Cardinal Stage performance opens death penalty discussion

The Cardinal Stage Company presented Thursday and Friday a reading of “The Exonerated,” a play that tells the story of five men and one woman who are wrongly imprisoned on death row.

On Friday, Cardinal followed the reading with an audience talk. The audience discussed the issues the play raised with professors and Christoper Hitz-Bradley, a representative from the Indiana Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

The dialogue was culled from interviews the playwrights conducted with the falsely accused. The play touches on issues of race, gender and the problems that exist in the criminal justice system.

“The racism was so pervasive you could cut it with a knife,” said Delbert Tibbs, played by retired professor James Mumford. Mumford echoed many of the statements his character made, and said the play helped further racial understanding.

“I think it’s a good way to highlight the differences between the races in the death penalty,” he said.

Mumford went on to say that the play exposes the racism that permeates the justice system.

“The black community has historically had problems with the justice system and policemen,” he said. “The justice system has always been thumbs-down on blacks.”

Cardinal Stage Artistic Director Randy White said he was pleased with the performance.

“I thought it went great,” he said. “It engendered a great conversation with the audience. It allowed people to talk about the issues in the open.”

Following the play Hitz-Bradley, Indiana State professor Mark Hamm and IU professor Marla Sandys answered questions. Hitz-Bradley praised the play for showing some of the problems with the justice system.

“The play is disturbing in that some of the things in the play still go on,” he said.
All three of the panelists discussed the problems with convictions based on fingerprint evidence and the problems with DNA evidence.

“It is disturbing, but it’s one of the only ways people hear about what goes on in our justice system,” Sandys said.

The panel said opinions on the death penalty are not split evenly down political lines.

In the 1960s and ’70s, polled Americans were 70 percent against the death penalty and 30 percent for it, Hamm said, but during the Reagan administration the numbers switched. Hitz said many people who support the death penalty are anti-abortion.

“Many people think abortion is the taking of an innocent life, and someone who has committed murder isn’t innocent,” Hitz-Bradley said.

The panel also brought up Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s famous “Marshall Hypothesis.”

“If people really knew what was going on with the system of capital punishment, they’d all be against it,” Sandys said, quoting Marshall.