Compassion must eclipse justice when it comes to US death penalty

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast Agreement. US president Joe Biden’s much anticipated visit to Ireland will dominate the news cycle for the remainder of this week. His steadfast support for the country will rightly be applauded. This is a time for celebration, reflection and optimism.

Amid the fanfare that will accompany the visit, I wonder if Biden might set aside four minutes for an act of mercy? That is how long it would take him to sign commutation notices for the 43 men who remain on federal death row and whose lives could be spared with a stroke of the presidential pen.

Biden has said he will work to pass legislation ending capital punishment at the federal level. But he could sign these notices immediately. For him to flex his clemency power does not require new laws, endless consultations or bipartisan consensus. Visiting cousins in Co Mayo or Co Louth he could deal with the necessary paperwork in the time it takes them to set the table and wet the tea.

There is no doubt that the occupants of federal death row did terrible things. Their choices have had dreadful and enduring consequences. Before they are strapped to a gurney and given a lethal injection, they will have exhausted a lengthy legal process. Many in the US believe that they have forfeited their right to life.

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It is an act of mercy to allow someone to live when there are no obstacles to prevent justice taking its course and the weight of opinion is that it should. Mercy is when compassion eclipses justice.

[ US executes first woman on federal death row in nearly 70 years ]

Mercy makes people uneasy because it involves unmerited leniency. It gives criminals what they have no right to claim and are seen not to deserve. But it acknowledges that, however appallingly someone has behaved, they still matter because of our shared humanity.

The invocation prayer at Biden’s inauguration called on him to care for the least fortunate among us, in word and deed, and by so doing to become a light for the world. It spoke of dreaming together of a world of peace and justice.

Pope Francis has been unequivocal in denouncing the death penalty, stating that it “offers no justice to victims, but rather encourages revenge. And it prevents any possibility of undoing a possible miscarriage of justice.”

The US stands apart from other developed countries by clinging to this grotesque and outmoded method of punishment. It is time for the cycle of killing to stop and it would be a magnificent gesture if Biden showed mercy to 43 condemned men. This could be done quietly and without ceremony.

As a devout Catholic, his sparing their lives just after Easter would be especially profound, signalling an openness to the possibility that people can change and seek redemption, no matter how awful their crimes.

It would have added significance if Biden took the necessary action while visiting a country he loves – and one that he says inspires him – where capital punishment was abolished many years ago.

The last person to be executed in Ireland was Michael Manning, a 24-year-old carter from Limerick who ambushed and suffocated Catherine Cooper, a nurse 40 years his senior. This was a brutal crime involving a vulnerable victim who was badly beaten and sexually assaulted.

[ Death row inmates in Japan sue over same-day notification of execution ]

Arrested within hours, Manning apologised for what he had done and from his cell in Mountjoy Prison wrote to the minister for justice seeking mercy. His entreaties and, indeed, a petition for clemency signed by members of the Cooper family failed to deflect justice from its dismal course. On April 20th, 1954, Albert Pierrepoint escorted Manning to the gallows and snapped his neck.

Adding to the poignancy of the occasion, Manning’s heavily pregnant wife wrote to the prison governor the week after the hanging to thank him for his kindness and to request a death certificate so that she could claim the widow’s pension to which she had prematurely become entitled.

Nurse Cooper was murdered two days before Biden’s 11th birthday. As he will see during his visit, Ireland did not descend into chaos when the government stopped breaking necks and making widows.

The word “historic” can be overused to the point of banality but a display of mercy to a group of men who are considered to be among the worst of the worst, shown by the US president during a visit to his ancestral home, would merit this accolade.

Even the most carefully choreographed and tightly packed itinerary should be flexible enough to allow a four-minute window to address a matter of life and death.

Why not, Mr Biden?

Ian O’Donnell is professor of criminology at University College Dublin and author of Justice, Mercy and Caprice: Clemency and the Death Penalty in Ireland