Rita Linhardt, Research Director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, spoke at a workshop on the death penalty during the first “Gospel of Life” Convention sponsored jointly by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. In her comments, Ms. Linhardt discussed Catholic teaching as it relates to the death penalty.

Ms. Linhardt pointed out that the “eye for an eye” passage from Exodus 21:23-27 is often cited as justification for the death penalty. However the “eye for an eye” was meant to keep punishment proportional to the crime. In addition Mosaic law and the later rabbinic tradition established a strict set of judicial procedures for the death penalty that went beyond our standard of “reasonable doubt” and required what amounted to absolute certainty. Furthermore a frequent theme in the Old Testament is mercy for the offender as shown by God protecting the first murderer, Cain.

In the New Testament, Jesus’ answer to capital punishment was to undermine the penalty by demanding that both judges and executioners be sinless. This is shown clearly in John 8, when the woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus to be stoned to death.

More than 90 people attended two workshops and listened attentively as Ms. Linhardt, along with Sean O’Brien, J.D., Associate Professor of Law, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, who related Church teaching and individual case experience relating to the death penalty.

Mr. O’Brien credited his fourth grade teacher, Sr. David, with teaching him to find beauty in everything, which enabled him later in life to find Christ even in death row inmates.

Mr. O’Brien was a tax lawyer until he changed careers and became a public defender. It was during this time that he met death row inmate Doyle Williams.

Williams was the only college educated inmate on death row and assisted other inmates in their appeals. On numerous occasions Williams referred inmates to O’Brien for legal assistance.

Williams was on death row for the murder of Kerry Brummett. He was also serving life without parole for the murder of Dr. A. H. Domann. (For more information visit Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty at www. moabolition.org)

When Williams had exhausted his appeals he was scheduled to be put to death on April 10, 1996. Williams called O’Brien a few hours before his execution reminding O’Brien of the other inmates who needed his assistance.

Williams told O’Brien about an elderly death row inmate who was very ill and unable to walk to the cafeteria to eat his meals. As a result the inmate was forced to stay in his cell and the guards would shove his plate of food through a hole in the door. Williams asked O’Brien to ask the warden for a wheelchair for the inmate so the other inmates could wheel him to the cafeteria for his meals so that he wouldn’t be completely isolated. Williams spent as much time as he could making phone calls on behalf of other inmates on death row before his execution.

While Williams was guilty, O’Brien said that there are death row inmates who have been proven innocent. Such was the case with Lloyd Schlup.

Schlup was serving time in prison for two non-violent offenses when inmate Arthur Dade was murdered. Schlup was convicted for the murder and sentened to death. O’Brien took Schlup’s case and discovered that there was a surveillance tape showing Schlup standing in line waiting for lunch while the murder was occurring in another location.

Unfortunately this evidence was not enough to get a new trial. Even if Schlup could be shown to be innocent he could still be executed unless he could prove that his first trial was so unfair as to violate the Constitution. It appeared to be a hopeless case as the courts were making it clear that they were getting tired of the number of appeals filed by death row inmates.

Coming up on the end of the case, O’Brien did the only thing left he could think to do. He contacted the mother of the murder victim. Ida B. Dade was in her early 80’s and lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. When O’Brien met with Mrs. Dade he was shocked to discover that no one had ever spoken to her about her son’s death. She had merely been told that Arthur Dade had been killed in a prison riot, and she was left with the impression that her son had been dismembered. O’Brien gave her the autopsy results which showed that her son had been stabbed twice in the heart and died instantly. She found solace knowing that her son had died quickly. After showing Mrs. Dade the evidence against Schlup, O’Brien returned to Missouri and continued his appeals.

When Schlup’s appeals ran out O’Brien made the trip to be present at Schlup’s execution. When he entered the holding room Schlup sat behind a tightly woven wire mesh screen opposite a wall with a large clock. O’Brien sat with Schlup as the second hand loudly proclaimed the passage of time. With only three hours before his execution, then Governor Mel Carnahan called to stay the execution. O’Brien later discovered that Mrs. Dade had called the governor’s office to plead for Schlup. The result of the stay granted O’Brien the time he needed to put together an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that lead to Schlup receiving a new trial. On the second day of the new trial Schlup agreed to plead guilty to second degree murder in order to avoid the danger of another death sentence.

O’Brien knows that Schlup is innocent of murder but the desire by lawmakers and the courts to appear tough on crime is leading to more innocent people on death row. O’Brien said that it was time we stopped treating death row inmates as animals who should be put to sleep or destroyed and start finding Jesus in them.