Waging Peace on the Death Penalty, Published 2/20/05

NOTE: Mr. Morales was given a last-minute reprieve when two anesthesiologists refused to participate in the execution. He remains under a death sentence as a Federal Appeals Court considers the protocols of execution in the state of California.

Waging Peace on the Death Penalty

At 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning Michael Morales is scheduled to die for the 1982 murder of Terri Winchell, a 17-year old Lodi, California high school student.

The trial took place in Ventura County, where I live.

This evening, as Michael is strapped to the executioner'’s table, Amnesty International and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions will hold a candlelight vigil in front of the Ventura County Government Center, where Morales was condemned to death. We will call for the abolition of the capital punishment.

Michael Morales has lost his struggle to survive, but eventually we death penalty abolitionists will prevail in the United States as we have prevailed in 120 other countries, from Angola to Nepal to Venezuela. Eventually, we as a nation will learn to respect the universal human right to life. We will reject execution as a form of torture.

There are signs that the tide is turning against capital punishment. In 2002 the US Supreme Court declared the execution of the mentally disabled unconstitutional; the execution of juveniles was abolished in 2005. Twelve states have no capital punishment statute, and Illinois and New Jersey have moratoria in effect. Recent polls suggest that voters prefer life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty.

The rational arguments in favor of capital punishment are weak. It is excruciatingly obvious that executions do not deter capital offenses, are frequently meted out to factually innocent individuals, are racially biased, and function as a macabre lottery stacked against the most destitute defendants.

But the best argument against the death penalty may simply be to see Michael Morales as a fellow human being worthy of our care and compassion. Although these humanistic arguments were ignored by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he rejected Morales'’ clemency petition, Michael is remorseful and rehabilitated. He is a talented and sensitive artist. He has a mother, a father, two brothers, a sister, three children and young grandchildren who will be no less devastated by his murder at the hands of the state than Terri Winchell'’s wonderful and loving family has been by her murder at the hands of Michael and his accomplice.

I will hold two candles tonight—one for Terri and one for Michael. I believe it is only through honoring both these lives, loving both these souls, that we can finally come to grips with our residual national resistance to abolition.

It easy to love a young woman like Terri Winchell; I know because I have two equally lovable teenage daughters. It'’s a lot harder —but just as important—to love Michael Morales. When instead we hate Michael and men like him, we neglect to provide early intervention alternatives to guns, drugs, unemployment, gangs and prison.

Father Gregory Boyle, who has devoted his life to working with youth at risk for violent crime, particularly minority males like Michael Morales, says that Jesus always represented "the poor and excluded, the easily despised, the demonized, and those whose burdens were more than they could bear."

Michael Morales—so easily despised and demonized for the horrific murder he committed at age 21 while stoned on marijuana, PCP and embalming fluid—fits the profile perfectly.

Father Boyle says such youth don'’t need a second chance; they need the first chance that no one ever gave them.

Our "war on crime"” has made us the world'’s number 1 per capita incarceration country with over 2.1 million prisoners. We are a leading purveyor of capital punishment, rivaled only by the likes of China, Vietnam and Iran. We have implemented astonishingly draconian measures like California'’s heinous Three Strikes Law which provides a life sentence for offenses as minor as stealing a couple of DVDs or lying on a driver's license application.

As we mourn Terri and Michael'’s death, and as we approach March 1, International Death Penalty Abolition Day, let us contemplate what it would look like to wage peace, instead of war, on crime. What if our guiding principles were compassion and rehabilitation instead of vengeance and punishment?

Our first step would be to abolish the death penalty and to give Michael Morales his first chance.

Posthumously Yours, Stanley Tookie Williams, Published 12/20/2005

Posthumously Yours,
Stanley Tookie Williams*

Dear Arnold,

I’ve been dead for a few days now. You’ve probably already forgotten about me and moved on to more important matters like condemning gay marriage, helping the Minutemen keep Mexicans out of California, and preparing another diatribe to deny clemency to Clarence Allen, the 76-year-old blind Choctaw Indian you’ll execute on Jan. 17.

Still, I beseech you—once again—to take just a moment from your busy schedule. I have something important to tell you:

I forgive you for murdering me.

Here’s why:

First of all, Arnold, I forgive you, because I realize you are a kind of ventriloquist’s puppet, a stooge for special interests that couldn’t care less about individual lives like mine or those of the at-risk youth I would have continued to help had I lived.

You, Arnold, merely gang-bang for the military-industrial-prison complex that has turned the US into the per capita incarceration capital of the world, a country only outdone in executions by Iran, China and Vietnam.

Secondly, I forgive you because I understand that shallow and craven men can’t really be blamed for lashing out as you did.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Forgive them; they know not what they do.” You know not what you do. You don’t get it. You don’t get what’s wrong with state-sanctioned ritual murder. You don’t get why rehabilitation and redemption are better than blood vengeance and draconian punishment. And you don’t get why so many people thought my trial was hopelessly tainted by racism.

Third, I forgive you because it’s not for me to judge. Ultimately, Arnold, you don’t answer to Stanley Tookie Wiliiams. You answer to history. Time will tell who will be redeemed and who condemned. My legacy is a series of beautiful children’s books. What’s yours?

Fourth, I forgive you because I too must take responsibility for your empowerment. There’s some wisdom in the proverb, “The people get the government they deserve.” Our apathy, lack of political organization, appetite for simpleminded diversion, misdirected rage and despair have helped you win an election and promote the political agenda that brutalizes us all.

Fifth, I forgive you because I refuse to seek revenge on my fellow human beings. After my redemption, I lived for reconciliation, healing and justice. I took a vow never to hurt anyone. That’s something you, Arnold, might also consider.

Sixth, I forgive you because I never give up hope. Even though you murdered me to serve your petty ambitions and uphold the perverse values of your cronies, I hope and pray you may still learn to do the right thing. Trust me, there are always opportunities for redemption, even for you. It’s never too late to renounce violence and injustice.

Finally, I forgive you, Arnold, because I have compassion for your soul. I know that deep down inside you there is a goodness that suffers because you murdered me. I no longer have time to figure out how you became the wounded narcissistic megalomaniac that you are, but I know it’s not the real you. You’re better than that, Arnold. May God have mercy on your soul.

*Stanley Tookie Williams was channeled by David Howard, a peace activist and writer who held a candle for Tookie at the Ventura County Government Center on the night of the execution. DavidHoward@aol.com

In Honor of Terri Winchell, Don't Execute Michael Morales, Published in VC Star, 1/22/06

On Thursday, Jan. 8, 1981, Barbara Christian was sick in bed. Her 17-year-old daughter, Terri, a senior at Tokay High School in Lodi, went out to buy dinner. She never came back.

At 2:00 a.m. Saturday, police found Terri’s body in a vineyard on the outskirts of town. She was naked from the waist down; her shirt and bra were pulled up over her chest. She had been hit in the head 23 times, mostly with a claw hammer. Her skull was shattered. Her cheekbones and jaw were broken. She had four stab wounds in her chest.

Terri Winchell should be 42 years old today. She should have gone to college; she should have had the opportunity to be a mother, an aunt, a friend, a lover. She should have had a rich, meaningful life. Instead, she never saw her 18th birthday.

Michael Morales and Rick Ortega were found guilty of this heinous crime. Ortega got life in prison and Morales—tried and convicted in Ventura County—is scheduled to be executed on February 21 at San Quentin Prison.

We cannot know what it’s like to be Barbara Christian, to survive the murder of a daughter. It’s almost obscene to ask.

So we must mourn for Terri and all the other victims of our national homicide epidemic. We must listen carefully to the families of murder victims. We must provide them the special services they need; we must help them heal, and we must protect society from other murderers.

But we must not execute Michael Morales. Or anyone else.

We need no longer dispute the troubling aspects of the Morales case. Let’s assume there was no jailhouse informant conveniently placed in a cell opposite Morales’ and rewarded with a sentence reduction. Let’s assume there was no perjured testimony given under duress and recanted 10 years later. Let’s assume the dissent to overturn this verdict by a State Supreme Court justice on grounds of a racially discriminatory jury pool is irrelevant. Let’s assume it’s just a coincidence that among the three California executions over the past three months one was an African American, one an American Indian and one a Latino. Let’s assume that indigents get the same quality of legal representation as wealthy people. Let’s assume that Morales should get a death sentence, while his cousin who planned and helped carry out the crime, should not. Let’s assume that a quarter of a century between arrest and execution is not too long. Let’s assume that there is nothing better to spend our billions of taxpayer dollars on than sustaining this whole macabre and excruciatingly painful process.

Let’s assume there is no reasonable doubt.

The question remains, should we, at the execution hour of 12:01 a.m. on February 21, care if Michael Morales lives or dies?

The answer is yes. We cannot ignore the intrinsic immorality of state-sponsored murder. If the right to life is a fundamental human right, it must apply universally, to all human beings.

We will always fall short in our efforts to honor human rights, to forgive, to reconcile, to rehabilitate and to heal. But we cannot, must not, institutionalize murder.

The only legitimate question to ask for Terri Winchell’s sake is how can we prevent the next rape, torture and murder of a 17-year-old girl. The answer is the hard work of education, prevention and intervention among both our at-risk and general population. Our disadvantaged communities in particular lack basic social services from pre-natal care through birth, infancy, childhood and adolescence. If we nurture our young in the ways of love and nonviolence, our violent crime rates will plummet.

“An eye for an eye,” said Gandhi, “makes the whole world blind.” He meant not only that warfare perpetuates a cycle of violence, but also that killing deprives us of a vital social sensibility—compassion. Capital punishment dehumanizes us. In avenging the murder, we become the murderers.

There are only three ways to deliberately kill another human being: murder, war and the death penalty. With a little effort we could quickly eradicate one of these scourges forever. Let’s do it in honor of Terri Winchell.

Amor for Fatima, Andrew and Anthony

Published in the Ventura County Star on 3/4/2005

AMOR means “Love” in Spanish. The acronym stands for Alternatives to the Military: Options and Resources. The AMOR group is composed of community activists, deeply troubled by the war in Iraq, who meet at Oxnard’s Café on A. We range in age from 20 to 80, and we include concientious objectors as well as veterans of WWII, Vietnam and other conflicts.

What we have in common is respect for the dead. Like Andrew Aviles, age 18, dead in Baghdad. Or Anthony Roberts, 18, dead in Al Anbar Province.

The long list of American teenage soldiers who have perished in Iraq demands our loving attention, but it would be obscene to memorialize their deaths without also acknowledging those who died by their hand. By our hand.

There is no list of Iraqi dead. Just estimates. Five thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? The Iraqi dead are nameless to us, faceless, almost incorporeal. Iraqi civilian dead are “collateral damage.” Accidents. Nobody’s responsibility. “Co-lateral” means off to the side. Not at center stage, not at the heart of the matter, not where the flag flies and the band plays. Extraneous. Out of sight, out of mind.

For months before the war many of us tried to remain mindful of the still-living Iraqi civilians. We wore buttons with the name and age of an Iraqi child: “Fatima, age 2.” A faith-based group in Massachusetts distributed the buttons. Pray for these children, they said.

In contrast to the nameless Iraqis, CNN has a website with our dead soldiers’ photos, names, hometowns and ages. It looks like a high school yearbook. Except the graduates are dead. It is those deaths that AMOR addresses. Pray for them too. And consider why they died.

Not why we waged war under false pretenses and in defiance of international law. Not why we elected a president too eager for battle. You already know that. What you may not know, however, is how our children were lured to this war.

Under a provision of a law whose very name, “No Child Left Behind,” is an unintended tribute to the atavistic evil of conscripting the young, every high school in the US is required to submit the names, addresses and phone numbers of all boys and girls in 11th and 12th grade for military recruitment purposes. It is possible to “opt-out” of the Defense Department’s recruitment hit list, but most kids and their parents don’t know that. Oxnard let two years lapse before they even began to inform parents that the Pentagon was compiling data about their children.

The military spent about four billion dollars of taxpayer money last year to recruit our children to the killing fields. Professional recruiters charm impressionable teens with glossy mailers and unsolicited phone calls. No Child Left Behind guarantees recruiters a competitive edge over other post-high school employment and education alternatives that are required by law to honor children’s privacy.

Military recruiters are also on our campuses with Junior ROTC programs. They show up for job fairs and career days, and at some schools they’re allowed to just “hang out,” schmooze the kids and give away trinkets: t-shirts, baseball caps, miniature toy rockets.

The military targets the poor and minorities for its bloody missions of putative glory. Jessica Lynch joined up and went to Iraq after she had been turned down for a job at Wal-Mart.

Recruiters promise kids job training, a college education, adventure and excitement. They promise to build character. Most of these promises are inflated and misleading. As Mose Allison used to sing, “Life is short and talk is cheap. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Life was 18 years short for soldiers like Andrew and Anthony. What promises did recruiters break to them?

There are better, nonlethal ways to get job training and a college education, and there are peaceful ways to serve your community and your country. There is nothing glorious about war. War is a trick we play on our children, the quintessential broken promise.

Chris Hedges writes, “War is always about betrayal. It is about the betrayal of the young by the old, idealists by cynics, and finally, soldiers by politicians. Those who pay the price, those who are maimed forever by war, are shunted aside, crumpled up and thrown away. They are war’s refuse.”

AMOR challenge the notion of teenagers as refuse. We provide walk-in, telephone and online counseling services to youth looking for alternatives to the military, and we work to create peaceful employment, education and service options on high school campuses.

We do it for Andrew and Anthony, and we do it for Fatima.