“The Ultimate Cliffhanger”
Gov. Ryan’s
Action
Against Death Penalty Unfairness
Discovering thirteen innocent people on death row in Illinois this
January led then-Governor George Ryan to release them and commute the
sentences of 167 others to life in prison. Liz McMillen of The
Chronicle of Higher Education, a national newspaper for university
professors and administrators, asked Eliza Steelwater to analyze the
social and cultural meaning of Gov. Ryan’s action against death penalty
use. Steelwater’s comments appeared in The Chronicle on January 31,
2003.
“The way I look at culture -- that’s the story we tell ourselves about
how things get done. It’s how we relate events to ourselves. Here people
focused on the point of reprieve -- that’s the most dramatic part of this
story, the ultimate cliffhanger. Most stories don’t have room for
ambivalence -- they almost always try to come to closure -- or for
statistics. The part about how only 2 percent of victims actually reach
closure by watching an execution gets lost.
“What is going on with the death penalty is a fight for control of the
story. Those who oppose capital punishment are saying... Who gets to have
the most meaningful result or closure bestowed upon them? Opponents say
that justice is the most meaningful thing, and that justice can’t be
achieved by using the death penalty... But the loved ones are saying that
their loss is uniquely meaningful, and the only way that can be stated
that satisfies them is that their loss should be honored by the ultimate
act -- taking the murderer’s life in revenge.
“Ryan said something interesting in his speech, that we could use our
legal and social resources to really do something for the people whose
loved ones were murdered. Right now the only people who offer them
anything -- certainly dignity, redemption, closure -- are prosecutors. We
shouldn’t be too surprised if what they come up with is a death sentence
to ‘make people feel better’...“
Confirmation of Steelwater’s interpretation can be found in an article
by Alex Kotlowitz, “In the Face of Death,” New York Times Magazine 7/6/03. How did 12 pro-death-penalty jurors come to spare the defendant’s
life? Kotlowitz concluded that the defense attorney, by focusing on the
defendant’s horrendous history of abuse and neglect, told a more
compelling story than the prosecutor did, even though a videotape of the
murder was repeatedly shown to the jury. Because the jurors put themselves
in the defendant’s place, they were unable to sentence him to die.
In The Hangman’s Knot, Chapter 1, “The Right Type of Case,”
Steelwater talks more about the death penalty as story. Chapter 12, “Death
and Destruction to the System,” places Gov. Ryan’s action against death
penalty use in the context of other commutations in America’s history.
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