Policy Perspective

"Justice for [the Oklahoma City] killers will be certain, swift, and severe. We will find them. We will convict them. And we will seek the death penalty for them." --President Clinton, April 21, 1995

Question: "Assuming you do catch [the Oklahoma City terrorists], will you go for [the death penalty]?"Answer: "The death penalty is available, and we will seek it." --Attorney General Reno, April 19, 1995

Introduction

One year ago, when the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City took the lives of 168 innocent people, President Clinton promised that the death penalty for the perpetrators would be "certain" and "swift." Attorney General Janet Reno promised the same thing. In fact, however, as both Clinton and Reno knew at the time, there is no effective death penalty for terrorists, because for 40 years Democratic Congresses have refused to take the steps necessary to provide for one. As a result, no federal death penalty has been carried out in more than three decades. Clinton and Reno, too, were shamelessly misleading the victims' families when they claimed that justice would be "swift." Today, one year later, a trial has yet to begin--let alone the years of appeals and endless delay that crime victims must routinely endure. The Republican Congress Enacts the First Real Death Penalty in 30 Years

At long last, the new Republican Congress has enacted an effective federal death penalty. The death penalty provisions are the centerpiece of the Terrorism Prevention Act, and the part of the bill that the President and Attorney General Reno criticized most. Despite Clinton's frantic efforts to weaken its death penalty provisions, the genuine article was passed by both House and Senate, and now awaits his signature.

Broken Clinton Promises: Nothing New

Clinton's knowingly false promise that the Oklahoma City bombing would net the death penalty was trumped in its cynicism by the even more bogus claim that the trial, conviction, and sentencing would be "swift." The Administration's lawyers won't even begin the trial until this fall. The families of the Oklahoma City victims have repeatedly demanded an end to this parody of justice, so that the terrorists responsible for that crime are punished. President Clinton claimed to support them. But his record on the death penalty, and on speeding up criminal justice, is nothing but more broken Clinton promises.

These are the Clinton Administration's grotesquely broken promises, plainly visible for all to see on this sad anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing:

• Candidate Clinton ran as a supporter of the death penalty in "appropriate circumstances."

• President-elect Clinton abruptly flip-flopped by appointing Janet Reno, an active opponent of the death penalty, as Attorney General, the highest law enforcement officer in the land.

• Once appointed Attorney General, Ms. Reno disingenuously claimed that she would attempt to do her best to enforce the death penalty, despite her personal opposition to it. (In this respect, her insincere promise that the Oklahoma City bombers would get the death penalty was at least a consistent inconsistency.) But the Reno record since taking office shows that she has worked diligently to nullify the death penalty at both the state and federal level:

During the debate on the Clinton Crime Bill, Reno led the Administration's push for the outrageously misnamed "Racial Justice Act," a bill that would have effectively abolished the death penalty by letting convicted murderers show that racial quotas for capital punishment hadn't been met.

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When even a liberal Democrat Congress refused to pass Reno's radical anti-death penalty bill, Clinton and Reno directed the Justice Department to thwart the death penalty by using the very same quota artifice in all federal death penalty cases.

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Clinton and Reno undermined states' efforts to impose their own death penalties by refusing to stand up for them in court. In fact, the Clinton Justice Department now uses the fact that a case involves the death penalty as a reason against supporting a State. As a result, while the Bush Administration filed briefs supporting state prosecutors in nearly half of all death penalty challenges in America, the Clinton Administration filed not a single brief in support of a State death penalty in 1994.

Playing Politics With Tragedy

In light of his record on the death penalty in general, the President's flip-flops on the Oklahoma City tragedy are hardly surprising, but they are remarkable in their cynicism:

• In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton reversed himself three times on effective death penalty reforms within one eleven-day period.

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  The Clinton campaign position was pro-death penalty, especially for terrorists.

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  On May 25, 1995, however, Clinton stated: "I do not believe [death penalty appeals reform] should be addressed in the context of the counterterrorism bill."

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  By June 5, he had almost rediscovered his campaign commitment to capital punishment on Larry King Live: "[T]here is a strong sense in the Congress, I think among Members of both parties, that we need to get down to sort of one clear appeal, we need to cut the time delay on the appeals dramatically, and that it ought to be done in the context of this terrorism legislation so that it would apply to any prosecutions brought against anyone indicted in Oklahoma. And I think it ought to be done... You can't justify this lengthy appeals process."

• But when the new Republican Congress actually passed death penalty appeals reform so that the death penalty could actually be carried out, Clinton vetoed it.

• Later still, Clinton at least made mention of the need to curtail endless death penalty appeals, saying "I do think something needs to be done with habeas."

• Shortly after that statement, however, Clinton sent his White House Counsel, Abner Mikva, and other senior members of his White House staff to lobby Congressional leaders for weakening amendments to the death penalty reform bill. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch denounced the Clinton amendments as "gutting" the death penalty.

Epilogue

Despite their best efforts to prevent terrorists from being executed, Clinton, his White House staff, and his anti-death penalty Attorney General were unsuccessful. Congress has sent President Clinton an anti-terrorism bill whose very core is the first effective death penalty in over three decades.

The Republican reforms which Clinton opposed will restore balance and sanity to a system that today enables the most vicious criminals in America quite literally to get away with murder. It is unfortunate that liberal obstruction has delayed this reform for so long, and that Bill Clinton went so far as to attempt to stop the very death penalty reforms that would see to it that the Oklahoma City bombing does result in the death penalty. As the Associated Press reported on April 15, 1996, "[t]he death penalty appeals restriction is the only part of the [terrorism] bill that could directly affect the Oklahoma City bombing case, and family members of victims of that attack and the 1988 [Lockerbie] bombing...pleaded for enactment of that provision."

The Clinton Administration has broken every promise it made on the death penalty and on "swift" justice for the families of victims. But the Republican Congress has lived up to its reputation for "promises made, promises kept." That is the real lesson that the Oklahoma City bombing teaches, one year later.