The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist

The dastardly death penalty

2007-02-21T12:17:00.000-05:00

This is just weird. Here is a radio report on Florida's lethal injection issue. The report itself is a typical radio story, but it takes a turn for the bizarre when you hear the voice of the member of the execution team who testified before the state commission studying the issue.

It is the audio version of the black hood.

PA's southern neighbors

2007-02-10T09:01:00.000-05:00

The governors of Maryland and Virginia, both abolitionists, are both finding themselves entangled in the death penalty. The most promising activity is in Maryland.

(Maryland Governor Martin) O'Malley, who was sworn in last month, has pledged to work with lawmakers to repeal Maryland's death penalty -- and could effectively halt executions through the end of his tenure even without their support, given a recent court ruling.

Pennsylvania sticks out like a sore thumb in the mid-Atlantic region. Consider:

New York: abolition by default. A court struck down the death penalty, and although the legislature could easily remedy the problem the court cited, it has refused to do so.
Maryland: abolitionist governor, moratorium, serious push to repeal
New Jersey: abolitionist governor, moratorium, serious push to repeal
West Virginia: no death penalty
Ohio: abolitionist governor and an attorney general who has questioned the application of the death penalty
Pennsylvania: *crickets chirp*

Four more years with Ed

2007-01-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today Governor Ed Rendell was inaugurated for his second term here in PA. Four years ago, many of us were optimistic about the prospects for a death penalty moratorium in a Rendell administration. (Granted, after four years of the Ridge-Schweiker administration, the bar was pretty low.) During the 2002 campaign, Rendell stated that he would support a moratorium if the evidence showed that a suspension was warranted.

Six weeks later, on March 3, 2003, the PA Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias released its report (PDF). The committee called for a moratorium on executions due to concerns with bias against minorities and the poor.

And Ed Rendell did nothing. In fact, he told ABC27 News in Harrisburg that he still had not seen the evidence for a moratorium...three weeks after the report was released.

In January, 2004, Nicholas Yarris of Philadelphia was released from prison after 22 years on death row for a crime someone else committed in Delaware County. Nick was so broken after his decades on death row that he was ready to accept execution until a DNA test saved his life.

And Ed Rendell did nothing.

In November, 2005, Harold Wilson of Philadelphia won acquittal at retrial after 16 years on death row. DNA evidence from the scene did not come from Harold or any of the victims, indicating the presence of another person, the possible assailant.

And Ed Rendell did nothing.

At some point in the next four years, it will be legacy-building time for Ed Rendell. I shook his hand at the Governor's Mansion after inaugural day 2003 and told him that something needed to be done about the death penalty. He said, "We will. I promise."

The only thing Ed Rendell has done about the death penalty is sign 63 death warrants. What will his legacy will be? When the day arrives that we ultimately end capital punishment in PA, will Ed Rendell be remembered as someone who let history pass him by? The next four years will tell.

The new speaker of the PA House

2007-01-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

The media coverage of new PA House Speaker Dennis O'Brien (R-Phila) has been largely positive. If you never heard of O'Brien before yesterday, you're now learning that he is a friend of organized labor, a "people person," and has "a passion for making the lives of people better" (the last one according to Governor Rendell).

All of that may true, as I've had little reason to notice Rep. O'Brien. He might be really great in a lot of ways. But here is what I do know about him. His stances on the Innocence Commission Act and the death penalty for those with mental retardation do not indicate a man who is fair or a decent person. His positions on those two issues lead me to question who he is.

The ICA passed the Senate unanimously in April. It would establish a commission to study the reasons why innocent people are convicted of crimes and then make recommendations for legislation to prevent it from happening in the future.

But after passing the Senate without a single dissenting vote, the bill sat in O'Brien's judiciary committee. It never saw the light of day. O'Brien couldn't be bothered to allow the state to study why innocent people are convicted.

Does this sound like someone who is fair?

On the death penalty and persons with mental retardation, O'Brien defied the disabilities community (you know, the people who actually work with folks with disabilities on a regular basis) to side with Attorney General Tom Corbett and the PA District Attorneys Association. The disabilities community, including the Arc of PA and the Disabilities Law Project, supported the process in which a defendant's mental capacity would be determined by the judge before trial. The DAs and Corbett believe the jury should make that determination after they've convicted the defendant of first degree homicide. This procedure was called "clearly prejudicial against the defendant" by Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery), who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This might be a bit of hyperbole, but O'Brien believes it's fine that innocent people are convicted of crimes and it's fine to execute persons with mental retardation. Ok, of course he doesn't believe that, but what can one be expected to believe in light of these stances he has taken?

This jury is still out on just how "fair" Dennis O'Brien really is.

Have death penalty, need Catholics

2007-01-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

The Catholic News Service picked up on DPIC's 2006 Year End Report. It's important that this discussion is happening. If we are to move forward on capital punishment in PA, we need the Catholics making some noise about it.

The power of peace

2006-12-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

The Appalachian Trail killer, Paul David Crews, was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yesterday in Perry County after the district attorney's office decided to stop fighting the appeals. Crews had a legitimate claim for a least a new sentencing hearing since his trial attorney failed to present evidence of an abusive childhood.

What struck me as I read about this, though, was not the information about the defendant but the info about the families of the two victims. Here are the first four paragraphs from today's Patriot News story:

NEW BLOOMFIELD - The father of one of Paul David Crews' victims forgives him for raping and killing his daughter.

The mother of Crews' other victim said she doesn't hate him.

In May 1991, Crews, a drifter from South Carolina, was sentenced to die by lethal injection for killing Geoffrey Hood, 26, of Signal Mountain, Tenn., and Molly LaRue, 25, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, on the Appalachian Trail in Perry County.

"I am here today to offer you forgiveness for what you have done," Jim LaRue told Crews yesterday. "Peace be with you, brother. Peace be with you."

Later in the article, it again comes back to Mr. LaRue:

Jim LaRue said he hoped Crews eventually talks and gives some insight into his mind as a way to give his life meaning. He compared the good it might do to his daughter's job helping troubled children.

"She would have wanted that from you," said LaRue, who opposes the death penalty. "You are a gold mine of critical information that needs to be unearthed."

As a father, the idea of losing my only child to violent crime is incomprehensible. And yet I am always struck by people like Mr. LaRue and my good friend Walt Everett, who have found a way to find peace after the deaths of their children.

Death penalty supporters sometimes pull out the line that goes something like, "You would feel differently if someone in your family was killed." I don't know what I would feel in that situation, but I would hope that the best of me, my buddha nature, would shine through.

There are a few well-known victims' families, who shall remain nameless, whose public personas are that of anger and rage. Of course, those emotions would inevitably be a part of the grieving process, but I feel sad for those folks that they still feel that way (or at least portray it publicly) 25 years later.

Jim LaRue, Walt Everett, and victims' family members like them have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration from me.

Altering our thinking: What if you support the death penalty in PA?

2006-12-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

We abolitionists can get quite frustrated with the state of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Fourth largest death row in the country. Six death row exonerations. A minority death row rate at 70%. The nation's "deadliest DA" in Philadelphia. It's enough to make an abolitionist glum.

But what about supporters of the death penalty? What are they thinking right about now? Death sentences have dropped significantly. There were seven in PA in 2005, in contrast to the 21 given out in 1994. In the entire modern era of the death penalty (post-1978), there have been exactly three executions in the Commonwealth, and they were all for defendants who had given up their appeals. It's been seven years since we had an execution.

Let's face it: As noted last week by the blog of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, we're winning. It doesn't always feel like it. Sometimes it feels down right frustrating. But time and justice are on our side.

Last spring when the PA House was deciding what to do about the death penalty and persons with mental retardation, the Attorney General was lobbying, in person, for the version supported by the District Attorneys, which is opposed by the disabilities community. Think about that: The top attorney in the Commonwealth was walking the halls to lobby for an obscure procedural matter. Why? Because he knows, and the DAs know, that capital punishment is a dying institution in PA. If we had won on this issue, it would be another nail in the coffin of the death penalty, and the AG and the DAs want to do everything they can to stop it.

We're winning.

What's next on the scale after "bizarre"?

2006-11-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

Strange things tend to happen around the Mumia Abu-Jamal case, but the 59th Ward Republican Committee in Philadelphia may take the cake:
59th Republican Ward Executive Committee files charges against cities of Paris and suburb for "glorifying" infamous Philadelphia cop killer

Justice for Dennis Counterman. Sort of.

2006-11-02T16:38:00.000-05:00

Dennis Counterman is finally a free man. He absolutely deserves to finally be free and no one can question his decision to take a plea.

I can't help but feel a bit melancholy, though, that Dennis was forced to plea to charges for a crime that never happened. The Lehigh County DA had him over a barrel, knowing full well that prosecutors could manipulate the facts again to win a conviction, and Dennis and his attorneys certainly could not trust the justice system after what has happened to him for the last 18 years.

You come here looking for justice and that's what you find. Just us.

Morning Call op-ed: Counterman case highlights death penalty problems
CounterPunch, Joey DeRaymond of Lehigh Valley Committee Against State Killing: A case of injustice in Pennsylvania

"A faith unshaken"

2006-10-07T23:41:00.000-04:00

This is important enough to cross-post with Nasty Little Man and The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist.

Here's a commentary from Wisconsin on the Amish school shooting tragedy that I found particularly inspiring:

But the Amish will not respond with anger or hatred. This tragedy will strengthen their faith and their resolve in maintaining their way of life. It may make them more wary of the "English" world, but that caution will not manifest itself in resentment or revenge. Those words are not even in their vocabulary.

The Amish are people who put their faith into action, even in the most horrific of circumstances. The very foundation of their church (and mine) is pacifism and withstanding persecution for their beliefs. There is no doubt in my mind that if the gunman had lived, the families of his Amish victims would have asked the court to spare him the death penalty.

And the AP is reporting that about half of the mourners at the funeral of the shooter, Charles Roberts, were Amish:

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him, said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Colorado who attended the service.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.

"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Porter, who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.

"She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown," Porter said.

Is Dennis Counterman's day of justice finally coming?

2006-09-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

Last week Lehigh County Judge Lawrence J. Brenner announced a trial date for Dennis Counterman of Allentown. Five years after Brenner first declared a retrial, there is finally a date set for December 11. This trial would have and should have occurred long ago. In fact, death penalty abolitionists thought Dennis might be the nation's 100th exoneration, a designation that went to Ray Krone in 2002. Alas, delaying tactics by the Lehigh County DA's office kept this trial from happening. Until now.

Ironically, Lehigh County DA James Martin recently co-authored an op-ed entitled "Prosecutors are held to highest ethical standards" in The Daily Item. Sadly, ethical behavior has been but a distant memory in the Counterman case. Although Martin, an assistant DA in 1989, was not involved in the original prosecution, he has been directly involved in the delaying tactics during the appeals process.

Last Sunday, Morning Call columnist Paul Carpenter pulled no punches in criticizing the DA's office and, specifically, original prosecutor Richard Tomsho, who now works in the PA Attorney General's office:

The abuse of power never starts with victims who are bright, robust and respected.

It starts with the most vulnerable, perhaps someone of modest means with low intelligence who does not handle himself very well, and who has used illegal drugs — a guy like, say, Dennis Counterman.
(snip)
Too often, a piece of work like Tomsho gets away with subverting the way the legal system is supposed to work, but now and then, a judge will come along and say, "whoa."

In 1990, when Tomsho was a prosecutor in Lehigh County, he convinced a jury that Counterman murdered his three sons by setting his own house ablaze in 1988. Counterman has been incarcerated since then, including more than a decade on death row.

In 2001, Lehigh County Judge Lawrence Brenner threw out the conviction because Tomsho had hidden nine pieces of evidence indicating it might have been one of Counterman's sons who set the fire.

The evidence included a statement to that effect by his wife, Janet, which Tomsho "whited out" in a police report. Also hidden was evidence the boy had a history of setting fires, and witness accounts that Counterman tried frantically to put out the fire.

For a comprehensive retelling of Dennis's story, check out this 2002 Baltimore Sun article.

Update on Mumia Abu-Jamal

2006-09-08T13:51:00.000-04:00

Mumia's lawyers have sent out an update on the legal proceedings in the case. I thought this was interesting.

We continue to aggressively pursue relief for Mr. Abu-Jamal. On July 20, Professor Judith L. Ritter, associate counsel, and I filed a lengthy opening brief supported by voluminous exhibits. A week later NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., through Christine Swarns, filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief.

It's good to see the NAACP getting involved in a capital case, whether it's Mumia or an obscure prisoner. Hopefully it will trickle down to the state and local grass-roots level.

I've been thinking a lot more about Mumia's case recently and hope to post more thoughts on it soon.

The danger of false confessions

2006-09-05T13:40:00.000-04:00

Bill Moushey of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has an excellent piece in last Thursday's paper about false confessions. It seems strange to the layman that someone would confess to something that he/she didn't do, but it happens:

Innocent people confess to crimes for many reasons, including the desire for notoriety. That was the apparent motive in the celebrated unraveling this week of John Mark Karr's false admission that he had killed JonBenet Ramsey.

But false confessions usually involve coercive interrogations in which police claim to have evidence of a suspect's guilt and then promise leniency for cooperation or severe punishment for non-cooperation.

In a study of 340 overturned convictions between 1989 and 2003, Dr. Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan Law School and his colleagues found that 51, or 15 percent, involved false confessions. Most of those confessions resulted from police coercion.

The case of Walter Ogrod of Philadelphia is one in which a confession, potentially coerced, is playing a role.

Middletown man's death sentence upheld

2006-08-28T20:37:00.000-04:00

It's no shock that the death sentence for Ernest Wholaver, formerly of Middletown, was upheld by the PA Supreme Court last week. Wholaver's crime was horrendous. He killed his estranged wife and two daughters, one of whom had accused him of sexually abusing her. One of the daughters was killed while holding her nine-month-old baby, Wholaver's grand-daughter.

This happened in my hometown. Whenever I go to the local Penn State campus for class, I pass the home where it happened. Four years later, the home is still empty and dark.

And there is nothing to indicate that there is any great discrepancy in the case.

But I have a bigger beef with the PA Supreme Court. Frankly, they can't be trusted to deal with the death penalty. There are seven justices on the state's highest court. Six served in a district attorney's office, the attorney general's office, or both. Only one, Chief Justice Ralph Cappy, ever served in a public defender's office, according to their biographies on the court's website.

Now, does serving in a prosecutor's office make one an unfair person? Not necessarily. I know some people who seem decent enough who have served with the AG or a DA. (Well, I know at least one person like that.)

But these justices ran for their positions using their credentials as prosecutors. Justice Michael Eakin ran using an ad that referred to a case where he won a death sentence, as if that is reason to put him on the court. During last year's retention vote, Sandra Newman ran advertisements with former Governor Tom Ridge bragging about her record of upholding the death penalty.

Civics 101: Can justices be trusted as fair arbiters between prosecution and defense when they are using their credentials as prosecutors as the reason why they should be elected or retained?

The greatest sin of the court, though, is its response to the 2003 report from the Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Criminal Justice System, the court's own committee. (Chapter 6 is on the death penalty.) Its response to the report has been deafening. That is, the silence has been deafening.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The court has not been completely silent on the committee's recommendation that a moratorium be imposed to study issues of racial and class bias in the application of the death penalty. During the committee's first meeting with the justices after the report was published, the committee members were grilled for their death penalty recommendation by the justices and have since distanced themselves from the capital punishment chapter in order to get other recommendations from the report implemented.

You come here lookin' for justice and that's what you find: Just us.

Harrisburg priorities

2006-06-23T17:50:00.000-04:00

Property taxes. The budget. Environmental protection. Job growth. Stopping "brain-drain." Raising the minimum wage. Rehabbing the legislature's image after the pay raise debacle. An observer of Pennsylvania politics might assume that these would be the priorities of the state's General Assembly in these early days of summer.

So, what did the General Disassembly bring us on Wednesday? Mumia Abu-Jamal. The ASSembly passed a resolution condemning the French city of St.-Denis for naming a street for Mumia. The vote in the Senate was 44-4 with all of the black members of the chamber voting against it, all of whom are from Philadelphia.

The same resolution passed the House unanimously on Monday without debate. Rep. Harold James (D-Phila) voted for it but:

Rep. Harold James (D., Phila.), a retired police officer, voted for the resolution, but agrees with Hughes that Abu-Jamal did not get a fair trial.

James said he didn't raise any opposition because he believed the resolution was meaningless.

"I just didn't think that Pennsylvania trying to tell France what to do was going to go anywhere," he said.

This post isn't about Mumia. Maybe some day I'll post an entry on my muddled feelings about his case and the movement around him. (For now, the Wikipedia entry on him presents a well-balanced presentation of the facts.)

No, this post is about the priorities of our General Assembly. Chew on this:

The resolution's sponsor, President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer (R., Blair), called the street-naming "the most offensive thing he had ever seen," and said it was an "affront to the system of justice."

No, Senator, allow me to enlighten you as to what, exactly, is an "affront to the system of justice." The fact that Walter Ogrod is still on Pennsylvania's death row is an affront to the justice system.

The fact that Harold Wilson, Nick Yarris, Thomas Kimbell, Jr., the family of William Nieves, and other exonerees aren't compensated for the years of their lives lost in jail for crimes someone else committed is an affront to our justice system.

The fact that Fred Thomas of Philadelphia, a victim of the corruption of a Philadelphia police officer, died while awaiting a new trial after his wrongful conviction is an affront to our system of justice.

The fact that our General Disassembly has failed to act on the death penalty chapter of the PA Supreme Court committee's 2003 report is an affront to our system of justice.

It's real easy to go after Mumia because his case is polarizing and well-known. But the Commonwealth would be well-served if our legislative leaders pulled their heads out of the sand (or elsewhere) and truly examined what's happening with criminal justice system in this state rather than worrying about the name of a street in some French town that no one has ever heard of.

Last update April 19???

2006-06-23T17:49:00.000-04:00

Whoa. It has been a long time. Let's go get it.

A first: AP reporter refers to PA death penalty as "de facto moratorium"

2006-04-19T22:10:00.000-04:00

This goes in the "say a lie enough times and it eventually becomes truth" file. In an article about a Pennsylvania man who has won a new trial, AP reporter Mary Claire Dale stated:

Federal and state court challenges to the death penalty created a de facto moratorium during the intervening years.

This is the line trotted out on a regular by the supporters of killing. They claim we don't need a moratorium in PA because we already have one. Obviously, they found a reporter who has fallen for that line.

But the fact is that we do not have a moratorium in Pennsylvania. True, we have not had an execution since 1999. However, we nearly had two in 2004 (Hubert Michael and George Banks), the governor continues to sign death warrants, and prosecutors continue to try to make executions happen.

Plus, this so-called moratorium is missing one key element: A comprehensive analysis of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Granted, as an abolitionist, I don't mind that we haven't had an execution in seven years, but a moratorium without a study of capital punishment only delays the inevitable reboot of the killing machine in PA.

The good news from the article is that we have yet another example of one of the major problems with the death penalty- ineffective assistance of counsel.

"Average Americans are opposed to state-sanctioned execution"

2006-04-18T08:39:00.000-04:00

So says Court TV's Catherine Crier in her book Contempt: How the Right is Wronging American Justice. I was shocked when I read this. Here's the excerpt:

Though the Religious Right swears by capital punishment, average Americans are opposed to state-sanctioned execution. A CBS News opinion poll conducted in April of 2005 asked, "What do you think should be the penalty for persons convicted of murder- the death penalty, life in prison with no chance of parole, or a long prison sentence with a chance of parole?" Only 39 percent of the respondents chose the death penalty; 39 percent chose life with no parole, 6 percent said a long sentence with parole, and 13 percent volunteered the answer "Depends."

Over the last six years, there have been numerous polls that have shown a 50-50 split on the death penalty when LWOP is an option. This is the first time that I've seen support for the death penalty clearly in the minority.

A search of "CBS News poll 2005 death penalty" uncovers this list of polls on crime from pollingreport.com. This list shows the power of the question. When the question is simply asked, "Do you support or oppose the death penalty," support is in the 60+% range. But when the respondents are given options, it is obvious that the American public is uneasy with capital punishment. If you scroll past the CBS poll, there is a Quinnipiac poll from 2004 that shows just 46% support for LWOP over the death penalty and just 42% support for capital punishment. Those favoring LWOP include 33% of Republicans, 57% of Democrats, and 46% of independents.

And the long, slow fall of the death penalty continues...

PA two steps closer to protecting developmentally disabled

2006-04-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

In two months, we'll mark the fourth anniversary of the Atkins v. Virginia decision, which ruled the execution of the developmentally disabled, i.e. mentally retarded, as a violation of the 8th amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. All these years later, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has yet to implement a procedure for determining if a defendant is disabled.

But now, after one amazing night and one amazing day at the capitol, PA stands on the cusp of creating a structure to abide by the Atkins decision. Miraculously, unbelievably, incredibly both chambers of the General Assembly could be on the verge of doing it right.

Let's start with last night's debate in the House of Representatives. House Bill 698, which creates a procedure to determine disability post-trial by jury, was on the chamber's agenda, but Representative Kathy Manderino, a Democrat from Philadelphia, offered an amendment to change the procedure to pre-trial by the court (the judge). Manderino cited support for that procedure from advocates for the mentally retarded, church groups, and the attorney who successfully argued the Atkins case, Professor James Ellis of University of New Mexico School of Law.

Rep. Dennis O'Brien, the prime sponsor of 698 and a Republican from Philadelphia, objected to the amendment and offered a motion to vote on the constitutionality of the amendment, claiming it was a violation of the 6th amendment of the US Constitution and of the PA Constitution, which guarantees the Commonwealth's right to a trial by jury. This farce was smelt out by the House and voted down, 106-87. A diverse group spoke in favor of Manderino's amendment, including Rep. John Pallone, a Democrat from Westmoreland and Armstrong Counties; Rep. Russ Fairchild, a Republican from Union and Snyder Counties; and Rep. Curtis Thomas, an African-American Democrat from the city of Philadelphia.

While Manderino's amendment was not ultimately voted on, the constitutionality vote is a reason for optimism.

Then, at mid-day today, the PA Senate Judiciary Committee had Senate Bill 631 on its agenda. SB 631 creates a pre-trial procedure for the determination of disability. Senator Charles Lemmond (R-Luzerne) offered an amendment to create a post-conviction procedure, claiming the jury "will have seen the behavior (of the defendant) in different situations." Mind you, this is the same Senator Lemmond who a few years ago introduced the same amendment by saying that it wasn't really his amendment but the District Attorneys asked him to introduce it. Lemmond also noted the support of the Attorney General.

Senator Mary Jo White, the prime sponsor of SB 631, retorted, "It's unfortunate that Attorney General Corbett never called me...but I have spoken with the judiciary of Florida." Senator White noted that the Florida Supreme Court changed its criminal procedure to a pre-trial determination due to problems with having a death-qualified jury and the costs of a capital murder trial.

"Why would you go through a death penalty trial only at the end to say, 'Oh, by the way, this isn't a death penalty trial'?"

Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery), the chair of the committee, noted that allowing a jury to determine disability is "certainly prejudicial against the defendant."

Lemmond's amendment failed, 5-9, and the bill was sent to the Senate floor, 11-3.

Now what? These are important victories, but there is still work to be done. In the House, the Manderino amendment still needs to come up for a vote and then the final bill will have a vote. In the Senate, a post-trial amendment will likely be introduced before final passage. It's not over yet, but we have reason to feel good.

Georgians support a culture of life?

2006-03-27T14:46:00.000-05:00

After a jury recently handed a life sentence, rather than a death sentence, to a defendant who just happens to be a millionaire, a juror had this to say:

"We thought that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole was enough. We didn't want to be the judge about somebody else's life. We wanted God to be the judge," said juror Debra Klayman.

Wow, that's rich, so to speak. Suddenly, Georgia cares about not judging when it is appropriate to take a life. Funny, those 109 people on death row and the 39 who have been executed in the last 30 years probably beg to differ.

And it probably didn't hurt that the defendant is loaded with dough, allowing him to hire a competent defense team.

Allentown jury opts for life over death

2006-03-23T17:28:00.000-05:00

Yet again, a Pennsylvania jury has chosen life in a capital murder trial.

An Allentown man convicted of killing a man who was sitting in a city diner with his girlfriend was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole.

A Lehigh County jury deliberated about 20 minutes before rejecting the other possible sentence — the death penalty — for Nicholas Hudson, who was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the 2001 death of 22-year-old Daniel Cruz of Allentown.

Morning Call: Allentown man gets life sentence for diner slaying

This case reinforces several points we abolitionists have been making. First, the public is losing its taste for death.

The second point has to do with race. Whites are the victims of murder about 50% of the time, but when the death penalty is given, the victim is white more than 80% of the time. I don't know Mr. Cruz's race for certain, but I can guess that Daniel Cruz, son of Javier Cruz, boyfriend of Joeli Maldonado, was probably latino. Apparently, Cruz wasn't white enough for Hudson to get the death sentence.

Regardless, the victim's family and friends said it best at the end.

After the sentence was announced, (Maldonado) hugged (Chief Deputy DA Matthew) Weintraub and wiped her eyes. "I'm just glad it's over," she said...

"I will never get my son back, but I will live with that and knowing he [Hudson] will never hurt anyone again in the community," Javier Cruz said. "Everything is said and done. Even though he didn't get the death penalty, justice was done. It was delayed, but it was done."

Wisdom, clarity, and justice prevail yet again in Pennsylvania.

Why is this man smiling?

2006-03-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

Because under provisions of the recently approved Patriot Act renewal, Gonzo now has the power to determine if a state's system of representation is adequate, a power previously held by the federal courts. If he finds that counsel for the poor is just peachy, capital cases go on the fast track to execution.

Critics of the new measure fear that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a strong death penalty proponent, will allow the faster appeals in many states that have failed to meet basic standards for competent defense representation. They also worry that the short timelines will deter private attorneys from taking capital cases in federal court, and could leave some people on death row without counsel altogether.

Whither the republic...

Book review: Executed on a Technicality

2006-03-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I noted that we abolitionists are well aware of the injustices around the death penalty but sometimes need to hear the stories again to remember the horror that is capital punishment. It is, at times, easy to get caught up in the nuts and bolts of activism.

Executed on a Technicality: Lethal injustice on America's death row by David R. Dow, law professor at the University of Houston, is that wake-up call, that jolt, that splash of cold water in the face. The stories Dow tells are horrifying, and he lays out in great detail the ways that all three branches of government and both political parties have let down the cause of justice.

I found it especially helpful that Dow explains the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton. The piece of the law that sticks with me is that a defendant cannot raise an issue in federal court if it was not raised in state court. Thus, if a defendant is saddled with an incompetent attorney during state appeals or new evidence appears after state appeals are exhausted, this cannot be presented at the federal level.

The law is a nightmare and has probably led to the execution of an innocent person/people.

It's hard to say which story sticks with me the most. One that stands out is the Mexican national who was held in Texas on murder, under dubious evidence. Mexican police took his parents into custody and threatened to torture them if he did not confess to the Texas murder. He confessed and included a statement that his parents had nothing to do with it, which would be an odd statement if a person didn't know that his parents were being held in Mexico.

He was convicted and went insane on death row, to the point that he stopped recognizing his lawyers, had loud outbursts, and spread feces in his cell.

I have one beef with Dow. Throughout the book, he has a schizophrenic relationship with the issue of innocence. He tells compelling stories of likely innocence but several times makes statements that imply that the innocence issue should be de-emphasized.

Most of us are not in this movement simply because innocent people are sentenced to death. We're in it for all of the other reasons- race, injustice against the poor, creating more violence in our society.

But the simple fact of the matter is that the innocence issue has moved the public to a newfound skepticism of the death penalty in a way that the other issues did not in the 24 years from the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976 to the Illinois moratorium in 2000. Innocence has opened up relucant supporters of the death penalty to all of our other arguments against it.

Dow's book is a must read. It took me more than two months to read it because I could only read about 10-15 pages at a time. It is a real-life horror story. He deserves props for writing it and also for dedicating himself as a lawyer to this difficult but noble cause.

Forgiveness, not killing, is an act of strength

2006-03-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

Reverend Walter Everett of Lewisburg experienced a life trauma that most of us will never have to face- the violent death of a loved one.

In 1987, Everett's 24-year-old son, Scott, was murdered in a random shooting, and he talked about his experience on February 28 during a public gathering at Grace United Methodist Church in Harrisburg.

"A son or daughter, you should never have to bury," he said.

Everett, who is a member of the board of directors of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, found a way not only to forgive his son's killer, Mike Carlucci, but even befriend him. When Carlucci expressed his regret and his wish that he could bring Scott back at his sentencing hearing, Everett said, "I felt the nudge of God."

"Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the first step of the healing of the person doing the forgiving."

The event in Harrisburg was co-sponsored by Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty and A United Methodist Witness in Pennsylvania.

Everett is convinced that the death penalty offers no healing for victims' families.

"People wait and wait and wait for an execution," he said, "and when it happens, they say, 'Why don’t I feel any better?'"

Pennsylvania has lost its taste for death

2006-02-27T21:53:00.000-05:00

A man cheats on his wife, with whom he has two kids. His girlfriend becomes pregnant. He lures her to a quarry and shoots her in the back of the head, killing her and her unborn child. And this all happens in York County, which has consistently had one of the highest death sentencing rates in the state.

This sounds like a slam-dunk death sentence for York County DA Stan Rebert, doesn't it? Wrong. Last week a York County jury sentenced Damien Schlager to two consecutive life sentences for the crime described above. (UPDATE, 3/23/06: The YDR link has expired, so here's the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal article.

The York Daily Record article on the sentencing ended with this very telling remark:

Afterward, (Carmen) Potts (mother of Christina Colon, the victim) said she was glad this sad chapter in her family's life has come to an end.

"It's just been a terrible ordeal," she said.

Unfortunately, from hearing victims' families members speak, it never really ends. There is always a hole left from the loss of the family's loved one.

But the death penalty keeps that wound from anything resembling healing. The high number of mistakes we've made make it clear that appeals need to be thoroughly exhausted for capital defendants, but this is extraordinarily painful for victims' families. This constant re-opening of that wound is lessened with life without parole.

Tomorrow night in Harrisburg we'll have the opportunity to hear from a murder victim's father, Reverend Walter Everett. Walt will be speaking about his experience and his feelings about the death penalty at 7:30pm on Tuesday at Grace United Methodist Church, 216 State Street, Harrisburg. It is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty and a United Methodist Witness in Pennsylvania.

This story from York County could be anecdotal, but the statistics bear out our growing disdain for state-sanctioned murder. In 1994, Pennsylvania juries dispensed 21 death sentences. In 2003, six defendants in the Commonwealth got death, and in 2004, just four. Today the Pittsburgh Tribune Review examined the public's newfound hesitancy to kill people.

Lawyers and prosecutors say the growing number of prisoners freed by DNA testing and shifting social attitudes about the death penalty have caused juries to lose their taste for capital punishment. Just 10 years after reaching a modern-day peak, the number of death sentences in the U.S. has plunged to its lowest level in 30 years.

"My personal belief is that the heyday of the death penalty is over," said veteran Downtown attorney Caroline Roberto, former president of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty with the same frequency they did a decade ago, but publicity over DNA exonerations, lower murder rates and increased training for defense attorneys have contributed to the decline, legal experts say.

Of course, there is one major problem. Pennsylvania has 225 people on death row, as of February 1. That's the fourth largest death row in the country. The minority rate on the state's row is 69%, second-highest in the country. We have a backlog of cases from the days when the public was perfectly content to kill as many people as possible. We also know that a majority of them are from Philadelphia, and Philadelphia had considerable police corruption problems in the 1980s.

We need a moratorium and we need it now.

AZ legislators to Ray Krone: Sorry about that

2006-02-22T12:36:00.000-05:00

Arizona Daily Star: Wrongfully convicted man gets apology after two years on death row

The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said all the right things...

Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, called the 1992 conviction of Ray Krone "a truly tragic case." He said none of the evidence readily available pointed to him as a suspect, much less the murderer.

"In a way, it's a lesson for us all that this can happen in a modern society," Huppenthal said in the public apology on the floor of the Senate.

"When we think we have foolproof systems where this would never, never happen, it has happened. And we need to be aware that it truly could happen again and is likely happening again."

But Senator Huppenthal is still willing to risk executing an innocent person.

Krone said his situation proves the death penalty should be abolished. But Huppenthal said he's not willing to go that far, saying only that maybe there should be "guidelines" about when to seek the ultimate sanction.

The death penalty is like an addiction for some of these politicians. Even when they know how horrible it is, they'll still go with it. Amazing.

Ex-KGB officer opposes the death penalty

2006-02-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

When Vladimir Putin is more enlightened on the death penalty than we are in the United States, we have to take a serious look at ourselves and say, "What the hell is the matter with us?"

Itar-Tass: Putin personally against death penalty, listens to public opinion

Apparently, this has been his stance for many years. I just found out about it. From Amnesty International's 2001 press release:

"The state should not assume the right which only the Almighty has -- to take a human life," he said. "That is why I can say firmly -- I am against Russia reinstating the death penalty."

President Putin was also quoted as saying that he was aware of public opinion on the death penalty but believed that state-sponsored cruelty did nothing to fight crime and only engendered new violence.

The death penalty elephant has been acknowledged

2006-02-15T22:06:00.000-05:00

With Senator Greenleaf's innocence commission bill, I've been concerned that the death penalty would be the elephant in the room that everyone can see but no one wants to acknowledge.

Well, the elephant has landed. From the memo to the Judiciary Committee on SB 1069:

Nationally, 174 individuals have been exonerated through postconviction DNA testing; 14 of those individuals spent time on death row. Eight individuals have been exonerated in Pennsylvania through postconviction DNA test. Three of the individuals were in prison for murder and one of the three was on death row.

Bravo to Gregg Warner, Senator Greenleaf's counsel, for not allowing the death penalty to be swept under the rug.

The one death row DNA exoneration referred to in the memo is Nick Yarris. It is also worth mentioning that the introduction of DNA evidence from the crime scene helped lead to the acquittal at retrial of Harold Wilson of Philadelphia, after 16 years on death row.

Innocence Commission Act goes to the PA Senate floor

2006-02-15T17:15:00.000-05:00

At yesterday's PA Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, the committee sent Senate Bill 1069, the Innocence Commission Act, to the full Senate. The bill went through the committee without debate and without opposition. Not even Senator Jeff Piccola (R-Dauphin) opposed it.

So the bill is on the floor of the Senate, and supporters are cautiously optimistic. We might have some work to do to get it through the House, though. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Dennis O'Brien (R-Philadelphia), is reportedly a waterboy for the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

To be fair, no one in the House or at the PDAA has publicly opposed the bill, but you know how politics works, especially in Harrisburg. A bill can go to a committee and disappear into a vast, dark black hole.

This bill has fast-tracked. It was introduced on January 23. Hearings were held on January 30. And yesterday it hit the Senate floor. This has been amazing to watch.

At the committee hearings on January 30, all of the witnesses testified in favor of the bill. Nick Yarris, who spent 21 years on PA's death row before DNA evidence cleared him in 2004, was the first witness and urged the legislature not only to pass this bill but also to impose a moratium on the death penalty.

"Any real look at innocence in Pennsylvania must start with a moratorium," Nick said.

Nick also testified that he believes there are more innocent people among the state's 224 death row prisoners, and he named two: Walter Ogrod and Ernest Simmons.

Other witnesses included exonerees Thomas Doswell and Vincent Moto and Stephen Saloom, Policy Director of the Innocence Project.

"Nobody wins when an innocent person is convicted," Saloom said.

"The innocence commission crafted by this bill has the potential to be one of the nation's best. It has the potential to make Pennsylvania a model."

Matthew Mangino: Hopelessly out of touch

2006-01-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

Ex-Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino took death penalty opponents to task in an op-ed in today's Patriot News.

Death penalty opponents have gone to great lengths to attack the death penalty from every direction, but straight on. Why? A majority of Americans do support capital punishment.

As usual, Mangino fails to note one other important polling number. Every year since 2000, polling data has shown the nation split 50-50 on the death penalty when life without parole is available, as it is in Pennsylvania and every other death penalty state except New Mexico.

Mangino also overblows the impact of the positive DNA test of Roger Coleman.

Coleman's case could not have turned out worse for the anti-death penalty movement. Not only did Coleman not provide the "death nail" that the movement hoped for, he provided death penalty supporters with a "poster-child" for execution.

The positive DNA test proved that we executed yet another guilty murderer. That's not news.

Then there's this misinformation.

Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty group, suggested to USA Today that finding the execution of an innocent man would put a final nail through the pro-death penalty movement. Dieter's claim puts death penalty opponents in the unenviable position of actually hoping for what they are trying to prevent, the execution of an innocent person.

We are not hoping for the execution of an innocent person. We know that innocent people have already been executed. All we're looking for is definitive proof (see: Executed on a Technicality by David R. Dow).

Mangino should crawl back into whatever cave he came from. He's obviously missed the news. Executions are down. Death sentences are down. Death row is shrinking. The death penalty is whithering on the vine.

No one asked me but...

2006-01-24T11:55:00.000-05:00

...here are some early thoughts on possible members of the Innocence Commission of Pennsylvania, if it passes.

Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., district attorney, Allegheny County: By most accounts, Mr. Zappala is a reasonable DA.

Ernie Preate, former PA Attorney General: Preate once defended PA's death penalty before the U.S. Supreme Court. After his own prison stint, he has become a strong voice for reform.

Robert Dunham, federal habeas attorney, Federal Defenders Association of Philadelphia: Or Michael Wiseman. Or Vic Abreu. Or anyone from the Federal Defenders, for that matter.

Bill Moushey, journalist, Pittsburgh Post Gazette; director, Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania: Moushey has played a key role in bringing forth numerous innocence cases, including Tom Doswell. Ernest Simmons of Cambria County could very well be exonerated due, in part, to the efforts of the Innocence Institute.

Pete Shellem, reporter, Patriot News: Shellem has done multiple investigative reports on wrongful convictions. His most recent report involved the case of David Gladden. Shellem's work freed Barry Laughman from prison at a time when Laughman was receiving no relief from the courts.

Leslie Seymour, Philadelphia Police Department (ret.): In retirement, Seymour has stayed involved in criminal justice issues.

Dr. James Ruiz, criminal justice professor, Penn State Harrisburg; New Orleans Police Department (ret.): Dr. Ruiz would provide both an academic perspective and a police perspective. One of his areas of research is police deviant behavior.

Sensei Anthony Stultz, Blue Mountain Lotus Society: Sensei Stultz is my Zen teacher, but that's not why he's on this list. Stultz has been a counselor for both crime victims and convicted criminals. He ran a halfway house in Johnstown for five years. And he was involved in coalition building on criminal justice issues in Boston while he was a graduate student at Harvard.

Reverend Walter Everett, United Methodist Church (ret.): Rev. Everett's 24-year-old son Scott was murdered in 1987. Everett is a member of the board of directors of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights.

Ray Krone, exonerated, York County: Ray spent ten years in an Arizona prison, including more than two on death row, for a murder he did not commit. Since his release in 2002, he has been a strong advocate for reform.

Thomas Doswell, exonerated, Allegheny County: Doswell spent 19 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. DNA evidence cleared him last year.

More thoughts on the IC

2006-01-24T08:26:00.000-05:00

Let's stay cautiously optimistic on Greenleaf's innocence commission. And we must remain vigilant. This is much better than what is happening right now, which is nothing. Here's how I would change it, if I were dictator.

Remove corrections officers and victims assistants from the "must" list. They are not directly involved in the conviction of an innocent person. If the "must" list is restricted to just those who are directly involved, i.e. police, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, then there is more credibility to the list. It's also hard to justify victims advocates on the "must" list but criminal justice organizations on the "may include" list.

Or include representatives of academia and crminal justice groups on the "must" list. This would add greater balance.

This story is splashed across the front of the Patriot News today, which brings to another issue on which we must be vigilant. There could be too much emphasis on DNA exonerations. Each innocent man cited in the Patriot story was exonerated by DNA. Professor Rago referred to our 8 DNA exonerations.

Cases in which the perpetrator leaves behind DNA are not the only cases in which there are wrongful convictions. In fact, if you think about it logically, which is asking a lot in Harrisburg, DNA exonerations indicate that there are certainly wrongful convictions in non-DNA cases. In murder cases, for example, the perpetrator leaves DNA just 15% of the time. If we are finding wrongful convictions amongst those 15%, certainly there are innocents among the other 85%.

This story will continue to unfold. We'll watch it.

UPDATE, 12:30PM: I forgot that I wanted to give props to Dauphin County DA Ed Marsico for publicly backing SB1069:

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. said while law enforcement officers are constantly examining their procedures, he welcomed the proposal.

"Certainly a study that could help us better investigate crimes and learn from cases where mistakes were made seems like a good idea," Marsico said.

After the AP story in December on PA's death penalty when Marsico said this...

Some prosecutors disagree that their approach has changed, but Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico Jr. acknowledged that it's possible they are getting more selective about seeking the death penalty. He said better representation for defendants also may be a factor in driving the numbers downward.

"Defense attorneys are getting better training, and courts are assigning more seasoned defense attorneys in these cases," Marsico said.

...a friend of mine said to me that we must be making progress when DAs start to sound reasonable.

Greenleaf officially introduces bill to establish the Innocence Commission of Pennsylvania

2006-01-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

Senator Greenleaf announced his legislation, Senate Bill 1069, that would establish the Innocence Commission of Pennsylvania. Joined by Senator Jay Costa (D-Allegheny), Senator Shirley Kitchen (D-Philadelphia), exoneree Thomas Doswell of Pittsburgh, and Professor John Rago of the Duquesne University School of Law, Greenleaf said, "I can't imagine anyone being opposed to this. I can't imagine anyone would step up and suggest that we convict the innocent." (Don't put it past the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.)

The make-up of these kinds of projects can be pivotal because they can easily be rigged. Greenleaf said that the commission will include "police, judges, victim advocates, defense attorneys and prosecutors, as well as legal scholars and representatives of groups involved in criminal justice issues."

However, that's not exactly what the bill says. The legislation states that the commission "must include at least one member from the following constituencies: prosecution, defense, law enforcement, corrections, judiciary and victim assistance." (my italics) Take a look at that list. Speaking in general terms, four of those six groups will tend to lean pro-death penalty. It's great when we get prosecutors, police, corrections officers, and victims advocates who are also abolitionists. However, when they speak as a group, it's usually pro-death.

The judiciary member(s) could go either way on criminal justice reform. Even defense attorneys are uncertain but probably more reliable than the rest.

As for those who might give an objective view on reform, the bill says, "(T)he commission may include representatives of academia, private and public organizations involved in criminal justice issues and other criminal justice experts." (again, my italics) "May" means "not required."

If this passes, we will need to keep a vigilant eye on what the commission does. No whistling in the graveyard allowed.

The purpose, as reported here previously, is to examine "the causes of wrongful conviction and finding the best methods of reducing the chances that what happened to Thomas Doswell will not happen to any other person."

Now, I can tell you the reasons:
1. Underpaid, overworked, underfunded, sometimes unskilled defense attorneys for the poor
2. Prosecutorial misconduct
3. Police misconduct
4. The impact of race
See? That was easy. They can just forget the commission and give me the money that would have been spent.

The other participants provided some important insight. Professor Rago called it "a marvelous bill" and noted that PA has eight DNA exonerations. Only five other states have more. The Professor said, "Innocence reforms are good law enforcement," a nod to the point that when an innocent man is convicted, a guilty man goes free.

Senator Kitchen said, "This is the most important legislation that I'll see in my tenure in the Senate."

Ok, here's where I have to pull on the reins again. I appreciate this bill, and I appreciate the bipartisan enthusiasm behind it (5 Rs and 7 Ds are co-sponsoring). However, this better not be the most important legislation in Senator Kitchen's tenure, unless she's retiring soon. The most important legislation in her tenure should be the legislation that comes forth as a result of this commission. Studying issues is important, but this bill has to be passed in order to figure out what other bills have to be passed to fix the problem.

This is Step 1 of a multi-step process.

PAUADP on innocence commission

2006-01-23T22:10:00.000-05:00

This press release is in from Pennsylvania Abolitionists, re: Senator Greenleaf's innocence commission:

Abolitionists applaud Senator Greenleaf for innocence commission
legislation, suggest that legislature also suspend executions during study

HARRISBURG- Pennsylvania Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) is expected to introduce legislation on Monday that will establish a commission to study why innocent people are convicted of crimes in the Commonwealth’s criminal justice system, and activists reacted by applauding his efforts.

“Senator Greenleaf deserves credit for recognizing how serious this issue is,” said Andy Hoover, executive director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty. “When innocent people lose precious years in jail for crimes they did not commit, it is devastating and alters their lives forever.

“With the death penalty, a mistake is deadly.”

This final point leads PAUADP to call on Senator Greenleaf to take one further step.

“A study like this must be accompanied by a moratorium on executions,” Hoover added. “It’s improper to recognize that our criminal justice system has this major problem but allow the state to continue pursuing executions and setting execution dates.

“We appreciate the desire to study these important issues. However, studies should lead to action.”

In 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Criminal Justice System recommended a moratorium on executions due to the committee’s concerns with bias against minorities and the poor in capital cases. In 1998, a study by University of Iowa professors David Baldus and George Woodworth found that black defendants were considerably more likely to be sentenced to death in Philadelphia than white defendants.

Seven Pennsylvanians have been exonerated after spending time on the state’s death row, including five in the last five years. Most recently, Harold Wilson of Philadelphia was acquitted at retrial on November 15 after 16 years on death row.

Wilson initially had his death sentence vacated on appeal because his trial attorney did not present mitigating evidence for the jury to consider a life sentence. He was then awarded a new trial when it was discovered that Philadelphia prosecutors had been trained to remove minorities from juries, a practice outlawed by the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Batson v. Kentucky.

“Harold’s case highlights why innocent people are convicted,” Hoover said. “Too often, poor defendants are represented by inadequate attorneys. Prosecutorial misconduct and the impact of race are also major factors in wrongful capital convictions.

“We are certain that there are innocent people on death row in Pennsylvania today.”

Earlier this month, New Jersey imposed a moratorium on executions in order to study a variety of problems with capital punishment. It is the third state moratorium and the first imposed by a state legislature. Moratoria in Illinois and Maryland were both established by gubernatorial action.

Death penalty statutes in New York and Kansas were declared unconstitutional in 2004.

Hoover noted that Pennsylvania has considerably more problems with capital punishment than New Jersey, including the discovery of innocent people on death row.

“New Jersey has had zero exonerations since 1976 while our state has had seven,” Hoover said. “There are 10 people on death row in New Jersey and 224 in Pennsylvania. New Jersey last executed someone in 1963 while we carried out three executions in the 1990s.

“The New Jersey legislature and governor recognized the need for a moratorium. Our General Assembly and Governor Rendell need to recognize the same need here in our Commonwealth.”

For more information on the death penalty in Pennsylvania, visit www.pa-abolitionists.org.

No killing by the Green Mountain State

2006-01-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

Some of us are working hard to end the death penalty in killing states. Unfortunately, abolitionists have to look over our shoulders to be sure that killing-free states don't institute the death penalty.

New England has been one area of the country where the death penalty has been almost completely on ice. Connecticut and New Hampshire are the only NE states that kill. The NH legislature passed a repeal bill a few years ago (vetoed by the gov) and is debating that issue again. Mass Gov Mitt Romney tried to pass a "fool-proof" (try "foolish") capital statute earlier this year and was thumped.

Now a state lawmaker in Vermont is planning to introduce a bill to reinstate state-sanctioned murder in that state. Michael Mello, a law professor at Vermont Law School, argues against reinstatement.

Vermont, of course, thinks it will be different from the other states that have tried to craft capital punishment systems that are fair and swift. Only the worst of the worst will be killed by the state; no innocents will be sent to death row or executed; real defense lawyers will be provided to people on trial for their lives. This is what the politicians will tell us. But California and Florida and Texas and Pennsylvania and the others all thought they would be different, too.

Once the legal machinery of death is fired up, it takes on an inertia and a momentum all its own. A narrow death penalty statute will be broadened over time, as more and more categories of crimes and classes of criminals become death-eligible and there will be calls for speedier and speedier executions.

I've always admired Vermont for its independent, maverick nature. It doesn't need the death penalty to stain its reputation.

New criminal justice study in PA?

2006-01-20T23:32:00.000-05:00

We just got word today that Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) is going to introduce a bill that would create an "innocence commission" to study the underlying reasons why innocent people are convicted in PA. (We can already tell him the reasons, but feel free to carry forth.) Greenleaf is getting aggressive with a press conference Monday that will include Thomas Doswell of Allegheny County, who spent 19 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, and hearings already scheduled for January 30 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Greenleaf chairs.

Stay tuned.

NAACP's Gordon to push for moratorium

2006-01-19T10:44:00.000-05:00

It's nice to hear strong words from NAACP president Bruce Gordon on the death penalty.

We are going to make our position and presence known in every state, every time a prisoner is set to be executed. We will call governors, we will lobby legislatures. I intend to mobilize the NAACP around this -- we feel strongly about it, and we're going to be stronger about keeping it front and center.

Washington Post: Civil rights leader presses a full agenda

Now, much like the US Conference of Catholic Bishop's Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty, we'll have to wait and see if this trickles down to the state and local level.

DAs want to continue executing the mentally retarded

2006-01-19T10:33:00.000-05:00

This action alert came in on Tuesday from Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Dear friends,

It has been more than three years since the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the execution of the mentally retarded in the Atkins v. Virginia decision. In that decision, the court left the details of how this horrendous act would be stopped to the states, and Pennsylvania's legislature has yet to act.

Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court chastised the General Assembly for failing to implement legislation on this issue, and our friends who work at the capitol expect the legislature to act when it returns to session next week.

While the PA Supreme Court defined mental retardation using definitions from two MR advocacy groups, there are two key questions remaining: Who determines retardation and when is that determination made. There are two bills in both chambers of the legislature that address these questions. Senate Bill 631 and House Bill 1410 mandate that the determination on MR is made before trial by the judge, and this legislation is supported by advocates for the mentally retarded, church groups, and civil libertarians. Senate Bill 334 and House Bill 698 require the MR determination be made by the jury after it has convicted the defendant, and these bills are supported by the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

Now is the time to meet with your legislators, call them, and/or write letters and ask them to vote for justice. It is time to end this horrid practice once and for all. Below are two lists. One is legislators from central Pennsylvania that we are focusing on, and the other list is judiciary committee members from the two chambers whose stance on the legislation is unknown.

For those of you outside of central PA and not represented by these judiciary committee members, it cannot hurt to contact your legislators.

The legislators need educated on this issue. At the beginning of the session when these four bills were introduced, some lawmakers signed on to co-sponsor both bills in their respective chamber, not realizing the difference between them.

Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty has a brochure available on its website, which is at this link. If you are not able to download or copy this brochure but would like to use it, contact us at info@cpadp.org. We have copies available.

Thank you for all that you do to oppose the death penalty! Onwards to abolition!

South Central PA legislators
Rep. Steve Nickol (R-Adams)
Bruce Smith (R-Cumberland)
Jerry Nailor (R-Cumberland)
Ron Buxton (D-Harrisburg)
Steve Stetler (D-York)
Ron Miller (R-York)
Bev Mackereth (R-York)
Mark Keller (R-Perry)

Sen. John Gordner (R-Dauphin)
David "Chip" Brightbill (R-Lebanon)
Pat Vance (R-Cumberland)

Uncertain judiciary committee members
Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) chair
Robert Jubelirer (R-Altoona)
Michael O'Pake (D-Berks)
Jane Orie (R-Allegheny)
Michael Stack (D-Philadelphia)
J. Barry Stout (D-Washington)

Rep. Jerry Birmelin (R-Monroe)
Thomas Caltagirone (D-Berks)
Craig Dally (R-Northampton)
John Evans (R-Erie)
Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny)
Michael Gerber (D-Montgomery)
Glen Grell (R-Cumberland)
Kate Harper (R-Montgomery)
Bev Mackereth (R-York)
Stephen Maitland (R-Adams)
Dennis O'Brien (R-Philadelphia) chair
Joseph Petrarca (D-Armstrong)
Don Walko (D-Allegheny)
Jewell Williams (D-Philadelphia)

You can find your legislators' contact info by visiting the website of the PA General Disassembly.

New Jersey: Shut it down!

2006-01-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

Newsday/AP: New Jersey lawmakers approve moratorium on capital punishment

Let's compare New Jersey's situation to Pennsylvania's
Death row population
NJ: 10
PA: 225

Death row exonerations since 1976
NJ: 0
PA: 7

Last execution
NJ: 1963
PA: 1999

If New Jersey can shut it down, so can we.

Mr. Krone goes to Concord

2006-01-12T17:11:00.000-05:00

Ray Krone of York County, who spent more than two years on Arizona's death row and 10 total years in prison for a murder he did not commit, has been one of abolition's great advocates since his release in 2002. Articulate, passionate, and likable, Ray has a way with an audience. On Tuesday, he was in Concord, NH, advocating for a bill that would abolish New Hampshire's death penalty, which hasn't been used since 1939.

The NH legislature passed an abolition bill a few years back, which was vetoed by the then-Governor. The current governor is also threatening a veto.

DNA confirms Coleman's guilt

2006-01-12T16:57:00.000-05:00

Washington Post: DNA tests confirm guilt of executed man

As I stated before, the focus is on possible wrongful executions more than ever. A Missouri case has been reopened in which Larry Griffin was executed in 1995. The case of Ruben Cantu and the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, both in Texas, both strongly suggest that the killing capital of the country may have killed the innocent.

The heat is on, and prosecutors know it. This house of cards is swaying.

"There is no proof.." blah, blah, blah

2006-01-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

Death penalty supporters regularly state that there is "no proof" that an innocent person has been executed and the 122 exonerees are proof that the system "works". Well, I can safely say that in my five years in the anti-death penalty movement I cannot recall a year like 2005 in which there was so much mainstream media focus on possible wrongful executions.

Abolish the Death Penalty has a good post on this issue and considers it a look ahead to 2006.
The innocence argument: A tipping point in 2006?

Mumia's case now "on the fast track"

2006-01-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm a month behind, but this message has come in from Robert Bryan, lead attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal:

Today (Dec 6) the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued the most important decision affecting my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, since the lower federal court ruling in December 2001. An order was issued this morning that the court will accept for review the following issues, all of which are of enormous constitutional significance and go to the very essence of Mumia's right to a fair trial due process of law, and equal protection of the law under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

CLAIM 14: Whether appellant was denied his constitutional rights due to the prosecution's trial summation.

CLAIM 16: Whether the Commonwealth's use of peremptory challenges at trial violated appellant's constitutional rights under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).

CLAIM 29: Whether appellant was denied due process during post-conviction proceedings as a result of alleged judicial bias.

CLAIM 16 concerns the prosecutorial use of racism in jury selection. The record establishes beyond question that racism is a major thread that has run through this case since Mumia's 1981 arrest, and continues to today.

CLAIM 14 relates to the guilt phase. It includes the prosecutor's argument that if convicted Mumia would have "appeal after appeal." That comment effectively lessened the burden of the jurors, and turned the concept of reasonable doubt and presumption of innocence on its head.

CLAIM 29 is about the bias and incredible racism of Judge Albert Sabo, the trial judge. Unfortunately, it is limited to his conduct at the 1995 evidentiary (PCRA) hearing, rather than his monstrous behavior at trial. This restriction is because all of the prior attorneys mistakenly did not attack Sabo's misconduct at trial, an unfortunate oversight and mistake.

The court has also issued a briefing schedule. The case is now on the fast track, as I have been predicting. The opening briefs are due to be filed by January 17, 2006.

Today we achieved a great victory in the campaign to win a new trial and the eventual freedom of Mumia.

Your support, and activism, are badly needed and appreciated.

With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan

Innocents Assistance Fund: Help Harold Wilson

2006-01-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

The Innocents Assistance Fund has undertaken a new project to help recently exonerated Harold Wilson. The message below came in from IAF:

For nearly two months now, Harold Wilson has tasted the freedom that has eluded him for 16 years. As you know, Harold was acquitted at retrial on November 15, and his case raised many of the problems associated with the death penalty in Pennsylvania- ineffective representation for the poor, prosecutorial misconduct, and the impact of race.

If you follow the stories of the exonerated, you know that life on the outside is often as hard for them as life on the inside. The exonerated struggle to gain life's basics while, at the same time, adjusting to a world that has passed them by while they were incarcerated.

With this in mind, and recognizing that we just recently raised funds for William Nieves' family, we appeal to you now to help Harold with some of life's basics. His needs are many, and the Innocents Assistance Fund feels that it can try to assist him with some of those needs.

We are asking you to help us with a clothing drive and a "driving drive" for Harold. First, he is in need of some basic clothing items. They are:
a winter coat- size 3X
work boots for construction- size 13 wide
"possibly" a suit- 46 Tall jacket, 46" waist, inseam? (he's 6' 1")

In addition, transportation is often a struggle for the exonerated. They don't have thousands of dollars or any credit to buy a car. Since he lives in Philadelphia, Harold has access to public transportation through SEPTA, so the Innocents Assistance Fund is holding a "driving drive" to sponsor monthly (or weekly) SEPTA passes for Harold. A weekly pass is $18.75 and a monthly pass is $70.

If you can help with the clothing drive or the driving drive, please send the items or checks to:
Innocents Assistance Fund
c/o Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty
315 Peffer Street
Harrisburg, PA 17102

The Innocents Assistance Fund is a project of CPADP, an IRS-registered 501-c-3 organization, and all donations to the Fund are tax-deductible.

You can read, listen to, or view an interview with Harold at Democracy Now's website: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/20/1434244

Finally, there is currently a bill before the state House of Representatives, introduced by Rep. Michael McGeehan (D-Philadelphia), that would compensate the wrongly convicted. Contact your representative and senator today and ask them to do right by the exonerated. Find the contact info for your legislators at:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/

PA Supreme Court gets it right AND wrong on retarded

2006-01-02T17:48:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading the PA Supreme Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Joseph Miller. The court both got it right and got it wrong in this decision. There are broad implications on the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally retarded, and there are implications in the case of Joey Miller of Steelton.

Let's start with the good news. Basically, the court put its boot in the ass of the state legislature, a feeling the legislature must be getting used to at this point. It's been 3.5 years since the Atkins v. Virginia decision which banned the execution of the mentally retarded. The SCOTUS left the dirty details to the states, and PA's General Disassembly has done little on the issue. In 2003, the Senate passed a bill that set standards that would truly end the execution of the mentally retarded, i.e. determination made pre-trial by the judge, by a vote of 48-1, but the House didn't act on it and instead passed a version preferred by the district attorneys.

The PASC said, "Enough, get it done," in this decision. We applaud them for that.

However, vacating the decision of the appeals court to vacate Miller's death sentence was absurd. At Miller's 1997 trial, not only did the defense experts testify that Miller is mentally retarded but so did the prosecution's experts. The Court basically said that because the experts were testifying that Miller is "fucntioning at the mentally retarded or borderline retarded range" that there is still doubt about whether or not he qualifies for relief under Atkins.

The topper in this circus comes, as usual, from the local DA, in this case Eddie Marsico (MarSickO, for our purposes). MarSickO said this to the AP:

Certainly we would never seek to execute anyone who we believed was mentally retarded in the sense that they had significant cognitive and adaptive impairments."

But let's take a ride in our Way Back Machine. In March, 2002, three months before the Atkins decision, the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association testified against SB26, the bill that passed the Senate 48-1 a year later. And who sits on the Executive Committee of the PDAA? That's right, Eddie MarSickO.

Back from death row

2005-12-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

(I'm cross-posting again with Nasty Little Man.)

Well, I'm back after a 525 mile round-trip jaunt. I left early this morning while it was still dark. That was fitting because I felt like I was driving into the unknown. I didn't know what to expect this day. Appropriately, I took a route I had never driven before, which seemed symbolic, as I took I-70 and I-68 across western Maryland. (Of course, I took that route just to avoid tolls.)

Along the way, there was a pit stop in Cumberland, Maryland, in search of a good cup of coffee. Although I know nothing about Cumberland, it gives the appearance of one of those towns with a story similar to so many towns in the northeast. It's best days appear to be behind it. Many older brick buildings, empty storefronts, other stores that obviously haven't changed their marquees for decades. It's gritty, and the dreary skies and my own melancholy about visiting a prison probably added to that effect. It seemed only right that Bruce Springsteen was playing in the cafe that I walked into for coffee.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a coffee snob. I don't need to have Starbucks, but it's got to be quality coffee. Well, when I walked in to the cafe, there was one of those two-burner industrial models that is in every office in America. It wasn't looking good, but I bought a cup, anyway.

On my way out of town, what to my eyes did appear but the Queen City Creamery and Coffee Shop. It appeared that the quality coffee I craved was before me. When I walked in, behold, all of the signs of quality coffee were there- a menu with various lattes, cappucinos, and cafe au laits, the flavor syrup bottles on the wall. They were even playing Sirius Satellite Radio, which I was seriously missing from my car since I had a rental. Of course, even with these options, the house blend has been my choice of late. It must have something to do with taking the middle path.

After a stop in Morgantown, WV, for lunch, it was off to the prison. This is a relatively new prison, less than 15 years old, and its look is similar to other public buildings. The main entrance and other parts of the building are topped with the pyramid that is popular in the construction of new schools.

The main lobby is like other state buildings with bright flourescent lights, a large main desk, and rows of cushioned seats. Walking the halls you could feel like you're in a school or a hospital with the cinder block walls, tiled floor, and flourescent lights. Of course, one look at the three fences, spirals of razor wire, and sliding steel doors and it's obvious this is no school. (Then again, the kids at the residential school where I used to work called it a "prison" all the time.)

I have to be honest at this point: The visit was not as earth-shattering or life-changing as I thought. The guards were either pleasant or non-expressive. They were certainly respectful and helpful. And the prisoner I visited is very social and does not have some of the mental and/or social deficiencies that many prisoners have. He's also been in a long time so he is adjusted. I'll keep the contents of our conversation private, but I will say that it wasn't any different than conversations I have with other activists. This activist just happened to be wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs and was sitting behind a double-paned window and talking through a vent between the window and wall. And this activist is also living with a death sentence.

As I headed out, I thought about why it wasn't as heavy an experience as I thought it would be, and it dawned on me. Everyone I encountered this day- the guards, the prisoner, other visitors- are all human, just like the rest of us, with their own dreams and hopes and fears. It's a reminder that regardless of our situation, our race, our religion, our nationality, we all share that common bond of humanity.

So I've done it and will probably do it again. I can add "visited a death row prisoner" to my list of other interesting life experiences, like attending the Super Bowl and drinking quintuple espressos with a former Congressman. It was another adventure....

peace

Live from death row

2005-12-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

Well, not exactly. I'm at home, but tomorrow morning I'll leave home at 6am to do something I've never done before- visit a prison. This particular prison is SCI-Greene in Waynesburg, PA, the home of the majority of PA's capital prisoners, and I'm going to visit an inmate who is living hell on earth, living with a death sentence. It seems only appropriate that my first prison visit would be to death row. I never attended a court proceeding until about two months ago, and it was a huge trial, one that's been in the news a lot lately. Might as well dive into the deep end with the big kids.

When you see descriptions of blogs, they are often described as online "diaries". I like for NLM to be more like an editorial page, but in this case, I'm going to try to transcribe some of my thoughts and emotions, both before and after. This is important enough that I'm cross-posting with Nasty Little Man.

For some reason, I'm drawn to criminology and the justice system and am especially both fascinated and torn by the way we handle prisoners. I'm not naive enough to think that we can live in some restorative utopia, and I know that criminals need to pay a debt to society. But our pendulum seems to swing too far in the other direction. As I write this, legislators are cooking up ways to continue a prisoner's punishment even after his/her sentence has ended. A recent example is the attempt in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to take away voting rights from ex-felons, who currently can vote the moment they walk out of prison. This is an important piece of their reintegration into society, but some legislators want to continue to pound them.

We can put greater energy in trying to help the incarcerated improve themselves and prepare them for post-prison life. I'd guess my feelings on this come from my spiritual background, both the Christianity of my childhood and the Buddhism of my adult life. Jesus fraternized with the "least among us", including criminals. In the dharma, we keep faith in the belief that all of us have a true self, which is gentle and compassionate. Even criminals have this true self. We also believe that we are never the same person from minute-to-minute. We are in constant flow and change. Thus, a man who commits a crime, even a violent crime, at 22 is not the same man at 42 or 52 or whatever age he is at release.

According to legend, the Buddha even took in the serial killer Angulimala as a monk (PDF), and the story goes that he became a fine monk. When a representative from the government visited the Buddha to ask him about Angulimala, the monk was the first person he encountered, not realizing that he was Angulimala, and the official remarked to the Buddha what a nice man he was.

While the dharma teaches that we have a true self, it also teaches that there are consequences for our actions, so I believe in a middle path for prisoners that is neither too heavy-handed nor too lenient.

I don't know what to expect during this visit, and I will keep an open mind. That is not a naive open mind but instead a recognition that anything could happen. The prison personnel could be difficult, rude, and disrespectful or they could be quite nice. When I walk into that prison, a feeling of dread could overcome me or it might just seem like another building (minus the razor wire, of course). I will be ready for anything. Fortunately, the prisoner I am visiting is a conversationalist and is socially aware, so we will not be lacking for chatter.

I will be sure to report back tomorrow night when I return home.

Walter Ogrod: Innocent and sentenced to death

2005-12-29T13:43:00.000-05:00

I recently received correspondence from Walter Ogrod, a prisoner on Pennsylvania's death row. Walter sent me a copy of a two-part Philadelphia City Paper series on his case from June, 2004, so last night I sat down and read the articles. Although we abolitionists certainly know that there are more innocent people on death row, it's still stunning to read the individual stories.

You can read all the dirty details in the articles, but here's the basic breakdown. Walter was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1988 murder of a four-year-old girl in his NE Philly neighborhood. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. A witness who spoke with the killer (not knowing at the time that he was the killer) described someone 5-8 inches shorter than Walter and with different color hair.

Walter was convicted in part by a confession he claimed was coerced out of him by two Philadelphia detectives. He visited the police station after working an all-night shift and had been awake a total of 30 hours when he made this so-called confession.

At trial, the defense shot holes in the case. Walter was seconds away from walking away a free man from this nightmare, but one juror blurted out, "I disagree," as the jury foreman was reading the "not guilty" verdict. The judge declared a mistrial, and in the interim between the mistrial and the retrial, a jailhouse snitch emerged to weave a tall tale about Walter's connection to the crime.

You can read all the horrifying details here:
Snitch Work Part 1
Snitch Work Part 2

I'm currently reading Executed on a Technicality by David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston, which has similar stories of breakdowns in the criminal justice system. I can only read so much at a time because eventually I just can't take it. A copy of a Star Wars book is always nearby for lighter reading. Reading about these injustices can start to weigh on you after awhile.

Harold Wilson talks about his experience

2005-12-27T13:49:00.000-05:00

Democracy Now has an excellent interview with Harold Wilson, PA's most recent death row exoneree, who was acquitted at retrial in November. You can read the transcript, listen to it, or watch it.

There are multiple issues to address in Harold's interview. For now, one of the most pressing is the way the exonerated are treated. In Harold's words:

And I signed the processing papers for my release. I was given a copy of my release papers. I was given 65 cent and a token, and I was told that I couldn't leave the facility with SCI Green State Correctional DOC on my clothes, so they gave me clothes to wear and a jacket, and I walked out the back door of the county prison at 9:30 at night onto State Road with 65 cent and a token and no other means of support or survival.

New Year's resolution: More abolition blogging

2005-12-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

Along with more meditation and more sleep, I'm vowing to do more abolition blogging in 2006. Four major stories have passed me by in the last month:
The execution of Tookie Williams
The revelation of the wrongful execution of Ruben Cantu
The exoneration of Harold Wilson of Philadelphia
The 1000th execution in the U.S. since 1976

I'll do better in '06. I swear.

The least dp supporters could do is be honest

2005-11-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

Thursday night I had the opportunity to attend a death penalty debate at Dickinson College in Carlisle. This one was entitled "Does the system work?" and featured two attorneys, Robin Maher of the ABA's Death Penalty Representation Project and Syndi Guido of the PA State Police Policy Office.

For veterans of the abolition movement, we can expect the usual arguments. Sometimes supporters of killing manage to surprise me. When discussing both race and the size of PA's death row, Dauphin County DA Ed Marsico once broke down the state's death row without including Philadelphia. That one caught me by surprise. I wasn't aware that Philly had seceded and become the 51st state.

If two sides disagree on a conclusion while discussing the facts, the Abolitionist can respect that. But Guido did something else altogether. She flat-out lied to the audience.

Now, I'm not talking about dishonesty like the discussions around deterrence. DP supporters can point to statistics and studies that appear to be legitimate evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent.

We're also not talking about dishonesty around the impact of race, like when Ed Rendell and DAs argue that PA's minority rate on death row is so high because it is minorities who are committing first-degree murder. (Of course, they then fail to mention that it is death-qualified juries, which are potentially racked with bias, that determine if the person is charged with first-degree murder.)

No, no, no. Guido just did not tell the truth, straight-up. First, she claimed that there are more whites on death row than minorities. This is a bald-faced lie. In PA, the minority death row rate is 69%, second-highest in the nation. When questioned on this in the Q&A, she said that she was referring to national stats, but even nationally, the minority rate is 55%.

Mind you, earlier in the debate when Maher mentioned facts and figures from other states, Guido pulled out the good ol' "not in my state" card, as if Pennsylvania's capital system is running like a well oiled machine.

Guido also had the nerve to tell the audience, 140 strong and mostly college students, that "life doesn't necessarily mean life" and went on about the governor's power to commute a sentence. Maybe this is technically true, but this is fear-mongering at its worst. A) As was pointed out in the Q&A by yours truly, the only alternative to the death penalty for first degree murder is life without the possibility of parole and LWOP is also the mandatory sentence for second-degree murder. B) She failed to mention that a commutation requires a unanimous vote from the board of pardons before it even gets to the gov. That board includes the attorney general, who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to execute the mentally retarded. No commutation is getting to the governor, short of Jesus Christ himself telling the board on video that the defendant is innocent. Even then, the AG would ask to see the holes in JC's hands just to be sure.

Besides, the governor's power to commute is an outgrowth of our system of government. Maybe Ms. Guido has heard of "checks and balances". It's yet another one of those "technicalities" set up by the Founders and ensures that one branch of government doesn't accumulate too much power.

This is what supporters of the death penalty are left with. They can't win on the facts, so they're left with fear-mongering, half-truths, and straight lies. Eventually, the public will see through their charade.

Attorneys to debate death penalty at Dickinson College

2005-11-02T01:09:00.000-05:00

Robin M. Maher, Esq., the director of the American Bar
Association Death Penalty Representation Project, and Syndi
L. Guido, Esq., the director of the Pennsylvania State Police
Policy Office, will debate the fairness and the accuracy of the
death penalty system at Dickinson College on Thursday,
November 10, at 7pm. The debate will be held at the Anita
Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium and will be moderated by Harry
Pohlman, chair of the college’s political science department.

Here's the press release from Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty. (It's a PDF file.)

William Nieves' family needs our help

2005-10-14T23:18:00.000-04:00

Dear friends,

When William Nieves was released from prison on October 23, 2000, after six years on death row for a crime he did not commit, Philadelphia County gave him a SEPTA token and a set of clothes. At 1 A.M.

In the five years between his release and his passing on October 8, William had ongoing health problems, problems stemming from his wrongful incarceration, during which he claimed he did not receive proper medical care. This lack of care is ultimately what killed him at the young age of 39. William also did not have health insurance, and his numerous doctor's visits and hospital stays created a tremendous financial burden on himself and his family.

And now his family has the additional costs of funeral and burial arrangements to say goodbye to their son, brother, and father who left us much too early.

Because death penalty abolitionists are so often such kind-hearted people, it was inevitable that we would get this question: How can we help? William's family has not asked us for help and, as far as we can tell, had every intention of finding some way to get through this financial burden.

However, after a few of us discussed it over the course of the last two days, we have created a way for you to help William's family. Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty has created The Innocents Assistance Fund. To contribute, simply make a check payable to "Innocents Assistance Fund" and note in the memo "William Nieves memorial". Checks can be sent to:
Innocents Assistance Fund
c/o Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty
315 Peffer Street
Harrisburg, PA 17102

All donations to the Innocents Assistance Fund are tax-deductible.

It is worth publicly noting those who helped to make this possible. Thank you to Karl Keys of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who is also a friend of the dp abolitionist movement in PA and who voiced the idea. Former PA Abolitionists staffers Jeff Garis and Kurt Rosenberg helped facilitate the process and find a way to get this done. And CPADP treasurer John Hargreaves assisted in the logistical aspects.

If you created a list of those who have played a key role in the abolitionist movement in Pennsylvania in the last five years, William would have to be on that list. His passion, his dedication, and his perseverance through a nightmare of an experience were qualities we all admired. We will miss him and will always remember him as we continue to strive toward the end of capital punishment in our great Commonwealth.

peace,
Andy Hoover
President, CPADP
Executive Director, PA Abolitionists

The Innocents Assistance Fund is a project of Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty, a 501-c-3 tax-exempt organization. All donations to the Innocents Assistance Fund are tax-deductible. For more information on William's story, visit our website at www.cpadp.org.

William will not be forgotten

2005-10-14T00:16:00.000-04:00

If you named the most important people in the anti-death penalty movement in PA in the last five years, William Nieves would have to be on the list, maybe at the top.

I had the honor of meeting William just a few weeks after his release. I was only a few months into involvement in the anti-dp movement, so I was quite green. William and I met at a speech given by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, in Harrisburg. We didn't talk a lot, and I just remember making an awkward comment about getting his life back on track. I remember thinking, 'What do you say to a guy who just faced execution for something he didn't do?'

William and I crossed paths a few more times after that. He spoke in Harrisburg at the annual meeting of CPADP and Legislative Initiative Against the Death Penalty in October, 2001. That was memorable because a few off-duty Harrisburg police officers attended and challenged William during the Q&A session. It wasn't hostile, but it certainly wasn't friendly.

But who could blame William for being pissed at the police? In the killing of Eric McAiley, the crime for which William was convicted, they were told by three witnesses that the shooter was someone of a different race. I'd be a little teed up, too, if the police knew along that I was not the guy.

William visited Harrisburg again in the fall of 2002 to cap off the Voices of Innocence tour, which was a speaking tour around the state involving William, Ray Krone, and a few members of PA Abolitionists' staff. William gave a rousing speech on the steps of the capitol, which was most memorable for his ire toward our state legislators and his statement that they were cowering behind their desks, afraid to face the protestors outside. That day finished off with a march on and visit in Governor Schweiker's office, although it was left to the Guv's staff to actually meet with the innocents.

Perhaps the most appalling moment in William's post-release life that I witnessed came during his appearance on WITF-TV's "Smart Talk", a public affairs show on our local PBS affiliate, within a year of his release. William appeared with Cumberland County DA Skip Ebert, WGAL-TV's Rob Lang, and former Attorney General Ernie Preate (I think Ernie was there). On the show that night, Ebert claimed, in so many words, that William had gotten away with murder. Initially, Ebert made some implications, but Lang, being the TV reporter, wouldn't let him get away and asked, "Are you saying this man got away with murder?" After a long pause, Ebert didn't come right out and say, "Yes," but he said enough.

That's how DAs operate. They circle the wagons and protect their own, even in the face of obvious injustice. Prosecutors have been known to continue insisting on an exonerated man's guilt even after DNA evidence has cleared him. In Ray Krone's lawsuit against Maricopa County and the city of Phoenix, Ray claimed that prosecutors offered to take the death penalty off the table for Kenneth Phillips, the man who matched the DNA evidence from the crime scene, if Phillips said that Ray was with him when he killed Kim Ancona. Incredible.

Then, when faced with the obvious evidence that a man is innocent, the DAs will claim that the system "worked". Yeah, and who fought the system all the way to its highest levels in order to keep that innocent man in jail? Prosecutors! William is a perfect example. He first won a new trial from the trial judge in 1997 but had to wait three years for that new trial while the Philly DA's office fought it all the way to the PA Supreme Court. DAs say the system worked, but they do everything they can to be sure that it doesn't work.

I have to finish with my most memorable William moment. In 2002, during a gubernatorial debate in Harrisburg, as Green Party candidate Michael Morrill railed against the death penalty, William and Ray walked on stage and handed GOP candidate Mike Fisher and Democrat Ed Rendell t-shirts from the Voices of Innocence tour. Fisher looked scared. Rendell had a slight smile on his face, and William patted Rendell's shoulder as he walked off-stage. That was classic.

William and Ray and other exonerees who have been through it personify all of the problems with the death penalty. William will not be forgotten.

William Nieves: 1965-2005

2005-10-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

Pennsylvania Abolitionists
United Against the Death Penalty
Post Office Box 605
Harrisburg, PA 17108
pauadp@pa-abolitionists.org
www.pa-abolitionists.org

October 10, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: pauadp@pa-abolitionists.org

“William Nieves will not be forgotten”
Death of an Innocent

In a tragic loss for the abolitionist community, death penalty opponents around the
Commonwealth this week mourn the death of William Nieves. William, who spent six years on Pennsylvania’s death row for a crime he did not commit, died Saturday in Philadelphia. He was 39.

“William Nieves will not be forgotten,” said Andy Hoover, executive director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty. “We admired him for his perseverance during his wrongful conviction and for his strength of conviction upon his release.

“His case is an example of government run amok.”

William was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994, despite a complete lack of physical evidence to tie him to the crime and only one witness who accused him. After researching the law during his imprisonment, he learned that he had received poor advice from his attorney, who was paid a total of $2,500 for the case. The trial judge ordered a new trial, but the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office fought the order for three years, taking the case all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in William’s favor.

While preparing for the second trial, William and his new lawyer learned that key evidence had been withheld from the defense. Three eyewitnesses had told Philadelphia police that the shooter was short and African-American. William was Puerto Rican and of average height. Several months after the murder, one of the witnesses was charged with an unrelated crime, and her story suddenly changed to finger William.

After the jury heard this evidence, William won his acquittal on October 20, 2000. After his release, he traveled the country and the world telling his story and advocating against the death penalty.

“Some will say that William’s case shows that the system works,” Hoover said. “When a jury convicts and sentences to death an innocent man, the system fails. When a man loses six years of his life for something he didn’t do, the system fails. When a father loses his relationship with his daughter because he’s been wrongly imprisoned, the system fails.

“William’s case shows that government officials cannot be trusted with such awesome power.”

William’s health deteriorated after his release. He suffered medical complications due to problems that were untreated during his time in prison. In fact, as he told it, he was never informed of his condition by corrections officials.

When he was released in 2000, William was the third Pennsylvanian found to be innocent after serving time on death row in the modern era of the death penalty (post-1978). Since then, three more innocents have been exonerated. In that same time frame, the Commonwealth has executed three mentally ill defendants who gave up their appeals.

Pennsylvania has the nation’s fourth-largest death row with 224 condemned prisoners. The state also has the dubious distinction of having the second-highest minority death row rate at 69%. In 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias recommended a moratorium on executions due to concerns with bias against minorities and the poor. In 2004, Nicholas Yarris won his release from PA’s death row after a stunning 21 years in prison when DNA evidence proved his innocence.

####

Life means life

2005-10-03T23:46:00.000-04:00

The New York Times yesterday focused on an issue of contention for many abolitionists- the severity of life sentences. The article focuses on the case of Jackie Lee Thompson of Tioga County, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1970 for the death of Charlotte Goodwin. Both Charlotte and Jackie were 15 at the time.

The Times uses a case where there is some gray area, largely due to Jackie's age at the time of the crime, but it zeroes in on what is a difficulty for many opponents of the death penalty. As a separate criminal justice reform issue, some abolitionists also oppose life without parole.

While CPA-A appreciates the compassion of these folks and recognizes that Jackie's case is one where greater consideration is needed, one fact is clear. If we are to abolish the death penalty, we must offer life without parole as an alternative. Those who support the death penalty do so largely for two reasons- fear and a need for retribution. LWOP offers them a feeling of safety and severity in the punishment. If we get wishy-washy about LWOP, we will not reach our ultimate goal.

In fact, in their book Who owns death?, Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell argue that as the citizenry becomes convinced that life really does mean life, death sentences will decrease dramatically, leading us to a point where we may even have de facto abolition.

Pro-DP is pro-life?????

2005-10-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

Supporters of the death penalty never cease to amaze. If you want to kill people because you want revenge, so be it. If you're naive enough to think it's a deterrent, go do some homework. If you're just plain scared, well, that's a shame, especially since politicians play on those fears, but we can all relate to the basic human emotion of fear. (Aside: Is fear an emotion or a state of mind?)

But one would be hard-pressed to claim that they support the death penalty because they are pro-life. And, yet, Kevin Elmer of the Springfield (MO) News Leader appears to do just that. In an op-ed from September 11, Elmer says the following:

In America we do love life. There are raging debates over the existence of the death penalty for those who commit murder.

From there, Elmer goes on to touch on a wide variety of life issues: abortion, stem-cell research, Americans with Disabilities Act, social programs to aid the poor, etc. At this point, it's hard to tell if he's suggesting a particular viewpoint or just laying out some of the life issues we face as a nation.

But then Elmer says this:

Americans may not agree on these laws and policies, but they are examples of the compassion and values of our country.

Huh? Am I just completely misreading this? Or is he actually suggesting that the death penalty is an example "of the compassion and values of our country"? Death penalty supporters are a lot of things, but I don't think "pro-life" is one of them.

A&E's Kurtis, Krone to talk in York

2005-09-01T00:15:00.000-04:00

Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty
A chapter of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against
the Death Penalty

315 Peffer Street • Harrisburg, PA 17102 •
info@cpadp.org • www.cpadp.org

September 1, 2005

MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: info@cpadp.org

A&E’s Kurtis, Krone to speak in York
One-time death row inmate is focus of former newsman’s
book

Bill Kurtis of the A&E network’s “American Justice”
and “Cold Case Files” will visit south central
Pennsylvania on Wednesday, September 14 at a joint
appearance with former Arizona death row inmate Ray
Krone.  “The Death Penalty on Trial: An Evening with
Bill Kurtis and Ray Krone” will be held at the Union
Lutheran Church, which is located at 408 West Market
Street in York.

The evening is free and open to the public and will
include a post-discussion book-signing of Kurtis’s
book “The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American
Justice”, which focuses on Krone’s case and the case
of Thomas Kimbell, Jr. of Lawrence County, who was
also wrongly sentenced to death.  While focusing on
the two cases, Kurtis, who spent three decades as a
reporter and anchor for CBS News, also chronicles his
own journey from death penalty supporter to
abolitionist.

The books will be sold at a cost of $25, and proceeds
will cover expenses.

Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty,
Legislative Initiative Against the Death Penalty, the
York chapter of Amnesty International, and the York
chapter of the Pennsylvania Prison Society are
co-sponsoring the event.

For more information about CPADP and about the death
penalty, visit our brand-new website, www.cpadp.org.

####

Prosecutors' tricks can lead to death

2005-09-01T00:11:00.000-04:00

Within the surreal world of capital punishment, district attorneys are usually trailing public opinion. They’re the last to get the memo. When it comes to the death penalty, prosecutors are like the guy still wearing leisure suits and listening to K-Tel records.

After all, it was the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association that testified in March, 2002, against a bill that would have ended the execution of the mentally retarded at a time when three of every four Americans opposed the practice. Three months later, the U.S. Supreme Court ended this horrid torture. It was district attorneys who supported the execution of child offenders despite, again, about a 75% rate of opposition from the public. The Supreme Court ended that practice earlier this year.

Across the nation in 2004, death sentences hit their lowest rate since the reinstatement of the death penalty, continuing a five year decline. The mid-1990s was once described by Dr. Terry Madonna, professor at Franklin & Marshall College, as the “hang ‘em high, hang ‘em often” period, and in 1994, Pennsylvania juries sentenced 21 defendants to die at the hands of the state. In 2004, only four defendants received the death sentence in the Commonwealth.

Despite the public’s growing doubt about the death penalty, district attorneys continue to pursue death at an alarming rate. Even wanna-be prosecutors haven’t gotten the message that half the nation prefers life without parole over death (according to polls). Candidates for district attorney in both Lebanon County and Bucks County have included pledges to increase pursuit of death in their platforms. Following the trend away from capital punishment, neither county has condemned a prisoner to die since the mid-1990s.

Prosecutors have a full arsenal of tricks at their disposal in their zealous pursuit of death, and our local officials are no strangers to the myriad ways that prosecutors win death sentences. In the Easter-Burton murders of 2001 in Harrisburg, investigators had a difficult time finding a suspect because all of the witnesses told them that the perpetrator wore a mask. Conveniently, a witness eventually came forward- a witness who just happened to be up on unrelated charges- and claimed that the mask briefly slipped off the shooter. Based largely on the testimony of this witness, who was a criminal himself, a Dauphin County jury sentenced Samuel Randolph to death for that crime in May, 2003. Despite his checkered past, which he admits to and regrets, Randolph insists that he did not commit the crime for which he is sitting on death row.

Squeezing witnesses who face unrelated charges is a particularly dastardly technique. In the case of William Nieves in Philadelphia, investigators were told by several eyewitnesses that they were looking for two short African-Americans. Nieves is a Puerto Rican of average height. Ten months later, one of the witnesses was charged with solicitation, and her story suddenly changed to finger Nieves. Part of her questioning included a photo of Nieves from several years prior that had been darkened. Nieves was sentenced to death in 1994 but won his freedom at retrial in 2000.

We’ve all used white-out as a handy tool when we make a mistake. Who knew it could be handy for a murder investigation? In an Allentown arson case in which three children died, their mother told investigators at the scene that their father had been sleeping and that one child had told her that another child was playing with matches again. Investigators, however, used white-out to eliminate this part of her statement, and then re-interviewed her at the hospital while she was heavily medicated. This child had a history of arson, but evidence from Children & Youth Services about this was withheld from the defense.

The father, Dennis Counterman, sits in jail today, convicted and sentenced to death for the death of his three children. In a moment of common sense amidst a sea of madness, an appeals court tossed out the sentence and conviction, and Counterman awaits a retrial. Prosecutors, however, are appealing the decision.

It is these types of stories that have led to the public’s newfound doubts about capital punishment. In a sense, perhaps abolitionists should thank prosecutors for their over-pursuit of death. After ineffective defense counsel, prosecutorial and/or police misconduct is the second-highest reason for appeals courts to overturn death sentences and convictions, and this plants the seed of doubt in the minds of citizens. However, unlike prosecutors, abolitionists aren’t willing to manipulate the lives of others in the name of our cause. Lives are at stake, and as the public increasingly stands down from the death penalty, we expect district attorneys to follow their lead.

And onward to #41....

2005-08-03T23:20:00.000-04:00

Eddie couldn't sign warrant 41 fast enough. And he even brags about it on the commonwealth's website. Classy.

Eddie hits the big 4-0!

2005-08-03T21:53:00.000-04:00

Ah, 40. It truly is a landmark. It's a time when one can reflect on accomplishments achieved and goals planned. It's the next big mark for the Abolitionist, who has eight years to go before hitting the number.

Unfortunately, for Big Eddie Rendell, 40 is not a reason for celebration. That's right, friends, the Guv signed death warrant numero cuarenta last Wednesday. He managed to find another white man, which is no small feat when signing a warrant in PA. White men are tough to come by on death row when your state has the second-highest minority death sentence rate in the country.

So #40 is for Daniel Saranchak of Schuylkil County. Sound familiar? He should. Saranchak was Tom Ridge's political football in 2000. Ridge, who never met a death warrant he didn't like, scheduled Saranchak's execution for the day after Election Day in 2000.

Anywho, many abolitionists walked away that night from their various outposts thinking that the state had killed a man, but Saranchak missed the needle by 10 minutes. Now, for the fifth time, the Quaker state, which is truly ironic when discussing the death penalty, is attempting to kill Mr. Saranchak. As the Abolitionist remembers from 2000, Mr. Saranchak killed his grandmother and uncle because he thought he was in a war....but I'm sure he's perfectly competent to meet the executioner.

Saranchak's execution is scheduled for September 22. Keep your ears open.

When the Abolitionist hears "40", he often thinks of U2's song based on Psalm 40:

I waited patiently for the lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He lifted me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?

How long, indeed.......

The courts back us up

2005-06-28T14:54:00.000-04:00

First, let me acknowledge that the whole "Lynne Abraham must go" thing didn't work out.

Meanwhile, David Rose of PA Abolitionists and Lehigh Valley Committee Against State Killing is submitting the op-ed below to area newspapers. Readers of the Abolitionist get a sneak-peek (as opposed to a "sneak and peek") of the unedited version:

Court decisions reaffirm abolitionists’ arguments
by David Rose
spokeperson, Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty
member, Lehigh Valley Committee Against State Killing

In two decisions rendered in June, the United States Supreme Court dealt with race and the death penalty and the quality of defense for poor defendants and, in the process, reaffirmed arguments long made by death penalty abolitionists. In addition, a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court gives us a reminder of the ongoing, sloth-like movement by the state legislature.

The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the death sentence for Ronald Rompilla of Allentown due to ineffective assistance of counsel. Rompilla was sentenced to die for the murder of James Scanlon, an Allentown tavern owner, in 1988. Appeals by the defense argued that Rompilla’s trial attorneys, the Lehigh County public defenders, did not research enough of the defendant’s past for mitigating circumstances, which could potentially spare his life, and the high court agreed by a 5-4 majority.

Ineffective assistance of counsel is the number one reason why death sentences are vacated in this country. It is also the top reason why innocent people are sentenced to death. Here in Pennsylvania, the state does not fund public defenders’ offices and provides no funding for appeals by poor defendants.

Predictably, defendants who can’t hire an attorney typically find themselves on the receiving end of a death sentence. 90 percent of those on death row in the Commonwealth were too poor to hire a private attorney. Most public defenders and court-appointed attorneys are good-hearted, hard-working people. Unfortunately, the simple fact is that they are overworked, underpaid, and lacking the resources necessary to provide adequate defense for those whose lives are on the line.

Meanwhile, the impact of race on capital punishment reared its ugly head once again. In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a new trial to Thomas Miller-El of Texas due to strong evidence that suggests that potential jurors were struck by prosecutors solely on the basis of race. During jury selection, 10 of 11 qualified black panelists were removed by prosecutors.

This is nothing new. In fact, a former employee of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office claims that they were trained in this very tactic. The training came complete with a video.

Race plagues the death penalty system in numerous ways. Pennsylvania’s death row minority rate is nearly 70%, which is second-highest in the nation and is nearly 15 percentage points higher than the national average.

The race of the victim shines an even greater glare on the problems with the death penalty. Approximately 50% of murder victims are white, but in more than 80% of capital cases, the victim is white. This clearly sends the message that some in our society feel that white lives are more precious than minority lives.

Finally, on June 22, the state Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Ronald Taylor of Allegheny County. Taylor sits on death row for the murder of three men during a shooting rampage in 2000. The court found no reason to overturn Taylor’s death sentence.

And yet the court did acknowledge that Taylor’s appeals may go on. Why? Because Taylor claims that he is mentally retarded. (And he might be mentally ill, to boot.) One might think that the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the issue of the execution of the mentally retarded in its Atkins v. Virginia decision in 2002, but the court left the states to deal with the details of evaluating a defendant’s mental state and dealing with those sentenced to death prior to the Atkins decision.

Our legislative friends in Harrisburg have yet to deal with the issue a full three years later. They’ve tried to deal with it. In June, 2003, the state Senate passed a bill favored by advocates for the mentally retarded, civil libertarians, church groups, and others by a vote of 48-1. Only Lisa Boscola of Northampton County voted against the bill. That bill never made it through the state House of Representatives.

Today the bill that overwhelmingly passed the state Senate has reappeared in the form of Senate Bill 631, which would allow a judge to determine a defendant’s mental state before trial, and once again, advocates for the mentally retarded, church groups, and civil libertarians are lining up to support the bill. SB 631 currently sits in the judiciary committee, along with a rival bill that would allow a jury to determine mental retardation at the end of the trial. The latter legislation is supported by district attorneys, the attorney general, and others who would prefer to end the execution of the mentally retarded in name but not in practice.

And while all of this is happening in Harrisburg, taxpayer dollars continue to be spent on the appeals of Ronald Taylor because state legislators cannot put the issue to bed once and for all, despite the Supreme Court mandate to do so.

Three cases, three excellent examples of what’s wrong with the broken death penalty system. Even if the citizenry cannot bring itself to support total abolition of capital
punishment, at least it’s clear that the time has come to temporarily shut down the system and decide if it’s worth fixing. As President Bush recently said, if we’re going to err, we should err on the side of life.

David Rose is a spokesperson for Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death
Penalty and is a member of the Lehigh Valley Committee Against State Killing.

Stop her before she tries to kill again!

2005-05-13T08:12:00.000-04:00

Could this be the end of the line for Lynne Abraham, the nation's Deadliest DA of Philadelphia? The Philadelphia Inquirer has endorsed challenger Seth Williams, a former assistant DA, while the Daily News has endorsed Abraham.

Nearly every article that the Abolitionist has read on this race includes a mention of Abraham's zealous pursuit of death. When the Inquirer endorsed Williams, it included this line:

"America's Deadliest D.A." is nationally known for her penchant for seeking the death penalty, but it's not clear whether those high-cost capital prosecutions have any deterrent effect on shootings in Philadelphia.

Even while endorsing Abraham, the DN included this note:

To arrive at that bottom line required a difficult calculation: Abraham's negatives include her bashing of judges, her penchant for over-charging and a too-frequent seeking of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, in the midst of doing some research, the Abolitionist came across an interview from 2000 with Jeff Garis, former executive director of PA Abolitionists, in the Revolutionary Worker Online. The interview included this from Garis (click here for the entire interview):

RW: Philadelphia concentrates a lot of the abuses with the death penalty--a lot of people don't get adequate legal representation, there's widespread prosecutorial misconduct, perjured police testimony, forced confessions. In the 1960s people used to talk about "Mississippi justice" and everybody knew it meant you couldn't get any justice in that state. "Philadelphia justice" is a story most people don't really know about. Could you get into this more?
JG: I think it would be hard to find a city much worse than Philadelphia in terms of its justice system for a whole host of reasons....
Then you go to the prosecutors in this city, where there is aggressive pursuit of death sentences. Why? Well, it's not simply just to get people sentenced to death. It is because if you are seeking a death sentence, you can automatically strike from juries anybody who has qualms about the death penalty. So right away you get to screen out people who might be more reasonable, people who might be more likely to question--you know, well the police said this but something doesn't sound right about it.

If you've got people who are very poor or if you get people who are not extremely rich who get charged with a crime and they face the death penalty, you end up with them having a court-appointed attorney. Their attorney's not getting adequate resources to do the kind of testing that should be done to establish whether or not the person was even there.

You've got a defense attorney who may very well say to you, "Look we can fight this if you want to, but the reality is you're African-American. They're going to stack the jury against you and this jury will probably be ready to sentence you to death. If we plead guilty to second degree murder and plea bargain--even if you're innocent--you can come away with at least keeping your life, even if it's behind bars for the rest of it."

Innocent people get sentenced to death and in order to avoid the risk of getting a death sentence innocent people plead guilty to things that they haven't done and accept life in prison or extremely lengthy prison sentences.

Until about four years ago, the way that the county of Philadelphia handled representation when a person was facing a death sentence was different than if they were facing any other charges. Normally you would have gotten somebody from the public defender's office who was trained in criminal defense, who was getting paid something, and who had some standards and accountability to the people they work for. But if you're facing a death sentence you don't get somebody from the public defender's office. You get a "court-appointed" attorney who may or may not have any experience in criminal defense, let alone capital defense. And it historically has been a system of political patronage, people who are hack lawyers who couldn't actually practice law and make a living at it on their own are connected with some figures in the city government and so they get these little jobs thrown to them. And you don't have to do a good job. You just have to show up and you get your money. After a lot of lobbying, the city finally said OK, we'll let the public defender's office take 20 percent of the representation for people who are facing death sentences. In the last four years, exactly zero people have been sentenced to death when they were represented by the public defender's office. They haven't had anybody end up on death row yet. So you've got a system like that that plays into "Philadelphia justice," as we call it.

Prosecutors have used perjured testimony. And you have prosecutors who have become quite adept at how to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Batson case which said that you could not strike people from juries on the basis of their race. There's a videotape that was used in the Philadelphia district attorney's office, a training session for new prosecutors coming in where a senior ranking prosecutor in the DA's office explained how you can strike people on the basis of race--you just have to come up with some means to cover it up. Because they've been able to strike people from the jury pool you end up with juries that are much more likely to convict.

You've got a lot of really bad judges in this city, judges like the infamous Sabo. Sabo's got more people on death row than any other judge in the country by a long shot. But he's not the only one in this city. There are other judges like Latrone, who has sentenced 15 or 16 people to death. There are quite a few judges like that, and those judges run their courtrooms like their own petty fiefdoms. And when you've got a judge there who is essentially a prosecutor in robes and who controls what information the jurors are going to be allowed to hear, you end up with a system that is rife with injustice.

And then if you want to talk about appealing it, you'd better be ready to face people on the state Supreme Court bench like Ron Castille who used to be the district attorney in Philadelphia and did not feel that the fact that he had been the district attorney should have given anybody pause to consider whether or not he was really unbiased when he cast a vote with the other justices on denying Mumia's appeal to the state Supreme Court.

I think that Philadelphia justice is anything but justice and in a country where we have all kinds of injustice riddling our so-called criminal justice system, Philadelphia may very well be one of the worst.

ACLU-PA steps up

2005-05-13T07:56:00.000-04:00

Much love to Paula Knudsen, staff attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, for today's letter to the editor. Here's the version that Paula sent to the paper:

Editor,

In a recent article, Dave Arnold, who is a candidate for the Republican nomination for District Attorney in Lebanon County, suggested that the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania endorses his opponent, incumbent Deirdre Eshleman. As a non-partisan organization, ACLU-PA does not endorse candidates for office. Instead, we educate the public on issues related to civil liberties and, if necessary, file litigation on those issues. In a recent debate, Mr. Arnold raised two issues of concern to ACLU-PA, the death penalty and defense counsel for the poor.

Whether defending Japanese Americans unfairly interned during World War II or aiding in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the ACLU has always been at the forefront of the civil rights issues of the day. Regrettably, the death penalty in Pennsylvania has become a civil rights issue. The commonwealth’s death row shamefully houses the second-highest minority rate in the country at close to 70%. A majority of those sentenced to death in this state are from Philadelphia, and an incredible 84% of those defendants from Philadelphia are African-American.

In March, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias released a report calling for a wide variety of reform. The committee felt that bias against minorities and the poor was inherent in the state’s system of capital punishment, so it called for a two year moratorium on executions in order to further examine the issue. The committee also noted that 9 of every 10 death row inmates were too poor to afford their own attorney at trial, and while many in our public defenders offices are hard-working, honest litigators, too often they are underpaid, overworked, and lacking the necessary resources.

ACLU-PA does not endorse political candidates. Our number one client is the Bill of Rights.

Sincerely,
Paula K. Knudsen, Esq.
Staff Attorney
ACLU of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg

No need for Lebanon County to fire up the machinery of death

2005-05-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

The following op-ed was submitted to the Lebanon Daily News on Sunday, May 8. It was not submitted in response to LDN's editorial since the Abolitionist just saw that editorial tonight. LDN has thus far opted not to print the column, at least not in its online edition:

In a recent debate between the two Republican candidates for district attorney in Lebanon County, challenger Dave Arnold suggested that county prosecutors should increase their pursuit of the death penalty. This is a shocking statement coming from an employee of the public defenders office. At a time when Americans’ doubts about the death penalty are ever increasing, it would be completely irresponsible for the county to buck national trends and fire up the machinery of death.

In each of the last six years, death sentences have declined in this country. Americans have awakened to the injustices surrounding the ultimate punishment, and while many may support the idea of a death penalty, they recognize that creating a fair, perfect system is impossible.

This new awakening is reflected not only in the decline in death sentences but also in polling data. Multiple polls have shown that when life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is available, as it is in Pennsylvania, the country is evenly split on the question of capital punishment.

The Catholic church is so encouraged by what is happening that the U.S. Conference of Bishops recently started the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. The church plans to ramp up its work against the death penalty and with good reason. A Zogby poll released earlier this year showed that Catholic laypersons are now split 48-48 when asked if they support capital punishment, which is a significant decrease in support from previous years.

How did this happen? Dr. Terry Madonna, a political professor at Franklin & Marshall College, once characterized the 1990s as the “hang ‘em high, hang ‘em often” period. How did we move from that mentality to where we are today?

Watching innocent people walk off of death row has jolted the American people into the realization that we have serious problems with the death penalty. Since 1976, 119 innocent people have been released from death row, including six here in Pennsylvania. The most recent exoneree in the commonwealth was Nicholas Yarris of Philadelphia, who spent a shocking 21 years in prison before being cleared via DNA evidence last year. Yarris is featured in the documentary film “After Innocence”, which will be released this fall.

Innocent people are sentenced to death for a wide variety of reasons. In March, 2003, the state Supreme Court’s Committee on Racial and Gender Bias released a report calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. The committee raised concerns of bias in the capital punishment system against minorities and the poor. Pennsylvania’s death row minority rate is nearly 70%, which is the second-highest rate in the country and is a full 15 percentage points higher than the national rate.

The race of the victim plays an even greater factor in death sentences. Whites make up less than 50% of murder victims. Yet in more than 80% of capital cases the victim is white. A district attorney once told me that he believes that this is because jurors can more easily identify with those of the same race.

In addition, nine of every ten defendants sentenced to death in the commonwealth were too poor to afford their own attorney.

These are facts that are well-known in public defenders offices around the state, for our public defenders are on the front lines of this issue. By and large, these attorneys are hard-working, honest, good-hearted people who are overworked, underpaid, and lacking the resources necessary to build a defense for their clients that will avert a death sentence.

As a public defender, Dave Arnold should know these facts, which makes it all the more shocking that he would suggest that Lebanon County should increase its pursuit of state-sanctioned homicide. There can only be two possible reasons for Arnold’s suggestion. Either he is oblivious to the problems with capital punishment or he is cynical about the people of Lebanon County and believes that he can use the death penalty as a political tool to gain votes.

Arnold has hung his hat on endorsements by two local lodges of the Fraternal Order of Police. At a state senate judiciary committee hearing in March, 2002, the FOP testified against a bill that would have ended the execution of the mentally retarded, a practice opposed by three of every four Americans. Three months later the United States Supreme Court ended this horrendous practice by a 6-3 vote, and a year later the state senate passed the bill that the FOP opposed by a 48-1 vote.

It has been 11 years since a Lebanon County jury sentenced a defendant to death. The people of this great county can be proud that they have chosen to err on the side of life, not on the side of death.

Standing up and being counted

2005-05-11T20:37:00.000-04:00

The Lebanon Daily News ran an article last Friday on the Lebanon DA race and used quotes directly from the CPADP press release. This was surprising but OK since at the top of each release it does say "For Immediate Release". In my experience, the press release is usually a primer that leads into an interview with a reporter, but it's cool. I'm glad that LDN ran some of the quotes about what's wrong with the death penalty.

On Sunday, the editorial board commented that CPADP aided DA candidate Dave Arnold by speaking out against his comments at a recent debate. LDN agreed that Arnold's comments were a blunder but also felt that Arnold is aided by having an anti-death penalty group speak out against his comments.

That may well be true. The lead of the editorial is wrong, though:

Andy Hoover, who identifies himself as president of Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty, probably thought he was harming the electoral prospects of district-attorney candidate David Arnold this week by sharply rebuking Arnold for hawkish comments he made during a candidates' forum Monday night.

As stated before, CPADP does not support one candidate or another. Of course, in private, each of us has candidates that we prefer. As an organization, however, our mission is to educate the general public on the issue of the death penalty toward its ultimate demise.

When that press release was written, I was well aware that I could be either hurting or harming either candidate. Lebanon County is a conservative area, so the LDN editorial board may well be right that it helps Arnold.

But here's the dilemma for those working to end capital punishment. Do we let candidates for public office get away with making irresponsible comments in the midst of campaigns? Why is it that those who are prudent in their support for the death penalty, like Ms. Eshleman, are the candidates who are on the defensive? Why is that those of who don't want to kill people have to answer for ourselves, as if we're the ones who have an indefensible position?

Do a Google search with the terms "impeach Anthony Kennedy". The vitriol against Justice Kennedy, particularly for his decision in the Roper v. Simmons juvenile execution case in March, is stunning, and much of it comes from people of so-called faith. That is not the Christianity that I grew up with. What follower of Jesus could say that he or she is OK with executing child criminals? WWJD?

(Mind you, according to polls even after the DC sniper case, only about 20% of the country supports juvenile executions.)

This episode has me thinking more about how to handle zealous pro-death comments from public officials. We've reached a point in this movement where we can no longer let the Dave Arnolds of the world get away with being irresponsible with death. President Bush has urged the country to err on the side of life, and the Abolitionist agrees.

Irony so thick.....

2005-05-05T09:06:00.000-04:00

To follow up on the press release on the Lebanon County DA's race, there are two points about this situation that are filled with irony.

First, at the same time that Mr. Arnold is advocating for an increase in capital prosecutions, he is illustrating one of the major problems with the death penalty- ineffective assistance of counsel. Mr. Deitzler is too poor to afford his own attorney, and one of the attorneys appointed to him is publicly bad-mouthing him.

Second, did you ever think you would see the day when an anti-dp organization defends an incumbent District Attorney and blasts a public defender? (Mr. Arnold works in the PD's office.)

CPADP Press Release: Lebanon County DA race

2005-05-05T08:54:00.000-04:00

May 4, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CPADP raises concerns over Lebanon County DA candidate

Harrisburg- In a rare foray into electoral politics, local anti-death penalty activists today blasted Lebanon County District Attorney candidate Dave Arnold for his exchange with current DA Deirdre Eshleman over the death penalty at a Republican primary candidate forum Monday night.

During the dialogue, Arnold referred to “brutal murderers who have no value to society”, as reported by both the Patriot News and the Lebanon Daily News. Meanwhile, Arnold is the assistant defense counsel for Ralph Deitzler, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend. The trial started this week.

“As Ms. Eshleman correctly pointed out, it is indeed troubling that Mr. Arnold would call for increased use of the death penalty and would characterize defendants in this way at the same time that he’s defending a man accused of murder,” said Andy Hoover, president of Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty. “In his zeal to ascend to the DA’s office, perhaps Mr. Arnold has forgotten that his client has a right to effective assistance of counsel.

“Certainly, Mr. Arnold’s ability to assist in this case is in serious doubt.”

In the debate, which was co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and WLBR radio, Arnold lamented the lack of capital prosecutions in the county. Of the 221 prisoners currently on Pennsylvania’s death row, three are from Lebanon County and all three were sentenced in the early to mid-1990s.

“Ms. Eshleman should be applauded for not pursuing death like a zealot, for two reasons,” Hoover said. “First, if Mr. Arnold’s conduct is any indication, the state of defense for the poor in the county must be questioned. Second, studies have consistently shown that capital cases typically cost one to two million dollars more than non-capital cases, which, of course, comes out of the taxpayers’ pockets.

“We believe in protecting society and punishing those who commit terrible crimes. That can be done without the death penalty and without bankrupting our counties.”

In March, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Committee on Racial and Gender Bias released a report calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. One of the key reasons for the moratorium recommendation was the state of effective counsel for poor defendants.

Approximately 90% of those sentenced to death in the commonwealth were too poor to afford a private attorney.

CPADP does not endorse political candidates. Instead, the group educates the public on the issue of capital punishment, which includes the positions of candidates for elected office.

#####

Remembering corrections officers this week

2005-05-04T21:17:00.000-04:00

In case you missed it, the Guv declared this week Corrections Employee Week in Pennsylvania. This isn't new. It's the 20th year that it's been done. Certainly, our corrections officers deserve credit for doing a tough job.

In particular, it's important to take a moment to remember the DOC staff who are part of the execution team, not only in this state but around the country. Some activist chatter just a few weeks ago centered around the impact of state-sanctioned homicide on those who have to actually carry out the deed. It's not the jury that does it. If the juries had to actually carry out the sentence, there probably would be no death penalty. It's not the judge. It's not the governor or the state legislators who refuse to do anything about the horror of capital punishment. It's a group of anonymous guys who don't make a ton of dough, who work their tails off in a stressful job, who end up seeing the humanity in those our society considers throwaways, who have to deal with the strain of killing another person.

As the Abolitionist has heard it, those on the execution team are overwhelmingly anti-death penalty.

By the way, do you think the Guv is honoring Abu Ghraib guard and SCI-Greene guard Charles Graner this week?

Patriot News story offers anti-dp argument....if you look for it

2005-05-03T19:34:00.000-04:00

On April 24, the Patriot News- Harrisburg's daily fishwrap- published the article "Death row loneliness lies ahead for woman". Pennlive.com will only have this article posted until May 7, so if you're reading this after May 7...... you should be reading this blog every day. For those of you who haven't set The Central Pennsylvania Abolitionist as your homepage (yet), here's the lead:

Death row loneliness lies ahead for woman
Mother to join 5 others for her
hatchet murder of Lock Haven man, 83
Sunday, April 24, 2005
BY JOHN
BEAUGE
For The Patriot-News

MUNCY - Shonda Walter will most likely
never hug her daughter again.
In fact, the 25-year-old single mother could finish her life without ever touching another person, prison authorities say.

That's because Walter, who killed her 83-year-old Lock Haven neighbor by hitting him 66 times with a hatchet, joined an exclusive club last week.
She will be one of six women on death row in Pennsylvania.

Now, my first thought was, 'Wow, this will not win any converts to the cause.' Sure, everyone feels terrible for her daughter who will grow up, for all intents and purposes, without a mother, and Ms. Walter might win sympathy from a lot of people had she been abused, like many female criminals. (The article notes that no evidence of abuse was presented at trial.)

But, for crying out loud, the lady cut up an 83 year-old man with a hatchet and then sat there while he pleaded with her to call 911. This is the kind of story abolitionists run from.

Look deeper.

This article describes the isolation of death row. She will never hug her daughter again. She may never even so much as touch another human being. 22 hours per day are spent in her cell. Her toilet is just a few feet from her bed. Her two hours of outdoor time are spent in a cage with another prisoner nearby but separate.

With the death penalty, she'll live this way for maybe 10-15 years.

With a life sentence, she would live this way for 45 years. What's the average lifespan these days, 75? We'll knock off five years because living in prison is rough and guess that she would live to 70. 45 years of this isolation as punishment for murdering her neighbor.

Chew on that.

I'm not one who argues that life imprisonment is actually worse than the death penalty because, frankly, I cannot imagine living out either scenario. But 45 years (!) of near total isolation? That's heavy.

Anyone who argues that doing away with the death penalty would allow murderers to go "unpunished" (Mr. District Attorney, I'm talking to you) is a damn fool.

Stop him before he tries to kill again!

2005-04-26T11:29:00.000-04:00

Well, the Guv has done it again. Last week Ed Rendell signed his 35th death warrant. He may not quite be on the pace of Ridge, who signed warrants like he had stock in Bic, but the heady days of his gubernatorial campaign, when he said that he would consider a moratorium if the evidence warranted it, seem like ancient history.

Numero 35 is for Joseph D'Amato, a white man from Philadelphia. White men from Philadelphia on death row are kind of like gun rights supporters at a Democratic meet up: You might run into one every once in awhile, but it's rare. Consider: 84% of those on PA's death row from Philadelphia are African-American. A majority of prisoners on death row are from Philly, at a 56% clip. Meanwhile, the Guv says race and the death penalty is not a problem.

Would Lynn Swann care to talk about that?

Of those 35 death warrants, 8 were for white defendants. My abacus tells me that that means 77% of the warrants signed by Gamblin' Eddie have been for minorities. In one of those "this would be really funny if we weren't talking about death" moments, the DOC website actually breaks down the warrants by race (see page 14). It certainly makes an abolitionist's job much easier.

May events in PA

2005-04-26T11:20:00.000-04:00

Friday, May 6: Anti-death penalty vigil in Erie
12pm, Second & State Streets, Rendell's Erie office

Sunday, May 8: Sister Helen Prejean, commencement speaker, St. Francis University, Loretto

Thursday, May 19: Anti-death penalty vigil in Harrisburg
12pm, 3rd and Walnut Streets, Harrisburg

April events in PA

2005-03-30T12:16:00.000-05:00

Friday, April 1: Anti-death penalty vigil in Erie
12pm, Second & State Streets, Rendell's Erie office

Tuesday, April 5: Ray Krone at Allegheny College, Meadville
Wednesday, April 6: Ray Krone at Clarion University
7pm, Hart Chapel
Ray Krone is a York County native who spent 10 years in an Arizona prison, including three on death row, for a murder he did not commit. DNA evidence cleared him in 2002, and he has been speaking publicly against the death penalty since his release
More information? aclu_cup@yahoo.com

Monday, April 11: "After Innocence" in Harrisburg
Whitaker Center for Science & the Arts, 222 Market Street
5pm: Cocktail reception, featuring Ray Krone and Vincent Moto, PA's first inmate cleared by DNA evidence
6:15pm: film screening at the Select Medical IMAX Theatre
"After Innocence" is a documentary that follows the post-prison lives of six inmates released as a result of DNA evidence. One of the six is Nicholas Yarris of Philadelphia, who spent a stunning 21 years on PA's death row for a crime he did not commit. For more information on the film, visit www.afterinnocence.com
RSVPs required: lfrankel@aclupa.org
Thursday, April 14 & Saturday, April 16: "After Innocence" in Philadelphia
Philadelphia Film Festival
International House, 3707 Chestnut Street
More information? Visit http://www.phillyfests.com/pff/templates/home.cfm

Thursday, April 21: Anti-death penalty vigil in Harrisburg
12pm, 3rd and Walnut Streets, Harrisburg

CPADP press release: March 30

2005-03-29T23:21:00.000-05:00

March 30, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March, 2005: A month to remember for anti-death penalty movement

HARRISBURG- As March closes, activists in the anti-death penalty movement in Pennsylvania reflected today on significant shifts in the battle against capital punishment in the last 30 days. The end of executions for child offenders, a new campaign against the death penalty by the Catholic church, and reconsideration of the issue by one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators were all a part of an eventful month.

“How appropriate that the same day that we recognize Abolition Day, March 1, the Supreme Court decided that killing those who commit crimes as children is cruel and unusual punishment,” said Andy Hoover, president of Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty. “Despite the shrill cries from extremist opinion peddlers on talkradio and in the nation’s newspapers, this was a decision clearly supported by the American people.”

An ABC News poll in December, 2003, showed that only 21 percent of Americans support the execution of child criminals.

March 1 is celebrated annually by anti-death penalty activists as Abolition Day, the day that Michigan became the first English-speaking territory to abolish capital punishment in 1847.

Meanwhile, 20 days after the Supreme Court decision, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced a new campaign to end capital punishment. The Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty was announced on March 21. The new pitch by the bishops comes with the backdrop of a new poll showing support for capital punishment amongst Catholics dropping quickly. A Zogby International poll taken in November and this month found that Catholics are now evenly split on the death penalty.

“Over the years, we’ve had a lot of great Catholic laypersons and clergy involved with our movement as individuals,” Hoover said. “To now have the church fully behind the issue as an institution will give our fight a boost.

“We welcome the bishops’ new campaign and look forward to working with them in the coming months.”

Just a day later, on March 22 in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) expressed newfound concern about how the death penalty is operating in America.

Santorum told the Post Gazette that he is “very troubled” about the continuing discovery of innocents on death row. “I never thought about it that much when I was really a supporter of the death penalty. I still see it as potentially valuable, but I would be one to urge more caution than I would have in the past,” he said.

“It’s very telling when Senator Santorum says, ‘when I was really a supporter of the death penalty,’” Hoover commented. “Of course, this means he is no longer ‘really a supporter of the death penalty.’

“Of course, Senator Santorum may simply be trying to smooth off some of his rough edges in light of a difficult re-election campaign in 2006, but the message to Pennsylvania Republicans is clear: It’s OK to question yourself on the death penalty and to do so publicly. Senator Santorum has given his fellow Republicans political cover on this issue.”

Santorum will face State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr., one of Pennsylvania’s most popular Democrats, in the 2006 senatorial race. In the 2002 gubernatorial primary, Casey expressed support for the death penalty.

“If someone had told me that one of the two senatorial candidates would express doubts about capital punishment, I would have assumed that it was Casey,” Hoover said. “His father was no fan of it and many in his party are also opposed to it.

“It is a pleasant surprise to hear these doubts from Senator Santorum.”

####

The Juvenile DP: Another brick falls off the wall

2005-03-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the 20th century, America! For years, the United States lagged far behind the civilized world as it continued to condone the execution of those who commit crimes as children. On March 1, the U.S. Supreme Court finally brought us into line with every other democracy in the world by banning this cruel torture. We finally leave the company of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, China, Congo, Iran, and Nigeria, which are the only other countries that have executed child offenders in the last 15 years.

The court’s 5-4 decision is one that has been lauded around the country and around the world. Most of America’s mainstream newspapers recognized the wisdom in the decision.

It will certainly be a decision that is appreciated by an overwhelming majority of Americans. In a December, 2003 ABC News poll, only 21% of Americans polled supported execution of those who commit crimes as children. A study released in 2004
by Columbia University researchers indicated that death sentences for juveniles had dropped significantly since 1999.

Even George W. Bush, otherwise known as the Texecutioner amongst death penalty opponents, is not a strong supporter of the juvenile death penalty. “Federal law prohibits execution of those under 18 when the offense was committed, and I see no reason to change that statute," President Bush said in a forum hosted by the New Voters Project in October (as quoted by the Death Penalty Information Center).

And in perhaps the most telling moment of all, in December 2003, a Virginia jury sentenced teenager Lee Malvo to life without the possibility of parole for his role in the D.C. sniper murders. For weeks, Malvo and his accomplice, John Muhammad, terrorized the Washington area. Certainly, Malvo was the poster boy for the juvenile death penalty. In fact, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered that Malvo’s first trial take place in Virginia because it had a death penalty for children while Maryland did not. Yet the jury sentenced him to life in a state that is just one of three that have executed child offenders in the last seven years.

Clearly, the American people have matured to the point of setting aside this barbaric practice.

And, yet, an examination of some opinion pieces, talkradio commentaries, and talking head cable shows might lead one to believe that the country is narrowly split over this issue. Those decrying the court’s decision included the Wall Street Journal editorial board; Cal Thomas, a Fox News commentator and syndicated columnist; George Will of the Washington Post and ABC News; and, of course, the four Supreme Court Injustices who voted against the decision- Injustice Thomas, Injustice O’Connor, Chief Injustice Rehnquist, and would-be Chief Injustice Scalia.

Maybe Scalia’s bishop should consider denying him communion.

In contrast to the public’s obvious disdain for the practice, the vehement support of the child death penalty by some in positions of influence in the media and the judiciary leads us to a chilling conclusion: There are extremists with their fingers on the buttons of power in this country.

Thomas, Will, and the Journal have created a Straw Man, which can be easily knocked down whenever a decision occurs with which they disagree. “Legislating from the bench.” “Judicial activism.” “Activist judges with lifetime appointments.” We’ve heard the old, tired arguments so many times that their columns practically write themselves.

What scares these opinion peddlers the most is that their precious system of capital punishment is crumbling at the foundations. There truly is an evolving standard of decency in this country, and it is a standard that is evolving toward the rejection of capital punishment. The end of juvenile executions, the end of the execution of the mentally retarded, moratoria in Illinois and Maryland, the continuing release of innocents from death rows around the country, and discussions on abolition in New York, Kansas, and New Mexico indicate clearly that the death penalty is heading toward its demise. Capital punishment, our odd institution, is walking the longest walk. We’re headed toward a time when our children and our children’s children will learn about capital punishment in our museums and not in our daily news.

Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and John Paul Stevens deserve credit for doing what is right and voting against the execution of children. They deserve the title of “Justice”.

Santorum rethinks death penalty stance

2005-03-25T12:53:00.000-05:00

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05081/475366.stm

CNN.com (AP): http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/23/santorum.deathpenalty.ap/

It's nice to see the junior Senator finally acknowledge what many of us have known for some time: There's a problem with the death penalty. Ask Ray Krone.

Talk is just the first step. His actions from this point forward will determine if this is a true revelation or if it is a mere political ploy to placate moderates who are concerned about the death penalty and who might vote for Bob Casey on other issues. (Casey is brutal on the death penalty. And he's Catholic, too.)