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Ted Vaden, Vestry Member

Why should a local parish like Chapel of the Cross be trying to end the death penalty in North Carolina?

It's a question that might occur to parishioners as they consider a recent study, conducted with seed money from Chapel of the Cross, that found fundamental problems with administration of the death penalty in North Carolina. Should we be funding university research on secular issues when there is so much need to be addressed here at home -- in local social ministry and within our parish?

Before we answer the question, let's look more closely at the study. It was conducted over the last year by two researchers at UNC -- law professor Jack Boger and political scientist Isaac Unah -- and released in April. The key finding was that race does have an impact on how the death penalty is administered in North Carolina. Defendants whose victims were white, the study found, were 3.5 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those whose victims were non-white.

As Boger said, "Sadly, this study shows that skin color still plays a major role in deciding who lives and who dies in our criminal justice system."

The study was comprehensive and authoritative. It considered all 4,000 homicides in North Carolina over a five-year period, 1993-1997, with more detailed examination of 502 of those cases in which defendants received sentences of either death or life in prison. Because of its comprehensiveness, the study received attention in "The New York Times," the "Washington Post," and other national media.

The study was sponsored by the North Carolina Council of Churches and the Common Sense Foundation, an advocacy group in Raleigh, and its release in April was timed to have an effect on the death penalty debate in North Carolina. The North Carolina General Assembly is considering a bill to establish a two-year moratorium on executions in the state until the issue of discrimination in sentencing can be examined and laws changed, if necessary. Thirteen local governments, including Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Orange County, have passed resolutions calling for a moratorium. The legislature also is considering a bill to stop execution of the mentally retarded in this state.

Our parish was the key funder of this study, providing $25,000 from a grant to the church from parishioner Jim Crow. The vestry approved the funding in June 2000.

We have ample cause for our involvement. The Episcopal Church on at least five occasions has adopted resolutions opposing capital punishment, including one in 1999 that "urges the provinces, dioceses, parishes, missions and individual members of this Church to engage in serious study on the subject of capital punishment and work actively to abolish the death penalty in their states." Through this ground-breaking study, we are taking an active leadership role in that call.

We're also called because of our unique role as a parish with an active campus ministry. Part of our work in the world is to join with the university to advance the interests of justice and fairness in the community, and the partnership with UNC to produce this work is a unique but natural extension of that ministry.

Finally, we should be involved "as Christians and as people whose Lord was a death penalty victim," says parishioner Dick Taylor, who as parish chancellor serves as our legal advisor. In his "day job" as executive director of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers, Taylor is a leader in the effort to change state laws on capital punishment. "That the Chapel of the Cross would undertake to fund the first scientific study of the impact of race in the state in 20 years, I think advances the ball and helps to look at the issue of whether the death penalty is administered fairly. I'm proud that the church did it."

© 2001: Chapel of the Cross