New Hope for The Living Dead

Graeme Simpson & Lloyd Vogelman

South Africa has the third highest judicial execution rate in the world. Between 1980 and July 1989, 1 109 people were hanged in South Africa.

This includes 39 prisoners who were executed in the first seven months of this year.

By the end of July 283 prisoners, 272 of them black, were on Death Row at Pretoria Central Prison.

According to the Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee, Death Row is 43,5 percent overcrowded. In March 1988, 53 people were on Death Row for politically related crimes.

The campaign against the death penalty in South Africa is rapidly gaining momentum. This is reflected by the growth of organisations concerned with the issue, and an increase in public awareness and outrage at this legalised act of violence.

Popular Attitudes

However, popular support for the death penalty tends to vary over time and from community to community.

In the same way, support for abolition of capital punishment is inconsistent. A marked increase in violent crime, for example, may help to heighten public support for capital punishment.

Regan Jakobus, chairperson of the Johannesburg chapter of the Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in South Africa, pointed out that public support for the abolition of capital punishment was limited in South Africa.

"The main reason for this is that South Africans are uneducated about the death penalty, what it means and how inhumane it is. People seem to think that there are only two alternatives – capital punishment or the release back into society of 'dangerous killers'."

The most common reasons given by people who support the death penalty are that it is the deserved punishment for certain crimes, that it acts as a deterrent to violent crimes and that it protects society by the permanent incapacitation of the offender.

Deterrent

The most common argument is that capital punishment is a "deterrent" to violent crime.

However, an Amnesty International report claims that detailed research in the USA and other countries shows no evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments.

In some countries, such as Canada, the number of violent crimes actually decreased after the death penalty was abolished.

A United Nations study published in 1980 found that: "Despite much more advanced research efforts mounted to determine the deterrent value of the death penalty, no conclusive evidence has been obtained on its efficacy."

Similarly, in South Africa, Regan Jakobus suggests, there is no proof that the death penalty is a deterrent to violent crime. In fact, considerable evidence suggests the opposite.

What is more, when someone kills they don't think about the consequences of being apprehended. All they are likely to think about is escape. The prospect of dying for their crime is, therefore, hardly likely to deter them.

In South Africa, this is even less likely if we consider that many of the "crimes" considered to be the capital offences are political acts of resistance.

In a country where the majority is denied basic rights and where, for many, the fight for democracy is a life and death struggle in which sacrifice and possible martyrdom are regarded as necessary consequences, capital punishment is merely one of many life-threatening hazards confronting them in the fight for freedom.

The death penalty is little more than an act of revenge. Even many of those state officials who would acknowledge the lack of a deterrent in capital punishment, argue that it is just punishment for the most serious of crimes.

Amnesty International rejects this approach: "Contemporary standards of justice, moreover, have rejected the notion that 'just retribution' may be achieved by repeating the acts which society condemns.

"Just as criminal codes do not sanction the raping of rapists or the burning of arsonists' homes, still less is the deliberate taking of a life by the state an appropriate punishment for murder."

In this way, Amnesty International suggests that executions are no more than judicially sanctioned killings.

It has been argued that the death penalty is the only way to acknowledge the pain and suffering of the family and friends of murder victims and to ensure just retribution for their loss.

Yet an execution cannot restore life or lessen the loss to the victim's family. In fact, executions often draw attention away from the victim and instead focuses it on the prisoner being killed by the State.

As a result, many victim's families argue that no useful purpose is served by the death penalty, although they are relieved at the execution of the killer.

It is also argued that both the experience of being under sentence of death, and the execution itself, are inhumane and may cause intense suffering. In this vein, those on Death Row have been described as "the living dead".

Furthermore, the role of doctors in executions raises some key issues of medical ethics, since doctors are supposed to preserve life and not help remove it.

One of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is that it is irreversible and irrevocable and, despite the most stringent safeguards, may be inflicted on the innocent.

A recent study has produced 349 cases in the United States in which innocent people were wrongly convicted of capital offences.

While the right to appeal reduces the risk of executing innocent people it should be noted that in South Africa, unlike countries like Zimbabwe, an automatic right to appeal against the death penalty does not exist.

Courts

It is clear that the criminal justice process cannot serve as a definitive safeguard against error, prejudice or injustice. This is evident in the South African legal system.

By sentencing people to death, courts become agents of violence, reflecting rather than remedying the injustices in society.

For example, Amnesty International reports that between June 1982 and June 1983, 38 of the 81 blacks convicted of murdering whites were hanged.

By comparison, none of the 21whites convicted of murdering blacks were hanged. And only one of the 52 whites convicted of killing whites was hanged.

International

The campaign to abolish the death penalty is not a new phenomenon. There were abolitionist movements in some states in the US as early as the 19th century.

Internationally, opposition to the death penalty became much more widespread during the 1950s and 1960s, in which period several countries abolished it.

Historically, church groupings have been among the most outspoken opponents of the death penalty.

The "Right to Life" and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights documents.

There is growing international consensus that the death penalty is incompatible with these standards.

In December 1971 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2857, affirming that "...in order fully to guarantee the right to life, as provided in article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the main objective to be pursued is that of progressively restricting the number of offences for which capital punishment may be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment in all countries."

South Africa

The campaign to abolish executions is comparatively young in South Africa, yet it has gained considerable momentum recently.

In particular, the plight of the "Sharpeville Six" who were saved from the gallows at the last minute, gained enormous international attention and this served to highlight the plight of others on Death Row and to conscientise the public.

According to Regan Jakobus, the Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in South Africa will have functioning local branches in "every city where there is a branch of the Supreme Court empowered to administer the death sentence" by the end of this month.

If there was any criticism of the campaign to abolish the death penalty in the past, then it was that the issue remained largely a white middle class concern.

This is no longer the case.

In particular, the campaign to "stop the hangings" has been strengthened and advanced by the "Save the Patriots Campaign", which has raised awareness among the youth and other sectors of the black community.

The Abolition Society's campaign spans all political and other beliefs.

As Jakobus points out: "The Society speaks for everyone on Death Row without exception. We are opposed to the death penalty."

In all its forms, the campaign to stop executions is primarily an education and publicity campaign at this stage. The Society produces pamphlets, booklets and regular news briefs on the issue.

In addition it organises regular public meetings, monthly pickets and counselling for Death Row prisoners.

"Pickets are organised as soon as we receive information that someone is scheduled to hang on a particular day."

The "Save the Patriots Campaign" has concentrated on publicising who is on Death Row for "political offences", has made public a full list of all those who have already hanged and helped to provide social support for both the inmates of Death Row and their families.

When all the legal channels have been exhausted, public appeal, both nationally and internationally, is the only hope of saving those destined for the gallows.

Alternatives

One of the central educational tasks of those organisations opposed to the death penalty is to look at alternatives.

The South African government has barely considered this, although it remains a priority in countries where executions have been stopped.

For many people, even the alternative of life in prison is not acceptable. For these reasons, the Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in South Africa is attempting to establish a commission to explore alternatives and hopes to have a conference on the subject in July next year.

The solutions to violent crime remain social and political rather than merely judicial.

For example, in South Africa, on average more than one in every two white homes has a gun. It is common knowledge that the availability of handguns and firearms contributes to an escalation of violent crime.

In the final analysis, social justice, equality and the abolition of oppressive discrimination will do more to reduce violent crime than the death penalty could ever hope to achieve.

The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment, brutalising to all who are involved in the process. It is a system which is irreversible and may be prone to error and the execution of the innocent.

However, there has been no investigation into the system of capital punishment in South Africa for more than 50 years.

Furthermore, in South Africa, executions undoubtedly add to the negative perceptions of the judiciary among the majority of South Africans.

Judicial executions merely construe the courts as additional agents of violence in the South African scenario.

They create the impression that death and violence are acceptable solutions to the problems which confront us and that retribution in the form of such killings is justifiable.

For these reasons, the Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty has appealed to the acting State President, F W de Klerk, to:

• Institute a moratorium on all executions;
• Set up a judicial Commission of Enquiry into the use of the death penalty in South Africa; and
• Investigate the more appropriate methods of punishment which seek to cure rather than destroy.

For many of the "living dead" this represents their last hope of avoiding the gallows.

For many more, political martyrs and murderers alike, this new-found public moral outrage is already too late.

Graeme Simpson is a founder and former Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Lloyd Vogelman is a founder and former Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

In South, 7-13 September 1989.

© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation