Death meted out by the state is no accident. Nor is it quick.

More often than not it is filled with legal maneuvers and even mistakes. In the case of Albert Greenwood Brown Jr. - who was sentenced to death in 1982 - death has been 28 years in the making. In the years since his sentence was handed down, millions of dollars have been spent, millions more than if he had been sentenced to life without possibility of parole.
 
“Our sympathies go out to the family of Susan Jordan who was killed by Albert Brown nearly 30 years ago,” said Judy Kerr, the sister of a murder victim and outreach coordinator for California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “They have been on a cruel legal roller coaster for decades. We cannot imagine what the events of the last few weeks have been like for them.”

Advocates like Kerr lead the charge for justice and healing that can begin much sooner than the death penalty and its surrounding systems allow for.

Holding the needs of the victim’s family and justice as the highest priorities does not negate the call for human and civil rights for all - including the person convicted of the murder. California’s recent legal roller coaster ride further points out that the death penalty itself is in question.

According to a 2009 poll conducted by University of California, Santa Cruz, professor Craig Haney, two-thirds of Californians support replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. With the requirement that the inmate work to pay restitution to the victim’s family, this proposed solution could be an effective stride toward justice when considering perpetrators convicted of the most heinous crimes.

All of the legal and political activity is taking place within months of an election and election time seems to bring out both left and the right - leaning chants of “It is time to be tough on crime.” But what time of year does it need to be for voters to support people, politicians and otherwise, who are fearless in the face of injustice, rather than simply “tough on crime?” No one is asking for new or special rights on behalf of Brown Jr. or any other person convicted of a crime. His attorneys are, however, asking that his constitutional rights be protected, just like those of each and every one of us.

Timeline: In 1972, the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the state constitution. One hundred and seven inmates are taken off death row and re-sentenced. A similar decision is rendered in 1976, and 68 inmates are re-sentenced. In 1977, the Legislature re-enacts the death penalty. In 1978, voters approve a broader death penalty law that replaces the 1977 statute. In 1992, California actively resumed executions. (From Death Penalty Focus www.deathpenalty.org)

Fast forward to 2010. In the recent findings of Federal Judge Vaughn Walker in regard to legal rights and constitutionality around another voter-backed initiative, Proposition 8, we were told that fundamental rights depend on the outcome of no elections. (Prop. 8, the “Defense of Marriage Act,” was voted into place 2009 and overturned in 2010.)

With Judge Walker’s logic extrapolated to current death penalty scrimmages, coupled with my research on the death penalty I have found that:

• The death penalty is commonly discussed/debated as the outcome/consequence of an individual case. Justice, however, is a fundamental call to action for a community or society, not solely an individual.
• Proponents for the death penalty’s assertion that someone who commits murder should be sentenced to death is contrary to justice, logic, humanity, progress and possibly the constitution of both California and the U.S., depending on a number of issues contrary to the U.S. and California Constitutions.
• Those in favor of the death penalty and its subsequent institution, death row, are generally louder, more well resourced, better organized and more active in the political process than those opposed to it. This does not mean that pro-death forces are the majority or that the louder minority should make the rules for the rest of us.
• There are currently no therapeutic, systemic or preventative interventions specifically directed at lowering the murder rate in California. It has been identified, by both the anti- and pro-death penalty sides, that millions of dollars go into maintaining the death penalty in California.
• People who commit murder are identical to people against whom murder is committed, in the eyes of the law. Human and civil rights are not removed from either at any point, post humus nor post conviction.
• Giving back life is impossible. Taking back an erroneous execution is also impossible.
• Crime, particularly murder, by any person, regardless of race, class, national heritage or background, should have no different consequences nor should bear any more boisterous an outcry on behalf of the victim’s family, any one community or an overall sense of justice.
  
  There is no evidence that execution by the state has any positive effect on crime or justice. There is no evidence that execution by the state offers any increased safety.
• Executing the convicted does not affect murder rates, crime rates or the number of court cases in the future. Safety and justice are predicated on fairness; equality and justice for all, and nothing less than a commitment to those principles will ever affect the crime rates in this or any other state.

Trading one person’s life for a false sense of “safety” gets us nowhere. The conditions that created the circumstances still exist even after execution.

If at the time of his crimes you believed that Brown needed mental health interventions, there is still a need for such services. If you believed that Brown could have been benefited from education/development or support services, there is still a need for those outlets/institutions. If you believed that Brown is/was just plain evil (I refute this, but will include it for the sake of argument), then will not more randomly evil people show up somewhere and sometime - do we simply wait for them to do something we refuse to tolerate and then rush to punish again?

Specifically in his case, the possibility of a death sentence did not deter Brown from committing the crime for which he was sentenced to death 28 years ago.

There are now 707 other people awaiting their fate on California’s death row, the vast majority of whom where convicted after Brown. In light of the details, and for all of the aforementioned reasons, it would appear that it is time to review the “will of the people,” not only to check the pulse of a vibrant and vital citizenry, but also to check and balance the will of politicians.

Albert Greenwood Brown Jr. will not be executed before the end of this year. Court battles and drug expiration dates have amounted to a temporary stay of all executions in California until the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can acquire new supplies of sodium thiopental and the courts can review lethal injection procedures.

Until then we have time to make decisions and take actions toward the kind of world we truly believe and want to live in.