May 11 WISCONSIN: Oppose death penalty reinstatement in Wisconsin! The Wisconsin Assembly has approved legislation placing a referendum on the death penalty on the November election ballot. Although this referendum would be nonbinding, it would move Wisconsin one step toward reinstating the death penalty - at a time when other states are moving away from capital punishment. Attention DPF Members: >From the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: As many of you may know, we are fighting a serious death penalty reinstatement effort in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin General Assembly has approved legislation that would put a nonbinding referendum on the November election ballot. The referendum would ask voters, "Should the death penalty be enacted in the state of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first-degree intentional homicides, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?" The Wisconsin Senate will return next week and could take up the legislation as early as Tuesday. (The Senate approved an earlier version on a vote of 20 to 13; they have to vote again because the measure was amended in the Assembly.) We are facing a serious, uphill battle and have launched an all-hands-on-deck campaign to try to defeat this measure when it comes up next week. Although the proposed referendum is nonbinding, it nonetheless could move Wisconsin one step closer to reinstatement, under the guise of giving legislators cover to vote for the death penalty when they return in 2007. We have developed a detailed plan to organize against the measure by engaging in an intensive lobbying campaign targeted at eight key senators. (If anyone would like to see a copy of the plan, please email David Elliot off list at delliot at ncadp.org) Today we are asking ad hoc members to consider helping us in the following ways: 1. Please consider distributing our action alert (appended at the bottom of this message) to any networks, members or supporters you have in Wisconsin. 2. If you have members you can phone bank in Wisconsin, please consider phone banking them to urge them to phone or email key senators (a list of key senators may be found by clicking through the action alert below.) Alternatively, if you have members and phone numbers in Wisconsin, but do not have time or resources to phone bank them, we will see to it that the phone banking is done if you will share your list with us. Wisconsin has been free of the death penalty for 153 years. But now the issue is one step away from appearing on the November ballot! If you live in Wisconsin, we need you to call key state senators to oppose reinstatement. If you know someone who lives in Wisconsin and who opposes the death penalty, please forward this action alert to them. Time is of the essence! The Facts: The Wisconsin Assembly has approved legislation placing a referendum on the death penalty on the November election ballot. Although this referendum would be nonbinding, it would move Wisconsin one step toward reinstating the death penalty - at a time when other states are moving away from capital punishment. The Wisconsin Senate could take up this legislation the week of Monday, May 15. We need you to contact key state senators now! CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION!!!!!!!!!! http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/ organizationsORG/ncadp/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=3666 >From The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty Amnesty International USA We need your help to contact state legislators to keep the death penalty out of Wisconsin. Members of the State Senate and Assembly are trying to put a death penalty 'advisory' referendum on the Ballot in November. Please call your Senators to keep this violation of human rights that is fraught with error and racial, economic and geographic bias out of our state! Current Situation: The Wisconsin State Senate on March 7 passed SJR5 (Advisory Referendum on the Death Penalty) by a vote of 20-13. This legislation provides for an "advisory" referendum on the death penalty. On May 4, the Wisconsin Assembly in a 47-45 vote passed SJR 5 in an amended form. Due to the Assembly's amendments, the legislation must now go back before the Senate for their reconsideration. It is expected the Senate will take this legislation up on May 16. If this legislation is approved, it could be the first step toward Wisconsin reinstating the death penalty. TALKING POINTS * As your constituent, I urge you to oppose SJR 5, legislation that would put a death penalty referendum on the ballot. * Wisconsin has not had the death penalty in more than 150 years; it certainly does not need it now. * Current Wisconsin law allows society to be protected from dangerous criminals by providing a maximum of life in prison without parole for the most serious homicides. * In study after study the death penalty has been shown to be fraught with geographical and racial disparities. It is immoral and expensive. * Nationally 123 persons in 25 states have been released from death row due to evidence of wrongful conviction. The criminal justice system is a human system, prone to mistakes. Even seemingly simple mistakes can put innocent persons on death row. * An advisory referendum will not give legislators any additional quality information beyond what they are already hearing from their constituents. * The death penalty is a violation of the basic human right to life, and the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman degrading treatment or punishment. These rights are guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. * There is an ever growing list of nations in the world who have abolished its use. Wisconsin would join human rights abusing countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran if it were to reinstate the death penalty. * Many persons assume that victim family members support the death penalty. However, as groups like Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and Murder Victim Families for Human Rights point out, the death penalty can actually be detrimental to the healing process for victim families. Action Needed: Contact your Senator before May 16 and urge them to vote no on SJR 5. Email format is Sen. (your senator's last name)@legis.state.wi.us Postal mail Senator (Name) PO Box 7882 n Madison, WI 53707-7882 To find out who your Elected officials are: http://www.amnestyusa.org/elected_officials>http// amnestyusa.org/elected_officials Or < http://waml.legis.state.wi.us/ > http://waml.legis.state.wi.us/ gives your Senator's name and a direct email link and phone number. Last option for contacting Senators is via the Legislative Hotline The toll free, legislative hotline is an option from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. 1-800-362-9472 (for Madison, 266-9960). You can find out who your Senator is. You can leave a short message with your Senator's name and it will be correctly routed. For more information contact Christopher Watson, AIUSA Field Organizer for Wisconsin: 312-435-6386 or < mailto:cwatson at aiusa.org>cwatson at aiusa.org. Sincerely, The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty Amnesty International USA (source: Death Penalty Focus Action Alert) NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty may not be most sensible path to justice Billy Lee Charles Jr. admitted to smashing his 63-year-old mother in the head with a hammer, then slashing her throat before stuffing her in a closet to die after an argument that began the night of Feb. 28. He also admitted that he had been arguing with his mom about his cocaine habit and the fact that he took his 11-year-old son along on a trip to buy crack. If anybody ever deserved the death penalty, it sure seemed as though Charles did. District Attorney Garry Frank, the man in Davidson County who decides such matters, said so during a during a Rule 24 hearing - a legal proceeding in which a prosecutor says that the state has enough for a capital-murder charge. Even Charles' attorney, David Freedman, agreed that his client's case met the legal standard for a state-sponsored needle. Yet Charles didn't have to face a jury of 12. On Monday, Judge Larry Ford sentenced him to life without parole in a plea agreement. So what gives? Why will Charles, 31, be wearing a regular prison-gray jumpsuit rather than the red one reserved for death-row inmates? Options, negotiations It has become increasingly difficult for prosecutors to persuade juries that murder defendants deserve to die. Sometimes - such as in the case of Randy Ridgeway, the Davie County man convicted of killing and sodomizing the 14-year-old daughter of his longtime girlfriend - a single juror with reservations about the death penalty can gum up the works. Other times, jurors fall under the spell of CSI and other crime shows. They demand scientific evidence that exists only on TV. The number of death-penalty convictions has fallen precipitously since 1999. That year, North Carolina juries sent 26 convicted killers to death row in Central Prison. In 2003, just 6 went. So far this year, 4 murderers have received the death penalty, including Jeremy Murrell, a Winston-Salem man who kidnapped a cook from the parking lot of the South by Southwest restaurant and shot him to death. A big reason for the decline is that prosecutors can now accept a guilty plea in a capital-murder case in exchange for a life-without-parole sentence. Before 2001, a prosecutor had to take death-penalty cases to a jury or settle for a second-degree murder plea. "Having that option certainly has been a benefit from the prosecutorial side," Frank said. Coupled with the death penalty, it also allows more room for negotiation. "Before (the district attorney), could say that the only way to guarantee that a defendant would not get out is to execute him," Freedman said. "Now he can look a victim's family in the face and guarantee that a defendant will never be released." The system works In the case of Billy Lee Charles (and others like it), a first-degree murder plea that carries life without parole spares a victim's family from having to relive a nightmare every time a death-penalty case comes up for appeal. Though it wasn't the determining factor, Frank considered the family's feelings. "The family doesn't make the decision. That call is mine," he said. "In this case, the family was receptive to (life without parole)." Not that his opinion counts for much, but Charles also was relieved that he had an option. "He informed me that he wanted to plead," Freedman said. Then there is the fact that a plea bargain saved the state thousands in trial costs. A capital case would take months, if not years, to try. This case was resolved in less than 2 months. So now, Charles will rot in the prison cell where he belongs. The family is spared years of waiting for justice. And all parties agree that the outcome was fair. "It was a difficult case but a good one to show that the system does work," Frank said. (source: Winston-Salem Journal) ********************* Johnston prosecutors may seek death penalty Lynn Paddock, a Johnston County woman accused of killing her 4-year-old adopted son, could learn today whether prosecutors will seek to have her put to death. Representatives from the Johnston County district attorney's office are scheduled to appear in Superior Court for a hearing at which they could present their case for seeking the death penalty. District Attorney Tom Lock has said that his office will try to convince a jury that Paddock tortured her son Sean to death, a crime punishable by life without parole or possibly execution. As of last week, Lock said he had not decided whether to seek the death penalty. Sean Paddock, a Wake County boy that Lynn and Johnny Paddock adopted last summer, died Feb. 26 after being wrapped so tightly in blankets he suffocated, according to investigators and the state's chief medical examiner. Sheriffs deputies say the binding was a form of punishment. (source: News Observer) ********************** Federal appeals court rejects N.C. death appeal A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected an appeal from North Carolina death row inmate James Campbell, who was sentenced to death for a 1992 rape and murder in Rowan County. Campbell said he didn't have the mental capacity to carry out the brutal slaying. The appeals court said Campbell strangled Katherine Price Sept. 8, 1992, then cut her throat and stabbed her. Campbell confessed he met Price when she gave him a ride while he was searching for a weapon to kill a girlfriend. After the killing, he returned to set her car afire. "The callous and incremental way that Campbell carried out the murder demonstrated that it did not happen in a matter of seconds, but took some time to complete, affording him opportunities to continually reconsider his course of action," the court said. The court said Campbell strangled his victim "with such strength that one of his thumbs went numb." (source: Associated Press) ****************** N.C. high court stays execution----More DNA tests have been ordered. Jerry Conner had been scheduled to die Friday The state Supreme Court stayed the execution of a Gates County man Wednesday, 2 days before he was set to die for the 1990 murder of a mother and her daughter. The court also ordered additional DNA tests that could confirm whether Jerry Wayne Conner sexually assaulted the 16-year-old he was convicted of killing. Lawyers said that the decision marked the 1st time the Supreme Court has ruled on a 2001 law that requires courts to allow additional DNA tests for defendants under certain circumstances. "I think that the court was confirming the will of the legislature," said Ken Rose, one of Conner's attorneys. Conner, 40, was scheduled to die at Central Prison at 2 a.m. Friday. He was sentenced to death in 1991 and again in 1995 for the murders of Minh Rogers and her daughter, Linda. On Monday, Conner's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to stay the execution and overturn a decision by a Gates judge denying Conner's request for DNA testing on a small amount of sperm found on Linda Rogers. FBI tests of the sperm in 1991 were inconclusive. Conner's attorneys contended that advanced DNA testing techniques now available could identify the source. At the 1995 trial, jurors factored in the rape to support Conner's death sentence. Defense attorneys also argued that the only other evidence of the rape was Conner's statement to police, which they say is unreliable because Conner is borderline mentally retarded. In response, Special Deputy Attorney General Steven M. Arbogast wrote that Conner's attorneys only requested the additional DNA tests after several previous appeals had failed. "This case is not a 'who-dun-it' with regard to either the two murders or the rape of 16-year-old Linda," Arbogast wrote. "The defendant confessed." Gates County District Attorney Frank Parrish did not respond to a message Wednesday. He has previously opposed new DNA tests, saying other evidence supported Conner's guilt. The Supreme Court remanded the case to Gates County Superior Court, where officials will determine when and how the DNA evidence will be tested. (source: The News & Observer) USA: State Sanctioned Murder is Barbaric STATE SANCTIONED MURDER IS BARBARIC:----The Death Penalty Must Be Abolished Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind. --George Bernard Shaw The thieves selected the moment when the strangled man was swinging above them as the happiest opportunity. --Arthur Koestler, Reflections on Hanging The moment of truth has finally arrived for the death penalty in America. There is now proof that the State of Texas executed an innocent man in 2004. Cameron Willingham and Ernest Willis were both convicted of murder by arson, the first in 1987 and the second in 1992. Willingham died by lethal injection on February 17, 2004, but Willis was pardoned on October 6, 2004. A panel of 5 arson experts concluded that the Texas deputy fire marshal had "grossly misinterpreted" the facts of both cases. They concluded that the fires were tragic accidents not arson. Governor Rick Perry was privy to these objections, ignored them, and then put an innocent man to death. The Innocence Project has now verified that, since the reinstitution of the death penalty, 176 people on America's death rows have been found innocent. The most dramatic instance of this was the discovery in 2003 that 13 people on Illinois' death row were not guilty as charged. Then Governor George Ryan, a supporter of the death penalty, declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois. He did it because, as he said, "our capital [punishment] system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die." Why is it that Govern Perry of Texas has not instituted a similar ban on executions in his state? Our criminal justice system is bedeviled by another error and that is the myth that the death penalty convinces others not to kill. Over the past 160 years 200 studies have been done to discover if capital punishment is a deterrent. In 1846 Robert Rantoul did a comparative study of European countries and concluded that "murders have rapidly diminished in those countries in which executions are scarcely known." Nearly all of the studies since then have confirmed Rantoul's findings. Over the years, critics have said that these studies did not control for enough variables, but finely tuned statistical analyses have continued to demonstrate that, if anything, capital punishment actually leads to more killings. In 1975 Isaac Erhlich published a highly sophisticated article that was summarized by the slogan "Every execution prevents seven or eight murders." Close scrutiny of Ehrlich's method and data, however, revealed that his study was flawed. A panel at the National Academy of Sciences went over Erhlich's data and found that it did not prove his thesis. Some studies have proved the "brutalization" thesis, which means that capital punishment, as George Bernard Shaw once quipped, breeds more murder. State sanctioned murder begets more violence and violent emotions. Not only did past public executions prove to be a field day for pickpockets, blithely undeterred by the fact that theirs was a capital crime, but it also fueled the fires of the most uncivil emotions. According to an FBI Uniform Crime Report, far fewer police officers are murdered in states without the death penalty. From 1989-1998, 292 police were killed in the South, where 90 % of all executions occurred in 2000, while only 80 were killed in the Northeast, where there are 1 percent of national executions. The case for deterrence appeared to strengthen as murder rates dropped in the 1990s while executions kept their pace. However, from 1990 to 2004 the murder rates in states without the death penalty declined much more - from 9.16 to 4.02 per 100,000 - than those states with capital punishment - from 9.5 to 5.71 per 100,000. Some critics say that the long delays in executing capital prisoners undermine the deterrent effect. Executions were certain and quick in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, but the early studies, confirmed by more recent ones, demonstrate that this cannot be the case. In 1980 William Bailey did a thorough study across death penalty states focusing on the certainty, the severity, and the quickness of the punishment and he found "no evidence that speedy executions discourage murder." Ernest Willis received $430,000 from the State of Texas for the 17 years he spent in prison, and a federal jury ruled that Earl Washington, after 18 years behind bars, should have $2.25 million from the investigator who made up the evidence that falsely convicted him. The other 174 others who have been exonerated may not fare as well in a country that has been justly criticized by Europeans who have long abolished capital punishment, have made their prisons more humane, have reduced their crime rates, and are returning far fewer people to their prisons. Postscript on Abortion: Some who know my views on abortion would charge that I'm a gigantic hypocrite for granting the right of women to terminate their pregnancies up to 25 weeks. My answer is that only legal persons can be murdered, and our moral, legal, and religious traditions have consistently held that the early fetus is not a person. Read my article on abortion at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/abortion.htm. Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. The author is indebted to Mark Costanzo's "Just Revenge" and Hugo Bedau's "The Death Penalty in America." (source: New West)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----WIS., N.C., USA
Rick Halperin Thu, 11 May 2006 10:26:09 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
