Abolish 'legal' lynchings
LESBIANS & GAYS ON DEATH ROW
By Anya Mukarji-Connolly

On Feb. 7, the state of Missouri executed Stanley D. Lingar, a gay man
convicted of killing a teenager in 1985. This execution of Lingar and
that of disabled African American lesbian Wanda Jean Allen in Oklahoma
are two of the four recent death-penalty cases that have received
national attention due to the severe homophobia that permeated their
trials.

In the case of Stanley Lingar, the only issue raised in the sentencing
phase of his trial was the fact that he and his co-defendant were
involved in a consensual same-sex relationship.
An attorney representing Lingar said that the aim of telling the jury
about the defendant's sexuality was to "inflame a homophobic jury from a
rural area with prejudicial evidence that Lingar was a practicing
homosexual, a fact that the prosecution believed the jury would find
morally offensive."

Lingar appealed to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused
to overturn his conviction. The court held that the introduction of his
homosexuality to the jury was "harm less" and "did not contribute to the
jury's death verdict."

In Texas, the case of Calvin Burdine has gained national publicity.
Burdine's original trial attorney slept through portions of the trial.
And when the lawyer was awake, he remained silent when the prosecutor
made homophobic arguments to the jury.

The most outrageous of these remarks was the prosecutor's urging the
jury to sentence Burdine to death rather than life imprisonment because
sending "a homosexual to the penitentiary certainly isn't a very bad
punishment."

The jury was made up of a number of jurors who had expressed anti-gay
views before being chosen. This was also not objected to by Burdine's
original attorney. During the trial, the prosecutor used a 1971 "sodomy"
conviction resulting from a consensual sexual relationship to argue that
Burdine was likely to commit criminal violent acts in the future.

In 1999 Burdine's conviction was overturned, not based on the homophobia
that dominated his trial, but rather on the denial of his right to
counsel. The court reasoned that unconscious or sleeping counsel is
equivalent to no counsel at all. An appeals court then voted to
reinstate the conviction. Now on appeal to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of
Appeals, the court has held that the case must be reheard.

In the case of Wanda Jean Allen, an African American lesbian who was
executed on Jan. 11 by the state of Oklahoma, the prosecutor labeled
Allen as the "man" in the relationship in order to persuade the jury
that she was more capable of being violent.

Allen and Lingar, both recently executed, suffered from brain
disabilities. Allen suffered from severe developmental disability
resulting from skull traumas. Lingar's attorney also argued that his
client was borderline developmentally disabled.

The fourth of these recent death penalty cases involving gay and lesbian
defendants is the case of Gregory Scott Dickens in Arizona. Dickens,
along with his co-defendant and former boyfriend, were charged with the
1991 robbery and murder of two people.

Dickens, who did not pull the trigger, was sentenced to death, while his
co-defendant who testified for the prosecution was sentenced to 55 years
in prison.

Dickens' attorney argues that he did not receive a fair trail because
the judge was homophobic. Judge Cole, who presided over Dickens's trial,
had written several letters to his own gay son saying things such as, "I
hope you die in prison like all the rest of your f----t friends."

Judge Cole maintains that he was capable of handling Dickens's case
fairly.
In this society the death penalty has been used arbitrarily to punish
members of oppressed communities. It is used disproportionately against
the poor and people of color.

Over 3,200 individuals--disproportionately people of color-- sit on
death row in the United States. None of them are wealthy. Prior to 1976,
the Supreme Court held that the death penalty was illegal because of its
racist use.

Today, it is clear that the death penalty is also used to inflict severe
punishment on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Capitalist society is built on a foundation of racism, sexism and
anti-lesbian/ gay/ bi/trans oppression. It is no accident then that this
ideology pervades the criminal injustice system and its laws--both
created to protect private ownership of wealth and property, not the
lives of poor and working people.

It's time to wage a large-scale fight to abolish the racist, bigoted use
of the death penalty--a weapon of terror in the hands of the capitalist
state.

And lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people of all nationalities have
been in the forefront of this struggle, particularly in the battle to
save the life of death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

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