There were 200 capital offenses in pre-Revolution France. People were under the heavy oppression of a ruling and indifferent elite; poverty, class distinction, and other forms of human frustration were common, and crime abounded.

Public executions by guillotine were a national disgrace and a common entertainment of the impoverished and frustrated.

Since large crowds of distracted people are easy pickings, while pickpockets were being beheaded the cheering crowd was having its pockets picked.

The death penalty was no deterrent then and is no deterrent now; it is all too often used as nothing more than a political ploy to appease frustrated people with no other form of satisfaction in their embittered lives, or as an expedient way to dispose of people who are guilty of nothing more than being an embarrassment or an inconvenience to the "system."

The only possible use of the death penalty - and there is no way to evaluate this objectively - is for the victims' families who need closure.

It is my belief, however, that the best closure is forgiveness.
Not too popular: easy to say - hard to do.

People killing people was emphatically prohibited to an awakening culture over 4,000 years ago with a resounding, "Thou shalt not!"

Early one Sunday morning a few years ago I watched three self-righteous religious "leaders" explain the difference between killing and murder.

Their little mutual admiration society, dressed up to preen on TV, made it clear that God had said, "Thou shalt not kill" to establish social order, rather than moral guidance.

For those of us too dense to understand the distinction, or too confused to have a personal conscience, the power brokers explained it this way:

And then they all agreed that:
Murder is the taking of a human life without the permission or approval of the current consensus. The "permissions" discussed included war (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition) and capital punishment.

And that:
When a murderer is executed it is by permission and approval, therefore it is killing, but not murder.

I feel better, don't you?

But to continue with that circular logic, if an execution takes place, it is not with my permission so to me the killers are murderers.

Neither was my permission given to murder 125,000 school-age children in Baghdad during Desert Storm.

Sooo, by the killer's standards they have committed murder and that is punishable by death.

Except, since they have given themselves permission   .   .   .

Here are a few random facts about the death penalty in America:

• The death penalty was reinstated as a Federal law in 1976, the year of our nation's bicentenial.

• States are allowed their "rights":
  38 have the death penalty - 35 of these by injection or the death of your choice. Alabama, Nebraska and Georgia still use the electric chair - no choice.

• Georgia began electrocuting inmates in 1924 - took some time out - began again in 1973 - and 23 people have been executed since then. There are 127 people on death row. The Supreme Court is considering that The Chair might be cruel, so Georgia is working on a fail-safe law that will switch to lethal injection for a seamless operation. But they are going to use that Chair as long as they can.
  Think about it.

• Illinois is the first of the death penalty states to review its stance. Governor George Ryan - God bless him - has noticed that since the return of the death penalty in 1997, more prisoners have been found innocent than have been executed: 13 cleared by DNA or new trials, compared to 12 executed. Governor George Ryan - God bless him - says that the system is "broken."

  He has signed a law - in March of 2000 - that will allow DNA tests to 15 men on death row, and another 358 people serving life.

• At this time there are only three states that care enough to make sure of DNA testing after convictions: Washington, Illinois and New York.

• The U.S. Supreme court has said that the death penalty does not discriminate against Black people.

• In an Indiana Federal prison, of the 21 people on death row, 14 are Black.

• 43 percent of Americans believe that the criminal justice system is biased against Blacks. 58 percent say that police discriminate.

• Voters in Washington, D.C. rejected the death penalty in 1992.

• The U.N. Human Rights Commission opposes the death penalty.

Irony Department: Coming full circle.

Texas voted for the death penalty in 1982 and the count - if I'm up-to-date - is 209. That is not a number, those are real people strapped down and injected with a drug to calm their terror, followed quickly by the poison. Under a doctor's care, of course.

As of this writing there have been 122 executions in Texas since Bush became Governor in 1995 - nine in this year of 2000.

Two executions have been women, the first since 1863. Betty Lou Beets, 62, great-grandmother, alleged battered woman, was executed on February 24, 2000. Texas passed a law in 1991 that allows exceptions to abused people. Betty Lou Beets did not qualify.

France has been heard from to condemn Bush as a "serial killer." According to the three above-mentioned "preachers" the Texas governor is not a "murderer" though; Bush is enforcing the law.

End of circular irony.

FYI: The Crime Bill passed in this current administration lists 60 capital offenses - we are gaining on merry olde France - and among these deeds is the death of a child that is not wearing a seat belt.

URLs Death Penalty

Amnesty-usa

Email Index

Start an Amnesty Group at Your School

Amnesty Groups Local and Student by State - with Links

Kansas Amnesty Groups

Show me the money.

Some folks may argue that it is cheaper to do away and be done with a criminal rather than to house and feed them for the rest of their natural lives.

Not so: The general statistic is that the death penalty is three times more expensive than life imprisonment.

Here are some specifics from Washington State, which has a very careful and involved system for capital punishment.

State vs. Gonzalez, murder of a police officer: Costs were at $481,576 when it was determined that the defendant was incapable of premeditated intent and the death penalty was dropped. This allowed a simpler, quicker trial of one month. Final cost has not been tallied.

State vs. Rupe, death penalty sought: Costs have exceeded one million dollars, and there is still a possibility of appeal and more cost.

Four aggravated murder trials with death penalty lasted an average of 40.25 months, with an average cost of $433,262.

Nine aggravated murder cases with death penalty lasted an average of 23.5 months, with an average cost of $195,538.

There are cases with the low cost of $60,000, but the median was about $350,000 for trials involving the death penalty.

Here are some URLs to pages that are active with issues of prisoners and the death penalty.

Native Voices Justice for Eddie Hatcher

PrisonActivist.org

The story of Leonard Peltier is the most amazing travesty of justice you may ever hear of. He has been imprisoned for 24 years, since the shootout at Wounded Knee.

Among those who have called for the release of Leonard Peltier are: Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Amnesty International, The European Parliament, the Italian Parliament, the Belgium Parliament, the Green Party, 50 members of the U.S. Congress, Robert Redford, The National Congress of American Indians, and Jesse Jackson.

From an email:
Leonard Peltier is an American Indian humanitarian, world renowned artist and is well known for his non-violent style of defending Indian rights. Peltier has been called the Nelson Mandela of the America Indian people.

Peltier is serving two life sentences for crimes that FBI agents and other government entities have admitted could not have been done by Peltier. He is considered by Amnesty International and many other humanitarian organizations to be a political prisoner.

Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance by Leonard Peltier

Forgiveness
Let us forgive the worst among us
because the worst is in ourselves
the worst lives in each of us,
along with the best.
Let us forgive the worst
in each of us
and all of us
so that the best
in each of us
and all of us
may be free.

Doing Time
Doing time creates a
demented darkness of my
own imagination....

Doing time does this thing
to you. But, of course, you
don't do time.

You do without it Or
rather, time does you.

Time is a cannibal that
devours the flesh of your years
day by day, bite by bite

April 4, 1977 - A warrior is sentenced to life in prison for a crime he didn't commit by a country that knows it and doesn't care. And so begins Leonard's solitary Sun Dance.

Here is a Tribute Wiwanyanka Wacipi

Free Leonard Peltier

IN REBUTTAL TO THE FBI: All input by hand...not scanned:
Myrtle Poor Bear affidavits

SCANNED DOCUMENTS: Memo: Co-defendant dismissed so "full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government" could be directed against Leonard Peltier.
END EMAIL

This is quoted directly from About.com - Fair Use.

• Most crimes are not committed by minorities and most minorities are not criminals--less than 10 percent of all blacks are even arrested in a given year.
• Blacks who killed whites were sentenced to death 22 times more frequently than blacks who killed blacks and seven times more frequently than whites who killed blacks.
• Although blacks and whites have approximately the same rate of drug use, blacks constitute more than a third of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses.
• From 1986 to 1991, arrests of white juveniles for drug offenses decreased 34 percent, while arrests of minority juveniles increased 78 percent. Similar disparities appear in relation to non-drug-related crimes.
• A study conducted in the early 1990s by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services concluded that one-third of minorities sentenced to prison would have received a shorter or non-incarcerative sentence if they had been treated like similarly situated white defendants.
• Federal prison sentences overall, after implementation of the new federal sentencing guidelines, are almost fifty percent longer for blacks than whites.
• Nearly one and a half million black men have lost their right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, further building minority cynicism in the fairness of both government and the criminal justice system.
• Nearly 74 percent of all those deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service are of Mexican origin even though INS figures show that Mexicans are less than half of all undocumented people in the U.S.
• Hispanics represent the fastest growing group being imprisoned. Between 1985 and 1995, rates have more than doubled. And, the Asian American population in federal prisons has quadrupled in the past twenty years.
• Hispanics are likely to be released before trial in only 26 percent of their cases while non-Hispanics are likely to be released before trial in 66 percent of their cases.
• Because crimes committed on Indian reservations often fall within federal jurisdiction, about 60 percent of youths in federal custody are Native American. There, they face penalties that are often far harsher than those meted out in state court.

For more information on this subject, see:

Justice on Trial: Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System
Download a full copy of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights report.

The Constitution Project at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC., has launched the National Committee to Prevent Wrongful Executions.

They state:

• "For every seven persons executed in the U.S. since 1976, one innocent person has been sentenced to death."
• "Eighty-seven innocent people have been released from death row since 1976."

• Inexperienced, or even drunken lawyers.
• Many condemned were saved by reporters or journalism students and not the legal system.
• DNA testing has been denied to many of the condemned.
• Less access to courts for reviews of wrongful convictions.

It is interesting that so many menbers have the designation "former."
Members include:

• Gerald Kogan, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice.
• former federal judge John Gibbons.
• former FBI director William Sessions.
• former White House counsel Charles Ruff.
• Oklahoma City bombing prosecutor Beth Wilkinson.
• former Virginia attorney general William Broaddus.
• former Tennessee attorney general J. Michael Cody.
• syndicated columnist Ann Landers.
• former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke. Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead.
• former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Charles Gruber.

On her death bed, by using head signals, Elizabeth Edwards declared that her boyfriend, Samuel Miller, had attacked her on the night of July 8, 1996.

Miller was arrested and charged with first degree murder, and his alibi did not hold up. He was released four months later, after DNA proved his innocence.

Edward's former husband was arrested in May of 1998 and convicted in June of 1999. DNA convicted him.

• National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000, introduced April 26, 2000, (a first in the Senate) by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). "Let us pause to be certain we do not kill a single innocent person.
  This is not too much to ask of a civilized society."
• Accuracy In Judicial Administration Act of 2000 (H.R. 4162), by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL).

Philippines Executions put on hold:
President Estrada's announcement today that no one will be executed for the rest of the year is a breakthrough for human rights in the Philippines, Amnesty International said today welcoming the moratorium.

The announcement came within hours of a joint press conference in Manila by the Coalition against the Death Penalty, attended by representatives of Amnesty International, members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), local parliamentarians and other human rights activists.

The Head of the CBCP, Bishop Teodoro Bacani, is also reported to have made a personal request to the President to suspend all executions out of respect for the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ.

"Today 108 countries around the world, encompassing widely different societies, cultures and religions, have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The Philippines now has the chance to reflect on the right to life and the futility of the death penalty in fighting crime," Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International expressed hope that the moratorium will lead to abolition of the death penalty, in line with the recommendation of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Background:
Seven people have been executed by lethal injection since February 1999. Despite the worldwide trend towards abolition, the Philippines reimposed the death penalty in late 1993, despite having abolished it in 1986.

Since 1994 the number of prisoners under sentence of death has swelled to well over 1,200, one of the highest death row populations in the world.

Research has shown that convictions in capital cases have been made on the basis of coerced confessions and many of those on death row - often the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society - have not received fair trials, heightening the risk of executing the innocent.

Source: Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1 Easton Street, WC1X 8DJ, London, United Kingdom.

Please go here - bookmark - get involved: Amnesty-USA_News