Two speak against death penalty

It does not deter crime. It is immoral. It is expensive. It is applied unfairly. It should be abolished.

"It" is the death penalty, and these were the points made in a panel discussion last night in Kern Building.

The discussion, the first in a series of events planned for Death Penalty Action Week, featured two speakers with knowledge about the workings of the American judicial system.

George White, a member of the national board for Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, joined Larry Frankel, executive director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, to discuss their opposition to capital punishment.

White began by telling the audience of about 40 people a personal story.

In a 1985 armed robbery at his place of business in Alabama, both White and his wife were shot numerous times. White lost his wife and was eventually indicted, arrested and convicted for her murder. Innocent of the crime, he spent more than two years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 1989. It was not until 1992 that his record was expunged and he was completely exonerated. The killer has not been apprehended.

Threatened with capital punishment, White received a life sentence instead. The experience changed his life and views about capital punishment, he said.

Now, he is opposed in every instance, he said.

While White related his personal story, Frankel discussed how the death penalty is applied unfairly.

Frankel emphasized that a problem with death penalty cases is that the defendant lacks adequate representation, adding that several local and national bar associations have called for a moratorium on the death penalty until institutional inequities are corrected.

"They (bar associations) were looking around and seeing people tried in the most important of cases with lawyers without enough experience and without adequate funding," he said.

However, citing recent attempts in Pennsylvania to expedite the appeals process in capital cases, Frankel said he was not hopeful that the death penalty will be a relic anytime soon.

"I am not optimistic that we're going to have any change in the state soon," he said, adding that the ACLU advocates the complete abolishment of capital punishment.

Audience member and German native Stephan Schaefer (graduate-physics), said his country does not have capital punishment and suggested life in prison as a viable alternative, a point with which both speakers agreed.

The discussion was sponsored by the Penn State chapter of the ACLU, Penn State Amnesty International and Pax Christi at Penn State.