4A the university daily kansan
opinion
wednesday, october 29, 2003
talk to us
Michelle Burhenn-Rombeck
editor
884-4854 or mburhenn@kansan.com
Lindsay Hanson and Leah Shaffer managing editors
864-4854 or lhanson@kansan.com and lshaffer@kansan.com
Louise Stauffer and Stephen Shupe
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-4358 or addirector@kansan.com
Taylor Thode
retail sales manager
864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com
Matalm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
884.7667 or mqlibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
864-7660 or mfisher@kansan.com
Free for All
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
Yes, I do iron my shoe laces, and if you have a problem with that you can just go run and jump off a lake.
tal cases is incurred prior to and during trial. In Kansas, two lawyers are usually appointed to the defense instead of just one. Lawyers need more time before the trial to prepare the case. More experts must be hired. More motions will be filed and answered. Two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment. After all of this, the appeals process begins. During this period, the defendant must be held in top security. The costs created by the death penalty far exceed those of other sentences. If Kansas or any other state has the death penalty, it is responsible for supplying these resources.
I don't care what they say. Ashley Smith you are an amazing writer and keep it up.
tal cases is incurred prior to and during trial. In Kansas, two lawyers are usually appointed to the defense instead of just one. Lawyers need more time before the trial to prepare the case. More experts must be hired. More motions will be filed and answered. Two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment. After all of this, the appeals process begins. During this period, the defendant must be held in top security. The costs created by the death penalty far exceed those of other sentences. If Kansas or any other state has the death penalty, it is responsible for supplying these resources.
If you live in a house with a hundred-plus girls, you are going to have someone going to class the same time as you are no matter what time of the day. So us greeks don't plan to walk together. It just happens.
--tal cases is incurred prior to and during trial. In Kansas, two lawyers are usually appointed to the defense instead of just one. Lawyers need more time before the trial to prepare the case. More experts must be hired. More motions will be filed and answered. Two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment. After all of this, the appeals process begins. During this period, the defendant must be held in top security. The costs created by the death penalty far exceed those of other sentences. If Kansas or any other state has the death penalty, it is responsible for supplying these resources.
To all of you dorm rats who keep calling in about the greeks: No one cares what you think.
□
Luke, I am your father.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Has anybody seen the new online timetable? It really, really sucks. Please bring back the old timetable. I like the paper kind. Please.
tal cases is incurred prior to and during trial. In Kansas, two lawyers are usually appointed to the defense instead of just one. Lawyers need more time before the trial to prepare the case. More experts must be hired. More motions will be filed and answered. Two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment. After all of this, the appeals process begins. During this period, the defendant must be held in top security. The costs created by the death penalty far exceed those of other sentences. If Kansas or any other state has the death penalty, it is responsible for supplying these resources.
To the man that wears the wolf suit: Do you really think that you are a wolf?
Hey wolf man: What are you going to be for Halloween? You can be the leader of my pack.
啊
My roommate is stinky
Chicken lover.
**填**
I am walking home from the bars and I was wondering if people remembered the good old days when people stopped at red lights.
Burning incense and playing a bongo drum doesn't mean that you are peaceful or that you represent peace.
stayskal's view
Wayne Stayskal for Knight Ridder
Death penalty biased, prejudiced, expensive
perspective
GUEST COMMENTARY
John Clayton Smith will be executed in Missouri today. He will be the 878th victim of the death penalty in the United States since 1976, the year that the Supreme Court reinsted capital punishment in Gregg v. Georgia.
Four years earlier, the Supreme Court had put a moratorium on the death penalty in *Furman v. Georgia*. It declared capital punishment to be "cruel and unusual punishment" and unconstitutional. When the Court reversed its decision four years later, it declared that the problems with the death penalty had been resolved. The death penalty would no longer be imposed arbitrarily. Instead, the new statutes would give "guided discretion" for imposing the death penalty.
Anna D. Gregory
opinion@hansan.com
Twenty-seven years later, the problems have not been fixed. The death penalty is still arbitrarily imposed, discriminating on the basis of race and class. A death sentence is less dependent on the crime one commits and more dependent on where one commits it. In such a biased system, the death penalty can and does kill innocent people.
The death penalty is racially prejudiced. Amnesty International, a human rights group active in the fight against capital punishment, reports that 80 per-
Because a death sentence is so expensive, some areas cannot afford to use it. This creates a disparity linking capital crime to capital punishment. In Kansas, Sedgwick County has had nine capital cases, since the death penalty was reinstated by Gov. Joan Finney in 1994. Wyandotte County, a less wealthy district, has had 15. Only three of Wyandotte's cases went to trial and none were sentenced. In Sedgwick, six went to trial and five ended with a death sentence. These numbers show that our system is not fair. The wealth of a county in which one lives
cent of death-row defendants have been executed for killing white victims, while 50 percent of homicides in the United States involve African-American victims. A study done on the city of Philadelphia by the Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System, which has studied the impacts of race in the courts since 1999, reports that African Americans are four times more likely to receive a death sentence than a white American who committed the same crime.
should not have an effect on the sentence.
More than 100 people have been released from death row since 1973 after evidence of a wrongful conviction emerged. Because of inadequate representation, police misconduct, racial prejudice, perjured and mistaken眼-witness testimony, innocent people have been and are on death row. The death penalty is irreversible. In a system we know to have flaws, the risk of the death penalty is too great.
A common argument in favor of capital punishment is that the death penalty saves taxpayers' money. Not true. The state of New York reported that execution is three times more expensive than life imprisonment. Similar reports have come from Kansas. Most of the extra cost in capi-
The United States is third behind China and Iran in number of capital punishments imposed. Other countries look to us as a leader. The United States needs to abolish the death penalty. In the past 27 years, the death penalty has not stopped violence, it has permanently silenced 877 Americans. Today it will silence the 878th.
If you would like to get involved in abolishing the death penalty, the KU chapter of Amnesty International meets 7 p.m. every Tuesday at Alcove C in the Kansas Union.
Gregory is a Topeka senior in political science and history. She is a member of Amnesty International and a member of the editorial board.
letters to the editor
KU College Republicans responsible for advertisement
As the public relations coordinator for the KU College Republicans, I feel like I must reply to the comments made on Monday by Joe White about an ad regarding our meeting featuring Adam Taff ("College Republicans, 'Kansan' used incorrect political title," Oct. 27, 2003).
I am directly responsible for all advertisements for our organization. The ad was not meant to be tongue-in-cheek and in fact was entirely a mistake. All who were offended by this mistake can hold only me accountable. It is not the Kansan's responsibility to fact check; it is mine. It is my responsibility for not proofing the ad more thoroughly. With midterms piling up and making plans for fall break, I gave the ad little more than a glance before it was sent to publication. For that, I apologize.
However, Taff is far from a "faded has-been." Congressman Dennis Moore is a good person who would not appreciate insulting an up-and-coming star in his name.
This is only the second time Taff has run for office, an endeavor that put on hold his dedication to the protecting our nation as a decorated officer in the U.S. Navy.
Also, referring to our organization as "a group of students with nothing better to do" is not only disrespectful, but also a slap in the face to the discipline you study. Young dynamic individuals that are involved are the ones that keep democracy alive. We have plenty to do, Joe, and I don't appreciate your suggestion otherwise.
Sam Arif
Wichita senior in political science
public relations
KU College Republicans
United States, University must confront terrorism
The world has been frightened into whimpering cowardice by one simple but awesome fact. One man with a nuclear device can destroy the greatest city. And we need a plan to deter that NOW, even if it means invading the entire Muslim world. There can be no compromise, and no misunderstanding on this point. The free world must tell the Muslim world, like yesterday, we will sacrifice no city on the altar of the bizarre god of the Quran.
The whole civilized world must stand up and call the terrorists and the nations that sponsor them, what they are
murderers. And if they continue to insist that God told them to do it, then their Allah is a murderer also, a reincarnation of Baal Hammon, that ancient idol horror from whose hands children were dropped into the sacrificial fire.
Although it would be helpful if academia would lend its talents to fighting the crisis of the hour, the coma there is simply too deep. To be certain, the buildings are well maintained, the lawns are well watered, the football team plays for cheering throngs of fans, the faculty and the staff are well paid and the students attend classes and receive diplomas. The institution can keep going for a while on autopilot. But the heart of the University's mission — the quest for truth — has long since decayed into dust — leaving it useless before the coming storm.
Did we think it only rhetoric when Yeats asked: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?" In the University we face the outcome of decades of intellectual frivolity, importance before a nuclear device hidden in Harvard Square, even as Noam Chomsky up at MIT rambles on incoherently about American "imperialism."
Leonard Magruder president Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
submitting letters and guest columns
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Louise Stauffer or Stephen Shupe at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com
GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
Maximum Length:
Maximum Length:
650 word limit
Include:
Author's name
Class, hometown (student)
Position (faculty member)
Also:
The Kansan will not print guest columns that
attack another columnist.
LETTER GUIDELINES
Maximum Length:
200 word limit
Include:
Author's name
Author's telephone number
Class, hometown (student)
Position (faculty member)
SUBMITTO
E-mail:
opinion@kansan.com
---
Hard copy:
Kansannewsroom
111 Staufer-Flint