A Disturbing Article In A Local Newspaper Sparks A Debate About The Death Penalty
This is one of those news stories that David Letterman should get a hold of. If I didn’t know the chain of events, I wouldn’t believe it. Here’s how it all happened:
The Wilmington Star featured an article entitled “Dead Men Eating” the same day as an AP article on the execution of William Powell. In order to understand the tackiness of this article, you have to see it. Here is the article below. Now, keep in mind, there was an ice cream cone photograph next to it:
I’m offering a happy topic: Pick your last supperI’m tired of being negative. In the past month, this column has focused on bad people on reality TV, bad actors on the tube and bad writing.
This week, we’ll completely change the tone of this column. We’re going to choose something we like. So let’s pretend we’re all about to be executed. See, this is fun already!
Make up your own reason for deserving such punishment – failing to use a turn signal, undertipping your waiter, leaving the dog food bowl empty when you left for work. Anyway, it’s going to happen, and just like in the movies, you get to choose your last meal.
You can choose from any restaurant within easy driving distance. In fact, you can choose from several restaurants. We’ll spare no expense for your fantasy meal. Heck, if you want, you can choose the atmosphere and service of your favorite restaurant, too.
Me, I’m going to make this easy. My choice would probably change tomorrow, but since I’m about to be executed for leaving my dirty clothes on the floor by my bed, I have no tomorrow. Today, I’m in a casual mood so I want some casual food.
So here’s my meal: I’ll have the Book ’Em Dano pizza from Incredible Pizza, served by the attentive staff from El Agave. I want to eat it at Rum Runners. A Diet Coke is fine with the meal, but I want raspberry wheat from the Front Street Brewery to finish it off. For dessert, I’ll choose some fried ice cream from just about any Mexican restaurant in town. Ask me tomorrow, and maybe I’ll want food from Salty’s, the Sugar Shack or Rim Wang served by the staff from Elizabeth Pizza. But for today, this is what I want.
It was one of the most insensitive, offensive things I’ve seen in a while. Robert West and Molly Ramey, our outreach partners, Working Films, called our attention to this news piece. When he saw it, Robert wrote a letter to the editor that really articulated the shock and dismay felt by many people about an article like this:
Not only is DEAD MEN EATING a colossal lack of journalistic taste and imagination, it is an offensive and nasty joke directed at a man whose life was ending that very morning in an execution that some were raising serious doubts about – and attempts to make your readers (and area restaurants) culpable by association.
To give you an even better frame of reference, below is the AP article about William Dillard Powell, the one published the same day of the "Dead Men Eating" article:
Powell executed after courts reject late appealsA man convicted of beating a convenience-store clerk to death with a tire iron was executed early Friday after the courts rejected arguments that his crime didn't meet the legal standard for the death penalty.
William Dillard Powell, 58, died by injection at 2:09 a.m., said corrections spokeswoman Pam Walker. He was convicted in 1993 of killing Mary Gladden, 54, after he tried to steal money to buy drugs. He was high on cocaine at the time of the robbery attempt.
Powell declined to make a final statement. He told his sister, Lavonda Camp, through the double-paned glass in the death chamber that he loved her minutes before his execution started at 2 a.m.
He turned quickly toward the back of the room and spoke with his executioners as they began to administer the lethal injection. He then began to count down from 99. His lips stopped moving about the time he reached 95.
Gladden's sons, Keith Carroll and Ricky Carroll, watched without any apparent emotion.
Camp sobbed as one of her brother's attorneys, Marilyn Ozer, hugged her around her shoulders. Ozer drew her closer as the prison warden pronounced Powell's death.
Ken Rose of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham had argued that Powell should not be executed because the killing was not premeditated and because the only aggravating factor was attempted robbery, the same charge used to bolster the murder count to felony murder and make Powell eligible for execution.
Forty other states would not allow an execution in such a case, Rose said.
The Supreme Court declined late Thursday to review Powell's case and Gov. Mike Easley denied his request for clemency later in the evening.
The state Supreme Court rejected a defense argument Wednesday that the courts had not adequately considered a recent claim of prosecutorial misconduct during Powell's trial.
Powell's lawyers said Cleveland County District Attorney Bill Young failed to reveal a deal with Powell's girlfriend, Lori Yelton Donohue, in exchange for her testimony against their client. Prosecutors are required to tell the defense about any promises made to witnesses.
Powell was moved Wednesday to the deathwatch area at Central Prison in Raleigh. He spent most of his last day with his lawyers, Ozer, James Glover and William Massengale. His sister visited him about 10 p.m. and spent about an hour with him, state Department of Correction spokeswoman Pam Walker said.
At 5:30 p.m., he had his last meal: A medium, thin-crust pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and Canadian bacon; a hamburger with mustard, chili and onions and a 20-ounce Pepsi.
Powell was the first person executed in North Carolina this year and the 35th since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. No other executions are currently scheduled.
Death row in North Carolina is home to 178 men and four women. That includes four defendants who committed their crimes as 17-year-olds whose death sentences were thrown out last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Working Films decided to reach out to one of our North Carolina partners, People of Faith Against The Death Penalty (PFADP) who sent a mass mailing out about this news piece with a call to action:
PFADP Encourages Response to Wilmington Star ColumnA Wilmington Star columnist, in a tasteless and unfortunate attempt at light humor, recently asked his readers to imagine their last meals if they were to be executed for such crimes as under tipping the waiter or not picking up dirty clothes.
Columnist Mike Voorheis then asked his readers to write their responses to mike.voorheis@starnewsonline.com. This is a "happy topic," reads the headline. (Article printed below.)
We encourage you to respond to his invitation and ask Mr. Voorheis to imagine instead finding himself on death row because he was poor and could afford only an inept lawyer, or because he lives in a rural region in the South, or because the prosecution did not share exculpatory information, or because he was mentally ill.
If you prefer, write a letter to the editor using this link: Letters to the Editor, Wilmington. Or write the Wilmington Star at PO Box 840, Wilmington, NC 28402; or call (910) 343-2000.
Thank you.
A big part of the outreach that we do, along with Working Films, is getting issues surrounding the criminal justice system into the public eye. Journalists play a large role in dictating the way that people talk about the capital punishment system, especially in a state like North Carolina where there is an execution almost every month. Activists have been working towards a moratorium in North Carolina for a while. It passed the Senate but not the House. Every execution, many individuals, spend the night at the prison protesting. They engage in massive letter writing campaigns. Whatever your stance on the death penalty, an execution, any aspect of it, is not something to be taken lightly.
Robert West, in his letter to the writer, put it best:
Right now, President Bush acknowledges first time doubts about the death penalty (and the LA Times writes an editorial about this, March 10, Death Penalty Doubts by Bush), the Supreme Court has just made an historic ruling stopping the execution of juveniles, and our own state is supporting a death penalty moratorium -- mobilizing across faith communities and for-profit businesses and county governments and political party.Like most, I read a paper over my first cups of morning coffee. I can’t imagine seeing the juxtaposition of these two headlines, much less the invite to “pretend you’re on death row” in any serious newspaper.
The end of this back and forth came in Si Cantwell's column in The Wilmington Star. The self-proclaimed "common sense guy" at The Wilmington Star, wrote a column entitled, “Moratorium on death penalty needed to save innocent lives”.
Though Cantwell is a bit dismissive, (mainly with the quote. “Personally, I think people are too sensitive sometimes), he discussed the state of the death penalty in North Carolina as well as drawing attention to Working Films and the work they've done around Deadline.
The debate in North Carolina is far from over but hopefully this kind of public debate will force people to think about the severity of these issues.
Posted by Angela at 05:22 PM
Comments
I like to think that we, as citizens of the world, do not take everything so seriously these days--we do need to be able to laugh at ourselves.
However, flight attendants are 'up in arms' about a movie that 'portrays' them as unhelpful...
Polititions sue for defamation and then the suits are thrown out of court...
I think the article/piece was an attempt at humor. Some saw it as a 'piece of work' that indicated he was drawing attention to the death penalty in North Carolina. Maybe you would have been more tactful. However, he did get people talking about the issue...
You surely don't have to like his article, and I know you did not enjoy the the writing.
However, I will stand up on my soapbox, scream at the top of my lungs for you to have your say, and 'support' you in your attempt to have your say even if I disagree with your position and would stand up on my soapbox and argue the facts to support my case.
The First Amendment is wonderful and dangerous. We like being able to have our say, but we sometimes don't like to be on the receiving end. My grandmother always used to say, "You should be able to support as much as you dish out."
Perhaps we should all:
be a little more understanding;
try to be less critical;
be a little less defensive; and
use only facts rather than 'attacks'
when we attempt to further our goals, opinions, stance, etc.
I hope you don't want to censor anyone or any business. I hope you don't think you are right and everyone who thinks differently is wrong. There is much grey in this world, and our definitions mean little to the 'natural' world.
I agree that we should define 'acceptable behavior.' Yet, I would think that most dictators and tyrants (say Hitler, etc.) likely thought they were right when they did terrible things.
While opposing the death penalty is not ANYWHERE near what any of the historic 'tyrants' have done ('fighting' the death penalty is a wonderful position), I don't think everyone who supports the death penalty is evil or wrong. I have not walked in their shoes and will not attempt to judge them or their positions. I will just tell you mine.
I have opinions, but I think everyone does. If everyone was like me, I would think the world might be a little less interesting (
An Anonymous Coward...
Posted by: Anonymous Coward at October 8, 2005 12:44 AM
hahahahaha 'dead men eating' was the funniest article ever! lighten up, people.
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Posted by: tester at October 17, 2006 03:50 AM
