Earlier I mentioned that there were four series of "trials" that we had against the cruelty of the death penalty. Through each one, the opponents of the death penalty offer valid reasons of why the death penalty should be abolished: it's racist, classist, convicts the poor, it's cruel and unusual, and there is NO sign of deterrence.
Just make the decision yourself, which I hope its the progressive one... Part Four.
Earlier I mentioned that there were four series of "trials" that we had against the cruelty of the death penalty. Through each one, the opponents of the death penalty offer valid reasons of why the death penalty should be abolished: it's racist, classist, convicts the poor, it's cruel and unusual, and there is NO sign of deterrence.
Just make the decision yourself, which I hope its the progressive one... Part Three.
Earlier I mentioned that there were four series of "trials" that we had against the cruelty of the death penalty. Through each one, the opponents of the death penalty offer valid reasons of why the death penalty should be abolished: it's racist, classist, convicts the poor, it's cruel and unusual, and there is NO sign of deterrence.
Just make the decision yourself, which I hope its the progressive one.
From March 10th-14th, the Texas Students against the Death Penalty and Campus Progress has an Alternative Spring Break entitled "The Anti-Death Action Penalty Conference." This conference brings many students from around the nation to protest, lobby, and develop plans on how to get the death penalty abolished. I had the pleasure of attending this conference, and it was a life-changing event. I always knew I was against the death penalty morally and holistically, but now I have the information to present in front of proponents.
As part of this Action Camp, we were visited with people who have a family member on death row, and also victims' family members. This was a rewarding experience to hear people who witnessed a crime and still oppose the racist and classist death penalty.
Four videos will be uploaded throughout the week when we were on the Capitol Hill steps putting the death penalty "on trial." Here is part one of the video.
About 11 years ago, on a Sunday morning before sunrise, someone dumped the body of 20-year-old Stacey Stites off the side of a road in the small town of Bastrop, Texas. Rodney Reed, a black man from Bastrop, was convicted of her murder by an all-white jury, despite the strong evidence linking other people, including Stites' fiance Jimmy Fennell, to the murder. Last week, Fennell, who is now a police officer in Georgetown, Texas, was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of sexually assaulting a woman in custody at gunpoint, and he was placed on administrative leave from his job. At the time of Stites' death, Fennell was a police officer in Giddings, a town just east of Bastrop. Read More »
As an anti-death penalty activist one of the questions that I often hear is "If one of your loved ones was murdered. Do you still support the death penalty?" It is hard to answer this question since I have never been in that situation. However, I can always point out to many Murder Victim' Families that decided not support the death penalty such as Marietta Jaeger, Ron Carlson, Bill Pelke and George White. These video clips are taken from the documentary "Step By Step A Journey of Hope" produced by Micki Dickoff.
In August the nation saw the result of months of the Texas anti-death penalty movement's tireless work: the commutation of Kenneth Foster's death sentence, mere hours before his scheduled execution. In September the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would take a Kentucky case to decide if the method of lethal injection used by many states, including Texas, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. As a result, there could be a de facto moratorium on executions nation-wide, and possibly in Texas, until there is a ruling on this case. However, despite the recent successes at the Supreme Court and of the Kenneth Foster campaign, the Texas anti-death penalty movement is in troubling shape. Major foundations and national anti-death penalty leaders see Texas as a lost cause and are choosing not to fund a grassroots infrastructure here. Read More »
On August 30, 2007, Texas, the state that executes more people than any in the country, plans to deliver a lethal injection to Kenneth Foster, Jr. While this may seem like nothing out of the ordinary for a state that will perform its 400th execution this summer, Kenneth's case is unique. He killed no one. The state of Texas will be the first to admit this. It seems unthinkable that a man who did not even touch the gun that ended the life of Michael LaHood, Jr. on August 14, 1996 in San Antonio, Texas would be sent to his death for such a crime. What makes this possible is gross misuse the Law of Parties. As the Austin Chronicle has put it, he was in "the wrong place at the wrong time." A number of states have laws that enable prosecutors to hold those merely present at the scene of a crime legally responsible. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death penalty.
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