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MEDIA ADVISORY
FROM: Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP)
27 February 2007
Contact: Bill Pelke: 305-775-5823
MARCH 1st is INTERNATIONAL DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION DAY
"DEATH PENALTY FOUNDATIONS CRUMBLING"
Celebrating 160 Years Without Death Penalty
With judicial, legislative or executive moratoriums on executions in
place in at least eight states, March 1st, 2007, International Death
Penalty Abolition Day, brings with it not only a celebration of the
past but an indicator of the future. The death penalty in the United
States is on its way out.
Executions have been suspended, literally, from coast to coast, as
Florida and California grapple with the question of how to prevent
botched lethal injection executions. Other states have joined them in
suspending executions: Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, North
Carolina and Tennessee. Indeed, more than one third of the nation's
approximately 3,350 people on death rows across the U.S. are in
states where a moratorium exists on carrying out the death penalty.
Abolition Day 2007 is the 160th 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.
"People in the United States are beginning to take a hard look at how
our criminal justice system is failing," said Bill Pelke, Chairman of
the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Founder of
The Journey of Hope ...From Violence to Healing. "As a former
supporter of the death penalty who has lost a loved one to murder, I
know 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 1063
executions. This is hardly a good return on that investment.
Alternatives to the death penalty exist that punish severely while
protecting society, without more killing."
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 Pelke. Michigan has been
without the death penalty for 160 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 Pelke. "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. Except for
those who have been exonerated, not one of the people sentenced to
LWOP has been released. We are saying to the people of 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: www.CUADP.org and www.NCADP.org and www.journeyofhope.org
and www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
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 of 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.
SENT BY:
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director (on Sabbatical), CUADP
abe@cuadp.org
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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. MLKing Jr. Hwy)
Gainesville, FL 32609
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