Judges and death penalty

January 2, 2007

Alabama

Judges and death penalty

Re "Sam Monk, nearing retirement, sees complexities of death penalty"
(Insight, Dec. 17):

I commend Circuit Judge Sam Monk's view on the death penalty that it "does
not fit my belief of Christian teachings," but I am left with grave
concerns.

As someone who was a child in Nazi Germany, lost relatives who were involved
in the plot against Hitler and remembers the Nuremberg trials - where the
excuse by those on trial for Nazi atrocities was that they were following
orders - I do not understand why judges, governors and wardens often wait
until retirement to speak out about the death penalty.

Had they spoken out while in office, they would not have risked theirs or
their familys' lives, as was true in Nazi Germany. At most, they would have
risked not being re-elected, so why do they wait? Monk stated, "I've never
walked out of a capital trial that I felt as human as I did when I walked
in," and "that the process probably dehumanizes everybody to some degree."
Yes, and that "everybody" means you and me, because there is no such thing
as an innocent bystander.

Nick Cenegy aptly remarked that to have to deny personal beliefs in order to
perform one's job "should be a cause for concern." But Monk was a judge in
Alabama, one of the few states with jury override so he did not have to do
that. He and other judges of like mind could hand down sentences of life
without the possibility of parole and remain true to their personal beliefs,
no matter what the jury recommended. Twenty percent on death row are there
because the recommendation by a jury for life was overridden by a judge. The
decision of life or death is made by a judge, not by the jury and not by the
legislators who have given the judge this power.

It is only fair to say that perhaps it is better to have a judge who does
understand the inhumanity of the death penalty than one who does not as
he/she is likely to hand out fewer death sentences. We wish Monk well in his
retirement and hope that he will join us in the fight for a moratorium on
executions in Alabama.

Esther Brown
Executive Director
Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty
Lanett