Wednesday, April 15, 1998

Bill Clinton's 'execution presidency'

By Richard Horn

Bill Clinton may be the most maligned president ever, but for all the wrong reasons.

Here are a few of the right reasons.

Surely only one or two of our worst presidents have pounded more damaging dents in the U.S. Constitution than Bill Clinton. It is just that he is now pursued by a wild-eyed prosecutor.

Begin with this administration's most egregious constitutional offense:

Habeas corpus is the oldest right in the English-speaking world. It means, or meant, that an imprisoned person can at any time, even years after the fact, petition a federal court to review the fairness of a trial or a sentence in state court.

Since the Supreme Court again allowed executions in 1973, more than 60 men on death row have been found not guilty and freed through habeas corpus, sometimes 10 years after their convictions. It has, without question, prevented the executions of innocent Americans.

Thanks to Clinton, the right has now been truncated, limited to one year. We will now, without question, execute innocent men and women. The president, who could have safely vetoed this historic outrage, has seen to it.

In Texas there are multiple examples of criminals who receive inadequate legal counsel, both during trial and on appeal, because they can't afford to pay lawyers. The Texas Legislature, like lawmakers in most states, has already severely limited the availability of appeals of these errors.

Federal courts are supposed to provide a safety net. It has now been shredded.

I empathize with families of victims who want to see vile killers executed as swiftly as possible. But the families I've talked to also understand that the system, for all its inefficiencies and tedious technicalities, exists for the one innocent person who is wrongly accused.

Since 1993 alone, 17 Americans who were condemned to die for murder have had their convictions thrown out on appeal or been re-tried and acquitted, according to the Death Penalty Information Project. That's a rate of about one overturned conviction for every 15 executions.

Yes, that means the system works. But that was before the system felt the effects of Clinton, a deeply obsessed poll-watcher, and the Republican Congress.

"All those people who were found innocent seven, 10 years after their convictions -- the Randall Dale Adamses, the Clarence Brandleys of the nation -- would be dead under this plan," said David Kestler, an attorney with the Death Penalty Resource Foundation. "That could be this administration's most lasting legacy."

That Clinton, the worst kind of grinning political calculator, would use the death penalty as a political football is no surprise.

During the 1992 campaign he hurriedly traveled from New Hampshire home to Arkansas to focus media attention on his execution of a man who killed a policeman and had in the process been shot in the head.

The man's mind was gone. He should not have been put to death. But Clinton got his headlines. In the view of Clinton's consultants, it was an opportunity to show doubting rednecks that their man is tough enough to kill a half-wit.

His White House has done further damage:

n Despite the obvious open door to censorship, it argued for the Communications Decency Act, which would have huge ramifications on cyberspace. Even the Rehnquist Court recognized it as laughable and rejected it 9-0.

n It has advocated warrantless police searches of public housing projects.

n It has pushed to allow extended wiretaps, so that a warrant for a tap on a person's phone could be applied to any other phone the targeted person might use, including, presumably, yours.

n And in a related area, the administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military has forced discharges of homosexuals to increase almost 70 percent since 1994 without stemming "witch hunts."

Clinton earlier this year denounced employment discrimination against gays, but, as was pointed out in the New York Times last week, the commander-in-chief has fired more homosexuals than any other employer in America.

Here's a sign of our mixed-up politics: Many liberals and civil libertarians, who should be outraged by these policies, are now pushing the idea that Clinton, who has governed like a Wall Street Republican, is the victim of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

They also encourage us to separate the private man from the public one, a plea that ignores the possibility Clinton's private life may be the best thing about him.

Richard Horn is city editor of the Abilene Reporter-News.