By Terrie Albano

People's Weekly World

www.pww.org

In the wake of the federal execution of Tim McVeigh, the right-wing Oklahoma City bomber who killed 168 people in one of the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, a renewed debate is taking place worldwide on the morality and role of the death penalty.

George W. Bush, on tour in Europe, was met with widespread protests and condemnation, especially on the issue of capital punishment.

While Governor of Texas, Bush executed more than 146 people. Texas has one of the most highly "efficient" and "developed" death rows, which many have called a "conveyor belt of death." Some fear McVeigh's execution is Bush's first step to a similar approach to federal executions. McVeigh's execution was the first use of the federal death penalty in 38 years.

In addition to the federal government, 38 states have legalized the death penalty and over 3,700 people languish on death row. Thirty-four people have been executed this year.

Half of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty. In Europe, the death penalty is widely regarded as barbaric. Along with the people, European publications and officials took Bush and the death penalty to task.

The German publication, Bild, said it had "no pity" for McVeigh, but argued strongly against the death penalty.

"Even justified killing makes us murderers," it said. "No one can be master over life and death ... we must say no to the avenging beast in us."

Bush's visit to Spain June 10 was peacefully protested by thousands of people carrying signs against the administration's stance on the death penalty, including McVeigh's execution and the continued incarceration of Pennsylvania death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The Spanish people recently won a struggle to free a former death row prisoner, Joaquin Martinez, a Spanish national acquitted at his retrial for a 1995 murder in Florida.

Thousands of Spaniards donated money to cover Martinez' legal fees. Florida has had more death row inmates exonerated and freed than any other state since the reinstatement of the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

While Bush tried to one-sidedly blame the American people by saying "the death penalty is the will of the people in the United States," numerous public opinion polls show a major shift away from support for the death penalty.

A nationwide poll released earlier this month by USA Today shows that general support for the death penalty has fallen to 59 percent, a 20-year low. When given the sentencing option of life without parole, support for the death penalty drops further to 46 percent.

The innocence of many on death row, racial disparities in prosecution and unequal representation afforded poor and minority defendants are all factors weighing heavily on the minds of people and account for the change in attitude.

According to the Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, since 1988 the federal government has authorized seeking the death penalty against 211 defendants; 75 percent of these prosecutions were against minority defendants.

Of these defendants, 105 have been African American, 39 Latino, 12 Asian/Native American Indian/Pacific Islander, two were Arab and 53 white.

Juan Raul Garza, a Mexican American from Texas, is the next federal inmate scheduled to die.

Garza, whose execution is set for June 19, was granted a six-month stay of execution by President Clinton after the Justice Department released a report showing racial and regional bias in the application of the federal death penalty.

Because of this report, organizations like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are recommending that Bush commute Garza's death sentence.

Even while the American people have "second thoughts" about the death penalty and its blatantly racist and unfair application, the Bush administration is busily working to cover up the facts.

In a report released by Attorney General John Ashcroft June 6, the Justice Department claimed there was no racial bias to the federal death penalty.

There has been widespread criticism of the Ashcroft report. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), one of the few Democrats who supported Ashcroft's nomination, issued a statement finding fault with the report.

"The supplemental report lacks credibility ... [Ashcroft] threw in some statements that there is no evidence of bias and then simply released it as a supplemental report," Feingold said. "This report does not dig behind the raw data in the way that an in-depth research and analysis could do."

Because of numerous reports that show capital punishment "collapses under the weight of its own mistakes," the movement for a moratorium has been growing.

The most dramatic boost came when the Republican governor of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a statewide moratorium on executions, Jan. 31, 2000, after Northwestern University law students discovered evidence proving that half of the inmates on death row were innocent.

"Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions is a growing coalition of individuals with differing views on the authority of government to impose the death penalty," a recent letter sent to Bush stated.

"However, all of us agree that current information about the administration of the federal death penalty calls for an immediate executive moratorium on federal executions."

The letter was signed by both conservatives - such as Emmett Tyrell Jr., editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, and John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute - and well-known death penalty opponents - such as Bud Welch, who lost his daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing; Dr. Mary Frances Berry, chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez.

Florida has recently passed a law prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded individuals. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case that would determine the constitutionality of executing those with mental retardation.

Nine veterans of the American Foreign Service filed a brief in favor of stopping such executions. All of these actions indicate, according to some, the possibility of winning limits, moratoria and even the abolition of capital punishment.

Religious and grass-roots organizations like Equal Justice USA, which started the Moratorium Now project almost two years ago, are optimistic in the wake of the McVeigh execution.

Ervin Murfree, Equal Justice spokesperson, told the World that the McVeigh execution led the country as a whole to question the death penalty. This year a record number of moratorium bills were introduced to 16 state legislatures.

"It's hard to take the high road," he said referring to his and other organizations' opposition to McVeigh's execution. "Violence leads to more violence. State-sanctioned or not, it is still violence."

Murfree described a different, more humane approach to crime and punishment.

"Restorative justice," he said, is better for all, including the victims of crime. The death penalty doesn't allow for the person to pay his or her debt to the victims or community.

Welch, who is also a board member of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, said reconciliation and not revenge will help him deal with his daughter's death.

The death penalty was reinstated in 1976 after the Supreme Court struck it down in 1972. McVeigh's attorney, Robert Nigh, in his statement after the June 11 execution quoted the famous concurring opinion written by Justice Thurgood Marshall in that landmark decision.

"In striking down capital punishment, this court does not malign our system of governnment; on the contrary, it pays homage to it.

"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. We achieve a major milestone in the long road from barbarism and join the approximately 70 other jurisdictions in the world, which celebrate their regard for civilization and humanity by shunning capital punishment."

Nigh ended by saying, "If there is anything good that can come from the execution of Tim McVeigh, it may be to help us realize sooner that we simply cannot do this anymore. I am firmly convinced that it is not a question of if we will stop, it is simply a question of when."