After the success of their first, the EJUSA Associate Board is hosting another “Trivia Night for Justice”! Join them next Wednesday, November 16 in support of healing our broken justice system. They’ll be at the Waylon in Hell’s Kitchen and will also launch their end-of-year fundraising campaign. Hope you can make it!
Last month, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that death row inmate Timothy Hurst is entitled to a new sentencing hearing because the jury in his case was not unanimous in recommending a death sentence. The Court held that both the Florida and U.S. Constitutions require a unanimous jury recommendation of death to be able to sentence someone to death.
This decision leaves Florida without a valid death penalty statute. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty statute in January 2016, the Florida Legislature passed a new statute requiring a 10-2 jury recommendation of death to impose a death sentence. Florida’s current statute fails to meet the constitutional requirement of jury unanimity outlined by the Florida Supreme Court in Hurst.
It is not yet clear what will happen to the almost 400 men and women on Florida’s death row, roughly 3/4 of whom were sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries.
Rather than a source of “justice” or “closure,” Florida’s death penalty results in lengthy trials, appeals, and in many cases reversals. Families find themselves stuck in a seemingly endless legal process, frustrated and angry, and often unable to begin healing. Florida promises an execution, and then families come to learn that this promise is far from certain. That promise remains as uncertain as ever after Florida’s death penalty law was found unconstitutional for the third time—and second time just this year.
Death penalty cases require more attorneys and experts working longer trials and appeals, which together mean higher costs that ultimately must be paid by taxpayers. Despite Florida lawmakers’ promises that they can craft a “workable” death penalty statute, they repeatedly have failed. Hanging onto the death penalty has come at an extraordinary cost – a 2000 study estimated that the death penalty costs Florida an extra $51 million annually.
Plagued by constitutional problems, Florida’s death penalty has resulted in a legal process characterized by uncertainty, high costs, and delays. Most troublingly, the death penalty has put innocent lives at risk, as Florida leads the nation with 26 death row exonerations since 1973. This failed government program has had a negative impact on Florida for too long.
A Pew poll released last month found support for the death penalty dropped by seven points just in the last year and is at its lowest point since 1972. Executions have reached their lowest level in 25 years, with even Texas seeing record lows. Only a few counties continue to sentence people to death with any regularity.
And now, voters in three states will determine the future of the death penalty when they go to the polls next week. Here is a rundown of the ballot measures and how you (and/or your friends) should vote to continue the momentum toward ending the death penalty throughout the country.
Nebraska: Vote RETAIN on Referendum Measure 426
In 2015, a bi-partisan supermajority of Nebraska legislators voted to override the Governor’s veto and repeal the state’s death penalty. After years of study and 18 years without an execution, they concluded that Nebraska’s broken death penalty system just couldn’t be fixed. But the Governor was committed to executing people in Nebraska. He and a handful of his allies pooled their money in an effort to bring the death penalty back with a ballot measure.
Now Nebraska voters will make the choice: RETAIN the bipartisan solution to end the death penalty (our position) or bring back Nebraska’s broken system.
California: Vote Yes on 62; No on 66
Californians have two propositions related to the death penalty on their ballots this year: Proposition 62 and Proposition 66.
Proposition 62 would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without eligibility for parole as the maximum sentence. It would also require that those convicted of first-degree murder work while in prison and pay restitution.
If Prop 62 passes, the California Legislative Analyst estimates a cost savings in California of $150 million per year. It would also be retroactive, meaning the 741 men and women currently on death row in California would be resentenced under the new law. This would reduce the nation’s death row population by one quarter.
Proposition 66 is a complicated morass of procedural changes purported to “speed up” death penalty cases. Despite this claim, Prop 66 will actually add additional layers of court review to the process, making it more cumbersome and inevitably more time consuming. Experts also believe the measure could be unconstitutional. And any attempt to speed up executions could result in deadly mistakes.
Check out the Death Penalty Information Center’s Fact Check of the two California initiatives.
Oklahoma: Vote No on 776
Oklahomans will be asked if they want to enshrine the death penalty in the state’s constitution. The amendment would explicitly declare that the death penalty it is not “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment, even if certain methods of executions are outlawed. The Oklahoma legislature, however, already passed a law that prevents death sentences from being overturned if any given execution method is thrown out.
On top of being redundant and unnecessary, many people – especially many conservatives that we’ve been talking to – are concerned that State Question 776 violates the system of checks and balances by bypassing an entire branch of government, the judiciary.
This morning, religious leaders from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties in Florida held a press conference to react to a report from Harvard’s Fair Punishment Project, branding the counties as “outliers” due to their overuse of the death penalty.
Press conference participants released a letter to the State Attorney’s Office signed by more than 75 local religious leaders demanding a halt to death penalty prosecutions in both counties. EJUSA’s Florida-based organizer, Christine Henderson (pictured at the podium), helped organize the sign-on letter and was on hand to speak about the national implications of the ‘outlier’ report.
“Given the host of problems plaguing the death penalty in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties – wrongful convictions, racial bias, disproportionate use against the mentally ill – we are united in calling for an end to this failed practice,” said Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson pastor of First United Church of Tampa.
The report found ongoing problems with overzealous prosecutors, ineffective defense lawyers, and racial bias, and that the impact of these chronic issues included convicting innocent people.
“In Hillsborough County, we have seen three people wrongfully sentenced to death and later exonerated,” said The Most Reverent Robert Lynch, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg. “The death penalty clearly is prone to error and, moreover, unnecessary today where there are alternative means to protect society. It is imperative that our officials promote a culture of life and stop pursuing the death penalty.”
Harvard’s Fair Punishment Project released the second installment of a report showing the dysfunction in the use of the death penalty in the only 16 counties that continue to use it with any regularity. “Too Broken to Fix: An In-depth Look at America’s Outlier Death Penalty Counties,” looks at the 16 “outlier counties” – of 3,143 counties nationwide – that imposed five or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015.
The report looks at that last 10 years of court opinions and records from these 16 “outlier counties” and analyzes all of the new death sentences handed down in these counties since 2010.Researchers found that these counties have been plagued by persistent problems of overzealous prosecutors, ineffective defense lawyers, and racial bias. These problems have lead to wrongful convictions in many of the counties and to excessively harsh punishment of people with significant impairments.
Some key findings from Part II of the report:
Our friends at the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty (KCADP) have an amazing event planned for Saturday, October 22, and we wanted to make sure you heard about it!
Join KCADP for their annual Abolition Conference at 1pm on 10/22 at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Olathe. You’ll hear Kansans speak about the social, economic, political, and psychological costs of the death penalty in “The Kansas Death Penalty: What a Waste!”
The four panelists each have personal experience with and a unique perspective to share on the death penalty:
Please pre-register either via email to info@ksabolition.org or by calling (785) 235-2237. The event is free and open to the public, so we hope you’ll go and bring a friend!
To commemorate World Day Against the Death Penalty, YOU are invited to the world premiere of a new film about death row exonerees from the U.S, “The Gathering.” The Delegation of the European Union and the Embassy of France will host this “EU Rendez-Vous” on Monday, October 17 at the French Embassy in Washington, DC.
RSVP is required. Register here.
“The Gathering” follows death row exonerees at an annual gathering of Witness to Innocence, the nation’s only national death penalty abolition organization composed of and led by exonerated death row survivors. The film captures their voices and the power of their stories as well as the resilience of their family and friends.
Following the film, exonerees, advocates, and diplomats will participate in a discussion about the death penalty the the U.S. and around the world.
Can’t make the event? You can follow along by following @franceintheus, @EUintheUS, and #abolishDP on Twitter.
Ending the death penalty. Addressing the role of trauma in the cycle of violence. Helping people harmed by crime and violence rebuild their lives.
Not everyone sees how all this work fits together. But you do, because you’ve been in the fight with EJUSA a long time.
You understand that our lifelong struggle has two sides. We must dismantle the many harmful parts of our justice system, like the death penalty. And we must build the new – justice that heals, communities that thrive, responses to violence that are rooted in racial equity and humanity.
It’s in your determination and actions – and the determination and actions of so many communities working to end violence, racism, and injustice – where hope lives.
We cannot wait. And that’s why we need you more today than ever. Thank you for all that you have made possible.
In a new short film from the #DeathPenaltyFail campaign, Anthony Ray Hinton tells the firsthand story of spending 30 years on Alabama’s death row for a crime he didn’t commit. Watch the film today and then support the Thunderclap to make sure more and more people see and hear Hinton’s powerful story.
Mass shootings. Black men killed by police. Shootings of police officers. These incidents seem to keep coming, highlighting deep tensions, fear, and pain across our nation.
Despite these and so many other tragedies, hope abounds in communities large and small.
Hope is Newark, New Jersey, where police and community members are working side by side with EJUSA to shift police practices so they account for the role of trauma in the cycle of violence.
Hope is Delaware, where a movement of African American leaders rose up to say there can be no racial equity as long as there is a death penalty. And last month Delaware became the 20th state to end the death penalty.
Hope is a small organization in Los Angeles that makes a difference everyday for Latino victims of violence, by supporting their families and the families of the person who harmed them.
Hope is you, and the people and communities you are helping when you support EJUSA. Thank you so much for all you make possible.