Letters: Death penalty law

Letters: Death penalty law

Mello, Michael

A letter to the editor of The Washington Lawyer in response to an article titled "The Last Defense" by John Greenya which critiqued the stance of the article in relation to criminal justice, specifically referring death penalty cases.

Wallace, Scott M.

The Washington Lawyer

HIST 298, University of Mary Washington

January/February 1988

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1 JPG

English

1987-1988

Your article on attorneys representing death row inmates ("The Last Defense" by John Greenya in the November/December 1987 issue) is typical of the sentiment of our liberal legal establishment.

The nine-page article makes no mention of the agony endured by survivors of murdered family or friends, nor, in the specific cases cited, to the evidence that persuaded the jurors to convict. But why should trivial considerations like murder victims and prosecutorial evidence be dis-
cussed in an article seeking to convince its readers that the real victims are the con-demned murderers themselves.

Attorney Mello, in gleefully explaining how he saved one Steve Booker from the electric chair, neglected to share with the readers just why Mr. Booker is on death row. Presumably, he wasn't condemned for jaywalking. Although not familiar with the Booker case, I do know something about the murder committed by Mello's late client, Ronnie Straight. Consequently, I found Mello's talk of Straight's "altruism" to be rather puzzling. Straight was con-victed of the beating and stabbing death of a furniture store owner who had declined to hire him. Hardly the deed of an altruist. Mr. Mello proudly states that he was a pallbearer at Straight's funeral after Straight's execution. I would wager that in his zeal to save Straight, he forgot about a sympathy card for the store owner's family.

David Kendall's assertion that "the system is skewed against" death penalty lawyers is absurd. Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Booth v. Mary-land (No. 86-5020), that a man convicted of capital murder in the stabbing deaths of an elderly Baltimore couple could introduce any and all witnesses of his choice to testify on his behalf as to why he should not be sentenced to death. However, the victims' surviving family members could neither ut-ter nor write one word about how the murders affected them. I agree with Mr. Kendall—the system is skewed, but certain-ly not against condemned killers. John Booth's death sentence was overturned. The plethora of mitigating factors con-sidered at a capital sentencing, coupled with federal decisions like Booth v. Maryland, demonstrates that the system is skewed in favor of death row inmates.

Finally, two points concerning the author's research. He writes that the District of Columbia has the death penalty. This is absolutely false. Washington, D.C., does not have the death penalty and hasn't had it for a long time. The author also refers to the Washington Post as "generally pro-death." The Washington Post is on record, and has been for as long as I can remember, as being totally opposed to capital punishment in all cases.

Williams, Megan