The StandDown Texas Project

OTSE Continues Death Penalty Forums in Ohio

Today's Toledo Blade posts, "Lourdes to host panel on Ohio death penalty."

A panel of four people whose lives have been directly affected by Ohio’s death penalty will discuss recommendations for reforming capital punishment from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Lourdes University.

The forum, which will take place at the Franciscan Center, features Derrick Jamison, who spent nearly 20 years on death row before he was exonerated in 2005; Charles Keith, whose brother was on death row before having his sentence commuted and who lost a loved one to a homicide; Terry Collins, former director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, and Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John Russo, who serves on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of the Death Penalty.

There's more information at the Ohioans to Stop Executions website.

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link; you can jump to earlier news of the OTSE forums. 

Also available, news of the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty, with links to the Final Report & Recommendations and the Dissenting Report of the Joint Task Force.

Just Mercy

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption is by Bryan Stevenson, and it's getting a lot of attention.  He's the founding director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative. 

A multi-city book tour kicks off next week at Washington, DC's legendary Politics & Prose.  You can order a signed book, and they will be happy to mail it to you after the event.

The New York Times OpEd columnist Nicholas Kristof writes, "When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 3."  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

SOME white Americans may be surprised to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu describe Bryan Stevenson, an African-American lawyer fighting for racial justice, as “America’s young Nelson Mandela.”

Huh? Why do we need a Mandela over here? We’ve made so much progress on race over 50 years! And who is this guy Stevenson, anyway?

Yet Archbishop Tutu is right. Even after remarkable gains in civil rights, including the election of a black president, the United States remains a profoundly unequal society — and nowhere is justice more elusive than in our justice system.

When I was born in 1959, the hospital in which I arrived had separate floors for black babies and white babies, and it was then illegal for blacks and whites to marry in many states. So progress has been enormous, and America today is nothing like the apartheid South Africa that imprisoned Mandela. But there’s also a risk that that progress distracts us from the profound and persistent inequality that remains.

 Vanity Fair also takes note of the book.  It leads the montly Hot Type column in the November issue.

America the complicated. Defense lawyers down South are too often compared to Atticus Finch, but Bryan Stevenson, whose Just Mercy (Spiegel & Grau) chronicles his crusades for the rights of the oppressed and unjustly incarcerated, proves he's deserving.

The Huntsville Times reports, "Can American courts be color, income-blind?"  It's by Kay Campbell.  He'll be in Huntsville, Alabama on Sunday, November 2.

Stevenson has been recognized internationally for his work to point out biases in the American criminal justice system that result in incarceration rates that rise or fall in a reverse relationship to the income of the accused.

"We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent," Stevenson said during his TED Talk in March 2012. "Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes."

And it's the disconnect between what is reality for so many in impoverished neighborhoods and the reality of Americans with adequate income, influence and sense of confidence that has resulted in a sense, for most Americans, that "these are problems that are not our problems," Stevenson said.

Just Mercy is also one of five nonfiction finalists for the Kirkus Reviews Book Awards.

Related posts are in the books category index.  Here's the link to his 2012 TED Talk.

Final Words

That's the title of a new book and accompanying projects from Neverland Publications.  Here's the news release:

ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL PROJECT FROM NEVERLAND PUBLICATIONS

The mission of Neverland Publications is to provide a catalyst for propelling unheard voices, compelling images, and effective design to the forefront of society. Our conscious approach to publishing is to showcase culturally significant narratives that are capable of resonating at the edge of a constantly expanding audience. Currently we operate under the auspices of VII Association, a non-profit 501c3 corporation – www.viiphoto.com

The first publication, Final Words, examines the final statements of the 515 Texas Death Row inmates executed between 1982 and now. Death row inmates within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are allowed to issue a final statement before they are executed. These final statements are archived by the State of Texas and kept as part of their public records.

Documentary photographer and co-founder of Neverland Publications, Marc Asnin has compiled the final words of these executed men and women in order to share these visceral last moments with the public. He looks to both resuscitate a critical voice in the debate on Capital Punishment, and to create an infrastructure for those final words so they may speak to diverse communities across the nation.

The final reflections of these men and women exist as proof of their humanity. Their final statements provoke us to transcend our preconceptions and challenge accepted institutions. The practice of the death penalty in the U.S. is both complicated and contradictory. It is a web of inextricably linked problems—state institutionalized racism, an entrenched marginality, and the overwhelming subjectivity of our sentencing system.

The team at Neverland Publications has joined together to offer the public an expansive menu of participating programs: We have invited proof.org a non-profit media organization for social justice who has an expert group of educators and activists, to design a comprehensive and dynamic engagement campaign utilizing the Final Words as a tool for discussion and action to create a democratic and innovative grassroots engagement with the Death Penalty. To that end, we will disseminate copies of the book at no charge to public high school students in the 32 states that still deem the death penalty legal. In addition there will be a traveling exhibition that will be multidimensional including the written word, photographic material, and audio recordings that pertain to final words. And lastly there will be a symposia held at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts in association with the Institute for Global Leadership, in the autumn of 2014 with participants from the legal community; various religious communities; the media; and otherwise committed and established citizens who can speak eloquently provoking a new way of looking at this subject.

On October 6th we will start a month long crowd funding program through Indigogo to help raise the funds to bring all of the components of this project to fruition. We ask that anyone that has interest in this issue help us spread the word to raise the necessary funds and become part of the complex conversation. This is a call to action, to help raise awareness, and to help those at Neverland Publications to tell these culturally vital stories.

We invite you to go to our website which will give you an early view of the book’s layout with quotes from the book; more detail about the traveling exhibition and the distribution campaign surrounding Final Words. To date we are proud and grateful to the people that are endorsing this project.

We would be happy to take your questions and or to work with you and your colleagues if you’d like to help spread the word from October 6th through November 6th please watch the website for updates.

Related posts are in the books category index.

Commentary From New Hampshire

"The Road to Repeal: Death Penalty Calculations in N.H.," is the editorial published by the Valley News.

New Hampshire stands closer today to abolishing the death penalty than at any time since 2000, when then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed a repeal measure that had passed both houses of the Legislature.

Last week, the House overwhelmingly approved an abolition bill, setting the stage for consideration by the Senate. The bill’s prospects there are considered uncertain, but by no means hopeless. Gov. Maggie Hassan, unlike her immediate predecessors, has said she would sign such a bill into law. If this finally comes about, New Hampshire would join an expanding list of states that have done away with capital punishment in recent years, including New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland.

Regrettably, there is one consideration that casts a long shadow over the state’s decision. The bill would not apply retroactively, leaving unchanged the status of the lone occupant of death row in New Hampshire. He is Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing a Manchester police officer in 2006.

SeaCoast Online publishes the OpEd, "Forgiveness takes precedence over wrath," by Robert Azzi.

In an early battle in defense of Islam's still-struggling first community in Medina, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali brought a traitor to his knees and was about to kill him when the man spat in his face. Ali sheathed his sword, knowing that to strike out of anger rather than out of acting for justice would be a sin.

Don't strike out of anger.

Next Sunday, I will join an interfaith moving vigil in Hampton to support New Hampshire's death penalty repeal effort. HB 1170 has passed the House and it's now with the Senate — please join us!

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.

Georgia Coalition Pushing to End Capital Punishment

That's the title of an Associated Press report, via the Athens Banner-Herald.

A group of religious leaders, human rights activists and others are planning to call for Georgia lawmakers to end capital punishment in the state.

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is planning to gather in the state Capitol rotunda March 11. Director of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, Eric Jacobson, is one of the scheduled speakers.

Organizers said in a release that part of their call to action involves pushing lawmakers to reconsider parameters for the burden of proof for proving a defendant's intellectual disability.

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins at the link.

Activism in Texas

The Dallas Morning News has two posts dealing with the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and it's upcoming annual meeting in Fort Worth this weekend..

"If you see a crowd at the courthouse Friday, it’s those anti-death penalty people calling on the DA," is by Rodger Jones, amember of the editorial board.

This here is a public service announcement on an anti-death penalty observance taking place this weekend in North Texas. It kicks off with a press conference at the Dallas County criminal courthouse, at the office of District Attorney Craig Watkins.

As this newspaper has written before, Watkins, considering his race and background, has become the most unlikeliest of DA’s to lead the state — and probably the nation — in sending people to death row. (An editorial called it the county’s “dubious distinction.”)

Remember, Watkins’ great-grandfather was executed by Texas in 1932 and was buried in the prison cemetery in Huntsville. Watkins has expressed moral opposition to putting people to death, while acknowledging that it’s his sworn duty to uphold the law. Watkins also says there are racial undercurrents in the criminal justice system that can’t be denied.

"Three North Texans to protest death penalty in walk from Dallas to Fort Worth," is by Diane Jennings.

Three North Texas residents will walk from Dallas to Fort Worth Friday as part of a “faithful pilgrimage” to protest the death penalty.

Rev. Jeff Hood,a pastor in Denton, Rev. Wes Magruder of Plano, Chair of the Board of Church and Society for the United Methodist Church’s North Texas Conference and Lynn Walters, executive director of Hope for Peace and Justice, a Dallas non-profit, plan to  walk from the district attorney’s office in Dallas to the district attorney’s office in Fort Worth.

The 35-mile pilgrimage,which will be held in conjunction with the annual Conference of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Saturday, was Hood’s idea. The pastor of a group called Prism in Denton,  said when he moved to Texas, “I began to realize the faith community holds the key to overturning the death penalty.”

Related posts are in the activism category index.

Kirk Bloodsworth on Tennessee's Death Penalty

"Tennessee: Death penalty too fallible, irreversible," is Kirk Bloodsworth's OpEd in today's Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Ray Krone seems like your average Tennessee resident. He loves the mountains, fishing, and is proud to call this state his home. But Ray Krone is more than your average Tennessean — he’s the 100th person exonerated from a death row in the United States after DNA evidence proved his innocence.

Before his exoneration in 2002, Krone spent nearly 10 years in an Arizona prison, three of those on death row, for a murder he did not commit. The case against him, in the 1991 stabbing death of a woman who worked at a Phoenix bar, was based largely on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of an “expert” witness about bite marks found on the victim. In 2002, Krone was exonerated when a court found that DNA evidence at the murder scene pointed to another man.

Krone, who will speak about his experience during a visit to Rhodes College on Wednesday, is not alone. In fact, he’s one of 143 men and women in the United States who have been sentenced to death for crimes we now know they did not commit. Paul House, who was convicted in 1986 of murdering a woman in Luttrell, Tenn., is a prime example. For more than two decades, Paul House sat on Tennessee’s death row waiting for the courts to consider evidence, including DNA from the victim’s clothes, which finally led to the dismissal of all charges and his release in 2009. Michael McCormick, convicted of murdering a woman in Chattanooga in 1985, was released in 2007, after 16 years on Tennessee’s death row, when a jury found him not guilty in a new trial based on an unreliable confession and DNA testing of a hair found in the victim’s car.

Kirk Bloodsworth and Ray Krone are members of Witness to Innocence, an organization composed of and assisting death row exonerees.

Earlier coverage from Tennessee begins at the link.

Live Twitter Q&A Starting Soon on Exonerations Report

Use #NRE13 to ask questions of Prof. Samuel Gross, the report's author, on Twitter at 1:00 p.m. EST/ 12:00 noon CST today.

The National Registry of Exonerations has released a new report.

Here's the news release, "Record Number of Exonerations Occurred in 2013 Compared to Last 25 years; Number of DNA exonerations declined, while non-DNA exonerations rose sharply."

The National Registry of Exonerations reports today that at least 1,304 prisoners falsely convicted of crimes were exonerated over the past 25 years, and there are many more cases yet to be discovered. Eighty-seven (87) known exonerations occurred in 2013, more than any previous year, making 2013 a “record-breaking” year for exonerations in the United States.
 
Contrary to popular belief, the report, “Exonerations in 2013,” shows that the number of exonerations in which DNA played a role has gradually declined since 2005, and only represented about a fifth of the total number of exonerations in 2013. In the same period, the number of non-DNA exonerations per year doubled from 34 in 2005 to 69 in 2013.
 
Read the report, which includes a separate detailed summary of all known exonerations from 1989 through 2013, in Adobe .pdf format.

See an infographic here.

Use #NRE13 to ask questions of Prof. Samuel Gross, the report's author, on Twitter at 1:00 p.m. EST/ 12:00 noon CST today.

The trends in 2013 reflect several long-term trends in exonerations in America:

•      Twenty-seven (27) of the 87 known exonerations that occurred in 2013 -- almost one-third of the total number for the year -- were in cases in which no crime in fact occurred, a record number.

•      Fifteen (15) known exonerations in 2013 -- 17 percent -- occurred in cases in which the defendants were convicted after pleading guilty, also a record number. The rate of exonerations after a guilty plea has doubled since 2008 and the number continues to grow.

•      Thirty-three (33) known exonerations in 2013 -- 38 percent -- were obtained at the initiative or with the cooperation of law enforcement. This is the second highest annual total of exonerations with law enforcement cooperation, down slightly from 2012, but consistent with an upward trend in police and prosecutors taking increasingly active roles in reinvestigating possible false convictions.

In 2013, Reginald Griffin, who had been sentenced to death in Missouri, was exonerated, bringing the total number of death row exonerations to 143 across 26 states since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The ten states with the most recorded exonerations in 2013 were: Texas (13), Illinois (9), New York (8), Washington (7), California (6), Michigan (5), Missouri (5), Connecticut (4), Georgia (4), and Virginia (4). The states with the most recorded exonerations are not necessarily those where most false convictions have occurred.
“Exonerations are on the rise, and a lot of the credit goes to prosecutors and police who are increasingly active in investigating possible false convictions. But there are many false convictions that we don’t know about,” said Michigan Law professor Samuel Gross, editor of the Registry and an author of the report. “The exonerations we know about are only the tip of the iceberg.”

“More people are now paying attention to wrongful convictions. Police, prosecutors, judges and the public are all more aware of the danger of convicting innocent defendants,” said Professor Gross.
 
“The more we learn about wrongful convictions, the better we’ll be at preventing them  - and of course at correcting them after the fact as best we can,” said Rob Warden, co-founder of the Registry and Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. “Studying the reasons for wrongful convictions - perjury, mistaken identification, official misconduct, false confessions, misleading forensic evidence – will lead to fewer convictions of the innocent.”

Earlier coverage of the Registry begins at the link; news coverage of the report, next.

News From the American Bar Association

"Ronald Tabak to Receive 2014 Father Drinan Award," is the announcement from the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities.

The ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (IRR) is proud to announce that Ronald Tabak will receive the 2014 Robert F. Drinan Award for Distinguished Service to the Section.

The award, named in honor of the late Father Robert F. Drinan, a former member of Congress who chaired the Section from 1990 to 1991, recognizes service to the Section that advances its mission of providing leadership to the legal profession in protecting and advancing human rights, civil liberties, and social justice.

The Drinan Award will be presented to Mr. Tabak during a reception on Friday, February 7th at the 2014 ABA Midyear Meeting in Chicago.

And:

Mr. Tabak is a longtime proponent of examining and addressing issues of fairness in capital punishment cases.  He has been a leader in the ABA’s efforts to recruit and train lawyers for indigent death row inmates; spearheaded the successful effort to have the ABA call for a moratorium on executions until various due process concerns are resolved; he currently chairs the Section’s Death Penalty Committee; and serves as a Special Advisor to the Death Penalty Due Process Review Project Steering Committee.

The reception is free but please R.S.V.P. by sending an email to [email protected], if you want to attend the Chicago event.

Related posts are in the ABA category index.

A New Book From David Dow

The University of Houston Law Center professor is one of the best writers on death penalty issues.  David Dow's latest book is, Things I've Learned From Dying: A Book About Life, published by 12 Books.

"Lawyer looks for lessons in death," is by Tim Bross for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

His new book, “Things I’ve Learned From Dying,” is more personal. It deals with the deaths of his father-in-law, a death-row inmate and a family dog.

Some might think it odd to compare a Doberman’s last days to those of two humans. It’s not, particularly in Dow’s hands. He is a gifted storyteller. And regardless of your opinion on the death penalty, he sounds like good company.

Dow’s father-in-law, identified only as Peter, is a scientist of some repute. About the time of his retirement at age 58, he learns that what he thought was a persistent mosquito bite is in fact melanoma. It will kill him.

The Dallas Morning News posts, "Book review: ‘Things I’ve Learned From Dying,’ by David Dow."  It's written by Steve Weinberg.

David Dow is a lawyer who writes like an angel about men society has judged to be devils — convicted murderers awaiting execution by the state of Texas.

Dow proved himself to be a superb author four years ago with The Autobiography of an Execution. In that book, he explained, in page after page of sterling prose, why he labors to halt the death penalty being carried out, and how the executions of his clients that do occur eat away at him and his family and his law partners and his law students at the University of Houston.

And:

Dow felt certain he had experienced every emotion possible as a death-row litigator. But he learns through his father-in-law’s situation that there is a great deal more to learn about facing mortality. That is especially true because his father-in-law, born in 1938, had seemed so vitally alive before the medical diagnosis.

There are author events coming up in Houston and Austin.  Wednesday, August 8th, Brazos Books hosts a book signing in Houston.  Next week, on Tuesday, January 14th, Book People in Austin holds a book signing, also.  Both of the independent booksellers will be glad to take your advance order for a signed copy and mail it to you.

Coverage of David Dow's earlier book begins at the link.  Related posts are in the books index.

DPIC Issues 'The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report'

The Death Penalty Information Center's The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report is available at the link.  You can also find a news release, infographic, and a video at the link.

The Guardian is hosting a live chat today at 1:00 pm (ET), 12:00 noon (CT), 6:00 pm (GMT).

Join reporter Ed Pilkington and report author Richard C Dieter in a live chat about the state of the death penalty in the US at 1pm ET, 12:00 noon CT (6pm GMT.) Tweet your questions to @EdPilkington, or leave them in the module below (at link.)

Here's a roundup of coverage:

"Executions in US drop close to 20-year low in 2013," is by Pete Yost for the Associated Press.

Reliance on the death penalty continues to decline with 39 people executed this year, only the second time in 19 years that fewer than 40 people were put to death, a private group reported Thursday.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes executions and tracks the issue, also said the number of new death sentences was near its lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in the 1970s. There have been 80 new death sentences so far this year, three more than in 2012 and down from 315 in 1996, the group said.

The 39 executions were carried out in nine states. Texas had the most, 16, followed by Florida, which had seven. Oklahoma had six, Ohio three, Arizona and Missouri two each, and Alabama, Georgia and Virginia, one each.

Texas, the leader in executions, illustrates the downward trend. It recorded 48 death sentences in 1999. This year, it was nine, marking the sixth year in a row that Texas had less than 10 death sentences.

The New York Times reports, "In Death Penalty’s Steady Decline, Some Experts See a Societal Shift," by Erik Eckholm.

The death penalty in the United States continued its pattern of broad decline in 2013, with experts attributing the low numbers to a critical shortage of drugs used for lethal injection, increasing public concern over judicial mistakes and the expense of capital cases, and a growing preference for life without parole.

Eighty death sentences were imposed by American courts this year, compared with a peak of 315 in 1994, and 39 executions took place, compared with 98 in 1999, according to an annual accounting released on Thursday by the Death Penalty Information Center, a private group in Washington.

“A societal shift is underway,” said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the information center, which opposes capital punishment.

In May, Maryland became the sixth state in the last six years to abolish the death penalty, leaving 32 states with capital punishment on the books. But for the second straight year, only nine states put prisoners to death.

Douglas A. Berman, an expert on criminal sentencing at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said a significant retrenchment in the use of the death penalty was taking place, but also noted that “a majority of states and people still favor using it for the most serious crimes.”

"State of the Death Penalty as 2013 Ends," is by Maggie Clark for Stateline.

States continued to turn away from the death penalty this year, with just 39 people executed in nine states, according to a year-end report from the Death Penalty Information Center. Maryland repealed the death penalty this year, continuing a six-year trend of one state each year ending the punishment.

"Number of executions and new death sentences decline," by Kevin Johnson for USA Today.

Although the 80 new death sentences this year represent three more than in 2012, the number has declined dramatically since 1996 when it reached a high of 315.

At the same time, a decline in the numbers on death row has outpaced the number of executions. There were 3,108 inmates on death row across the country as of April 1, down from 3,170 at the same time last year.

"Fewer death sentences, fewer people on death row will mean fewer executions,'' said Richard Dieter, the center's executive director.

Texas, with traditionally the busiest execution chamber in the U.S., maintained that position with 16 executions this year, one more than 2012. But Dieter noted that those numbers may not be sustained because there were fewer new death sentences issued this year — nine — than there were executions.

National Journal posts, "Death Penalty Opponents Are Winning … Almost Everywhere," by Dustin Volz.

Executions are on the decline across the United States—unless you live in Texas or Florida.

The U.S. put to death 39 people in 2013, just the second time in the past two decades that number has fallen below 40, according to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. Additionally, the number of new death sentences issued in 2013 was near its lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in the 1970s.

Total executions fell by four overall from last year, but the two states that carried out the most—Texas (16) and Florida (7)—both increased their pace from 2012. Together, the two accounted for 59 percent of all U.S. executions in 2013, although Texas carried out fewer than 10 death sentences for the sixth consecutive year—a stark contrast to the 48 recorded in 1999.

"Death penalty in the United States gradually declining," by Bill Mears at CNN.

A shortage of lethal injection chemicals has contributed to declining use of capital punishment in the United States with a new report on Thursday noting only 39 executions this year.

It is only the second time in the past two decades the annual number of inmates put to death has dropped below 40.

The total represents a 10 percent reduction from last year. No further executions are scheduled in 2013.

"Twenty years ago, use of the death penalty was increasing. Now it is declining by almost every measure," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and the author of the report.

"Drug Shortage Helps Lead to Fall in 2013 Executions," by Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal.

The long-running controversy over lethal-injection drugs helped push the number of executions in 2013 down by about 10%, according to a new report published Thursday.

In 2013, nine states were responsible for 39 executions, four fewer than the 43 carried out in both 2012 and 2011, according to an annual study of the death penalty by the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization.

With the exception of 2008, in which 37 inmates were put to death, the 2013 figure represents the lowest since 1994, when 31 people were executed.

"U.S. executions continued to decline in 2013," by David G. Savage for the Los Angeles Times.

The drop-off is especially noteworthy in Texas, the nation’s leader in carrying out executions. This year, the Lone Star State saw nine new death sentences, marking the sixth year in a row it has recorded fewer than 10.

Richard Dieter, the report’s author, says the drop-off may be explained by a 2005 change in the law that gave juries the choice of sentencing murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Before, jurors had to sentence a murderer to die to be assured he would never go free.

AFP posts, "The US executed fewer people in 2013," via GlobalPost.

The UN General Assembly called in 2007 and 2008 for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty — an EU initiative that the United States voted against alongside the likes of China, North Korea and Iran.

"39 Death Row Executions in 2013, a 10% Drop from Last Year," by Courtney Subramanian at Time.

National Law Journal reports, "Support for Death Penalty Slipping, Organization Finds," by Marcia Coyle.

"Report: U.S. Executions Dipped in 2013," by Steven Nelson for US News & World Report.

"Declining executions could become obsolete in US by 2025, advocate says," by Massoud Hayoun at Aljazeera America.

"European boycott of death penalty drugs lowers rate of US executions," by Ed Pilkington for the Guardian.

Politico posts, "Report: Executions dip in 2013," by Mackenzie Weinger.

Later today I'll have state-specific news reports.

Texas Coalition Issues Annual Year-End Report

The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 2013 Year-End Report is available in Adobe .pdf format.  TCADP has also issued a news release announcing the report.

"Deadly Statistics," is Jordan Smith's report for the Austin Chronicle.

While Harris County retains its rank as the county that has sent the most defendants to Death Row since reinstatement in 1976, in recent years Dallas County has surged forward, earning it the top spot for new death penalty sentences since 2008, according to a report released this morning by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Of the 55 inmates condemned to die since 2008, Dallas sent 20% (11 defendants) to Death Row during the last five years, according to the annual TCADP report. That distinction is unsettling, given that Dallas County also leads the state in the number of exonerations established through DNA evidence, with 24 men exonerated through mid-2012. "While most of Texas is moving away from the death penalty, Dallas County has emerged as a major outlier in its pursuit of the ultimate punishment, particularly for defendants of color," Kristin Houlé, TCADP executive director, said in a press release. "These troubling patterns directly counter Dallas' reputation as a leader in criminal justice reform."

Indeed, while the number of new death sentences handed out in Texas remained low in 2013 – just nine new sentences were delivered, the same as in 2012 (up by one over the eight delivered in 2010 and 2011) – geographically, the use of the death penalty remains isolated, and the imposition of the ultimate sentence on minority defendants remains high.

And:

TCADP will be hosting a Tweet Chat today (Tuesday, Dec. 17), from 3-4pm, at #2013TXDP, with yours truly – @chronic_jordan – serving as a moderator. We'll be ready to discuss the implications of Texas' use of the death penalty and eager to answer #deathpenalty related questions.

Related posts are in the report category index.  Earlier coverage from Texas begins at the link.

OpEds in Tennessee

"We can't keep ignoring death penalty's failings," is the OpEd by Robert C. Goodrich Jr., published in the Tennessean on November 24.  He's chairman of the board of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and an attorney.

The state of Tennessee has set two executions for next year, and many more are likely to follow, using drugs of death obtained from sources made secret by an act of our legislature. We cannot in good conscience ignore what is right before us. The now secretive, distasteful business of the death penalty is not worthy of us, and it is we (you and me) who are responsible. Let’s stop it now.

Join us for Generations Against the Death Penalty, a benefit concert for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. The Wednesday, Dec. 4, benefit concert at 3rd and Lindsley will feature singer-songwriter John Hiatt, his daughter Lilly and a handful of musical parent-and-offspring pairings. You can find out more at tennesseedeathpenalty.org.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel posts the OpEd by Drew Johnson, "Capital punishment inconsistent with conservative views."

Conservatives from all levels of government are fighting to protect innocent life, promote financial responsibility and support government programs that really work. After all, that’s what conservatism is all about. That’s why conservatives such as myself, Tennessee state Rep. Steve McManus, R-Cordova, and national leaders like Brent Bozell, Jay Sekulow and Ron Paul have all begun to publicly question capital punishment.

National support for the death penalty is at an all-time low. Our neighbor to the east, North Carolina, supported repealing the death penalty by 68 percent in a recent poll.

Earlier this month, Reginald Griffin of Missouri became the 143rd person to be wrongfully convicted and released from death row since 1973. How many others were not so fortunate and were wrongly executed? We may never know, but if conservatives continue to fight for innocent life, then we shouldn’t support a program that is proven to be wrong time and time again when lives hang in the balance.

Earlier coverage from Tennessee begins; also available, more on conservative opposition to capital punishment.

Texas Editorials

The Dallas Morning News published the editorial, "Conservatives vs. the death penalty," on November 30.

Opposition to the death penalty is not just the province of the political left.

This year has seen the emergence of a new national group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which has been assembling a network of like-minded activists since its debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March in National Harbor, Md. This month, the conservative group announced a partnership with a Ron Paul-inspired, campus-centered organization, the Young Americans for Liberty.

The driving principles are capital punishment’s incompatibility with the conservative ideals of restraining government, protecting life and maintaining fiscal responsibility.

The political right has teamed up with the left to push “smart on crime” reforms in sentencing and incarceration, among other issues. From the standpoint of this newspaper and our opposition to the death penalty, that same political axis could be key to making further inroads as more states consider joining the 18 that have already abolished the practice.

"AC livens up death penalty debate," is the Amarillo Globe-News editorial of November 27.

We applaud Amarillo College for hosting a recent debate on capital punishment, which featured local attorneys arguing both sides of the issue.

These public forums are beneficial for an educational institution as well as a community, no matter what side of the death penalty you support.

It is a few days after the debate, but allow us to participate — and inject another part of the capital punishment debate that is being overlooked.

Earlier coverage of conservative supporters of repeal begins at the link; also available, earlier coverage from Texas.

State-Specific Coverage of the ABA Symposium

Morris News Service writer Walter C. Jones filed three state-specific news reports on the Carter Center symposium.

The Florida Times-Union posted, "Steps suggested to protect innocent in capital cases."

Georgia prosecutors, police and defense attorneys need more rigorous procedures in order to safeguard the innocent in death penalty cases, according to a review by the American Bar Association featured Tuesday during a daylong conference.

The study was part of a series of examinations the association’s civil-rights section made of the 12 states that conduct 65 percent of the nation’s executions. Many of the authors have acknowledged personal opposition to capital punishment.

“The ABA takes no stance on the death penalty outright. But we insist that if jurisdictions use the death penalty, they implement it fairly, accurately and with due process,” said James Silkenat, ABA president at the start of the conference at the Carter Center. He notes that the number of U.S. executions has declined from 85 in 2000 to less than half that this year and that polls show Americans’ support for capital punishment — 60 percent — is at its lowest point since 1972.

“The truth is that, as shown over and over again in our state assessment reports, the death penalty is still applied unpredictably,” Silkenat said. “And, more often than not, capital cases are unduly influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the defendant or the crime.”

And:

“Georgia has long been ground zero in the legal debate over capital punishment,” he said. “Thus it is fitting that we are here today to begin a new discussion about the fairness of the death penalty in America.”

Georgia is the state that generated the U.S. Supreme Court decision that halted executions in the country in 1972 over racial disparity and the state that prompted the court to approve their resumption in 1976 after legal reforms.

"Bar Association study: Florida needs greater safeguards in death-penalty cases," is also in the Times-Union.

The study notes that Florida has released one person as innocent from Death Row for every three it has executed since 1973, the highest number of exonerations in the nation.

The specific advice for Florida calls for changing limits on how defense attorneys are compensated and boosting their qualifications for taking on a capital case. And it also objects to allowing juries that aren’t unanimous to deliver a death sentence or for judges to override the jury’s recommendations and order an execution. Plus, the Board of Executive Clemency should be more transparent, such as issuing a written statement every time it denies clemency.

The likelihood of these recommendations taking effect depends on the ability of activists to spur politicians to act, according to Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Most of the conference participants favor repeal of the death penalty, and they left with more ammunition to do so.

The Amarillo Globe-News reports, "Review: Texas needs better policies to protect innocents."

The chairwoman of the ABA team that examined the Texas system, University of Texas professor Jennifer Laurin, is optimistic the Texas Legislature will take the advice to heart.

“I feel confident that a number of the recommendations — some of which have been considered by the legislature before — will be considered again,” she said.

“With not only the research behind the report, but also longer time and experience with some of the financial as well as justice-related pitfalls of our criminal justice system, there’ll be more momentum for it.”

The specific advice for Texas includes requiring written procedures for police in dealing with eyewitness identifications, videotaping of all interrogations while in custody, amending the law to allow greater post-trial testing of DNA evidence and higher funding for state crime labs.

The authors also called for abandoning of the “future dangerousness” question that jurors use in deciding a death sentence since Texas is the only state that requires it.

Texas exoneree Anthony Graves also spoke at the symposium.

Earlier coverage of the ABA Carter Center symposium begins in the preceding post. You can also jump to coverage of the ABA Texas Assessment.

News Coverage of the ABA Symposium at the Carter Center

The National Journal posts, "Jimmy Carter's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Is Lonely, But Is He Winning?" by Dustin Volz.

Former President Carter called for a national moratorium on capital punishment in the United States on Tuesday, declaring in a speech, "We should abolish the death penalty here and throughout the world."

Carter proceeded to meticulously enumerate the oft-cited ethical, financial, and legal reasons for his opposition, which are nothing new for the octogenarian; he expressed doubt about the death penalty as far back as his presidential campaigns.

"Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is its extreme bias against the poor, minorities, and those with mental disabilities," Carter said at a national symposium hosted by the American Bar Association at the Carter Center in Atlanta. "It's hard to imagine a rich white man or woman going to the death chamber after being defended by expensive lawyers."

Carter's remarks come at a time when support for the death penalty among Americans has fallen to 60 percent, the lowest reading since 1972 and down from a mid-1990s high of 80 percent. States with capital punishment are also facing unprecedented challenges in their efforts to secure the drugs necessary to perform executions by way of lethal injection.

"Carter calls for abolition of death penalty," by Bill Rankin in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 1973, Carter, then governor of Georgia, signed the state’s capital punishment statute into law after it had been struck down a year before by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Furman v. Georgia. The new law was upheld by the high court in 1976 in the case, Gregg v. Georgia.

Carter condemned Georgia’s burden of proof for inmates who say they should be ineligible for execution on grounds they are mentally disabled. Georgia is the only state in the country that requires inmates to prove their mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt.

In recent years, Carter has called for the state to commute the death sentence imposed against Warren Hill, who sits on death row for killing a fellow prison inmate. Hill was only able to prove his mental disability by a preponderance of the evidence — or more likely than not — and courts and that state parole board have rejected his claims.

Georgia’s burden of proof “makes is almost legally impossible” for inmates to prove they are mentally disabled, Carter said. “That would be hard for me to do if the jury was bipartisan in nature.”

 AP coverage is, "Carter calls for abolition of death penalty," by Kate Brumback.  It's via the Dalton Daily Citizen.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday there are overwhelming ethical, financial and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty all over the world.

Carter spoke at a daylong symposium on capital punishment at the Carter Center in Atlanta, but it wasn’t the first time the 89-year-old former president and former governor of Georgia has advocated ending capital punishment.

Statistics have shown that the possibility of the death penalty does not reduce violent crime that and crime doesn’t increase when executions are stopped, he said. He also said there are unfair racial, economic and geographic disparities in the application of the death penalty.

And:

Carter noted that a majority of the executions since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976 have been carried out in Southern states, which are traditionally more conservative. But Carter said he doesn’t believe that opposing the death penalty has to be politically poisonous.

Sitting on a panel with Carter at the American Bar Association’s National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty in America, Southern Center for Human Rights president Stephen Bright prodded Carter about the political viability of such a position in Georgia.

“Let’s say you were advising someone running for governor today, just hypothetically let’s say a member of your family was running for governor and asked you what position to take on the death penalty,” Bright said, drawing laughs from the crowd. Carter’s grandson, Georgia state Sen. Jason Carter, announced last week that he’s running for governor.

Carter laughed and then grew more serious in his response: “If I ever have someone like that in my family, I will give them a copy of the speech I just made and ask them to do what they believe in their heart is right because I don’t believe that the death penalty abolition would be an overwhelmingly a negative factor in Georgia politics.”

The key, Carter said, is stressing hefty alternative sentences, such as life in prison.

"Analysis: Wrongful convictions sharpen focus on death penalty," is by Maggie Clark of Stateline, via USA Today.

To ensure that more innocent people don't end up on death row, the American Bar Association has conducted assessments of the death penalty system in 12 states and issued recommendations ranging from stronger rules on police interrogations to protections for the mentally ill facing execution.

In its most recent report, researchers found that Virginia's death penalty lacked adequate protections to prevent an innocent person from being executed. The report recommended allowing more evidence to be released to the defense team, which former Virginia Republican Attorney General Mark Earley said was the only way to make sure the process is fair.

"By the time a case gets to the appellate review, a lot of the decisions about a defendant's guilt are already locked in. By that time, the deck is stacked against the defendant," Earley said during the panel discussion.

And:

"I think the days of the death penalty in Virginia are numbered," Earley said, citing growing conservative discontent with the punishment. Earley supported the death penalty as a Republican state senator, but said he changed his mind after witnessing executions as the state attorney general.

In the last six years, six states have ended the death penalty bringing the total to 18. Earlier this year, North Carolina and Florida passed laws designed to shorten the length of time between conviction and execution.

Creative Loafing Atlanta posts, "Jimmy Carter wants to ban executions throughout the United States," by Max Blau.

The 89-year-old former commander-in-chief and Georgia governor spoke this morning at the National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty in America, a daylong event at the Carter Center that featured numerous speakers and panels about capital punishment.

"We should abolish the death penalty here and throughout the world," Carter said at the event.

The American Bar Association, which hosted the symposium with the Carter Center, wants guarantees that the death penalty is used in a fair and effective manner. According to WABE, Carter pointed out that Southern states' higher execution rates have largely failed to curb homicides. He also called Georgia's burden of proof for mental disability, which has played a crucial role in death-row inmate Warren Lee Hill's controversial case, problematic.

I'll have some state-specific coverage of the ABA symposium in the next post.

Earlier coverage of President Carter's thoughts on capital punishment and a preview of the ABA program begins at the link.

You can get more information on the state assessments at the ABA's Death Penalty Due Process Project website.

Related posts are in the ABA category index.

Osler, Bishop Conduct 'Trial' in New Orleans

"Death penalty opponents put 'Jesus on Trial'," is by Jarvis DeBerry in t New Orleans Times-Picayune.

In a Loyola Law School mock trial gaveled to order by real-life U.S. District Judge Helen "Ginger" Berrigan Friday, prosecutors asked jurors to execute a certain Jesus of Nazareth for blasphemous acts they say were both heinous and responsible for leading multitudes of people astray. The itinerant preacher's defense lawyers argued that he shouldn't be executed, that nobody ever should, but the state said there remained a threat to the public.

"What jail? What prison can hold a man who can walk on water?" asked Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Jeanne Bishop, a Chicago public defender who lost a sister, brother-in-law and their unborn child to murder, said her client's embrace of society's rejects - tax collectors, lepers, bleeding women, non-bleeding women - reveals a startling theology: "No one is beyond the redemption of God. No one is beyond the purpose of God. Then how can we have a death penalty?"

Friday's "Jesus on Trial" demonstration was organized in part by the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University, which makes no secret of its opposition to the death penalty. In a pamphlet distributed before the trial called "Diminishing All of Us: The Death Penalty in Louisiana," the JSRI notes that "Louisiana has one of the highest wrongful-conviction rates in the country. More people have been exonerated in Louisiana in the last ten years than executed."

Earlier coverage of the program presented by Mark Osler and Jeanne Bishop begins at the link.

The program grows out of Osler's book, Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment.

New Hampshire Roundup - Commentary & Analysis

The Concord Monitor publishes an editorial, "It’s time to repeal the death penalty."

It is to the significant credit of the prosecutors in the capital murder case against Michael Addison that their arguments withstood numerous strong arguments from defense attorneys before the New Hampshire Supreme Court. It is to the significant credit of the lower court judge that the process was deemed fair.

But it is to the extreme detriment of New Hampshire as a whole that Addison is now one step closer to death. This week’s ruling should strengthen the resolve of those working to overturn the state’s death penalty statute, to keep New Hampshire government from ever again playing executioner in our name.

The Monitor also publishes an OpEd, "Violence in any form is never the answer," by Rev. Jonathan Hopkins.  He's president of the New Hampshire Council of Churches.

On Nov. 24, Christ the King Sunday, there will be a preach-in supported by Bishop Peter Anthony Libasci of the Roman Catholic diocese, Episcopal Bishop Rob Hirschfeld, Bishop James Hazelwood (my bishop) of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Rev. Gary Schulte, conference ministry of the United Church of Christ.

On that day we will talk about the spiritual issues involved when addressing the death penalty – how the use of retaliatory violence only continues the cycle. The need for redemption, forgiveness, healing, compassion and reconciliation are all spiritual truths that should help us to come to conclusions about the death penalty. In 2014 we have a chance in New Hampshire to be the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. We have a chance to do away with an expensive, noneffective, nonspiritual way of fighting crime. We have a chance to send a real message that violence in any form is never the answer to the problems we face.

Foster's Daily Democrat publishes the editorial, "A weak case to end death penalty."

The decision last week by the N.H. Supreme Court to uphold the conviction of Michael Addison raises serious doubts about the efficacy of an effort being mounted in the Legislature to repeal the state’s death penalty.

In 2008 Addison was convicted of killing Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006.

On Wednesday, the court unanimously turned back all 22 challenges raised by Addison’s defense team. Meanwhile, it is expected the next session of the Legislature will consider a bill to revoke the death penalty.

"Ruling on death row convict not the last word," is Lynne Tuohy's AP report, also via the Concord Monitor.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court’s ruling this week that upheld the conviction and sentence of the state’s only death row convict is far from the last word.

The court will next review the fairness of Michael Addison’s death sentence by comparing it with cases in other states where jurors had to reach life-or-death verdicts on convicted cop killers.

Defense attorney David Rothstein said Friday he doesn’t anticipate arguments to happen before 2015, and Senior Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said there is still much more work to do before the appeal wraps up.

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.

Former President Jimmy Carter Renews Dialogue on Capital Punishment

The Guardian posts, "Jimmy Carter calls for fresh moratorium on death penalty," by Ed Pilkington.

Former US president Jimmy Carter has called for a new nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, arguing that it is applied so unfairly across the 32 states that still have the death sentence that it amounts to a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the US constitution.

In an interview with the Guardian, Carter calls on the US supreme court to reintroduce the ban on capital punishment that it imposed between 1972 and 1976. The death penalty today, he said, was every bit as arbitrary as it was when the nine justices suspended it on grounds of inconsistency in the case of Furman v Georgia 41 years ago.

“It’s time for the supreme court to look at the totality of the death penalty once again,” Carter said. “My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution.”

Carter’s appeal for a new moratorium falls at a time of mounting unease about the huge disparities in the use of capital punishment in America.

Pilkington will be one of the moderators at tomorrow's ABA National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty in America, being held tomorrow at the the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Earlier news of the symposium begins at the link.

News & Events From the ABA

The American Bar Association presents a National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty in America.  It will be held Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

This symposium will be the culminating event of the American Bar Association’s eight-year endeavor to examine the fairness and accuracy of various death penalty jurisdictions in the United States.  The ABA-sponsored analysis of state death penalty laws and processes, known as the “State Assessments,” have produced comprehensive examinations of capital punishment in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas.   These states represent 65% of the executions that have taken place in the U.S. in the modern death penalty era.  The assessments have had a considerable impact on policy in those states as well as nationwide, and have played an important role in the continuing debate over capital punishment in the United States.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will open our symposium, which will be followed by a series of special issue panels discussing the ABA’s findings in various jurisdictions, recommendations for reform, and implications for the future of the death penalty in America.  The symposium’s featured speakers and panelists include ABA President Jim Silkenat, President of the Southern Center for Human Rights Stephen B. Bright, the Honorable Boyce Martin, recently retired from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, former Texas Governor Mark White, former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and former Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, journalists Ed Pilkington of the UK’s Guardian newspaper and Brandi Grissom of the Texas Tribune (and many more) will serve as panelists throughout the day as we discuss contemporary problems concerning the use of the death penalty in America, as well as possible solutions to this complex and multi-faceted area of law and policy.

The registration deadline is Friday, November 1, 2013.

The Symposium is sponsored by the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, ABA Criminal Justice Section, Andrews Kurth, and Sutherland.

Also, the IRR Section has announced that Ron Tabak will be the 2014 recipient of the Section's Father Robert Drinan Award for Distinguished Service in recognition of his outstanding service and commitment.  In the words of the Chair, “Your work for over a quarter of a century in death penalty and civil rights litigation and on behalf of death row inmates and due process in death penalty jurisprudence, has enriched this Section with your experience, and honored our profession by your example.”

The award will be presented the evening of Friday, February 7, 2014 in Chicago as part of the ABA’s 2014 Mid-Year Meeting.

Related posts are in the ABA category index.

Catholics Mobilizing Network to Host Event November 9

"Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty," will be held on Saturday, November 9 from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM (ET) at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC.

The day-long program will also be webcast.  Registration is required for attending in person or watching the streaming video webcast.

Here's the full program description:

The Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty and the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. are co-sponsoring a national conference entitled “Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty.” Everyone is welcome!

CMN is excited to promote the latest in the progression of the Church’s teaching on the pro-life issue of the death penalty. Pope John Paul II made it absolutely clear that we as Catholics are called to preserve life and to act to end the use of the death penalty. Pope Benedict XVI expanded on this, urging us to engage on the issue in our efforts to impact public policy. At the World Congress Against the Death Penalty held in Madrid in June, Pope Francis reiterated the Holy See’s support for “the abolition of the death penalty.”

CMN was founded to educate Catholics on the Church’s teaching on the death penalty and  restorative justice and to prepare Catholics for informed involvement in campaigns to pass death penalty reform and repeal legislation. CMN’s Mount St. Mary’s University office, staffed by Vicki Schieber, worked in collaboration with the faculty on the just-published book, Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty.

Our conference on November 9th will feature panel discussions with Mount Saint Mary’s University and Catholic University professors and authors discussing their work and how Catholic teaching has evolved on the issue. We will discuss where we stand today, and how Catholics are leading in the winning campaign to end the death penalty in the United States through public policy advocacy. Among the presenters will be CMN’s Vicki Schieber, and a keynote address by our founder and noted Catholic anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ.

All are welcome to attend this event which will be hosted at the Columbus School of Law on the Catholic University campus.  The conference is free and open to the public, but we ask that all interested participants complete the online registration form provided by IPR to guarantee ample space for everyone.

For those that cannot attend in person, the conference will be available online via live streaming on November 9th.  If you plan to use this option, please still register online and simply mark the box that you will be attending online.

Additional supporters for the event include the Sant’Egidio Community of Washington, D.C. and the Franciscan Action Network.

The schedule for the conference is available on the event website.

To help spread the word, please download and share this flyer about the event.

You may also purchase the book of the same name co-edited by Vicki Schieber.

More information on the book is also available from the Catholics Mobilizing website.  The book is edited by David Matzko McCarthy, Trudy D. Conway, and Vicki Schieber; with a Forward by Sister Helen Prejean.

News Coverage of Ohio Task Force Meeting

"Group wants to exclude severely mentally ill from death penalty," is by  Alan Johnson for the Columbus Dispatch.

People suffering from severe mental illness who commit murder should be excluded from the death penalty, a state task force studying capital punishment recommended yesterday.

The task force doesn’t want people with severe mental illness to go unpunished. But the panel will urge the General Assembly to pass a law preventing a death sentence from being handed down on someone with a diagnosable, severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, at the time he or she commits the crime.

The Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty is a creation of the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio State Bar Association.

Despite yesterday’s recommendation, there is a deep divide among task force members about what constitutes serious mental illness and whether the current legal system does an adequate job of screening for it.

And:

Terry Russell, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Ohio, said such action is long overdue. He began advocating for a mental-illness exclusion in 1999 when Wilford Berry, who struggled with serious mental illness his entire life, became the first Ohioan to be executed in 36 years.

“We knew this man was severely mentally disabled,” Russell said. “It is inhumane to execute someone like that.”

AP coverage is, "Panel: Weigh mental state in capital cases," by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.  It's via the Martins Ferry Times Leader.

Lawmakers should debate taking the death penalty off the table for killers with serious mental illness even before they're charged, under a recommendation approved Thursday by a committee examining capital punishment in the state.

Mental illness has long been a factor in deciding whether someone should be executed in Ohio, but the new proposal deals with eliminating it as an option upfront.

The proposal, approved 15-2 by the Ohio Supreme Court task force, recommends that lawmakers take up the question once the committee issues its final report early next year.

Cleveland appeals court Judge Kathleen Keough called it "an issue of common decency."

"A person suffering from serious mental illness should not be subject to the death penalty," Keough said.

The concept is a long way from becoming law. The recommendation first would need legislation, and that would be followed by a long debate in the General Assembly over the definition of serious mental illness.

And:

Cleveland defense attorney John Parker, chairman of the subcommittee that made the mental illness recommendation, said members of his committee felt it was time to put the issue before lawmakers.

Many members of the task force, which includes defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges and lawmakers, were skeptical of the concept but agreed to recommend its consideration.

Earlier coverage of the Ohio Task Force meeting begins at the link; also available, other Ohio coverage.

More information is at the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty website.

Ohio Death Penalty Commission Meeting Today

"Execution of mentally ill is issue for task force," is Alan Johnson's report in today's Columbus Dispatch.  Here's an extended excerpt.  If you are interested in mental health or Ohio issues, I would recommend reading the entire article.

Inmates diagnosed with serious mental illness could not be executed under a recommendation being considered by a state death-penalty task force.

A host of other recommendations, including requiring audio- or videotaping of all Ohio Parole Board clemency proceedings, are on the agenda at today’s meeting of the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty. The multiagency panel was established by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and the Ohio State Bar Association.

A subcommittee voted 5-0-1 that the full task force should urge state legislators to pass a law to “exclude from eligibility for the death penalty defendants who suffer from ‘serious mental’ illness at the time of the crime.” The recommendation relies heavily on the legal opinion of former Ohio Supreme Court Judge Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, a longtime advocate for the mentally ill who left the court at the end of 2011.

Stratton testified at the committee’s June meeting about mental illness and the death penalty. The task force also cited Stratton’s opinion in a 2011 murder case in which she said the “time had come to re-examine whether we as a society should administer the death penalty to a person with a serious mental illness.”

She noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against executing the mentally disabled and juveniles but has not dealt with the mentally ill.

Stratton said that “the line should be drawn by the General Assembly, not by a court.” And that line would determine exactly what constitutes a “serious” mental illness.

Mental Health America, a national group, estimates that up to 10 percent of all U.S. Death Row inmates have severe mental illness.

And:

The task force also will look at recommendations to record all parole board clemency proceedings, expand jury pools to include licensed drivers as well as registered voters, and require judges to give jury instructions in “plain English” so they are more easily understood.

The task force, which convened nearly two years ago, will wrap up its meetings in November and begin drafting a final report to the governor and state legislators.

AP coverage is, "Ohio death penalty review panel to meet again," via the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.

The committee examining capital punishment in Ohio and reviewing possible changes to the state's death penalty law is ready to meet again.

The task force convened by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor is starting to wind up its work despite divisions over the role that geography and race play in determining who becomes eligible for the death penalty.

The committee, which meets Thursday in Columbus, recently proposed restricting the use of capital punishment by eliminating cases where an aggravated murder was committed during a burglary, robbery or rape.

Any such change would require lawmakers' approval.

Earlier coverage of the Ohio commission begins at the link; other Ohio coverage begins with the preceding post.

More information is at the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty website.

Arizona Death Penalty Summit

The Arizona Republic reports, "Some lawmakers seek a discussion of Arizona death penalty," by Alia Beard Rau.  There is video at the link.  Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning:

A handful of state lawmakers are pushing for a legislative conversation about whether Arizona should continue to have a death penalty.

Six Arizona inmates were executed last year, among the highest number in the nation. Mississippi and Oklahoma also each executed six; Texas executed 15.

“Since 1973, when the death penalty was reinstated, we haven’t had a true legislative conversation about it,” said Sen. Ed Ableser, D-Tempe. “Does the death penalty save taxpayer money? Does it deter crime? Does it help victims?”

Similar debates have gathered steam in other states in recent years. Since 2007, six states have overturned their death-penalty laws, including Maryland this past May. Arizona is among 32 states with a death penalty.

Ableser held a legislative forum Friday to gather input from local experts, religious leaders and families of homicide victims. Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, Rep. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, and Rep. Ethan Orr, R-Tucson, also participated.

Ableser proposed legislation this past session to put a measure to repeal the death penalty on the 2014 ballot. Bradley proposed a 15-year moratorium. Republican Senate leadership did not grant either bill a hearing.

Ableser said the forum was a way to start the conversation. The discussion focused on the financial, spiritual and legal impacts of the death sentence and included speakers on both sides of the issue. About 60 people attended, and Ableser said he would give a recording of the forum to state lawmakers not in attendance.

Carol Gaxiola, director of Homicide Survivors and a Tucson mother whose 14-year-old daughter was murdered in 1999, gave the day’s most emotional testimony.

“If anything would bring my daughter back, I would have killed those two men with my bare hands,” she said. “But nothing will bring my daughter back. It’s forever.”

Republic columnist EJ Montini writes, "Talking capital punishment to death (hopefully)."

Among those scheduled to participate in the summit are State Senators Ed Ableser and David Bradley, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Nevares of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, several prominent lawyers, legislators andcommunity leaders. The event is free and open to the public. It will be held at 9 a.m. in Hearing Room 1 of the Senate building.

“This is really meant to be a conversation,” Peitzmeyer said. “It something we haven’t had in Arizona in a long time, a real discussion about capital punishment.”

Bills concerning the death penalty have been introduced at the legislature as recently as the last session, but none has been given a hearing.

“People come at the issue from all over the place,” Peitzmeyer said. “There’s the revenge aspect, of course. We want to punish someone for having done something horrible. But making those decisions about which cases warrant the death penalty and which ones don’t is a very dicey thing.”

And:

Sen. Ableser is the senate’s primary anti-death penalty advocate.

A while back he told me, “The death penalty is discussed all the time in academia. One of my mentors, (emeritus professor) John Johnson of ASU, has published countless reports on the fiscal benefits of getting rid of the death penalty as well as the societal impact and the distorted sense of justice. My faith, the Ten Commandments tell me this is wrong. But there are also the many cases where DNA evidence has turned up later and exonerates people.”

"Bishop Nevares takes part in death penalty summit," is the Catholic Sun report by Joyce Coronel.

Members of a group known as Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona helped organize a legislative summit Sept. 13 at the Arizona State Senate.  Eight speakers — including Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo A. Nevares — addressed a crowded hearing room regarding both the costs and the justice of the death penalty.

Arizona is one of 32 states nationwide that performs executions.

The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church “does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor,” but the Catechism says such cases “are rare, if not practically non-existent.”

Dan Peitzmeyer, president of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona, said three bills dealing with the death penalty were introduced to the Arizona Legislature last year.  “All three died in committee,” Peitzmeyer said. “The purpose [of the death penalty summit] is to start a dialogue in the community.”

Earlier coverage from Arizona begins at the link.

Scenes From the ABA Texas Assessment News Conference

Here are photos from the Speaker's Committee Room news conference in the Texas State Capitol.

University of Texas Law Professor Jennifer Laurin speaks at the news conference. She Chaired the Texas Assessment team.

Others at the news conference: Thurgood Marshall School of Law Professor Ana M. Otero, Anthony Graves, Mark White, Paul Coggins.

Former Texas Governor Mark White was a member of the Texas Assessment team. Texas' first post-Furman execution occurred when he was the state's Attorney General. In his four years as governor, 19 executions were conducted.

At the right is former U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins.

Texas death row exoneree Anthony Graves was a member of the Texas Assessment team. He called on all branches of Texas government to read the report.

Earlier coverage of the ABA Texas report begins at the link.

REMINDER - Constitution Project Webcast Begins Soon

The Constitution Project's 2013 Constitution Day program, False Confessions: When the Innocent Confess and the Guilty Go Free, will be webcast today, beginning at 12 noon (EDT) / 11 am (CDT) / 10 am (MDT) / 9 am (PDT). 

The Constitution Project has details on the program.  It's expected to last approximately two hours.

On September 17, 2013, from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., The Constitution Project (TCP) will present its annual Constitutional Commentary Award to the award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns and his colleagues for their documentary, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE. Ken Burns will be present to accept the award and will participate in a Constitution Day panel discussion focusing on wrongful convictions, and more specifically false confessions.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of five teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989, in part, based upon their false confessions.  But unfortunately, their case is not an anomaly – false confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in this country.  The panel discussion will explore the phenomenon of innocent people confessing to crimes they did not commit and policies that can be adopted to help fix the problem.  There are various factors that contribute to false confessions – the age and mental state of the suspect, police interrogation tactics – but research shows that practical steps can be taken to protect the innocent while improving policing capabilities and the justice system as a whole.  The panel will explore the various best practices being adopted by law enforcement agencies across the country to help prevent the tragedy of wrongful convictions.

Earlier coverage of the Constitution Day program is at the link.

The Constitution Project to Host DC Event & Webcast September 17

"False Confessions: When the Innocent Confess and the Guilty Go Free," is the title of a program set for next Tuesday in Washington, DC.  It will also be webcast for all to see.  If you are in DC and plan to attend, the event is free, but registration is required.  Follow the link above to register.

Here are the details:

The Constitution Project will present its annual Constitutional Commentary Award to filmmaker Ken Burns and his colleagues for their documentary, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE. The documentary tells the story of five teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a woman in New York City's Central Park in 1989, based largely on their false confessions.  Conservative columnist George Will calls it "a meticulous narrative of a gross miscarriage of justice."  Excerpts from the film will be shown.

Unfortunately, the case of the Central Park Five is not an anomaly -- false confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in this country. The panel discussion will explore the phenomenon of innocent people confessing to crimes they did not commit, and look at policies that can be adopted by law enforcement agencies to help prevent false confessions and wrongful conviction.

Mr. Burns will be present to accept the award and participate in the panel discussion.

WHEN: 12:00 PM, September 17, 2013

Registration and light refreshments will be available beginning at 11:30 AM

WHO

-- Shawn Armbrust, Executive Director, Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

-- Ken Burns, award-winning filmmaker

-- Carrie Johnson, NPR (moderator)

-- Saul Kassin,Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice

-- James Trainum, Retired Detective, Metropolitan Police Department of D.C.

WHERE: Arent Fox LLP - 1717 K Street, NW; Washington, DC 20036

WEBCAST: The event will be webcast.

Related posts are in the documentary, false confessions, webcast.  Earlier coverage of Ken Burns' documentary is at the link.

From Madrid: Fifth World Congress Against the Death Penalty

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation posts, "Minister calls for ‘world without death penalty’."

Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter has highlighted Switzerland’s commitment to the abolition of capital punishment at the opening of the Fifth World Congress against the Death Penalty in Madrid.

“Switzerland aims to ensure that those countries which have not as yet abolished the death penalty at least place a moratorium on its use,” he said in a statement released by the foreign ministry.
 
In it, he added that capital punishment was incompatible with the values represented by Switzerland and had an impact on the country’s other obligations such as the prohibition of discrimination.
 
The death penalty was abolished from Swiss federal criminal law in 1942, but remained available in military criminal law until 1992.

Together with Spain, France and Norway, Switzerland is patron of the Fifth World Congress against the Death Penalty which is hosting around 1,500 delegates from over 90 states in Madrid until Saturday.

"Former death row inmates fight capital punishment," is the AFP report, via the Sun of Malaysia.

Twelve years after leaving death row in Florida, Joaquin Martinez still cannot abide traditional lightbulbs.

"At the time we still had the electric chair and just like in the movies, the bulbs flickered and went out when they executed someone," said Martinez, who is visiting Madrid to join the fifth World Congress against the Death Penalty.

"I don't have any normal lightbulbs at home, just halogens," he said.

His hair impeccably brushed back, the well-dressed 41-year-old Spaniard was arrested in 1996 in Florida on suspicion of double murder before being found not guilty by the US justice system and freed in 2001.

"I still dream sometimes that I am a prisoner. I wake up with a shudder," he said in a presentation event ahead of the June 12-15 congress, organised by the French lobby group Ensemble Contre La Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty).

Organisers say they expect 1,500 people from 90 countries, including high-profile politicians such as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, to gather for the congress.

The debate will be punctuated by testimony from people who were once condemned to death or the relatives of those now living on death row.

Related posts are in the international category index.

Maryland Death Penalty Supporters Lagging in Petition Signatures

The Associated Press reports, "MD Death Penalty Supporters to Make Announcement."  It's by Don Rush, via Delmarva Public Radio.

The Baltimore County state’s attorney is joining a state lawmaker at an announcement related to Maryland’s recent repeal of the death penalty.

Scott Shellenberger is scheduled to join Del. Neil Parrott at an event Friday afternoon in front of the Frederick County Board of Elections.

The officials have not said what they’ll announce, though both have been critical of the death penalty repeal.

"Petition on death penalty repeal lacking enough signatures," is by Erin Cox for the Baltimore Sun.

Activists who worked to repeal the death penalty anxiously awaited news Friday that their efforts would not be overturned by a successful petition drive. 

"It sounds like they're going to announce that they don't have the signatures," said Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions. "We're happy with that scenario. Democracy's already been served. ... I'm excitedly waiting to see if, come midnight, I'm out of a job." 

Despite a flurry of last-minute signature-gathering, proponents of capital punishment may abandon their efforts to put the death penalty to a referendum vote in 2014.

In the past few weeks, the group pushing the petition was far behind its goals to meet Friday's midnight deadline to turn in 18,579 signatures to election officials, said Frederick County State's Attorney J. Charles Smith III.

A formal announcement on the group's plans has been scheduled for Friday afternoon in Frederick. The time was moved to 2 p.m. 

“We're still counting, and we're still collecting,” said Republican Del. Neil Parrott, chairman of the mdpetitions.com group leading the effort to put death penalty repeal before voters. “When we announced this, we knew it was going to be a long shot. We’re still trying to see what we can do.”

"Drive to overturn death penalty repeal in trouble, lawmaker acknowledges," by John Wagner in the Washignton Post.

One of the supporters of a petition drive to overturn Maryland’s death penalty repeal acknowledged Thursday that the effort has run into trouble.

“I’m concerned we’re not going to make it,” said Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County). “It’s been hard to know where to go for signatures.”

His comments came the day before the deadline for repeal opponents to turn in an initial batch of signatures that would allow the drive to continue.

A successful effort by MDPetitions.com, the group leading the petition drive, would halt the death penalty repeal law pending a statewide vote in November 2014.

The group has until midnight Friday to turn in 18,579 valid signatures to Maryland’s secretary of state. If the group succeeds, it will be given another month to produce an additional 37,157 signatures of registered voters.

Earlier coverage of Maryland's repeal of the death penalty begins at the link.

O'Malley to Sign Maryland Repeal Into Law

"O'Malley to sign death penalty repeal today," is by Michael Dresser for the Baltimore Sun.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will sign legislation Thursday morning abolishing capital punishment in Maryland -- a goal of his since he took office in 2007.

The governor's approval will make Maryland the 18th state to repeal the death penalty. A throng of capital punshment opponents -- representing such groups as the NAACP and the Catholic church -- is expected to turn out for the bill-signing ceremony at the State House in Annapolis.

Also, today, NPR's Diane Rehm Show will focus on the death penalty.  Check with your local NPR station for broadcast time in your area.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to sign a bill today that would abolish the death penalty. This makes Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to repeal capital punishment. New Mexico, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have abolished capital punishment and other states, including Nebraska and Delaware have considered similar reforms. There is growing unease among lawmakers across the country that the risk of putting an innocent person to death remains too great. But many argue that the death penalty remains a worthwhile deterrent to violent crime.

Earlier coverage of the Maryland repeal legislation begins at the link.

Maryland Governor to Sign Repeal Bill into Law on May 2

Today's Annapolis Capital Gazette reports, "O'Malley to sign death penalty repeal next week," by Alex Jackson.

Maryland will become the 18th state to outlaw the death penalty next week when Gov. Martin O’Malley signs a bill to end the punishment.

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for O’Malley, confirmed Thursday the governor will sign the death penalty repeal bill next Thursday.

The General Assembly passed Senate Bill 276 in March. The Senate passed the bill, 27-20, the House of Delegates, 82-56.

After the governor’s signature, the most severe punishment in the state will be life in prison without parole.

But the law could still be petitioned to referendum.

Del. Neil Parrott, R-Washington, chairman of website MDPetitions.com, has yet to announce whether there will be a petition drive to place the measure before the voters in the 2014 election.

"O’Malley to sign bill repealing capital punishment in Maryland next week," is the AP report, via the Washington Post.

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for O’Malley, confirmed on Thursday that O’Malley plans to sign the bill at a bill-signing ceremony on May 2.

Maryland will become the 18th state to ban the death penalty. Connecticut did so last year. Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York also have abolished it in recent years.

Maryland has five men on death row. The measure would not apply to them retroactively. But the legislation makes clear the governor can commute their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. O’Malley has said he will consider them on a case-by-case basis.

Maryland has carried out five post-Furman executions since 1994.  The last occurred in 2005.

Earlier coverage of the Maryland repeal effort begins at the link.

National Registry of Exonerations News & Twitter Q&A

The National Registry of Exonerations hosts a Twitter Q&A today at 1:00 pm (EDT), 12:00 noon (CDT).

At 1:00 p.m. Eastern today, Professor Gross and Maurice Possley, the Registry’s lead writer/investigator and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will host a Twitter Q & A on their findings. The media and the public are invited to participate by following #NRE12 or #innocence or @exonerationlist.

The organization has also issued a news release, "Prosecutors and Police are Assisting with Exonerations at Record High Levels, New Data Shows," available in Adobe .pdf format.  Here's the beginning:

In 2012, the number of cases in which prosecutors or police helped exonerate innocent defendants increased dramatically, according to a new report released today by the National Registry of Exonerations. Of 63 known exonerations in 2012, law enforcement initiated or cooperated in 34 or more than half (54 %).

Since 1989, prosecutors and police cooperated in 30 percent of the exonerations that the Registry has been able to identify (317 of 1050 exonerations in the national database at the end of last year). In 2012, for the first time, law enforcement cooperated in the majority of known exonerations. The previous high was 2008 when prosecutors or police assisted in 22 of 57 known exonerations (39 percent). In general, official cooperation is least likely among exonerations in capital murder and mass child sex abuse cases, and most likely in robbery and drug crime exonerations.

“We see a clear trend. Prosecutors and police are more open to re-investigating cases and clearing the names of innocent people who were wrongfully convicted,” said Michigan Law professor Samuel Gross, editor of the Registry and author of the “2012 Update” released today. “This is as it should be. The purpose of law enforcement is to seek truth and pursue justice. I’m glad to see they are now doing so more often after conviction, to help correct some of the terrible mistakes we sometimes make.”

Earlier coverage of the National Registry of Exonerations begins at the link. 

Tonight on Moyers & Company - The Death Penalty's Fatal Flaws

Tonight's edition of the PBS program Moyers & Company is," The Death Penalty's Fatal Flaws."

The program airs tonight on most PBS stations.  You can check the broadcast time in your market.

Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright established the constitutional right of criminal defendants to legal representation, even if they can’t afford it. The Court ruled there shouldn’t be one kind of justice for the rich and another for the poor, but the scales of the American legal system still tilt heavily in favor of the white and wealthy. On this week’s Moyers & Company, attorney and legal scholar Bryan Stevenson exposes the system’s failures, and ongoing struggles at the crossroads of race, class and justice.

Later on the show, Martin Clancy and Tim O’Brien, authors of Murder at the Supreme Court, join Bill to share the human stories behind the evolution of capital punishment in America, and the death penalty’s fatal flaws.

The broadcast closes with a Bill Moyers Essay on the hypocrisy of “justice for all” in a society where billions are squandered for a war born in fraud while the poor are pushed aside.

 

 

Moyers also posts, "WATCH: The Death Penalty's Fatal Flaws," at Huffington Post.

Right now, there are more than 3,100 inmates on death row -- more than 60 percent of them members of racial or ethnic minorities. Over time, Supreme Court Justices have fine-tuned the circumstances under which the death penalty may still apply, but no set of laws or jurisprudence can undo wrongful executions -- or, it seems, completely prevent them.

According to journalists Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien, authors of Murder at the Supreme Court and my guests on this weekend's program, at least 18 inmates were released from death row in recent years because DNA evidence proved their innocence. These cases are among more than 140 death penalty exonerations over the last three decades.

The Annapolis Capital Gazette notes, "Bookworm: Death penalty book authors have signing in Annapolis."  It's by Theresa Winslow.

The authors of a new book about the Supreme Court and death penalty cases have a book signing from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at The Annapolis Bookstore.

"Murder at the Supreme Court: Lethal Crimes and Landmark Cases" came out last month. Authors Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien are ABC News veterans.

The duo is also scheduled to appear on "Moyers & Company" on public television stations this weekend.

Earlier coverage of Gideon's 50th anniversary begins at the link.

Trial of Jesus to Be Presented in Boulder & Austin, This Week

Former federal prosecutor Mark Osler wrote, Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment, in 2009.  It's become the basis for a presentation by Osler and Jeanne Bishop, a Chicago attorney and victim's advocate.

They will be presenting "The Trial of Jesus," on Tuesday, March 26 in Boulder, Colorado at St. John's Episcopal Church; and, on Thursday, March, 18 at First Baptist Church of Austin.  Details are embedded in the items linked below.  They are must-reads.

Sunday's Austin American-Statesman reported, "Drama asks audience to consider Christ, death penalty," by Juan Castillo.

If Jesus were prosecuted today under Texas law, what would we do?

Would we sentence him to a life behind bars, or would we sentence him to death?

An audience at First Baptist Church of Austin will decide Thursday evening at a modern interpretation of the “Trial of Jesus,” where audience members become jurors and mete out his punishment.

In the live, unscripted mock trial, Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and now a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, plays the prosecutor. Jeanne Bishop, a Chicago public defender who teaches law at Northwestern University, plays Jesus’ attorney. Both are against the death penalty, and though they hope that support for abolishing capital punishment can rise from faith communities, they emphasize that there is no argument for or against it during the presentation. “This is not an anti-death penalty diatribe,” Bishop said.

And:

The mock trial came to Austin in a roundabout way. Osler contacted First Baptist Church of Austin pastor Roger Paynter after hearing of Paynter’s passionate sermon on the Newtown, Conn., mass killings, which had gone viral. In the sermon, Paynter talked about the tragedy of children “being gunned down” and of the need for gun control and mental health issues to be addressed.

“Mark wrote me and said, ‘If your church is open to preaching what you said, maybe they’d be open to this event,’” Paynter recalled. “It’s Holy Week; what better time to engage this historic trial and re-examine it through the fresh eyes of the penal code?” Paynter said.

The church, he said, is not taking a stand by hosting the event, but continuing a practice dating back to the 1940s of addressing and debating difficult issues and “allowing that sort of intelligent conversation to go on.”

The Boulder Daily Camera publishes an OpEd written by Bishop and Osler, "Death and Christ."

As Colorado continues to ponder abolishing the death penalty, the role of faith in that consideration will be important. Without the support of Christians, there would be no death penalty in America: A Pew Research Center for People and the Press study released in January 2012 reported that 77 percent of white evangelical Christians and 73 percent of white mainline Protestants supported the death penalty.

There is something deeply ironic about Christian support for capital punishment, since a wrongful execution is part of the faith's central narrative. The trials of Christ and his disciples featured many of the same elements that challenge the death penalty today -- overcommitted prosecutors, a mob mentality, and the unfortunate conviction of those who turn out to be innocent. The Last Supper, even, can be seen as the last meal of a man who knew he was condemned to die.

We are committed Christians who are also criminal attorneys. One is a former prosecutor who now trains future prosecutors, and the other is a public defender who lost her sister, brother-in-law, and their unborn child to murder. We have embarked on an unusual project to challenge Christians to integrate their faith with their beliefs about capital punishment. Our goal is to present the sentencing phase of the trial of Jesus as a real event, under current state law. We have performed it in nine states, from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Pasadena, California. Among other places, it has been presented at Pat Robertson's Regent University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and churches in Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Illinois.

The experience of the trial is brief, intense, and challenging. It is not a scripted play; instead, we approach the case as trial lawyers. It is different every time. We call a variety of witnesses and do not know the other's arguments. After evidence and arguments in the trial, the audience divides into groups of 12, which deliberate as juries to a verdict.

Earlier coverage of Mark Osler's writings begins at the link.

Friday

I'll be out of the office Friday afternoon.

The University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Center is sponsoring a symposium, "Mass Incarceration and the Death Penalty."  Here's more:

The Capital Punishment Center’s symposium, “Mass Incarceration and the Death Penalty,” will provide a rare opportunity for scholars, lawyers, and interested members of the public to engage in an extended dialogue about some of the most pressing, nuanced, and timely criminal justice issues in a setting that is both rigorous and relaxed. Thanks to the generosity of the Center’s sponsors, the symposium is free and open to the public. Please join us on March 22-23, 2013 in the Law School’s Eidman Courtroom.

Keynote address by Erwin Chemerinsky.

Duane Buck Case Live Chat Today at 12 Noon, CDT/1:00 PM, EDT

"Duane Buck case live chat: what's next for inmate sentenced by race?" will go live in just over an hour, at 12:00 noon (CDT), 1:00 pm (EDT).

Join Ed Pilkington and Christina Swarns, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to discuss Buck's case.

What does his case tell us about the way African Americans are treated generally in the application of the death penalty in America? Join Guardian reporter Ed Pilkington and Christina Swarns, director of the NAACP legal defence and educational fund, to discuss the case from 1 to 2pm ET Wednesday.

Other questions to consider:

• What is the current role of race in US capital punishment?

• Why do his advocates say Buck was sentenced to death because of his race?

• How did Buck's lawyer allow such evidence to be presented in court?

• What is the status of Buck's new sentencing hearing?

Guardian writer Pilkington also posts, "Texas convict's death row sentence challenged over claim of racial bias."

More than 100 prominent civil rights leaders, lawyers, politicians and clergy are calling on the state of Texas to provide a new fair sentencing hearing for Duane Buck, the African American man who was put on death row in 1997 after the jury was told he was a danger to society because he was black.

The Buck case is rapidly becoming a focal point for anxieties that the application of the death penalty across America is riddled with racial discrimination. Last week an appeal was filed in the Buck case that included new research showing that at the time of his sentence black defendants in Houston, Texas – the death penalty capital of the US – were three times more likely to be charged with a capital crime than whites.

The statement put out by 102 national and Texan leaders calls for a new fair sentencing hearing for Buck that would be free from racial bias. "The state of Texas cannot condone any form of racial discrimination in the courtroom. The use of race in sentencing poisons the legal process and breeds cynicism in the judiciary," it says.

The signatories include Linda Geffin, who was one of the prosecutors in the original trial of Buck, as well as Phyllis Taylor who was shot by Buck but survived. The statement says that Taylor has "forgiven Mr Buck and does not wish to see him executed".

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the race category index.

Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty

Richard Viguerie's Conservative HQ blog posts, "Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty to Debut at CPAC."

Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a national network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles, will debut at CPAC (March 14-16).

Local conservative leaders from Montana, Kentucky, Texas, and Kansas will be in attendance. National figures Jay Sekulow and Richard A. Viguerie are also supporters of the group. 

"Conservatives should question how the death penalty actually works in order to stay true to small government, reduction in wasteful spending, and respect for human life," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.  

Roy Brown, former Montana House Majority Leader and a republican candidate for Montana governor in 2008, helped found Montana Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty several years ago. Brown was enthusiastic about expanding his grassroots effort, and will attend CPAC as part of the new national effort. 

And:

Richard A. Viguerie, known as the “Funding Father” of the conservative movement, also supports the new group. “Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any (other government programs) which we conservatives know are rife with injustice,” Viguerie said.

"Former State Senator Opposes Death Penalty," is the KULR-TV report by Christine Corrado.

In February the House Judiciary Committee shot down a measure to replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole. The "Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty" group led by former State Senator Roy Brown, will meet in Washington D.C. in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"I am a conservative and I don't like to see waste and inefficiencies, I don't like to see the taxpayers money squandered on these long appeal processes and and so I'd like to see it end here," says Brown.

Brown hopes to persuade other conservatives to understand the advantages of abolishing the death penalty.

Earlier coverage from Montana begins at the link.  More at Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

Oregon Editorial

"Death penalty: A narrow line for Kitzhaber," is the editorial published by the Albany Democrat-Herald.

Gov. John Kitzhaber is walking an awfully narrow line on the death penalty — but at least he’s taking a leadership role in calling for its abolition in Oregon.

But with potentially bruising fights looming in the Legislature on PERS reform, the state’s corrections policy and related budget issues, how much of his political capital is he willing to spend on the issue? And is he willing to spend more of that capital in the 2014 elections?

A legislative committee last week considered House Joint Resolution 1, a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the death penalty, which Oregon voters reinstated in 1984. If the measure passes the Legislature, voters will get a chance to consider it in November 2014.

And:

At the least, the legislative measure could force the death penalty onto the list of the hottest issues in the 2014 campaign. Kitzhaber called for a wide-ranging state discussion about the death penalty. And that’s exactly what he may get.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times reports, "Death Row survivors to visit Corvallis," by Bennett Hall.

With the death penalty on trial in Oregon, two men who served time on Death Row in other states before being exonerated of crimes they did not commit will appear in Corvallis this week as part of a speaking tour challenging the validity of executing criminals.

Juan Melendez and Greg Wilhoit are scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Construction and Engineering Hall at LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St. Both men were cleared of the accusations against them after spending years in the shadow of the gallows and now tour the country speaking out against capital punishment.

“I think it highlights one of the arguments against the death penalty,” said Brett Burkhardt, an assistant sociology professor at OSU who’s coordinating the event. “Executions are irrevocable — if you make a mistake, someone dies.”

Corvallis lawyer Peter Fahy, a former Lincoln County prosecutor who now serves as a court-appointed defense attorney, will also be on hand to discuss his experiences in capital trials.

The free event, titled “Surviving Death Row,” is part of a four-campus swing through Oregon sponsored by Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Witness to Innocence. Melendez and Wilhoit are to speak at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland on Wednesday and will sandwich their Corvallis appearance Thursday between stops at Willamette University in Salem and Western Oregon University in Monmouth.

Earlier coverage of the Oregon repeal legislation begins at the link.

Fighting for Their Lives

That's the title of a new book written by Susannah Sheffer, pulbished by Vanderbilt University Press.  It's subtitled, Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys.

There will be an author event in Austin, Tuesday, March 19, at Book People, our great, independent bookseller at 6th & Lamar, in the heart of Austin.  Book People will be happy to send you a signed copy.

Here's more about the book:

"Sheffer takes readers beyond the courtroom and execution chambers to explore how capital defense attorneys cope when they can’t save a client. ... The book is unexpectedly moving, as when an inmate consoles an attorney who has run out of options, and the author is especially adept at uncovering the ethical and professional nuances of these cases. ...  sobering and intimate ... "

    -- Publishers Weekly

"This is an important book. The death penalty's impact is so much broader than we realize, and these attorneys are affected in ways that even I had not imagined.  I am grateful to Susannah Sheffer for bringing these stories to light."

    -- Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents

"One day the United States will outlaw capital punishment. One day Americans will look back on our time and wonder how people could ever have thought that executing other human beings was a good thing. Meanwhile, some of the most courageous men and women in our midst are lawyers who defend those convicted of capital crimes, attempting to save clients from being murdered by the state. Fighting for their Lives is the story of the heroic but ordinary bravery of these lawyers. Read it and be awed by their grace and intelligence. Read it and be furious at the needless miscarriages of justice. Read it and weep."

    -- Thomas Cahill, author of A Saint on Death Row and How the Irish Saved Civilization

It's also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookseller; also available, Kindle and Nook e-reader editions.  I'll be posting the time and location of other author events as they are set up.

Here's our Q&A with Susannah:

Q. What led you to write this book?

A. I am always interested in people’s internal, emotional experience, and in terms of the death penalty, most of my work has involved looking at, and writing about, its impact on various affected people – particularly murder victims’ family members and family members of people who have been executed. Curiosity about the effect on defense attorneys was sort of a natural outgrowth of that work. I knew that this was a pretty unexplored area of the death penalty landscape, and in fact as I proceeded with the interviews for the book, I learned even more vividly and powerfully how reluctant defense attorneys have been to talk openly about the emotional impact of their work. I’m interested in how people cope with loss and specifically in how people in helping professions -- people who devote themselves to trying to help and even save other people -- manage internally when that effort fails.

Q. We usually only read a short quote from a death penalty lawyer in a news article.  What would you tell people about this group of people.

A. I have to say first that I didn’t set out to interview a random cross-section of capital defense attorneys. I interviewed some of the most dedicated, passionate, committed attorneys out there (of course, there are many other equally dedicated and committed attorneys whom I didn’t interview, but my point is that I didn’t interview anyone for whom this was “just a job”). My interviewees also tended to place a high value on forming relationships, even attachments, with clients – placing themselves at greater emotional risk, in some ways, although you can see in the book that they make a strong case for why they practice in that particular way. In the short quotes in news articles that you’re talking about, an attorney will be talking about the client or the legal issues that the client’s case highlights. This book’s inquiry was about the attorneys’ own experience. Every time they told me a story of a setback in a case, or a last visit with a client, I would keep asking, “And what was that like for you? What was going on inside you when that happened?” So I had the privilege – and it did feel like a privilege – of seeing some of the raw pain and struggle that capital defense involves. I have an indescribable amount of respect for the attorneys I interviewed and all that they encounter.

Q.How did you research the book?

A. I interviewed 20 capital defense attorneys who had lost at least one client to execution. That’s a rather ghoulish criterion, but I was particularly interested in the experience of loss and the emotional impact of being vested with the responsibility of trying to save a life and then sometimes – or, sadly, often – not being able to. I conducted the interviews in person, transcribed the recording of each conversation, and spent a lot of time immersing myself in that material and seeing what themes emerged.  In a few instances I asked follow-up questions over the phone. Because we were discussing such personal and emotional aspects of the work, and because there has not been a culture or a tradition among capital defense attorneys of having these kinds of conversations, I used pseudonyms and omitted identifying details. This meant sacrificing some narrative richness – I couldn’t give much biographical or even physical detail – in favor of an extraordinary emotional richness that I think would not have been possible if I hadn’t offered that confidentiality. It was a trade-off I was glad to make.

Q. How did you first come to work for the repeal of capital punishment?

A. I got involved in anti-death penalty work as part of working on other issues related to prisoners, when I was collaborating with a former prisoner to write his story (that book became In a Dark Time: A Prisoner’s Struggle for Healing and Change, published in 2005). That was in the mid 1990s. Then, as I mentioned earlier, I began working with family members of murder victims and family members of people who have been executed, first as a writer for Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation and, since the organization’s founding in 2005, as staff writer and project director for Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights.

Related posts are in the books index.

The R Word

"A Word Gone Wrong," is a Sunday New York Times editorial written by Lawrence Downes.

This Wednesday is the fifth annual “day of awareness” in a national campaign to stop the use of the word “retarded” and its variants. As a medical label for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the R-word used to be neutral, clinical, incapable of giving offense. But words are mere vessels for meaning, and this one has long since been put to other uses.

“Retarded” and “retard” today are variations on a slur. Young people especially like it: as a weapon of derision, it does the job. It’s sharp, with an assaultive potency that words like “moron” and “idiot” lost sometime in the days of black-and-white TV.

The campaign against it, called “Spread the Word to End the Word,” is heartfelt and earnest in a way that makes it vulnerable to ridicule. I know people who care about language who do not see themselves as heartless and who do not see “retardation” as anything to get worked up about. To them, banishing the R-word for another clinical-sounding term is like linguistic Febreze: masking unpleasantries with cloying euphemisms.

Mental retardation is now generally referred to as a developmental or intellectual disability, as noted above; a person has mental retardation, in the same usage that a person has any other medical condition.  Because MR has a specific meaning with respect to capital cases, I continue to use the older term at this website, but not in normal conversation.

More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez.  Related posts are in the mental retardation category index.

News Coverage of the New Hampshire Symposium

"N.H. officials discuss plan for first execution in 70-plus years," is Lynne Tuohy's AP report, via SeaCoast Online.

New Hampshire — which last executed an inmate more than 70 years ago, by hanging — would likely carry out an execution in a prison gymnasium rather than construct a costly death chamber for its lone death row prisoner, Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn said Wednesday.

Addressing a symposium on the death penalty at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, Wrenn said he and his staff are "dusting off" execution protocols from the 1930s but the $1.8 million needed to build a lethal injection chamber isn't in the cards in a state where inmates are so rarely condemned to death.

The symposium offered a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the case of Michael Addison, sentenced to death in 2008 for gunning down Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs following a violent crime spree. If the state's highest court upholds his conviction and death sentence, Addison could be the first convict executed in New Hampshire since 1939.

Wrenn said Addison doesn't really live on "death row" because the state no longer has one. He is housed in the state prison's maximum security unit, living alongside other convicts.

And:

Panelists made it clear Addison's case threw a curve at a state criminal justice system that had no modern-day experience with capital litigation.

Attorney Chris Keating, who supervised Addison's defense, said there was no legal "infrastructure" in place for a death penalty case — no bank of motions built from other cases, no expertise and a severe dearth of resources to handle the astronomical costs of such a case. He likened it to being told to build a nuclear bomb for the first time.

Also:

Former Attorney General Phil McLaughlin was the only panelist willing to address a question about whether race — Addison is black, his victim white — contributed to his death sentence.

He contrasted Addison's sentence with that of John Brooks — a wealthy, white businessman convicted of paying others to kill a handyman he thought had stolen from his family. The same year Addison was sentenced to death a jury gave Brooks a life sentence.

"I cannot imagine how any conscientious citizen could not be riveted by the contrast," said McLaughlin, who cast a dissenting vote on a panel that voted in December 2010 to retain the death penalty.

New Hampshire Public Radio posts, "State Criminal Justice Officials Discuss Death Penalty Challenges," By Ryan Lessard.

Top-ranking officials from the New Hampshire criminal justice system gathered to discuss the logistical and political challenges the state would face if it had to implement capital punishment for the first time in more than 70 years.

Chief Justice Tina Nadeau of the New Hampshire Superior Court says the task of trying a capital case is daunting for a state with no relevant experience.

“It’s sort of like due process on steroids. So, everything gets litigated, everything is weighed, everything is researched and everything is considered thoughtfully.”

Earlier coverage of the New Hampshire symposium begins at the link.  Also available, coverage of Michael Addison's case.

Today in New Hampshire

"N.H. death penalty is focus of symposium," is the AP report filed by Lynne Tuohy.  It's via SeaCoast Online.

The attorney for the only inmate on death row in New Hampshire — a state that last carried out an execution in 1939 — will be among the panelists addressing the logistical and social ramifications of the state’s death penalty during a symposium at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

The symposium Wednesday will feature the chief superior court judge; the corrections commissioner and Michael Addison’s lawyer, David Rothstein, among others.

Addison was sentenced to death in 2008 for gunning down Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs in 2006, as Briggs attempted to arrest him for robbery. His case is on appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

If his sentence is upheld, Addison could become the first person executed in New Hampshire since 1939.

The Supreme Court heard a full day of arguments on his sentence and appeal in November. Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said after the arguments he thinks it could take the court a year or more to rule, based on the number of issues raised and the thousands of pages of briefs and transcripts.

 The University of New Hampshire School of Law has details,"UNH Law to Host Symposium on New Hampshire Death Penalty."

The UNH Law Diversity Action Coalition, UNH National Lawyers Guild student group, and the law school’s Social Justice Institute will host a symposium on Feb. 13 titled “The New Hampshire Death Penalty in the Era of Addison: Community Voices on Capital Punishment.”

“The event aims to orient the Concord community to the issues surrounding the death penalty,” says Kerstin Cornell, a UNH Law student and one of the event’s organizers. “It is an objective symposium that seeks to provide the community with information during a time when it isespecially pertinent.”

Marquette University Conference on Restorative Justice to Feature UT Prof

"Restorative justice conference explores death penalty vs. life without parole," is by Annysa Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The death penalty vs. life without parole and their effects on victims' families and their communities will be the topic of the 2013 Restorative Justice Conference at Marquette University Law School Feb. 21-22.

Speakers will include Marilyn Peterson Amour, associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas, who co-authored a 2012 study comparing the impact of sentences meted out in Texas and Minnesota. You can read more on that Marquette Law Review piece here.

The conference explores the effects of both sanctions through the personal stories of survivors, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates, and judges. The conference is based on a groundbreaking study by Marilyn Armour of victims' families in Texas (affected by the death penalty) and Minnesota (affected by life without the possibility of parole) and the implications of these punishments for healing.

Marqutte Univesrsity Law School posts, "Restorative Justice Conference: The Death Penalty versus Life Without Parole."  The conference will be held at the Milwaukee campus on February 21st & 22nd.

The death penalty. Life without the possibility of parole. These are society's harshest punishments. But how do they affect the victims' families? Is one more healing than the other? Is there ever closure? And what is the ripple effect on the community?

Marquette Law School's Restorative Justice Conference on February 21–22, 2013, will examine the impact of both sanctions through the personal stories of survivors, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates, and judges. The conference is based on a groundbreaking study by Marilyn Armour of victims' families in Texas (affected by the death penalty) and Minnesota (affected by life without the possibility of parole) and the implications of these punishments for healing.
Cost

There is no fee for the Keynote Kickoff event on Thursday. Friday conference fee is $20 per person (includes continental breakfast and lunch on conference day). Marquette University students and employees may attend at no charge but must, like others, register.

The complete conference schedule is at the link.

Related posts are in the restorative justice category index.

Crime Victims Rally for Repeal in Maryland

Today's Annapolis Capital Gazette reports, "Death penalty opponents rally at State House."  It's by Alex Jackson.

Opponents of capital punishment came to Annapolis on Monday, rallying support for Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposal to repeal the death penalty.

Around 100 people turned out for the rally, which was organized by Maryland Citizens Against State Executions.

“Thousands” of others joined a “virtual lobby day” online, showing their support by signing an open letter delivered to lawmakers Monday evening, according to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Family members of murder victims spoke at the event, which began at Lawyers Mall and moved to St. Anne’s Parish Hall, where participants got food and directions to their legislators’ offices.

According to the bill, all savings from repealing the death penalty would bolster resources for the families of murder victims in the state.

Bonita Spikes, whose husband was murdered at a convenience store in 1994, spoke at the rally about her fight to get help for her son Michael, who had emotional problems after his father’s death.

Spikes, a nurse, said she didn’t have the resources to get her son the depression medication he needed.

“By passing the repeal bill this year we will have the resources needed to get murder victims’ families help,” Spikes said. “Continue to call your legislators ... Stand by us.”

Legislation to repeal the death penalty was introduced in the Senate Jan. 18 as Senate Bill 276, and in the House of Delegates on Jan. 23 as House Bill 295. There will be hearings on both bills on Feb. 14.

"Relatives of murder victims call for repeal of death penalty," is the WTOP-FM post.  There is video at the link.

Relatives of five murder victims are calling for a repeal of Maryland's death penalty.

They joined a rally in Annapolis Monday.

"You start to realize that revenge is taking up space that you need to heal," Erricka Bridgeford of Reisterstown told the group. Bridgeford's brother was murdered in 2007.

"We have learned that one more dead body cannot be justice," Bridgeford said.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link.

An Update From Maryland

"Senators wrestle with death penalty vote," is Erin Cox's report in today's Baltimore Sun.  It's also available via Huffington Post.  Here's the beginning:

State Sen. Allan Kittleman is torn.

When lobbied by the ACLU and the NAACP to repeal Maryland's death penalty, Kittleman asks how he can ensure the most heinous murderers will never kill again.

When approached by fellow senators or state's attorneys who want to keep capital punishment, Kittleman questions whether there can be a foolproof way to ensure the state doesn't kill an innocent person.

"My mindset on this has always been divided," said Kittleman, a Howard County Republican who hopes to skip his own committee to listen to another panel's death penalty hearings before the legislation reaches the Senate floor. "It really is an issue that I'm struggling with, and I want to make sure I do the right thing."

Like a handful of other publicly undecided senators, Kittleman's internal struggle has made him a target in a behind-the-scenes lobbying press conducted in part by elected officials, prosecutors, religious groups, a Catholic bishop, the wrongly accused and advocates who have strong views on one side or the other.

In a divided chamber considered key to overturning the death penalty, Kittleman and a few other senators may cast the deciding votes on whether to uphold Maryland's narrowly written capital punishment law or to erase it from the books for the first time in 35 years.

The death penalty debate, perhaps the most emotional issue of the General Assembly session, does not break cleanly down party lines as lawmakers choose instead to yield to constituent views, emotion or their moral beliefs.

The Washington Post notes, "Today in D.C.: Four things to watch for," by Maggie Fazeli Fard.

Maryland death penalty repeal effort: Relatives of murder victims are joining a rally in Annapolis this afternoon in favor of repealing the state’s death penalty.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link.

Maryland Governor to Lead Repeal Effort

"O'Malley to lead death penalty repeal bid," is the title of Michael Dresser's report in today's Baltimore Sun.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will announce Tuesday that he will make an all-out push for repeal of the death penalty in Maryland, renewing an effort that narrowly fell short four years ago.

The governor is scheduled to appear at a noon news conference in Annapolis along with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and other opponents of capital punishment. The NAACP has made repeal of Maryland's death penalty and its replacement with life without parole a leading goal for 2013.

Jealous said O'Malley has assured him that repeal will be part of his legislative agenda for the General Assembly session that opened last week. The NAACP chief said the group did as the governor asked and provided a vote count showing majorities willing to support repeal in the Senate and the House of Delegates.

"We've cleared the two bars. Now he's following through," Jealous said.

O'Malley has long opposed the death penalty but hasn't made repeal part of his agenda since 2009, when the effort ended in a compromise that sharply limited the circumstances under which the sentence can be imposed. Under the law, prosecutors are able to seek the death penalty only when they have DNA or biological evidence, a videotape of the crime or a video-recorded confession by the killer.

The governor, by including a repeal proposal in his legislative package this year, would send a more powerful message to lawmakers than simply supporting a bill.

Opponents of capital punishment believe this may be the year they finally achieve their goal. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has said that if O'Malley can round up the votes for repeal, he'll see that the proposal gets an up-or-down vote in the full Senate. Repeal legislation has stalled in a Senate committee in the past, with a 6-5 majority in favor of retaining the death penalty.

No votes are known to have changed on that panel, but Miller, who supports the death penalty for particularly heinous murders, can take steps to get a bill to the Senate floor.

"O’Malley to announce sponsorship of death penalty repeal bill in Maryland," is the Washington Post report written by John Wagner.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley plans to announce Tuesday that he will put the full weight of his office behind repealing the death penalty, a move that could tip the balance on an issue that has sharply divided the legislature for years.

The governor has long opposed capital punishment, arguing that it is costly and an ineffective deterrent, but he has only once before sponsored a repeal bill, which fell short in 2009. With the arrival of several new lawmakers since then, and a sense of renewed momentum, O’Malley (D) is set to try again, according to several aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to more freely discuss the planned announcement.

O’Malley will make the announcement, the aides said, at a noon rally Tuesday in Annapolis with leaders of the NAACP and other civil rights activists, who have made repeal of Maryland’s death penalty a priority this year.

Though the governor’s decision does not guarantee passage, “it makes a huge difference,” said Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, where repeal bills have stalled in past years, with members arguing that the death penalty should be available for the most egregious murder cases.

A repeal “can’t get done without the governor, and having his active engagement will be vital,” said Frosh, who favors the abolishment of capital punishment.

With O’Malley’s name on the bill, it is certain to get heightened media attention, as well as the focus of a team of lobbyists employed by the governor’s office and personal attention from O’Malley himself.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link.

More From Rome

You can watch live-streaming video of the lighting of Rome's Colosseum in honor of Connecticut's repeal of capital punishment earlier this year.  Here's part of the announcement from the Community of Sant’Egidio.

Starting 19:00 at the Colosseum of Rome, there will be exceptional personalities, from Shujaa Graham and Fernando Bermudez, innocent people sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit in the United States, to David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition against the Death Penalty, Tamara Chikunova, founder of Mothers against the Death Penalty, responsible for the abolition of capital punishment in many countries of Central Asia, justice ministers from several countries in the world and leading figures in the recent struggle for abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut will take part, along with the Community of Sant’Egidio, in a special evening for life.     

Follow the event in live streming on www.santegidio.org

It will be the official inauguration of the International Day of Cities for Life, started ten years ago in Rome with the Community of Sant’Egidio and supported by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Special illumination of the Colosseum, “Testimonial for Life”, this year celebrates the abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut: the fifth American state to abolish capital punishment in the United States in the past five years (2007 New Jersey 2008, New Mexico 2010 New York, 2011,Illinois, 2012 Connecticut).

The event in front of the Colosseum, which will inaugurate the World Day of Cities against the Death Penalty, will be hosted by Max Giusti.

Thanks to Abe Bonowitz for circulating.

Catholic Culture posts, "Italian lay movement continues push for abolition of death penalty," written by Catholic World News.

The Community of Sant’Egidio, one of the most prominent new ecclesial movements, has continued its efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide by hosting a conference of justice ministers from 20 nations.

“We have started a method that is not just lobbying,” spokesman Mario Marazziti told Vatican Radio. “It is putting together people from civil societies, NGOs, statesmen and women, and people who can make decisions to make a synergy and to cross-impollinate the good things that each one can give to the other one. So we listen with great respect to the difficulties of the ministers of justice that come from retentionist countries, and we can accompany them to overcome the difficulties they face in their nations, to create this tremendous difference that is made by abolishing the death penalty.”

Andrea Riccardi founded the Community of Sant’Egidio as a high school student in 1968; the community has become known for its service to the needy and work on behalf of peace. Approved by the Pontifical Council for the Laity as an international association of the faithful in 1986, the community over the next two decades grew to 50,000 members in 72 nations.

CWN also reports, "Sant’Egidio’s Riccardi named Italian cabinet minister."

Andrea Riccardi, the founder of one of the leading new ecclesial movements, has been named Italy’s minister for international cooperation and integration policies.

Earlier coverage from Rome begins at the link.

Nebraska OpEd Roundup & an Event This Week

In advance of a forum on capital punishment to be held at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, this Wednesday evening, the Lincoln Journal Star publishes two OpEds.

"The case against the death penalty," is by University of Colorado sociologist Michael L. Radelet.

The ways that Americans debate the death penalty have changed dramatically in the past 30 years.

Retribution and the need to help families of homicide victims have replaced deterrence as the top pro-death penalty argument, while concerns about erroneous convictions, disparities, cost and whether the penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst have become the most common points raised by abolitionists.

Both sides agree, however, that the burden of proof is on those who advocate its use. In other words, we should not take a human life unless it is an absolute necessity and unless the goals of executions cannot be achieved by alternative nonlethal means.

Perhaps the most crucial change in Nebraska law since the 1970s is that the alternative to execution is no longer 12-15 years in prison before parole eligibility. Today, in all the 33 states that still authorize death sentences, anyone eligible for the death penalty who is not sentenced to death will automatically be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Once convicted, we know the offender never will get out of prison.

Another change is that all agree that the costs of the death penalty have skyrocketed. Numerous studies from across the United States have uniformly concluded that the costs of the death penalty are astronomical, and several times more than the costs of life imprisonment without parole.

"Death penalty a question of just punishment," is by Nebraska Solicitor General J. Kirk Brown.

First and foremost, we are a country of laws. As a matter of law, neither our federal nor state constitutions prohibit death as a potential criminal penalty for the worst murderers.

Thus, the moral/public policy question is: Can people engage in behavior so reprehensible they deserve to die for their crime or crimes?

Adolph Hitler directed the deaths of more than 17 million innocent men, women and children. Did Hitler deserve to die? The 9-11 terrorists took 2,977 innocent lives. Timothy McVeigh blew up 19 children under the age of six and 149 adults. In Nebraska, Charles Starkweather murdered 11 people; Jose Sandoval, Jorge Galindo and Erick Vella slaughtered five people in a bank in Norfolk; John Lotter murdered three; Robert Williams, Carey Dean Moore and Marco Torres each murdered two; John Joubert and Arthur Gales each murdered two children; Roy Ellis, Raymond Mata and Jeffrey Hessler each murdered one child; Michael Ryan took three days to torture his victim to death; Willie Otey repeatedly raped and tortured his victim before taking her life.

When do we say enough is enough? When do we say, “This murderer deserves to die”? It is not a question of forgiveness or vengeance. It is a question of just punishment.

As for this week's event, the AP reports, "UNL's E.N. Thompson lecture to focus on death penalty."  It's via the Omaha World Herald.

The death penalty will be the topic of this month's E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Nebraska Solicitor General J. Kirk Brown and University of Colorado-Boulder sociologist Michael Radelet will debate in the event, titled "The Death Penalty: Justice, Retribution and Dollars," at 7 p.m. on Nov. 28.

Brown and Radelet will explore questions such as whether the death penalty is humane, fairly applied, reduces violent crime or is cost-effective. They'll also examine the effects on the condemned person, the legal and judicial systems, victims' loved ones and the taxpaying society at large.

Earlier coverage from Nebraska begins at the link.

At the United Nations

"US sides with Iran and N. Korea in record UN vote over the death penalty," is the AFP post, via the UK's Telegraph.

A record 110 countries on Monday backed a resolution voted every two years at a UN General Assembly committee calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

The vote tears apart traditional alliances at the United Nations. The United States, Japan, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe were among 39 countries to oppose the non-binding resolution in the assembly's rights committee. Thirty-six countries abstained.

Israel voted against its strong US-ally to join European Union nations, Australia, Brazil and South Africa among major countries backing the motion

Norway, which played a leading role campaigning for the resolution, said on its Twitter account that the increased support was a "great result".

At the last vote in 2010, 107 countries backed the resolution.

France's new Socialist government has launched a campaign with other abolitionist states to get the full General Assembly to pass a resolution in December calling for a death penalty moratorium. Though such a resolution would be non-binding, diplomats say it would increase moral pressure.

A world congress against the death penalty is to be held in Madrid in June.

According to the United Nations, about 150 countries have either abolished capital punishment or have instituted a moratorium.

Earlier coverage from the United Nations begins at the link.  Related posts are in the international category index.

GRACE Law Marks 10th Anniversary with Events

You can find out about all the activities at the Gulf Region Advocacy Center - GRACE Law - website.  They include:

Fantasy Memorabilia Auction.
October 15th through November 12th

Online Silent Auction
November 12th through 17th

Intimate Luncheon with Sister Helen Prejean. 
November 15th 11:30 am – 1:30pm

Telling the Narrative: Life is a Story.
November 15th at 6:00 p.m.

Film Screening Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
November 16th at 6:30 p.m.

Culminating in the big event:

10th Anniversary Awards Dinner Gala & Silent Auction - November 17th at 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Jason Baldwin, keynote speaker Mike Farrell, live performance by Steve Earle. Special guests include Shelley Fabares, Anthony Graves, Rais Bhuiyan and others.

Last year, Jeffrey Toobin's profiled the work of GRACE and its founder Danalynn Recer in his New Yorker article, "The Mitigator: A new way of looking at the death penalty."  It's noted at the link.