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"This is a momentous occasion for this Council," Deputy Majority Leader Bill Perkins said of the City Council resolution. "With more than 100 innocent Americans sentenced to death since 1973, it is high time we questioned whether or not our judicial system is weighing the evidence properly, whether or not racial factors, economic factors, and factors related to good defense are what is making the difference in people's cases."
The city's resolution comes just days after the United States Supreme Court issued two landmark death penalty rulings, one to exempt the mentally retarded from execution and the other to require juries, not judges, to determine findings of fact in death sentencing.
"Across the country, awareness is growing at all levels, among the public and in the courts," said Shari Silberstein, Co-Director of the Quixote Center, which has been pushing for a moratorium since 1997. "The victories in New York City both at the municipal level and in one of the nation's largest municipal employee unions, DC37, represents a truly grassroots movement fueled by real concerns that our death penalty system is riddled with problems. Now it's time for elected leaders at the state level to step up and listen to what constituents and institutions are saying in the communities that they represent."
New York is the 73rd jurisdiction nationwide to call for a halt to executions. Other municipalities to have done so include Philadelphia, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Nashville, and Detroit. In New York, the municipalities of Buffalo, Rochester, Mt. Vernon, Greenburgh, and Newcastle have called for a moratorium.
Moratorium Now! is a four-year-old, national campaign of the Quixote Center working state by state to build grassroots support for a halt to executions. Nationwide, over 2,100 national and local groups, governments, and faith communities have joined the call. (For a complete listing, call 301-699-0042 or see the National Tally).
To learn more about the Moratorium Now! campaign, visit www.quixote.org/ej.
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Take action!
To the editor:
On June 26, the City Council of New York City voted to pass a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions, becoming the largest city in the country to take such action. Then, on July 10, New York City's largest public employee union, with 125,000 members, voted to do the same.
The union and city council both deserve our appluase for stepping out on this controversial issue. New York joins 73 other local governments across the country that have called for a moratorium, including Philadelphia, Charlotte, Baltimore, Atlanta, Nashville, and Detroit. DC37 joins over 2,200 community, state, and national groups to call for a moratorium.
Nationwide over 100 innocent people have been released from death row, and studies nationally and in other states show that race, class, and geography all play a role in who gets sentenced to death. These disparities cannot be tolerated in any system of justice, but least of all in a system whose ultimate penalty is so irreversible.
Other [your state] cities and grouops, including [your city] should follow New York City's courageous example, and our state legislature should heed their call to enact a moratorium on executions while we study the fairness of our system.
Sincerely,
[your full name, snail mail address, and daytime phone number]
(newspapers will NOT print any letters whose authorship cannot be verified, so the above information is critical. They will not print your address or phone number if they run your letter).
P.O Box 5206, Hyattsvillle, MD 20782 tel: 301-699-3443 fax: 301-864-2182 www.ejusa.org info@ejusa.org |