Activists Plan 4-Day Anti-Death Penalty Protest
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 22, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - Members of the Abolitionist Action Committee and other anti-death penalty groups plan to rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., beginning June 29 for four days of demonstrations, vigils and fasting.

The demonstrations, dubbed "Starvin' for Justice," mark the 32nd anniversary of Furman v. Georgia , the Supreme Court decision that declared the death penalty unconstitutional and the 28th anniversary of Gregg v. Georgia , the verdict that reinstated the death penalty as acceptable punishment.

Organizers said they expect as many as 100 people for the opening rally a on Tuesday, June 29. They said a smaller number of demonstrators will stay during the week to pass out literature and discuss the death penalty with passersby.

"We view it (the death penalty) as a fundamental rejection of human rights," said David Elliot, communications director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The government should not be in the position of being able to take a life."

The judicial system also makes mistakes, Elliot said, "and occasionally sentences innocent people to death." Capital punishment is also financially and geographically biased, he added.

Elliot said highlights of the four-day demonstration will include a performance by folk artist Steve Earl and an appearance by so-called "death row survivor" Juan Melendez, who spent 18 years on Florida's death row.

Demonstrators also plan to address the issue of the death penalty for juveniles. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Roper v. Simmons in the next session. The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty for criminals 17 years of age does not violate the cruel and unusual punishment protection in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled in Thompson v. Oklahoma that in cases of minors under the age of 16, the death penalty was unconstitutional. The court declined to hear the 1989 case of Stanford v. Kentucky , which challenged the death penalty in cases when the criminal was 16 or 17 at the time of the crime.

Stanley Rosenbluth, president of Virginians United Against Crime, said everyone has the right to their own opinion, "but I don't agree with theirs."

Rosenbluth, whose son and daughter-in-law were shot to death in 1993, said that "what we're talking about is punishment for a crime," not race, economics or geography.

"As far as I'm concerned," he said, "murder has no color." He added, "There are more white people on death row than there are other people."

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