Open Letter to the People of the United States of America
By Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament
Within the EU Parliament, the voice of 370 million Europeans, a vast majority
cannot understand why the United States is the only major democratic state in the world
that carries out the death penalty.
Rocco Derek Barnabei’s case has given rise
to particularly strong reactions in Europe both because there were once again doubts as to
his guilt and because, while he is an American citizen, his family originally came from
Italy, one of the European Union's Member States.
The diplomatic approaches made to the Governor of Virginia at the request of the
prisoner's friends and relatives and the organisations supporting his cause have been in
vain. I take this opportunity of addressing this open letter to you, simply to engage in
an open and frank dialogue, in keeping with the bonds of friendship which exist between
Europe and the United States.
On this side of the Atlantic, no one disputes the fact that your great country is
widely seen as a symbol of freedom and democracy. We have not forgotten all that Europe
owes your country, which helped it regain its freedom, shedding the blood of its young
people in the process, during the two world wars. No one disputes the fact that the death
penalty has been recognised by the US Supreme Court as constitutional. No one disputes the
right of any organised society to protect itself against criminals who threaten the safety
of individuals and their property, nor the right to inflict a punishment on those
criminals that is proportionate to the crimes committed.
Europe has not forgotten that, until recently, it applied the death penalty
itself, often in a cruel manner. Certain countries abolished it long ago by repealing the
relevant criminal law provisions or by deciding no longer to apply them. However, as
recently as two decades ago, certain leading European nations, such as my own country,
France, though deeply attached to human rights and universal values, had not yet abolished
this sentence. And when their parliaments eventually took the step of abolishing it, the
political debate was every bit as heated as it is at present in the United States.
Nowadays, it is no longer a matter of controversy.
However, a collective awareness has developed throughout Europe, removing any
remaining doubts. This new awareness, which I now call upon the American people to
embrace, is based on the following considerations: no objective research has ever shown
that the death penalty acted as a deterrent against serious crime and, in none of the
European countries that have abolished the death penalty in recent years, has such crime
increased; modern societies have sufficient means of protecting themselves other than by
violating the principle that human life is sacred; punishment by the death penalty is an
archaic remnant of the old law of "an eye for an eye."
I am aware that the majority of people in your country still favour maintaining
the death penalty and that, in any democracy, the people are sovereign. However, is this
argument enough to ease the conscience of those responsible for guiding their country,
with due regard for modern-day values? When President Lincoln abolished slavery, did he
enjoy the support of a majority of the southern states? When President Roosevelt committed
the United States to fighting alongside the people of Europe to restore peace and freedom
in a world devastated by the Nazis and their allies, did he from the outset have the
support of a majority of Americans? When President Kennedy put an end to the racial
segregation that was still in place in certain states, he had the courage, probably at the
risk of his own life, to go against the wishes of a large number of people who were
determined to maintain the existing system even by violent means. Do today's politicians
really wish to appear a pale shadow of those great visionaries who forged the American
nation's unity and set it on the path to greatness?
Not out of any desire to stand as judge, but in a spirit of true friendship
towards one of the world's leading countries, I express the wish that the United States
will join Europe in banning the death penalty, a punishment which no longer has any place
in our world as the new millennium opens.
