Birdsong's Law Blog

Birdsong was outraged to learn, first from a report on the Tom Joyner Morning Show on July 23, 2008, that the Chinese government through its uniformed Public Security Bureau has told bar owners to not sell alcohol to black people or Mongolians during the Beijing’s Olympics!

Birdsong finds it far fetched to believe that there are that many black people in Beijing who might get liquored up and possibly cause trouble for the Olympics.  Birdsong has no experience with Mongolians and does not know whether they are prone to mischief after drinking.

What Birdsong does know is that this sounds like good old fashioned bigotry

Birdsong read with interest last week of the United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Kennedy v. Louisiana.  In that case the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional and violative of the Eighth Amendment to put a defendant to death for the rape of a child.  The Court said that under our society’s evolving standards of decency execution for the rape of a child was cruel and unusual – the Eighth amendment standard.

           Although many may disagree, I believe the decision by the court was a right one.   But Birdsong is against the death penalty for all crimes and advocates for abolition of the death penalty in the U.S.  This will probably not come to pass during Birdsong’s lifetime.

            One reason Birdsong is against the death penalty in the U.S. is that it has often been used in discriminatory ways against African Americans and other minorities who often can not afford excellent legal      representation.  The defendant in Kennedy v. Louisiana was an African American.  Prior to the landmark Supreme Court case of Furman v. Georgia in 1972 the Supreme Court recognized that there was racial discrimination with respect to our use of the death penalty.  The Furman decision led to reforms in 35 states that lessened the unfettered use of the death penalty.

           Despite those reforms Birdsong contends that there is still discrimination with respect to our death penalty decisions.  The defendant’s race often seems to be a factor in seeking the death penalty.  But what of a country where the majority of the population is of African descent — should we still be uneasy about using the death penalty?

           If such a question intrigues you please read the following article I wrote about the matter a few years back.  You will certainly learn something…

  EXERCISE  IN RACE-NEUTRAL DECISION MAKING:  IMPOSITION OF THE DEATH  PENALTY  IN THE BAHAMAS — WE SHOULD STILL BE UNEASY                                

                                              ©  1999 by Leonard E. Birdsong

                                                  I.  Introduction

             This article is a view of  recent  race-neutral death penalty decisions made in the Bahamas, our closest neighbor in the English Speaking Caribbean [hereinafter ESC].²  Though race-neutral, a thorough examination of the decisions made in these cases should still leave us uneasy about the imposition of the death penalty in our modern day world.

            I  have long been against the use of the death penalty in the United States of America. It does not seem to be a deterrent to crime. And unfortunately, for much of the history of our country the death penalty has been used against African-Americans in  an unfair way and in numbers disproportionate to our number in the overall society. Some say that African-American lawyers and law professors like myself should continually speak out and  press for the abolition of the death penalty because, given the history of racism in the United States, it is impossible that the death penalty can be administered in a race-neutral way. In the United States death row is disproportionately inhabited by African-American men.  According to the Capital Punishment Project of The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, forty two  per cent of  the approximately 3,300 inmates awaiting execution are Black.³

Birdsong read with interest last week’s op-ed piece by Charles Krauthammer about Barack Obama.  It appeared in the Washington Post with the headline: “The Audacity of Vanity.”  Krauthammer who is a professionally trained psychiatrist is a wonderful opinion writer and has won a Pulitzer Prize for his past commentary.  Birdsong usually enjoys his columns but does not always agree with him.

Krauthammer’s latest effort in tone was very reminiscent of Jesse Jackson’s earlier  “hot mike” rant against Obama which ended with Jackson’s wish to castrate Obama for talking down to black people.

It is the political season and Birdsong has been observing the putative presidential candidates, Obama and McCain from the sidelines.  Birdsong will proudly cast his vote for Obama if he does, in fact, win the Democratic Party nomination for president.  It will certainly be historic to cast a vote for president for the first African American candidate of a major political party in the United States.  Such a vote  will say a lot about  how far we have come in race relations in this country since the first  Africans were brought to America’s shores in 1619 and sold as slaves in Virginia.

But this post is not about slaves, African Americans or about Barack Obama.  It is about John McCain.