Uncommon Sense

A cycle of death

The Commonwealth of Virginia avoided an ignoble place in American history on Tuesday when Gov. Mark Warner commuted the death sentence of convicted murderer Robin McKennel Lovitt. Lovitt, who was set to be executed tonight for the 1998 slaying of Clayton Dicks in an Arlington, Va., pool hall, would have been the 1000th person put to death since capital punishment was allowed to resume in 1976.

Warner, though, commuted Lovitt's sentence to life in prison with no chance for parole, leaving it to North Carolina to fill the next spot on the roster of those executed in the United States. Kenneth Lee Boyd is scheduled to die for killing his estranged wife and her father.

Warner granted clemency to Lovitt because a court clerk in 2001, in violating of a recently enacted law, arranged to destroy evidence in the case before it could undergo more sophisticated DNA testing that might have raised doubts about Lovitt's guilt, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The state, said Warner, "that every time this ultimate sanction is carried out, it is done fairly."

The death penalty should be abolished in America. The decision by Warner, a Democrat who has allowed 11 other executions to occur on his watch as governor, won't bring a sudden reversal, but it did highlight the potential injustice suffered by at least some inmates on America's death rows.

I had long been ambivalent about the death penalty. Some crimes, I believed, were so heinous that the death penalty was the only just punishment. But I could never get comfortable with giving the state the power to take the life of one of its citizens, no matter how despicable he or his crimes were. I had no sympathy for the killers, just little trust that the state would always get it right or always use its power to kill justly. The Lovitt case is proof of that.

I have abandoned that ambivalence in favor of moral clarity. Each life, even that of the worst murderer, has dignity deserving of respect. We may think a murderer deserves to die, but if we believe that all life is precious and deserving of all our protections, we cannot make exceptions without raising doubts about the sincerity of those beliefs.

The death penalty has contributed to the coarsening of our society by making human life a disposable commodity, just like abortion, euthanasia and murder. The fact that the condemned have a trial, followed by appeals and then more appeals, does not diminish the profound immorality of ultimately taking their lives. The death penalty is just another part of our culture of death, contributing, in part, to the creation of more killers and more occupants of America's death rows.

If we are to break that cycle and have a true culture of life, we cannot have a death penalty.

And the Oscar goes to ...

The summer has its blockbusters, but for me, the best time to go to the movies is the end of the year. Just in time for the upcoming awards season — and to cater to the apparently limited memories of voters — Hollywood traditonally crams the end of the year with arguably some of its best work. This year is no exception.

One of the more competitive categories for the Oscars and other awards is sure to be for best actor. I just came back from watching "Capote," starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who is sure to receive multiple nominations for his performance as Truman Capote, the author of most famously of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "In Cold Blood." Unlike other recent biographical films ("Ray," "Walk the Line") which try to tell the rise and fall and rise again of their subjects, "Capote" focuses on the four years Capote spent working on "In Cold Blood," his "non-fiction novel" — a term Capote invented — about the murders of a Kansas farm family in 1959.

"Capote" is far from a perfect film; the narrative stalls and sputters at moments. But from the first frames of Capote holding court at a New York dinner party, I was entranced by Hoffman's performance. I have no memory of Capote, but based on what I have heard and read about him, it was clear that Hoffman had him pegged perfectly. His high-pitch voice. His appreciation of fine fashion. His addiction to alcohol. His insecurities. His homosexuality. Hoffman, one of the best character actors at this moment in Hollywood, creates a character the audience can believe in, even if they have never read one of Capote's books or are not familiar with how he wasted his genius with his addictions to booze and celebrity.

"Capote" is the story-behind-the-story, not only of the author's life but how he produced his greatest work. It was fascinating to watch how the shy, insecure Capote, with the invaluable aid of Harper Lee (played by Catherine Keener), wins the confidence of the Kansas townsfolk and police he needs for his story. But for Capote, he cannot finish his book until one of the two killers, Perry Smith, tells about the night he and his partner killed. Capote seduces Smith, not sexually, but by offering himself as a confidant and confessor. Capote helps with their legal defense, but it's not help them but to help him finish his book before their date with the gallows. It is this manipulation that at the end makes Capote as unsympathetic character as the killers he chronicled.

The risk with the bio-pic genre of filmmaking is the actor portraying the subject will resort to a bad impersonation or worse, caricature. There is a lot to caricature about Capote, but Hoffman avoids that to create a real character with whom the audience can sympathize — or abhor.

(Two supporting performances in "Capote" — Keener as Capote's friend from childhood Harper Lee, who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," and the magnificent Chris Cooper as the lead detective in the murder investigation — are deserving of voters' consideration for awards.)

Hoffman's competitors for Oscar and other awards should include two other actors who portrayed real-life people, Joaquin Phoenix, as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" and David Strathairn, Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night and Good Luck." Like Hoffman, Phoenix and Strathairn did not impersonate their subjects but created characters that will not be easily forgotten this awards season.

It's a tough call, so tough I'm glad I don't have to vote, but if I did — and the deadline was today — I would give the edge to Phoenix for how he revealed the true man behind the "man in black."
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Other recent acting performances worthy of acclaim are Reese Witherspoon, as June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line," and Jamie Fox, last year's Best Actor Oscar winner for "Ray," for his supporting turn as a Marine sergeant in "Jarhead."

A grand experiment

Well, maybe not so "grand," considering how many blogs inhabit their own little slices of the universe, but I am excited about my personal venture into this relatively still new medium. I have bounced around ideas for a possible blog for several months. A lot remains unresolved, but I figure the best way to get started is to just start. My intention is to start by opining (that is, telling you what I think) about the news, big and small, of the day and other items from the world of politics, international affairs, culture, the media, entertainment, sports, etc. that catch my eye. Hopefully, every once in a while I will hit on an original thought.

I hope to making writing here an at-least-once-a-day exercise, offering a mix of longer pieces, like the newspaper columns I used to write, with shorter bursts of opinion, questions, lists, etc. This is very much a work in progress, so I hope you keep checking back. I look forward to your comments, cheers or jeers.