The Campaigner: What Have We Done Collectively Over 40 Years?

90 Million Americans Believe The Death Penalty Is Wrong .

Volume 2, No. 3 MAY-JUNE 2016

THE CAMPAIGNER

BREAKING NEWS! Supreme Court Finds Racial Bias in Jury Selection for Death Penalty Case
Foster v. Chatman, What it is, and What it Means

FRONT BURNER

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

I want to welcome you to this issue of The Campaigner, celebrating the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s 40 years.

It has not been easy. The sadness and pain that we must hold as we do this work – if we are to be true to this work – can sometimes be overwhelming. We must confront with honesty the unspeakable harm that some of those we seek to save have inflicted on others. We must swim in the sorrow, shame, sadness, and fear of the people on death row and their families as legal options narrow, and the gruesome, unthinkable hour approaches. But we are renewed when we witness the beauty and grace of the human spirit – triumphant even in the worst of circumstances.

For 40 years, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has invested in supporting and helping our network of activists and aligned state-based organizations achieve this vision. We provided conferences, technical assistance, financial resources, training, and opportunities for networking. We have been proud to see the robust growth of the movement with many new partners, organizations, and allies joining the movement all the time. That is, after all, what it takes to build a movement.

I invite you to read this issue of The Campaigner, get active, and get involved. I also ask that you watch for more ways to help and be ready. I guarantee you – if we build this movement together – the death penalty will be abolished, and it will not take another 40 years!

Together, we will make this happen!

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
Reflecting on the Early Years of the Coalition

In 1976, the muscle behind the coalition for death penalty reform was building at a slow but steady pace. Advocates were sprinkled across the country, unable to amplify their voices, unable to connect to other advocates, federal policymakers nor the media.

Husband and wife Bob and Rachel Gross remember those quiet years of death penalty reform.

“The reality of the matter was that death penalty reform was an unpopular cause,” said Bob who served as the first paid staffer for the Coalition. “But when you have something that seems like you’re in small minority, it tends to be a very dedicated, principled group of people that take it on.”

And that’s just what Bob and Rachel did – after being asked to build up the organization, they moved from Indiana to Philadelphia to lead the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in a “little bitty” corner office space shared with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

“People would occasionally ask why we working for such an unpopular cause,” said Rachel. “It wasn’t a popular cause, but the connecting fact is that there were good people connected to it.”

Since 1983, there’s been a steady increase in the number of people involved, the credibility, presence of coalition in circles of media, legislation, organization and education – and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty helped pull it together, said Bob.

“The Legal Defense Fund had its project, ACLU at the national and state level was doing what it did well, Amnesty had its way of approaching and the AFSC was a key player in this work,” Bob continued. “But without the NCADP, there was nothing to bring this together. Bringing people together on a national effort and bringing together states was essential. The [NCADP] took on both, and has really been the hub of the whole movement that is doing this work. Someone like Diann Rust-Tierney is so valuable because she is trusted in all of those circles and that has made a real difference.”

Forty years in, the Coalition, now based in Washington, D.C., has impacted the death penalty reform movement as a result of collaboration with more than 100 state affiliates, and about 70 national and 10 international affiliates. By reframing messages and leading public education campaigns including 90 Million Strong, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has been instrumental in the passage of local and federal bills, public education and halting executions across the country.

“The fact that states are declaring moratoriums or abolishing the death penalty – that is the fruit of these 40 years of work,” said Bob. “I want to give full credit to the people turning the tide, and those involved during the early years when it seemed like we couldn’t budge anything.”

The emergence of digital communications has further propelled the movement to reach the masses in ways that were not possible in their earlier years, said Rachel.

“It’s just amazing. Forty years ago, this was unheard of. [Digital media] has definitely impacted this movement in a huge way,” she said. “I hope that within two years we’re done with this.”

ACROSS STATE LINES

State Legislative Season Is Wrapping Up

The majority of state legislatures have or will have adjourned for the year by the end of May. A few remain in session or have special sessions scheduled for later in 2016. Unfortunately, this year we did not get repeal legislation passed in any remaining death penalty states. However, we should be energized that legislation to end the death penalty was introduced in several states including Delaware, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. But all of these state legislatures have adjourned for the year.

Good and Bad News in Virginia

Thank you to those of you who contacted Gov. Terry McAuliffe at the end of session in Virginia. Your efforts resulted in some good news – and not so good news. The Virginia legislature sent the governor a bill that would have brought back the electric chair if lethal injection drugs were not available. The good news: he removed the section of the bill that called for death by electric chair. But, now the bad news: he replaced that section with a provision that allows the Virginia Department of Corrections to obtain execution drugs in secret from compounding pharmacies. That's now the law in Virginia.

Year of the Referendum
Three states have death penalty related questions on the November 2016 ballot – Nebraska, California and Oklahoma. If you live in or have contacts in Nebraska or California, let us know.

Click here for Nebraska
Click here for California

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.

TWO CENTS
Former Coalition Member Looks Back, Looks Ahead at Growth, Progress

By Earl Bender
Former Coalition board member, volunteer and consultant

I am watching the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty continue to grow – and grow up. I was most active as a volunteer, board member and consultant during the Coalition's adolescence … or maybe its middle age or late middle age in the 1990s and 2000s. It all depends on how you look at it.

The Coalition has developed unique organizational strengths that it brings to the anti-death penalty movement throughout the U.S. It led the creation of an overall strategy that guides the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty own and the movement’s efforts.

But let’s go back to the beginning … In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Furman v. Georgia decision instituted a ban on capital punishment. The potent coalition of litigators and activists who had spent decades working toward the end of capital punishment assumed they had achieved permanent victory and disbanded. The death penalty was revived in 1976 with Gregg v. Georgia. Immediately, leaders and organizations active in the earlier fight to end the death penalty called a meeting to address the question, “What do we do now?” The answer: create the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty developed a strategic plan that expanded the organization and planted seeds that have grown into efforts we see today. The Coalition was determined to broaden the arenas in which it pressed for abolition. It realized that the fight for abolition would focus on states, not just the national level. It recognized that political and state legislative strategies are key. It became a true grassroots organization embracing and recruiting individual activists as well as state and local anti-death penalty organizations. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty strove to continually expand its representativeness of the entire anti-death penalty movement in the U.S. and became the premier technical assistance and capacity-building organization that increases effectiveness of state and local efforts throughout the country.

The Coalition also recognized that winning abolition required vastly more resources than were available to the anti-death penalty movement. With others, we began a long process of educating donors to understand that they needed to approach the death penalty as a long struggle, not as piecemeal one-off projects. Most importantly, money, much more money would be needed to win. This has led to the anti-death penalty movement-wide coordination and approach now in place.

Victories resulted. More states have and continue to abolish all or portions of their death penalty. The Supreme Court followed the states on abolishing the death for mentally ill and juveniles. Death penalty use wanes. Public opposition to the death penalty keeps growing.
It’s urgent that we act today knowing that we are bending the arc of the universe toward justice.

Oh, and I can’t wait to see the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty all grown up, with its mission completed and reaching proper old age having buried the death penalty once and for all!

EXECUTIONS

May 11 - Earl Forrest, Missouri EXECUTED

May 12 - Vernon Madison, Alabama STAYED

June 2 - Charles Flores, Texas

June 21 - Robert Roberson. Texas

July 14 - Perry Williams, Texas

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

UPCOMING EVENT

Join the Abolitionist Action Committee June 29-July 2, for its annual Fast and Vigil, a four-day vigil maintaining a presence at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Click here for more information.

Help Stop the Machinery of Death!

Is the fight to end the death penalty personal for you? It is for Jim Rocap, board chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, who served for six years as Teresa Lewis’s pro bono defense lawyer. In the hours leading up to Teresa’s execution on September 23, 2010, Jim witnessed her pray – for her victims, Virginia’s governor, and even the prosecutor. Teresa also prayed for Jim and her legal team: “Give them the strength to know they have done all they could do.”

Will you do all you can do for the nearly 3,000 people currently on death row across the country? Will you join the growing movement of 90 Million Strong to stop the machinery of death and dismantle it once and for all?

With more than 10 executions coming up, and the struggle to repeal, reform or hold the line on the death penalty raging on in almost 20 states, you are critical to this battle!

Between now and the November elections, it will take $124,000 for the Coalition to engage grassroots activists on the issue and increase powerful participation in the movement. We’ve raised some of this but the gap right now is $117,000. Please click here to make your gift in any amount. In particular, your contribution of $125 will marshal for action one community activist in Nebraska or California and $299 will raise your 90 Million Strong voice at the 2016 Republican and Democratic National conventions.

You are essential to making us 90 Million Strong and mobilizing the most powerful nationwide push yet to end the death penalty!