THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: By JOHN C. TUCKER
LENGTH: 78 lines
By tradition, American judges often conclude the ritual imposition of a death sentence by addressing the unfortunate prisoner with the words ``May God have mercy on your soul.'' In this way, the court reminds us that among the elements which form the foundation of our legal system, and indeed of the entire American enterprise, are the religious concepts of forgiveness and redemption.
That this once-solid foundation is crumbling in the face of the petty efforts of politicians and bureaucrats to prove their ``toughness'' on crime has been demonstrated again in Virginia. As he had done before without difficulty, Walter Sullivan, the Catholic Bishop of Richmond, sought to visit Catholic prisoners on Virginia's death row to provide them spiritual guidance and comfort. Three of the prisoners Bishop Sullivan wanted to visit were scheduled to die by the hand of the state in the next six weeks.
This time, Bishop Sullivan's request to conduct Mass for the prisoners was rejected by prison authorities as dangerous and disruptive. Sullivan then asked that he at least be allowed to visit the three prisoners scheduled for execution to offer them communion and the sacrament of last rites. At first that request was approved, but a few days later approval was withdrawn, ostensibly because the prison was on ``lockdown.''
In fact, Virginia's prisons have been placed on routine administrative ``lockdown'' with increasing frequency since Ronald Angelone was appointed director of corrections as part of Gov. George Allen's promise to end the supposed ``coddling'' of prisoners, and a routine lockdown provides no valid excuse for the denial of Bishop Sullivan's request. Prisoners on death row are separated from the rest of the prison, and security on ``the row'' is so tight that it makes little difference whether the prison as a whole is on ``lockdown.''
Bishop Sullivan was outraged at the decision of the prison authorities, and wrote an angry letter to Director Angelone denouncing it as ``a violation of human rights and an affront to human decency.'' When the controversy reached the press the Department of Corrections quickly backed down, but not before a departmental ``spokesperson'' responded by accusing Bishop Sullivan of bad faith by choosing ``to air what is really his opposition to the death penalty in the press.''
Sullivan should not have been as surprised at the prison officials' conduct as his letter suggests. The attitude of Director Angelone about the spiritual needs of prisoners facing execution was revealed last year when another death-row inmate asked to be baptized before his execution after a religious awakening achieved with the guidance of Baptist minister and death-row Chaplain Russ Ford.
In previous years prisoners were routinely baptized if they requested it and their spiritual adviser agreed that the request was sincere and appropriate, but Angelone denied the request and the man went to his death without the sacrament. The Rev. Mr. Ford was furious. Angelone claimed he was denying the request because the inmate had already been baptized, but as Ford pointed out, in the Baptist faith successive baptism after a religious awakening or ``rebirth'' is common, and in some views essential.
Ford is also angry at the department's treatment of Bishop Sullivan, and especially the suggestion that Sullivan's request was grandstanding. ``Bishop Sullivan is a pastoral bishop,'' Ford told me. ``I've been with him in the death house. I've been there when he administered the sacraments to a Catholic inmate shortly before his execution and seen the peace it brought to his parishioner at that awful time. To suggest that Bishop Sullivan's request was not based on a sincere desire to minister to his flock is ridiculous, and to deny those inmates this spiritual help is criminal.''
It may also be unconstitutional. And the attitude reflected by the response of Virginia's prison authorities to Bishop Sullivan's request raises other important issues. If self-serving officials think it appropriate to refuse a human right as fundamental as the opportunity to receive spiritual comfort in the shadow of death, can it be long before some politician suggests that we turn a child away from a school or hospital because his father came to America illegally; or that a mother and child be denied food and shelter because the mother cannot find work? MEMO: John Tucker is a lawyer and author. His book ``May God Have
Mercy,'' describing a Virginia murder case which ended in the execution
of a man who may have been innocent, is scheduled for publication next
year by W.W. Norton & Co. by CNB