{"id":546130,"date":"2010-04-28T15:23:26","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T19:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=44910"},"modified":"2010-04-28T15:23:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T19:23:26","slug":"matters-of-life-and-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/546130","title":{"rendered":"Matters of life and death"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1987, on her first day at her new job in Washington, D.C., Carol Steiker<\/a> was handed two giant notebooks by her predecessor and was told, \u201cThe boss really cares a lot about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her new boss was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and what he cared passionately about was opposing the death penalty. As a result, Steiker, his new clerk, became well-versed in issues related to capital punishment, and in the intervening years has come to care deeply about the topic herself.<\/p>\n

A group of graduating Harvard Law School<\/a> (HLS) students listened to parting advice on Wednesday (April 21) from Steiker, who has made studying and teaching classes on capital punishment a large part of her life\u2019s work. The professor took part in the last of four discussion sessions sponsored by the School\u2019s 3L class marshals that let HLS scholars offer the departing class some final words of wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promise you, there is nothing more satisfying than to work on something \u2026 that you care passionately about,\u201d said Steiker, who delivered a talk she titled \u201cWhy I Am Against the Death Penalty, and Why You Should Be Against Something Too.\u201d The Howard J. and Katherine W. Aibel Professor of Law described her opposition to the penalty in both procedural and moral terms, and encouraged audience members to \u201cfind their inner indignation and harness it for good.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the procedural realm, recalling the campaign of former presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis, she noted that capital punishment has become a \u201chot-button political issue,\u201d and that intense pressure is put on elected officials to support it. Steiker said that many observers felt Dukakis\u2019 presidential hopes were dashed when he famously remarked during a 1988 debate that he wouldn\u2019t back the death penalty even if his wife were murdered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to overstate how the death penalty has played such a potent role in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steiker also called funding for capital defense in the United States \u201chorribly inadequate,\u201d and said there \u201cis just simply no will to correct this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governments face major demands on their budgets in areas such as health care and education, so passing appropriation or tax bills for lawyers to defend hardened criminals is not a priority for state and local officials, said Steiker.<\/p>\n

Additionally, recent legal changes have drastically limited the review of state death penalty convictions at the federal level, essentially eliminating an important backstop, she said.<\/p>\n

On moral grounds, Steiker, who frequently debates death penalty proponents, worried in part that extreme punishments done in the name of the \u201cpublic\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d would have a \u201cwearing effect on certain crucial aspects of human nature,\u201d including \u201cthe ability to identify \u2014 have compassion with \u2014 other people, especially people who are different from the way we view ourselves. \u2026 We need to protect [these] sensibilities and capacities that are central to moral agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

But turning the audience into death penalty abolitionists wasn\u2019t the goal of her talk, said Steiker. Her aim, she said, was to convince listeners to find their own passion, and to use their \u201cenormous talents, energies, and excellent educations\u201d in pursuing it.<\/p>\n

There is tremendous suffering and injustice in the world, said Steiker, and \u201cyou are among the people in the world most equipped to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1987, on her first day at her new job in Washington, D.C., Carol Steiker was handed two giant notebooks by her predecessor and was told, \u201cThe boss really cares a lot about this.\u201d Her new boss was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and what he cared passionately about was opposing the death penalty. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}