On November 8, Gallup released their annual death penalty poll followed by the release of a similar poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion the next day, both of which sparked headlines across the country about how much Americans seemingly support capital punishment: Gallup says 64 percent of Americans support the death penalty, while Angus Reid cranks that number all the way up to 83 percent.

But support for the death penalty drops when respondents are asked to consider alternatives – and it drops a lot depending on which one is presented. Gallup asks about the death penalty every year, but occasionally they also ask if people prefer the death penalty over “life imprisonment, with absolutely no possibility of parole.” This year, when given the alternative of life without parole, support for the death penalty falls from 64 percent to 49 percent – just 3 percent higher than those who prefer the alternative, within the margin of error. The last time Gallup asked about the alternative of life without parole was 2006, and at that time support for permanent imprisonment was actually higher than support for the death penalty, again within the margin of error.

In California, the alternative is life without parole accompanied by work, with one’s pay contributing to a Victims’ Compensation Fund. Of course, work and restitution have never been mentioned in the Gallup poll asking about alternatives.  Only one poll asking about restitution was conducted in 2001 by Peter Hart Associates, which found preference for the death penalty at 38 percent, well below support for the alternative. I don’t know of any polls that mention that this alternative is already state law in California.

In the Angus Reid poll, respondents were never presented with alternatives to the death penalty. A stunning 81 percent of respondents, however, believe that innocent people have been executed, and only 39 percent agreed that the death penalty deters murder.

The truth is that despite the “hang ‘em high” headlines, these polls reveal a deep ambivalence toward the death penalty. Though some people believe in execution, many also recognize that the system is broken, that innocents can be put to death, that death doesn’t deter crime, and that other forms of punishment restore the balance of justice much more effectively by providing victims with restitution instead of retribution.

And not once do these polls mention that the death penalty is vastly more expensive than alternatives that would allow for more resources to be spent on restitution, unsolved murder investigations and crime prevention.

Nonetheless, we can expect prosecutors who pursue the death penalty (most don’t, by the way) to continue to rely on misleading headlines and a light reading of polls to bolster their position. Shallow analysis conveniently helps to perpetuate the myth that Americans want the death penalty despite its cost, its risks and the available alternatives. Elected officials like America’s top advocate for death sentencing, District Attorney Steve Cooley from Los Angeles, for example, often claim that they have broad community support for their expensive and reckless pursuit of the death penalty. But the ultimate punishment always deserves careful consideration and polls that tackle this weighty topic call for a second look.

Take action now and tell Steve Cooley to stop death sentencing in LA County and curb this reckless trend in America’s capital punishment capital.

Photo Credit: kevinzhengli

Do Americans Really Support the Death Penalty?

When a 16-year-girl told an assistant principal on Tuesday that she had just been dragged into a school bathroom and raped, administrators had her sit in the principal’s office for over two hours and told to write down what had occurred. They didn’t bother calling the police or a victim’s advocate, to the dismay of the Indiana Coalition Against Sexual Assault (InCASA). When administrators did call the girl’s guardian, she was taken to the hospital and staff there finally called the police. It was then about four hours since the assault had been reported.

Superintendent Eric King defended the school’s irresponsible decision in a television interview by claiming that the girl’s story wasn’t completely consistent and school administrators doubted the allegation, that “the facts in the case were somewhat vague,” and they wanted to investigate themselves. Nothing like attacking rape victims for making up their story without any evidence except that they’re female and girls lie, right? The school officials didn’t even bother notifying any one of the four school police officers. Why bother having school police if you don’t tell them anything? It’s so much better to play make-believe detective and screw up the real investigation.

School administrators had no business deciding not to report a student’s rape charge because they were “vague” on the details. Rape is a serious crime and should be reported to police immediately: the student also should have been transported straight to the hospital, rather than made to wait in the principal’s office for hours. Delaware County deputy prosecutor Eric Hoffman commented that he was “uncomfortable” with school officials deciding to usurp the role of police, which is perhaps a massive understatement. And Detective George Hooper pointed out that there was a serious cost to the unwarranted delay: other students and probably a cleaning crew had been through the bathroom since the rape occurred, so any evidence that could have been available at the crime scene was lost to police.

No matter what the circumstances, the point is this: when a student reports being raped on school grounds, police get called immediately. School pencil-pushers don’t get to make the decision as to whether the rape allegation is true or not and deny the victim a chance at justice. Even if the story seems “vague” or inconsistent, especially since a teen who has just been raped might not have her thoughts at their most coherent or collected. (Police, by the way, say the girl’s story of what occurred has been consistent whenever they’ve spoken to her, once they got the chance.)

The school’s incompetence and lack of regard for the well-being of a student could have cost this girl a chance to have her rapist caught and committed. And the administrators who made that decision have no place running a high school. Central High School Principal Christopher Smith and the assistant principal involved in the failure to report the crime to police should be immediately removed from their positions for demonstrating such an utter lack of good decision-making ability. This isn’t a frivolous error: it seriously undermined a rape investigation.

Despite his defense of the officials decision not to bother notifying police, Superintendent King is considering policy changes in the wake of outrage over the school’s failure. King must apologize to the victim for the school’s action and his own defense of questioning her charge rather than reporting it, and issue a statement of policy that crimes occurring on school grounds, especially something as serious as rape, will promptly be reported to police.

Photo credit: Svadilfari

Police Criticize School’s Failure to Report Student Rape for Undermining Investigation

Local government, trying to mitigate a $175 million budget shortfall, has determined that about 10 percent of those who apply for shelter and other homeless services in the city are from elsewhere — and officials want them to go back to “elsewhere.”

People from neighboring Prince George’s County have been known to come to D.C. looking for shelter, in some cases claiming to have been sent by service providers in Silver Spring, Maryland. In response, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells introduced legislation that would require all people seeking homeless services in the District to produce city identification. He later withdrew it in an effort to avoid creating any unintended consequences.

Washington, D.C. gave the homeless a “right to overnight shelter” in 1984 and rescinded it in 1990, due to the financial burden that it put on the city. (This is reminiscent of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent claim that he was saving taxpayers money by sending New York’s homeless elsewhere.) Now homeless Washingtonians only have a right to shelter if the temperature is 32 and below or 95 and above.

However, D.C.’s “low-barrier” shelters have traditionally allowed people to enter without showing identification and even allowed them to give a false name. Those who are on the lam, undocumented or avoiding family need not worry about having the police called, so long as they don’t commit any new crimes while in the shelter. The same is true for those who enter the shelter drunk or high. The city has, in effect, removed all barriers to entry in an effort to encourage people who might otherwise stay outside and freeze to come in, thus saving their lives. Tell D.C. to provide winter shelter to people in need!

Furthermore, many homeless people lack identification. They’ve not needed it in the past in order to stay at most D.C. shelters. The legislation would’ve created long lines at the DMV, as scores of homeless people rushed to buy I.D. cards so that they wouldn’t be left out in the cold.

In its original form, the proposed legislation would’ve prevented even many long-time D.C. residents from acquiring emergency services, thus putting their lives in jeopardy. Furthermore, the city has an obligation to assist all people who are experiencing an emergency, regardless of where they are from. These and other considerations caused the Councilman to withdraw his proposed legislation so as to revise it. Additionally, since he is no longer introducing the bill on an emergency basis, there will be a public hearing during which the homeless and their advocates can voice their concerns.

This story encapsulates several concerns: the need for emergency shelter, the limited financial capability of municipal governments to provide essential social services and the tendency of local governments to push the homeless off on other jurisdictions. But it is this practice of making the homeless someone else’s problem which I find to be most problematic and indicative of the moral turpitude that plagues municipal governments in this nation and around the world. To his credit, Councilman Wells is not the culprit in this case, but is simply pushing back against other jurisdictions that sometimes send their homeless to D.C. or whose homeless come here after hearing about the better services.

With the harshness of last winter still fresh in people’s minds, I hope and trust that the final version of the Councilman’s legislation will be fair and equitable, affording emergency shelter to all who need it. The question at hand is: will people be identified as D.C. residents upon entering shelter or will their next of kin have to identify them at the morgue?

Photo credit: Rebecca C.

Getting a Positive I.D. at the Shelter … or the Morgue

The strange outcome of this extended ordeal has created a human rights and international law conundrum that is likely to lead to more confusion when it comes to bringing terrorists and militants to justice. Few single events bring together so many of our gravest concerns.

There is much to do, and your actions on this trial matter now because it is setting a precedent for the future.

Here are just four of the many troubling issues the trial has raised.

1. Child Soldier Absolution: Khadr was a 15 year old member of Al Qaeda when he committed the crimes he confessed to (details below). His father, who was killed in Pakistan after his son’s arrest and who effectively forced his membership upon him, was a close associate of Osama bin Laden.

It is extremely rare for forced child soldiers to be tried.

Take for example the case of a Sierra Leone rebel leader, tried by an American lawyer in a special US-UK tribunal in which no child soldiers were tried. The rebel leader was convicted of recruiting child soldiers, absolving the deeply misguided youth of their wartime participation. Why this is not the case with Khadr has not been made clear by either the prosecution or the court.

2. War Crimes Made Meaningless: The court in which Khadr’s trial is held is designated as a “war crimes” court. But there is a serious problem in determining whether what he has confessed to constitutes war crimes or not, a problem compounded by the fact that he was a child soldier in Afghanistan at the time.

Khadr pleaded guilty to the five counts with which he was charged. These included killing an American soldier (murder), spying, material support for terrorism, conspiracy and attempted murder. These are crimes, to be sure, but other than his age there is a considerable mitigating circumstance.

US soldiers have killed thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other countries in the name of terrorist-hunting, natural resource control or national security.  Doing so is called aggression, and is a war crime for which high officials, not low-rank soldiers like Khadr or his American counterparts, are prosecutable.

3. Torture at U.S. Military Prisons: There has been no shortage of exposure and commentary on the prisoner abuse at U.S. military bases worldwide, including at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr, who has been in the prison there for some ten years, has repeatedly claimed harsh treatment (read: torture) by his captors. After years of defiance, his sudden guilty plea is all the more difficult to understand outside of a plea bargain, the details of which have not been released.

The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994. In 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution applies to Guantanamo detainees, and its Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” President Obama reformed Guantanamo on these grounds, but has not been able to close the facility.

4. Jurisdictional Renunciation: As a Canadian citizen, Khadr could have been extradited to his homeland for detention and trial. But the reaction by Canadian officials is not only unconscionable but of questionable constitutionality.

“This matter is between Mr. Khadr and the US government,” said Catherine Loubier, a spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, in an e-mail. “We have no further comment.”

Unfortunately, Canada has had “no further comment” throughout Kahdr’s ten-year detainment. Despite this, Canada plans to accept Khadr back in one year.

If we don’t have strong “further comments” and concerted action about the process and outcome of Khadr’s trial, it may not be long before we won’t be able to make comments or take action at all.

Photo credit: takomabibelot (flickr)

The Real Issues Behind the Omar Khadr Confession

No thanks, buddy.

The upcoming election has brought us some seriously sexist shit, and it looks like the trend is continuing. GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck didn’t say those exact words, but he came close. Buck is in a bit of a pickle over his refusal as a Weld County District Attorney to prosecute an obvious rape case in 2006, along with offensive comments he made about the victim.

The victim had asked a former lover over to her apartment because she was intoxicated and scared. He arrived and raped her while she, slipping in and out of consciousness, said “no” and tried pushing him away. Despite the fact that both the victim and suspect agree upon what happened and police recommended prosecution, Buck publicly called the case facts “pitiful” and claimed that, due to their consensual sexual encounters over a year prior, reasonable juries would see this as a case of “buyer’s remorse.” In a private meeting with the victim, Buck lays blame squarely on her shoulders, telling her, “It would appear to me that you invited him over to have sex with him. Whether that you, at that time, were conscious enough to say yes or no … the appearance is of consent.”

Buck voices his suspicion that the woman had an ulterior motive fueled by a previous pregnancy with the suspect, which she either aborted (his story) or miscarried (her story). What’s interesting to me is that Buck believes it’s entirely possible the woman fabricated a rape because she had an abortion (which she denies), yet doesn’t consider the equally-if-not-more plausible possibility that the suspect raped the victim out of revenge and resentment.

The theory that once a woman has said yes to sex, she has relinquished her right to revoke consent, is one of the most insidious and common types of victim blaming. Another is the refusal to acknowledge that it’s still rape if a woman is drunk and/or knows her attacker. Worse yet is the belief that if you don’t specifically say “no” forcefully and repeatedly, you’ve effectively said “yes,” even if you’re unconscious. And then there’s my personal favorite, the revenge fantasy: the pervasive notion that hundreds of spiteful women, drunk with feminine power, run around filing false police reports and launching an all-out legal war on dudes they consensually but regretfully boned.

Ken Buck managed to combine all of these dehumanizing fallacies into one dazzling rape apologist shitshow, while simultaneously blaming his Neanderthalian attitude on unsympathetic juries. It’d almost be impressive if it weren’t so infuriating. It appears that, for Ken Buck, rape isn’t about the actual crime, it’s about the woman’s ability to be a true victim.

Even though this incident occurred five years ago and Buck apparently “learned” from it (soon after, he helped implement a sexual assault team to better handle future cases), it matters in this election because the comments speak to his overarching view of women and their right to bodily autonomy. He opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest. He initially supported Prop 62, a Personhood Amendment that would criminalize abortion and common forms of birth control. And now, it appears he believes it’s reasonable to treat “certain” survivors of sexual assault with distrust and skepticism. Can those of us who might not pass Buck’s rape victim litmus test count on him to fairly represent us in office, or will voters have a case of … buyer’s remorse?

Photo Credit: Adsworth

GOP Candidate Ken Buck’s Dismissal of Rape Victim Reveals Further Evidence of a Pattern of Misogyny

Governor Phil Bredesen
Governor's Office
Tennessee State Capitol
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Fax: 615.532.9711
Email: Phil.Bredesen@tn.gov

Help Save Stephen West

First, let’s look at the states that have approved marriage equality. Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment based on both sexual orientation and gender identity and/or expression. The same is true for California, and Vermont. You can chalk Washington, D.C. into the same category. Meanwhile, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

All those states and D.C. allow same-sex couples to get married (except for California, pending the appeal outcome for Judge Walker’s Prop 8 decision). Those states also have anti-bias laws in place to address violence against the LGBT community.

Meanwhile, here in Michigan, we still have a sodomy law as well as a gross indecency between two men law on the books. We do not have a bias crimes law which includes sexual orientation. We have banned marriage equality through our state Constitution, and unless you live in one of a handful of Michigan municipalities, discrimination against you on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is completely legal.

So, while I understand the emotions involved in marriage equality, I do wonder why we are spending so much in our resources on that one issue. What good is it for me to go and get a marriage license in California, or Connecticut or Iowa, when coming back to Michigan, that license is (a) not valid, and (b) likely to lead to my being fired and kicked out of a rental location?

To sum it up another way, what good is the marriage license if all I have is a cardboard box to hang it in because when my partner and I returned to Michigan after our nuptial ceremony, both of us lost our jobs, were evicted based on the moral aversion to homosexuality our landlord had, and my partner is in the hospital because he was brutally stabbed coming out of a gay bar where he met with friends in hopes of finding a gay friendly job and home?

Marriage equality is important, and I don’t want anyone to think I am saying anything different than that. But legal marriage is a pleasantry and a privilege for generally middle class people. Because the feds still do not recognize same-sex marriage, there is not really an economic reward for marriage. But keeping one’s job and home are essential to living one’s life.

So I say, keep at marriage equality, but remember, many of us can still face violence, eviction and joblessness for taking the plunge down the aisle with our love.

Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue

Marriage Equality: Is It Really the Most Pressing LGBT Issue in America?

But while Kashur is many things, he is not Jewish. He’s an Arab living in Jerusalem — a married man and father of two. He is a man who met a Jewish woman at the grocery store two years ago, spoke with her for 15 minutes, and engaged in what both parties agree was consensual sex in a nearby building. He’s since been convicted in an Israeli court — for, of all things, so-called “rape by deception.”

That’s because according to the complaint filed against Kashur and early reports on the case, Kashur lied about his ethnicity, indicating that he was Jewish. Later, it emerged that Kashur never stated his ethnicity, but only offered his nickname — DuDu, which is a common Jewish nickname in Israel, and one that Kashur has gone by his whole life. “My wife even calls me that,” Kashur explained.

Kashur’s adultery and alleged lying may be immoral, but they should not be punished as crimes.

Should the government punish people based simply on popular moral beliefs? This week’s victory in Perry v. Schwarzenegger — which declared Proposition 8’s ban on gay marriage in California unconstitutional — would suggest the answer is no. In that decision, a federal judge determined that even though the majority of a state’s voters have voiced their moral disapproval of gay marriage, there is no legitimate government purpose in banning such unions.

In that seminal ruling, Judge Vaughn Walker quoted the U.S. Supreme Court, writing, “‘[M]oral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest,’ has never been a rational basis for legislation.” Accordingly, Walker determined that the homophobic Proposition 8 failed to pass even the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny.

Kashur’s conviction for “rape by deception” presents a similar problem. Even assuming that he did deceive her about his race, consensual sex with a woman shouldn’t be considered rape.

While Kashur’s conviction awaits appeal, his prison sentence has been delayed and his house arrest finally lifted after two years. Israeli courts should go further, however, and reverse the conviction altogether.

I think Israeli commentator Gideon Levy puts it best when he asks: “What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman? Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

[The photo is of graffiti by Banksy on the Israeli West Bank Barrier outside of Bethlehem.]

In Israel, Rape Is When the Man Is Arab