Advocates on both sides of the death penalty issued passionate arguments in defense of victims' families and accused criminals during a forum Wednesday at the UNM Law School.
Tom Rutledge is the Carlsbad District Attorney who prosecuted Terry Clark in the rape and murder case of 6-year-old Dena Lynn Gore. The 15-year case concluded in early November and was New Mexico's first execution in 41 years.
Rutledge, who calls himself a capital punishment activist, said that he cannot change his heartfelt belief in the death penalty and, as a father, tries to put himself in the place of Dena Lynn Gore's family.
"I'll live every day wondering how, as a parent, if I could deal with the knowledge that my daughter was taken to a deserted ranch, brutally raped, shot three times in the head and the man who did it is busy doing drawings (in prison) and sending them out to other people while my daughter lies dead in a grave," he said.
Rutledge urged others to put themselves in that place and noted that the process to sentence a prisoner to death holds a very high standard.
"In the death penalty cases I have done, we have two levels of proof. We have beyond a reasonable doubt in the guilty phase and beyond a question of a doubt in the death penalty phase."
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Rutledge also commented on the closure that Dena Lynn Gore's mother felt after Clark's death.
"Two weeks after Clark's execution, I talked to Colleen . and she said, 'For the first time in 15 years, I can sleep at night - for the first time I don't hear my little girl screaming.'"
The event featured panelists Bob Schwartz, Rutledge, Randi McGinn, Trienah Gorman and Father Robert Keller who presented stories and convictions on the topic of execution. The student chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild from the UNM Law School sponsored the forum.
Randi McGinn, a criminal defense attorney, told the audience the story of how she became a repeal activist.
She explained that in 1984, she prosecuted a man named Joel Lee Compton to death row for killing a police officer. McGinn said that once he was convicted, she felt a queasy feeling in her stomach.
She attributed her success in prosecuting the man to the point of the death penalty to the poor legal defense he had chosen. She said that this is not uncommon and the judicial system is not balanced as to who receives the death penalty.
"Rich people don't end up on death row - they just don't," McGinn said. "You can't teach children that killing is wrong by killing."
Trienah Gorman, a New Mexico public defender in the Capital Crimes Unit, echoed McGinn's stance. She described the moment when one of her clients was sentenced to death as one of the most devastating moments her life.
Gorman says that she has represented about 12 or 13 capital murderers and that, "even the worst among them is a human being."
Gorman told the audience that she was disturbed to find that the number of blacks and whites on death row is equal even though blacks make up only 12.4 percent of the population.
She added that executions in the United States make up 85 percent of those in the world.
