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Wednesday, April 21,2004
-Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montiy
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
EE OI TO RIA L
Earth Day
gives chance
to clean up
White House
Since activists first established Earth Day on April 22,
1970 — an event American Heritage Magazine 23 years lat
er called "one of the most remarkable happenings in the
history of democracy" — a new environmental ethos has
permeated politics.
The summer of that year, President Nixon addressed a
letter to Congress citing unorganized, "piecemeal" govern
ment-related activities and the need to create a unified En
vironmental Protection Agency. The agency opened its
doors that December.
Politicians facing election aren't staying silent about en
vironmental policies.
Democratic nominee-elect Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass„
blasted President Bush's environmental record Tuesday.
According to Kerry's critique, delivered at a Tampa, Fla.
campaign event, the president's proposals will contribute
to upward of 100,000 premature deaths and millions of
asthma attacks. He also said Bush's policy of allowing dirt
ier plants to not upgrade to cleaner technology, is doing se
rious environmental and human damage.
Regardless of how accurate these claims are, politicians
are talking about the environment in big ways. In the mod
em American political scene — which is one of heightened
environmental consciousness — if politicians aren't doing
more to establish a balance of human interests and envi
ronmental quality, it's much harder to ignore green issues.
The Bush administration has established some environ
mentally friendly policies. The Landowner Incentive Pro
gram, for example, offers grants to landowners who volun
tarily protect the habitats of threatened and at-risk species
that live on private property. In addition, the president's fis
cal year 2003 budget included the largest National Parks
operations budget ever submitted — $665 million.
Still, Bush's White House record, it seems, is far from un
soiled.
The administration's environmental philosophy is re
sults-oriented, according to the White House Web site
(http://www.whitehouse.gov) — "making our air, water,
and land clear."
But a recent budget proposal slashes funding for the re
covery of endangered species by almost $ 10 million.
For the third consecutive year Bush also has asked Con
gress to relax environmental laws for the military, and the
Pentagon is seeking immunity from laws that regulate haz
ardous waste and air quality.
For all these efforts, the Bush administration seems to
have a problem with scientific integrity.
The White House Web site insists "(t)he President be
lieves that we need to employ the best science and data to
inform our decision-making." But Monday, the Union of
Concerned Scientists released a rebuttal to a White House
statement issued earlier this month.
The Bush administration statement was itself a response
to an earlier UCS report, "Scientific Integrity in Policymak
ing, " which criticized the government for undermining sci
entific integrity. The report, signed by many prominent sci
entists, including 20 Nobel laureates, alleged the White
House has manipulated in areas including air pollution,
forest management and endangered species.
This Earth Day, the Emerald Editorial Board urges the
Bush administration to re-evaluate its environmental poli
cies (and intellectual integrity) for the good of America's
next generation.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited
to 250 words and guest commentaries to 550 words.
Authors are limited to one submission per calendar
month. Submission must include phone number and
address for verification. The Emerald reserves the right
to edit for space, grammar and style.
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PROJECT:
INNOCENCE
It's quite interesting to read what hap
pens in Salem as the Oregon State Peni
tentiary counts down to an execution.
With four days remaining until an in
mate's execution date, the prison sends
him only photocopies of his mail to en
sure that he doesn't receive drugs. The in
mate is restricted to exercising in his cell.
With 48 hours to go, the superintendent
must ensure that a death certificate has
been readied and the mortician has signed
a form authorizing the release of the body.
Arrangements are finalized.
In the inmate's final hours, the emer
gency phones in the execution room are
checked obsessively in case the governor
issues a last-minute stay of execution. The
syringes are readied.
Soon after midnight on the scheduled
date, the inmate is pumped full of sodium
pentothal, pancuronium bromide and
potassium chloride. He is paralyzed, then
his heart stops.
Twenty-eight men await execution in
Oregon. The Beaver State is one of 38
states that executes its criminals, and like
every one of those states but Nebraska uses
lethal injection.
For a long time, the consensus has been
that lethal injection is the most humane
way to execute an inmate. Think again.
According to an Oct. 8 article in The
New York Times, the three-chemical com
bination used in lethal injections could
"lead to paralysis that masks intense dis
tress, leaving a wide-awake inmate unable
to speak or ay out as he slowly suffocates."
Some ask why we should be so con
cerned about the feelings of murderers. I
would answer because they're human be
ings, and simple compassion dictates a
modicum of sympathy. I would also say
that we are blessed with the wisdom of the
Eighth Amendment to the United States
Constitution, which prohibits cruel and
unusual punishment.
I have no problem, in theory, with exe
cuting people for particularly heinous
crimes if it can be done right. But it can't.
:
Chuck Slothower
Taking issue
Our years of experience with capital
punishment have revealed too much im
balance, especially on the basis of race and
income, to allow it to continue. Recent cas
es in which DNA evidence freed death row
prisoners revealed the frequent mistakes
made at the trial level, mistakes that were
luckily caught before they became irre
versible.
How many weren't?
A small group of University law stu
dents, journalism students and faculty are
working at a local level to oppose the more
egregious mistakes of our criminal justice
system. A handful of them gathered in
Room 282 of Knight Law Center on April
14 to discuss righting the wrongs of Ore
gon's criminal justice system.
The activists are interested in starting a
group to challenge wrongful convictions
in Oregon, and it is modeled after similar
groups across the country. One of the most
successful groups, Northwestern Universi
ty's Medill Innocence Project, came about
after journalism Professor David Protess
and his students freed eight wrongfully
convicted men in Illinois, four of whom
were on death row.
The problems uncovered by Protess and
his students led former Illinois Gov.
George Ryan, a pro-death penalty Republi
can, to declare Illinois' capital punishment
system a "catastrophic failure;" Ryan then
commuted the sentences of all 167 death
row inmates to life in prison and par
doned another four. He was later nomi
nated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the gut
sy move.
No one pretends that Oregon's criminal
justice system has problems as severe as
those found in Illinois. But excessive sen
tences run rampant and the possibility of
executing innocent prisoners can't be dis
counted.
These students and faculty are making
an effort that citizens of all political incli
nations can get behind. It's in no one's in
terest to have innocent people sit in jail,
and it's in no one's interest to have minor
offenders taking up jail space while mur
ders occur just because police have no
room to house domestic abusers, as re
cently happened in Springfield.
"There's a lot of people in jail who
shouldn't be doing the time they're do
ing," said Cheri Brooks, a law student ac
tive in the nascent innocence project.
"They got screwed, but they're not inno
cent necessarily."
Brooks is actively seeking institutional
support from both the University's law
school and the School of Journalism and
Communication. She said the deans of
both schools have "expressed strong inter
est" in the group.
Journalism graduate student Rita Ra
dostitz worked on capital punishment is
sues in Texas for eight years and is helping
to get the group off the ground.
Brooks said the group has already been
approached by prisoners' families who say
they need legal help.
The innocence project, which has yet to
settle on an official name, could potential
ly do a great deal of good in Oregon.
Working to correct injustices and giving
law and journalism students experience in
long-term investigations and working with
legal documents is something we all
should value.
Brooks hopes to have an e-mail
account for the group ready at
innocent@law.uoregon.edu.
Contact file columnist
at chuckslothower@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.