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Anti-death penalty fervor rising, S.F. rabbi says after execution

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/10748/full/10748/anti-death-penalty-fervor-rising-s-f-rabbi-says-after-execution/ Anti-death penalty fervor rising, S.F. rabbi says after execution Friday, May 7, 1999 | by REBECCA ROSEN LUM Rabbi Alan Lew has stood at the gates of San Quentin before an execution many times. But "there was something really sickening about this one," he said after Tuesday morning's execution of convicted murderer Manuel Babbitt. "It really raised the essential issue, the cycle of violence," Lew said, discussing the execution of the Vietnam veteran who had been awarded a Purple Heart. At the end of a full day Monday, Lew drove to San Quentin State Prison, as he has done before every execution scheduled since the state revived the death penalty in 1992. "At the moment you know they're taking a life, it's a horror," said the spiritual leader of San Francisco's Conservative Congregation Beth Sholom. "You can feel it. In Hebrew, we say toevah—an abomination. Not an act that should ever be committed in a world of God." Yet, he left his vigil on the starkly lit, cement compound in the early morning hours with the sense that a sea change may be developing that may prove pivotal in the fight against the death penalty. "The one heartening thing is I have never seen so many people there" to protest an execution, he said. In addition to crowds estimated from several hundred to more than 1,000, thousands of fellow Vietnam veterans had signed petitions begging for clemency for Babbitt. In the past, Lew said, a much smaller group of protesters stood vigil while a claque of death penalty advocates—regulars—heckled them and brandished signs clamoring for more executions. "They weren't even there this time," he said. But someone who was—and who has attended past execution protests at San Quentin—said this one was "more poignant" than the others. At the moment of execution,said San Rafael social worker Jeff Levin, "Rabbi Lew led us in prayer, and a solemness and respect permeated the atmosphere." By 3 p.m. Tuesday, Lew had not yet gone to bed. He spent his morning conductiong conversions and later performed a wedding. But despite fatigue, he spoke passionately about the execution. Lew felt "particularly disgusted" by the facts of Babbitt's case. Babbitt, raised in dire poverty in Wareham, Mass., had experienced "a tremendous amount of abuse as a child, then we sent him to Vietnam and filled him full of violence, and when he came back with the violence spilling over, we killed him," Lew said. "Blacks were so disproportionately sent to Vietnam, and are now disproportionately represented on Death Row." Babbitt was convicted of the 1980 beating murder of Leah Schendel, a 78-year-old Sacramento grandmother. However, jury members who had produced a death sentence said they wouldn't have done so if they had been informed of Babbitt's history of mental illness. He had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Gov. Gray Davis declined to commute the death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, saying Babbitt's tormented past could not "justify or mitigate the savage beating and killing." An 11th-hour plea to the U.S. Supreme Court was also rejected. Never has the outspoken rabbi been so disappointed in a politician, and never has his opinion of an elected official plummeted so fast. "Davis had the two clearest cases, Jay Siripongs and this one," he said. "These were not hard cases to decide. He held two human lives in his hands and he let them slip through his fingers. He's turning out to be a guy who changes his mind with the polls. It's just unconscionable. He knows it's wrong. "I'm very, very disappointed in him and in our other California liberals like [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein." Siripongs was put to death Feb. 9 despite the pleas of correctional officers from every institution in which the Thai priest was confined since his conviction. He was the sixth person to be killed since California resumed executions in 1992. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment "cruel and unusual punishment," thus unconstitutional. But only four years later, the justices would clear the way for executions to resume, and in 1992 the state put convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris to death. Although Lew finds support for his views in Jewish law, the Torah offers plenty of fuel for detractors. Offenses such as cursing one's parents, engaging in prostitution and communicating with the dead were once punishable by death. "There is capital punishment all over the Torah, unfortunately," he said. "But my take on it was that it was an improvement. Before capital punishment, the wealthy could buy their way out" of a murder charge. By the early talmudic period, however, such scholars as Rabbi Akiba had placed restrictions on the death penalty that made it virtually impossible to carry out. Some families of victims hope an execution will provide closure, an assumption Lew disputes. In fact, Schendel's granddaughter, Laura Thompson, had pressed for Babbitt's execution. However, press accounts claimed she turned away, shaken, as Babbitt was administered the lethal injection. Lew, who has counseled numerous families of murder victims, was not surprised. "I've spoken to so many," he said. "It can take 12 years to realize they are never going to get closure. It's a spiritual and emotional violence, and it can't possibly bring closure." In years past, capital punishment was touted as a deterrent to crime. However, studies have debunked that contention, and in a 1995 Hart Research poll, police chiefs pointed to the death penalty as the least effective deterrent to crime. "So now, district attorneys talk about closure for the family," Lew said. "The D.A. goes to the family and says, 'You've got to support the death penalty in this case, it's the only way you'll ever get closure.' Well, it doesn't, and they realize they've been had." Lew, who has been campaigning against the death penalty for years, said he believed the tide of public opinion is turning against capital punishment. He may be right: The majority of respondents in recent polls indicate they would prefer life in prison to the death penalty when there is no chance for parole. And a poll by the Houston Chronicle revealed that public support for the death penalty in Texas, where it has enjoyed the greatest support historically, has dropped from 86 percent in 1994 to 68 percent in 1998.

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