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.
两周前, 我和我的妻子,卡特亚, 坐在餐桌旁, 我们两人当时谈论着我今天将要讨论的事情。 我们有个11岁大的儿子;叫林肯。他当时也坐在同一张餐桌旁 做他的数学作业。 我和卡特亚的谈话暂停了一下, 我看着林肯 然后突然被我想起来的一位客户的经历所 震惊了。
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.
我的客户是一个叫威尔的男孩。 他来自北德克萨斯。 他的父亲在他母亲怀着他的时候就离开了他们,所以 从没见过他的父亲。 所以,命中注定他成长在一个单亲妈妈的家庭, 也许他可以成长的很好 只是他的特殊的单身母亲 有偏执型精神分裂症, 更糟糕的是她曾经想用一把屠刀杀死只有5岁的威尔。
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.
她被 警察带走后并被送进了精神病院, 那之后的几年威尔和他的哥哥生活在一起直到 他的哥哥将一颗子弹送进了自己的心脏。 那之后 威尔就在亲戚家中轮流居住,
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.
直到,他九岁的时候,他基本上只是自己独自生活了。 那天早上我,卡特亚和林肯坐在一起,我看着我的儿子, 我意识到当我的客户,威尔, 和我儿子一样大的时候, 他已经独自生活了两年了。 威尔最后加入了黑手党 并严重触犯了 一系列法律, 包括,其中最严重, 一场可怕,悲剧性的谋杀。 威尔最后被判处死刑 作为犯罪的惩罚。
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.
但是今天我不打算 谈论 关于死刑的道德问题。我坚定的认为 我的客户不应该被判死刑,但是我今天想从一个 以前没有讨论过的角度去 谈一谈死刑, 一个 完全无可争议的角度。
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.
我认为这是可能的, 因为总有一个关于死刑争议 的角落-- 也许是最重要的角落-- 所有人都可以认同, 其中死刑最忠实的拥护者 和坚持废除死刑的人 都认同的事。
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.
那就是我想探索的角落。 在这之前,可是,我想几分钟时间向你们说明一下 死刑案例是如何开展的, 之后我想再告诉你们过去的20年中 作为一个死刑律师我学到的两件事, 从过去以这样的形式已经开展的上百例案件。
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.
您可以把死刑案件看做的一个 有四个章节的故事。 每宗个案的第一章是完全相同的, 是个悲剧。 它始于谋杀 无辜的人, 接下来是审判 法庭上杀人凶手被定罪为死囚, 最终, 被州诉讼法院判为死刑。
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.
第二章由复杂的法律程序组成,称为 州人身保护诉讼令。 第三章的法律程序更为复杂,称为 联邦人身保护令程序。 第四章中 各种各样的事情都可能发生。律师们可能会提出申请, 他们可能会引发更多复杂的诉讼, 或者,他们可能什么都不做。 但这四章总是以 执行死刑结束。
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.
当我 20 多年前开始为死囚牢房的囚犯做代表的时候, 死囚并没有使用律师的权利,在这个故事的第二章 或第四章。 他们得靠自己。 事实上,直到20世纪80年代他们才获得在 这个故事的第三章期间 使用律师的权利。 所以所有这些死囚犯人不得不 依靠志愿律师 来处理他们的法律诉讼。 问题是死囚的数量比起 对死囚案件有兴趣以及具有相关技能的律师更多。
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.
所以不可避免的是, 律师漂流到了已经在第四章的案件 — — 这的确有道理,当然。这些案件都是最迫切的 ; 这些家伙都是最接近于执行死刑的人。 这些律师有的成功的为他们的客户争取到了新的审判。 其他的设法延长了他们的客户生命,有时 是几年,有时是几个月。
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.
但有一件事没有发生, 在德克萨斯州,每年处决的人数从没有 真正意义的持续下降。 实际上,正如您看到的这张图表,从20世纪90年代中期到晚期, 德克萨斯州执行机构有了执行能力, 只有过了几年每年处决的人数在下降 到20个案例以下。
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.
德克萨斯州一年中, 我们现在平均大约 每个月有两人被执行。 在德克萨斯州的一些年里,我们曾经执行过近 40 人,并且这一数字 在过去的 15 年中从来没有显著下降过。 然而,同时,我们继续执行 几乎每年相同数量的人数, 我们正在宣判死刑的人数 以年为单位
So we have this paradox,
在急剧下降。
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.
所以我们得出这种自相矛盾的结论, 就是每年处决的人数保持很高 但新的死刑判决的数目下降了。 这是为什么? 它不能归咎于谋杀数量的下降, 因为谋杀数量没有下降 近那么快,图上的红线已经减少了。 取而代之, 陪审团着手把更多的人判入监狱 终生监禁他们完全没有释放的机会, 而不是将它们发送到死刑室。
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.
为什么? 这不是因民意支持取消 死刑。死刑反对者获得了极大的安慰是因为 在德克萨斯州的死刑支持率正处于历史低点。 你知道在德克萨斯州创历史新低意味着什么吗? 这意味着它是低于60%。 与之相比,一个很好的例子是80年代中期,当时 这个数字是超过 80%, 但我们不能简单的解释死刑判决的减少是因为人们对生命的关注 而把死刑支持者言论减少的可能性排除在外。 ,因为有人仍支持死刑。
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.
发生了什么,导致这种现象呢? 说发生的事是 这些代表死囚的律师们 已经开始将他们的注意力向更早 死刑故事的章节。
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.
所以 25 年前,他们关注第四章。 25年前,80年代后期,他们从 第四章转移到了第三章。 他们从八十年代后期第 3 章中进入到了 上世纪 90 年代中期的了第两章。从90年代中期到后期, 他们开始专注于故事的第一章。
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.
现在,你也许会认为死刑判决的减少和上升的 终身监禁刑罚的人数是一件好事或坏事。 我今天不想讨论。 所有的我想要告诉是发生的理由 正是因为死刑律师能看明白 在你的案例中越早干预, 你越有希望保护你的客户的生命。 这是我所学到的第一件事。
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.
我学到了第二件事: 我的客户威尔 并不是个规则的例外; 他就是规则。 我有时会说,如果你告诉我一个死囚犯人的名字— — 不管他现在是什么状态也不管我之前是否见过他 — — 我可以为你写出他的自传。 80%的情况下, 该传记的细节
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.
或多或少是准确的。 原因是 80%的死囚 都来自同一种功能失调的家庭。 80%的死囚 都接触过 少年司法制度系统。 这就是我学会的
Now we're right on the cusp of that corner
第二个教训。
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?
现在我们就在那个角落的尖点 那里每个人都认同。 在这个房间里的人可能不同意 关于威尔是否应该被执行死刑, 但我想大家都会同意 他的故事最好的可能版本 是一个谋杀不曾出现的 故事。
When our son Lincoln was working on that math problem two weeks ago,
我们如何做哪?
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.
两周前,当我们的儿子林肯正在研究这一数学问题 的时候,是一个很麻烦的问题。 他学习如何(解决问题),当你有一个麻烦的问题, 有时解决方案是把它分成较小的问题。 这是我们做大多数问题--数学和物理,即使社会政策- 我们把它们分割为更小、 更易于管理的问题。 但每隔一段时间, 正如德怀特 · 艾森豪威尔说, 解决问题的方法 是要使它变得更大。
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?
我们解决这个问题的方法 是要使死刑的问题更大。 我们不得不说,好吧。 我们有这四章 死刑的故事, 但是故事开始之前 会发生什么? 我们如何可以凶手犯罪之前干预 他的生活? 我们有哪些选择 改变谋杀犯的 人生轨迹 这会导致一个结果,所有人— — 死刑的支持者和反对者 — — 仍然认为 是一个糟糕的结果: 一个无辜的人被杀害吗?
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.
你知道,有时候人们会说 有一些事情 不是火箭科学。 是,他们的意思是火箭科学确实很复杂 而这个问题,我们正在谈论其实是真的非常简单。 嗯,这是火箭科学 ; 这就是数学方程式 为一枚火箭创建的推力。 我们今天讨论的 事很复杂。 我们今天在讨论的也是
My client Will and 80 percent of the people on death row
火箭科学。
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.
我的客户威尔 和 80%的死囚 在他们的生活中有五个章节 这都在 死刑故事的四个章节之前。 我认为这些五个章节的干预点, 在他们的生活中当我们的社会 可以介入他们的生活并改变他们正在走向一个结局,那个我们所有人 — — 死刑的支持者或死刑 的反对者 — — 认为是很差的结局。
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.
现在,这五个章节的每个章节: 当他的母亲怀孕; 在他早期的童年 ; 当他上小学 ; 当他上中学和高中 ; 当他在少年司法系统 — — 期间的每个章节, 有各种各样社会能做的事情。 事实上,如果我们只是想象 有五种不同模式的干预,社会可以介入的方式 五个章节的每一章, 我们可以混合匹配成任何我们想要的方式, 有 3,000 — — 超过 3,000 — — 可能行性措施 我们可以帮助,像威尔一样的孩子 改变他们的人生之路。
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.
所以我今天不是站在这里 提出解决方案。 但事实是我们仍有很多要学, 这并不意味着我们一无所知。 我们从其他州的经验知道 有多种方式干预 那我们可以用在得克萨斯州,并在每个其他州都不使用它们, 为了防止我们都共同认为是不好的后果。
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.
我得提一下几个。 我今天不会讨论关于司法制度改革。 这可能是一个最好的预留给满屋子的律师和法官的话题。 相反,让我谈一谈几个的干预模式 我们可以所有帮助完成, 因为它们是将会出现的干预方式 当立法会议员和政策制定者,当纳税人和公民, 一致认为这是我们应该做什么 而这是我们应该如何花自己的钱。
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.
我们可以提供早期儿童护理 帮助经济处于弱势和陷入其他困境的孩子们, 并且是免费的。 这样我们就可以改变像威尔这样的孩子们的命运。 已经其他州在这样做了,但我们还没有。
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.
我们可以提供专门的学校,从高中 到初中,甚至是小学5年级的孩子, 目标是帮助经济和其他方面处于不利地位的孩子,特别是 已经触犯过 少年司法系统的孩子。 这正是几个州都在做的事 ;
There's one other thing we can be doing -- well, there are a bunch of other things --
德克萨斯州并没有。
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.
有一件事,是我们可以做的 — — 也许,有很多其他我们应该做的事情 — — 但是有一件事我们可以做的, 我也不得不在这里提一下,这也是今天唯一有 争议的事。 我们可以更加积极 的干预 那些已经变得危险并功能失调的家庭, 并把他们的孩子 在他们的妈妈拿起屠夫刀并威胁要杀死他们之前解救出来。 如果我们要这样做,
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.
我们需要地方安置他们。 即使我们做到所有这些事,仍然会有一些孩子会被漏掉 然后他们在这谋杀的故事最后一章开始之前 最终在少年司法系统中结束。 即使发生这种情况, 它还不算太晚。 仍有时间去改变他们的命运, 如果我们想帮助他们
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.
而不是只惩罚他们。 有两位教授在东北部地区 — — 个在耶鲁大学 — —一个在马里兰州 他们建立了一所学校 该学校于一个少年监狱相连。 孩子们虽然在狱中,但他们早上八点上课 下午四点结束。 逻辑上很难理解。 他们需要招聘可以在监狱内教课的教师 他们建立了严格 制度把在这所学校工作的人和监狱当局分离开, 最难的是,他们需要设计新的课程表,因为 你知道? 这些人不可能以学期的基础上进出监狱。
(Laughter)
But they did all those things.
但他们做了所有这些事情。
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.
所有这些事情有什么共同点? 这些事情的共同点是他们需要花钱。 这里的一些年纪够大的人可能还记得 曾经在机油滤清器商业广告上那个人。 他常说,"好吧,你现在可以支付我 或者您可以再付给我钱。“ 我们正在做什么 在死刑制度中 正是我们后付钱。
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.
但是事实是 我们每花 15000 美元越早帮助 在经济和其他方面处于 不利地位的孩子们, 我们在与犯罪有关的费用中就可以节省 80,000 美元。 即使您不同意 我们道德责任去做这些事, 它仍然有经济意义。
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.
我想告诉你们我和威尔最后的谈话。 就是在他被执行死刑的那那天, 我们只是谈话。 没有别的事情可以做了 在他的案子里。 我们谈论了他的一生。 首先,他谈到他的爸爸,一个他几乎不认识的人 而且已经死了, 然后关于他的妈妈, 他知道,
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."
还活着。 我对他说, "我知道这个故事。 我读过记录。 我知道她想杀了你"。 我说,"但是我一直在想是否你真的 记得。 我说,"我不记得任何件事 从我五岁那年。
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."
也许你只是记得有人告诉你。" 他看着我然后俯身向前, 说,"教授,"— — 他认识了我 12 年,仍然称我教授。 他说,"教授,我没有对你不尊重的意思, 但当你的妈妈 拿起一把看上去比你还要大的屠刀, 并尖叫着在房间里追杀你, 你只能把你自己锁在浴室,靠着门 直到警察赶到才能得救," 他看着我,说, "这是你永远忘不了的事。"
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.
我希望你们都不会忘记一件事: 从你今天早晨到达这里到午餐时间, 在美国就有四个人 被杀。 我们投入了大量社会资源惩治这些 犯下这些罪行的人,这是适当的,因为我们应惩罚 做坏事的人。 但其中三起犯罪都是可以预防的。
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.
如果我们把眼光放的更远 同时关注早期的章节, 然后我们就永远不会撰写出 死刑故事开始的第一句。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)