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NEW MEXICO’S DEATH PENALTY REPEAL AS US SOFT POWER ASSET
MAR 26, 2009 - 5:45AM PST
Posted by Neal Rosendorf
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On March 18, 2009, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed legislation overturning the state’s longstanding death penalty. The “Land of Enchantment”, as the state calls itself, joined fourteen other US states that ban capital punishment and became only the second to do so since the end of a four-year national execution hiatus in 1976. At the signing ceremony, the Governor spoke about his rationale for backing the legislation; focusing on issues like the skewed application of the death penalty toward the poor and minorities, the potential abuse of prosecutorial powers, and the possibility of executing an innocent person. Near the end of his remarks Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, added briefly, “From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That's not something to be proud of.” Although Richardson spent far more time in his comments noting domestic as opposed to international factors affecting his thinking, his decision is arguably more significant in terms of shoring up American soft power abroad than in terms of influencing the debate at home. New Mexico executed just one criminal between 1960 and 2009. Richardson’s action is unlikely to sway New Mexico’s colossal neighbor Texas, America’s death penalty capital, where three-quarters of residents support executions for murderers (link, see table 5.2). Nation-wide, Americans are split down the middle over whether capital punishment is preferable to life imprisonment without parole. It’s likely to be quite some time before there is a national critical mass in favor of abolishing executions, although New Mexico does add incremental support. Rather, it’s overseas where New Mexico’s repeal can have the greatest impact. Although it’s now a distant memory, prior to the US invasion of Iraq one of the sharpest areas of disagreement between the US and many of its allies was over capital punishment. As the Iraq war winds down and the international perception of US militarism and unilateralism begins to recede, the death penalty is sure to make its way back to the forefront as an issue complicating America’s image and policy goals. Governor Richardson’s signature and the law it ratifies serve as a pointed reminder to both friends and foes that the US is not a monolith when it comes to a policy that many countries view as a violation of human rights, and which gives adversaries ammunition to paint the US as hypocritical and bloodthirsty. Here’s a bit of the flavor of pre-Iraq war criticism. In 1999 the Economist, not exactly a bastion of bleeding-heart thought, tarred the US as “defiant”, “stubborn”, and the “most glaring exception to the emerging international consensus on the death penalty.” When Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed in June 2001, the Glasgow Sunday Herald reflected the chasm between the US and countries opposed to capital punishment as it…... FULL TEXT
 
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Read Comments:

Dudley Sharp on April 5, 2009 @ 11:04 am:
"Rebuttal to Governor Richardson - Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/19/rebuttal-to-governor-richardson--repeal-of-the-death-penalty-in-new-mexico.aspx

"Why did Gov. Richardson repeal the death penalty? His legacy"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/31/why-did-gov-richardson-repeal-the-death-penalty-his-legacy.aspx

Bradley Hayden on June 9, 2010 @ 9:11 am:
I am reminded of Thoreau's comments in "Civil Disobedience":

"Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."

Such decisions may impact the international view of America because they see Americans in positions of power, such as Governor Richardson, making an effort to do what is right.

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