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A Bad Day for Scott Hain, And for the Rest Of Us

The State of Oklahoma executed Scott Hain earlier this evening.

Yesterday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (in Denver, Colorado) granted him a stay to pursue his appeal. The State of Oklahoma went to the Supreme Court of the United States to have the stay quashed. Today the Court voted 5-4 to lift the stay.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the victims of his crime -- they died a horrible death. And I feel a great deal of sympathy for their families and friends. I just hope that the last day of my life isn't spent waiting to see if an appeals court will grant me a stay of execution, and then waiting to see if the Supreme Court will lift that stay. I hope that the last day of your life isn't like that either.

I truly believe that Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Associate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy should be ashamed of themselves -- they are the five who voted that to lift the stay. They have guaranteed that our country will still be counted among such countries as Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria in this category of human rights violation. We are the only five countries in the world known to have executed juvenile offenders since 1990 that haven't abolished the practice. (Pakistan and Yemen have executed juvenile offenders since 1990, but have since abolished the practice.)

I am grateful to the other four Supreme Court Justices -- John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. According to the Associated Press, they were the dissenters. Justice Stevens wrote the dissenting opinion, which, AP says, included the line "The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent
with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society." In this Eusebio Zahir's opinion, that is a very eloquent line.

Unfortunately, in this area of law, the standards of decency are not likely to evolve very much for some time, and it will continue to be legal in the United States for a state to execute a person who committed his or her crime at the ages of 16 or 17.

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In the interest of accuracy: In yesterday's entry this Eusebio Zahir wrote that "there is no record of [Scott Hain] committing violent offenses until this time." To clarify: Until he escaped from juvenile detention in July 1987, there is no record of Scott Hain committing violent offenses.

He is alleged to have committed other violent offenses in that period after July 1987, when he met and began to commit crimes with Robert Lambert, later his accomplice in the murder of Michael William Houghton and Laura Lee Saunders.

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Can We Stop A Clear Violation of International Law?


Well, can we? I don't know.

The State of Oklahoma will execute 32-year old Scott Hain tomorrow. At least they plan to.

Scott Hain has been convicted of murdering two people in October 1987, Michael William Houghton, then 27, and Laura Lee Sanders, then 22. It was an extremely cruel murder. The man should be in prison, no doubt about that.

The problem is that he was 17 years old when he committed this crime, which makes him a juvenile offender. Executing juvenile offenders is prohibited by MUCHO international conventions, according to Amnesty International. They say:


"the imposition of the death penalty against people who were under 18 at the time of the crime is prohibited by international law, and has been roundly condemned by United Nations bodies and officials. The Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the American Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, all have provisions exempting this age group from execution. In October 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded: 'The acceptance of this norm crosses political and ideological boundaries and efforts to detract from this standard have been vigorously condemned by members of the international community . . . [T]his proscription binds the community of States, including the United States'." (click on the Amnesty International link above, and then on the "Learn More About This Issue" link on that page to find this quotation).

Executing juvenile offenders puts the USA and the State of Oklahoma in some lousy company. There have been 32 known executions of people who committed crimes at the age of 17 or less since 1990. Eighteen were in the USA, and the other fourteen took place in Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. By the way, Yemen and Pakistan have since passed laws prohibiting the execution of such offenders.

I know that this guy isn't 17 years old anymore. The point, though, is that he was when he committed the crime. He left school around the age of 13. He committed burglaries and thefts with his father, and was in and out of juvenile institutions. He escaped from "juvie" in July 1987, began to live on the streets and to use drugs and alcohol. He met his accomplice, Robert Lambert (who was 4 years older than him), and they committed crimes together to get money for drugs. And even though he was a very hard guy, there is no record of him committing violent offenses until this time.

In a 2002 report, Amnesty International noted that:


"young people are vulnerable to peer pressure and the domination of their elders, they are impulsive, immature, have poor judgment, and tend not to see the long-term consequences of their actions. In addition, the profile of the typical condemned teenager is not of a youngster from a stable, supportive background, but rather of a mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed adolescent emerging from a childhood of abuse, deprivation and poverty. For further information see USA: Indecent and internationally illegal: The death penalty against child offenders (AMR 51/143/2002, September 2002)."


That is true in general, and it is certainly true in the case of Scott Hain.

Robert Lambert, Scott Hain's accomplice in the murders, may be able to appeal his death sentence on the basis of his alleged mental retardation.

Do something for the USA, for Oklahoma, for Scott Hain, and for yourself. Click on that Amnesty International link above, and get instructions and a sample letter to send to the Governor of Oklahoma as a last minute appeal to have Scott Hain's sentence commuted.

You'll be glad you did. Just be sure to do it right now.

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Just a Brief Observation Related to the War

There's a magazine/newspaper called In These Times. It's published every two weeks, and it's really very good. They describe themselves as a publication offering "news, analysis and features from the progressive left." One cool thing about the publication is that have a section called The Appall-O-Meter. They run a brief description of some event going on in the world, and rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 on how appalling they find it to be.

No, it is not very scientific, and yes, it is entirely subjective. What I find most interesting, though, is just how careful they are -- they are very stingy with their ratings. Something I might rate as a 9 might only get a 2 or 3 from them. It's got to be mighty appalling to get an 8!

Check out In These Times. If you asked this Eusebio Zahir, he'd say it's worth your time.

I'm not going to steal their idea. I did, however, notice a couple of things in the last few days that make me wonder, "What sort of rating might these examples get?" Well, this Eusebio Zahir only has time to post one now, but he promises to post a couple more in the next couple of days. Here's one for today:


Oliver North is reporting for Fox News from Iraq. He's there on the ground with a detachment of Marines. Now, he does have a program on the channel, so I guess it makes sense that they would send him over there, but it still makes my blood boil to see this criminal on the screen, talking like a tough guy. And it makes my blood boil to know that Fox News hired the guy and sent him to Iraq purely for his show biz appeal. Here's an idea: the next time you hear someone complaining about a criminal being released "on a technicality" or complaining that the accused have too many rights in our country, be sure to interject, "They sure do! Just look at that Oliver North!"


(Oh yes. I looked in the online version of In These Times for the Appall-O-Meter and couldn't find it. But that doesn't mean it isn't there!)


Thanks for reading! Y'all come back now, y'hear?

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A Lousy Week, By Any Measure


Well, folks, it sure has been a lousy week, at least as far as this Eusebio Zahir is concerned. Three events on two fronts were extraordinarily disheartening.


First, on the death penalty front. On Monday, March 17, the federal government of the USA executed Louis Jones, the third person to die under federal jurisdiction since the country revived capital punishment in federal cases. Mr. Jones served for many years in the US military and was a veteran of the Persian Gulf was of 1990-1991. Service in that war may have had an expecially harsh effect on him; Amnesty International's press release of March 18 stated that his appeal to President Bush to have his sentence commuted to life without parole "included evidence that this decorated soldier suffered from personality-altering brain damage related to 'Gulf War Syndrome' as a result of his exposure to toxins during that conflict." (I have read elsewhere that he was actually informed by the Department of Defense that he may have suffered brain damage while he was in prison.)



By the way, four US Supreme Court Justices believe that the judge's instructions to the jury in his original trial were flawed because they implied that, if the jury did not have a unanimous vote for either death or life without parole, Mr. Jones would be sentenced to life without parole. This was not true. The jury's confusion on this matter allegedly caused jurors who were not sure that he should be executed to vote for execution.



I will not explore the possibilities for cheap irony that this case presents: a veteran of the First Gulf War, whose personality may have been distorted because of organic damage suffered during that war, was executed while the nation was preparing for the imminent Second Gulf War.



Instead, I'll just comment that all three people executed under federal statutes since the federal death penalty was revived in 1994 were executed during the presidency of George W. Bush, who was governor of Texas while that state executed 152 people.



Also on the death penalty front, on Thursday, March 20, the State of Texas executed Keith Clay. He is the 300th person to have been killed by the State of Texas since the death penalty became constitutional again in the United States in the mid-1970s (Texas executed its first prisoner in this "modern" period of capital punishment in 1982.) At present they have eight people scheduled for execution between now and July 9. (See the schedule here.)



Meanwhile, the police in Houston have some work to do. An ouside audit found that their DNA lab was ridiculously understaffed and that some of its staff was not trained well enough in statistics to interpret the results of their investigations. Still, they interpreted those results in court anyways. There are now 525 cases under review, and one person, Josiah Sutton, who's been in prison since 1998, has been released because of incorrect DNA analysis. (NOTE: He was not let out on a technicality. He was shown to be innocent.) And there are 17 people on death row in Texas whose trials included DNA evidence from this lab.



Reportedly, there is no doubt that any of the 68 people already executed whose DNA was examined in this lab were convicted on bad DNA evidence. I'd like a little more explanation, I think, before I buy that.



Hey, I have nothing personal against Texas. I oppose the death penalty. Texas leads the nation in executions. Around the country there have already been more than 100 people released from death row as innocent since 1973s. I think that figure raises some questions about how wise it is to have a death penalty.



So, enough gloomy death penalty talk . . .



I'll turn to what else in the news has left me disheartened this week: the war.



All I can hope is that it is over as soon as possible with the fewest deaths and injuries possible. I am afraid it is a little late to argue why the US should not go to war.



Here's something to think about: What the heck happens when the fighting is over?



[Visit this website to get links to blogs written by people who have been discussing the war from an anti-war perspective: www.peaceblogs.org. ]

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Something I Read Today

I was reading a review by Thomas Powers of several books about the military in the current issue of the New York Review of Books today (vol. 50, no. 5; March 27, 2003). The quotation that follows is from that article. Here he is discussing Dana Priest's The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military, recently published by Norton. "Zinni" is General Anthony Zinni, who from 1998 to 2001 was the Commander in Chief of the Central Command (the Central Command is responsible for US military activity in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and South and Central Asia -- that includes Iraq). General Zinni is now the US envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Ms. Priest spent a good deal of time with him when he was, as Mr. Powers writes, among the most powerful people in this region of the world.

This passage has been on my mind since I read it:

"One impression emerges clearly from Priest's account of the instrument under Zinni's control: the military is the only generously funded institution in American public life. Over recent decades just about every other form of discretionary public spending has been allowed to lag -- for education and health care, for environmental and social programs, for parks, schools, libraries, museums, and symphony halls. Only the military seems able to squeeze from Congress funds for the newest, the most sophisticated, the most expensive, and the best of everything, in generous quantity and pretty much on demand." (p. 20)

Remember: here in the USA the poor are allowed only five years of public assistance -- our government and people prefer to believe that the people with the fewest advantages and the most disadvantages (geographic, educational, medical and so on) don't deserve assistance: instead, they should stop being lazy and work for a living, in jobs that are, for the most part, non-existent.

And don't forget this either: there are entire cities full of children in this country who go to schools that are over-crowded, under-staffed, and under-supplied; most of those children end up under-educated or uneducated. If you don't believe me, why not go spend a few days in an elementary school in the South Bronx, and observe carefully?

After thinking about these two points, read that quotation again.

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Texas Executes One, but the US Supreme Court Grants a Stay to the Next Prisoner in Line



News is mixed from Texas. The State of Texas executed Bobby Cook on Tuesday, March 11, but was stopped by the US Supreme Court from executing Delma Banks on Wednesday.



Mr. Banks' lawyers argued that he had received an inadequate defense when on trial, that the prosecutors unfairly kept blacks off the jury, and that two prosecution witnesses had given dubious testimony. He has been granted a stay of execution until the Supreme Court has a chance to review the appeal.



Let's hope that they don't send him back to death row. The news reports are that he was about ten minutes away from being killed when word came down to stop the execution. Nobody should have to go through that experience of counting down one's life to minutes twice.



Keith Clay, who is scheduled to be executed on March 20, will have the dubious honor of being the 300th person executed in Texas since it resumed executing people again in 1982.



You can contact Amnesty International USA for more information about the death penalty in the USA and to get information on how to participate in a letter writing campaign to stop the next five executions scheduled in Texas, which are scheduled between March 20 and April 23.

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In Texas They're Emptying Out Death Row

There are seven executions scheduled in the State of Texas between Wednesday, March 11, and the end of April. If the individual scheduled to be killed on Wednesday does in fact die, he will be the 300th person executed in Texas since 1982.

I think everyone knows that Texas leads the nation in executions.

This Eusebio Zahir is opposed to the death penalty in all cases. There are very complex arguments for and against the death penalty, and this Eusebio Zahir knows them all. He wants to state the simplest reason to be opposed to the death penalty now: Civilized nations do not execute people. It is always wrong for the state to execute someone.

This Eusebio Zahir does not like crime or murder. This Eusebio Zahir feels that criminals should be punished. But this Eusebio Zahir does not believe that the state should punish criminals by killing them. The United States is better than that.

So be patriotic, and do something to oppose state killings today!

Here's something you can do: go to the Amnesty International USA website. Look for the information about the death penalty. If you go there now, you can find a letter to mail or fax to the governor of Texas and to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, protesting the imminent execution of Bobby Cook on March 11 and of the six others through the end of April. Send a letter. It's easy.

Not that they aren't used to getting letters such as these . . . But this Eusebio Zahir believes that maybe, just maybe, over time, we can wear them down.