Good morning, I am from Portlaoise and I am accompanied by AidenO'Leary and Alan Smith. I would like to talk about the death penalty, which is an enormous issue. I wish to provide a horrific example of how it does not work and should not be employed. It should be removed forever.
I thank Deputy Seán Fleming and former Deputy Tom Enright who co-sponsored the twenty-first amendment to the Constitution which abolished the death penalty here.
In simple terms, Roger Collins had a horrific childhood and has continued to suffer the same horrific life for almost the past 26 years on death row in Jackson, Georgia. He is an only son and members of the committee will see more details in the document entitled "A life in the balance", which is a glimpse of how he sees his life. The conditions under which he views his life today are rather peculiar and restricted.
We became involved in his case following the publication of an article in Ireland’s Own in 1997. Someone asked me to write to Roger Collins and, unbeknownst to me, at the same time, Aiden O’Leary was also writing to him. In January 1998 we met in Carlow to discuss how we could proceed. At that time, although not knowing what might be ahead of us, we agreed that the journey, if one could call it that, could lead to the execution of Roger Collins. That is an enormous thing to be aware of and a party to. What Roger Collins and his family have continued to go through for so many years is immeasurable, even for someone who may have suffered personal tragedy, trauma or loss in their own lives.
We proceeded to contact the media and checked with O. J. Simpson's lawyer, Mr. Johnny Cochran. In addition, we spoke to Professor Barry Sheck who was also involved in the O. J. Simpson trial, as well as the English nanny "shaken baby syndrome" case. Professor Sheck is an international expert on DNA. Mr. Cochran thought about the case for a number of days and left us swinging in the air, because it was unusual for him to get a phone call from Ireland about such a matter. I am sure he had political reservations about who we were but we clearly said that we were not connected to any group that would endanger us or that in which we were involved. Mr. Cochran nominated a lawyer who had experience of dealing with capital murder cases.
Members of the committee will see enclosed in the document a letter from a lawyer who took his case to the US Supreme Court which overturned the death sentence. Unfortunately, however, the State of Georgia's Supreme Court did not accept the decision. The letter, which he signed, clearly outlines a couple of reasons why the US Supreme Court overturned the death sentence, including ineffective counsel, corrupt evidence and a corrupt process.
The lawyer had been successful many times when dealing with issues such as those involved in Roger Collins's life in having such cases overturned. That would indicate that the southern states of America seem to have, for want of a better way of putting it, a different take on the death penalty than some other regions of the USA. I do not wish to be seen as either anti or pro-American in any shape or form. The death penalty has no humanity or geographical boundaries. Anyone reading what is being stated here today will clearly appreciate that we are neither pro nor anti-American.
In 1998 our first visit to death row was an enormous event and very alien to us. My background is of a military nature but I had never seen a prison or such an institution here or in the neighbouring island, which was anything like death row in that American prison. That says much about the treatment, or more importantly the maltreatment, of human beings there. We spent some time with Mr. Collins and challenged him all the way. It is easy to say that one is innocent but there is a process of proof, which grows clearer with time. It shows that Roger Collins is but one of many innocent people on death row. The death penalty is an inhuman and depraved system and represents the blackest cloud hanging over the judicial process throughout the world. It merits no other description.
We challenged the system all the way and talked to the lawyers involved but the death penalty occurs so often in America that it is accepted almost nonchalantly and is no longer disturbing to people there. When we understand what that means, it says so much about the death penalty.
In the southern states of America, to be black means more than just being different culturally or socially - it means more in a family sense also. I would like to give the committee the background to what happened in this case. In or around August 1977, Roger Collins had left his home because of massive violence, including violations of his personal integrity in the fullest sense. His mother had married a man who shot her in the neck and subsequently shot her in the hip, paralysing her. That is a sample glimpse of the horrific upbringing of Roger Collins.
I abhor using the phrase "born outside wedlock" or whatever such term is used nowadays. That was his background but it should not lessen his right to dignity. He was treated to gross physical violence, including attempted strangulation and asphyxiation by various methods. This is not the abuse excuse syndrome which is offered by some circles, it is a recognition of what a human being can endure. Roger Collins is only a symptom of a population who are not treated as human beings.
We began to make contact with other groups. We met a man who spent 22 years on death row in Texas - that is not meant to be a reference to the current leader of the country - and subsequently walked free. The proof established his innocence, yet he was held for four years before being granted his freedom.
In 1998, we appeared on television in Ireland with a white lady called Sonya Jacobs whose husband was truly innocent, not just in a technical or legal sense. Her situation was horrendous because her husband had suffered a botched execution, which means that he was executed twice in the one venue on the same day. I am not an expert on the physical damage caused by internal convulsions but what it does to a human being is nauseating. If that is justice, the cloud gets blacker.
Later, we met Professor Barry Sheck. He looked at the case and we subsequently discovered various issues - more than what is contained in the file we have submitted to this meeting - dealing with the wrongs of the case and the corruption involved.
It is difficult to describe in language what death row is like. One becomes bankrupt of any definition when one enters the world of death row. Who you are, what you are, what you have, what you do not have, what you desire or what are your aspirations are of no value. One is totally bankrupted by the experience and one lives at a level one would not ordinarily live, trying to understand, communicate and hear the silence of language in a place like that. That continues to be the case for Roger Collins.
I hope the Chairman will present each one of you with a syringe, which is a slick and sham way of saying that we inject people. We do not. We execute people. Homicide is homicide, whether it be done by stones, swords, shooting, hanging or any other method. We may change the instrument of death, but it is still an instrument of death. I hope you will take a syringe. What you will see in it is not life, justice, humanity or politics. If it evoked the word "deterrence" it would not last too long. The language of deterrence is folly, manipulative and it instils fear in people. It brings about laws that we know not to be necessary and it continues to be used by those who continue to believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. We have sat in the company of people who have walked within hours and it is horrendous. Words and vision are meaningless. One sentence is meaningless.
The submission contains a letter from a young priest. There is no premeditation in this presentation because death row is without premeditation in the ordinary human sense. However, it is a highly orchestrated machinery in other quarters. The priest describes his revulsion, despite many years of training, of having to administer the last rights to a human being and to watch the flesh come away from the forehead of one who has been incinerated and internally combusted. He must then walk out into a vastness of light and what we call beauty and scenery. It becomes a contradiction in terms.
It has been my experience to sit in a car in the company of a mother who journeys down with the grossest definition of pain on her face, who screams day in day out, and to see silence and perspiration on her face knowing that she has seen her son one more time. If the syringe is to teach me anything, it hangs above the head of those like Roger Collins, whether male or female, throughout the world every day. Such is the constant effect of dehumanising and degenerating the human brain.
To execute somebody is an event, but the process of death row is one without measure. Its harvest is the death of many people and the families involved. We have sat with the three mothers involved, including the victim's mother. The word "generous" falls short to describe a woman who has opened her door in such circumstances. The community is predominantly black, but she has taken the risk despite orchestrated attempts on her estate to prevent her from communicating with three neighbours. The mother of the victim who was horrifically killed was also generous enough to open her door. The mother of the leading aggressive party also opened her door. These were moving experiences for Aiden O'Leary and me.
We have travelled for five years. It sounds like a long time, but it is only a moment when you sit on death row. It is a meaningless definition of time when people walk to the final journey. One can stagger and stumble at levels that one does not believe exist inside a human being. If that is justice, we owe a great debt to this nation, whose foundation was formed by the execution of some great people. It is a recognition, long overdue, that the removal of the death penalty in our country was recognised by a death row inmate and many other such inmates, when he wrote to The Irish Times. Timothy McVeigh and the media circus surrounding him misunderstood that people like that are different.
The Members of the Oireachtas are the guardians of our Constitution and human rights. We sometimes glibly refer to them, but when they are removed savagely they become distant to these people. This is the year of the Special Olympics and because of his disability and mental retardation, Roger Collins would qualify as a Special Olympics athlete. In view of this and the European Year of the Disabled, I call on the members of the committee to consider designating a day of recognition of the Roger Collins's of this world, be they male or female, coloured, white or whatever.
Ireland has had the death penalty. Most of the time it was white on white. The pain and the savagery involved does not lessen on account of skin colour. The committee should ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach, in their forthcoming preparations for Ireland's assumption of the Presidency of the European Union, to ask the EU to designate a day to be dedicated to a consideration of the death penalty as a recognition of our own past. If we cannot look back on our past we have not become self aware. Given that the European Union is an execution free zone, it would be a wonderful opportunity to initiate action to create awareness of the past and to examine it. Covenants and agreements are all very well, but more must be done. We must learn that justice cannot be measured by instruments of death. While some of these people may never return to normal society, there are many varied alternatives to the death penalty, which entail strapping them down and filling them with all kinds of chemicals before their lives expire in the most graphic and destructive manner.
I call on the committee to remove the word "closure" from the vocabulary. It is another of the many words used by the deterrence brigade to fool us that people seek closure. I have yet to meet a human being who wishes to be an executioner and pull the switches. Language needs to be looked at.
I also ask the committee to reconsider the role of the World Congress for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, which was held in 2001 in Strasbourg and which I attended. Many eminent politicians, law makers and fine people from the world of true justice also attended. I ask the committee to invite the congress to meet in this country. It would be a demonstration that we have moved beyond language into the field of action and are sincerely committed to ridding ourselves of the most horrific instrument of justice.
The mental retardation of Roger Collins is an issue that will soon be before the courts. He has been equated as measuring between a 65 and 75 quotient and has achieved a maximum rating of 81. In the currency of time those figures are far more beneficial to him now, although given technological and psychological advances, there are no guarantees. The last 15 cases involving people of his magnitude of retardation have been executed in the State of Georgia. That should spur us to take further action.
I extend my personal thanks to Deputy Fleming, who has been a conduit of support and understanding. He has familiarised himself with this case, as have other members of the committee. We have also been in contact with some notable people involved in human rights. We have visited the French Parliament and have been privileged to meet the Secretary to the Parliament. We have also met a former French Minister for Justice, who is a great academic and one of the most passionate intellectuals one could meet. He took a great political risk in standing with former President Mitterand in seeking the abolition of the death penalty in the 1980s when there was widespread public support for its retention.
We are seeking support from a number of people who we cannot name for legal reasons. We will also seek the support of the committee and the Government to address the question of mental rehabilitation. The mother and family of Roger Collins have visited this country. Without being glib, I can confirm that the hospitality they received is alien to black people in Georgia. The harvest of the family is also dead. They die every day when their son and people like him are on death row. They do not speak as neighbours anymore.
I call for continued action to give information. I recognise the role of the media to state clearly what is the death penalty - an instrument of horror to everybody. The media have a role to give clarity to people who may or may not understand how manipulation and deception takes place in presentations, not in this Chamber but in other circles that continue to advocate it.
Those in the position of Roger Collins need people like the members of this committee, people with authority, who have a very important role to play as guardians of our Constitution and our rights. We demand active attention to establish further liaisons with Roger Collins.
I thank you, Chairman. It is a first to appear before this committee after the passing of the twenty-first amendment to the Constitution. I ask members of the committee to consider the contents of the file presented to them. The first part is a simple presentation by an illiterate human being, Roger Collins. There are many illiterate people and many forms of illiteracy. The second part is a presentation by Marshall W. Krause. He has shown tremendous battling courage and a sense of justice to say what he has against the judicial process of possibly the most powerful nation in the world.
Also included are the indescribable pictures of the residency of a human being in receipt of so-called justice and punishment. We must continue to speak and take action. I thank the Irish media both local and national for all their support over the years. It has been a tremendous support to his family to know they are not as isolated by the iceberg of the system that has shattered their lives.
Neither Mrs. Lester nor Mrs. Durham has sought the euphemism of closure towards Roger Collins. I would not have heard that if I had not been present. They do not seek revenge. As neighbours living within 200 metres of each other, they understand this tragedy happened. The crime of Roger Collins is universally recognised as one of fear and stupidity. No human being has failed to be touched by fear and occasionally to a greater or lesser extent by stupidity. His crime took place when he was aged 17 and a half. He was overwhelmed by his mother's cohabiting partner. He is the only one of the three thus treated. This is a reflection of corruption, manipulation, trickery and deception in the process of the investigation and the prosecution.
I could spend the rest of the year speaking about cases like that of Roger Collins. I hope the eminent members of the committee have heard enough about the death penalty to motivate them to persuade the Taoiseach and other Ministers to invite the World Congress for the Abolition of the Death Penalty to meet here. I thank the members, especially those from the west, for their awareness and participation.
