Two weeks ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife Katya, and we were talking about what I was going to talk about today. We have an 11-year-old son; his name is Lincoln. He was sitting at the same table, doing his math homework. And during a pause in my conversation with Katya, I looked over at Lincoln and I was suddenly thunderstruck by a recollection of a client of mine.
2週間前のことです 私はキッチンのテーブルで 妻のカティアと話をしていました 今日 何を話そうかと相談していました 11歳の息子リンカーンは同じテーブルで 算数の宿題をしていました 会話のあいまに ふとリンカーンに目をやって突然 激しい衝撃を覚えました あるクライアントのことを思い出したのです
My client was a guy named Will. He was from North Texas. He never knew his father very well, because his father left his mom while she was pregnant with him. And so, he was destined to be raised by a single mom, which might have been all right except that this particular single mom was a paranoid schizophrenic, and when Will was five years old, she tried to kill him with a butcher knife.
ウィルと言う名前の男で ノーステキサスの出身でした 彼は父親のことを知るよしもありませんでした 父親は 妊娠中の母親を残して蒸発したのです そこで シングルマザーの家庭で育てられました そういう人は他にもいますが この母親は 妄想型の統合失調症でした 5歳の時 ウィルは包丁で殺されそうになりました
She was taken away by authorities and placed in a psychiatric hospital, and so for the next several years Will lived with his older brother, until he committed suicide by shooting himself through the heart. And after that Will bounced around from one family member to another, until, by the time he was nine years old, he was essentially living on his own.
母親は 精神病院に入れられました その後の数年間ウィルは兄と暮らしていましたが 兄は拳銃で胸を撃って自殺しました その後 ウィルは 親戚の家を転々としました
That morning that I was sitting with Katya and Lincoln, I looked at my son, and I realized that when my client, Will, was his age, he'd been living by himself for two years. Will eventually joined a gang and committed a number of very serious crimes, including, most seriously of all, a horrible, tragic murder. And Will was ultimately executed as punishment for that crime.
そして9歳になる頃にはひとりで生きていました 私は 家族で過ごしていたその朝 息子の姿から気づいたのです この年頃には ウィルはもう2年もひとりで暮らしていたのです 結局 ウィルはギャングのメンバーとなり そして 何件もの 重大犯罪に手を染めました 最も重大な犯罪は 恐ろしい 悲劇的な殺人でした やがてウィルは罪に問われて 死刑を執行されました
But I don't want to talk today about the morality of capital punishment. I certainly think that my client shouldn't have been executed, but what I would like to do today instead is talk about the death penalty in a way I've never done before, in a way that is entirely noncontroversial.
でも私が今日 お話ししたいのは 死刑の道義性ではありません もちろんクライアントの死刑について 納得はしていません しかし今日は死刑について これまでとは違う角度から お話ししてみたいと思います 皆さんに 納得して頂けるようなお話をしたいと思います
I think that's possible, because there is a corner of the death penalty debate -- maybe the most important corner -- where everybody agrees, where the most ardent death penalty supporters and the most vociferous abolitionists are on exactly the same page. That's the corner I want to explore.
それが可能だと考える理由は 死刑に関する議論は ある点でひとつに交わり この交差点は 誰もが同意できる重要な点だからです 死刑を強く支持する人も 死刑廃止を強く主張する人も 同意するポイントです
Before I do that, though, I want to spend a couple of minutes telling you how a death penalty case unfolds, and then I want to tell you two lessons that I have learned over the last 20 years as a death penalty lawyer from watching well more than a hundred cases unfold in this way.
そのことを考えてみたいと思います しかし その前に死刑に至る道筋を 簡単にお話しします それから この20年間に学んだふたつの教訓をお話しします 弁護士として死刑にかかわる 100件以上の案件を担当して学んだことです
You can think of a death penalty case as a story that has four chapters. The first chapter of every case is exactly the same, and it is tragic. It begins with the murder of an innocent human being, and it's followed by a trial where the murderer is convicted and sent to death row, and that death sentence is ultimately upheld by the state appellate court.
死刑に至る物語は4つの章からなる 物語と捉えて下さい 第1章はどれも同じです 悲劇です 始めは殺人— 罪もない人が殺されて そして裁判が行われます 有罪となり死刑が宣告されます その死刑宣告は最終的には 州控訴裁判所も認めます
The second chapter consists of a complicated legal proceeding known as a state habeas corpus appeal. The third chapter is an even more complicated legal proceeding known as a federal habeas corpus proceeding. And the fourth chapter is one where a variety of things can happen. The lawyers might file a clemency petition, they might initiate even more complex litigation, or they might not do anything at all. But that fourth chapter always ends with an execution.
第2章は複雑な法律上の手続きです 州の人身保護令状請求というものです 第3章はもっと複雑は法律上の手続きで 連邦レベルの人身保護手続きです そして第4章では様々なことが起きます 弁護士が減刑嘆願書を提出する可能性もあります もっと複雑な法廷闘争の可能性もあります もしくは 何もしないかもしれません いずれにせよ 第4章の最後は死刑執行で終わります
When I started representing death row inmates more than 20 years ago, people on death row did not have a right to a lawyer in either the second or the fourth chapter of this story. They were on their own. In fact, it wasn't until the late 1980s that they acquired a right to a lawyer during the third chapter of the story. So what all of these death row inmates had to do was rely on volunteer lawyers to handle their legal proceedings. The problem is that there were way more guys on death row than there were lawyers who had both the interest and the expertise to work on these cases.
私が死刑囚を担当するようになったのは20年以上前です 当時 この物語の2章と4章において 弁護を受ける権利は与えられず 彼らを助ける人はいませんでした 第3章で弁護を受ける権利すら 80年代後半にようやく 与えられたものでした ですから死刑囚の 法律上の手続きを取り扱おうにも ボランティアの弁護士頼みでした 困ったことに 死刑囚の数は 死刑に関心と専門性を有する弁護士の数よりも 遥かに多いのです
And so inevitably, lawyers drifted to cases that were already in chapter four -- that makes sense, of course. Those are the cases that are most urgent; those are the guys who are closest to being executed. Some of these lawyers were successful; they managed to get new trials for their clients. Others of them managed to extend the lives of their clients, sometimes by years, sometimes by months.
必然的に 第4章の案件に弁護士が集まるのは無理もないことです 最も緊急性の高い案件であり 被告に対する死刑執行が近いのです うまく行くと クライアントは 新たな審理を受けることになります またクライアントが長く生きられる場合もあります ときには数年 ときには数ヶ月
But the one thing that didn't happen was that there was never a serious and sustained decline in the number of annual executions in Texas. In fact, as you can see from this graph, from the time that the Texas execution apparatus got efficient in the mid- to late 1990s, there have only been a couple of years where the number of annual executions dipped below 20.
しかしテキサスで1年間に執行される 死刑の件数が大幅に減り続けるという 事態にはなりませんでした 実際 グラフを見ればテキサス州の死刑執行は 90年代の半ば以降スピード化しました 年間の執行数が20人を下回る年は ほんの2−3年だけです
In a typical year in Texas, we're averaging about two people a month. In some years in Texas, we've executed close to 40 people, and this number has never significantly declined over the last 15 years. And yet, at the same time that we continue to execute about the same number of people every year, the number of people who we're sentencing to death on an annual basis has dropped rather steeply.
テキサスでは 典型的な件数は平均して 月に2人です 40人近くを執行する年もあります ここ15年間 この人数は特に減ったりしていません その一方で毎年 ほとんど同じ人数を死刑執行しているのに 一年間に死刑の判決を受ける人数は 比較的急速に
So we have this paradox,
減ってきています
which is that the number of annual executions has remained high but the number of new death sentences has gone down. Why is that? It can't be attributed to a decline in the murder rate, because the murder rate has not declined nearly so steeply as the red line on that graph has gone down. What has happened instead is that juries have started to sentence more and more people to prison for the rest of their lives without the possibility of parole, rather than sending them to the execution chamber.
矛盾が生じています 年間に処刑される人数は多いのに 新たな死刑判決の数は減っているのです なぜでしょう 殺人事件の割合が減ったからではありません 実際 このグラフの 赤線のように急速には減っていないのです その代わりにこんなことが起きたのでした 陪審が仮出所のない終身刑を 選び始めたのです 処刑台に送る代わりにです
Why has that happened? It hasn't happened because of a dissolution of popular support for the death penalty. Death penalty opponents take great solace in the fact that death penalty support in Texas is at an all-time low. Do you know what all-time low in Texas means? It means that it's in the low 60 percent. Now, that's really good compared to the mid-1980s, when it was in excess of 80 percent, but we can't explain the decline in death sentences and the affinity for life without the possibility of parole by an erosion of support for the death penalty, because people still support the death penalty.
どうしてこうなったのでしょう 死刑への支持基盤が失われたからではありません テキサスでの死刑賛成派の割合は過去最低となり 死刑反対派は大いに喜んでいます 過去最低とはどういう意味かわかりますか? 60パーセント前半ということです 賛成派が80パーセントを越えていた 80年代中頃に比べると大幅前進です 死刑判決よりも仮出所なし終身刑が選ばれる理由は 死刑に対する支持が失われたからではありません 未だに死刑は支持されているからです
What's happened to cause this phenomenon? What's happened is that lawyers who represent death row inmates have shifted their focus to earlier and earlier chapters of the death penalty story.
では何が起きてこうなっているのでしょう 実は 死刑囚の 弁護を行う弁護士たちは 死刑へのストーリーの早い段階に 力を注ぐようになったのです
So 25 years ago, they focused on chapter four. And they went from chapter four 25 years ago to chapter three in the late 1980s. And they went from chapter three in the late 1980s to chapter two in the mid-1990s. And beginning in the mid- to late 1990s, they began to focus on chapter one of the story.
25年前は第4章に注力していました 25年前の第4章から80年代後半には 第3章に移り 80年代後半の第3章から 90年代中頃には第2章に移りました 90年代中頃から後半には 第1章が注力されるようになったのです
Now, you might think that this decline in death sentences and the increase in the number of life sentences is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't want to have a conversation about that today. All that I want to tell you is that the reason that this has happened is because death penalty lawyers have understood that the earlier you intervene in a case, the greater the likelihood that you're going to save your client's life. That's the first thing I've learned.
死刑の減少と終身刑の増加については 評価は分かれるでしょう 今日はその話はしません お話ししたいことは こうなった理由です 事案に介入するのが早ければ早いほど クライアントの命を助けられる見込みが高いことに 死刑囚の弁護士が気づいたためなのです これが学んだことのひとつ目です
Here's the second thing I learned: My client Will was not the exception to the rule; he was the rule. I sometimes say, if you tell me the name of a death row inmate -- doesn't matter what state he's in, doesn't matter if I've ever met him before -- I'll write his biography for you. And eight out of 10 times, the details of that biography will be more or less accurate.
次は2つ目です クライアントのウィルにもあてはまる 法則があります まさに法則どおりの展開でした こんな話をすることがあります 死刑囚の名前を教えてくれたら 彼の状態にかかわらず 面会したことの有無にかかわらず 彼の生い立ちを描いてみせましょう 十中八九 その生い立ちの記述は
And the reason for that is that 80 percent of the people on death row are people who came from the same sort of dysfunctional family that Will did. Eighty percent of the people on death row are people who had exposure to the juvenile justice system. That's the second lesson that I've learned.
細部さえも多少なりとも重なり合っているのです なぜなら 80パーセントの死刑囚は ウィルのように崩壊した家庭に生まれているのです 死刑囚の80パーセントは 少年司法制度に 関わった経歴を有しています これが私の学んだ
Now we're right on the cusp of that corner
2つ目の教訓でした
where everybody's going to agree. People in this room might disagree about whether Will should have been executed, but I think everybody would agree that the best possible version of his story would be a story where no murder ever occurs. How do we do that?
さて今まさに 誰もが同意するであろう点に 近づいてきました ウィルの処刑について 会場の皆さんの意見は一致しないでしょう でも彼のストーリーの最良のバージョンでは そもそも殺人が起こりません このことについては 誰もが同意するでしょう
When our son Lincoln was working on that math problem two weeks ago,
どうすればそうできるのか?
it was a big, gnarly problem. And he was learning how, when you have a big old gnarly problem, sometimes the solution is to slice it into smaller problems. That's what we do for most problems -- in math, in physics, even in social policy -- we slice them into smaller, more manageable problems. But every once in a while, as Dwight Eisenhower said, the way you solve a problem is to make it bigger.
2週間前 息子のリンカーンが取り組んでいた数学の問題は 大きくてやっかいな問題でした 大きくて難しいこの手の問題を解くために どうやって問題を小さく分解するかを勉強していました 物理や数学では普通のこのやり方は 社会問題にも使われます 問題を小さくわけて扱いやすくするのです でもアイゼンハワーも言っているように ときには 問題を大きく捉えることで 解決することもあるのです
The way we solve this problem is to make the issue of the death penalty bigger. We have to say, all right. We have these four chapters of a death penalty story, but what happens before that story begins? How can we intervene in the life of a murderer before he's a murderer? What options do we have to nudge that person off of the path that is going to lead to a result that everybody -- death penalty supporters and death penalty opponents -- still think is a bad result: the murder of an innocent human being?
この問題を解決する方法は 死刑の問題をさらに大きく捉えることです こう語るべきなのです 死刑のストーリーは 4章からなっていますが このストーリーの始まる前は 何が起きているのだろうか どうすれば 殺人が起きる前に 殺人犯の人生に介入できるでしょうか? 道を外れ 後に最悪の結果をもたらす 人物にどんな方法で働きかけたら 良いでしょう 最悪の結果とは 死刑賛成派も死刑反対派も 同様に避けたいと考える結果 — それはすなわち それはすなわち 罪なき人が殺されることです
You know, sometimes people say that something isn't rocket science. And by that, what they mean is rocket science is really complicated and this problem that we're talking about now is really simple. Well that's rocket science; that's the mathematical expression for the thrust created by a rocket. What we're talking about today is just as complicated. What we're talking about today is also rocket science.
ロケット科学という 言葉を聞いたことが あるでしょう ロケット科学という本当に複雑なものに比べたら 話題にしている課題なんて 本当に単純だというときに使う言葉です ロケット科学では ロケットエンジンが生みだす推進力の 数学的な表現を扱うからです 今日 お話ししていることは 同じように込み入った話です 今日 お話ししていることもまた
My client Will and 80 percent of the people on death row
「ロケット科学」です
had five chapters in their lives that came before the four chapters of the death penalty story. I think of these five chapters as points of intervention, places in their lives when our society could've intervened in their lives and nudged them off of the path that they were on that created a consequence that we all -- death penalty supporters or death penalty opponents -- say was a bad result.
クライアントのウィルにも 80パーセントの死刑囚にも 死刑に連なる四章のストーリーの その前の人生には 五つの章がありました この五章こそが介入すべき時期であり 我々の社会が彼らの人生に介入して 彼らの歩む道筋から逸れさせるべきポイントです その道筋は死刑賛成派も死刑反対派も 同様に避けたいと考える 最悪の結果への道筋です
Now, during each of these five chapters: when his mother was pregnant with him; in his early childhood years; when he was in elementary school; when he was in middle school and then high school; and when he was in the juvenile justice system -- during each of those five chapters, there were a wide variety of things that society could have done. In fact, if we just imagine that there are five different modes of intervention, the way that society could intervene in each of those five chapters, and we could mix and match them any way we want, there are 3,000 -- more than 3,000 -- possible strategies that we could embrace in order to nudge kids like Will off of the path that they're on.
五つの章の間それぞれに— 母親が彼を身ごもっていた時期 幼児期 小学校に通っていた時期 中高生の時期 そして少年司法で処置されている時期 これら五つの時期に 社会ができるいろいろなことがありました 実際 考えてみるだけでも 五章のそれぞれに五種類ずつの異なった 社会的な介入の仕方があり それを好きなように組み合わせることで 3000以上の戦略があるのです それを選んでウィルのような子どもの 歩む道筋を変えさせるのです
So I'm not standing here today with the solution. But the fact that we still have a lot to learn, that doesn't mean that we don't know a lot already. We know from experience in other states that there are a wide variety of modes of intervention that we could be using in Texas, and in every other state that isn't using them, in order to prevent a consequence that we all agree is bad.
今この場で 解決策を手にしているわけではありません 現実にこれから学ぶべきことは多いですが 多くのことを全く知らないわけでもありません 他州での経験もあります 介入の仕方には幅広いやり方があり それをテキサスなど未適用の州でも使って 誰もが最悪と考える結果を予防できるのです
I'll just mention a few. I won't talk today about reforming the legal system. That's probably a topic that is best reserved for a room full of lawyers and judges. Instead, let me talk about a couple of modes of intervention that we can all help accomplish, because they are modes of intervention that will come about when legislators and policymakers, when taxpayers and citizens, agree that that's what we ought to be doing and that's how we ought to be spending our money.
幾つか例を挙げましょう 司法制度の改革の話ではありません その話は弁護士と裁判官が集まったところで 話すべきでしょう 代わりに皆さんの助けを得て達成しうる 幾つかの介入の仕方について語ります その介入の仕方は 議員や政策当局が —納税者や市民がそうすべきだと同意して 税金を使おうとするときに 登場する介入の仕方だからです
We could be providing early childhood care for economically disadvantaged and otherwise troubled kids, and we could be doing it for free. And we could be nudging kids like Will off of the path that we're on. There are other states that do that, but we don't.
経済面やその他の理由で困っている 小さな子どもへのケアの提供があります それは無償でできます 我々の道筋から外れた ウィルのような子どもの進路を変えられます こういうことをしている州もありますが 我が州は違います
We could be providing special schools, at both the high school level and the middle school level, but even in K-5, that target economically and otherwise disadvantaged kids, and particularly kids who have had exposure to the juvenile justice system. There are a handful of states that do that; Texas doesn't.
特別な支援をする学校を高校や中学課程や さらには小学校課程でも設置できます とりわけ 経済などで困っている子どもや そして少年司法に 関わる子どもの支援を目指すのです 両手に余る州でこの支援は実施中ですが
There's one other thing we can be doing -- well, there are a bunch of other things --
テキサスではまだです
there's one other thing that I'm going to mention, and this is going to be the only controversial thing that I say today. We could be intervening much more aggressively into dangerously dysfunctional homes, and getting kids out of them before their moms pick up butcher knives and threaten to kill them. If we're going to do that, we need a place to put them.
できることは他にもあります たくさんありますが これから言おうとしていることは 今日の話の中で議論を呼ぶポイントでしょう さらに積極的な介入として 危険なほどに崩壊した家庭に対して 介入して 母親が肉切り包丁を手にして 殺してやると口にする前に 子どもを救出するのです もしそれを行うとすれば
Even if we do all of those things, some kids are going to fall through the cracks and they're going to end up in that last chapter before the murder story begins, they're going to end up in the juvenile justice system. And even if that happens, it's not yet too late. There's still time to nudge them, if we think about nudging them rather than just punishing them.
子どもたちの受け入れ場所が必要でしょう これらの全てを実施しても 網をくぐって 殺人の章の前まで行く者もいるでしょう 彼らは少年司法の場にたどり着きます もしそうなったとしても まだ間に合います 道筋を改めさせる時間が残されています 単に罰することだけを考えるのではなく
There are two professors in the Northeast -- one at Yale and one at Maryland -- they set up a school that is attached to a juvenile prison. And the kids are in prison, but they go to school from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. Now, it was logistically difficult. They had to recruit teachers who wanted to teach inside a prison, they had to establish strict separation between the people who work at the school and the prison authorities, and most dauntingly of all, they needed to invent a new curriculum because you know what? People don't come into and out of prison on a semester basis.
道を改めることを考えましょう 北東部のエール大とメリーランド大に二人の教授がいます 彼らは少年刑務所に 付属の学校を設立しました 少年達は刑務所にいながら 8時から4時過ぎまで学校に行きます 実現は困難でした 刑務所内で教える教師の採用 学校で働く人と刑務所の監督官との 厳格な分離 さらに新たなカリキュラム編成の必要もありました なぜか? 刑務所に出入りする人の動きは学期と関係ないのです
(Laughter)
But they did all those things.
こんな問題すべてに対処したのです
Now, what do all of these things have in common? What all of these things have in common is that they cost money. Some of the people in the room might be old enough to remember the guy on the old oil filter commercial. He used to say, "Well, you can pay me now or you can pay me later." What we're doing in the death penalty system is we're paying later.
これらのこと全てに共通することは何でしょう 全てに共通して費用がかかるのです ここにいる中で年上の方は 昔のオイルフィルターのコマーシャルを 覚えているかもしれません こんなセリフです 「今払わなくても いずれ払うお金です」 死刑制度というのは 後でお金を払わせる やり方です
But the thing is that for every 15,000 dollars that we spend intervening in the lives of economically and otherwise disadvantaged kids in those earlier chapters, we save 80,000 dollars in crime-related costs down the road. Even if you don't agree that there's a moral imperative that we do it, it just makes economic sense.
大事なことは 経済的理由などで困っている児童の支援に 早い時期に1万5千ドル使うたびに 早い時期に1万5千ドル使うたびに ずっと将来の犯罪に関わる費用を8万ドル削減できるのです 道徳的な義務に基づき実施すべき という点に同意が得られなくても 経済的にも意義があることです
I want to tell you about the last conversation that I had with Will. It was the day that he was going to be executed, and we were just talking. There was nothing left to do in his case. And we were talking about his life. And he was talking first about his dad, who he hardly knew, who had died, and then about his mom, who he did know, who was still alive.
ウィルと交わした最後の会話のことをお話しします 死刑執行される予定の日に 私たちは話をしていました 彼の事案には やり残しはなく 私たちは彼の人生について話しました 最初はほとんど知らない父親の話 もう故人でした それから母親のこと 彼のよく知る母親は
And I said to him, "I know the story. I've read the records. I know that she tried to kill you." I said, "But I've always wondered whether you really actually remember that." I said, "I don't remember anything from when I was five years old. Maybe you just remember somebody telling you."
まだ生きていました 私は言いました 「話は知っています 記録を読んだから お母さんに殺されそうになったことも」 「ずっと不思議に思っていたけれど そのことを本当に覚えていますか?」 「5才頃のことなど 私自身は何も覚えていない
And he looked at me and he leaned forward, and he said, "Professor," -- he'd known me for 12 years, he still called me Professor. He said, "Professor, I don't mean any disrespect by this, but when your mama picks up a butcher knife that looks bigger than you are, and chases you through the house screaming she's going to kill you, and you have to lock yourself in the bathroom and lean against the door and holler for help until the police get there," he looked at me and he said, "that's something you don't forget."
誰かに聞いた話を覚えていませんか?」 彼は私を見つめて身を乗り出して言いました 「教授」—12年の付き合いを通して教授と呼ばれていました 「教授 バカにするつもりはまったくないのですが でも 自分よりも大きな 肉切り包丁を手にした母親が 殺してやると叫びながら家中を追いかけてきて トイレに閉じこもって鍵をかけて 大声で叫び続けて警官に助けられたら」 私を見て続けます 「忘れられるものではありません」
I hope there's one thing you all won't forget: In between the time you arrived here this morning and the time we break for lunch, there are going to be four homicides in the United States. We're going to devote enormous social resources to punishing the people who commit those crimes, and that's appropriate because we should punish people who do bad things. But three of those crimes are preventable.
ひとつ 覚えておいて欲しいことがあります 今朝ここに着いた時から昼休みまでの間に アメリカでは4件の殺人が 発生しています 相当の社会的なエネルギーをこういう犯罪者に つぎ込んでいくことになります 悪人を罰することは妥当なことです しかしそのうち3件は予防できるものなのです
If we make the picture bigger and devote our attention to the earlier chapters, then we're never going to write the first sentence that begins the death penalty story.
広い視野で捉え もっと早いフェーズに注意をはらうことにすれば 死刑に連なる4章は 冒頭の判決文すら 不要になります
Thank you.
ありがとうございました
(Applause)
(拍手)