麻豆影院

On the eve of his retirement, sociology Professor Michael Radelet says 鈥榶es鈥�

At a star-studded gala kicked off by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the nation鈥檚 largest anti-death penalty organization recently honored Sociology Professor Michael Radelet for a lifetime of research examining the true societal costs of capital punishment.

Radelet Zoomed in, along with thousands of others from across the country, accepting the Death Penalty Focus Abolition Award with a statement that a few years ago he never dreamed he鈥檇 make.

鈥淲e are in a position to believe that many of us will see total abolition of the death penalty in our lifetimes,鈥� said Radelet, who will retire from teaching this year to focus entirely on research and advocacy. 鈥淲e are in the 15th round of a long fight, and the final punch of knocking out the executioner is about to come.鈥�

The award marks the latest highlight of a career in which听 Radelet has played no small role in making that progress a reality.听

His research, dating back to the late 1970s, was among the first to show that the innocent do, in fact, sometimes get executed, and that race plays a key role in determining who lands on death row. Through more than 50 鈥渓ast visits鈥� with inmates (including infamous serial killer Ted Bundy) in the hours before their execution, he has shone a unique light on life inside death row, and the toll capital punishment leaves on families and society.

His 100 research papers and dozens of testimonies have swayed the opinions of lawmakers, including those in Colorado, which one year ago became the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty.

And since 2001, he鈥檚 taught one of the most popular classes on campus, 鈥淭he Death Penalty in America,鈥� hosting guest lectures from death penalty prosecutors and defense attorneys, exonerated inmates and families of murder victims alike in hopes of enabling students to make up their own mind about the controversial subject.

鈥淭here has never been an empty seat in my class,鈥� he says proudly, seated in his office, as he begins to pack up.

It has, as he puts it, been a wild ride.

The return of the death penalty

It was 1 a.m. on July 13, 1984, when听 Radelet made the decision to publicly denounce the death penalty. He鈥檇 just said goodbye to David Washington, a convicted triple-murderer who died听 in the electric chair six hours later. As he accompanied Washington鈥檚 wife and two young daughters out of the Florida State Prison鈥檚 death row, their pleas began to echo through the hallways.

鈥淭hey just kept crying 鈥楶lease don鈥檛 kill my Daddy,鈥欌�� he recalls. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when I first came to realize that in many ways, the death penalty punishes the family and society as much as the inmate.鈥�

Just 12 years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that, as written, death penalty statutes in most states constituted 鈥渃ruel and unusual punishment.鈥澨�

鈥淎 number of people thought we would never see another execution again in the United States,鈥� recalls Radelet.

But soon states began to recraft their statutes.

On Jan. 17, 1977, in a highly publicized firing squad execution of Gary Gilmore, the death penalty was revived, and support began to rise.

听Radelet, who taught sociology at University of Florida for 20 years听 before joining the CU 麻豆影院 faculty in 2001, began to compile a massive data set of death sentences and executions in the U.S.听

Today, he鈥檚 still at it: 鈥淪ome people collect stamps,鈥� he says, with a shrug and his trademark wry wit. 鈥淲hat can I say.鈥�

The numbers are chilling:听

Since 1972, executioners have put 1,532 people to death in the United States, including 17 in 2020 alone鈥�10 under the direction of the federal government. The spike of federal executions in the past year has fueled calls for incoming President Joe Biden to do away with the federal death penalty.

Today there are some 2,500 people on America鈥檚 death rows, including 53 women. Since 1972, at least 185 wrongly convicted people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death, several of whom have spoken in Radelet鈥檚 classes.

According to his own research, originally published in 1987, at least 23 innocent people were executed in the United States between 1905-1974, and data suggests that number has continued to grow.听 For every nine people executed in the past 40 years, one person sentenced to death has been released because of innocence.

The increasing revelation of such blunders, some established via DNA testing, has helped nudge 142 countries around the globe to ban the practice, and sway conservative lawmakers at home. Ten states have abolished the death penalty in the 2000鈥檚.

鈥淧eople have concerns about the power of big government,鈥� says Radelet, echoing sentiments that an institution that has trouble fixing potholes and delivering mail shouldn鈥檛 be trusted to determine who lives or dies. 鈥淵ou shouldn鈥檛 be making God-like decisions if you听 don鈥檛 have God-like skills..鈥�

Racial underpinnings

Then, there is the race issue.

In one seminal study of Florida cases, published in 1981,听 Radelet showed for the first time that those accused of murdering white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder black victims. Study after study has since confirmed this finding, including one in 2017 in Oklahoma, in which Radelet found that cases with a white female victim were 10 times more likely to result in a death sentence than similar homicides听 with a male victim of color.听

In many jurisdictions, jurors听 are also more likely to hand down a death sentence in cases with a black defendant than in similar cases with a听 white defendant. And death sentences are often handed down arbitrarily, based largely on prosecutor discretion, he found. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of the luck of the draw.鈥�

Capital punishment, he notes, is also extremely expensive, with endless appeals paid for by taxpayers.听

California alone, since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, has spent $5 billion to fund a system that has carried out 13 executions. Today California has the largest death row in the country, but in 2019 Governor Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions and ordered the dismantling of the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

鈥淭hat money could have been better used to solve unsolved rapes and murders and invest in strategies to decrease crime, support victims and survivors, and decrease recidivism,鈥� said Newsom during the Death Penalty Focus awards ceremony in February.听

Looking to the future

Clutching a hand-written goodbye letter Bundy wrote to him in the hours before he went to the electric chair,听 Radelet likens his last visits with inmates to hospice work. In their final hours, he says, even a convicted murderer deserves the grace of a listening ear.

Some have accused him over the years of sympathizing with criminals. He disagrees. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 oppose the death penalty because these guys are all great citizens. You oppose it because of what it does to society.鈥�

Others have suggested he is insensitive to murder victims鈥� families.

But through an alliance with Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, he and his students have worked for years to assist families in cases where the murder of their loved one remains unsolved.

鈥淲hat all families want is closure,鈥� he says. 鈥淓xecuting some guy 20 years after the murder doesn鈥檛 necessarily accomplish that.鈥�

At a minimum, Radelet is confident听 that Biden will order no executions under the federal death penalty during his term, and hopeful that he will commute existing federal death sentences to life. It is also conceivable the president will take a firmer stand, following shifting public opinion (60% of Americans now favor life imprisonment over the death penalty) and supporting proposed legislation to abolish the federal death penalty for good.

Meanwhile, Radelet plans to keep doing research. And students he mentored decades ago are now doing their own.

鈥淚t is one thing for us to talk anecdotally about whether the death penalty is racist or biased or flawed. He actually demonstrated it,鈥� said Stacy Mallicoat, a former student who is now a听 professor and researcher in the criminal justice department at California State University Fullerton. 鈥淗e had a huge impact in shaping my career.鈥�

Asked if he鈥檚 proud of his legacy, Radelet says it鈥檚 too early to tell.听

鈥淚n my discipline, nobody is a river, you are just a little stream flowing into a lake and you never know what your true impact really is. I鈥檓 just happy to have the opportunity to have an impact at all.鈥�