The FAMU and FSU student journalists provided excellent coverage of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty’s Saturday workshop, “Don’t Kill in My Name.”

Please share these articles with others.

From The Famuan
“Floridians fight against death penalty

By Antonio Rosado
Correspondent

Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Outsized by the lectern, Tallahassee resident Agnes Furey smiled as she stepped aside the platform in the Leroy Collins Public Library. Furey, 73, gripped her small hands on a chair back as she recounted circumstances surrounding a double-murder that brought her speak at the “Don’t Kill in My Name” workshop.

Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty enlisted Furey because 12 years earlier, a man she refused to send to death row murdered her 40-year-old daughter and 6-year-old grandson. The man, Leonard Scovens, who her daughter, Patricia Reed, was trying to help overcome a drug addiction, murdered Reed and her son Christopher. Furey recalled one of the final conversations with her daughter where she warned against aiding Scovens, a 20-something crack cocaine user.

“I had encountered the man years earlier because I have been working in addictions since 1982,” Furey said. “But she told me ‘You always taught me that everybody deserves a chance.”

Within 48 hours of Patricia Reed giving Scovens his chance, he suffocated her with a plastic bag and strangled her son with an electric cord. Initially, Furey confessed, she wanted Scovens to suffer the ultimate punishment for committing the unthinkable acts to her loved ones. However, when her attorney called her days before the trial date and asked her if she wanted to pursue the death penalty, Furey choose to let Scovens live.

She said having another person murdered and the re-victimization families of victims suffer while waiting on a death row prisoner to be executed were the main reasons for her decision.

“Every time there’s another meeting you have to be there, or you’re notified; so it’s in your conscious awareness, and every time you have to do that those feelings come back up again,” Furey said. “I can’t feel like I can be responsible for somebody being killed.”
A moment of silence had to be called so participants could collect themselves after Furey’s bare-all testimony.

Workshops and grassroots initiatives like “Don’t Kill in My Name” are designed by TCADP to inform Floridians about alternatives to the State of Florida carrying out the death penalty.
“The organization has been around since they reinstituted the death penalty in the late 70s,” Shelia Meehan, a former TCADP chairperson, said. “They have a special responsibility to make it known to the legislators and the governors that they don’t believe in this.”

According to the Florida Department of Corrections Web site, capital punishment was reinstated in Florida in 1976. Since then, 69 death sentences have been carried out, with number 70, David Johnston, scheduled to be executed on March 9. However, the confinement of more than 400 inmates on death row in Florida brings Meehan to question the effectiveness of the deterrence.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center Web site, regions of the country with high percentages of executions have murder rates nearly doubling those of states with low death penalty executions, which suggest the death penalty has an inverse deterrence effect.
Additional questions were presented at the workshop by current TCADP president Louise Ritchie, who said she is concerned that systematic errors in Florida’s legal system may be sending innocent people to their death.
“Our legal system is not perfect,” said Ritchie. “People who were completely innocent could be convicted.”
The use of DNA evidence in death row cases has lead to 139 exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated. In many of those cases, determining innocence or error is managed by state appointed attorneys for every death row inmate. While working on death row cases, Meehan discovered a bias in her presupposed views of death row inmates; the public, she said, shares that bias. Meehan said she imagined death row inmates as monsters; however, her first encounter with inmate Richard Cooper changed her mind.

“He was a very gentle person,” Meehan said. “I expected a devil.”

She said Cooper, who has been on death row since he was 21-years-old, talked to her about being beaten with chains by an alcoholic father and often wanting to commit suicide as a child. While working with Cooper and other death row inmates, Meehan said she discovered a trend of abusive pasts and mental instability.

“As I got to know more and more people on death row through my work I have yet to find one person who has not been a victim of severe childhood abuse,” she said. “People care so much about abused children… but what happens when those children grow up, they’re not so cute and loveable anymore, but it’s really the same child.”

Meehan was quick to note that a person who commits a crime deserves to be in jail.

However, she said it is important to realize that inmates on death row are human too, and a people need to show a certain level of compassion.

That consideration is not shown when prisoners are subjected to the cruelty of the electric chair, according to Susan Gage, a former Florida Public Radio reporter who witnessed the 1996 electrocution of John E. Bush.

“The sound is something I remember profoundly,” Gage said, of the humming noise produced as thousands of volts of electricity surged through Bush’s body. Although a muzzle kept Bush from crying out, Gage said, his pain could be seen as his body pressed against the leather strap, and his tightly clenched fists remained turned under, even after he was declared to be dead.

Ron McAndrews, the prison warden who oversaw Bush’s “clean” execution, also supervised the botched execution of Pedro Medina a year later. Medina had flames shooting from the top of his head during his electrocution. McAndrews, in an article for Death Penalty Focus, a nonprofit organization against capital punishment, recalled the horrors of having to allow the execution to continue even though the situation had gone awry.

“The memory of telling the executioner to continue with the killing, despite the malfunctioning electric chair, and being at a point of no-return, plagues me still,” McAndrews wrote.

Ritchie, who helped organize the workshop, also changed her pro-death penalty stance after being exposed to the facts and procedures surrounding the death penalty. She supports life in prison for those convicted of capital crimes.

“I figured that if someone killed someone they didn’t deserve the right to live,” Ritchie said.

“I changed my mind because of the fact that everybody has there humanity and I don’t think anybody has the right to take someone unless life, unless it is in self defense.”
http://www.thefamuanonline.com/news/floridians-fight-against-death-penalty-1.2172686

FSUNEWS

Johnston’s execution will be the second Florida execution within just a
few weeks as Feb. 16, Martin Grossman was executed.

Please allow this information to inspire you to attend the free workshop
that Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty is holding tomorrow,
Sat., Feb. 27 –12:45-4:30 at the Leroy Collins Public Library, Program
Room B, which is on the first floor.  Please also urge your friends to
attend.

We’ll be learning about how to advocate successfully to end the death
penalty in Florida, including by  supporting incremental steps such as
requiring unanimous juries for the death penalty to be imposed. The 15
states that have abolished the death penalty typically did so after such
incremental steps were imposed.

Florida leads the nation in the number of people who have been
exonerated (released due to innocence) from death row. Yet, unanimous
juries are not required for the death penalty to be imposed in Florida.

Previous advocacy in Florida has caused the death penalty to no longer
be imposed on juveniles and on people who are mentally retarded. It also
has lead to persons convicted of capital crimes being able to get one of
only two sentences: the death penalty or life imprisonment with no
chance of parole. Research has indicated that the majority of the public
would choose life imprisonment without parole over execution if they
were given that choice. This is more reason for us to take actions that
raise the visibility of our cause.

Free TCADP T-shirts will be given to the first 15 attendees, and free
TCADP buttons will be given to all attendees at the workshop. You also
will be able to buy T-shirts for $10 apiece.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope to see you tomorrow
at the workshop.

Louise RItchie, Chair, Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty

Gov. Crist has signed a death warrant for David Eugene Johnston, whose execution has been scheduled for May 27th. This makes it even more imperative that we who oppose the death penalty become active in raising the visibility of our cause, including by letting public officials know that we want Florida to join the 15 states that have abolished the death penalty. During the legislative session, TCADP will schedule a morning to meet with legislators to discuss our concerns about the death penalty.

Consequently, please make it a priority to attend our workshop,  “Don’t Kill in My Name,” that will be  this Sat. from 12:45-4:30 p.m.  in Program Room B of the Leroy Collins Public Library. Please also invite others whom you know who oppose the death penalty.

The free workshop is designed to educate death penalty opponents about advocating to end the death penalty.

It will include expert presentations on legal, ethical, religious, racial and financial problems with the death penalty, presentations by a homicide survivor who opposes the death penalty and by a former journalist who witnessed an execution, instruction from an experienced legislative lobbyist, and it will conclude with a documentary about an innocent man who spent almost 18 years on Florida’s death row.

The first 15 attendees will be given TCADP T-shirts.

Attached is a flyer.

Thank you for reading this. I hope to see you Saturday.

Louise Ritchie, Chair
Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty

2.  Despite 10,000 people signing petitions requesting that Martin Grossman not be executed, Gov. Crist says he still plans to execute Grossman Tues. Feb. 16. If it goes as scheduled, at 6 p.m. Tues. please come stand outside the governor’s mansion at 6 p.m. Tues. Feb. 16 as we hold a vigil to reflect our opposition to the death penalty, and come to the memorial service we’ll hold Weds. at noon in the courtyard between the old and new capitols.

3.  Sat. Feb. 27 free public workshop to train death penalty opponents about advocating for ending the death penalty. This is the beginning of our campaign to add Florida to the 15 states and D.C. that don’t impose the death penalty. It will be 12:45-4:30 in Program Room B of the Leroy Collins Public Library.

Please come to the workshop and also invite others. We’re particularly interested in involving students in this movement, so please share this information with professors and college and high school students and their organizations.

The workshop will include: experts’ presentations on legal, ethical, religious, racial, and financial problems with the death penalty; presentations by a homicide survivor and by a former journalist who witnessed an execution; instruction from an experienced legislative lobbyist;  and it will conclude with a documentary about an innocent man who spent almost 18 years on Florida’s death row.

We will give free TCADP T-shirts to the first 15 attendees.

Thank you for reading this.

Louise Ritchie
Chair, TCADP

Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty Update

Dear TCADP members: Here’s an update about the pending execution of Martin Grossman, and about a talk by Mayor John Marks that TCADP is cosponsoring Feb. 2.

Florida Alternatives to the Death Penalty has requested our help in doing the following in connection with the execution of Martin Grossman, which is scheduled for Feb. 16.

1.            Write letters and call Governor Charlie Crist to ask him to call for a time-out on executions and do a thorough study of Florida’s Death Penalty. Tell him to PLEASE STOP signing Death Warrants. Florida’s governor has the decision-making authority to do this. Letters can be short, even two to three sentences long.

2.            Sign up to receive future action alerts and news from Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) at http://www.facebook.com/l/b107b;www.fadp.org/esubscribe.html.

3.            Forward this action to a friend (or five!) and have them contact Governor Crist too.”

For talking points and more information: http://www.facebook.com/l/b107b;www.fadp.org/takeact.html

In other updates about that impending execution. FADP Executive Director Mark Elliott says, “Grossman’s attorneys have filed a brief in the Florida Supreme Court asking to present oral arguments on Feb. 9. Grossman is asking for an evidentiary hearing into his mental health at the time of the crime. This would impact his sentence, not his guilt.

Many in the Jewish community are very interested Martin Grossman’s case and are seeking ways to help. There is a fast-forming network developing to put together tools to utilize.’

I will let you know when I hear updates about more link to on-line networks and petition sites.

Please let Mark Elliott know if you’d like to be included in strategy e-mails on this: melliott3@aol.com

TCADP is co-sponsoring the below  free event with Pax Chrisiti and FSU’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights:

MAYOR JOHN MARKS will speak on  Black History Month and the influence of Martin Luther King, Jr. on his life

TUESDAY, FEB. 2, 2010, at 7 p.m.

ST. THOMAS MORE CO-CATHEDRAL

O’BRIEN HALL

(CORNER OF TENNESSEE & WOODWARD)

For more information about this event, contact  Shirley Poore - 850-893-6838 - bpoore@earthlink.net

Thank you for reading this message.

Louise Ritchie, Chair, TCADP

PAX CHRISTI TALLAHASSEE*

INVITES YOU TO HEAR

MAYOR JOHN MARKS

speak on  

BLACK HISTORY MONTH & THE INFLUENCE OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ON HIS LIFE