The Rake Magazine

Month: February 2004

  • Dead Serious

    The largest public execution in U.S. history took place in 1862, down in Mankato. Since the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians, public sentiment against the death penalty had been building in Minnesota. Nineteenth-century politicians tried to pacify the public outrage not by banning the death penalty, but by carrying it out in relative secrecy. An 1889 law prohibited the public view of an execution, provided that executions be carried out only in the middle of the night, and prohibited newspapers from reporting any of the details.

    The grotesque hanging of William Williams (and, ironically, the gruesome reporting of it by a St. Paul reporter who had sneaked into the execution) provided the final impetus which ultimately led to the abolition of Minnesota’s death penalty in 1911. Now, spurred again by media attention to the Dru Sjodin abduction, Governor Pawlenty wants to reinstate the ultimate punishment.

    One could argue that Minnesota has already gone a long way toward imitating Texas with last year’s passage of the concealed carry law and emaciation of the public education budget, but, philosophical questions aside, reinstatement of the death penalty in Minnesota is a bad idea for many empirical reasons that should even appeal to conservatives with a natural bent for injecting first and asking questions later.

    Here’s why we don’t want the death penalty here:

    The very nature of the crimes that would be punished by death virtually ensures that mistakes will be made and innocent people will be convicted. As Pawlenty’s immediate reaction demonstrates, people who are elected to office, including sheriffs, county attorneys, and legislators, have to be seen to be doing something about terrible crimes. The impetus of the abduction and presumed murder of a young woman grows into an emotional momentum that cannot be resisted. The police must find the killer; the county attorney must ask for the death penalty; the jury can’t take the presumption of innocence seriously when the stakes are so high if they fail to convict. Even when an error is later uncovered, what are the chances any of the above will admit their mistake? Not high, especially when any elected official will be called “soft on crime” by his next opponent. What’s the result of this pressure? Nationally since 1973, 108 people have been sentenced to death for crimes they were later proven not to have committed.

    Enforcement is uneven. For what crimes does one get the death penalty? Every state with the death penalty has its own list of criteria, but the one incontrovertible statistical correlation is that the race of the victim is what counts. A crime with a white victim is 350 percent more likely to draw the death penalty than one with a black victim. If you need an example of what could happen here, ask yourself if you recall then House Majority Leader and gubernatorial candidate Pawlenty calling for the death penalty for the killers of eleven-year-old Tyesha Edwards in 2002.

    We wouldn’t be doing it for the victims. If the logic of the penal system is to provide for the victims, then all punishment is based on revenge. Instead, if we are to maintain the belief that it is society which metes out punishment, then society’s only logical reason to punish is to prevent further outrages by the convict. Life without parole in a maximum security facility serves that purpose. Moreover, a life sentence removes at least some of the reason for the nearly endless appeals that constantly raise the specter of the perpetrator being released. Closure for the victims is more likely when the process comes to a quicker end.

    Isn’t it cheaper to kill them than house them for life? No. Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California have all done studies that show the cost of a death penalty case exceeds the cost of a sentence of life without parole by an average of $2.3 million dollars, primarily because of the cost of the initial trial and subsequent appeals. In other words, Texas, which has executed 317 people since 1976, has spent over $600 million. Florida has spent $24 million for each of the 44 people it has executed since 1976.

    It doesn’t deter crime. Does someone who commits a heinous murder first think of what’s going to happen to him if caught? Psychologists say no. In fact, most evidence points to a murderer exhibiting near-total disassociation from society and its rules. Second, let’s examine the statistics. Of the seventeen states which have murder rates higher than the national average, sixteen have the death penalty. Only Michigan does not. Indeed, some studies show that murders actually increase around the time that executions are carried out. During the time of frequent executions in California and New York, murder rates doubled. Rates receded again when executions were suspended. When Oklahoma reinstated the death penalty after a twenty-five-year moratorium, murders increased. Finally, as we look southward to Texas—by far the national leader in executions—we might envy their death-penalty and concealed-carry laws. But do we envy their murder rate, which is almost three times that of Minnesota?

  • The Botched Hanging of William Williams

    A couple of months after President Theodore Roosevelt had given the inaugural address for his second term of office, an itinerant named William Williams was convicted of first-degree murder. In one of Minnesota’s most infamous crimes, Williams had killed a teenage boy, Johnny Keller, and his mother. An English laborer, Williams had worked as a miner and a steamfitter before befriending the teenager two years earlier while they were both hospitalized for diphtheria. Keller had roomed with Williams in different places in St. Paul, and the two had traveled together to Winnipeg in the summer of 1904. Williams and Keller’s father quarreled over his relationship with Johnny. The father told Williams that he would rather put his son in a reform school than let the boy fraternize with Williams.

    In a fit of rage, Williams shot Johnny Keller and his mother in April 1905 when the boy refused to go back to Winnipeg with him. Williams had written letters to Keller that had contained professions of love intermixed with threats. These had gone unanswered. “I want you to believe that I love you now as much as I ever did,” read one letter. “It won’t be long before we will be together.” Another read, “Keep your promise to me this time, old boy, as it is your last chance. You understand what I mean, and should have sense enough to keep your promise.” When Williams returned to St. Paul intent on seeing Johnny Keller, the boy’s father was away. At the Keller home, Williams shot Johnny at close range while he lay in bed. A bullet pierced the back of Keller’s skull, leaving powder marks and singed hair, and another bullet wound was found in the back of the boy’s neck. With Keller’s death, their turbulent relationship, thought by many to be of a homosexual nature, came to an abrupt end.

    The murder trial of William Williams began in May 1905. A police officer testified that Williams appeared at the station on the night of the shooting and said that he had shot someone at No. 1 Reid Court. A doctor also took the stand for the state, testifying that Williams told him he did not know why he shot Johnny Keller, only that he wanted the boy to come with him. Williams himself testified that he had not slept for three nights prior to the shooting, had been drinking that day, and that Mrs. Keller scolded him when he showed up at the Keller residence. After saying she would not let her son go with him, Williams testified, he and the boy had gone to bed until the mother rushed in and seized the boy, screaming that she would not let him go. At that point, Williams said, he lost all consciousness. He claimed that the next thing he knew he was in her room with a revolver in his hands and the room full of smoke. Williams’s unsuccessful defense at trial, as articulated by his lawyer, was “emotional insanity.”

    Williams’s case would put the Ramsey County sheriff, three Twin Cities newspapers, and the state’s death penalty law on a collision course. On May 19, 1905, Williams was found guilty of intentionally killing Johnny Keller, whom Williams, in the Minnesota Supreme Court’s words, had “a strong and strange attachment to.” “There is no evidence to support this defense of complete lapse of memory and consciousness,” the court would rule later, “except the defendant’s improbable testimony to the effect that up to the moment the fatal shots were fired he remembered everything in detail and everything that occurred after they were fired, but has no recollection of firing them.” The deck was stacked against Williams from the start. Williams made incriminating statements prior to trial, his suspected sexual orientation probably aroused bias, and to make matters worse, any potential juror who opposed the death penalty would not be allowed to sit on his jury. During jury selection, Ramsey County Attorney Thomas Kane had successfully excluded otherwise acceptable jurors because of their scruples against the death penalty.

    The early twentieth century’s judicial system moved with considerable speed. Right after Williams’s verdict was read, the trial judge told him that he would be “hanged by the neck until dead.” The appeal process was relatively quick too. On December 8, 1905, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed Williams’s conviction and death sentence, saying Williams had shot Keller with “premeditated design to effect his death.” One justice dissented, however, believing that Williams should get a new trial because of irregularities in the proceedings and skepticism about whether Williams really had committed a premeditated murder. The killing had the earmarks of a crime of passion, but the appeal failed.

    Even though he opposed the death penalty, Minnesota Governor John A. Johnson felt compelled to enforce the state’s laws. He thus wasted no time in setting Williams’s execution date for February 13, 1906. Because Ramsey County Sheriff Anton Miesen had been known to invite large numbers of his friends to be execution spectators, Johnson sent Miesen a sternly worded letter accompanying Williams’s death warrant. The letter reminded Sheriff Miesen to “observe” that a state law enacted in 1889 “is very specific as to who may witness executions of this state.” His letter then commanded Miesen, in no uncertain terms, to rigorously adhere to the provisions of that law:


    In view of violations of this law in the past I deem it necessary to charge you with a strict observance of the law. It has been customary in some cases for the sheriff to designate many people as deputy sheriffs for the sole purpose of permitting them to be present and witness the execution.

    Persons permitted by you, except those specifically named in the statute, must not exceed six in number. I trust that the custom that has hitherto obtained will not obtain in this instance.

    It is the duty of this office to hold all officers of the law to a strict accountability in the performance of their duties in upholding the majesty of the law and it would become my duty in case this law is violated to take proper action in the premises.

    Believing you will do your full duty in this matter and be governed strictly by the letter and spirit of the law, I am, sir, yours with great respect.

  • Osiris

    As our Chooka boots slog into winter’s home stretch, it’s good to be reminded that this too—the bottomless mud puddles, the salt stains, the never-ending blur of flurries—will pass. Pangea World Theater and The Playwrights’ Center help lift our spirits as they resurrect Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld who was often associated with fertility, the Nile, and the golden, glorious sun. Meena Natarajan’s new adaptation of the myth—in which Osiris is killed by his brother and revived by his wife, Isis, the goddess of nature—combines music, movement, poetry, and striking visuals to illuminate Isis’ journey as she avenges her husband’s death and restores the cycle of the seasons. After three long months of cabin fever, we can certainly sympathize with extreme violence in the name of getting a little bit of spring around here.
    Playwrights’ Center; 2301 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 822-0015; www.pangeaworldtheater.org

  • Far Away

    As would be expected from a theater that shares a building with the Powderhorn neighborhood community center, the Pillsbury House Theatre can always be counted on for politically engaged and socially responsible performances. The area premiere of the great English surrealist Caryl Churchill’s Far Away is no exception. Timely and powerful, it is the story of a confused young girl in a world at war, struggling within the comfort and safety of home while others around her suffer in secrecy. With dreamlike dialogue, only four speaking parts, and a war that may seem more like Stanley Kubrick’s than George Bush’s, Far Away hits close to home in its fifty short minutes between start and finish.
    Pillsbury House; 3501 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis; (612) 824-0708; www.puc-mn.org/theatre.html

  • Coffee and Tea, Ltd.

    Located 1,200 miles off the coast of west Africa, St. Helena is mostly known for exporting dead French Emperors, i.e. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose remains went back to France in 1840 after his death nineteen years earlier. The island’s second-most-famous export is its coffee, which the diminutive warmonger reportedly adored—and if you’re willing to shell out eighty bucks a pound, so should you. A rare shipment recently arrived at Jim Cone’s Coffee and Tea Ltd., and is on sale at both the south Minneapolis shop and its outpost in Sears at the Mall of America. Coffee aficionados carry on like wine critics about the “fruits” and other exotic flavors that can be pressed from St. Helena’s magic beans. Apparently it’s got something to do the island’s Yemeni Arabica tree stock, which claims a provenance unbroken for more than 250 years. We dropped by for a cup, and have to admit it was pretty darn good. Some of the price undoubtedly goes toward the story behind the beans. But hey, it’s a good one.

  • Air-Ride Equipped: New Paintings by Jim Zellinger

    Not content merely to be an ambitious new downtown art gallery, One on One doubles as a bicycle shop, and once a little remodeling is done it’ll triple as a coffee bar. Its second-ever exhibit features a painter with a similar bent toward combining art and transportation, New-York-by-way-of-Iowa’s Jim Zellinger. His boldly colored acrylics are all variations on a simple theme: Semi-trailers, sans rigs, as the sole image in some anonymous Midwestern parking lot, which is rendered as a bright sea of background color. Without resorting to aggressive abstraction, Zellinger still manages to extract a recognizable and compelling emotion from these flat, wheeled boxes. They seem almost lonely, perhaps abandoned by their human drivers. But he’s has also carefully pointed each toward something beyond the frame, as if they’re eager to get out on the road, for escape or maybe just fun. Makes you wish C.W. McCall was around to start a convoy.
    One on One; 117 Washington Ave. N., Minneapolis; (612) 371-9565; www.oneononebike.com

  • Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts

    What sartorial item is more exclusive than haute couture, more status-laden than the perennially wait-listed Hermès Kelly bag? Why, the plains Indian shirt, of course: an animal-hide garment festooned with all manner of beading, colorful symbols and battle scenes, leather, horse- or human-hair fringe, and porcupine-quill embroidery. As stereotypically “Native” as a tomahawk or teepee, plains shirts were, in fact, a rare prize, crafted individually for top warriors in tribes from northern Texas to southern Alberta. Moreover, fashion-forward Native Americans couldn’t simply covet a neighbor’s shirt, save up items for barter, and get on a wait list (as with the Kelly bag): They had to earn these garments. Each shirt, therefore, isn’t merely decorative, but heavily symbolic, conveying distinctive battle exploits and other brave deeds of its wearer (try getting Hermès to customize a bag commemorating your climb up the corporate ladder). Dozens of extraordinary 19th-century examples, along with some contemporary interpretations, are on display in an exhibit curated by a father-and-son team from the MIA and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
    MIA; 2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis; (612) 870-3131; www.artsmia.org

  • Al Green

    Contrary to the spray-painted testimonials of East Greenwich Village graffiti artists, God is neither Mingus nor Bird, not even Coltrane. My vote goes to the Reverend Al Green, who for decades has explained it all to us in lyrics and music, crying out—whether in times of sensuous, heaven-sent good or heart-wrenching, heart-broken bad—“Lord, what have you done to us this time?” Admit it: How many have fallen in love to “Here I Am (Come and Take Me),” tried to patch it all up to the subliminal strains of “Let’s Stay Together,” or bit the pillow to “Call Me (Come Back Home)”? At least as many as cried at the end of Old Yeller.
    Guthrie; 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis; (612) 377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org

  • Cassandra Wilson

    Since her father’s vitae includes playing bass for Sonny Boy Williamson and Ray Charles, no one would have blamed Cassandra Wilson if she’d gone to dental school and simply avoided the pressures and comparisons inherent in going into dad’s business (just ask Pete Rose, Jr. what the unhappy results can be). Luckily, Wilson picked up the cudgel and has become, since her 1985 debut, Songbook, arguably the finest jazz vocalist in the world. Persnickety critics have occasionally chastised her for picking inferior material, but anyone who can not only not fall on her face but also shine singing covers of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” deserves a medal with oak-leaf cluster. Her latest, Glamoured, came out last year to excellent reviews.
    Rossi’s; 90 S. 9th St., Minneapolis; (612) 312-2828; www.bluestarjazz.com

  • Bob Dylan

    The recent flurry of interest in Bobby Z’s greatest studio work (see Straight Talk, page 21), shouldn’t let you forget his live show. Dylan’s late-nineties renaissance extended to the stage as well as the studio, and concerts over the past few years have approached the mark set by his incendiary 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue. (A sampling of that tour was released last year as Vol. 5 of the Bootleg Series discs; Vol. 6, his Halloween 1964 show, is due March 23). That said, pretty much any Dylan stage experience is worth the bucks, since few musicians reinvent his material as well or as often as the man himself.
    Roy Wilkins; 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; (651) 726-8240; www.xcelenergycenter.com