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American Morning

Does Executing Mentally Impaired Killers Constitute Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

Aired February 27, 2002 - 09:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Two stories that are now captivating the country: the Andrea Yates trial and the Danielle Van Dam case, have also renewed focus on the death penalty. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the controversial issue of whether executing mentally impaired killers constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Sister Helen Prejean, you will recall, wrote "Dead Man Walking," which dealt with her experience as a spiritual adviser to death row inmates. Actress Susan Sarandon played Sister Helen in the movie and won an Oscar for her role.

They are both joining us this morning. Welcome.

First of all, your initial reaction to some of what justice Anton Scalia said when the case heard last week. I'm going to put up on the screen, about his primary thoughts on this. He said, "I don't see the necessary connection between intelligence and moral responsibility."

What does this mean?

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN, THE MORATORIUM CAMPAIGN: Well, it's a great question about intelligence and moral responsibility, because he's talking about the mentally retarded, and here he's saying, he doesn't see the connection between intelligence and moral responsibility. Of course there's a great connection between being intelligent and being able to assess the consequences of what you do and what you don't do.

I mean, 18 states have now passed bills that the mentally retarded should not be executed, along with the 12 states that don't have the death penalty. There's a growing moral consensus in this country, that if somebody is mentally impaired, then, you know, you can't hold them fully responsible no matter how terrible a deed they do. I find interesting he would use those very words. What does intelligence got to do with being morally responsible? It has a lot to do with being morally responsible.

ZAHN: Susan, what is your reaction.

SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: I thought he was talking about himself being on the Supreme Court. You know, one would one would have some intelligence and moral sense of responsibility if you're a Supreme Court judge. It's just an absurd statement. ZAHN: Let's move on to a decision the Georgia Board of Prisons made, and they actually commuted the death sentence for a man named Alexander Williams, who has schizophrenia. Now, they're finding it somewhat interesting, because his attorney successfully argued that he was only -- quote -- "synthetically sane." What kind of precedent does this set?

PREJEAN: It's an important one. The Supreme Court has said a person can not be a executed if they're so mentally they don't know what's happening to them. So what does the state do in order to try to execute them? They prop them up with all these psychotropic drugs to keep them sane, and they won on this, and they won in Georgia, and that's very significant. Even they are admitting, hey, there's something screwy here. He synthetically saying, because he's propped up with all these drugs, take the drugs away and the guy is crazy, and he should be executed.

But it shows the lengths that states go to, to try to execute people. We have a man in Louisiana, same way. Michael Owens Perry, and so it came up, can you -- can the state forcibly inject him with antipsychotic drugs to keep him sane enough to kill him?

Now what have we come to in this country that we're doing this?

ZAHN: What is your reaction that Georgia case?

SARANDON: I just think that we have to really look at ourselves as a people and as a society. You know, there's a history of sending people off to the death chambers, saying -- retarded people, saying, you know, hold my cake, I'll be back for this later, that don't even understand what's going on, and I mean, this is just a horrible, horrible -- no matter what you think about the death penalty, the circumstances under which it's being carried out are really questionable, and I think the movement toward a moratorium in this country says that even people even on the Supreme Court have serious doubts about the way its being executed, pardon the expression.

Even if you think that you believe in an eye for eye or a tooth for a tooth, it's not being handled properly, and the people that are falling through the cracks are the ones that don't have good lawyers, that have -- you know, there is a racial question that comes in here, money. I mean, I think that's what "Dead Man Walking," the controversy that it really started, was explaining the specifics of how this is carried out.

ZAHN: Because the fact remains, and I think, some people's opinion of whether the mentally retarded should be saved, if they're facing a death penalty, you know, sentence is very clouded by their own feelings about the death penalty, and I wanted to share with you some of the results of an extensive study that the University of Colorado did, and they came up with this conclusion, that each execution, you know, whether it's a mentally handicapped person or not, results in five to six fewer homicides, while taking a killer off of death row results in at least one less murder.

PREJEAN: That is a very controversy study, because people who know about deterrents know that the 38 states that have the death penalty have about roughly double the homicide rate of states that don't. I was just talking to a sociologist friend of mine Michael Radley (ph), and they can shoot holes completely in this study.

ZAHN: So you're not willing to concede that the death penalty in any way deters murder.

PREJEAN: No way, and the police chief in this country, when they were polled, when they were asked, here are 10 remedies, death penalty in there, they all put the death penalty dead last, because they know the people doing the thinking and the people doing the murdering are two separate sets of people. You got to think about consequences. Maybe I better not murder, might get the death penalty. Maybe it will be life without parole. If you're not thinking, and you're volatile and you're on drugs, alcohol and you kill, and that's been substantiated. This is a bizarre study that really doesn't coincide at all with the facts.

SARANDON: Yes, but the death penalty exists, because it's a political way for people to say that they're tough on crime. Really, there's nothing to substantiate that in any way, it reduces crime.

ZAHN: Well, let me ask you this, because both of you have come into contact with families who've been decimated by murder. As the district attorney now starts to lay the groundwork for possible death sentence with David Westerfield, what is that you would say to a parent when, in fact, a killer is convicted, is found guilty, is killed a child, and the parent wants him killed in kind.

PREJEAN: Sure, and that's almost a starting point. All the murder victim's families I've known over the 20 years I've worked with this issue, the starting point of almost everybody is rage and getting. But it's like I would have another family who's been down the road, sit down and talk to them, and work with them, accompany them on this, and just say, you sure you want him to get the death penalty. You know what it's going to mean, you are going to wait 10, 15 years, and they're going to promise you it's going to give you closure and healing, and then they're going to bring you in, and they're going to let you sit on the front row and watch as he's killed. Is that really what is going to heal you?

ZAHN: What would you say to a murder victim's parents?

SARANDON: I'd say, my heart goes out to you, having a child, and I totally understand that, but what you feel as a person who's lost someone and what you want the society that you're raising your children in. It's a very mixed message to tell your kids that they can't solve their problems with violence, and then have government, who indiscriminately arbitrarily and capriciously applies violence to the death penalty, because it's not across the board. So there are two different issues. I totally understand that feeling.

ZAHN: Of course you can hear the screams of supporters of the death penalty out there, saying it's not capricious, it's not arbitrary, but that's another day and another debate. PREJEAN: That's going down. It's a lowest support for the death penalty we have had in the United States in 20 years. It's down to 63, 64 percent, and that has to with the 100 innocent people that have come off of death row, and people are shaken over the death penalty and are beginning to really reconsider it.

ZAHN: We're going to have to leave the debate there this morning. Sister Helen Prejean, Susan Sarandon, thank you for coming in.

Appreciate your dropping by.

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