NY Times Editorial Today

Editorial The Myth of Deterrence Published: April 27, 2012
One of the most frequently made claims about the death penalty is that
it deters potential murderers. That was the claim when the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. It is the claim today after a revival of research about the topic in the last decade.
But a distinguished committee of scholars working for the National Research Council has now reached the striking and convincing conclusion that all of the research about deterrence and the death penalty done in the past generation, including by some first-rank scholars at the most prestigious universities, should be ignored.
Read more in the NY Times

Connecticut is on the verge of repealing the state’s death penalty. Florida to kill again.

Dear Friends,

Connecticut is on the verge of repealing the state’s death penalty. The legislation passed in the Senate and will be voted on in the House next week. This action is expected to save Connecticut taxpayers $5 million a year. This will be the 5th state in 5 years to end the use of death penalty. In addition, Oregon’s governor has declared a moratorium. Other states are steadily moving closer to abolition.

In stark contrast, Florida has plans to kill David Gore next week. The following events are scheduled:

Tomorrow is Good Friday, a day when Pax Christi, the Catholic Conference, and TCADP unite in front of the Old Capitol at noon to say the Stations of the Cross. These are not the traditional prayers, but instead they are oriented to the execution of Jesus and how it relates to executions today
One week from today, on Thursday, April 12, the State of Florida will execute David Gore at 6 pm. We will gather in front of the Governor’s mansion at that time for a vigil.
On the following day, Friday, April 13, there will be a Service of Remembrance at 12 noon at the Rotunda of the Capitol to remember Mr. Gore and his victims.

Sheila Meehan
TCADP Board

The Death Penalty: Evolving Issues in Florida

The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights & the American Bar Association present:The Death Penalty: Evolving Issues in Florida

A two-hour forum that will include perspective and commentary from FSU President Emeritus, former Dean of the College of Law and former American Bar Association President Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte; former Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero; 2nd Judicial Circuit Judge Janet Ferris (retired); 18th Judicial Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton (retired) and former member of the ABA Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team; Harry Shorstein, former Fourth Read More

Perry Draws applause with his defense of the Death Penalty

Dale Recinella to speak

In his recently published book, “Now I Walk on Death Row,” Recinella writes about the spiritual journey that led him from a lucrative job as a finance lawyer to his ministry with death row inmates. On Sunday, he’ll discuss the highlights of his book at 2 p.m. at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More. His talk is sponsored by Pax Christi, the Florida Catholic Conference and Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty.

Good and Bad news …. 5 items

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the board of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty, I have some bad news and some good announcements – all for early September – 6, 7, and 11.

The Governor has set a new date for the killing of Manuel Valle. It is now scheduled for Tuesday, September 6 at 6 p.m.

Please attend the Vigil in front of the Governor’s mansion on September 6th at 6 p.m. This will be the first in the Scott administration.

On the following day, Wednesday, September 7th, we will gather at the Capitol Rotunda at 12 noon for a Memorial Service for Mr. Valle and for victim, Louis Pena.
Read More

Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary

Op-Ed Contributor, New York Times

By DAVID R. DOW
Published: July 8, 2011, Houston
LAST week was the 35th anniversary of the return of the American death penalty. It remains as racist and as random as ever.
Several years after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, a University of Iowa law professor, David C. Baldus (who died last month), along with two colleagues, published a study examining more than 2,000 homicides that took place in Georgia beginning in 1972. They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks. Read More

From the Los Angeles Times ….

Legal challenges to lethal-injection procedures have kept executions on hold for five years in California, where 718 prisoners are on death row. Corrections officials’ attempt to carry out the execution of murderer Albert Greenwood Brown in September was thwarted by the litigation, as well as by the expiration of the state’s last few grams of sodium thiopental.

Hospira Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., stopped making its brand of sodium thiopental, Pentothal, at a North Carolina plant early last year because of an unspecified raw material supply problem. When Hospira attempted to move production to a factory in Liscate, Italy, near Milan, Italian authorities demanded assurances that the drug wouldn’t end up in the hands of executioners. Hospira spokesman Dan Rosenberg said company officers couldn’t make that guarantee and decided instead to “exit the sodium thiopental market.”

“We cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment,” Rosenberg said.

Death Penalty Information Center report

On December 21, the Death Penalty Information Center released its latest report, “The Death Penalty in 2010: Year End Report,” on statistics and trends in capital punishment in the past year.  The report noted there was a 12% decrease in executions in 2010 compared to 2009 and a more than 50% drop compared to 1999. DPIC projected that the number of new death sentences will be 114 for 2010, near last year’s number of 112, which was the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Death sentences declined in all four regions of the country over the past ten years, with a 50 percent decrease nationwide when the current decade is compared to the 1990s.  Only 12 states carried out executions in 2010, mostly in the South, and only seven states carried out more than one execution. Texas led the country with 17 executions, but that was a significant drop from last year.  The number of new death sentences in Texas this year was 8, a dramatic decline from 1999 when 48 people were sentenced to death.  Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 82% of the executions have been in the South. California has not had an execution in almost 5 years, and the same is true for North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and many other states that rarely carry out the death penalty.  “Whether it’s concerns about the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed, the risks of executing the innocent, unfairness, or other reasons, the nation continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010,” said Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and the report’s author.

Practicing Medicine on Death Row

Thursday 09 December 2010

by: Robert Wilbur, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

Practicing Medicine on Death Row ( Edited: Jared
Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Execution by lethal injection has shone a harsh light on the complicity
of health professionals – physicians, nurses and paramedics – in
carrying out capital punishment. In a 2001 survey in the prestigious
journal, Archives of Internal Medicine, an astonishing 41 percent of
physicians surveyed said that they would assist or even carry out an
execution by lethal injection and there is little evidence that the
percentage has changed significantly since then. Deborah W. Denno JD,
PhD, a leading scholar of death penalty litigation at the Fordham
University School of Law in New York City, remarked that physician
participation in executions is more prevalent than one might think,
although exact numbers are not available because of the secrecy
surrounding executions. And this does not even include the nurses and
paramedics (also known as Emergency Medical Technicians or EMTs) who
head up the execution teams in many states. Interestingly, the
leadership of several major organizations have taken a more enlightened
view on executions than many of their members.
Read More