Freedom, Massachusetts-Style

"The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America." --1980s Massachusetts tourism slogan

As early as today, the Massachusetts House of Representatives could vote to bring capital punishment back to the Bay State. Is this the spirit of America? More importantly, is this the spirit of Massachusetts?

The pending bill would restore the death penalty for first-degree murder in 12 categories, including the murder of police officers, murders associated with sexual violence and killings by those with a record of offenses. Observers say the bill has a good chance of passing the House; a similar bill has passed the Senate three times, and Gov. A. Paul Cellucci has vowed his support. This, in a state whose congressional delegation is comprised of 10 Democrats; this, in the state where the liberal William F. Weld '66 is the right wing; this, in Kennedyland.

Massachusetts conducted its last execution in 1947. The drive to reinstate the death penalty has been spurred by recent local killings, most prominently the murder and rape of Jeffrey Curley, the Cambridge 10-year-old kidnapped by two men and dumped in a plastic container in a Maine river. Curley's killing was brutal and horrific, its perpetrators sick. But killing them will do no good. When the anger over such crimes abates, we are left with a dual challenge: preventing such crimes from happening again and dealing with the sad people who caused so much pain. The fallacy is that these two challenges must be handled as one.

There has been no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters crime. And why would it? The criminals society hopes to target are irrational and sick. Consequences, punishments, death versus life in prison without parole--these calculations are likely not made in the minds of the ill and the evil.

Many claim that the death penalty helps the loved ones of homicide victims deal with their loss; yet, much as we want to alleviate their pain, we must not kill out of grief. Dorchester's Joseph Chery, a man who knows as much about the pain of murder as anyone after his young son was killed, has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. "As human beings, your very first impulse dictates revenge," Chery told the Boston Globe this past weekend. "But as reasonable beings, it becomes a question of repressing that first instinct, using your values, using your faith, to know that the best way of revenge for the taking of one life is not to take another."

We don't know that the death penalty deters crime; we do know that with a fair system of appeals, it ends up costing taxpayers more than life imprisonment--using funds that could be put toward crime prevention. We do know that it tends to be administered prejudicially. And we do know, no matter how good DNA testing gets, that it inevitably, always, will end up in the killing of an innocent man or woman at the bloody hands of the state.

We know one more thing about the death penalty: it changes our relationship with the government. If the House approves the death penalty bill this week, we will be living on a section of earth where death is a tool of the state, where I can't be assured that my very existence is not out of reach of a fallible criminal justice system. And if I feel threatened as a white, relatively well-off Harvard student, imagine how much more threatened one must feel living in a high-crime neighborhood, maybe having been hauled into a police station for questioning on numerous occasions, maybe having appeared in a line-up or two, maybe even possessing a record of petty crime.

How apt, then, that the death penalty fervor hits its height here the very week that Jiang Zemin is to visit Boston. Saturday's speech in Sanders Theatre by the Chinese president, with the massive protests and media invasion sure to accompany it, will be the biggest event at Harvard since the 1995 Dunster murder-suicide. In the context of Jiang's U.S. visit as a whole, it could also make its way into the history books.

In response to the anticipated visit, students have said Harvard should be ashamed to host such an "evil man." They have condemned China's human rights violations, and vowed to show Jiang what the right to free speech means in America by interrupting his speech if necessary.

The facts about China's Communist regime are not to be denied. Torture and forced confessions have been documented. Independence has been denied for Tibet since its annexation in 1951. Taiwan, peaceful and democratic, has been threatened. Nuclear weapons have been provided to Iran and Pakistan. The 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown killed hundreds engaged in political protest. Opposing the government is, itself, illegal.

Those who overlook these rights abuses in the name of cultural difference or who allege an ignorance of Chinese history on the part of protesters are only looking for excuses, and protesting Jiang is noble and completely called-for. Still, the moralizing on campus is becoming excessive. In a new world in which the U.S. and China may be the two dominant powers, it seems imperative that we try to influence the Chinese, rather than alienate them; that, ever more confident in democracy and capitalism, we work with Jiang rather than arouse his ire and risk a new Cold War. As Harvard visiting scholar Xiaohuang Yin argues in yesterday's Globe, without arriving at a common ground in terms of trade policy and international treaties, the security and prosperity of either nation cannot be ensured.

Most sadly, while we rush to condemn China, no one, it seems, is rushing to keep Massachusetts from grabbing the kind of power over human life to which everyone so objects. Democracy--our democracy--deserves better.

Geoffrey C. Upton's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.