A Dubious Distinction
NC set to execute 1,000th person

It is with great sadness that I comptemplate what will most likely take place in my city tomorrow night at 2:00 AM. Barring unlikely events, Kenneth Lee Boyd will become the 1000th person executed since the death penalty was restored in 1977. See Execution foes flock to Raleigh :

Death penalty protesters will be riding buses, driving and flying to Raleigh as the state prepares to execute the 1,000th person since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1977.

A 55-passenger bus is coming from Washington, picking up people at Fredericksburg and Richmond along the way. Leaders of Amnesty International and other national groups that oppose the death penalty plan to attend tonight's vigil outside Raleigh's Central Prison. Other protesters are traveling from across the country. And Friday morning's execution of Kenneth Lee Boyd, who killed his estranged wife and father-in-law in 1988, is expected to attract national and international media attention.

With the exception of increased crowds and national speakers, local death penalty foes will one again go through a ritual that has occurred far to often in my hometown:

In Raleigh, protesters will gather at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church and walk to the prison in a candlelight procession. At 9:30 p.m., Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn,director of Amnesty USA's death penalty abolition program, and Rick Halperin,head of Amnesty USA's board, will speak, among others. Starting at 11 p.m.,protesters will read the names of all the people executed since Gary Gilmore died by firing squad in 1977.

There is one piece of good news on the subject in the same paper: N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers releases death penalty poll results :

Two-thirds of North Carolina voters polled favor suspending the death penalty while its fairness and accuracy are studied, the state's Academy of Trial Lawyers says.

The organization, which opposes the death penalty, announced the figure today when it released results of a two-month-old public opinion poll.

It was not all good news, because a majority do favor a "fair" death penalty. However, fairness is an impossibility. Given our system, one's sentence is dependent on too many factors that have little to do with fairness. High on the list is the quality of representation. My step-daughter is probably the county's top prosecuting attorney. I'm prejudiced, of course, but many more unbiased observers will tell you that very few public defenders can overcome her skill. She says the only part of her job she doesn't like is when opposing counsel doesn't do its job. The system requires competence on both sides to work as it should.

Project Innocence has displayed how often that system breaks down by proving that 163 death row inmates were innocent. A 16% failure rate on the outcomes since 1977 is totally unacceptable.

Although my objections to the death penalty are more basic and strongly correlated with my faith, perhaps those of us who wish to end it, can best do so by proclaiming in any available forum the unfairness of the system. My greatest argument in this state concerns a couple who were randomly killed because of their skin color by white supremacists some years back. More than any other recent case in this state, their murderers deserved to die.

They got life instead.