The Campaigner: People are Talking About the Death Penalty

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90 Million Americans Believe The Death Penalty Is Wrong .

Volume 2, No. 2 MARCH-APRIL 2016

THE CAMPAIGNER

FRONT BURNER

A message from Diann Rust-Tierney of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

I am inspired by the work of our 90 Million Strong advocates. In the Midwest, a number of you volunteered to call as many as 100 people each to connect with other advocates. And in Kansas, scores of you filled a church to answer the call for repeal. This is exactly what the 90 Million Strong Campaign is all about: rallying our powerful base to let people know we are here, we care and we are dedicated to abolishing the death penalty. Read through this edition of The Campaigner to learn about the work of our partners at the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, to understand how to talk about the death penalty in your community, and to see how many hearts and minds you’re helping to change. Help make our message go viral and share this newsletter and what you learn from this newsletter with your networks. Together, we will make this happen!

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

By Barbara Weinstein

Associate Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Director, Commission on Socialism Action of Reform Judaism
www.rac.org

“We believe that there is no crime for which the taking of human life by society is justified, and that it is the obligation of society to evolve other methods in dealing with crime.” Those words are central to the Reform Movement’s opposition to the death penalty, first adopted in 1959. In the past nearly 50 years, that opposition has only strengthened, reflecting among other flaws the injustice of a system plagued by racial inequities. The clear bias against African Americans violates the foundational Jewish teaching that all people are created B’tselem Elohim (“in the divine image”) and thus are deserving of equal treatment.

We come to this position with the knowledge that the Torah that inspires and guides us includes multiple instances of capital punishment. Yet even as the Torah mandates death for certain offenses, rabbinic interpretations have essentially inveighed against the use of capital punishment.

A key ancient Jewish text of written law, Mishnah Sanhedrin, stresses that testimony in capital cases must be completely accurate. When perjury leads to an execution, "the blood of the accused and his unborn offspring stain the perjurer forever” (4:5). This high burden of proof leads to our understanding that the death penalty cannot be ethically applied under Jewish law and guides our strong commitment to ending its use in our nation today.

#90MSTRONG VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Karen Hilgefort of Fort Collins, Colorado, is taking her #90MStrong pledge seriously. She volunteered immediately when the “call for callers” went out. A member of the NCADP National Action Team, Karen made 100 calls to Kansas Coalition members in just a few short days.

When asked about her effort and the experience, Karen said, “I'm very happy to help, and with the information you provided, I felt prepared with the talking points I needed for each call.”

Thanks to all the callers for helping the Kansas team build a full house for the Bryan Stevenson event hosted by the Kansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty!

Interested in volunteering in your state? We need more hands. Volunteer activists from around the country should prepare now to support reform and repeal efforts in 2016. You can help no matter where you live. Here are several ways:

Sign up to be a caller
Compile local action teams
Be a traveler for repeal

Need talking points to spread the message to #HaltAllExecutions? Click here.

GO VIRAL!

Post, send and share the following items to help educate your friends and colleagues about the need to abolish the death penalty.

Take the quiz to find out if you’re one in a million!

Support for capital punishment is down and opposition is up. For good reason: it doesn't work and it creates a whole new set of problems that we can't fix.

Test your knowledge on the death penalty and then do your part by sharing this quiz and your pledge with your friends and family.

What does inequality mean to you?

The Ford Foundation has launched #InequalityIs, a series of thought-provoking videos featuring leaders in a wide range of fields talking about what inequality looks like from where they’re standing, what they’re doing about it, and where they see other opportunities for change. Short, shareable, and beautifully produced, the series is meant to spark a larger conversation – one that needs your voice as a #90MStrong Campaign member.

#InequalityIs features leaders in business, entertainment and social justice including Elton John, Gloria Steinem, Martin Whittaker, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Gowri Ishwaran. More voices will be added throughout the year, so weigh in, offer affirmation when you see fit and disagreement when you don’t.

So tell us: What does inequality mean to you? Explore the series and use #InequalityIs to join the conversation and share how your view of the death penalty fits in. Remember to mention @90MillionStrong or #90MStrong in your post.

ACROSS STATE LINES

Everyone's Talking About the Death Penalty

Whether it’s a hot campaign or steady steps forward, legislatures around the country are talking about the death penalty!

State legislatures are making efforts to legislatively exempt individuals with severe mental illness from the death penalty. More states have and will address this issue, but two are highlighted in Ohio and Virginia. Both states also have concerns about lethal drugs.

Ohio: Pending in the Ohio State Senate Criminal Justice Committee is Ohio SB162. The bill was introduced in May 2015 and a Senate committee hearing was held February 10. The legislation is supported by many individuals, groups and organizations including Ohio Catholic Bishops and the Ohio Alliance for the Mental Illness Exemption.

Virginia: House Bill 794 was introduced this session in the Virginia General Assembly – legislation that prohibits the execution of people with serious mental illness. Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP) is supporting the legislation in collaboration with several groups including the Virginia Catholic Conference and the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Virginia. VADP is also supporting legislation making it impossible for the Department of Corrections to get lethal drugs (SB 739).

In other news in Virginia, lawmakers passed legislation that would mandate the electric chair for executions. This legislation has been sent to Gov. Terry McAuliffe who is being urged to veto the bill.

Plains States are Talking Repeal

UTAH: On February 23, the Utah State Senate Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee passed SB 189, a bill to repeal the death penalty. Led by Republicans, the vote was 5-2 (3 Republicans and 2 Democrats). Just one year ago, Utah reauthorized the use of firing squads. Although the legislation passed the House Judiciary Committee on March 8, the bill was pulled from consideration on March 10, the last day of the session." But amazing progress has begun!

The minds are changing in Utah!

Missouri: Repeal and racial concerns are both topics in the state legislature. Last month, the Missouri Senate debated repeal legislation – the first time since 1974. No vote was taken but was made in the “Show Me” state. Days later, an NAACP news conference announced Equal Justice Act legislation (SB 758) that would require the Missouri State Supreme Court to identify racial concerns in death cases during its review.

South Dakota: Already this year, bi-partisan legislation has been introduced. A primary leader and sponsor of the Senate repeal bill, Sen. Art Rusch, is a retired circuit judge who presided over a death penalty case and now serves as a state senator. A House sponsor, Rep. Timothy Johns, is also a former circuit judge.

Kansas: Repeal legislation has now been introduced in both the State House and Senate. The campaign was energized in late February in Wichita when Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson spoke to a large crowd which included long-time and new repeal supporters and policymakers.

Finally, in New England ...

New Hampshire: In late January, overwhelming support was shown in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the proposed death penalty suspension bill, SB 463. The bill suspends the implementation of the death penalty until it can be ensured that it is not being imposed on innocent people.

More than 20 people testified in favor of the bill, and only two against. Supporters included a death row exoneree, clergy, law enforcement, a former FBI Special Agent, a former New Hampshire Attorney General, a former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice, several attorneys, and several murder victim family members.

The testimony of lawyer and professor Sam Millsap stated: “When I was elected District Attorney in San Antonio, Texas, I oversaw the indictment, prosecution, and conviction of Ruben Cantu. I asked the jury to sentence him to die based on the eyewitness testimony of a single person and they did. Years after his execution, that key eyewitness recanted his testimony. There is no appeal after an execution takes place. Ruben Cantu is dead, and I have to live with that every day.” As state legislatures prepare for the 2016 sessions across the country, each of us can prepare to support legislation that can reform the criminal justice system in some states and end the death penalty in others.

EXECUTIONS

March 16 - Ricky Javon Gray, Virginia STAYED

March 17 - Mark James Asay, Florida STAYED

March 22 - Adam Ward, Texas

March 30 - John Battaglia, Texas

April 6 - Pablo Vasquez, Texas

April 13 - Ivan Telequz, Texas

April 27 - Robert Pruett, Texas

UPDATE: Georgia has set a seven-day window for the execution of 41-year-old Joshua Daniel Bishop. He is scheduled to be executed between March 31 and April 7. The execution is tentatively scheduled for March 31.

Click here to sign up for Execution Alerts for updates on stays, reprieves and more.

SPOTLIGHT

FrameByte: How to Start a Conversation About the Death Penalty

Want to know how to talk about the death penalty in a way that opens up a productive conversation?

We asked our friends at FrameWorks Institute if they had any research that they could use to help us think about how to discuss this difficult issue in a way that opens up productive ways of thinking about crime, violence and capital punishment rather than closing conversation space.

Keep in mind, there are no “magic words” that are going to get people to snap into agreement with your position – that’s just not how thinking or communication works. However, there are ways of helping people see things in new and different ways that create room for people to consider your perspective. Over time, these new ways of considering and engaging in the issue might lead to a change in thinking and views.

The Frameworks Institute has a lot of experience using research to help people think about complex and often controversial issues. So we decided to ask for their help to see whether their research on reframing criminal justice might yield some insight on how to talk about the death penalty.

So we are sharing this “FrameByte” with quick suggestions for how you might engage people in thinking about how the death penalty just doesn’t work to improve public safety and should be ended.

These are not a set of talking points, but rather a conversation-starting strategy. It’s a way of broaching the subject and finding common ground to build from in a conversation rather than letting ideological vitriol shut down a potentially productive dialogue.

Here is what we recommend as a starting point:

Encourage people to think about whether the death penalty actually works to achieve the common goal of a safer society with less crime. Then talk about practices that have been shown to prevent or reduce crime.

We all benefit from a criminal justice system that is sensible and effective – a system that creates a safer society with less crime. Yet, this is not what our current system is doing. In fact, the murder rate is lowest in the Northeast – the region with the lowest number of executions. In contrast, the South carries out the most executions of any region and has the highest murder rate in the United States. These differences mean that we need to take a closer look at what works and what doesn’t work, and take a common-sense approach to improving public safety. Abolishing the death penalty makes sense because it isn’t making our communities safer.

If the death penalty doesn’t work – what does? What are the pragmatic actions that we can take to address the causes of crime and violence:

improve mental health services
address the lack of safe and affordable housing
remodel our education system such that it prepares our future workforce
make sure that jobs pay living wages

Click here for an example of this framing strategy. Take a look and let us know about the promising, evidence-based crime prevention programs that are working in your community.