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  • 死刑:美国人对死刑失去兴趣，德州人除外

    2007-09-07

    [2007.8.31] Revenge begins to seem less sweet 复仇看似没那么快意了

    Capital punishment in America   
    美国死刑

    Revenge begins to seem less sweet  
    复仇看起来没那么快意了
    Aug 30th 2007 | BOULDER, COLORADO, AND HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS
    From The Economist print edition

    Americans are losing their appetite for the death penalty. Texas is the exception  
    美国人对死刑失去兴趣，德州人除外



    JOSEPH NICHOLS did not fight the guards at his execution, but he did not co-operate, either. He had to be lifted onto the trolley on which he was to die, and then strapped down. A needle was thrust into his arm. Asked if he had any last words, he said, “Yes, yes I do,” and then swore at a guard. There followed a gurgling sound as his lungs collapsed and, for about a minute, an animal-like noise issued from the back of his throat. After that came silence, broken only by a few people in the room clearing their throats. Then a doctor pulled out his stethoscope and pronounced the condemned man dead. The execution had taken six minutes.
    行刑时，Joseph Nichols没有反抗，不过他也并不合作。他得被抬到行刑的推车上，然后捆起来。注射针头刺入他的前臂。当被问及还有什么要说时，他说“是的，我要 说。”然后就开始咒骂起一个警卫。跟着就是因为肺部萎缩导致的咯咯声。一分钟后，他喉咙深处发出野兽般的声音。在那之后就是一片寂静，屋里的几个人清了清 嗓子。然后医生拿出听诊器宣布犯人死亡。行刑持续了6分钟。

    Mr Nichols was one of 22 people put to death in Texas this year (as this was written, two more were scheduled to die). His story was fairly typical. He had been convicted for the murder of a delicatessen clerk during a robbery in 1980. It had not been much of a heist; he said his accomplice “got some change” but he got nothing. The victim was killed by a single bullet. It was unclear which of the two men had fired it, but under Texan law it made no difference, since both admitted to shooting at him. Mr Nichols was 20 when he arrived on death row and 45 when he died. His accomplice was executed in 1995.
    Nichols是今年德州处死的22名犯人中的一个（到发稿时，又有两个人被安排好了行刑期）。他的故事很平常。他被判在1980年抢劫一家熟食店时谋杀 了一名店员。那都说不上是一次抢劫，他说他的同谋“搞了点零钱”而他一无所获。被害人是被一颗子弹打死的，两个抢劫犯谁开的这一枪并不清楚。但根据德州法 律是谁开的枪并没什么影响，因为两名案犯都承认曾向死者开过枪。Nichols被判死刑时20岁，被处死时45岁。他的同案犯1995年被处决。

    Capital punishment is hardly controversial in Texas. Nearly three-quarters of Texans approve of it. In June the governor signed a law that would make some people who rape children eligible for it. But Texas is special. It now accounts for nearly half of all executions in America, of which there have been over 1,000 since 1976. During the six years in which George Bush was governor, the state put 152 people to death. No other governor in America's recent history except his successor, Rick Perry, has overseen so many executions.
    死刑在德州很难引起争议。将近四分之三的德州人都赞成死刑。6月份德州州长签署一份法律对强奸儿童犯适用死刑。德州也有特别之处，它处死犯人数量几乎占全 美的一半，美国自1976年已处死超过1000人。在乔治·布什担任州长的6年中，德州对152人处以死刑。除了他的继任者里克·佩里，在美国近代历史上 没有哪个州长监斩过如此多死刑犯。

    Elsewhere, the death penalty is increasingly controversial. The questions of whether and how to impose it are primarily for the states, not the federal government, but Mr Bush's attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, who resigned this week, tried to have more Americans executed. He failed, and any successor who wants to arrest the abolitionist trend is likely also to be frustrated. Since 2000, 12 out of 50 states have suspended the death penalty. Three of those (Tennessee, Florida and Missouri) have this year reversed that suspension and one (New Jersey) has moved towards formal abolition.
    在其他地方，死刑越来越成为争议话题。是否保留死刑和如何执行死刑的这些问题，最初还停留在各州的层面而非联邦层面。但本周辞职的小布什的检察长埃尔博托 ·冈萨雷斯，曾试图处死更多的美国犯人。他失败了，他的任何继任者想扭转废除死刑潮流的话，都可能被挫败。自2000年以来，50州中的12个州都暂缓了 死刑行刑。三个州（田纳西，佛罗里达和密苏里）今年恢复了死刑。一个州（新泽西）正式转向废除死刑。

    Unlike most Texans, the people of New Jersey have strong doubts about the death penalty. Most would prefer to see murderers locked up for ever. Their representatives are listening: no one has been executed in New Jersey since the 1960s. A state Senate committee has approved a bill to end capital punishment formally; the full legislature is expected to pass it later this year. “If New Jersey holds another execution, I'll eat the body,” vows Michael Radelet of the University of Colorado.
    新泽西人和德州人不同，他们对死刑有强烈的疑虑。大多数更希望看到杀人犯一辈子被关在牢里。政治家们也听取了意见：60年代以来新泽西没有执行过一个死 刑，一个州参议院委员会通过一项正式废除死刑的法案。州议会今年晚些时候就能通过这项法律。“如果新泽西再出现一次行刑，我就把尸体吃了。”科罗拉多大学 的Michael Radelet说。

    For a few years in the 1970s, America joined most other rich countries in revoking the death penalty. This was not done by passing a law. Rather, the Supreme Court decided, in 1972, that capital punishment was unconstitutional, since it broke the ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment. In 1976 a slightly different set of justices reversed the court's ruling and handed the issue back to the states.
    70年代的一些年份里，美国加入到了其他发达国家的废除死刑的行列中。这可不是靠通过一个法案来完成的。倒不如说，是最高法院1972年因为死刑触犯了对 “残酷和罕有”刑罚禁令，而裁定死刑违宪。1976年，一系列稍有不同的审判撤销了最高法院的裁定，把问题又踢给了各州。



    Since then, the states have gone their own ways (see map). Twelve have no death penalty on their statute books. Of the 38 that do, some apply it often, some never. Texas has executed 401 people since 1976, the entire north-eastern region only four. By and large, the way the penalty is applied mirrors local preferences.
    从那时开始，各州就开始各行其道了（见地图）。12个州的法律汇编中没有死刑。在有死刑的38个州中，有的经常行刑，有的从未行刑。德克萨斯自1976年以来处死了401人。整个东北地区只处死了4人。总体上说，执行方式反映了各地居民的不同偏好。

    Asked by pollsters whether they think murderers should be put to death, two-thirds of Americans say yes, down from four-fifths in 1994. If asked to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence with no chance of parole, however, they are evenly divided. Life that means life is relatively new. Before the 1990s, juries used to worry that if they did not send the man in the dock to his death, he would be freed to kill again after a decade or two. Now nearly every state allows the option of life without parole (Texas introduced it only in 2005). For the first time last year, a Gallup poll reported that a slim plurality of Americans found this option preferable to a capital sentence (48-47%).
    被民意调查者问及杀人犯是否应被处死时，只有三分之二的美国人同意，而1994年这个数字是五分之四。然而，如果问及选择死刑还是不可假释的终生监禁时， 就变成了一半对一半。生活就意味着日新月异。90年代以前陪审团还害怕如果他们不把受审的家伙处死，他会在一二十年后重开杀戒。现在几乎每个州都允许判处 不可假释的终生监禁来代替死刑（德州在2005年才推行这一制度）。去年盖洛普民意测验报告说，相对死刑支持者，支持不可假释终生监禁的人第一次占到了微 弱多数。



    Campaigners against the death penalty have been making their case state by state, with little fanfare but some success. The number of executions has fallen by 46% from its modern peak in 1999, to 53 last year (see chart 1). Two-thirds of states executed no one last year, and only six carried out multiple executions. The number of death sentences has fallen even more sharply, by 60% from a peak of about 300 a year in the mid-1990s.
    反对死刑的活动家一个州接一个州地默默实干，获得了一些成功。行刑数从1999年的近代以来峰值降低了46%，降到去年的53例（见图1）。三分之二的州去年没有处死一人。只有6个州处死了多人。死刑判决数下降得更快，比90年代中期的每年300例的峰值降低了60%。

    The arguments for and against capital punishment have evolved. Thirty years ago, says Mr Radelet, Americans supported the death penalty for three main reasons: deterrence, religious conviction (an eye for an eye) and taxes (the idea of spending public money to feed and clothe murderers for the rest of their lives seemed outrageous). This last argument no longer applies. It is now far more expensive to execute someone than to jail him for life; in North Carolina, for instance, each capital case costs $2m more. Ordinary inmates need only to be fed and guarded. Those on death row must have lawyers arguing expensively about their fate, sometimes for a decade or more (see chart 2). The system of appeals has grown more protracted because of fears that innocent people may be executed. Few would argue that such safeguards are not needed, but their steep cost gives abolitionists a new line of attack.
    支持和反对死刑的理由也在变化。Radelet先生说，30年前美国人因为三大理由支持死刑：威慑犯罪，宗教信念（以眼还眼）和税收（花费公众钱财来负担 杀人犯余生的吃穿看起来骇人听闻）。最后一个理由不再站得住脚了。相比终生监禁，现在处死一个犯人昂贵得多：比如在北卡罗来纳州，每个死刑案要多花200 万美元。普通犯人只需要食物和看守。那些等待行刑犯的要价不菲的律师们为死刑犯争取未来，有时候要拖十年或者更长时间（见图2）。因为害怕无辜的人被执行 死刑，上诉体系变得更拖拖拉拉。没人说这些安全措施没必要，但过高的花费使废除死刑者找到了新的口实。



    Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland, says that, but for the death penalty, his state would have been $22.4m richer since 1978. That money would have paid for 500 extra policemen for a year, or provided drug treatment for 10,000 addicts. “Unlike the death penalty, these are investments that save lives and prevent violent crime,” he told the state legislature in February, in a speech urging it to repeal capital punishment in Maryland. He failed by the narrowest of margins: a state Senate committee was deadlocked by five votes to five, preventing the bill from advancing.
    马里兰州长Martin O'Malley说，如果没有死刑，马里兰州自1978年来能多收入2240万美元。这些钱够该州一年多雇佣500个警察了，或者为1万名吸毒者进行药物 治疗。“这是能挽救生命并防止暴力犯罪的投资，而死刑不是。”他在二月份敦促州议会废除死刑的一次演讲中说道。最微弱的票数差使州长的计划失败，一个州参 议院委员会陷入了5比5的僵局，使这项法案无法继续推动。

    A similar attempt got further in Colorado, where Paul Weissman, a state representative, proposed that the money saved by abolishing the death penalty should be spent on a “cold cases” unit to investigate unsolved murders. His bill made it through a committee, but was gutted.
    科罗拉多州类似的尝试更进了一步。该州议员Paul Weissman提议把废除死刑节省的资金用于设立一个调查谋杀悬案的“死案”部门。提案被一个委员会通过，但随即被腰斩。

    Abolitionists have had more luck, at least temporarily, by arguing that lethal injection, the form of execution most widely adopted, is excruciatingly painful. The cocktail used generally contains sodium thiopental (to anaesthetise the condemned man), pancuronium bromide (to paralyse his muscles) and potassium chloride (to stop his heart). Some studies suggest that prisoners are sometimes inadequately sedated, and perhaps die in silent agony from asphyxiation.
    至少在目前，在另一方面废除死刑者运气更好。他们争辩说毒剂注射这种最广泛使用的行刑方式是极度痛苦的。一般注射用的混合针剂含有硫喷妥钠（麻醉犯人）， 泮库溴铵（麻痹犯人肌肉）和氯化钾（停止犯人心跳）。一些研究说，犯人有时可能未被充分麻醉，或许因为窒息而愤怒无声地死去。

    Since last year, ten states have halted executions because of fears that lethal injection may be cruel, and therefore unconstitutional. In Florida, for example, Governor Jeb Bush (the president's brother) suspended executions after a fiasco last December in which the executioner missed a vein and pumped the drugs into muscle. The condemned man took 34 minutes to die, during which he grimaced and writhed, suggesting acute agony.
    从去年开始，10个州开始停止了死刑执行，因为它们害怕毒剂注射有可能太残酷而违反宪法。比如在佛罗里达，州长杰布·布什（总统的弟弟）在去年12月的一 次丑闻之后——行刑者漏过了静脉，把毒剂打进了肌肉里——暂停了死刑行刑。那名犯人34分钟后才死去，其间表情怪诞身体扭曲，饱受痛苦煎熬。

    The problem can, however, be fixed. In Florida a committee has recommended 37 ways to make lethal injection more “humane”. This has satisfied Mr Bush's successor, Charlie Crist, who has now started signing death warrants. The governor of Tennessee, having stopped all executions in February, also let them resume in May.
    不过，问题可以得到解决。在佛罗里达，一个委员会推荐37种方法使得毒剂注射更“人性化”。这使布什州长的继任者Charlie Crist十分满意，他现在开始签署死刑执行令了。在二月停止了所有死刑行刑的田纳西州州长，三月份也恢复了行刑。

    For many, the death penalty holds a deep emotional appeal. It is “an expression of society's ultimate outrage”, says Bob Grant, a former prosecutor and now a professor at the University of Denver, Colorado. Some acts, he argues, are so heinous that no other punishment is appropriate. One example he cites is the case of Gary Davis, the only man executed in Colorado since the 1960s. Mr Davis kidnapped, tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered a young mother in
    1986. His guilt was not in doubt. Mr Grant prosecuted him and watched him put to death.
    对很多人来说，死刑包含着很深的情感诉求。死刑是“社会终极愤怒的一种表达”，曾任检察官，现在是科罗拉多州丹佛大学教授的Bob Grant说。他争辩说，有些行为十恶不赦，除了死刑其他刑罚都不合适。他举的一个例子是Gary Davis的案子，该犯是科罗拉多60年代以来唯一处死的犯人。1986年Davis绑架，折磨并性攻击一位年轻母亲，最后谋杀了她。他的罪孽是毫无疑问 的。Grant先生对他提起公诉并最终看到他被处死。

    Mr Grant says his views on the death penalty have nothing to do with religion, but many who agree with him do so for religious reasons. A prosecutor in Texas cites Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” This, he says, is “pretty compelling”.
    Grant先生说他对死刑的观点与宗教无关。但很多赞同他的人因为宗教原因而支持死刑。一位德州检察官引用《圣经·创世纪》9章6节：“凡流人血的，他的血也必被人所流。”对此，Grant说，这种说法“颇令人信服”。

    Opponents of capital punishment tend to respond by saying that juries, being human, err. If you find you have jailed the wrong man, you can free and compensate him. If you have executed him, however, it is too late. Jurors increasingly balk at imposing the death penalty, even when they are convinced of a defendant's guilt. Governors, who must review every capital conviction, are also becoming hesitant. In 2000, for example, after journalism students dug up evidence that a man about to be executed was innocent, Illinois's governor, George Ryan, commuted all death sentences in the state and imposed a moratorium that still stands, despite challenges.
    反对死刑的人常回应说，陪审团是人，就一定会犯错误。如果你发现你关错了人，你可以释放他并给予补偿。然而如果你错杀了他，什么都迟了。陪审员们越来越不 愿意判定死刑，即使他们确认被告犯有死罪。州长们必须复核每一个死刑定罪，他们也变得越来越犹豫。比如2000年，在伊利诺伊州实习记者调查发现一个即将 行刑犯人的无罪证据后，伊利诺伊州长George Ryan给全州所有的死刑犯减了刑，并强行暂停了处刑。尽管争议重重，这项暂停一直延续到今天。

    Since 1973, 124 Americans have been released from death row because of doubts about their guilt; and of the 7,662 sentenced to death between 1973 and 2005, 2,190 had their sentence or conviction overturned. But in no case has it been legally proven—for example, with DNA evidence—that an innocent person has been executed. Mr Grant says it simply does not happen. “The fact that some people are released from death row is proof that the safeguards work,” he says. Abolitionists suspect he is wrong. The Death Penalty Information Centre, a lobby group, lists eight executed men for whom there is “strong evidence of innocence”.
    1973年以来，因为案件仍存有疑点，124名美国人脱离了等待行刑的队伍。1973到2005年间被判死刑的7662人中，2190人的判决或定案被撤 销了。但在法律上还没有发现——比方说，通过DNA证据——某个无辜的人被处死。Grant说那根本就不会发生。“一些人脱离这一队伍的事实本身就说明安 全措施是有效的，”，他说。废除死刑主义者怀疑他是错的。死刑信息中心——某游说团体——列出了七名据说存在“强有力的无罪证据”而被处决的男性。

    Ruben Cantu, for example, was put to death in 1993 for murder during a robbery. He was convicted because Juan Moreno, a second victim he allegedly shot nine times but failed to kill, identified him at the trial. But Mr Moreno now says his identification was made under pressure from the police, and was wrong. The prosecutor accepts that the man he sent to his death “may well have been innocent” (though an investigation in Texas in June rejected this).
    比如Ruben Cantu，1993年因抢劫中发生的谋杀被处决。另一名据称被案犯射击9枪但并未毙命的受害者Juan Moreno在法庭上指认了他，他因而被定罪。但Moreno先生现在说当时的指认是在警方压力下做出的，是错的。检察官也承认在他手上送命的这名犯人 “很有可能是清白的”。（虽然德州六月的一次调查否定了这一点。）

    Deterrence works—or does it?
    震慑有效——真的有效吗？

    Although DNA testing has yet to show that an innocent American has been executed, it has proved beyond question that miscarriages of justice occur. Widely reported exonerations have alerted the public to the uncomfortable fact that juries are sometimes biased, that the police sometimes lie and that snitches often do.
    虽然DNA检测证明并未有无辜的美国人被处死。但还不仅仅是误审发生的问题。定罪后又被判无罪的事情广为报道。陪审团有时存有偏见而警察有时撒谎这一令人不安的事实使公众警觉起来。

    But what if executions save lives by deterring potential murderers? That would “greatly unsettle moral objections to the death penalty”, argue Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, two law professors. Abolitionists say there is no proof that capital punishment deters. Death-penalty enthusiasts say several studies suggest it does.
    但如果行刑能通过震慑潜在谋杀者来挽救生命呢？那将“极大地扰乱对死刑的道德上的反对”，两位法律教授Cass Sunstein和Adrian Vermeule说。废除死刑者声称没有证据表明行刑有震慑作用。热衷于死刑的人则说几个研究表明死刑确实能够震慑罪犯。

    A crude way of trying to settle which camp is correct is to compare murder rates in jurisdictions with and without capital punishment. This offers no support for the notion of deterrence. In 2005 there were 46% more murders per head in states with the death penalty than in those without it, and that gap has widened since 1990. The murder rate in the United States as a whole, moreover, is far higher than in western Europe, where capital punishment is a thing of the past.
    解决两个阵营争议的一个粗略方法是比较有死刑和没有死刑辖区的谋杀案发率。结果并不支持死刑有震慑作用的想法。2005年，有死刑的州比没有死刑的州人均多46%的谋杀案。1990这一差距更大。此外，美国整体的谋杀率远比西欧高得多，而在西欧死刑早已是过去的事了。

    Yet many other factors influence murder rates—unemployment, the probability of getting caught, the availability of guns, the proportion of young men in the population and so on. More sophisticated studies attempt to control for such factors.
    但很多其他因素影响着谋杀案发案率——失业率，被抓住的可能性，能否搞到枪支，人口中的青年人比例以及其他因素。更复杂的研究试图考虑这些因素。

    Joanna Shepherd, of Emory School of Law in Atlanta, for example, looked at monthly data for executions and murders between 1977 and 1999 and controlled for age, sex, race and labour-market conditions. She found that each execution deterred on average three murders, and that swift executions deterred even more. Other researchers at Emory found that each execution deterred a startling 18 murders. In another study Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Kaj Gittings of Cornell University found that each execution deterred five murders, and that each time a death sentence was commuted, five more murders were committed.
    比如亚特兰大埃默里大学法学院的Joanna Shepherd的研究，她考虑了年龄，性别，种族和劳动力市场情况等因素，在此基础上观察1977年至1999年之间每月的谋杀和行刑数。她发现每例死 刑行刑平均能阻止三起谋杀，快速行刑震慑力更强。埃默里大学的其他研究人员研究发现，每例死刑执行震慑了令人惊异的18起谋杀。科罗拉多大学Naci Mocan和康奈尔大学的Kaj Gittings的另一项研究发现，每次死刑执行震慑了5起谋杀，每给一例死刑减刑就增加5起谋杀案。

    The trouble with all these studies is that they draw firm conclusions from sparse data. America has executed on average fewer than 40 people a year since 1976. Even if each execution had a strong deterrent effect, it would be hard to detect against the background of a murder toll that has fluctuated from 24,703 in 1991 to 15,522 in 1999, before rising again to 16,692 in 2005. Researchers' calculations are further distorted by the fact that one state dominates the data. “Any regression study will be primarily a comparison of Texas with everywhere else,” writes Ted Goertzel in Skeptical Enquirer magazine.
    所有这些研究的问题在于，他们确定的结论来自于寥寥无几的数据。美国自1976年以来每年平均处决不到40人。即使每起死刑执行有强烈的震慑作用，在谋杀 数大幅波动的背景下（1991年24703人被谋杀，1999年15522人，2005年升至16692人。）也很难观察到这些效应。某个州的数据占上风 的事实使研究人员的计算更加失真。“任何回归研究都将基本成为德州和其他州的对照结果。”《怀疑探究者》杂志的Ted Goertzel写到。

    The chance of being executed in America is so remote that it cannot plausibly be a significant deterrent, argues Steven Levitt, of the University of Chicago. Even if you are on death row—a fate over 99% of murderers escape—the chance of being put to death in any given year is only about 2%. Members of a crack gang studied by one of Mr Levitt's colleagues had a 7%-a-year chance of being murdered. For them, death row would be safer than the street.
    芝加哥大学的Steven Levitt认为，在美国被处决的机会微乎其微，使得死刑执行无法成为一个明显可信的震慑。即使你是等待被处决的死刑犯——超过99%的谋杀犯都不会被判 死刑——每年被处死的概率大约只有2%。Levitt的一位同事对毒品团伙所做的研究表明，毒品团伙成员被谋杀的可能性是年均7%。对他们来说，等待行刑 比待在街上安全多了。

    There are other arguments against the death penalty. Some opponents complain of a racial bias in its application. This is disputed. Mr Radelet thinks the race of the perpetrator makes little difference, but juries respond more vengefully when the victim is white. In a study of murders in California, he found that those who killed non-Hispanic whites were twice as likely to be sentenced to death as those with darker victims.
    还有其他的理由反对死刑。一些反对者诉说在执行中存在种族偏见。在这点上存在争论。Radelet认为罪犯的种族影响不大，但受害人是白人时陪审团复仇情绪更强。在一项对加利福尼亚谋杀犯的研究中，他发现那些杀害非拉美裔白人被判死刑的机会是杀害深色人种两倍。



    Capital punishment is not about to end in America. But, as voters lose their appetite for it, states will use it less or even give it up completely. How closely America follows the global trend towards abolition will depend less on academic arguments than on emotional ones.
    死刑并不会从美国马上消失。但随着选民对死刑没了胃口，各州会减少死刑甚至彻底放弃死刑。美国如何紧密跟随全球废除死刑的潮流，与其说取决于学术原因，不如说是由情绪原因决定。

    After Joseph Nichols's execution, the victim's family said they were glad that justice had been done, but angry that it had taken nearly 30 years. Colleen Shaffer, the victim's daughter-in-law and a social worker by training, said that at the time of the murder she had thought the death penalty “maybe wasn't such a good idea”. Now she is a strong supporter.
    Nichols被执行死刑后，被害者家属说他们很高兴正义得到了伸张，但是他们对近30年才行刑表示愤怒。被害人的儿媳，一名从事培训的社会工作者Colleen Shaffer说，在谋杀发生时她认为死刑“或许不是什么好办法”，而现在她是死刑的坚定支持者。

    In Boulder, Colorado, Howard Morton tells a different story. His son Guy disappeared while hitch-hiking in the Arizona desert in 1975, when he was 18. For more than a decade Mr Morton continued to search for his son. Then, in 1987, a retired deputy sheriff read about Guy in a newspaper, and recalled finding a skeleton in the desert in the year he had disappeared. The medical examiner had mislabelled it as belonging to a Hispanic woman, but dental records proved it was Guy. He had been found with a broken knife blade in his chest. The murderer was never caught.
    在科罗拉多州的波尔得市，Howard Morton讲述了一个不同的故事。1975年他18岁的儿子Guy在亚利桑那沙漠中徒步旅行时失踪了。十多年来Morton先生一直在寻找他的儿子。 1987年，一位退休的副警长在报纸上读到了Guy的故事后，想起曾在Guy失踪那年在沙漠中找到一具骷髅。验尸官把骷髅错标成一个拉美裔女人，但牙科记 录证明那就是Guy。他被发现时胸口插着一把缺刃的刀刃。杀人者到现在仍未找到。

    Mr Morton discovered that over 30% of murders in America are unsolved, like his son's. He found out, too, that the states spend millions of dollars putting a handful of murderers to death while detection is under-financed and thousands of murderers walk free. He became an ardent abolitionist. Anyone close to a murder victim “wants the son of a bitch who did it to die,” he says. “But you've got to catch the son of a bitch. That's more important.”
    Morton先生发现美国30%以上的谋杀案仍未结案，就如同他儿子的案子。他也发现，各州花费数以百万计的美元对屈指可数的罪犯执行死刑的同时，案件侦 破经费严重不足，成千的谋杀犯逍遥法外。于是他热情地支持废除死刑。任何一个受害者的近亲好友都“希望杀人的那个狗娘养的死掉”，他说，“但是你必须抓住 那些狗娘养的，这更重要。”

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    全球性通胀 2008-01-25

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