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March 1st is International Death Penalty
Abolition Day
"Death Penalty Foundations
Crumbling" -- Activists to Mark 158 Years Without Death
Penalty
To: National Desk
Contact: Abe Bonowitz, for Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty (CUADP), 561-371-5204 cell, or David Elliot, National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: 202-607-7036
MEDIA ADVISORY, Feb. 27 /Florida Wire Service/ --
Dozens of anti-death penalty organizations throughout the United States
are organizing around Tuesday, March 1st, in celebration of International
Death Penalty Abolition Day, the 158th anniversary of the date in 1847
when the State of Michigan officially became the first English-speaking
territory in the world to abolish the death penalty.
FOR A LISTING
OF SOME OF THE EVENTS SCHEDULED ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, as well as
background information on Abolition Day, please visit http://www.cuadp.org/ and click on the
Abolition Day Banner.
STATES WITH LISTED ACTIVITIES
INCLUDE:
Arizona
California
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Massachusetts
Nebraska
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
and
also Toronto, Canada.
"People in the United States are
beginning to take a hard look at how our criminal justice system is
failing," said Abe Bonowitz, Director of Citizens United for Alternatives
to the Death Penalty (CUADP). "As a former supporter of the death
penalty, it is clear to me that anyone who examines the system from a
non-emotional standpoint will find that economically, socially and
morally, the practice of the death penalty is bad public policy.
Billions of dollars have been spent on the death penalty in this country
since 1972, for a net result of 950 dead bodies. This is hardly a
good return on that investment. Alternatives to the death penalty
exist that punish severely while protecting society, without more
killing."
Even as we approach the 950th execution since 1977,
scheduled to take place in Georgia on Abolition Day, CUADP notes the
following very current events which point to a crumbling of the
foundations of the death penalty in the modern era:
* Conservative
voices and policy makers continue to acknowledge at least the need for a
Time-Out on executions in the form of a moratorium on the death penalty
pending review and reform of legal systems throughout the nation.
Even George W. Bush, who executed 152 prisoners as Governor of Texas and
who as President has overseen the first three federal executions under
current law, acknowledged in his State of the Union address that serious
problems exist in our legal system (see http://www.cuadp.org/pressrel72.html
). For more on conservative voices, see http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=482&scid=16
*
The US Supreme Court has taken up the question of "evolving standards of
decency" with regard to juvenile offenders and the death penalty.
Numerous states are this year considering bills to ensure that no person
under the age of 18 at the time of the crime will face the death
penalty.
* Where it was previously considered political suicide to
question any aspect of the death penalty, state legislatures are
considering ways to limit or even do away with the death penalty. In
the past year several states raised the minimum age for death penalty
eligibility to 18. In Florida the effort to raise the age to 18 is
led by one of the most pro-death penalty legislators, Senator Victor
Crist. New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico are all approaching the
tipping point, with serious death penalty repeal efforts in consideration
in current legislative sessions.
* More than 118 prisoners have
been exonerated and released from death rows in the United States - SO
FAR.
* Countries normally allied with the United States are
unequivocal in their opposition to the death penalty, refusing to
extradite prisoners to the US without guarantees that those prisoners will
not face execution - even in the cases of terrorists and war
criminals. Mexico has successfully sued the United States over its
violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs with regard to more
than 50 Mexican nationals on US death rows.
* Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly President Peter Schieder last year launched an
appeal for the abolition of the death penalty, saying "The abolition of
the death penalty is one of our Organisation's priorities, and any new
member state must pledge to take this step. We have succeeded in making
the territory of our 45 member states, with its 800 million
inhabitants, a death-penalty-free zone. Our ambition is to persuade Japan
and the USA, who both hold observer status with the Council of Europe, to
join us. Japan and the United States are leading democracies which
have been very vocal on their commitment to human rights. We are
calling on them to stand by their own standards of civilised
behaviour. My message on the eve of International Death Penalty
Abolition Day (1 March) is a call on states across the world to reject the
use of capital punishment. Death penalty is not justice. And as Martin
Luther King said: 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'
"
***
Organizers of "Abolition Day" events point to the
State of Michigan as an example that viable alternatives to the death
penalty exist. "They got rid of the death penalty because they found that
they could not trust themselves to use it fairly, and they learned too
late that they had killed an innocent man," said Bonowitz. Michigan
has been without the death penalty for 158 years. The first act of
their new legislature when Michigan became a state was to abolish the
death penalty.
"Politicians owe it to the people of this country to
take a serious look at the alternatives to the death penalty already in
use across this country," said Bonowitz. "Violent criminals can be
punished, and society protected, through the use of long-term prison
sentences before a convicted person can be considered for parole. It
works in Michigan and in other states like California, which has the
oldest 'Life Without Parole' (LWOP) statute in the country. Not one
of the people sentenced to LWOP has been released. We are saying to
the people our country, 'Don't make us become that which we deplore.
Don't kill in our names. We can do better.'"
FOR DETAILS
ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION DAY, PLEASE VISIT
http://www.cuadp.org/ and click on
"Abolition Day."
*****
ON THE WEB: http://www.cuadp.org/ and http://www.ncadp.org/
For more
information, please contact CUADP director Abe Bonowitz at 800-973-6548 or
561-371-5204. Free information is available to the public from
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP), a
Florida-based national organization working to increase the level f
informed dialogue about viable alternatives to the death
penalty. CUADP may be reached toll-free at 800-973-6548 or on the
internet at
http://www.cuadp.org/.
********************************************************
YES
FRIENDS! There is an Alternative to the Death Penalty
Citizens
United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP) works to end the
death penalty in the United States through aggressive campaigns of public
education and the promotion of tactical grassroots activism.
Visit
http://www.cuadp.org/ or call
800-973-6548, PMB 335, 2603 NW 13th St (AKA Dr. MLK Jr. Hwy)
Gainesville, FL 32609
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