经济学人53:美国的死刑

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review;Capital punishment in America;

　　文艺；书评；美国的死刑;

　　Justice, delayed and denied

　　正义, 姗姗来迟甚至无处可伸?

　　Anatomy¹ of Injustice²: A Murder Case Gone Wrong. By Raymond Bonner.

　　《不公正的剖析：一种谋杀案出的差错》,Raymond Bonner著。

　　What sort of town was Greenwood, South Carolina in the early 1980s? It was the kind of place where a prominent white man could get away with shooting and killing³ a black man who walked across his property at night. When the local chief prosecutor⁴, William T. Jones, brought the case before a grand jury, he was not looking for an indictment⁶. Surely anyone would have behaved the same way under the circumstances, he argued. Surely, he told the jurors, they too would have picked up a shotgun. The grand jury did not indict⁵.

　　上世纪80年代早期，美国南卡罗来纳州的格林伍德是怎样的一个城镇呢？这是这样的一个地方，一个身份显赫的白人在射击杀死一个晚上穿过他私人土地的黑人后并没有受到什么惩罚。在当地首席检察官William T. Jones将这个案件拿到大陪审团面前时，他并不是在寻求一种控诉。他认为，在同样的情况下每个人肯定都会采取同样的行动。他很坚定地告诉陪审团，他们也会拿起一把猎枪。陪审团没有起诉。

　　A few months later Jones persuaded the same grand jury to indict Edward Lee Elmore, a 23-year-old black man, for the murder of Dorothy Edwards, a 75-year-old white woman. She was found inside her bedroom closet, bruised⁷ and repeatedly stabbed. Mr Elmore was sentenced to death less than 90 days later. This grim case is the subject of “Anatomy of Injustice”, a gripping and enraging⁸ book from Raymond Bonner, a veteran investigative journalist at the New York Times.Mr Elmore would spend 27 years on death row, despite strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that he did not commit the crime. His capital sentence was ultimately overturned thanks to the tireless efforts of Diana Holt, his lawyer and the book's hero, who spent more than a decade seeking justice on his behalf.

　　几个月之后Jones说服这相同的大陪审团起诉 Edward Lee Elmore，一个23岁的黑人谋杀一位75岁的白人妇女Dorothy Edwards。她是在自己的卧室衣橱被发现的，身上青肿并被刺了很多刀。Elmore先生在90天内就被判处死刑。这个残酷的例子就是《不公正的剖析》这本书的主题，这本吸引人的书是一位纽约时报资深调查新闻记者雷蒙德·邦纳（Raymond Bonner）写的。尽管大量的间接推测都表明Elmore先生并没有犯罪，但他也将在死刑房耗尽27年。他死刑的罪状最终在戴安娜·霍尔特（Diana Holt）的不懈努力下推翻了，戴安娜·霍尔特（Diana Holt）是他的律师也是这本书的主人翁，他花费了10多年的时间为Elmore声张正义。

　　Mentally disabled and barely literate⁹, Mr Elmore was 14 years old when he dropped out of school. He could add and subtract using his fingers, but he could not tell the time, he did not know the seasons and he could not understand directions. He became a neighbourhood handyman, and he cleaned Edwards's gutters¹⁰ and washed her windows two weeks before she was killed. He was arrested because his fingerprint¹¹ was found at her house.

　　智力上的缺陷以及知识的匮乏，Elmore在他14岁的时候就辍学了。他可以用手指进行加减但是他不能识别时间，不知道一年四季，没有方向感。他成了邻居街坊里的勤杂工，就在Dorothy Edwards被杀的前两周，他还在清洗她家的水沟，擦洗他的窗户。由于在Edwards家发现了他的指纹就被逮捕了。

　　At his trial, Mr Elmore was given two lawyers. One was known as the “bourbon cowboy”. He was twice arrested for drunk driving, and his breath smelled of alcohol in court. The other lawyer referred to his client as a “redheaded nigger”. They had Mr Elmore testify, a rarity in murder trials, and they called no other witnesses. The judge dismissed four potential jurors because of their opposition¹² to capital punishment. (This judge later served on South Carolina's Supreme¹³ Court, and landed in some hot water by professing¹⁴ to find racist¹⁵ jokes inoffensive and funny.) It took the jury less than three hours to convict Mr Elmore, and an additional 50 minutes to sentence him to death.

　　在审讯过程中，Elmore有两位律师。一位被称作“波旁牛仔”（“bourbon cowboy”）。这位律师曾两次酒后驾驶被拘留，同时在法庭上他呼吸里有浓重的酒味。另一位提到的律师对于他的客户来说就是“红发黑人”。他们让Elmore自己作证，这是在谋杀案件中少有的事，他们称没有其他证人了。法官解散了四个潜在的陪审团，正由于他们对死刑裁决的反对。（这位法官后来服务于南卡罗来州的最高法院，……自认发现有关种族主义的没有恶意且又有趣的笑话）这就使得陪审团在不到3个小时就判Elmore有罪，并在额外的50分钟内就对他判了死刑。

　　But Mr Elmore did not die in jail. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that states could not execute the mentally disabled, his sentence was commuted¹⁶ to life in prison, where he still sits. Opponents of capital punishment may be familiar with arguments about its expense, unjust application and inefficacy as a deterrent¹⁷. But it is another thing entirely¹⁸ to read about patently biased¹⁹ judges, policemen who lie under oath (and may well have planted evidence) and bloodthirsty prosecutors²⁰.

　　但是Elmore并没有死于监狱。在2005年最高法院裁决认为美国各州不能对精神障碍者进行处死之后，他的宣判减刑成终生监禁。死刑的反对者可能熟于争论其代价，即不公正的运用以及威慑性不强。但是这对于带有明显偏见的法官、可以在宣誓下撒谎的警察（很可能已经有了栽赃的证据）、嗜血的检察官理解起来完全是另外的一回事。

　　In telling Mr Elmore's story, Mr Bonner deftly²¹ weaves in a brief history of American capital punishment and its discontents. Following a brief moratorium²² in 1972, when the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty's application violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, it was reinstated in 38 states from 1976. By 2010, 1,226 more executions had taken place, 1,010 of them in the South. Most of these executed inmates²³ have been black; a vast majority of the victims in capital cases were white. But Mr Bonner's book is not a treatise²⁴ against the death penalty. Rather, it is a dismal²⁵ look at what happens in America's justice system when justice is absent.

　　在讲述Elmore的故事的时候，奥·邦纳（Mr Bonner）很快的就编织出了关于美国死刑刑罚的简洁历史，并表示不满。随后就是1972年的一个简洁的禁令在那时，这最高法院裁定这死刑刑法的运用违反了第八修正案禁止“残忍与异常的刑罚”条款，到了1976年在38个州才恢复使用。截止2010年，执行了1226多次死刑的裁决，其中南方占到1010例。大部分的死囚犯是黑人，而大多数的受害者是资本阶级白人。但是Bonner的书不是一本反对死刑的论述。然而，它是对美国的司法系统当公正不在时所发生的事的一点心痛的看法。

1 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

2 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

3 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

4 prosecutor   

n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人

参考例句：

• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。
• The prosecutor would tear your testimony to pieces.检查官会把你的证言驳得体无完肤。

5 indict   

v.起诉，控告，指控

参考例句：

• You can't indict whole people for the crudeness of a few.您不能因少数人的粗暴行为就控诉整个民族。
• I can indict you for abducting high school student.我可以告你诱拐中学生。

6 indictment   

n.起诉；诉状

参考例句：

• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
• They issued an indictment against them.他们起诉了他们。

7 bruised   

[医]青肿的，瘀紫的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤，摔得鼻青脸肿。

8 enraging   

使暴怒( enrage的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The effrontery of his deceptions inside and outside the conference room could be enraging. 他在会议室内外放肆的欺骗手段简直令人怒火中烧。
• It buffeted the beasts, enraging them. 它打击着那些野兽，激怒着它们。

9 literate   

n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的

参考例句：

• Only a few of the nation's peasants are literate.这个国家的农民中只有少数人能识字。
• A literate person can get knowledge through reading many books.一个受过教育的人可以通过读书而获得知识。

10 gutters   

（路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地

参考例句：

• Gutters lead the water into the ditch. 排水沟把水排到这条水沟里。
• They were born, they grew up in the gutters. 他们生了下来，以后就在街头长大。

11 fingerprint   

n.指纹；vt.取...的指纹

参考例句：

• The fingerprint expert was asked to testify at the trial.指纹专家应邀出庭作证。
• The court heard evidence from a fingerprint expert.法院听取了指纹专家的证词。

12 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

13 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

14 professing   

声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉

参考例句：

• But( which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 只要有善行。这才与自称是敬神的女人相宜。
• Professing Christianity, he had little compassion in his make-up. 他号称信奉基督教，却没有什么慈悲心肠。

15 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

16 commuted   

通勤( commute的过去式和过去分词 )； 减（刑）； 代偿

参考例句：

• His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment. 他的判决由死刑减为无期徒刑。
• The death sentence may be commuted to life imprisonment. 死刑可能減为无期徒刑。

17 deterrent   

n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的

参考例句：

• Large fines act as a deterrent to motorists.高额罚款是对开车的人的制约。
• I put a net over my strawberries as a deterrent to the birds.我在草莓上罩了网，免得鸟歇上去。

18 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

19 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

20 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

21 deftly   

adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He deftly folded the typed sheets and replaced them in the envelope. 他灵巧地将打有字的纸折好重新放回信封。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. 这一下终于让他发现了她的兴趣所在，于是他熟练地继续谈这个话题。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

22 moratorium   

n.(行动、活动的)暂停(期)，延期偿付

参考例句：

• The government has called for a moratorium on weapons testing.政府已要求暂停武器试验。
• We recommended a moratorium on two particular kinds of experiments.我们建议暂禁两种特殊的实验。

23 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

24 treatise   

n.专著；(专题)论文

参考例句：

• The doctor wrote a treatise on alcoholism.那位医生写了一篇关于酗酒问题的论文。
• This is not a treatise on statistical theory.这不是一篇有关统计理论的论文。

25 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。