[Nfbkabs] FW: Disability Rights and the Death Penalty

[Shannon Caldwell]

FYI 
For your thoughts What do you think? 
Shannon Caldwell 


-----Original Message-----
From: Paula Caldwell [mailto:prc at mis.net] 
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 8:10 PM
To: sjgc at mis.net
Subject: FW: Disability Rights and the Death Penalty

		

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-justice at jfanow.org [mailto:owner-justice at jfanow.org] On Behalf
Of Justice For All Moderator
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 5:11 PM
To: justice at jfanow.org
Subject: Disability Rights and the Death Penalty

Dear Readers, 

In February, AAPD joined the National Public Radio (NPR)'s new
online blog and discussion forum called Talking Justice and 
continues to contribute new content that is featured on the 13th
of every month. Last month's post, "Making the World Safe for 
Disability," covered several current events which stood as 
reminders of the need for a renewed commitment to the basic human
rights of people with disabilities. This month's post, featured 
today, is entitled "Disability and the Death Penalty" and speaks 
to the effect that Supreme Court death penalty decisions stand to
have on society's perceptions of people with disabilities. 

Both posts can be viewed (and your comments accepted) at: 
http://communities.justicetalking.org/blogs/day13/default.aspx.
The new post, "Disability and the Death Penalty," appears below.
________________________________________________________________

              Disability Rights and the Death Penalty
                      By Andrew J. Imparato

Last Friday, ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson covered 
the South Dakota murder trial of Daphne Wright, a deaf woman whose 
attorney is arguing that she should not be subject to the death 
penalty because of difficulties she will experience in 
understanding the trial and communicating with jurors in the 
sentencing phase. The Wright case raises the question, as the ABC 
website put it, "Should the Deaf get Death?" 

In the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court 
held that executing a person with an intellectual disability 
violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's 
prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment." In overturning a 
1989 ruling that had upheld the constitutionality of the death 
penalty for defendants with intellectual disabilities, the Court 
noted that evolving standards of decency had led them to question 
whether executing people with intellectual disabilities would 
serve the purposes of deterrence or retribution for criminal 
behavior. The Court also questioned the capacity of defendants 
with intellectual disabilities to get a fair trial or to provide 
adequate assistance to their counsel. 

This term, the Court is considering whether to extend the holding 
of Atkins and other cases to prohibit executions of some convicted 
criminals with psychiatric disabilities. In the case of Panetti v. 
Quarterman, the Supreme Court is considering the question: "Does 
the Eighth Amendment permit the execution of a death row inmate 
who has a factual awareness of the reason for his execution but 
who, because of a severe mental illness, has a delusional belief 
as to why the State is executing him, and thus does not appreciate 
that his execution is intended to seek retribution for his capital 
crime?"

Although there are many good reasons to take the position that the 
death penalty should be ruled unconstitutional across the board, 
the recent trend of identifying classes of disabled defendants for 
whom the practice should be considered unconstitutional is 
troubling. When we make arguments that people with mental or 
sensory disabilities should not be subjected to the death penalty 
because they cannot understand the consequences of their actions 
or they are inherently incapable of making an effective defense, 
we reinforce society's tendency to underestimate the capacity of 
people with disabilities to make choices for themselves and live 
with the consequences of those choices. 

Artificially low expectations can make it more difficult for 
disabled individuals to obtain employment, obtain custody of a 
child in the wake of a divorce, adopt a child, and lead a life 
characterized by self determination, equal opportunity, and some 
degree of freedom. Historically, governments have tried to limit 
the ability of people with a variety of disabilities to marry, 
have children, own property, vote, drive a car, and engage in 
other life activities that many people take for granted. Thanks to 
laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, these kinds of 
discriminatory legal prohibitions are less common. Nonetheless, 
unnecessarily negative and paternalistic attitudes about people 
with disabilities are still alive and well.

To be sure, there are serious problems with how our justice system 
fails to accommodate the needs of criminal defendants with 
disabilities. In the 2004 case of Tennessee v. Lane, a criminal 
defendant in a wheelchair had to fight all the way to the Supreme 
Court to force the State of Tennessee to acknowledge its 
obligation to hold its proceedings in an accessible courtroom. In 
the context of deaf and hard of hearing defendants, many 
jurisdictions fail to provide qualified sign language 
interpreters, real time captioning, and other accommodations that 
would ensure effective communication for the defendant at every 
stage in the criminal justice system. Moreover, these failures can 
and should be taken into account in determining whether the 
defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial has been 
violated. 

However, when defense lawyers argue that deaf people should be 
categorically exempted from the death penalty, I am concerned that 
they are exploiting unrealistically low expectations about deaf 
people, and their arguments can set back the cause of disability 
rights.
 
Source: Andrew J. Imparato, AAPD
________________________________________________________________

For more news issues, see:
http://www.aapd.com/docs/news.php

# # #

MODERATOR, Anne Sommers, JUSTICE FOR ALL -- A Service of the
American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). To
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