Educating Europe
Europe proved in the last century that the rule of law and its civil codes are as malleable as butter.

By Manuel A. Miranda, an international lawyer in Washington, DC. raised in Spain
June 14, 2001 9:40 a.m.

n his first official trip to Europe, George W. Bush chose the first stop well. Meeting King Juan Carlos of Spain, Bush was greeted by a king who is — as far as kings go — as laid back and self-deprecating as the Texan himself. Spain's President Aznar, Europe's only popular conservative leader, is known for being compassionate, a winning underdog, and a devout Christian: a perfect first ally for Bush. All that was missing was a royal barbecue and T-ball at the palace. It was a soft landing.

The few hundred collegians and aged socialists protesting Bush under the Madrid sun, for a Seattle-esque buffet of causes, were, well, pathetic. But then the Spanish have only had 25 years to practice free speech. You'd never know that watching Spanish journalists hurl self-righteous questions at America's overly-polite president about — of all things — America's death penalty.

The president answered the death-penalty questions deftly, reminding the Spanish that in democracies, the popular will ultimately determines laws. Even this was a daring answer in a country slowly handing over control of its laws to an unelected European government.

Now, Americans support the death penalty by about 75%. But even those of us troubled by state execution know that we have nothing about which to be apologetic to the Europeans.

There is good reason why the European Union has imposed a constitutional prohibition of capital punishment on its member states: overcompensation. Europe just ended a century in which state-sponsored killing was both legitimized by law and by the silence of the European people.

Throughout Europe, President Bush is getting pummeled in the press for the execution of Timothy McVeigh. The Vatican aside, however, no one really thinks Europe cares about moral issues. Wasn't it just yesterday that Europeans sat idle in the face of Balkan genocide until (once again) America's boys saddled up?

President Bush might well have told the smug reporters that America's record on state-sponsored execution of its citizens is a tad bit better than Europe's recent history, by, roughly, a million to one, without even counting Russia. Spain, of all places, is hardly a place to be self-righteous about opposition to the death penalty. Bullets can still be plucked out of prison walls there.

Americans do not have the same anxiety and fear of legally sanctioned state execution because our history is not Europe's history. Surely it has been proven that the governments and legal traditions of the European continent are not to be trusted with state execution as a legal option. And while Americans spilled their blood on the field of Antietem or the back roads of Mississippi to end injustice and oppression to fellow citizens, Europeans, including Britons, have proven that such a motivation comes to them only as an afterthought.

For Americans, the death penalty presents a moral question balanced against the policy motive of deterrence and, for some, punishment. Even while we debate it, few Americans have reason to fear the use of the death penalty. Our confidence in the rule of law and the protection of our civil rights is deeply embedded in our culture. Europe proved in the last century that the rule of law and its civil codes are as malleable as butter. For Europeans, elimination of legally sanctioned execution is a matter of self-preservation.

And so, it is better for everyone that the Europeans not resuscitate legally sanctioned executions. Next time round, President Bush should tell that to nosy European reporters.