There's nothing like ringing in the holiday season with a good old fashioned murder trial in Wisconsin.
By now you've probably heard about Steven Avery. He's the Mishicot man who has been charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach, a freelance photographer whose remains were found on Avery's property.
The story never would have made the front page of The New York Times last week if it weren't for the fact that Avery is the same man who was released from prison two years ago after spending 18 years in prison for a rape that he did not commit. The Wisconsin Innocence Project helped to free Avery based on DNA evidence. After the first Avery exoneration, state senators ratified a bill in his name called the Steven Avery Bill, which has the intent of preventing wrongful convictions.
Just when you thought this story couldn't get any crazier, you sprinkle into the mix a couple of state senators who are now on a crusade to get the death penalty reinstated in Wisconsin, based on the Avery trial, and you've got a class B Hollywood film that would make Jeffrey Dahmer's story seem like a cheap knockoff of a Hardy Boys novel.
"In my wildest dreams, I couldn't have imagined that he could go from a poster child for the Steven Avery bill, which you don't want to say anymore. I never would have believed he could become, possibly, the poster child for the death penalty," state Senator and death penalty crusader Dave Zien told the Wisconsin State Journal.
State Sen. Alan Lasee is pushing for a referendum on the death penalty in Wisconsin, which abolished the practice in 1853. Lasee first planned to introduce capital punishment only for cases involving multiple murders and DNA evidence, but he's now decided that he wants to amend that to include single murders with this erudite justification: "It's pretty gruesome what happened to her [Halbach]."
Republican state Sen. Tom Reynolds has added to the circus by echoing a call for reinstating the death penalty. He recently told the Wisconsin State Journal, "When a murderer takes somebody else's life, their life should be taken." Wow, a call for the eye for an eye justice system. We could be like the human rights meccas of Syria and North Korea!
But who needs justice when you've got Fox News Channel's John Kasich, who recently interviewed Wisconsin defense attorney Keith Belzer about his work with the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Kasich talked about how Avery had a burglary charge before any of this happened and how that crime is so awful that we should "lock them up" for a long time. I guess Kasich's insinuation is that Avery still should have been in prison despite the fact that DNA evidence exonerated him on a rape he didn't commit. That's a nice message of justice: "Damn that Innocence Project! If a guy has a shady past, keep him in jail anyway, even if he didn't commit the crime, because he just might do something worse later!"
A politician using the Avery case for their wrongheaded attempt at barbaric justice is the most ridiculous exploitation of a murder case that hasn't even come to trial. Let's ignore the fact that approximately 66 percent of death penalty cases are overturned on appeal, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Let's ignore the fact that our judicial system is not infallible. Let's ignore the fact that it costs far more money to put someone to death than it does to imprison him or her. Let's also ignore the fact that death penalty states, like Oklahoma, have much higher violent crime and murder rates than states that don't have the death penalty, like Wisconsin.
Putting all of those facts aside, most people can agree that the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing we have in this country is fundamentally a good idea. Most people also believe that if you're innocent of a crime, you shouldn't spend 18 years behind bars. However, there are some in our society who don't believe in either of those two American principles, and would rather undermine our system of justice and basic rights than follow it.
But since I'm a nice guy, let me give our pro-death penalty state senators a little advice from an anti-death penalty point of view. After all, you haven't gotten much traction in your past attempts at passing this vengeful, draconian legislation. You've got to get people's attention. Do something dramatic. Offer to bring back some death penalty method with a little more spice than that boring needle, like the firing squad or public lynching or maybe even the classic beheading, just like they do in North Korea! After all, if you truly want to turn a B film into a Hollywood blockbuster, you've got to start somewhere!
Casey Hoff ([email protected]) is a University of Wisconsin student and host of "New Ground with Casey Hoff," live Monday through Friday, 9-11 a.m., on Madison 1670 The Pulse.
