Editorials

Looking across the bay from Berkeley to the drama around District Attorney Kamala Harris’s decision not to seek the death penalty for the young tough accused of killing an undercover San Francisco police officer, I am struck by how much times have changed, and at the same time how much things remain the same. A central argument of the early suffragists was that when women had the vote and were elected to public office their decisions would be more humane and thoughtful. From my perspective, Kamala Harris seems to embody that image of the woman as leader: humane, because she recognizes that nothing would be gained by executing a young person who seems to have acted without premeditation, using a weapon he should never have been able to buy, against a challenger that he may not even have known was a police officer; thoughtful, because seeking the death penalty would be an expensive and pointless symbolic gesture, since San Francisco (as well as Alameda County) juries almost never vote for death sentences.  

But then I think about Diane Feinstein: always willing to rattle sabers, as bloodthirsty as any man when it comes to crime and punishment. And about the new San Francisco police chief, Heather Fong, just one of the boys in blue, calling for death to the cop killer. Also, I remember that Kamala Harris is able to take the humane perspective only because she’s standing on the shoulders of one of the Hallinans, a group of boys-will-be-boys so generally rowdy that I can never remember which one goes with which name, who made opposing the death penalty look macho enough that the lady-like Ms. Harris could get elected on an anti-death platform.  

So much for gender stereotypes. The case against the death penalty is better made not on humane grounds, or on the basis of short-term pragmatism, but statistically, looking at what it actually accomplishes, or doesn’t. All of the relevant data are long since in, and can be found on the deathpenalty.org web page. Here are just a few of the points made there: 

Execution doesn’t deter: “Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime. The respected Thorsten Sellin studies of the United States in 1962, 1967 and 1980 concluded that the death penalty was not a deterrent.” 

Innocent people have been executed: “Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 113 men and women have been released from Death Row....some only minutes away from execution.” 

The death penalty is more expensive: “A 1993 California study argues that each death penalty case costs at least $1.25 million more than a regular murder case and a sentence of life without possibility of parole.” 

Life without parole protects the public: “Only two people sentenced to life without parole have been released since the state of California provided for this option in 1977, and this occurred because they were able to prove their innocence.” 

All of this information should be used by Harris to bolster her resolve, just in case she’s tempted to cave in to the pressure she’s facing. Hanging tough has been more traditionally associated with conventional males, but in fact it’s a human virtue which has been demonstrated historically by both men and women.  

One thing we Berkeley people have got to love about San Francisco is that the political process there seems increasingly to produce two good opposing candidates for every office. Yes, most of our friends probably voted for Gonzalez, but even Newcomb has been doing pretty well so far. (Angela Alioto, bless her heart, seems to have figured this out when she endorsed him.) And certainly, Greater Berkeley admires the Hallinans (three of them are now living here) but Harris has turned out to be no slouch either. San Francisco should be proud of the whole bunch. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet.