The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 1983 Page: 4 of 8
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—
Friday, October 21,1983
Supreme Court reviews
capita! punishment cases
By DEBRA McGUIRE
Daily Reporter
Although the United States Supreme
Court has been the final appeal for persons
condemned to death, for a long time the
Court was not concerned about the rules
under which those persons had been sen-
tenced, Richard Johnston of the political
science faculty said.
‘‘The 5th and 14th Amendments provided
that no one could be deprived of life, lib-
erty or property without due process of
law,” he said, “and in those days, proc-
ess meant that whatever the legal procedures
in each state were, you had to follow them.
“The Court was not concerned with the
substance of the rules.” he said. “For that
reason, Georgia for a time had a statute
providing the death penalty for persons
convicted of burning a railway bridge.”
The Georgia case was an extreme exam-
ple. Most states limited the death penalty
to persons convicted of murder and/or ag-
gravated rape, Johnston said.
gan violently questioning the'procedures.
By the 1950s, however, it was clear that
the Supreme Court and the whole federal
judicial system had begun to decide that
they ought to look into those procedures. ”
The Court did not tell the states what
they could do as far as administering the
death penalty was concerned, but they be-
gan telling them what not to do, he said.
“The whole history of the Warren Court
controversy was concerned with that.
more likely to receive the death sentence.
In Texas, they were 19 times as likely.”
UNDER OLD common law practice,
several elements were important in follow-
ing due process.
“A person could only be put to death
for an offense described in law. The whole
legal system had to describe methods of
trial and proof." he said.
"The 14th Amendment also said proce-
dures had to be the same for everyone within
a particular state," he said. "Everybody
within that state was supposed to be treated
the same before the law.
“It was a long time before people be-
“IN THE ’50s, the Court ruled that a
defendent had the right to confront and
cross-examine witnesses.
"In 1961, the Court ruled that defend-
ants in state courts had the right to be
represented by an attorney, a right they al-
ways had in federal courts. States were now
compelled to pay for court-appointed attor-
neys if defendents couldn’t afford them,”
Johnston said.
“It became obvious that the whole Court
began to think that the death penalty was
so severe that they began to view it with
great seriousness," he said.
In 1972, the Supreme Court nullified all
40 death penalty statutes, affecting the sen-
tences of 629 Death Row inmates.
The Court said judges and juries had too
much latitude in choosing whether to impose
death sentences, saying such sentences were
“freakishly imposed" on "a carefully se-
lected random handful."
“The Court said that capital punishment,
as then applied, disproportionately punished
minority groups,” Johnston said. “In the
state of Florida, for example, out of 100
blacks and 100 whites, blacks were 22 times
AFTER THE 1972 ruling, 37 states re-
wrote their death penalty statutes, with laws
in Florida, Texas and Grorgia gaining Court
approval.
The Court now has a case before it which
challenges the proportionality of sentences,
Johnston said. A California case questions
whether judges should review cases where
the death penalty is involved to see if such
sentences are similar to those imposed na-
tionwide for similar crimes.
Johnston said he expects a federal ap-
peals court ruling that the Food and Drug
Administration must determine whether
drugs used in executions are "quick and
painless” to wind up before the Supreme
Court.
“If the Supreme Court starts examining
one method of execution, then it’s going
to have to examine all methods,” he said.
“It’s going to have to make some decision
on the electric chair, on hanging and on
the use of lethal gas. One state still uses
the firing squad.
“Once they open the door on all these
issues, it’s a Pandora's box. It is quite likley
that they’ll eventually decide that there is
no possible way of imposing the death pen-
alty without any uncertainty.
“There is really only one hope for death
penalty advocates,” he said, “and that’s
if the Supreme Court backs off from con-
sidering all these issues.”
See related story, page 5.
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Candidates consider
female running mates
By HEIDI HUGIN
Dally Reporter
At the National Organization for Women forum
in Washington earlier this month, six Democratic
presidential hopefuls said they would consider a fe-
male running mate.
Colorado Senator Gary Hart said that he would be
“proud to run with a woman on either end of the
ticket,” and Walter Mondale said, “I see some con-
tenders in this room.”
1984 is being touted as the year when a woman
could become the vice presidential nominee of a ma-
jor party, John Thompson of the political science
faculty said.
Women now constitute 53 percent of the nation’s
voting-age population. According to the “American
Political Report,” a conservative newsletter, 6 mil-
lion more women than men are projected to vote in
1984.
“I think many people don’t realize what a sym-
bolic gesture voting really is. Things don’t happen
just because Joe Citizen on the street voted for it,”
Sari Jones of the political science faculty said.
“I hate to say there is a lot of controlled power,
but there is,” Jones said.
Many voters seem to be warming to the idea of a
woman candidate for vice president, but women, and
not just older women, do not feel it is significant
enough to vote.
“Women are more cross-pressured than men. They
may favor a presidential hopeful who has a female
running mate, but their husbands, boyfriends or fa-
thers may favor another candidate. The woman of-
ten feels she’s being too conflictful in voting,”
Thompson said.
If a woman is on any political ticket in 1984, it is
likely to be a Democratic one. There are two-thirds
more women Democrats than Republicans, and on
galvanizing women’s issues, such as the Equal Rights
Amendment and abortion, the Democratic Party is
usually viewed as more sympathetic, Thompson said.
Come convention time, however, there will be
countervailing pressure on the nominee to use geo-
graphical and idealogical balance to select a poten-
tial running mate.
“It may be a no-win situation. If the nominee
chooses a woman, he’ll be accused of caving into
the activists. If he doesn’t, he’ll still be just a good
ol’ boy,” Thompson said
Moreover, there are no female Democratic gov-
ernors or senators, two conventional springboards to
the vice presidency.
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The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 1983, newspaper, October 21, 1983; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth722893/m1/4/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.