Bush May Be Hurt by Handling Of Capital Punishment Issue
By JOHN HARWOOD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Two months ago, Illinois Gov. George Ryan made an announcement that once would have represented a remarkable political risk.
But when the first-term Republican unilaterally imposed a moratorium on executions in this state, what was remarkable was the absence of public protest. Shaken by the exoneration of 13 death-row inmates in Illinois since 1987, 66% of state residents expressed approval of Mr. Ryan's action.
That response punctuates a national shift in the politics of capital punishment. Though two-thirds of Americans still support the death penalty, public backing has declined in the past few years. And that shift may present unexpected complications for Republican George W. Bush in this fall's presidential election, if not in Tuesday's inconsequential Illinois primary.
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Executions by State
since 1976 since 1979 Texas 211 47 Virginia 76 17 Florida 46 3 Missouri 41 9 Louisiana 25 1 South Carolina 24 4 Georgia 23 0 Oklahoma 22 9 Arkansas 21 4 Alabama 21 4 Arizona 21 9 North Carolina 15 4 Illinois 12 1 Delaware 10 2 Nevada 8 1 California 8 3 Indiana 7 1 Utah 6 1 Mississippi 4 0 Nebraska 3 0 Washington 3 0 Maryland 3 0 Pennsylvania 3 1 Oregon 2 0 Montana 2 0 Kentucky 2 1 Wyoming 1 0 Idaho 1 0 Colorado 1 0 Ohio 1 1
Source: Death Penalty Information Center
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As the tough-on-crime governor of Texas, Mr. Bush has seen 124 prisoners executed during his tenure, the highest total of any state during that time. His fall opponent, Vice President Al Gore, also supports capital punishment. But the risk for Mr. Bush is that some swing voters he needs will find his record at odds with his "compassionate conservative" themes. Specifically, women and Catholics, both important GOP targets this year, are somewhat less supportive of capital punishment than the general population.
Strategists in both parties see another potential danger for Mr. Bush at a time when Democrats are attacking him as ill-prepared for the Oval Office: The Texas governor has on at least two occasions left the impression he takes a cavalier attitude toward opponents of capital punishment. In a televised debate in California this month, Mr. Bush grinned and chuckled audibly as a questioner recounted reports that lawyers for some defendants in Texas capital cases had slept during their trials.
"The one thing that Republicans are concerned about with Gov. Bush is the issue of gravitas," says GOP pollster Steve Wagner. "You can't appear to wear the weight of those decisions lightly. It's very important to come across as serious-minded."
Mr. Bush, in an interview, offers no explanation for his demeanor during the debate question on the death penalty. But he bristles at the suggestion that he has regarded the subject lightly.
"I'm not glib about it," Mr. Bush says. "This is a serious matter, and I don't appreciate people ascribing that to me." His communications director, Karen Hughes, later explained Mr. Bush's demeanor by saying "he was reacting to the absurdity of the way the question was raised."
Mr. Gore himself could face intraparty pressure on the issue; blacks, a key Democratic constituency, are far less supportive of the death penalty than whites. And indeed, the issue of capital punishment has been a political problem for Democrats, not Republicans, for the past two decades.
Rise in Public Support
Public support for the death penalty increased in tandem with rising crime during the 1970s and 1980s, squeezing a party with a substantial liberal constituency opposed to capital punishment. After the losing 1988 campaign of death-penalty opponent Michael Dukakis, some Democratic strategists predicted that the party wouldn't recapture the presidency until it nominated a supporter of capital punishment. That prediction was vindicated by the 1992 victory of Bill Clinton.
According to the Gallup poll, support for the death penalty reached a post-World War II peak of 80% in 1994, the year that Republicans took control of Congress. But since then, support has fallen to its lowest level in 19 years. In a February Gallup survey, when voters were given a choice between the death penalty and certain life imprisonment as punishments for murder, 52% chose the former, 37% the latter.
One reason for ebbing support appears to be falling crime rates. Another may be what Karlyn Bowman, an opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, calls the "prosperity effect" caused by Americans' increasing sense of material well-being. A third reason may be vocal opposition to the death penalty from Pope John Paul II and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. During the 1970s, Catholics were slightly more supportive of the death penalty than other Americans; now they are slightly more opposed, according to the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center.
Mr. Bush, for his part, explains the drop in public support for capital punishment to the perception that it is imposed "strictly for vengeance." In the interview, he reiterates his own belief that the death penalty is justified because it "saves lives" by deterring crime.
In Illinois, Gov. Ryan suspended the application of capital punishment after charges of prosecutorial misconduct, revelations of exculpatory DNA evidence and recanted testimony led to the release from death row of a procession of inmates; one was freed as the result of an investigation by a college journalism class. Mr. Ryan, who still supports the death penalty, has appointed a commission to review how it is administered. Illinoisans "don't want to put an innocent person to death," he explained in an interview as he campaigned with Mr. Bush.
Since he acted, states including New Hampshire, Missouri and Indiana have taken steps to review or curtail their own application of the death penalty; even before then, independent Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota had abandoned his former support for capital punishment. But Mr. Bush continues his unblinking endorsement of the Texas system, saying he has "no question" that those executed during his governorship were guilty and received full access to the courts.
Critics Call for Changes
Mr. Bush's critics insist changes are needed. Seven Texas Death Row inmates have been exonerated since 1977, says James Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Centers Project. He argues that defendants facing the death penalty often lack the full protection of the law because of poor representation by low-paid court-appointed attorneys. Ms. Hughes notes that Gov. Bush signed legislation that for the first time requires the state to finance constitutional challenges by Death Row inmates. Mr. Bush has commuted the death sentence imposed on one prisoner, convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas, after disclosures that he had fabricated confessions to some crimes.
In his most vexing case so far, Mr. Bush resisted pleas from conservative religious leaders and declined to stay the 1998 execution of double-murderer Karla Faye Tucker, who became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Later, the governor drew criticism when a magazine interviewer reported that he had mocked her pleas for mercy. He argues that the reporter misconstrued his remarks; he wrote in his recent autobiography that the experience of awaiting her execution made him feel as if "a huge piece of concrete was crushing me."
The Gore campaign and other Democrats question Mr. Bush's handling of death-penalty questions. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane says the governor's "repeated smirks" during discussion of capital punishment at the California debate "does raise the question of whether he has the perspective and judgment to be president of the U.S."
Some Republicans say Mr. Bush could profit from a different tack on the issue. "If I were him, I'd watch carefully what Gov. Ryan did and ask officials in my administration to review the judicial process seriously," says Illinois GOP Chairman Rich Williamson, whose law firm represented one inmate who has been released from death row. Mr. Bush still has "some room to maneuver" on the issue, he says. Gov. Ryan, however, offers no advice for his Texas colleague. "I had a very bad problem," he says. "He knows what his system is like."