How Ethical Systems Change: Lynching and Capital Punishment by Sheldon Ekland-Olson Danielle Dirks

Author:Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Danielle Dirks [Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Danielle Dirks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136465239
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2012-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Efforts Intensify

It was a narrowly drawn decision, focused only on the manner in which jurors were selected. If juror selection procedures were adjusted, death sentences could be imposed and executions could continue. The lack of death sentencing guidelines and the structure of the trial, which precluded a full examination of the defendant’s character and background, remained. Still, William L. Maxwell would receive another trial as reformers moved ever so slightly toward their goal.

Six months later, on Tuesday, December 22, 1970, there was another positive development. Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, in many ways sympathetic with the abolitionist arguments, hosted a group of LDF lawyers, prison officials, and personal aides in Hot Springs to discuss the wisdom of commuting death sentences in Arkansas. Turning to Amsterdam, who had been speaking as the meeting drew to a close, the Rockefeller was admiring and appreciative, “Thank you very much,” he said, “I had made up my mind, but what you were saying was so interesting that I did not want to interrupt you … I have decided to commute them all” (Meltsner 1973: 235–36). A week later, on December 29, 1970, Governor Rockefeller, urging other governors to follow his lead, formally announced the commutation of fifteen Arkansas death sentences to life in prison. William L. Maxwell was among them.

For those seeking the abolition of capital punishment, it was a moment to celebrate. The moment was, however, only a moment. A little over four months later, another Supreme Court decision was released on May 3, 1971. It involved two cases, one from California and one from Ohio (McGautha v. California 1971; Crampton v. Ohio 1971). These cases raised once again the questions of whether guidelines were needed when juries sentenced a defendant to death and whether the capital punishment trial should be split into guilt-or-innocence and punishment phases—questions left unresolved in the Court’s Maxwell decision.

In a 6–3 opinion, the Court decided in the first instance that juries could operate without guidelines. While guidelines for removing the protective boundaries of life might be helpful, they were not mandatory. As the Court put it, “In light of history, experience, and the present limitations of human knowledge, we find it quite impossible to say that committing to the untrammeled discretion of the jury the power to pronounce life or death in capital cases is offensive to anything in the Constitution.” Constitutional standards likewise were not violated by trial procedures combining consideration of guilt and punishment, even if defendants were, as Amsterdam had put it, whipsawed between self-incrimination and the right to provide adequate information for an informed sentencing choice.

Following these latter two decisions, Jack Greenberg sensed, “The capital punishment effort looked hopeless” (Greenberg 2004: 483). The Court had specifically rejected the two remaining mainstays of the LDF’s strategy. While there were over 100 cases on death rows across the country that had been favorably impacted by the Court’s holding on the biased selection of jurors, this was an issue easily remedied. Once addressed, executions would continue.

Those seeking to abolish capital punishment were now down to a last-ditch effort.

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