The Weatherman (24 page)

Facing the committee was a long witness table with three chairs. Microphones were atop the table. The gallery bent around the room in a half-circle behind the witness table. This day it was standing room only. Whatever it was that gave Minnesota life that special quality was fast disappearing. For many in Hearing Room 15, enough was enough. The double doors were open and the crowd spilled into the echo-filled hallways. Still, for such a visceral debate the decorum within the hearing room was very mannered. The politics of life and death was a solemn and painful business. Beneath the bitterness they were still a people who believed in their government.

For Hearing Room 15 it had been a very active legislative session. Splat Man had racked up an incredible two hundred thousand dollars in damage to the state’s billboard industry. Since one of the largest billboard companies in America was headquartered in the state, the legislature, in keeping with their uglification-of-Minnesota campaign, made defacing a billboard a felony with fine and imprisonment.

The state had been one of the few in the nation that still barred cameras from courtrooms. That changed. Governor Ellefson’s bill to allow television cameras in Minnesota’s courtrooms was passed. The state supreme court was skeptical that television would improve the quality of justice in Minnesota but agreed to a two-year experimental program in which video and audio coverage of trials would be allowed even without the approval of prosecutors and defendants.

On the issue of capital punishment there came a liberal backlash. Politically, liberals were tired of conservatives stealing the thunder on crime issues. Ideology-wise, these seasonal murders were being directed at women, the heart and soul of the liberal movement. Still, many lawmakers who supported the bill had an innate fear of perhaps one day putting to death an innocent man. Executions are final.

And so the people who still believed that government was good lined up before the twenty-three committee members to testify for and against House File 2848. And Rick Beanblossom came to listen. The witnesses were an eclectic group of liberals and conservatives, mothers and fathers, doctors and lawyers-and cops.

“And what is your name, sir?” said the bill’s sponsor, committee chairman Smith Jameson.

The witness cleared his throat. “Les Angelbeck.”

“Your occupation, Mr. Angelbeck?”

“It’s Captain Angelbeck. I’m a police officer.”

“What department are you with, Captain?”

“When I retired last month I was a chief investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I was forced by ill health to step down. I have emphysema. After my retirement Governor Ellefson was kind enough to hire me as a paid consultant to the Calendar Task Force, which I had once led.”

“So you are still actively involved in that investigation?”

“Yes, but in a reduced role.”

“How long have you been a police officer?”

“Ever since the war.”

“Which war?” Everybody in the room laughed.

Les Angelbeck smiled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, it was the Second World War.”

The leading proponent of the death penalty led his star witness through well-rehearsed questions. TV cameras were rolling. “Captain, why do you think our state should reenact the death penalty?”

Rick Beanblossom thought the old cop looked more uncomfortable than ill. He heard him clear his scratchy throat and answer.

“The state has a responsibility to protect future victims. There isn’t any such thing as life in prison in the United States … everybody gets out. Executed people don’t kill again. I will concede the point that execution may not deter crime, but there are some crimes so morally low and reprehensible that the only fitting punishment is death. In the past two years I have seen seven such crimes. Even if you pass this bill today, the person who committed those crimes could not be legally executed.” Angelbeck stopped. His heavy breathing could be heard throughout the Crypt. The retired police captain pulled an inhalant from his coat pocket and selfconsciously squirted a burst of life into his mouth. His voice sounded a little stronger. “I will also concede that people who are opposed to the death penalty have a morally superior position. But we should not put life before justice. That’s moral blindness. I don’t know how long I have left on this earth. But if vou oass this death penalty bill, I can promise you this … if that son of a bitch kills again, I’ll catch him, and I’ll outlive him, if it’s only by a day.”

Rick Beanblossom watched as the old cop slowly pulled himself out of the witness chair. He picked up a cane, hobbled through the parting crowd, and disappeared into the cold, hallowed halls, where his coughing echoed mockingly through the marble Capitol. Rick jotted a memo to himself.

The next witness was strong and loud. “Never in the history of the United States has a white person been executed for killing a black person. Never! The same experience blacks have had in other states will be repeated here. I’d be willing to bet that even here in the great white state of Minnesota, which has a black population of less than three percent, the first ass to be seated in your new electric chair will be a black ass!”

“Will you watch your language, Lieutenant,” the chairman admonished.

In a shrewd move the leading opponent of the bill had asked the lieutenant to testify, and Donnell Redmond was hot. “I’m sorry, but all through American history the death penalty has been just an excuse to murder black men. That you want to pass this lynch-the-niggers law right after Black History Month is disgraceful.”

“What if it was your daughter who was murdered?” asked Smith Jameson.

“What if it was your son who was on death row?” asked Redmond.

And so it went for three hours. One cop for the death penalty, one cop against.

One father of a murder victim for passage: “If it will save one child’s life, it should be enacted.”

One mother of a murder victim opposed to the bill’s passage: “I can’t think of anything more obscene than to have my daughter remembered for the death penalty.”

Dueling victims. Sobbing could be heard throughout the gallery as parents told of the children they had lost in the most violent of crimes. A loud, obnoxious woman, who was not related to the victims, summed it all up. “The Minnesota criminal-justice system is to blame for these murders, and you state legislators must share the responsibility for the deaths of those seven innocent women. You must share the responsibility for a twelve-year-old boy who went out to deliver papers one morning and never came back. It’s time for a change, and if you won’t do it, then we’ll elect those who will.”

Rick Beanblossom’s eardrums were ringing with arguments. He scribbled the pros and cons in his notebook.

Then to the witness table came a woman in an electric wheelchair, Stacy Dvorchak, a quadriplegic. She was young and attractive. Rick Beanblossom had seen her in the news before. Andrea Labore had done a story on her. She was a former Olympic swimmer who broke her neck diving into a pool. Now she was a member of a northern lawyers’ group that ventured into the South to defend death row inmates. As he listened to her speak, the man without a face could think of few things more tragic than a beautiful young woman sentenced to life in a wheelchair.

“Ninety percent of the men on death row were financially unable to hire an attorney,” she testified. “They were arbitrarily given a court-appointed lawyer. They weren’t sentenced to death for committing the worst crimes, they were sentenced to death for having the worst lawyers. This bill is cowardly. It’s a case of the shepherds following the sheep. Somebody here today said this is not a case of southern justice because Indiana has the death penalty.” She paused, then hit them where it hurt. “Think of it, Minnesota-we can be just like Indiana!”

Derisive laughter circled the Crypt.

With braces on her hands Stacy Dvorchak calmly spread some papers before her and continued. “Let me tell you what the electricity bill is going to come to. Based on the experience of other states, the capital punishment bill will generate about one execution per year. At that rate, figuring the cost of a trial, court-appointed defense lawyers, state appeals, federal appeals, death house construction, and death row housing, the first ten years of the law would cost the state of Minnesota approximately thirty million dollars, or about three million dollars per condemned man.”

Now groans circled the gallery.

“And how much would it cost to imprison these same men?” asked a shocked committee member

“We could presently imprison them in Stillwater at the highest security level for forty years at a cost of approximately $750,000 per man.”

Smith Jameson took over the questioning. He studied his well-prepared notes. “Isn’t it true that with the recent Supreme Court rulings limiting habeas corpus appeals, the time it takes to appeal capital punishment cases has dropped from seven and a half years to less than five years, and isn’t that bringing down the costs of executions?”

“Yes, sir,” said the handicapped lawyer, “you could argue that.”

“And couldn’t I also argue that if the state court follows suit, as is expected, and also limit appeals, the time from conviction to execution will be reduced to less than three years, and won’t that also bring down the costs?”

“In theory, that is correct. A rush to the gallows would lower costs, Mr. Chairman.”

Jameson was locked in video combat, fighting the battle for sound bites on the evening news. “And am I not also correct in theory that the more prisoners the state executes, the more precipitous will be the drop in total costs?”

“Yes, sir, that was the experience of the Third Reich.”

The chairman had just lost the sound bite battle. He angrily tapped his pen on the table. “I think you’d better go back to your calculator, young lady.”

“If I could add a personal note, Mr. Chairman. I’ve always been proud to say I’m from Minnesota. This bill does not make me proud. Thank you.”

After five hours of grueling debate they were ready to vote. Rick Beanblossom leaned forward. The roll was called. It was just as Iron Ranger Bob Dylan had written in a song: “You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” The House Judiciary Committee voted 21-2 to restore capital punishment.

The full house passed HF-2848 on March 13.

The senate voted green lights for the electric chair on March 17.

And on March 18, the death penalty bill arrived at the office of Governor Per Ellefson.

When Old Jesse was a little boy, his momma died of fever in the back of a bus. She was seventeen years old.

She was taking him up to Columbia to see Eleanor Roosevelt. The First Lady was coming to South Carolina to inspect the conditions. Little Jesse didn’t know what the conditions were, but he knew who Miss Eleanor was, and he knew Momma was going to tell her all about the conditions. It was the hot and smelly season. The bus driver was a big, fat man. Jesse was too scared to go tell him his momma was dead. He thought he’d just wait until they got to Columbia and then tell Miss Eleanor But a mean old lady went and told the bus driver, and Jesse never got to see Eleanor Roosevelt. When the First Lady died, he was a full-grown man, but Jesse swore he’d cried harder for Miss Eleanor than he cried for his own momma when he was just a little boy. All of his life he believed in his heart that if they had made it to Columbia that day things would have turned out different. He never would have moved to the North. Never would have killed a white man fighting over a woman. Never would have seen the inside of the prison in Stillwater.

Old Jesse flushed the toilet. Then he flushed the toilet next to it. He walked along the wall, flushing all of the toilets. The janitor put his scrub brush and disinfectant into the bucket and walked to the door. He picked up a newspaper from the floor and read as best he could.

TO
KILL
OR
NOT
TO
KILL

Minnesota Governor Per Ellefson has called a press conference Friday at noon in the Governor’s Reception Room at the State Capitol to announce whether he intends to sign or veto the capital punishment bill that arrived on his desk. All four local television stations will carry the announcement live. The governor’s opposition to both abortion rights and capital punishment …

All the boys were talking about it. “They wanna build an electric chair right out back there, in Industry. Ain’t that the damnedest thing you ever heard?”

Old Jesse stuffed the newspaper into the garbage bag and dragged it into the hallway. It was nearing morning. The boys would be up at 6:15 and there was still a hallway to mop in the Segregation Unit. He moved over to the window and gazed through the bars at the St. Croix

Valley. The first ray of morning sun was peeking over the bluff. The Electric Star was gone for the season. Trees were sprinkled with white powder. The middle of March. Snowing and melting. Snowing and melting. The ice was going out on the river. Old Man Winter was losing his grip.

For twenty-five years Old Jesse dreamed of going home. Home, where it was summertime all the time. Where in the middle of winter he could throw a line into the sound and watch the warm sun come up over the ocean. He had fond memories of boyhood, playing in the marshes around Parris Island, where they turned the white boys into Marines. But when his sentence was up and they told him he could go free, Old Jesse stayed. He took a job pushing a broom. South Carolina was just a dream he once had. The Stillwater State Correctional Facility was the only home he knew anymore.

His children had been born in the North, as had his grandchildren, and now his great-grandchildren. He’d always meant to take his family down home for a visit so they could see for themselves the land that was in their blood. Southern blood. He was sure enough going to take them one day, but then he killed that white man.

Still, his family had done all right by Minnesota. One of his granddaughters was a police officer. Unheard of in his day. He was proud of that girl. Old Jess loaded the night’s garbage onto his pushcart and started for the Segregation Unit. Just doing his job.