Death Penalty

Thomas Arthur, who was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection today, has received a stay of execution.  However, Gov Riley granted a stay of 45 days earlier today.  While this is great news, the reason for the stay is merely to allow the state time to change its lethal injection procedures. While that may also be semi-good news if the changes result in less botched procedures (semi-good, because it is still the death penalty), the Governor is still denying Arthur the chance to prove his innocence through DNA evidence.

In fact, the Gov stated there is overwhelming evidence that Arthur is guilty, however there are conflicting evidence as well.  The wife of the man Arthur was convicted of killing originally told police that a stranger raped her and then killed her husband. Later, when she herself was arrested for the crime, she changed her story and said Thomas Arthur did it.  According to the Innocence Project, her testimony is the ONLY evidence linking Arthur to the crime, not exactly overwhelming evidence.  There is, however, evidence that could corroborate her story, or prove what Arthur has been saying all along, that he is innocent.  There is her blood-stained clothes, a rape kit and hair samples. 

So the question is, why does Gov Riley not want to allow these tests?  If he is so sure that Arthur is guilty, he should order these DNA tests and then hold them up high and say "See! We have the right man! I told you so!"  But he is not, is it possible he may fear they have imprisoned the wrong man and does not want the proof that may harm his reputation ? 

 After all, he has already granted the stay - why not use these 45 extra days to get the tests and prove Arthur's guilt or innocence once and for all?

Last week was a momentous week for the death penalty issue.  US District Judge Trauger declared that Tennessee's lethal injection procedure could cause excruciating pain and stopped Edward Harbison's execution until there is a valid method of execution. The state then asked for a stay for Harbison- the importance here, is the state asking, unlike Texas, which just executed a man, in spite of the recent decision by the US Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of lethal injections.

While the Court will not address whether the death penalty itself is unconstitutional, it will look at the procedure of lethal injection and determine if it is a cruel and unusual punishment, which I believe it is.  In fact, the potential for excruciating pain is so likely that the American Veterinary Medical Association has banned the use of these drugs in euthanizing animals.  It is therefore encouraging that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this appeal. Perhaps the USA's justice system and death penalty supporters will at the very least catch up with the vets and ban this cruel method of killing people.

There are, of course, those who ask: "why do we care if murderers and rapists feel pain when they are executed?" The ‘why' is because of the slippery slope.  Someone once said "The true judge of a nation's character is how it treats its prisoners and weakest citizens." Using lethal injection is equivalent to torture and torture has been declared by the American people as unacceptable and immoral.  

If we are to say that torture and unnecessary pain should not be inflicted upon our citizens then we must say it for all citizens, including prisoners.  If there are caveats, then the caveats can grow - first its terrorists and murderers, then rapists, then associates of terrorists, possible associates of terrorists, the person that drove the car unknowing that an impulsive murder would be committed by his passenger (this was an actual case). And well if we are ok with this, then we should be ok with some unnecessary pain for anyone who dissents against the current government...

Another online commenter chastised Judge Trauger, saying if it was one of her family members who had been killed, she would quickly change her ruling. The same idea can be used the other way: if it is your brother, mother, best friend, or child in prison and about to die by the method that has left foot long chemical burns on bodies, how would you feel? 

Or imagine it is yourself on the gurney, maybe you committed the crime and maybe you did not, but you are there and the executioners can not find a vein so they cut you open to get a better look, or they insert the needle in the wrong direction or into your soft tissue making the procedure last longer, the anaesthetic is not working so you are fully awake but the paralysis has worked its way through and you can not move nor scream for help, for God, or for a quick death. Instead you can not breathe and are slowing suffocating, then your heart stops and the pain is so intense you are coughing and gasping for air, convulsing through the torment.

These are just a few examples of how lethal injection is torturous and is in part why 10 states and the highest court in the USA are investigating lethal injection.  Doctors and anesthesiologists refuse to participate. Ohio's lawyers through the Bar Association are demanding a moratorium. People are suffering needlessly, prisoners and the families of the victims and prisoners alike. 

Why not just abolish the death penalty altogether and end so much misery.  There are other options to ensure justice is achieved.  And while life sentences and the justice system in general are still not perfect, at least they are not irreversible if mistakes are made and are less cruel.  Justice is delivered, closure is possible.

Troy Davis, an inmate on death row for over 15 years, for a crime he maintains he did not commit and who was just recently granted an appeal to show new evidence of his innocence, is having a birthday on October 9^th. To mark this occasion and to reaffirm to the state of Georgia that Innocence Matters, a coalition of global supporters have organized a video project on YouTube to wish Troy a 'Happy Birthday'.

Everyone who believes innocence matters is welcome to take part; the Troy video project is simple. Using a webcam, camera phone, camcorder or any other recording device, simply record as creatively as possible a positive video of 60-seconds or less wishing Troy a ‘Happy Birthday' while reaffirming to the state of Georgia that the global support network behind Troy believes Innocence Matters!

A few guidelines:

• Be lively and creative: sing it, rap it, play it, draw it, dance it, paint it, shout it from the roof-tops
• Keep messages positive and refrain from bad language and controversial statements that could be viewed as inflammatory
• After you've recorded this message - please post it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/group/NCADP
• and email it to troyvideo@gmail.com

We have posted in the past on the case of Troy Davis, but for those who may be unfamiliar with his case, here is a portion of the blurb from Amnesty's website:

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen McPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles - the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

Recently, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of Troy Anthony Davis to present evidence that could demonstrate his innocence.

For more information on Troy Davis please visit:
http://www.ncadp.org/index.cfm?content=3
www.troyanthonydavis.org
www.savetroydavis.net

Thank you in advance for your support!

From all of us (but posted by the new one) at PADP

 (more)

Dr. William F. Shulz, former Executive Director of our own Amnesty International USA, gives a good overview of "Why We'll Win" in abolishing the death penalty in a new book by Malcolm Friedberg, titled just that (Why We'll Win).  The book examines several polarizing issues - gun control, affirmative action, gay marriage, even the pledge of allegiance - from both sides.  It presents the factual information on these issues, then lets the advocates on both sides speak for themselves.

 In his essay, Dr. Shulz does just that.  He examines the death penalty from both the practical and emotional perspective, concluding that it makes no sense no matter how one looks at it.  If you are for the death penalty, or against, or even unsure, this website is definitely worth a read.

 ~ Jessie with PADP

"Gov. Phil Bredesen on Friday commuted the death sentence of Michael Joe Boyd (also known as Mika'eel Abdullah Abdus-Samad) to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole citing 'grossly inadequate legal representation' received by Boyd during his post conviction hearing and procedural limitations."

This comes on the heels of last week's resignation of Georgia's head of the Public Defender's Office over a lack of adequate resources, and countless other death penalty cases where 'grossly inadequate legal representation' and other faults in the justice system have led to people, such as Boyd, whose mitigating circumstances were ignored or to innocent individuals being found guilty and either executed or exonerated after years on death row.

Whether or not you believe in the death penalty, and until it is abolished, the laws and theory of the death penalty, both in the US and according to international standards, are that it is reserved solely for the worst crimes- for those individuals who intentionally and knowingly kill another human being and who havie the mental cometence to understand not only their crime, but also their punishment.   These standards automatically and logically disclude children and mentally ill individuals from death sentences. It can also disclude those with mitigating factors such as severe childhood abuse.

This is not to say that the individual will be 'slapped on the hand' and released back into society; Boyd's sentence was commuted to life without parole and has already spent years on death row.  It also does not mean that the needs and trauma of the victims and their family are to be ignored (though for the most part the justice system itself does not focus on the victims).  This is also not based on what so many like to call liberal bleeding heart sentiments, but instead is based on the understanding that without these caveats, people with less culpability for their actions will be executed (even more than are now).  Moreover, the safeguards regarding effective counsel and other judicial standards are there to ensure only the guilty are executed and that the death penalty is not administered arbitrarily.

Sadly, even with these safeguards and standards, the world, nor the justice systems within it are not perfect and the innocent and those less culpable are executed and capital punishment is doled out by a racially and economically biased system.  Recent events such as Boyd's commutation are a welcome step.

the newbie

The Uganda Commissioner of Prisons adamantly opposes capital punishment and thinks some of the 520 or so death row inmates in Uganda are innocent. In an article in the monitor newspaper, Mr Johnson Byabashajja who has been Commissioner of Prisons  since 2005 and in the Ugandan government as a civil servant since 1982 said that;

 "Nobody has the right to take away life. With the death penalty, the government is taking away life. Our criminal justice is not foolproof. There is a large danger of an innocent person being wrongfully convicted, and you cannot reverse that."

His predecessor Mr. Joseph Etima also consistently opposed the death penalty saying that the killing haunts and traumatises the hangmen. He was once quoted as saying that; "I would be the happiest person if the constitutional court declares the death penalty unconstitutional."

However, despite their opposition to the death penalty, if given an order by the president to execute a prisoner, they would probably carry out the order out of respect for their job. Mr Byabashajja himself says that it is our obligation and with resignation adds that he hopes that those orders never come.

Although Uganda hasn't put a civilian to death sentence since 1999, death sentences continue to be handed down by Judges and the nation continues to remain on Amnesty International's list of countries that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes. You can best understand the prevalence of the death penalty in Uganda by looking at past events. In 2003, two soldiers were executed following a trial that lasted two hours and were not given an opportunity to file an appeal.  

In April 2007, the Ugandan parliament passed a law that any HIV Positive person who wilfully infects a minor through sexual intercourse or rape would face the death penalty even though the Ugandan Penal Code Act already has capital punishment as a penalty for rape or defilement.

More so, the Constitutional Court of Uganda in June 2005 struck down the imposition of mandatory death sentences but rejected an appeal by death row inmates to completely outlaw capital punishment. The Justices of the Court held that the death penalty is given after due process of the law and could not be unconstitutional.

Not only that, the current president Yoweri Museveni has voiced his support of the death penalty. In response to a call by various human rights organisations to abolish the death penalty he stated that;

"I hear some people saying that the death penalty is inhumane. Very sorry. We shall shoot anybody who kills a human being. You are the one that kills. Why can't we kill you."

The laws of Uganda and the people in power favor the death penalty but does this represent the view of an ordinary citizen of Uganda? Being a Ugandan and growing up in Uganda I don't recall a study being conducted on the death penalty let alone being asked what my view was on the death penalty. After listening to someone recount his experience of witnessing an execution and working with Amnesty International USA all summer, I am of the opinion that it is one of the most disgusting things that you would want to take part in or witness, let alone support, and I agree with Abulai Conteh, the chief Justice of Belize, that, ‘Uganda should be part of the world trend against the death penalty.'

The absence of the views of the general public prevents an informed debate on the death penalty yet the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda provides that, ‘The State shall be based on democratic principles which empower and encourage the active participation of all citizens at all levels in their own governance.'

For the death penalty to be struck off Uganda's statute books the people in the political dimension have to be convinced, and who better to convince them than people like you and me. While it may take a while to completely abolish the death penalty, Uganda should establish an official moratorium on executions as it violates the right to life and the methods used in execution - hanging and firing squad add a dimension of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. If the past two prison commissioners, those closest to the ultimate punishment are even against it. I think it may be for Uganda to consider its stance on the death penalty.

Abolish Intern DC

In my previous life as a fashion designer our first and most important lesson was 'measure twice and cut once'  the logic of this rule is due to the finality of the cut - once those scissors hit the material there is no going back if you made a mistake.  The same can be said of the death penalty. Though I object to capital punishment in all circumstances, the reality is that it exists, and until it does not, it is vital that society and those individuals who mete out this punishment be certain there are no mistakes before the final cut is made.

Therefore, I applaud Dallas County, Texas, District Attorney Craig Watkins for requesting a stay of execution for Joseph Roland Lave Jr.  One of the reasons we at Amnesty object to the death penalty without reservation is because of the occurrence of prosecutorial misconduct.  In Lave's case, the then prosecutors told Lave's attorneys that a second polygraph did not exist when it did.  It is so important that if the State is going to take someone's life - no matter what we may think of his/her crime, how outraged, sad or sorry for the loss of the victim and families - it must be true that all evidence is exchanged according to law, that all avenues to ensure this is not an innocent individual are taken, and that the people we entrust to uphold justice do so with honesty and integrity.  This does not appear to have been true in Lave's case and therefore it was admirable and necessary that DA Watkins asked for his execution to be stopped while the truth is uncovered. 

"We did not feel it would be right to allow the execution to go through without disclosing this information to Mr. Lave's attorneys," Mr. Ware (who oversees the district attorney's conviction integrity unit) said. "It appears the rule of law was not followed. ... Misrepresentations were made."

Considering that at least 12 individuals in Dallas County alone have already been exonerated due to DNA evidence, the DA has just cause to be extra careful.  And it should be said that other DA's in Texas and elsewhere should follow his example.

Please see this article for more information on Lave and this issue.

the new one

Ralph Baze was granted a stay of execution yesterday by the Kentucky Supreme Court.  The court made the unanimous decision in order to grant the time needed to decide whether Baze's initial trial was moved improperly.

Baze and his lawyers have also filed another state lawsuit yesterday in Franklin Circuit Court claiming that procedures of the execution team violate state law.

The suit alleges that it is against the law for an emergency medical technician to insert an intravenous line without a supervising doctor present. Kentucky law prohibits doctors from taking part in an execution.

(source: Courier-Journal)

the new intern

The scheduled Thursday night execution of a Texas prisoner for his part in the slaying of two workers during a robbery was stopped after the Dallas County district attorney's office asked that the execution order be withdrawn.

Joseph Lave, 42, would have been the 25th inmate given lethal injection in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state.

In an order signed late Wednesday, a state district judge in Dallas agreed with the request from District Attorney Craig Watkins, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Thursday.

Lave was convicted of being one of three robbers involved in the beating and slashing deaths of Justin Marquart and Frederick Banzaf, both 18, on the night before Thanksgiving in 1992.

Abolish Intern DC

A federal Judge has issued a stay of execution for an Arkansas death-row inmate who faced a September 18 execution date.

Terrick Nooner was convicted of killing a university student at a coin-operated laundry in 1993.

Judge J. Leon Holmes' action comes after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled last month that a request for mental-health professionals to examine Nooner should be reconsidered in court.

From the Associated Press:

Lawyers for Nooner have argued their request for the mental examinations was not an appeal of his original conviction in Pulaski County court. Instead, the lawyers say, it was an attempt to get examinations the Arkansas Department of Correction has denied over the last year and a half.

Since his incarceration, Nooner has made a number of rambling legal filings and statements about people poisoning his food, sexually assaulting him, performing witchcraft and "shooting up my blood" withdrugs and poisons.

Julie Brain, a federal public defender for Nooner, declined to comment on the judge's stay.

When lethal injection was introduced to the world (the first execution using this method occurred in the USA on December 7, 1982), it was proclaimed as a more humane method of execution than the oft-messy electrocution and other previous methods.  It was hailed as quick and painless.  This, however, is often not the case.  In fact there are so many questions and doubts about the use of lethal injection, including the lack of training for executioners and medical ethics, that eleven states currently have a moratorium on the death penalty in order to investigate the use of lethal injection.

One of those eleven states is Florida.  However, this past Monday, Circuit Judge Carven Angel declared that the execution of Angel Diaz, the tragic case that spurred Florida's moratorium while an examination into the flaws of the system could be reviewed, was not ‘botched' and therefore his previous concerns about the state's procedures for lethal injection were resolved.

Diaz's execution lasted 34 minutes, a time more than double the average, and involved the use of "two lethal doses because, on the first attempt, the needle missed the vein and went into soft tissue. It was later revealed that the lead executioner had no medical training whatsoever."  Witnesses reported seeing Diaz grimace and clench in pain during the execution, another said he was gasping for air for eleven minutes.  

"After 13 days of hearings, held between May and September, Angel ruled

Monday that because Diaz hadn't ‘screamed or yelled after the injection... the inmate did not suffer any pain' and his death did not ‘result in any abuse, or any cruel or unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.'"

It seems to me that the requirement of ‘screaming or yelling' to indicate pain and cruel and unusual punishment are a callous, inhumane, and perhaps even sadistic, burden of proof. Moreover, it denies the reality of a need to die with whatever dignity possible in such a situation, the tremendous amount of pain which results in an inability to vocalize such pain, and a myriad of other possible reasons why Diaz or any future or past victim of lethal injection may not scream. 

The tragedy of this Judge's proclamation is his lifting of the stay of execution for Lighthouse (another case under examination for lethal injection as cruel and inhumane, this time by the Florida Supreme Court), based on his decision that Diaz's execution was satisfactory.  While there are likely to be no executions in Florida until after the Court renders its judgment on Lighthouse, Judge Angel's "ruling has broader implications for the state's death penalty, [as it alleviates] a stumbling block."

In other words, Angel's ruling that the state's procedures regarding lethal injection were not botched in Diaz's execution, but instead occurred "within a reasonably short time ... in a manner that the court finds was painless and humane", will most likely be considered in Lighthouse's case and may pave the way for executions to resume in Florida.

Of Note: Amnesty International  will be releasing a report on lethal injection on September 27, 2007.  Please visit AIUSA's website to find the report following its release, and this blog for our discussion of it.

from the new padp intern

Today a Texas Judge issued a restraining order to prevent the state from destroying evidence that could show whether a man was truly guilty of the crime for which he was executed.

In 1990, Claude Jones was convicted of killing a man in a liquor store.  The only physical evidence used against him was a hair found on the counter in the store.  An expert for the state testified that the hair was consistant with Jones' hair. The hair evidence was also crucial in denying his appeals and on December 7, 2000, Jones was executed.

"According to the Innocence Project, mitochondrial DNA testing on the hair evidence could establish any of the following:

(1) Jones was guilty;

(2) the hair comes from the charged accomplice Dixon, which would strongly support a claim Jones was innocent (since Dixon denied being presentin the store); or

(3) the hair came from the victim or some other individual, which, by excluding Jones and contradicting the critical evidence against him at trial and relied on by the appeals courts, would mean there was not legally sufficient evidence to convict Jones, much less execute him."

Interestingly, "Texas leads the nation in the number of innocent people who were exonerated through DNA testing after being wrongfully convicted. Across the state, 29 people have been exonerated with DNA since 1994.... Nationwide, 207 people have been exonerated through DNA testing, 15 of whom were sentenced to die."

Please go to the Innocence project for more information on this story.

We have often blogged about the case of Troy Davis in Georgia - a case that highlights problems with faulty eyewitness testimony, police coercion, the federal AEDPA law, as well as inadequate public defender systems.  After fifteen years, these injustices are finally being heard.  Now, the head of the Public Defenders Office in Georgia has resigned over the exact problems highlighted by the Troy Davis case.

After years of complaints that Georgia's public defender service was underfunded and negligent, The Georgia Capital Defenders Office was created to ensure indigent defendants receive qualified and adequate counsel.  Yet, this office was still left severely underfunded.   Christopher Adams resigned 11 days ago, stating that the deep budget cuts imposed by the state legislature made it impossible for his office to truly protect and defend their clients.  While taking on twice the number of cases it had been set up to handle, Mr. Adam's office was given a budget of only $4.3 million - less that half what it needed.

This abysmal situation mirrors that faced by Troy Davis so many years ago.  As his case was being tried, the Georgia Resource Center, which represented him, also had their budget dramatically cut.  One lawyer from the Center has since stated in an affidavit that "We were simply trying to avert total disaster rather than provide any kind of active or effective representation."

Looks like not much has changed ...

In an op-ed published today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the ACLU Capital Punishment Project's Christopher Hill details what a lack of adequate counsel for indigent defendants actually looks like:

A legion of indigent capital defendants have lost their lives or almost lost their lives because of abysmal legal representation at their trials. In 1995, Carl Johnson was executed in Texas after a trial at which his court-appointed lawyer literally slept on the job. Kenneth Foster, who recently had his sentence commuted in Texas, was represented by a court-appointed lawyer who failed to bring up his troubled childhood as a mitigating factor in his case.

In an Oklahoma case, Ronald Williamson was sentenced to death after his court-appointed attorney, who was poorly compensated, did not present evidence that another person confessed to the crime. The charges against Williamson were later dismissed. And in California, Manny Babbitt, a Vietnam veteran suffering with severe mental illness, was sentenced to death after his court-appointed lawyer drank four martinis at lunch every day during his trial. Babbitt was executed in 1999.

Georgia's death penalty history has been plagued with death sentences as a result of poor defense lawyering. Before the U.S. Supreme Court held that executing mentally retarded inmates was unconstitutional, Jerome Holloway and William Alvin Smith were sentenced to death after their court-appointed attorneys did not or could not bring up their mental deficiencies.

Public defender services all over the country face a similar problem, leaving defendants - whose lives are at stake - with no access to lawyers who actually have the time, resources and skill to represent them.   As a society, we must demand something better.  Public defenders must have the resources and funds necessary - we cannot accept that only the rich are worthy to receive adequate representation in court!  95% of inmates on death row could not afford their own lawyer - and this is not a coincidence.  As Christopher Hill argues, "the death penalty is too often reserved not for the "worst" offenders, but for those defendants with the worst lawyers." 

We MUST hold our lawmakers, in Georgia and in all states, accountable.

~ Jessie with PADP

Daryl Holton is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee on September 12, 2007. The trial court didn't accept the plea that Daryl Holton was criminally responsible by reason of insanity and sentenced him to death for the murder of his four children in 1997.

What if I were to tell you that Daryi Holton was mentally ill at the time that he committed the crime? Infact at his trial, three mental health experts two for the defence and one for the prosecution all agreed that Daryl Holton was suffering from a major depressive disorder when he killed the children. The prosecution expert even went as further as to agree that severe depression can affect one's judgment and thought processes and cause delusion.

In addition, at a subsequent hearing the mental health expert for the defense who had testified at the trial suggested in an affidavit that Holton's major depression had probably recurred and that any decision to volunteer for execution would fit the depressive pattern of thinking characteristic with this illness.

It has been reported by Amnesty International that major depression is a serious medical illness affecting nearly 10 million people in U.S.A in any given year and if left untreated may lead to suicide.

Life on death row has been characterized by loneliness, fear, emotional emptiness among other things and has been called a 'living death'. Given such conditions, it is no wonder that some prisoners choose death rather than face such conditions and the pressures of the death penalty. In effect to execute them, is to assist them commit suicide.

Daryl Holton and others like him continue to be sentenced to death and are executed in the U.S. What this shows is that the existing safeguards are clearly inadequate to prevent this and do not protect the mentally ill from execution.

As a society thats seeks to promote and protect human rights for everyone, we should  not send mentally ill inmates to execution chambers but to mental health facilities where they can get treatment. The execution of mentally ill prisoners should be beneath the American Society so TAKE ACTION and help stop the execution of Daryl Holton

Abolish Intern DC

Tennis shoes, hiking boots and sneakers ... abolitionists in California are gettin' their feet ready as they prepare to embark on an 800 mile Walk to Stop Executions.  That is some serious walking, for a very serious cause.  666 men and women sit on death row in California - the state with the highest rate of death sentencing in the country.  Now Californians are ready to get loud and walk proud, raising their voices together to tell their elected District Attorneys "No More Death Sentences!"

Meet abolitionists from Death Penalty Focus, California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, and Amnesty International USA while you walk.  The kickoff rally will begin promptly at 9am on Saturday, September 15th at the San Diego Hall of Justice (330 W. Broadway).  It concludes a full two-and-a-half months later in Sacramento on Friday, November 30th.  Marchers will make stops at the 15 county courthouses along the way, as well as San Quentin, to rally, meet with DA's, and speak in schools, colleges, churches, etc.  Supports should join the marchers for a mile, or two, or five - show your support, meet with your local DA, and speak out against the death penalty!  Check out the full list of scheduled stops and dates here. 

Want to support this incredible walk financially?  A small pledge of just 3 cents per mile will land you a stylin' Walk t-shirt!  Go here for more information.

~ From the PADP in D.C.