March 1 USA: Passionate cause is thriving----Sister Helen Prejean's anti-death penalty story is now a stage play. Sister Helen Prejean has seen herself portrayed repeatedly on film and on stage. And while that might go to a persons head, Prejean, 67, is about the least pretentious media star youre likely to encounter. "It's about me, but I'm like the prism through which the light comes," Prejean said by telephone from the Burbank Airport last weekend. It began with Dead Man Walking, her nonfiction account of her ministry to convicts on death row in Louisiana. It was on the best-seller charts for 31 weeks. Then Tim Robbins adapted it as a film. Sean Penn played a fictional convict, a composite of 2 of the real death-row inmates Prejean worked with, and Prejean was played by Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for her performance. It became an opera by composer Jake Heggie with a libretto by playwright Terrence McNally. And Prejean talked Robbins into adapting it as a stage play, which the Avila University theater department is presenting this weekend. "I remember I sat at the San Francisco Opera and there was Sister Helen and she was singing, 'My journey, my journey, and I know it's taking the people on this journey, too," Prejean said. "So I'm like an instrument or a witness. I'm not trying to be overly humble in this. It's really the way I feel. Because I know that before that ride is over they're gonna be brought deep into the depths of that issue." So every time the opera is produced, every time the play is staged, every time someone rents the DVD, Prejean sees it all as a way to heighten the death penalty in the public consciousness. She approached Robbins about the idea of writing a stage version after reading an article about Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," which has been produced countless times all over the world. "I prevailed on him that for a year we would just let Jesuit schools do it, and he agreed to that," she said. "And the understanding was that at the end of that year he would take the play back." Robbins was so impressed by the response of young people and the play's ability to stir discussion in the community that he decided to continue licensing it to schools. Now it's in its 3rd year. "He knows the important thing is to get the discourse going and also to start the educational process, she said. "Theater was always meant to deal with the issues of the time and not just be this fantasy thing It's using the arts to bring people to deeper reflection. And the death penalty is so hidden for most people it's not a moral issue that affects most people personally. And so this brings them close to the reality. You know, the play is constructed just like the film. It brings you over to both sides. It's not just a polemic against the death penalty." Anyone else in Prejean's position would probably be enjoying the wealth that comes from literary success. "What do I do with money? I take the money and run," she cracked. In reality she gives everything she earns to her order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille. "The sisterhood supports you in whatever you want to do," she said. "So it gives you beautiful freedom. So whatever you make you turn back into the sisterhood for the needs of the community and the mission of the community." Critics of those who would do away with the penalty usually make a simple argument: That society would be better off without housing and feeding killers in prison. Prejean, obviously, sees it another way. If there were no death penalty, she said, society would benefit "because then we don't engage ourselves in this protocol of death, of killing them, and by even claiming the arrogance that we can decide who lives and who dies." Sustaining the death penalty doesnt make sense even if you look at it simply as a matter of money. "It takes huge amounts of resources to keep this death machine going," she said. "And we could be putting that into life and preventing violence. We know where the seeds of violence are, where they're given birth to in our society, and we need to prevent it. We need to deal with at-risk kids, we need to deal with homelessness, we need to deal with education, jobs, people being addicted to drugs and alcohol." It actually costs less to keep somebody in prison for life, she said. But the bottom line is what is says about us as a society. "The less we involve ourselves in making our social policy legalizing torture and death, the better off we are as a people," she said. "We're really not worthy of this thing. That's the main reason we need to get rid of it." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- in town Sister Helen Prejean will do a book signing from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today at Barnes and Noble at Town Center Plaza, 119th and Roe, Leawood. She will also speak in a question- and-answer session after the opening night performance of "Dead Man Walking" tonight at the Goppert Theatre at Avila University, 11901 Wornall Road. The show begins at 8. Tonight's performance is sold out, but tickets remain for performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $10. Call (816) 501-3699.For more information go to prejean.org or dmwplay.org. ********************** MARCH 1st is INTERNATIONAL DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION DAY Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP) 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. "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 1st 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.'" (source: The Free Press) ************************ Death penalty moratorium takes political courage While Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were engaged in the first official hissy fit (the technical term) of the 2008 presidential campaign, another Democrat was actually engaged in a matter of important public policy. Just to recap: Clinton was furious because Hollywood mogul David Geffen ridiculed her and former President Bill Clinton in an interview with Maureen Dowd of The New York Times on the very day that Geffen was hosting a fundraiser for Obama that reportedly brought $1.3 million to his campaign. Before his conversion to Obama, Geffen had raised about $18 million for the former president. The spat led to several days of coverage in a not-so-deep search for deeper meaning about the state of the race and the state of the Clintons, which, by the way, undoubtedly will be the campaign's ongoing soap opera subtext. Meanwhile, across the country in Annapolis, Md., another public drama was playing out, and in this case, the stakes were not money, but life and death. Martin O'Malley, the youthful new governor, made an emotional plea to a state Senate committee to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. That is one long march from the scene at a 1988 presidential debate when Michael Dukakis was pilloried for giving a lawyerly answer to a hypothetical question about whether he would impose the death penalty on a man who had raped and murdered his wife. Dukakis' dispassionate rejection of capital punishment became a ready emblem for the Republican narrative that Democrats were soft on crime. >From that point on, most Democrats with higher ambitions rushed to be seen as state-sanctioned Grim Reapers. None did it with as much flourish as then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who jetted back to his state just before the New Hampshire primary to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a brain-damaged man who told prison officials he wanted to save the dessert from his last meal until after his execution. Few Democrats since have been willing to take forceful public action that would make it appear as if they were not tough on criminals. In fact, it was not until a Republican, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, imposed a moratorium on the death penalty that any movement to repeal capital punishment statutes gained significant traction. In fact, O'Malley cited during his testimony the 18 death row inmates who have been released in Illinois after their innocence was proved. O'Malley has been on the short list of rising Democratic stars for several years. Telegenic, smart and the leader of his own Irish band, O'Malley's March, he was mayor of Baltimore before being elected governor last November. Before that, he had been chosen to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and fortunately for him, in a very forgettable time slot, given a delivery that dripped with emotion far more than sincerity. His push to repeal the death penalty is perhaps his highest-profile move since taking office, and one that carries abundant political risk, particularly because he is seen as a politician with national ambitions. But on this issue, O'Malley is resolutely righteous, making a moral and theological argument as much as a political or legal one to support his thesis that the death penalty is neither a "just punishment" nor an "effective deterrent" to murder. "Notwithstanding the executions of the rightly convicted, can the death penalty ever be justified, then, as public policy when it inherently necessitates the occasional taking of a wrongly convicted and innocent life?" he said. "Is any one of us willing to sacrifice a member of our own family -- wrongly convicted, sentenced and executed -- in order to secure the execution of five rightly convicted murderers? And even if we were, could that public policy be called 'just'? I believe it cannot." He was just getting wound up. "Individual human dignity is the concept that leads brave individuals to sacrifice their own lives for the lives of strangers," O'Malley said. "Individual human dignity is the truth universal that is the basis of all ethics. Individual human dignity is the fundamental belief upon which all laws of this state and this republic are founded. And absent a deterrent value, I truly believe that the damage done by our conscious communal use of the death penalty to the concept of human dignity is greater than the benefit of even a justly drawn retribution." It was a gutsy approach, even in a heavily Democratic state. And O'Malley will find out if his risk is rewarded. Maybe Geffen would bankroll the movie. (source: Post-Bulletin) TENNESSEE: International Death Penalty Abolition Day We've done it before! We've raised our voices and our policy-makers have heard. We've stayed executions and raised awareness of cases. But now making our voices heard is more important than ever before. Our Governor has temporarily stopped executions in the state, sparing four lives, but with Phillip Workman still facing execution on May 9th, and over 100 human beings in line behind him, it is crucial that we seize this political opportunity. Join us on Thursday, March 1st and Make Our State Policy Makers Hear Your Voice. Write-a-thon to Halt Executions in our State! Thursday, March 1st, 2007 6:30 - 9:00pm Fido's Coffee Shop 1812 21st Ave So Nashville Politicians pay the most attention to handwritten letters from their constituents, so on March 1st we will gather to: * Tell Governor Bredesen to free Paul House and extend his moratorium until we can be sure that such an injustice will never occur again * Tell our state representatives to support legislation for a full and complete study of the death penalty and a moratorium until such a study is complete * Tell the Nashville delegation to the General Assembly that this must be a priority! This is the moment for Tennessee to act! Working together, we can build political power and move our state legislators to stand up for justice. But we need each and every person to take action. Join us to raise our voices for justice International Death Penalty Abolition Day, Thursday March 1st. Come for the whole evening, or as much of the time as possible. We'll provide informational resources, pens, paper, and stamps. You just bring yourself. Every letter counts! "The death penalty is a public policy that fails victims, the accused and our core constitutional value of fairness. The best solution is to use alternatives and simply abolish the death penalty." (source: Tennessee Independent Media Center) CALIFORNIA: Keeping hope alive----Professor edits the essays and memoirs Tom Kerr leaned back in his office chair and listened to the recording of a poem from his faculty Web site one afternoon in January. A long-limbed, silver-haired man whose lined mouth is quick to smile, Kerr said he was disturbed and saddened by the poems unpolished verse. "It's intense," said the assistant professor of writing. "There's a rough quality I want to preserve, not smooth over." But the voice coming from Kerr's computer was not his own. It belonged to Steve Champion, a 47-year-old former gang member incarcerated on death row at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif. Kerr has helped Champion revise and prepare his memoirs for the past 4 years. One publisher contacted Kerr to express interest in an account of Champion's life prior to his incarceration, Kerr said, which he and Champion are in the process of writing. Kerr's relationship with Champion began in 2003, when Kerr taught a senior seminar at Ithaca College on the U.S. prison system, which required communication with inmates across the country. Champion was among the 40 prisoners who responded to Kerr's request. He sent essays with his letter to Kerr and asked for the professors help in compiling a book. Kerr flew to California the following summer to meet Champion in San Quentin. Kerr agreed to help create his memoirs, a collection detailing Champions double homicide conviction and the 25 years he has served in prison. Champion does not discuss the crime for which he was convicted in his essays, reflecting instead on his life in prison. "We connected," Kerr said. "He trusted me." Last year, Kerr won the Rachel Cory Award at the Conference on College Composition and Communication for his work on the memoirs. The award is given by Long Island University for those who take professional risks to fight for justice. Kerr, who has taught at the college since 2001 and received tenure last week, has also carried his project with Champion into the classroom. He said 2 of his students, Emily Paulsen 05 and junior Elizabeth Muse, helped edit Champions poems and essays, and sometimes helped transcribe them from recordings Champion made over the phone. Muse, a writing major who transcribed Champion's essay "Becoming a Writer in Prison" from a recording Champion made over the phone, said Champion's writing made her more aware of the prison system. "Here is a man who has [committed], or at least has been convicted of, heinous crimes but he writes beautifully," she said. "These men and women should be able to show their work and Tom [Kerr] is helping them have a voice." Kerr said he has spent the last 6 months searching for an agent willing to publish Champion's writing. He said some publishers want Champions essays rewritten, while others are hesitant to manage the project because of the publics potential reaction to a prisoner portrayed with sympathy. Though Kerr acknowledges many projects like this are ghostwritten, he said it was not how he wanted to approach Champion's writing. "If I rewrite it, where's his voice?" Kerr said. "What's the point?" Kerr said he knows not everyone wants to hear Champion's story, and said he posts the hate mail he receives about the project on his office door. The letters criticize Kerr for sympathizing with a death row inmate and supporting abolishment of capital punishment,he said. Fred Wilcox, associate professor of writing, said Kerr's work sends a valuable message about prisoner reformation. "Tom is trying to show it's possible for people to be rehabilitated,"he said. "If [Champion] can do that, if people can be rehabilitated, it should be very inspiring." Kerr said he values his work and his relationship with Champion. "We've been good friends," he said. "He relies on me to keep hope alive." (source: The Ithacan----Tom Kerr, assistant professor of writing, teaches an academic writing class yesterday in Williams 314. For the past 4 years, Kerr has worked with a prisoner on death row to create a memoir of life in prison----Ithaca College, New York) ***************** Panel lays into lethal injection In a panel discussion before the Marin County Bar Association on Wednesday, lawyer John Grele said the state continues to rely on a method of execution less humane than the chemicals veterinarians use to euthanize dogs and cats. While doctors put animals "to sleep" using a single chemical, corrections officials use a combination of 3 to execute criminals. One of these chemicals, pancuronium bromide, is a paralyzing agent, which stops all muscle movement except the heart. Grele, who represents death row prisoner Michael Angelos Morales, has argued that use of the drug makes it difficult to tell whether prisoners are in pain during their execution. "Applying a paralytic prevents us from seeing the death, so we can't tell whether the inmate is suffering," Grele said. "That takes away our ability to see what we have decided to do as a society." In response to those arguments, a federal judge has ordered California to conduct a thorough review of its lethal injection methods. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said the state will present a revised execution procedure by May 15. The case has attracted national interest, with officials in other states calling for qualified medical supervision of executions. "It's rare that we have the opportunity to talk about an issue as important as the one we're talking about today, which has huge local significance and is equally important on a national scale," said Jeffrey Lerman, president of the Marin bar. The death penalty remains popular with 63 % of Californians, according to a 2006 Field poll. Yet Grele said he believes fewer people would support state-sponsored executions if they understood what the process was really like. "The way in which the state kills has not been subjected to a great deal of scrutiny," Grele said. "The more light we shed on this government procedure, the more questions arise about it." In investigating Morales' case, Grele found that state executioners were not trained anesthesiologists, and that they were not prepared to deal with problems that took place during executions, such as difficulties inserting an intravenous drip during the 2005 execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. "The prison system deserves the scrutiny it's getting, and not just about lethal injections," Grele said. "A lot of the problems at San Quentin, such as health care and overcrowding, translate into problems with lethal injections as well." Not everyone is prepared to empathize with convicted killers. But Rabbi Lavey Derby, who joined Grele for Wednesday's panel discussion, said providing a humane death is a moral imperative. "Why should we care if criminals receive a less painful death?" asked Derby, a member of Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon. "To fulfill the biblical commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. If that commandment is applied - as it must be - to people who commit the most heinous acts, it requires that the means to carry out executions must respect the dignity of the individual, even if that individual would not have treated others that way." Episcopal priest Bruce Bramlett agreed, pointing out that Christians define themselves as the followers of an innocent man - Jesus - who was executed for his crimes by the state. "Christians believe that no one is beyond redemption," said Bramlett, former rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael. "Our basic value system is that everyone is made in the image of God, and that in each of us exists a spark of the divine." Bramlett said his experiences observing executions at San Quentin reinforced his belief that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. "I watched one execution - the state wouldn't claim that it was botched, but it was," Bramlett said. "It took well over 40 minutes for that man to be killed. That isn't right." Grele said he believes veterinarians and those who euthanize terminally ill patients provide more humane care for their clients than do state corrections officials. But he's not about to recommend their practices to the state. "My role is not to advocate for a better way to kill my client," Grele said. Wednesday's meeting of the Marin bar was moderated by Independent Journal opinion editor Doug Bunnell and held at the Seafood Peddler restaurant in San Rafael. (source: Marin Independent Journal) MARYLAND: If death penalty goes, who protects guards? Flashing a sign that reflects the moral and practical complexity of the issue, Sen. Alex Mooney has talked of offering an amendment that might persuade him to vote for repeal of Maryland's death penalty. Even those who are -- excuse the expression -- diehard opponents or proponents of capital punishment should find such an amendment difficult to resist. Specifically, as reported by The Sun, the amendment would repeal the death penalty for virtually all other crimes but would make it still available in a case involving the murder of a prison guard by an inmate already serving a life sentence who, in the absence of capital punishment, might figure there was nothing to lose. At last week's Annapolis hearing before the Senate Committee on Judicial Proceedings, the basic arguments for and against repeal were rolled out by a platoon of earnest witnesses on each side. Much of the pro-repeal reasoning was offered by Gov. Martin O'Malley, who shrugged off suggestions that being out front on such an emotionally charged issue was bound to cost him political capital. In effect, he invited us to delve into the soul and renounce a practice that drags society down to the same level of barbarity that impels a murderer to take another's life. The proponents' arsenal of arguments included this combination of statistics and passion: *Studies have shown that capital punishment is no clear-cut deterrent to someone about to kill another human. *Inevitably, the state will sometimes err and execute an innocent person instead of the actual perpetrator. Advances in forensic science, such as DNA comparisons and digitally enhanced photography, have led to proof of wrongful conviction and even execution at a disturbing rate. *Given the usual delay in carrying out a death sentence because of mandatory review, appeal and procedural requirements, capital punishment costs the state more than a sentence of life without parole. Since 1978, O'Malley said, executions have cost Maryland more than $22 million -- enough to hire 500 more police officers or to treat 10,000 drug addicts. Supporters of the death penalty traditionally cite reasons such as these, some of which were presented at the hearing: *Particularly heinous crimes, such as the rape-murder of children, call for the ultimate penalty. *Nothing short of capital punishment can shield society from career criminals specializing in contract murder or from deranged serial killers. *In the hands of competent prosecutors, the death penalty is an effective tool to protect potential victims of killers. But any change in the death penalty law should still leave room to protect correctional officers. (source: MyWebPal.com) ******************* Bishop urges death penalty ban A US bishop has testified to a Senate Judicial hearing to call for an end to the death penalty in the state of Maryland. Auxilliary Bishop of Baltimore Denis Madden addressed the Senate Judicial Proceedings and House Judiciary committees hearing to support a bill that would replace the death penalty with life sentences without parole. "The teachings of our church recognise the right of legitimate government to resort to capital punishment, but directly challenge the appropriateness of government's doing so in a society that is capable of defending the public order and ensuring the publics safety," said Bishop Madden. The Maryland Court of Appeals recently issued a moratorium on the death penalty and the state must now choose whether to repeal it entirely. Maryland has executed 83 men since the death penalty was introduced in 1923. (source: Total Catholic) PENNSYLVANIA: Shamokin man's execution OK'd In Harrisburg, Gov. Ed Rendell on Wednesday signed a warrant authorizing the execution of a man convicted of shooting to death his victim during a robbery. The execution by lethal injection of Kevin J. Marinelli, 34, of Northumberland County was scheduled for April 26. He was sentenced to die in 1995 for killing Conrad Dumchock, 35, during a robbery in Dumchock's Kulpmont home. Dumchock was in bed sleeping on April 26, 1994, when Mr. Marinelli, his brother Mark and Thomas Kirchoff, all of the Shamokin area, broke into the Dumchock home, beat Mr. Dumchock and stole guns and electronic equipment before shooting him twice in the head. In 2003, Mr. Marinelli wrote Northumberland County Judge William Harvey Wiest to ask to be allowed to represent himself in order to speed up his death sentence. Several days later, he wrote a 2nd letter to the judge saying that he had spoken with his attorney and wanted to continue to appeal his death sentence. Gov. Rendell has signed 64 death warrants, but no executions have been carried out during his four years in office. 3 people have been executed since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1978, and all had voluntarily ended their appeals. As of Feb. 1, there were 216 men and 5 women on Pennsylvania's death row. (source: The Daily Item) ************** DA won't seek death penalty against mother, son in shooting death Prosecutors said they will not seek the death penalty against a man and his mother accused in the fatal shooting of another man during an argument. Blake Anthony Donald, 20, of Johnstown, is accused of shooting Stephen Travis Smith, 24, at Smith's Johnstown boarding house on Oct. 15 during a confrontation that included Donald's mother, Jacqueline Webb, 41. Police said Webb allegedly told them she and Smith had an intimate relationship and he had beaten her earlier that day. Webb helped cover up the shooting, police said. Donald and Webb pleaded not guilty at their formal arraignment Wednesday. Cambria County District Attorney Patrick Kiniry said none of the aggravating circumstances that can support capital punishment fits the facts of this case. Webb's attorney, David Beyer, has filed a petition to have the charges dismissed. "We just feel there is no evidence to tie her to any crime," he said. "We're basically asking the judge to hold another hearing and throw out the case." Donald's attorney, John Kasaback, said he would file a similar motion. Webb and Donald were in the county jail. (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, TENN., CALIF., MD., PENN.
Rick Halperin Thu, 1 Mar 2007 22:34:43 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
