advertisement for his talk there:



After Toshi’s first visit to China, in 2007, he wrote, “I had no idea in advance what it would be like to offer my [photo] presentation to students in China, but when they started to cry I realized that even if people have only been exposed to one way of thinking up to now, there's a human response to these images that is the same no matter what the nation.”

On that early visit and the one that followed in the spring of 2008, Toshi addressed groups of students at Chinese universities. Now, on this recent visit, he was able to reach an even broader range of audiences.

Toshi’s first event in a public venue was at Xian Feng bookstore in Nanjing:




Another event was at a café in Zhengzou’s business disrict, where he met people who had been imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, an attorney who said he was rethinking his support for the death penalty after seeing Toshi’s presentation, and a family member of a police officer:



And then Toshi spoke again to student groups at Zhengzou University and at Wuhan University. Zhengzou is the largest university in China and the room was at standing-room-only capacity.



At Wuhan University, the students were interested and engaged, and during the Question-and-Answer period several said that they had changed their minds about the death penalty (no longer supporting it) as a result of the presentation.

Don't Execute War-Damaged Vets

This article by Karl Keys and MVFHR board member Bill Pelke was posted on AlterNet this past Friday; it mentions, among other stories, Manny Babbitt, the brother of another MVFHR board member, Bill Babbitt:

Mental exhaustion. Battle fatigue. PTSD. Whatever it's called, many of our soldiers who served in wars over the years came home with combat-related mental illness, traumatized by the carnage and destruction they saw and experienced.

Unfortunately, too many veterans' mental conditions have fueled criminal behavior resulting in their imprisonment. Dating back to the Civil War, veteran incarceration rates increased after each conflict.

This is not a small, marginal problem. Government statistics for the 1980s show that 21 percent of state prison inmates then were Vietnam veterans. The U.S. Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration estimate that two of every five of the 800,000 new Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans exhibit post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.

The stories of two such veterans illustrate this tragedy. This fall, Vietnam veteran James Floyd Davis was finally presented the awards due to him -- a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct medal -- in a small ceremony held in a hearing room in a North Carolina prison. Davis, now 62, was not permitted to keep his medals after the ceremony.

That's because Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for shooting and killing three people at an Asheville, North Carolina tool company from which he had been fired. At trial, evidence was introduced that he lived alone, talked to himself, instigated arguments with co-workers and shot imaginary groundhogs on his front lawn with his .44 magnum. Further testimony revealed that when he was a child, his alcoholic father threatened to cut Davis' and his siblings' throats while they slept and burn down the house. Davis' father beat him with a mop handle, and would lock the refrigerator and hide the key while Davis went hungry.

What wasn't introduced at trial was that Davis, who attained the rank of sergeant in Vietnam, fought on a Central Highlands firebase during the Tet Offensive, where he lost his hearing, was hit with shrapnel, some of which remains in his leg, and went home with depression, paranoid schizophrenia and PTSD. His marriage fell apart, and he attempted suicide. It isn't certain if Davis will be executed, but he has given up his legal appeals. North Carolina's Center for Death Penalty Appeals and one of its attorneys, Ken Rose, continues to advocate for him.

Manny Babbitt, another Vietnam War veteran and a Marine, earned his Purple Heart for courage under fire in the battle of Khe Sanh, where 737 Americans died and more than 2,500 soldiers were wounded. Hit by rocket shrapnel that opened his skull, Babbitt lost consciousness and was thought to be dead. He was loaded onto a pile of corpses by helicopter operators where he regained consciousness surrounded by severed limbs and bodies.

He returned from Vietnam suffering from PTSD, exhibiting bizarre and violent behavior. Eventually he broke into the home of Leah Shendel, an elderly woman, and beat her. She later died of a heart attack.

His brother, Bill Babbitt, turned him in to authorities believing that he owed it to the larger community, and expecting that his war hero brother would get the medical attention he needed and deserved. But not long after being awarded his Purple Heart, Manny Babbitt was executed one minute after midnight, May 4, 1999, in the state of California, on his 50th birthday.

As veterans ourselves, we believe that people who commit crimes as a result of severe mental impairments should not be executed. In 2006, the American Bar Association's House of Delegates adopted that recommendation, which was officially endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia exempts certain persons with impaired mental capacities from the death penalty. But not all states employ this exemption. Many of the same factors present in the cases of individuals without mental impairments who are executed are also present in the cases of those with them: Inability to afford effective legal counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, unfair and racially biased application of the punishment, and unreliable and false witness testimony at trial.

Capital punishment's costs to states drain our tax dollars away from smarter and more effective approaches to law enforcement and crime prevention and from additional quality, affordable mental health services. Abolishing capital punishment would be a major step forward in criminal justice and mental health reform. In November the nation observed Veterans Day and on December 7th it will observe Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, yet another occasion for honoring war veterans. As you do so, please take a moment to remember James Floyd Davis and Manny Babbitt -- and to work to ensure that no other mentally impaired veterans are treated as they were. We owe that much and more to our men and women in uniform.

News from All Over

We mentioned that MVFHR's Bud Welch was among those participating in Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty events at the end of last month. We caught up with Bud by telephone when he had a moment in the Antwerp, Belgium train station, and he said that his speaking event in Rome had been very well received, with a member of the audience especially interested to hear that there were other victims' family members who oppose the death penalty as Bud does. It's a valuable reminder of how helpful it is to put one's own story into the broader context of victim opposition to the death penalty around the world.

Before speaking in Italy, Bud joined Sister Helen Prejean at several speaking events in the United Kingdom, speaking to about 4,500 people in total. Here's an article about one of those events.

Meanwhile, fellow MVFHR board member Bill Pelke is addressing Cities for Life events in five Italian cities: Bari, Lecce, Corato, Naples, and Rome. The Journey of Hope's blog has a video has a news clip from the Corato event; here's the link for those who speak Italian (or just enjoy listening to it).

Finally, Toshi Kazama, who coordinates MVFHR's work in Asia, has returned from another effective trip to China and Japan; we'll have photos and more details soon.

Two Wrongs

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a nice review of Brian MacQuarrie's book The Ride, which tells the story of MVFHR member Bob Curley. A couple of excerpts:

I don't want to jinx this, but, having finished the most emotionally challenging true-crime account I have ever read, I want this book to win every nonfiction reporting award there is.

This book was difficult to read because, as a father, I cannot tolerate violence against children. I find it unsettling, repugnant, and infuriating.

This book is about a father's encounter with the worst thing that can happen to a child, an unthinkable horror, and how he comes to terms with it.

And:

MacQuarrie takes the story further, showing how Bob Curley became a willing, and convincing, spokesman for Massachusetts death-penalty advocates, who narrowly lost a legislative fight to restore capital punishment. He also chronicles how Curley began to drink heavily, unable to get past the guilt and horror of what happened to his youngest child.

When he was invited to speak at public forums on the death penalty, Bob Curley refused to share the same car with anti-capital punishment advocate Bud Welch, a gas-station owner who lost his daughter Julie when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal office building in Oklahoma City. The violent death of a child had caused Welch, like Curley, to lose himself in guilt, rage, and alcohol.

Welch eventually determined that executing Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols "wouldn't be part of my healing process. I wasn't going to gain anything from an act of hate and revenge. And hate and revenge, I realized, were the very reasons that Julie and 167 others were dead. I was finally able to see what the Oklahoma City bombing was all about. It was about retribution."

Bob Curley didn't see it that way, but he shared with Welch a resentment at being used by politicians and the news media. From that common thread, the two began to talk, and Bob Curley slowly understood that to get on with his life, he had to end the cycle of anger and guilt that was consuming him.

Curley began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. After many months of inner turmoil, he decided that watching his son's murderers die would not make it easier for him to deal with his grief. Now he believes that a society that kills convicted criminals is not as strong as one that refuses to do so.

MacQuarrie's book doesn't offer answers to the larger problems of crime and punishment, but Bob Curley's story is profoundly important as the debate over the death penalty continues.

Somebody has to make us think about whether two wrongs ever make a right.

Tragedies are compounded

We appreciate the post by blogger Grey Matters on Tucson CItizen.com a couple of days ago about mental illness and the death penalty:

Lately there have been stories in the news about people that were given the death penalty(capital punishment) and executed only to find out later through modern DNA testing that the wrong person was killed. That in and of itself is enough to give pause before taking some one’s life for a crime, but what about when the person is seriously mentally ill and symptomatic when a crime is committed?

Amnesty International believes that “The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life…It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. There can never be any justification for torture or for cruel treatment.”

At the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) annual convention in San Francisco last summer families of murder victims joined with families of persons with mental illness who have been executed to speak out against the death penalty.

Double Tragedies, a report released at the convention, calls the death penalty “inappropriate and unwarranted” for people with severe mental disorders and “a distraction from problems within the mental health system that contributed or even directly lead to tragic violence.”

The report calls for treatment and prevention, not execution. It is available online at www.nami.org/doubletragedies.

A joint project of NAMI and Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), the report is based on extensive interviews with 21 family members from 10 states, including Texas which has the highest rate of capital punishment in the United States.

Most people with mental illness are not violent, many preferring to isolate and have little social contact. When violent tragedies occur it’s usually because the person has fallen through the cracks of a broken mental health care system. Tragedies are compounded when all the families involved on all sides suffer. ...

Cities for Life

Yesterday was the day of Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty, an annual event organized by the Italian Community of Sant'Egidio. This international event commemorates the 1786 abolition of the death penalty by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first such abolition by a European state.

Several MVFHR members are participating in Cities for Life events and speaking publicly about victim opposition to the death penalty. Board members Bill Pelke and Bud Welch are speaking in Italy and Belgium, respectively, and member Art Laffin is speaking in Mozambique. We'll have more from them when they return; for now, here's some news from the Journey of Hope's blog.

Voices from Kentucky Victims

As a state Supreme Court ruling has halted executions in Kentucky (for a summary, see, for example, this New York Times article), it's a good moment to listen to some of the voices of Kentucky victims' family members explaining their opposition to the death penalty. The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has posted some powerful videos -- they don't take long to view -- from victims' family members.

Here's one from Ben Griffith, whose brother was murdered, one from Ruth Lowe, who also lost her brother to murder, and one from Eugene Thomas, whose father was murdered.

Survivors of Homicide Victims Awareness Month

We have posted in the past about the work of Tina Chery, who founded the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute after her 15-year-old son was killed in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Here's the post that we ran as part of a "Preventing Violence" series we did a couple of years ago, and here's an excerpt from an article that discusses Tina's opposition to the death penalty.

One of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute's initiatives has been to have November 20-December 20th declared Survivors of Homicide Victims Awareness Month in Massachusetts. Here's part of their announcement:

"The Governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart the period from November 20th to December 20th, inclusive, as a time for Survivors of Homicide Victims Awareness and recommending that the time period be observed in an appropriate manner by the people."

Why do we need it?
Nearly 35,000 people are killed every year in the U.S., leaving family members, friends and neighbors grieving. 1,156 people were murdered in Massachusetts between 1993 and 1998. For each of these victims, there are seven to ten close relatives – not counting significant others, friends, neighbors and co-workers. This means that while we have experienced a yearly decrease in the homicide rate in Massachusetts – from 248 in 1993 to 123 in 1998 – the number of survivors of victims of homicide continues to rise. In 2004 the City of Boston experienced 64 homicides leaving in its wake over 640 survivors, not including, friends, classmates, and neighbors.

When a man, woman, or child is murdered, all citizens are impacted by the devastating loss regardless or age, race, creed, education, religion, culture or ethnicity. Losing a loved one to homicide is among the most traumatic experiences that a person will ever have to endure. People who suffer a loss are confronted with tremendous upheaval and pain, which can lead to numerous emotional, physical challenges and difficulties and create a crisis response in day to day living.

The epidemic of youth violence in the United States takes a heavy toll on the nation’s health. It results in emotional and physical injuries, permanent disability and death; it consumes enormous health care resources; and it ultimately diminishes the quality of life of individuals, families and communities. These episodes of violence continue to destroy families, schools and communities.

We need this awareness month because our institutions and our society are uncomfortable dealing with the aftermath of murder. We don’t know what to say to survivors and often we don’t know what to do for them. This yearly observance provides a platform where, as a nation, we can learn how to better assist families who have been brutally impacted by violence and to support the efforts of survivors to inform our violence prevention, peacemaking, restorative and social justice movement.

MVFHR member honored by Peace Award

MVFHR member Marietta Jaeger Lane is being honored this evening as a recipient of the Institute for Peace Studies Jeannette Rankin Peace Award at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana. Marietta has testified against the death penalty in a wide array of venues in several countries. Testifying in favor of a death penalty abolition bill in 2007, Marietta told lawmakers:

While my family and I were camped at the Missouri River Headwaters Park here in Montana 34 years ago, my 7-year-old daughter, Susie, was kidnapped from our tent during the night. Fifteen months later, the FBI identified and arrested a local man responsible for my child’s disappearance and subsequent death.

Though the death penalty was applicable in this case, at my request the County Prosecutor offered the alternative sentence, in capital cases, of mandatory life imprisonment without parole. Only then did the young man admit to the rape, strangulation death, and dismemberment of my child as well as the deaths of a young woman and two young boys in the same area, but at different times. There was evidence that this man had caused more children’s deaths around the state, but the County Prosecutors in those instances were insisting on the death penalty. The young man would only confess to the deaths that occurred in Gallatin County, where he was being offered life imprisonment. Clearly, Montana’s death penalty had no deterrent value in all those deaths, except to deter confession of guilt.

… Concerning the claim of “justice for the victim’s family,” to claim that the execution of any offender will be “just retribution” is to insult the immeasurable and irreplaceable worth of the victim. For the state to kill in retaliation for my daughter’s death is to violate and profane the goodness, sweetness, and beauty of her life.

We congratulate Marietta on being the recipient of the Peace Award today.

A Broken System

Kohl Harrington has made a documentary film called A Broken System that features two MVFHR members, and three other obvious stakeholders in the death penalty debate, describing their experiences. Aba Gayle describes the emotions she went through after the murder of her daughter Catherine, the pressure that she felt, as a victim's family member, to support the death penalty, and her eventual decision to oppose the death sentence of her daughter's murderer. Bill Babbitt describes the experience of his brother's death sentence and execution. Juan Melendez describes the experience of being sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit. Ron McAndrew and Don Cabana tell about being prison wardens overseeing executions.

Each segment is about 10 minutes long. It's definitely worth a look, particularly if you have not yet had a chance to hear these people tell their stories.