In this Issue:

Breaking News: Perry Grants Commuting of Kenneth Foster’s Execution
400th Execution in Texas: Three More to Come This Week
H4PJ Produced Video: “Exonerated”
Inside the H4PJ Blog: Texas Plans 3 Executions This Week
Art for Peace & Justice Launches at Artizen Fine Arts Gallery
H4PJ Online Action Center: Make a Difference Today!

Breaking News: Recommendation to Commute Execution of
Kenneth Foster Granted by Governor Perry
Call Governor Perry to commend his decision to grant the recommendation
of the state parole board to commute the death sentence of Kenneth Foster
who was scheduled for execution tonight.

(512) 463-2000 (main switchboard)
(800) 252-9600 (citizens opinion line)
(512) 463-1849 (fax #:)

You can also go to the website to send an email:
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

** If you cannot get through on one line,
please try any or all of the other outlets. **

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400th Execution in Texas and
Three More to Come This Week

The death chamber at Huntsville prison in Texas is working around the clock this week; three executions in three days. The last one for this week will take place on August 30, 2007. There is another scheduled for next Tuesday, September 5, and another on September 13.

Why the rush? Perhaps Rick Perry wants to be known as the governor who oversaw more executions than any other Texas governor. Currently that number is 153. George W. Bush had only 152 when he was governor, including the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the American Civil War.

So, we might expect, from some of the rhetoric, that Texas must be the safest state in the union due to the deterrence effect of the death penalty. However, the murder rate in Texas has not decreased as the execution rate has increased. In fact, since 1999, the murder rate has hovered around 6 per 100,000 residents (www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm). The violent crime rate has decreased slightly over that same time period, 560.3 in 1999 to 529.7 in 2004 (same source). Michigan, a non-death penalty state, had a murder rate averaging approximately 6.5 during the same period (www.disastercenter.com/crime/micrime.htm). Wisconsin, another non-death penalty state, averaged approximately 3.3 murders. (www.disastercenter.com/crime/wicrime.htm).

The zealousness with which some prosecutors pursue death penalty cases seems to rely more on the vengeance factor. For example, Andrea Yates, the mother who drowned her five children, was obviously mentally ill at the time of the murders. She had a long history of mental illness. Yet, in her first trial, the prosecutors sought the death penalty. Yates was not a threat to society at large, and she could have been sentenced to a mental facility until a judge deemed her fit to leave.

The one acknowledgement Texas gives to the potential arbitrariness of the death penalty is that someone can only be sentenced to death by a jury. Yates’ life was spared because the first jury did not sentence her to death, thereby preventing the prosecutors from seeking the death penalty at her second trial.

Yates is not the first mentally ill person Texas has sought to execute. In fact, until the Supreme Court ruled that mentally ill persons cannot be executed, Texas continued this practice.

Texas also executed people who were minors at the time of the crime until the Supreme Court ordered that practice to end.

Some citizens want to be certain that if the death penalty is used that our government takes the utmost care in ensuring that innocent people are not executed. However, there have been cases of prosecutorial misconduct in death penalty cases—a sad effect of the election system in Texas. In addition, death penalty cases need defense attorneys who are familiar with certain rules for appeal and rules of evidence that are not necessarily common to other criminal cases. However, experience or training in death penalty cases is not a prerequisite for attorneys assigned to defend indigent accused.

The death penalty is unfairly applied to people of color and to the economically disadvantaged. The law should view all defendants equally from the moment of their arrest through the appeals process. Race should not be a factor. However, it is clear from the prosecutions that it is. In addition, money should not be a factor in deciding justice, but it often is.

Murder victims and their families deserve justice. The execution of a convicted murderer does not give the families “closure.” One has only to remember the reaction of victims of the Oklahoma City bombing to the execution of Timothy McVeigh. Many were angry that he did not ask for forgiveness or express any regret over the bombing. Some had, it seemed, waited for that day in order to be able to move on.

For all of these reasons, a moratorium on the death penalty is the only way to ensure that innocent people are not executed and that justice is served. Life in prison without parole can provide the desired effect of removing a criminal from the public.

As people of faith, we cannot abide such injustices, nor can we ignore the cycle of violence that is perpetuated by the execution of convicted persons. We have the responsibility to work against such violence and to seek reconciliation.

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H4PJ Produced Video: “Exonerated”

Watch the video, “Exonerated” produced by Hope for Peace & Justice

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Inside the H4PJ Blog

Texas plans 3 executions this week It's nothing to be proud of--to be the state who executes more people than any other. This week, 3 young men will be executed unless the US Supreme Court intervenes. (Technically, the governor can stop executions, but I don't think that is likely)… MORE...

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H4PJ Online Action Center
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