Subtle Bias in a Death Penalty Article?

Few issues are as difficult to write about from an unbiased perspective as capital punishment.  The debate invokes a lot of passion when a person's life hangs in the balance. (See here for my recent post on print media's varying reactions to Manson family member Susan Atkins' death.)

Reporters who cover executions no doubt are susceptible to the emotions that accompany seeing someone die. Still, they must cover these events in an impartial fashion.  And try as they might, sometimes we can still see elements of subtle bias in their reporting.  The biased language is probably not intentional.  From an argumentative or legal writing perspective, performing a close reading of a text like this can help uncover subtle or hidden biases in your opponent.

Last week in Virginia, Larry Elliott was executed for the murder of a couple in 2001.  Elliott, a former Army counterintelligence officer, denied that he was the killer.  A close reading of the Washington Post's coverage of his execution can be an instructive lesson in hidden, and quite possibly unintended, bias.  I have no idea if the author of the piece, Josh White, supports the death penalty (though White said in a blog post, "Let me say upfront that I do not have strong views on the death penalty in general."  I find this hard to believe).

First, let's look at the narrative structure. We open with a two paragraph lede, the five W's of the actual execution.  The third paragraph, however, paints a somewhat sympathetic picture: a confused Elliott, hardly defiant, strapped into the chair: "Instead of making an oral statement, Elliott said he didn't know how much time he had to speak, so he gave a written statement to his attorneys." 

The next three paragraphs detail the statement in which he professes his innocence.  In this statement, Elliott says, "In this great country, we should not arrest and convict innocent people of any crime, let alone capital murder, nor should we kill innocent people as the Commonwealth of Virginia has done today." So far, then, this is what we have: a confused man not able to comprehend why he is being executed.

After this, we get two paragraphs describing the execution in the "death chamber."  I'd like to single out one paragraph of White's that is especially gripping in its starkness:

"Then, at 9:03 p.m., one officer turned a key in the back of the room, and another concealed officer pushed a button marked 'execute' in an adjoining room. The jolt of electricity caused Elliott to jerk back and upright into the chair, his hands gripping the oak arms. Smoke rose from his leg and his head. After two cycles of electricity, a doctor put a stethoscope to Elliott's chest and declared him dead." 

If you need proof that brevity and forceful rhetoric are related, this paragraph is it.  Only a few minimal qualifiers, but still powerful. Hemingway would be proud.

Only after the description of the execution do we find out what Elliott did.  For some, the primacy effect has probably taken a strong hold: with Elliott's state of mind, his declaration of innocence, and the smoke emanating from his head, some readers are probably firmly entrenched in their revulsion at what is happening.  With that kind of first impression, it would take something pretty dramatic to overcome this revulsion.  Would they have taken a different side had White started with the horrific crime? 

But once we get to the description of the crime, White's language is surprisingly noncommittal:

"Elliott was convicted of capital murder in the slayings of Finch, 30, and Thrall, 25, in their Woodbridge townhouse in January 2001. Finch was shot multiple times in the doorway of the townhouse in the early morning darkness, and Thrall, who ran downstairs because of the noise, was pistol whipped before the killer reloaded and shot her in the face as she tried to get to a phone"

Both murders are in the passive voice and eliminate Elliott entirely from the sentence ("Finch was shot" instead of "Elliott shot Finch," and "Thrall was pistol whipped" instead of "Elliott pistol whipped Thrall").  Once we finally get to the active tense, Elliott isn't even named; instead, it's just "the killer."  Why not name him?  It's also worth noting that the description of the crime is under the heading "The Case," not "The Crime" or "The Killings." Referring to it as "The Case" sanitizes the violence.

The next paragraph seems to cast doubt on his guilt, though there was more evidence than what White relays (read the court's denial of Elliott's appeal, with a long narrative of the case, here). White writes

Although police never found a murder weapon -- presumed to be a revolver because no shell casings were left -- and had no evidence that Elliott had been in the home, prosecutors were able to secure a conviction because Elliott's DNA was found on a back fence. He also was spotted by someone in the neighborhood that morning.

What was the DNA?  According to the court documents, it was Elliott's blood on the inside of the privacy fence, a match that would occur "once in the entire world population."  And what White also did not mention was that Elliott had an abrasion on his hand.  White's use of the "although" clause--a common tool in argumentative writing--also casts doubt on the conviction. In this case, White's decision to omit further details about the DNA could be seen as unintended or hidden bias.

White goes on to discuss the history of the case, including the statement that "amid defense allegations of trial irregularities and weak evidence, several courts upheld the conviction."  He also mentions how Elliott cried at his sentencing.

Again, this is not to say that White set out to write a biased article.  But our word choice, as well as the information we choose to include and omit, can often reveal subtle biases in our writing that a close reading can uncover. 

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[Ray Ward]

For advocates, this is a clinic on how to write both the favorable and the unfavorable facts.