Statement of Archbishop
William J Levada on
Seeking of Death Penalty in Killing of
San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza
The question of whether Police Officer Isaac Espinoza's killer should
undergo the penalty of death for his crime is one that has galvanized our city. On April
16, I sat in the Archbishop's chair in St. Mary's Cathedral, looking out on a sea of San
Francisco Police Department uniforms, to mourn, honor and remember the heroic sacrifice of
Officer Espinoza, and to speak a word of comfort and healing to his family, friends and
colleagues.
Senator Feinstein's remarks calling for the death penalty for his
killer surprised me, and they did many others present that morning. I could certainly
understand and sympathize with the spontaneous reaction of row after row of uniformed
officers who rose to applaude. I thought to myself, if I were a cop at this funeral today,
I too would probably be on my feet clapping.
But I was there as a Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, and I found
myself one of a handful who sat with hands clasped during a moment charged with unexpected
emotion. Why? Certainly not out of disrespect for the police, who I praised and thanked
for daily placing their lives on the line to protect the rest of us from harm, and crime,
and a lawless society. Certainly not out of lack of compassion for the sorrowing wife and
parents, family and friends of Officer Espinoza, victims too of a society in which violent
death is all to commonplace.
I am sorry to see District Attorney Kamala Harris' decision not to seek
the death penalty for Espinoza's killer become an issue of further division in our City.
There should be no division among us about the need for this crime to be punished, nor
about the need to reduce the lawless behavior that makes the resort to violence and death
too common in our society.
District Attorney Harris has a conviction about the death penalty
shared by many of us. It is a penalty that serves to protect society from dangerous
criminals. But so does the penalty of life in prison without, the possibility of parole.
Where these two penalties differ, in the minds of many of us, is in the message they send
The death penalty sends a message of vengeance, of responding to violence with "an
eye for an eye."
It is a perfectly understandable human emotion. We see it played out on
a geopolitical scale in too many places, for example, in the ongoing, escalating exchange
between retaliatory strikes by Israelis against Palestinians, and suicide bombers from
Palestine in Israel buses and restaurants. For many of us, the death penalty raised
fundamental questions: Is it the only way to achieve justice? Is it the best
way to achieve justice?
For me, and I suppose for Ms. Harris and many others in the city and in
our nation, the answer is no. The better way is the way that reduces the cycle of
violence, that does not seek a response of taking a life for a life.
I do not judge people who seek the penalty of death for such a heinous
crime to be wrong or immoral. Civilizations throughout the history have employed capital
punishment to redress violations of the good order of society by crimes like this. Our
country grew up with an every-expanding frontier where frontier justice seemed the only
way to inculcate the lesson that crime doesn't pay.
But now this "Frontier" City at the Golden Gate has a chance
to look for a better way. Ms. Harris wants to lead us to face down and punish a terrible
crime of violence in a non-violent way. I think we should support her in this conviction.
Does this honor the memory of Officer Espinoza less? Of course not. All
of us who joined hands and voices and hearts at St. Mary's Cathedral around his lifeless
body were there to honor him, to remember him, to pray for him. Now I also pray that the
question of how justice should be done to his killer will not further divide this City,
especially those who are public servants pledged to see that justice is done, on the
streets and in the courts.
My own thinking on the issue of the death penalty has changed over
time. When I read the words of Pope John Paul II in his 1995 Encyclical Letter "The
Gospel of Life", I had to ponder hard about his invitation to look for a better way:
"If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to
protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such
means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and
are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person."
Officer Espinoza's death epitomizes the saying of Jesus, "No
greater love has anyone than to lay down one's life for one's friends." A grateful
city is proud of him.
I am proud of District Attorney Harris as well. Even when citizens
disagree about the death penalty in general, or about whether it is the appropriate
penalty in this case, I hope we can stand together, and let anger and emotion yield to
unity in our support of the heroes who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to
protect us and the people of the city of St. Francis, the man of peace whose example we
try to follow as best we can.
Most Reverend William J. Levada
Archbishop of San Francisco
April 23, 2004
