Will a Supreme Court of the United States order finally introduce the death penalty to Michigan? As reported Saturday in the Detroit Free Press:
The Supreme Court has declined to settle a dispute over whether the federal government has jurisdiction over a Newaygo County murder that put a Michigan man on death row. The Supreme Court order was entered Monday. A federal jury chose the death penalty for Marvin Gabrion in 2002, the first case of of capital punishment in Western Michigan.
http://www.freep.com/...
Michigan was the first sovereign state to abolish the death penalty. That remarkable milestone is observed internationally on March 1 each year as International Death Penalty Abolition Day marking the date Michigan led the world in banning the death penalty.
In fact the first official act of the new state Legislature was to abolish the death penalty and the ban was enshrined in the State Constitution as of March 1, 1847. The happily abbbreviated history of the death penalty in Michigan is summarized by Marietta Jaeger-Lane in her article "Michigan's Death Penalty History" http://www.cuadp.org/...
The citizens and lawyers of the State of Michigan take great pride in Michigan's unique status and leadership on this issue. It was a fact brought to the fore in first year Criminal Law at University of Detroit-Mercy and I would be surprised if it is not noted with pride likewise in the State's other law schools. Think of it. The death penalty has never existed in our State. Never in its history has the State taken a life in retribution for a crime. A remarkable record for any sovereign state anywhere.
For another possible quirk in Michigan law, check out irresistible impulse as a defense for murder in the Robert Travers/Jutice Voelker legal thiller Anatomy of a Murder http://en.wikipedia.org/... and the eponymously titled movie with Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Eve Arden and George C. Scott. http://en.wikipedia.org/... I regret my sloth this sunny Easter Sunday makes me unable to muster the energy to research whether that defense is still or was ever really viable here. Thus, if the Lions blow their draft picks on another bunch of duds, Michigan Kossacks are on their own!
Now, due to a decision by federal prosecutors under the prior admistration, blood may be shed in as the result of a jury verdict for the first time in Michigan state history because of a decision to prosecute an accused murderer under federal law for this homicide. I don't want to debate the guilt or innocence of the defendant. And perhaps the sentence will not even be carried out here. However, I do defend the right of our citizen's to reject the death penalty as a means of punishment and I am shocked and outraged that our State's greatest legal tradition and our proud pioneering status may now be kicked to the side of the road.
Attempts to amend Michigan's Constitution were rejected by the Legislature in 1999 and 2007. But federal prosecutors, in complete disregard of our laws and traditions, have chosen to thumb their noses at this great legal leadership by deciding to trample on the political and legal wisdom of the citizens of the Great Lakes State.http://www.detnews.com/....
What should be done? I urge Kossacks and especially Michiganders to contact President Obama and our Congressional Delegation to urge commutation of the death sentence and protect Michigan's long and proud anti-death penalty tradition.http://www.wsws.org/...
And hats off to former Western District of Michigan prosecutor Margaret Chiara for opposing the Bush administration's decision to ignore Michigan's legal traditions...opposition which cost her the job as one of the seven prosecutors fired by Alberto Clownzoles. In fairness I note Janet Reno also pursued such cases but our citizen jurors showed greater respect for state jurisprdence traditions. The juries rejected the death penalty request, while convicting the defendants in cases brought in 1998 and 2003 (charges where brought before Bush took office in the latter instance and the conviction occurred in 2003).
No state or government should ever have the power to kill its citizen. Ever.