Death Penalty

Elijah Page, age 24, is scheduled to be South Dakota’s first execution since 1947 on August 28. He is the 7th inmate this year to waive his appeals or "volunteer." He was only 18 at the time of the crime, and a co-defendant received life imprisonment. Sentencing him to death, the judge acknowledged Mr. Page's childhood of deprivation and abuse, saying "your early years must have been a living hell. Most people treat their pets better than your parents treated their kids."

Elijah Page and one other co-defendant both waived their rights to trials and sentencing by jury, and were sentenced to death by the same judge. The third co-defendant was tried by a jury and given a sentence of life in prison.

Learn more and take action to stop this unjust execution! 

From Morning Edition on National Public Radio today:

    Joan Cheever, author of Back from the Dead, followed former death row inmates who were released when the Supreme Court ruled     the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972.

Listen to the Story:  Cheever talks to Steve Inskeep about what she found.

October 20 - 22nd, 2006 will see a host of events across the country to mark the National Weekend of Faith in Action. It is a great opportunity for people to examine the death penalty from a faith-based perspective. Events are being planned by interfaith groups, human rights activists and faith communities in states across the U.S. and we urge you to get involved!

In 2005, 468 groups participated, representing at least 20 different faith traditions or spiritual practices. These included Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, Buddhist, Reform Judaism, Baptist, and Quaker, among others; events were held in 46 states and the District of Columbia!

To find out more about the NWFA, to register for a Resource Guidebook, or to have a look at some of the events that were staged in 2005, have a look at the website, at http://www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction/index.html

The state of Montana performed its third execution just after midnight Friday, putting David Dawson to death by lethal injection for the murders of David, Monica and Andrew Rodstein. Dawson had been trying for two years to fire his attorneys and move forward with the execution, and earlier this summer judges in federal and state courts declared him mentally fit to "volunteer" for execution.

From NBC11.com:

"A last-minute flurry of court filings by civil liberties groups attempted to halt the execution, but the groups were turned down on all their requests -- the last one just eight hours before the scheduled execution.
The groups had argued that lethal injection amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and wanted a judge to hear their arguments. They argued that recent evidence suggests those who die by lethal injection may suffer when the poisonous concoction is delivered."

The last execution in Montana was that of Terry Allen Langford, in 1998.

For more, see: "Man Who Murdered Family Executed"

Sister Helen Prejean and Tim Robbins are offering schools and colleges across the United States the chance to get involved with the "Dead Man Walking" School Theater Project by staging a performance of the play, which was written by Sister Helen Prejean and adapted for the stage by Tim Robbins.
The play offers the chance to learn more about issues surrounding the death penalty, and creates opportunity for open debate within schools on the subject. One of the prerequisites for staging the play is that at least two other departments within the school must run a simultaneous study project on the issue of capital punishment, using Sister Helen's book "Dead Man Walking" as a text.

To find out more about how your school can get involved with the project, check out the website at: http://www.dmwplay.org

Anesthesiologists are today testifying at the federal court in Oklahoma City on the issue of whether the lethal injection can be considered a cruel and unusual punishment in Oklahoma. Dr. Mark Heath and Dr. Thomas K. Henthorn are declaring in sworn statements that Oklahoma's method of administering the drugs show a misunderstanding of the role that each of the three drugs has in the procedure.

From the LA Times:

‘All of the suits allege that there is a significant possibility that an inmate does not receive enough of the first drug - a short-acting barbiturate - to be sufficiently sedated to not experience pain caused by the second two drugs, a paralytic and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.

But the Oklahoma suit suggests that the state's procedure of delivering the drugs through separate intravenous lines placed in each arm has unique faults.
Heath said Oklahoma was the only state in the country to use the two-line, two-arm method, which he called medically inadvisable.

Henthorn, chairman of the anesthesiology department at the University of Colorado Medical School, concurred, saying the practice "is medically inappropriate, unnecessary, and creates a severe and unnecessary risk" that department personnel "will not be able to deliver the drugs" properly.

"With Oklahoma's sequence and timing of drugs ... there is better than a 90% chance that a condemned inmate will not have reached a sufficient anesthetic depth" to be certain there wouldn't be suffering "before reaching deep unconsciousness," he said. "I can think of no reason to inject these drugs in this way."'

Almost 30 years ago the state of Oklahoma developed the original procedure for execution by lethal injection, and since then 36 other states have followed suit. At present Oklahoma has the third highest rate of executions after Texas and Virginia.

 For more, see: "Oklahoma's Lethal Injections Called Fatally Flawed"

The state of North Carolina became the first state to create an innocence commission Thursday, for inmates who claim that they have been wrongly convicted but whose appeals have failed. The commission was created after a three-year study launched by the state's Supreme Court chief justice at the time, I. Beverley Lake Jr., a conservative Republican who became concerned after a number of high-profile convictions were overturned.

From the LA Times:

"The panel will have eight members who are empowered to subpoena records and witnesses and can consider new evidence not presented in court. If five of the commission members find that a claim of innocence deserves review, the case will be sent to a panel of three state Superior Court judges. Those jurists then would have to decide unanimously that an inmate was actually innocent in order for the conviction to be overturned."

The original study group included trial judges, prosecutors, police chiefs, leaders of victim assistance groups, defense lawyers and law professors, with a focus of establishing that neither prosecutors nor defense would gain any advantage.

For more, see "North Carolina to Weigh Claims of Innocence"

Darrell Ferguson is scheduled to be executed in Ohio on August 8, 2006. Mr. Ferguson has waived his appeals, becoming the second "volunteer" this year in Ohio, and the sixth of the state's 22 executions. Mr. Ferguson has a history of mental health problems and substance abuse, and has been assessed as having an IQ of 77, indicating possible borderline mental retardation.

Help stop this execution!  Take action today!

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, a panel of 18 independent experts who review the practices of the 156 countries which have ratified the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has released findings on U.S. compliance with the treaty. The committee expressed concerns about the growing number of offences for which the death penalty is applicable in the United States, and urged the country to "place a moratorium on capital sentences, bearing in mind the desirability of abolishing the death penalty."

From the Washington Post:

 "The committee, which consulted with many human rights organizations in connection with the review, said it was "concerned by studies according to which the death penalty may be imposed disproportionately on ethnic minorities as well as on low-income groups, a problem which does not seem to be fully acknowledged."
It urged the U.S. to review federal and state legislation, and to restrict the number of crimes that could carry a penalty of death. It also said Washington needed to assess the extent that death sentences are handed down disproportionately on minorities and poor people."

The report also criticized the incarceration of "high numbers" of mentally ill people in maximum security prisons. However, criticism by the panel brings no penalties beyond international scrutiny.

For more, see "U.N. Panel Urges End to U.S. Death Penalty"

To find out more about the U.N. Human Rights Committee, go to "Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights"