Fall 2001
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Member nations of the European Union (E.U.) are actively collaborating with the international police investigation of the September 11 attacks and are responsible for many of over 1,000 arrests worldwide. But the 15-nation Union has made it very clear that its cooperation with the U.S. stops when it comes to the death penalty. In late September, the E.U. again stressed member nations' obligations under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly prohibits extraditing prisoners if they could face the death penalty.
Abandoning the death penalty is a prerequisite for E.U. membership. In 1998, the Union made the death penalty its top international human rights priority. As the 1st World Congress on the Death Penalty convened at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg last summer, the Council's General Secretary held a press conference declaring the American death penalty "our greatest concern." Meanwhile, the French government refused to extradite suspected anti-abortion terrorist James Kopp until it secured a written agreement from the Bush Administration that he would not face execution. Kopp, wanted for the murder of Buffalo obstetrician Bernard Slepian, was returned to New York to stand trial in July.
The most recent E.U. assertion came as ministers gathered to discuss a new Europe-wide arrest warrant and streamlining extradition between member states as part of its unified strategy to combat terrorism. At the September meeting, several E.U. ministers expressed support for streamlining extraditions to the U.S. but only if the U.S. forgoes capital prosecutions.
"What is the purpose of executing people who are willing to die?" Lord Russell-Johnston of the Council of Europe asked USA Today. "If anything, such executions risk having the opposite effect: creating martyrs out of criminals."
The U.S. continues to defend its death penalty, claiming it does not violate international law and it reflects the will of the American people. The U.S. appears to be pressing its closest E.U. ally, Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has introduced sweeping legislation to expedite extradition procedures. Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot who is suspected of training the hijackers who flew into the Pentagon, was arrested in London on September 21 on a U.S. warrant and could face charges of conspiracy to murder. While British Home Secretary David Blunkett is reported to have told American officials he would approve extradition only if they waived the death penalty, he has also said that they would "find ways round the situation." Meanwhile, E.U. pressure on Britain is no doubt as intense, and Blunkett admits that his country would "spend years losing" legal challenges if it breaches Article 3 (Associated Press).
The question on the lips of most moratorium organizers following the tragic events of September 11 was how the attacks would impact the progress the moratorium movement has made over the last few years? An Equal Justice USA survey of state activists yielded a hopeful answer: all in all, efforts to petition, leaflet, pass resolutions, and hold public events haven't slowed down. "We're not getting any fewer calls for information or petitions than we did before September 11. Responses at events have been equally strong," said Missy Longshore of Death Penalty Focus. Closer to Ground Zero, Sister Helen Prejean spoke in New York City just days after the attacks and drew a large, energetic crowd eager to hear her message of reconciliation and an end to violence.
Even legislatively, state coalitions are continuing to get positive feedback on their moratorium efforts. "We've had a number of meetings with legislators since September 11, and even a few Republican legislators have come around," said Lorry Post of New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium. The New Jersey group did postpone a public opinion poll on the moratorium, which was set to take place right after the attacks. "Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty conducted a straw poll on the death penalty after the terrorist attacks and their results, though not as good as usual, weren't nearly as bad as they had anticipated," explained Celeste Fitzgerald, Equal Justice USA's Northeast Field Organizer. "Still, New Jersey decided it was best to wait until the spring."
Organizers in a number of states say that the biggest effect of 9-11 has been the "peel off" of moratorium activists to the emerging peace movement. This is especially true with multi-issue coalition partners. However, with the surge of states using the terrorist attacks to expand or even re-instate their death penalty (see State Terrorism Bill), the issue is staying on activist radar screens. Jeff Garis of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty sees such anti-terrorism bills as little more than political opportunism: "So when Osama is caught walking down the street in downtown Scranton, they'll have something to get him on? When put that way, people see that these bills are ridiculous." Senator Edward Helfrick, a prime sponsor of Pennsylvania's moratorium bill, was ultimately able to convince a colleague to withdraw his state's expansion proprosal.
The first local government moratorium endorsements since 9-11 came in Lincoln, NE and Santa Clara County, CA on October 30 and 31st respectively. (See National Tally Update page12.) Still, most organizers are moving ahead carefully with local government votes. It is more important than ever to lay the groundwork of support and to count your votes before the official vote gets called in any city council or state legislature.
Those asserting that Oklahoma's death penalty system is broken have had their worst fears confirmed this year with the scandal surrounding Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Gilchrist's work identifying – or misidentifying – suspects based on hair, blood, fibers, or other forensics "evidence" resulted in over 3,000 convictions from 1980 to 1993. Included among these are 23 capital cases: 11 where the prisoner was executed and 12 where a death sentence is still pending.
Already there has been a scathing report by the FBI and an expanded investigation into the validity of other convictions. On September 25, Gilchrist was terminated by the Oklahoma City Police Department. She had been on paid administrative leave since February.
The excavation of Gilchrist's record began in January of this year when the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System requested modern testing allowed under the state's new DNA law in the case of Jeffrey Todd Pierce. Pierce was convicted in 1986 of rape, sodomy, burglary, and assault based on Gilchrist's testimony linking his pubic hairs with hair found on the victim. When police re-examined the evidence, they found serious inconsistencies between Gilchrist's findings and their own. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) agreed with the new findings and police Chief M. T. Berry contacted the FBI about the case.
The FBI examined eight additional cases selected randomly from a police list of significant convictions. The bureau found misidentified hair and fibers in at least five of the cases, and the report characterized Gilchrist's testimony as going "beyond the acceptable limits of forensic science."
The FBI report led Oklahoma's Attorney General Drew Edmondson to expand the OSBI probe and to announce that his own office would further review the 13 death penalty cases in which the chemist testified. By September, the OSBI had at least initially reviewed about 800 of the nearly 1,200 cases to be examined. Of those, 16% raised enough concern to be marked for further study, including three death row cases.
In July, an alarm sounded in the case of Malcolm Rent Johnson, who was executed on January 6, 2000. Evidence Gilchrist had sworn to at Johnson's trial did not exist. She had testified that six samples taken from the murder victim's bedroom contained semen that matched Johnson's blood type. A July 30 re-examination of those slides showed no sperm present. Two days after the release of her memo about the Johnson slides, police chemist Laura Schile resigned, citing a hostile work environment which included police intimidation. Schile was also instrumental in the Pierce case review, which had sparked the FBI inquiry.
The Attorney General's office maintains that no one innocent has been executed in Oklahoma, and that all of the capital cases in which Gilchrist testified had enough other evidence to sustain a conviction. But further review of her 11 remaining cases already resulting in execution has been postponed until all other cases are investigated.
Criticism of Joyce Gilchrist's chemistry began early in her Oklahoma City career. In 1987, the Southwestern Association of Forensic Scientists found that she violated the association's code of ethics when she presented testimony that was beyond her scientific expertise. Despite the association's findings, no disciplinary action was taken.
In 1988, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals criticized both Gilchrist and Oklahoma City District Attorney Bob Macy as it overturned a murder conviction. The court found that Gilchrist had again presented opinions outside the scope of her scientific capabilities, while Macy had commented during trial on "evidence" he had never presented.
Macy has steadfastly defended Gilchrist's work. In 1994 Gilchrist was promoted to a supervisory position in the lab. She has continued to face professional sanction, with the Association of Crime Scene Reconstruction expelling her for unethical behavior.
In the meantime, the testimony of additional Oklahoma City Police Department employees is being questioned. The state task force is slated to review 10 cases handled by the late police chemist Janice Davis, including a 1984 death case. New DNA tests on hair and fiber samples may determine that Dewey George Moore has wrongly spent 16 years on death row.
Serologist Kenneth Ede's hair comparisons in a murder trial nearly 20 years ago were also disproved by DNA tests in May. In two other capital cases, Ede testified as a blood-splatter expert. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals found he had no such expertise but ruled that his testimony was "harmless error." The OSBI intends to review the serious cases on which Ede worked, but will not begin until the Gilchrist investigation is completed, which the state bureau expects will take another year.
Oklahoma Moratorium Contact (Joann Bell).
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, more than 30 states are looking at a range of anti-terrorism proposals, from the creation of cabinet level positions to oversee security to "preparedness" studies to resolutions condemning the attacks. In nine of these states, expansion or reinstatement of the death penalty is part of the package being drafted or considered.
The state most devasted by the September bombings, New York, was the first state to enact such legislation. Governor Pataki convened a special session of the State Assembly within days of the attacks to consider an anti-terrorism measure he had initially proposed last June. While it had little support prior to September 11, the shell-shocked legislature passed it immediately and the Governor signed it into law on September 17.
The New York legislation spurred similar reactions in other states. In mid-October, Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan announced a package of bills that would create a Class X offense of terrorism and allow for the death penalty when death is caused via an act of terror. A similar expansion bill has been proposed in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and is now being drafted in Tennessee. The Senate sponsor of the Pennsylvania bill was convinced to withdraw the death penalty expansion provisions by the primary sponsor of the state's moratorium legislation, Senator Edward Helfrick.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Rhode Island, Iowa, and Wisconsin – states that currently do not have the death penalty – are drafting legislative that would reinstate the death penalty for terrorist crimes. Proposals in Iowa may attempt reinstatement beyond just terrorism. Introduction of these provisions is expected when legislators reconvene next year.
These expansion and reinstatement bills neglect to address some critical issues. For one thing, the crimes defined within them would almost assuredly be prosecuted at the federal, not state, level, where the death penalty is already an option for terrorism. Further, state efforts to execute international and national terrorists could impede the federal government's ability to investigate and prevent terrorist acts. The reinstatement bills, in particular, seem to represent more political opportunism on the part of death penalty proponents than workable measures to prevent terrorism. Consider, for instance, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, passed by Congress after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. While it drastically curtailed the rights of prisoners to appeal their cases in federal court, it clearly has done little to prevent further act of terrorism, particularly those committed by suicide bombers.
In 1997, the American Bar Association (ABA) took its historic action of urging a halt to executions. The ABA takes no a position on the death penalty per se. Yet as the nation's largest professional legal association, whose membership includes prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys, the ABA set off an alarm when it described our nation's administration of the death penalty as "a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency."
Since then, a national movement has emerged, with the ABA playing an important role. 2000 ABA President Martha Barnett made the moratorium a priority of her administration, convening a conference aimed at activating the legal community. Several state bars have followed the national's lead and called for a moratorium, including the Louisiana Bar Association, the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Bar Associations, the Arizona Minority Bar Association, and, most recently, the New York State Bar Association.
This fall, the ABA released two new resources to assist the growing movement:
Executing Injustice: ABA Call for a Moratorium on Executions – an 8-minute video, narrated by Mike Farrell, highlighting the issues that led the ABA to call for a moratorium: inadequate legal counsel, patterns of racial bias, the need to strengthen independent state and federal appellate review, and the execution of juvenile offenders and the mentally retarded. It is a great tool for activists to open discussion with both citizens and legislators, providing factual, succinct arguments.
Death Without Justice: A Guide for Examining the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States – A 100-page guide to designing a state death penalty study that is comprehensive and has the teeth to impact policy. An essential resource for both legislators and advocates involved in writing moratorium legislation. Download the protocols at www.abanet.org/irr or contact Equal Justice USA at 301-699-0042 to learn more about these new resources.
In the works for a over year, the state coalition Californians for a Moratorium on Executions (CME) is now going strong with working groups in both the northern and southern regions of the state. Spearheaded by Death Penalty Focus, the coalition includes nearly 30 other California organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern and Southern California, the California Council of Churches, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, Amnesty International USA, and the American Friends Service Committee.
"Our goal is to collect 100,000 signatures to present to Governor Davis on May 1, 2002 and an ever-increasing list of endorsing cities, counties, organizations, and congregations," says Missy Longshore, the campaign coordinator. Moratorium resolutions passed the Menlo Park City Council in August and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in October. CME is working with local activists to pass similar resolutions in other jurisdictions. The newly formed Moratorium Now! Los Angeles is also organizing a resolution campaign and has recently joined CME.
The success in Santa Clara County, a large, diverse, and moderate jurisdiction, lends hope to activists trying to make a moratorium on executions a mainstream issue in the state. As the coalition further solidifies its structure and grassroots network, the movement for a moratorium in California will become one to watch.
Contact Californians for a Moratorium on Executions or Moratorium Now! Los Angeles.
Emboldened by an early 2001 moratorium victory in the House of Delegates and the expected majority vote that only a filibuster could stop in the Senate (see Moratorium News! Spring 2001), the movement for a Maryland moratorium is now focused on the Governor.
In April, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, refused to expedite the appeal of Steven Oken. The Court's move sent a clear message that it intended to carefully deliberate Oken's constitutional challenge of the state's death sentencing procedures, which could impact every pending death sentence. The Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in October and a decision is expected in December or January. Meanwhile, the lower courts, responsible for issuing warrants of execution, are watching and waiting and have de facto postponed the executions of Oken and three other prisoners once expected in 2001.
The hiatus has provided an open political window to push Governor Parris Glendening to declare a moratorium before he leaves office. Glendening has consistently defined himself as a civil rights Governor, aggressively supporting the passage of a gay anti-discrimination bill last session as well as new collective bargaining rights for state employees. The statewide moratorium coalition that formed in January is gearing up to convince the Governor that his civil rights legacy is incomplete as long as race mires death sentencing in the state.
More at the MD Case website
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Marylanders: Please Act!
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More than two dozen Texas organizations came together to organize the second annual March for a Moratorium in Austin, held on October 27. The event drew more than 300 people from Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and other cities across the state. Austin's Catholic Bishop, wrongly convicted prisoners, and the family members of death row prisoners and murder victims where among those who addressed the crowd. March organizers aim to keep the moratorium issue alive until the state legislature meets again in 2003. Texas' legislature only convenes for 140 days every two years.
The demonstration built on positive movement towards a moratorium in this year's legislative session. Moratorium bills, introduced for the first time in both the House and Senate, successfully passed out of committee and drew the support of most of the state's major newspapers. Texans also won important reforms, including new laws which 1) provide death row prisoners access to DNA testing, 2) set up statewide standards for appointment of counsel, and 3) allocate state funds for indigent defense for the first time. A bill to ban the execution of the mentally retarded was passed but vetoed by the Governor. A bill to ban the execution of juveniles also passed the House, but without enough time left in the session to cross over to the Senate. Finally, a measure establishing a sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), not currently an option in Texas, was only narrowly defeated.
Contact Dave Atwood of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
(from the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK)
For 40 years (1960-2000), Tennessee lived through a de facto moratorium. This southern distinction ran headlong into a political reality check with the April 2000 execution of Robert Glen Coe, a severely mentally ill man. Since then, the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK) has worked to build a grassroots, mass movement capable of abolishing the state's death penalty statutes.
In July, TCASK co-hosted the eighth annual Death Penalty Institute along with the southern regional office of Amnesty International and the historic Fisk University's Race Relations Institute. The Institute is an intentional project to train people about the issues central to the death penalty so that they can return to their constituent groups as effective point people and trainers.
Tennesseans for a Moratorium on Executions (TME) is a broader coalition working to pass legislation currently before the state House and Senate that establishes a moratorium and a comprehensive study based on the recently released ABA guidelines. TME has 64 signatory organizations and faith communities. The ACLU-TN is providing an intern to further the outreach with a goal of 100 organizational supporters by the end of the year. TME is also preparing for a public hearing on this legislation before the House judiciary committee on December 5-6 in Knoxville.
Meanwhile, two local cases are driving concerns about fairness. Philip Workman was granted an evidentiary hearing and stay on March 30, just 37 minutes before his
scheduled execution. Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman is expected to face a death warrant soon, even though a federal court set aside his death sentence in 1998. (To learn more about Abu-Ali's case, visit www.abu-ali.org)
To get involved in Tennessee, contact tcask@earthlink.net.
Dear Governor Easley,
I grew up with you in Rocky Mount during the 1960's backyard barbeques, Cub Scouts outings, and helpless prosperity. Recalling our lucky starts, I can still be stunned by fits of gratitude. Luck and work let each of us advance in life, surrounded by loving kinfolk, underwritten by our financial advantage, our blondish hair and blueish eyes; not to mention our dads' golfing friendship with the Chief of Police. Our first three misdemeanors might be winked away: "boys will be boys." Boys like us, at least.
We were born into a time and town whose black and white communities would literally rush next door to tend neighbors' kids if something went wrong. After visiting Ronnie Frye in Central Prison, I feel far more grateful for our blessings. In less than one hour and twenty minutes, a jury sentenced him to death. Now his fate rests with you alone, lucky and unlucky in your power.
So, since the little I govern is storytelling, let me try this: Once upon a time there was a mother so unable – unwilling to care for her own children that, whenever a stranger at a gas station said, "What a nice little boy," she replied, "You WANT him? Cause he's working my last nerve. Take him." She gave away three like this. No luggage, no paperwork. She offered her last two give-away sons the bonus of one clean handkerchief between them. I am not making this up. She sent her children off with a couple she had never met to live in a house she would never visit.
Now, in a fairy tale (or in the Country Club Rocky Mount of our lucky starts), this couple would've been kind, making up – with apples and baseball gloves – for all early cruelty. Instead they found their two donated boys, age four and five, were scarcely toilet trained; they had never eaten with knives and forks. It seemed they had been raised by wolves. So the adoptive father took to waking them daily with a bullwhip he lashed from the door of their room.
When school authorities finally recognized not one bloody stripe on Ronnie's shirt, but a head-to-toe system of years-old welts, the Frye boys were sent, not to foster care, but to a biological father they did not remember, a man they rightly feared. When he'd learned they had been given to strangers, this man expressed only relief at the end of paying occasional child support. He had things to teach Ronnie and David. A chronic alcoholic, he woke his sons to show them how he beat their loving stepmother.
This stepmom said of the boys, "(When they came to us) they were like little ants running around, they were so starved for affection." And when the stepmom finally fled, beaten bloody in the middle of the night, our state's agencies tracked down the woman who'd first handed these boys to strangers and passed them back to her.
Ronnie Frye was nine when a police photographer documented his lashed chest. He stands before a background obviously used as a lineup for grownup criminals themselves. The forlorn image of a shirtless child is now used by Health and Police Departments as a classic example of Child Abuse. But this image was never shown to the jurors at Frye's own trial. One juror has since stated: this photo alone would have changed her verdict. Frye's lawyer, by his own admission, was drunk or hung-over throughout the procedure. Another lawyer stated that Frye took steambaths on the way to court, presumably to hide the smell of rum. This lawyer honored the wishes of a man understandably ashamed of his own family history; our inebriated state-provided counsel used Ronnie's passivity before further punishment as an excuse to do nothing.
Governor Easley, we still have the front view photo of the young Ronnie Frye. The state lost a far-worse image of this bullwhipped nine year old's back. From the front, we see the remnants of a leather thong curling past its intended target. I find the wounds depicted less disturbing than the expression on this kid's face. Finally rescued after years of being forced to say he'd cut his own back open while "falling out of a tree," (the boy does not know he is about to be sent to homes far worse than the one he is leaving. He will later describe The Bull Whip Days as the happiest period of his life). The young Ronnie shown here seems to be, as he stands stripped to his jeans and cowboy belt, proud – and almost to the point of grinning. We can see a kid thinking, "They are being real nice to me. They promised me a ride in the cruiser plus a Dairy Queen after, if I do okay here. Mister? Should I make my arms go higher?"
In visiting Ronnie and other men on death row, I've found their single shared historical fact: Boyhoods, not of mere punishment, but daily ritualized torture. It is sadly typical that Ronnie Frye killed – not his own lawyer, not one of his many abusers – but a generous parent-figure about to evict him, a landlord who had lent him money, who had let him stay on a few extra months in his final home, an unheated trailer in January.
Ronnie Frye was born into a household unable – unwilling to feed or shelter him, a place where swift daily punishment was almost an after-work adult exercise routine. Like some child toppling through a glass transom only to be executed when he hits the floor, Ronnie Frye fell straight through the very North Carolina system we've created to help the helpless. He was assigned a lawyer so drunk he brought to meetings, not Ronnie's files but, on his lap, his beloved dog, Tigger. I'm not making this up. Given the fact of Ronnie Frye's life, I really don't have to. In 1993, after our state-funded lawyer lost the case at record speed, we meted out justice by locking Ronnie into a room alone, with a single window for receiving food. And on Friday we will kill him.
Governor, just as our own starter luck, yours and mine, led up staircases of further breaks and good fortune, just as we often slip up and take credit for every good thing that comes our way because of kindnesses done us long before our births, Ronnie's early torture begot luck worse and worse. We deserve our fates no more than he warranted his own, given away to strangers at age four. And yet, at Frye's own trial, rather than defend himself by criticizing his own bestial parents, he chose to shoulder full personal responsibility for his deed, his luck.
I urge you, sir, after Ronnie Frye's whole life of injustice – cannot a little animal kindness be shown the man at last? Don't free him; just retry him. And this time, let his lawyer be, if not a genius, at least sober, conscious. We're all promised "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." All Ronnie ever got was life – itself a dubious favor. I ask you to spare him at least that Godgiven life. Just leave him a little longer in his cage, with his bowl and his thoughts.
Lucky are we assigned Luck. Shouldn't our good fortune make us more gentle, more Christlike, less cruel than the ones we brand the Cruelest. Ronnie Frye killed someone decent and he must pay for that. He already has. But he was paying dearly – his child-body scarred like a barber pole – long before he ever broke a law.
North Carolina – its communities, its social system, its legal profession, its very method of justice – utterly failed this man we find easiest to blame. A man we can 'put down' with less emotion than most family pets demand.
As a citizen and storyteller, as a reminder of our own fortunate beginnings (fates earned no more than he sought his), I beg that you spare the life of Ronnie Frye. World without end, Amen.
State organizations working with Equal Justice USA's northeast field office have been extremely active these last few months. Field organizer Celeste Fitzgerald is providing essential day-to-day organizing support while facilitating long-range strategic planning among state leaders.
In Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty (PA Abolitionists) organized their first Death Penalty Moratorium
Week, October 14-20. The week's activities included vigils, educational forums, petition signings, and coordinated letter-writing campaigns. On Sunday, October 20, hundreds of Pennsylvanians simultaneously rallied for a moratorium at the four state prisons holding death row prisoners as well as SCI-Rockview, where executions occur. October 20 marked the one-year anniversary of William Nieves' release after six years on Pennsylvania's death row for a crime he did not commit. William is now PA Abolitionists' community organizer, working with its Friends and Family chapter. The week has extended the statewide network needed to move moratorium legislation next year.
In New Jersey, the September 11 tragedy personally impacted many communities, where memorial services and grief counseling became a priority in September and October. Hence, New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium (NJDPM) postponed a week-long Journey of Hope . . . from Violence to Healing, a series of community events featuring murder victims family members which has been planned for September. The NJ Journey has been rescheduled for April 2002 and expanded to include events in neighboring states New York and Delaware. In the meantime, NJDPM continues to build statewide support for a moratorium, including support for a constitutional challenge of the state's death penalty in the New Jersey Supreme Court, which has gained significant press attention. November's statewide election returns, which include a new Democratic governor, enhance NJDPM's chances of moving moratorium legislation in 2002.
Just over the Hudson River in New York, New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (NYADP) hired a new Executive Director, David Kaczynski. David is the brother of Ted Kaczynski, the long-time fugitive who became known as the "uni-bomber," and played a pivotal role in his brother's arrest, which ended many years of violence. David joined NYADP in July and wasted no time in getting started, meeting with local chapters and speaking at forums around the state. The New York City chapter has been especially busy, with a number of well-attended educational events in recent weeks.
In Delaware, members of Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty (DCODP) organized the "Mercy Concert" on October 19 at the University of Delaware. Performers included Tom Chapin, Mary Arden Collins, and Kim and Reggie Harris. Proceeds from the concert went to DCODP and Survivor, a new group for the families of murder victims. In August, the Constitution Project in Washington, DC criticized Delaware's capital system for "significant failings," including a policy that allows judges to impose a death sentence despite a jury's recommendation of life without parole.
Leave your own legacy to Equal Justice USA
Equal Justice USA is truly a grassroots initiative, which means that our work is possible because of the financial support of thousand of social justice-minded people throughout the U.S. Recently, we have been blessed by the especially generous support of two senior supporters, who had extended their commitment to justice and human rights beyond their time on earth by remembering Equal Justice USA in their wills. In their honor, Equal Justice USA has created the Louzao-Tully Legacy Society.
Marion Tully and her brother Ed were long-time supporters of the Quixote Center, and the Equal Justice USA project in particular. Roman Catholics strongly committed to social justice, Marion and Ed were active in many causes, especially death penalty abolition. Marion, who survived Ed by only a few years, died on June 8, 1999, leaving a bequest to Equal Justice USA. Received in April 2000, the Tully estate allowed us to accelerate our organizing to build on the January 2000 moratorium victory in Illinois. Concretely, part of Marion and Ed Tully's legacy is our Northeast Field Office and other expansions in support of state moratorium campaigns.
Edward Louzao and Jim Osgood, too, have been committed supporters of Equal Justice USA. Last spring, Ed died at age 70 after several years of illness, leaving behind Jim, his beloved partner of 48 years. Ed had worked as a Library Assistant at the University of Chicago Law Library and several Chicago law firms. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Ed and Jim served on the board of Mattachine Midwest, an early gay civil rights organization. They were also active together in other social justice movements, including struggles against the Anti-Vietnam War and to free Tibet from Chinese occupation. This spring, Jim decided to memorialize his lifelong partner by leaving his and Ed's estate to Equal Justice USA. A frank and sincere man, Jim explained that he saw us on the frontlines of the movement to end state executions. As Buddhists, he and Ed had long shared a deeply felt opposition to the death penalty.
We name the Louzao-Tully Legacy Society after Marion and Ed Tully and Edward Louzao in recognition of each of their life commitments to social justice. And we also honor Jim Osgood as the Society's first living member. Will you join Jim by leaving your legacy to grassroots advocacy for equal justice? Consider becoming part of Equal Justice USA's Louzao-Tully Legacy Society by including us in your will or naming us a beneficiary of your life insurance, living trust, or qualified retirement plan. For more information, contact Ervin Murfree at 301-699-0042 or ervinm@quixote.org.
For every seven people executed since 1976, one death row prisoner has been released. The tally of wrongful death row convictions has now reached 99, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, DC. This number is expected to increase as the courts continue to intervene in death cases, including several in August and September. These new cases feed widespread concerns about overzealous and downright illegal prosecutorial tactics, a systemic problem fueling the movement for a moratorium on executions.
A Pennsylvania court threw out the conviction of death row prisoner Dennis Counterman, finding that prosecutors withheld evidence that the fire that had killed three of his children was an accident, not murder. The prosecution literally whited out a portion of the written statement from Counterman's wife where she said he was asleep when the fire started and suppressed statements from neighbors detailing how Counterman's son had a history of starting fires. Still, the Lehigh County District Attorney plans to retry Counterman. The prosecuting attorney at Counterman's trial now works for the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.
Meanwhile, Alfred Brian Mitchell's conviction was overturned in the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court found that the now infamous Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist gave false testimony about semen evidence at Mitchell's 1992 rape and murder trial and that prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence. Investigations into Gilchrist's misconduct in other cases continue. (See Fury in Oklahoma page 2)
In both the Mitchell and Counterman cases, the appellate court reminded prosecutors that their mandate is to pursue justice, not simply a conviction. As state court Judge Lawrence J. Brenner put it in his Counterman decision, the district attorney has a "responsibility to disclose freely and willingly any evidence favorable to the Defendant and to prosecute vigorously to a fair and just disposition."
Journalism students, this time at Webster University in Missouri, have once again won a new trial for a death row prisoner. The now infamous research assignments of Northwestern University Professor David Protess led to, among others, the exoneration and release of Anthony Porter from Illinois' death row in 1999. Webster students assigned to the Missouri case of Richard Clay discovered that prosecutors coached co-defendant Chuck Sanders to lie to the jury about his plea bargain. Saunders told jurors he faced 10 years for his involvement in the murder when in fact his plea bargain was for five. Saunders ultimately received a five year suspended sentence. "The state needed the jury to believe Sanders to convict Clay," U.S. District Court Judge Dean Whipple concluded, because "without Sanders' testimony . . . the state's case against Clay falls apart." The state is appealing Whipple's ruling.
In Maryland, U.S. District Chief Judge J. Frederick Motz overturned Kevin Wiggins' conviction and called for his release, determining that "no rational finder of fact could have found Wiggins guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt." No physical evidence linked Wiggins to the crime scene. Five sets of fingerprints found in the victim's apartment were never identified. While acknowledging that evidence against Wiggins is circumstantial, the Baltimore County State's Attorney is appealing Motz's ruling. At an October hearing, Judge Motz questioned whether state lawyers had any "moral concern" about pursuing such a weak case.
Just two days before his September 12 execution date, and after the governor refused to intervene, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay to Ohio prisoner John W. Byrd, Jr. The court agreed to hear new evidence of innocence, specifically the affidavit of an accomplice, which says Byrd was passed out in a van and did not participate in the murder. Further, Byrd's conviction was largely based on the testimony of a jailhouse informant. The jury never learned of this star witness' parole records and pending charges. After the trial, the Hamilton County District Attorney informed the parole board it had dropped its opposition to the informant's release.
The National Tally of groups urging a moratorium on executions has increased significantly in recent months to over 1,900 organizations, including 58 local governing bodies.
New editions since spring 2001 include medical associations and unions like the American Psychological Association, the Medical Society of the State of New York and the 15,000 member HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union), Local 54 in Atlantic City, NJ.
State organizers continue to rack up local government resolutions. New Jersey led the pack in recent months with four new cities – Chesilhurst, Highland Park, Camden, and Princeton. North Carolina, which now leads the nation with 14 city and county councils, added the city of Fayetteville. The Fayetteville vote was the culmination of nearly a year of local organizing by the statewide People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. Fifty-five citizens in favor of the moratorium filled the Fayetteville council chambers for the 7-5 vote. Pennsylvania's total has climbed to seven municipalities with the additions of Shippensburg and Gettysburg, which had the distinction of being the 50th local government nationwide to recommend a moratorium. The local groundwork was laid when Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty collected nearly 100 moratorium petition signatures from Gettysburg residents as well as 17 statements of support from local clergy.
Meanwhile, resolutions passed recently in Blacksburg, VA, Greenburgh, NY, and Menlo Park, CA. In Massachusetts, a state without the death penalty, the cities of Cambridge and Brookline added their voice of solidarity to the call to halt executions.
Most encouraging, two more resolutions passed in the aftermath of September 11. The Santa Clara County, CA Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on October 30. The day before, the City Council of Lincoln, NE voted 4-3 in favor of a halt to executions, though the mayor of Lincoln vetoed the resolution a few days later.
An opponent to the death penalty, the mayor of Lincoln took the narrow view that local governments have no business weighing in on the issue – one of the most common opposing arguments that local organizers face. It emerged in Fayetteville and Gettysburg but was effectively countered when local supporters reminded their representatives that crime is a very local issue and that local budgets bear the burden of costly capital prosecutions. Further, as people in Fayetteville put it, "the city acts as the voice of the people" and can and should "raise its voice to the local delegation to the North Carolina General Assembly."
Clearly, each resolution has a potential domino effect. Resolutions passed by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association impacted on the Medical Society of the State of New York's (MSSNY) debate and underpinned the group's conclusion that there are "enough weaknesses and deficiencies in the current process of capital sentencing to recommend a moratorium." MSSNY's delegation to the American Medical Association also introduced a similar resolution on a national level in June, but it did not pass.
Many more votes on municipal moratorium resolutions are expected in the coming months. Can your town, city, or county be one of them? Call us at 301-699-0042 or email us.
See also, the Moratorium Now! Legislative Update page, updated weekly!
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Contact the organizers below to get involved. Call us to get involved in a state not listed. |
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Alabama Nathan Morgan Arizona
Andy Silverman Arkansas
David Rickard California Missy Longshore Moratorium Now! Los Angeles Colorado Denise Madden-Darnell Connecticut Stephen Kobasa Florida
Abe Bonowitz Georgia
Brian McAdams Illinois Jane Bohman Maryland Cathy Kneppar, Ph.D. Missouri Kathleen Kennedy |
New Jersey Lorry Post New York David Kaczinski
Steve DearNew Yorkers Against the Death Penalty 518-453-6797 info@nyadp.org www.nyadp.org North Carolina People of Faith Against the Death Penalty 919-933-7567 sjdear1@aol.com www.netpath.net/~ucch/pfadp Ohio Jana Schroeder Oklahoma
Joann Bell Karin Lau Pennsylvania
Joan Anderson Tennessee Hedy Weinberg Texas Dave Atwood Virginia Henry Heller
Kathleen Kenney |