(-Ailing for an end to the death penalty.
In Los Angeles, perhaps no one is
more outspoken against capital pun-
ishment than attorney Stephen
Rohde, who serves on the board of
Death Penalty Focus and the
Progressive Jewish Alliance, and is
president of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Southern
California, where he also chairs the
death penalty committee.
Rohde, who has represented a man
on California's death row, is slated to
speak this week at a candlelight vigil
on the eve of the execution of another
convicted murderer at San Quentin.
He will no doubt do the same for
Furrow, if the man is convicted and
sentenced to death.
Rohde has been opposed to capital
punishment since he was a boy, when
he was chilled by the execution of
convicted spies Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg. He remains so opposed to
the death penalty that he would not
have supported execution for Hitler,
let alone for Furrow.
"I just don't believe that the state
should model its conduct after the
worst moment of a person's life,
namely the moment that a person
commits murder," he says.
Doug Mirell, an American Civil
Liberties Union board member who
also opposes the death penalty "under
all circumstances," questions whether
prosecutors are seeking the death
penalty for Furrow because of the
outcry and media attention that last
August's shootings generated.
Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Kol
Tikvah laments that most of his con-
gregants support the death penalty in
general and for Furrow in particular.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Jacobs, a
board member of Death Penalty
Focus, believes capital punishment is
merely a "quick fix" for the anger and
the spiritual emptiness that is preva-
lent in society.
If Furrow is sentenced to death,
Rabbi Jacobs may preach against the
execution from the pulpit, though he
understands why other rabbis might
be reluctant to do so.
"It's difficult because you always
wonder, 'Am I going to alienate my
congregants?"' Rabbi Jacobs says.
Had several Jewish children been
killed at the JCC, rabbis like Jacobs
would find their position even more
difficult.
"There would be a huge clamor for
the death penalty, and not just among
Jews," Professor Levenson says.
"Because when you kill children, peo-
ple tend to be unforgiving." ❑

BROOKDALE

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