Model Moratorium Resolution (Indiana)

Urge your church, city council, civil group and other organizations to pass a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions!

WHEREAS death sentences are reserved for the poor:

• About 90% of those persons facing capital charges cannot afford their own attorney.
• No state, including Indiana, has met standards developed by the American Bar Association (ABA) for appointment, performance and compensation of counsel for indigent prisoners.

WHEREAS there is ample evidence that the death penalty is applied in a racist manner:

• In 1987, in McCleskey v. Kemp, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to act on data demonstrating the continuing reality of racial bias.
• In 1990, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported "a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in charging, sentencing and imposition of the death penalty."
• Nationwide, 82% of those put to death had been convicted of murdering a white person even though people of color are the victims in more than half of all homicides.
• Nearly 50% of those on Ohio’s death row are African-American, although less than 12% of Ohio’s population is African-American.

WHEREAS prisoner appeals have been severely curtailed, increasing the risk of imprisonment and execution of innocent people:

• In a series of rulings since 1991, the Supreme Court has drastically restricted the rights of death row prisoners to appeal their convictions and death sentences in federal courts, even in cases where prisoners present compelling evidence of innocence.
• In 1996, new legislation drastically limited federal court review of death penalty appeals and gutted public funding of legal aid services for death row prisoners.

WHEREAS the American Bar Association has concluded that administration of the death penalty is "a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency" and has called for a moratorium on executions.

WHEREAS Indiana faces a serious budgetary crisis, and the Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission found that the death penalty costs at least a third more than life without the possibility of parole, translating into millions of dollars wasted.

WHEREAS Indiana has a prevalence of mentally ill people on its death row, and even pro-death penalty Governor Joe Kernan expressed concerns about the death penalty and mental illness; however, there has been no examination of the way Indiana deals with mental illness and the death penalty.

WHEREAS the Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission was ordered by Governor Frank O'Bannon and released in 2002, but it fails to include a systematic review of all death penalty cases or to give a comprehensive examination of mental illness, the appellate review process, or geographical and racial biases in the application of the death penalty.

Now, therefore, BE IT RESOLVED that______________________[group name] calls on the Governor and our representatives in the Indiana Legislature, and the Bush Administration and our representatives in U.S. Congress, to enact and adopt legislation imposing a moratorium on executions at least until policies and procedures are implemented which:

• Ensure that death penalty cases are administered fairly and impartially in accordance with basic due process.
• Eliminate the risk of executing innocent persons.
• Prevent the execution of mentally disabled persons and foreign nationals whose consular rights were violated.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution shall be forwarded to the Governor of Indiana, our state representatives, the President of the United States, and members of our Congressional delegation.

Ratified by:

Group's Name: Contact Person: Contact address/phone/email Media contacted:

___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________

Return ratified resolutions to:

Additional model resolutions can be found in our moratorium organizing packet.