Editorials
Monday, November 10, 1997 7THE murder conviction of a British au pair in the death of an infant in her care has provoked a storm of controversy but perhaps nowhere was its impact more decisive than in the Massachusetts Legislature. A bill to reinstate the death penalty failed Thursday in the state House of Representatives by a single vote that was changed because of the au pair case. Capital punishment
and the au pair caseRep. John Slattery, a Democrat, said he switched his vote from "yes" to "no" after talking to constituents about the convicted girl, Louise Woodward. Slattery said his conversations left him "with a deeply unsettled conviction about the possibility of executing the wrong person." This is one of the most serious objections to capital punishment -- the danger of making an irrevocable mistake. With all the doubts about the au pair verdict, the legislator's switch is understandable.
Woodward was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years. The judge today reduced the conviction to manslaughter.
There are now 38 states with capital punishment (Hawaii is not among them). Massachusetts appeared ready to join the list when the House passed a death penalty bill 81-79 on Oct. 28. The bill was then sent to committee to be reconciled with a similar Senate measure. Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci had vowed to sign it. The Senate has passed a death penalty bill three times this decade, but it always died by a narrow margin in the House. It did again last week, 80-80, but only because of the au pair case.
The death penalty has gained support in Massachusetts recently as a result of a series of highly publicized cases involving the slaying of women and children. They included the grisly murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley. Two men are charged with luring the boy into a car with promises of a new bike, suffocating him with a gasoline-soaked rag and molesting his corpse. Three mothers also were killed.
But the outrage over those deaths was tempered by doubt in the Woodward case. Judges and juries make mistakes. There is no way to repair the damage after an execution.
THROWING around descriptives like "activist" and "a man of high ideals" as if they were dirty words, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is very publicly fighting the nomination of Bill Lann Lee, 48, to become assistant attorney general for civil rights. Confirm Bill Lann Lee
Behind the scenes, though, the committee seems to be playing political hardball. If it isn't holding hostage the key appointment -- as it tries to extract a promise from the administration not to push pro-affirmative action issues -- it sure looks like it is. In the process, Lee's fate is on the altar. The committee was threatening not to send his nomination to the full Senate last week, thereby killing his chances outright, until Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., invoked a parliamentary rule to delay the vote.
The full Senate deserves to scrutinize this appointment. Even opponents to Lee's selection admit that the head of the Los Angeles office of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is more than qualified for the post and has the reputation for being a consensus builder. Moreover, the president certainly deserves to pick staffers who reflect his own views on issues like affirmative action.
In a personal statement, written last January, Lee explained, "I am not a theorist. My career has been devoted to finding pragmatic solutions under the law to real life problems of discrimination and exclusion, to advising clients, to dealing with courts and counsel, to litigating complex cases with many lawyers, to managing dockets of cases, and to administering a law office."
What better a person to oversee the civil-rights arm of the U.S. Attorney General's Office than a nationally recognized expert in civil rights? Bill Lann Lee's rejection would send the strong message to voters that partisan politics is more important than the caliber of a nominee. How pitifully petty.
THE ancient Chinese art of acupuncture was little known in the United States until Washington began normalizing relations with the Communist regime in China in the 1970s. Millions of Americans are now treated with the procedure, which involves the use of hair-thin needles inserted under the skin to stimulate nerves. Sometimes a powered substance is burned. OK for acupuncture
However, until recently there had been little research that could form the basis for an evaluation of acupuncture by Western medicine. Several years ago the National Institutes of Health established an office for the study of alternative medicine. Now a federal advisory committee formed by the National Institutes has endorsed acupuncture for treating certain conditions, including nausea and post-operative dental pain.
Also mentioned as disorders that appear to be susceptible to treatment by acupuncture were menstrual cramps, headaches, lower back pain, muscle pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, stroke and asthma. However, the panel cautioned that further research is needed before conclusions can be reached about the effectiveness of acupuncture for those conditions.
The committee's chairman, Dr. David Ramsey, said the time has come to take acupuncture seriously. "There are a number of situations where it really does, in fact, work. The evidence is clear-cut. It has few side effects and is less invasive than many other things we do."
This endorsement should not be interpreted as a blanket approval of all folk medical remedies. But it does suggest that there may be many useful things Western medicine can learn from Asian medicine and other sources.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
