By Tanya Connor

Catholic Free Press, March 26, 1999, Page 1

Worcester Mass.

BOSTON A Catholic whose son was murdered and a rabbi who has cried with death row inmates -- both from Worcester congregations -- were among those testifying at Monday’s hearing on death penalty bills at the Statehouse.

Cardinal Bernard F. Law, Archbishop of Boston, led an unprecedented large panel of religious leaders opposing the death penalty. Bishop Reilly joined the panel, but did not testify. Law spoke for the four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts.

The public hearing before the joint House–Senate Criminal Justice Committee nearly filled Gardner Auditorium when it began after 10:30 a.m., but by the time it ended more than nine hours later not even many committee members were left.

Although the hearing was officially about specific bills to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts, most people stated their position on the issue in general, about 15 for it, about 70 against it without referring to the bills, with the exception of the one filed by Gov. Paul Cellucci.

The committee voted against the death penalty bill 9–8, with Rep. Harold P. Naughton Jr., D–Clinton, thought to be a supporter, casting the deciding vote. The House is expected to debate the issue Monday and vote later in the week.

In his testimony, Cardinal Law drew laughter with a couple jokes and quoted statements opposing use of the death penalty from the definitive Latin language edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the pope.

He also included the line from the catechism which says: "the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

"The base line of our opposition is the inviolable dignity and right to life of every human person," he said. He said they oppose capital punishment because they recognize the evil of murder, that reinstating the death penalty will not help victims families and that society must not encourage or be motivated by vengeance.

"Our hope is for a civilization of love, a culture of life," he said.

Rabbi Seth Bernstein of Temple Sinai in Worcester, who said he has cried with people on death row in Ohio, noted that the Sanhedrin which imposed the death penalty was called bloody, and expressed hope that that term not be applied to the Massachusetts Legislature.

A representative of Islam said if God is mercy and compassion, people do not have the right to usurp his authority and take life. He said inmates sometimes have to defend their lives in prison and that people can use even DNA technology to frame those they want to kill.

Other panel testimony urged the restoring of community for young people and deplored women being imprisoned for crimes committed by men.

In later testimony Sister Margaret Comfrey, councilor for ministries for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston, spoke of the dignity of human life and the importance of conversion and reconciliation.

Sister Mary Anne Doyle, also a Sister of St. Joseph of Boston and chairwoman of the New England region of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said that just because they’re sisters, that does not mean they are out of touch with reality. Despite personal experiences of murder, sisters have signed the Declaration of Life, which says the signer does not want his or her murderer executed.

She said when Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon told her son she was playing Sister Helen Prejean, who ministered to those sentenced to die for killing others, the boy asked, "So mommy, who kills the state?"

Betty H. Zisk, speaking for a Quaker congregation, told of meeting people convicted of murder who now have psychological maturity and spiritual depth and who caution younger men not to give in to their rage.

Gov. Cellucci called for the death penalty to make the state safer, save lives of potential murder victims, do justice and show care for the victims and their families. On his panel were murder victims’ family members.

"I am here today for the death penalty...if it only saves one other police officer," said Anna Schiavina, whose police officer son was murdered. She said victims’ families no longer have a family that is together and there is "no more fun or laughter in the house."

Susan Gove said her daughter, who was beaten to death by two strangers, lived about a mile from her state representative, John Slattery, D–Peabody, whose vote against the death penalty last fall produced a tie that defeated the bill. She said the only way Peabody residents could speak was to give his opponent in the race 42 percent of the vote.

She said Cardinal Law has only one vote, just like she and the governor do, and, in reference to a statement he had made a few days earlier, added that she doesn’t "get it" about him saying those who don’t vote as he says to are sinners.

Sen. Brooks Douglas of Oklahoma told about two men laying his family down, hog tying and shooting them. His parents died in front of him and he and his sister escaped. The men were caught only after killing two other people in Texas. He said he met and forgave one of the men, but that forgiveness is a personal thing, not something he can ask other victims to do, and that he does not believe it means absolution.

He said he was not excited when he attended the execution of one of the men, and added, "Any time a person loses their life like that it’s sad."

The governor then had sometimes–heated exchanges with committee members. He said not having the death penalty risks far more lives – 6 million law–abiding citizens of Massachusetts -- and that adequate council will prevent the execution of the innocent.

Rep. Slattery said he did not know how the governor could look someone wrongly convicted in the eye and say it was O.K. for him to die.

In reference to such cases in Illinois, which Sen. Robert Antonioni said has a law similar to Gov. Cellucci’s bill, the governor said Illinois has prosecutorial misconduct, but he has not received any evidence that Massachusetts does.

Rep. Anne Paulsen, D–Belmont, asked the governor about resources needed and suggested they might disappear after awhile.

"We would appropriate the money that is necessary," replied the governor, and said he suspected that courts could order it spent. He said 38 states have the death penalty and have not gone bankrupt and that in a $20 billion state budget the cost would be small.

Sen. Brian Joyce, D–Milton, said a slight majority in Massachusetts oppose the death penalty when told the state requires life without parole for first degree murder, but that only 10 percent of the voters know that. The governor replied that whenever the death penalty is on the ballot it receives a yes vote and said he thinks voters know what they are voting on.

Rep. Paulsen expressed appreciation for victims’ families coming and hope that they would stay to listen to victims’ families who have taken a different view.

Sen. Robert Bernstein, D–Worcester, said that as far as they are concerned, the homicide rate is 100 percent.

"I’m from Worcester; I think it’s past Oklahoma because the governor didn’t find me," said Connie Reidy, of St. George’s Parish, who spoke on a panel of murder victims’ family members opposed to the death penalty.

She said it was all the citizens of Massachusetts that brought her here to relive her pain and that being at the death beds of her mother and police officer husband did not prepare her to see the bloody body of her murdered son Michael on the operating table.

Life is too valuable for anybody to take it and the state shows it knows that by outlawing murder, she said. She indicated that she would like the extra money that would be spent on the death penalty to be used for education and day care for the underserved population instead.

Dianne McLaughlin said her father killed someone when she was four, and she too was called a monster. She said if he was executed she would not have known part of who she was.

Rolando Cruz, on a panel of the wrongly convicted, cried as he told his story of spending years on death row and of planning to let himself be executed to take away his mother’s pain. He said he told a prosecutor, "You know I’m innocent, and the prosecutor replied, "You know it, I know it, but they don’t know it and that’s all that matters.

The panel raised concerns about never finding the real killer if the wrong person is executed, states offering a deal to one suspect to testify against another and hiding their mistakes, the wrongly–convicted missing out on important life experiences and a poor legacy being left to the next generation.

Atty. James M. Doyle, who said he has extensively practiced and written about criminal law, said a leading cause of wrongful conviction is the mistaken testimony of sincere, certain eyewitnesses and that Gov. Cellucci’s bill does not safeguard against that.

He said eyewitnesses are just as confident when they’re wrong, when they’re confident they’ll be believed and all are confident by the time of the trial. He said in most homicides there will not be DNA evidence.

Jane Perlov, secretary of public safety, said when she was a New York police chief she saw an attitude change away from smugness in criminals after the state enacted the death penalty.

Kelley Nee, of Students Against the Death Penalty at Boston University, said arsonists don’t have their homes burned, and rape and abuse are not punished in kind.

An attorney from England said she represented 20 people wrongly convicted of crimes that fall into the categories in Gov. Cellucci’s bill, who would have been given the death penalty if England had it, even though they had the same safeguards as in the governor’s bill.

Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International, said if it is wrong to give a prisoner shocks to torture him, it must be wrong to do so to kill him. He challenged people to name five democratic countries that have the death penalty.

Rev. Jonathan Tetherly, chaplain of Hampden County Correctional Center, said he thinks Massachusetts is being closely watched around the United States and a vote against the death penalty could turn the tide here and abroad.

John Howard, a Catholic from Quincy, said Cardinal Law said voting for the death penalty is a sin, but that when he was growing up they were taught that it was acceptable to take human life through war and the death penalty.

He said money has been used for social programs and they have failed, and that he has seen historically that the death penalty works as a deterrent when used surely.