Greenberg Remarks at the LDF Capital Punishment Conference

    119 

rent. Approx 

3, 1967, we had obtained t first class stay of 

first articulated 0 ° 1) a: jie f b ° bs ® a 

, asa four b a 

si lec executi in t Fe tc 

yu c the dez ro yD) ic i w. a1 

than 650, ta I n d-1 an j 



input continues at a stez 

ill. The death row population now is 

ndication of those few like Freddie natural death and by tt 

Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee in Florida who were fortunate enough 

their innocence after sentence to death and before 

unity to establish the truth could be precluded by 

electrocution. And this morning's newspaper tells us that 

Edgar Smith of New Jersey, after 14 years on death row, has been 

his conviction eld to have been convicted illegally becaus 

for murder was based on a coerced confession. 

Any of us here would agree that 650 deaths woulil be more 

than we could bear, and that the horrible prospect of so many 

should be enough bring capital burnings and gassing 

punishment to a halt. But perhaps the grisly Dow Jones must 

-ther. Will 800 or 900 be more than the country can 

punishment, mean 



y, bears close resemblance to ritual human 

in other cultures and other times, and indeed, may be the same 

ng. The sheer lunacy of deliberately taking the life of a 

caged man - who can be caged forever - when we cannot and do 

not know that it deters others any more than keeping 

imprisoned, taking his life so long after the commission of his 

at those who crave revenge cannot possibly be gratified, crime 

causes wonder at what the death penalty is all about. 

It continues, of course, partly because of inertia, the 

difficulty of stopping doing what we always have done. It 

takes a great wrench to stop. But it expresses, mixed with 

tual human sacrifice, that, I think, too much of the quality of r 

which every culture has known and which most have rejected over 

vilization. Capital iries with the developr 

too mucl nent in America makes as much sé 

the human s 

of victims by the 



girl to pieces to fertilize y sown croy 

of human lives in Greece and Rome, Iran and India, and at one 

time or another, everywhere in the world. The j fications 

make no rational sense. Something else is going on. 

Anthropologists and psychoanalysts may identify those 

deep human urges which have cropped out in different ways and 

different times, taking li e under justification 

It is enough that we recognize the constant of irrationality and 

subject our ritual killings to the same test of reason and 

objectivity to which we would subject, say, the Aztec. 

That is wk t we have been doing in this campaign since 1967. 

We have been doing it with a broad collection of magnifying lenses 

and brill ant illumination. In asking that standards be demanded 

e have asked the court ay sentence to death, wv 

citute 

allowed 

ience be 



after judicial proceedings and up 

intell and objectivity be assured up until the la 

sanity takes over. In pointing to the enormous 

racial imbalance ama 

indeed, in the death row population generally, perhaps we 

too close a link between theemotions of raci 

jive content to the constitu- 

ment we tional p 

urge common sense prevail over ancient history, that words like 

"cruel" be accorded intelligent understanding and "unusua 

We stand almost alone in the to mean what it mus 

civilized world in treating crime by taking life. 

It is no accident that the principal legal engine o 

campaign is the Fourteenth Amendm ‘he Fourteenth Amendment, 

process and equal protection clauses, were written into 

and reason to another gigant 



an inferior, 

in return for c 

economic, political, social, and biological arguments were 

offered in support of slavery and racial segregation; and we 

still hear some of them today. They turn out, in the light of 

reason and objectivity, to make as much sense as taking life to 

nourish the sun, or to deter crime and make some of us feel 

ing a passion for retribution. 

It occurred to me the other day to look at the brief in 

the original 1954 School Segregation Cases and that portion of 

the cases which dealt with the history of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. While that Amendment, of course, focused on the 

heritage of slavery, it derived from much broader religious and 

philosophical doctrines. And, of course, since its adoption, 

it has been applied far beyond racial questions themselves. Some 

the language of the School Segregation brief, which discu 



ation, applic 

in 1834 and 

"as based on broad natural ri 

hical interpretation of American ori 

Four ideals were central and interrelated: the ideal of 

human equality, the ideal of a general and equal law, the 

ideal of reciprocal protection and allegiance, and the ideal 

of rea and substantiality as the true bases for the 

necessary discriminations and classifications by government. 

Race as a standard breached every one of these ideas, as 

did color. 



drafted and many of us will use. 

we can be certain will end all capital punishment right 

now. There is, however, the array of techniques represented 

in the hundreds of pounds of papers we are distributing 

to participants. After this conference each of us will 

go forth armed with legal arguments which will keep alive 

a potential victim of the atavistic impulse that is capital 

punishment. Many cases will be the same, many will be 

different. Each will call for specific, detailed, careful 

analysis and attention to its individual facts and issues. 

When we started this campaign over four years ago, the 

forum was two or three United States district courts. Now 

it is di trict courts all over the United States, the courts 

the state courts and the Supreme Court of the 

tes where 120 cases now awé 

Ss was involved. Now 

here there 



he clemenc 

who is 

unconstitutional in th 

overnor has made no move to r Governor 

Gilligan of Ohio had said that he will sign no death warra 

until the current campaign in the courts is final 

and, we hope, will never sign one. The campaign to bring 

reason, light and objectivity is perhaps epitomiz 

bill introduced today by Senator Hart and Congressman Cellar, 

ch would require that there be no executions until Congre 

completes an examination of capital punishment and whether 

it should legislate on the subject under Section 5 of the 

14th Amendment. 

Now there may be a definitive, nationally recognized 

answer to the question of why do we ta lives in the 

name of law? And what good does it do? nd what harm does it 

do? 



now 

arity. It is no accident that the 

se and Educati 

1t racism through the courts first beg 

discrimination in capital sentence ag and then found 

that we must expand that campaign to all capital punishment 

if it is to make sense. 

We pledge all of our resources to the successful 

completion of this effort. We will leave no stone unturned 

in the struggle to bring light and reason to expose the 

irrationality and superstition that can survive only by 

hiding beneath those stones. 

We have called you together today to exchange ideas 

on the total range 

effort, and to equip each other to function as effectively 

as possible in the If our success over the next 

ved so far, we comy 

will succeed. And in that aved not 



of some ecent and y mex d women, but v 

e a major step towards making this the humane lar