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BREAKING: It’s over!

 

Scenes from this morning in Concord
Scenes from this morning in Concord

The death penalty is history in New Hampshire. The state Senate just voted to override the governor’s veto, making New Hampshire the ninth state since 2007 to repeal the death penalty.

This happened because Americans across the land have recognized that our justice system is profoundly broken. New Hampshire’s victory today reflects just how deeply Americans across the political spectrum are beginning to reject capital punishment, mass incarceration, and racial inequity. And conservative lawmakers played a major role in in passing this legislation, proving that ending the death penalty is truly a bipartisan issue.

This kind of work happens only when people and organizations unite. We are so proud to have been able to support the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the ACLU of New Hampshire, the American Friends Service Committee, the Catholic Mobilizing Network, the New Hampshire Council of Churches, Witness to Innocence, and so many more in this amazing process. These partners brought people together, educated lawmakers, mobilized grassroots support, and amplified the issue in the media. We brought decades of repeal experience and strategy to the table and made sure the leaders in New Hampshire had every tool they needed to make the case for ending the death penalty.

This is what we do. We work in the trenches with organizations that have the local expertise and relationships. We now have eight repeals under our belt – and you have been instrumental in the success, every step of the way.

But we’re not done. Please make a gift today to help us continue this work. Together we can end the death penalty once and for all.

Ending the death penalty is one key step towards the kind of justice system that heals, keeps communities safe, and helps people who harm others to take responsibility and make things right without denying them their dignity.

Please support EJUSA today so that tomorrow we can end the death penalty and transform what justice in America looks like.

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EJUSA and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty Applaud New Hampshire’s Repeal of the Death Penalty

Statement by Shari Silberstein, Executive Director of Equal Justice USA:

“The leaders in New Hampshire who made history today deserve the highest praise for recognizing the injustice of a deeply broken system and coming together across party lines to move the state forward. I believe more states across the nation, inspired by what New Hampshire accomplished, will recognize that the death penalty cannot exist in a society that aspires to true justice.”

For more information contact Patrick Egan at 718-801-8948 or email patricke@ejusa.org.

Statement by Hannah Cox, National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty:

“Ending New Hampshire’s death penalty would not have been possible without significant Republican support. Increasing numbers of GOP lawmakers believe capital punishment does not align with their conservative values of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and valuing life. The state of New Hampshire will be much better off because of it.”

For more information contact Jon Crane at 203-982-4575 or email joncrane@criticalpr.com.

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Newark PD memorandum has huge potential for transformation

Today, the Newark Police Department has adopted a policy to end practices that for too long prevented survivors of trauma — specifically survivors of color — from accessing the support and healing services they need.  

Over the past 2 years, EJUSA Senior Strategist Will Simpson has facilitated the South Ward Public Safety Roundtable alongside our partners at the Newark Community Street Team. The Roundtable which was created by the Newark Community Street Team, hosts community members, police officers, and other key stakeholders who affect public safety in Newark with the goal of understanding cycles of violence in the city and centering public safety.

Over the course of these bi-weekly meetings, several attendees voiced concerns about police practices that prevent survivors of violence from receiving the services they need in order to heal. When a police officer speaks with someone who has endured a violent and traumatic event, and has difficulty understanding or receiving a statement from that person, they often mark them as “uncooperative” on police reports. Federal policy prevents any person who applies for victims’ compensation and is marked as uncooperative from receiving any publicly funded victims’ compensation services.

What law enforcement did not realize is that when a person is harmed, they may present behaviors that appear as “non-cooperative” but that are simply the manifestation of trauma. Things like animated behavior, the use of profanity, or a refusal or inability to communicate have all been used against survivors on police reports. But it is the effects of trauma, rather than a blatant refusal to cooperate, which may result in a person exhibiting these types of behaviors. Other real factors, including the fear of retaliation, prevent many survivors and witnesses of violence from speaking about their victimization to the police. 

In early December, EJUSA signed onto a letter demanding that the Newark Police Department (NPD) shift its policies away from marking survivors as “non-cooperative”, and adopt a more trauma-informed approach to their interactions with those who have been harmed.

Today, the Newark Department of Public Safety released a memorandum calling on law enforcement to refrain from labeling survivors in the wake of trauma without taking into account their recent experience and their possible state of mind. This groundbreaking memorandum also states that officers may not use an individual’s personal history (e.g., having a prior conviction or history of substance dependence), to assume that their prior actions lead to their victimization.

This memorandum is a great step toward true justice for survivors, and has the potential to radically change the ways that law enforcement interacts with the surrounding community. We are calling on NPD to actively enforce these policies and ensure that survivors have access to the services they deserve in the wake of trauma, and to continue toward building a more humane and trauma-informed police practice.

Read the full memo here.

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EJUSA launches the Gibbons Fund for Justice

Last week, the Gibbons Law firm in Newark, NJ hosted a reception to launch the Judge John J. Gibbons Fund for Justice at EJUSA.

More than eighty people gathered to celebrate the Judge’s extraordinary legacy of justice and the launch of the fund at EJUSA in his honor. Guests included family, friends, former law clerks, former colleagues from Seton Hall Law School, and former and current recipients of the John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest & Constitutional Law, which litigates historic, cutting-edge civil rights and civil liberties cases. Also attending were several of the Judge’s friends and colleagues from the Fund for New Jersey, which generously provided an inaugural leadership gift to honor the Judge, a founding Fund for New Jersey board member for more than 40 years before his retirement in 2015.

Established by the Gibbons family and EJUSA, the Judge John J. Gibbons Fund for Justice at EJUSA honors the Judge’s five decades as a judge, lawyer, and advocate who has tirelessly worked to advance our nation’s promise of civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights. His unwavering belief in these principles led him to represent death row inmates and to play a critical role in the historic 2007 repeal of New Jersey’s death penalty.

The Judge John J. Gibbons Fund for Justice at EJUSA will continue Judge Gibbons’ vision of justice into the future by supporting EJUSA’s work to end the death penalty.

Check out the pictures from the event. Click on any picture for a full-screen view with captions:

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Help end the death penalty in Delaware!

The bill to repeal the death penalty will be debated on the House floor this Thursday, January 28. After being stalled in committee for three years, the full House will finally get a chance to weigh in.

Now is the time to contact your Representative and tell him/her to say YES to repeal.

Delaware’s death penalty has become a symbol of the broader problems with race and the criminal system. A Cornell University Study found that 70 percent of Delaware’s death sentences were in cases where the murder victim was white, even though the majority of murder victims are black.

This Thursday is do or die. The House floor is the final hurdle before death penalty repeal goes to the Governor, who has already agreed to sign it. Our partners at the Delaware Repeal Project continue to mobilize diverse voices to show lawmakers that Delawareans are ready to see the death penalty end. Repeal gains momentum every day.

This is your last chance to share YOUR reasons for supporting repeal. Email your Representative now and show him/her what momentum looks like!

Together, we can make the “First State” the next state to end the death penalty!

After you act, please use the share links to post to social media, and forward this email to everyone you know. There is no better time to share this action across Delaware.

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NAE’s new statement reverberates around the country

National Association of Evangelicals

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) recently changed their 40-year pro-death penalty position, noting serious concerns with the death penalty and acknowledging growing opposition and differing views on the issue among Evangelicals. NAE’s board of directors voted for the resolution giving guidance to the NAE’s more than 45,000 congregations from nearly 40 different denominations, serving millions of Americans.

The media took notice.

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Major Evangelical Group Calls for Death Penalty Repeal

NALEC press conference

The National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NaLEC) became the first national association of Evangelical congregations to join the effort to repeal the death penalty. NaLEC’s board of directors voted unanimously for the resolution and is urging its 3,000 member congregations to support efforts to end capital punishment across the country.

The President of NaLEC, Rev. Gabriel Salguero, said, “As Christ followers, we are called to work toward justice for all. And as Latinos, we know too well that justice is not always even-handed. The death penalty is plagued by racial and economic disparities and risks executing an innocent person. Human beings are fallible and there is no room for fallibility in matters of life and death.”

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Trend away from death penalty continues as states and courts halt executions

In 2014, the United States saw its fewest executions in twenty years. Now, less than a quarter of the way into 2015, two new governors – Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and Kate Brown of Oregon – have declared a halt to executions in their states. In other states, lingering questions over lethal injection are also keeping executions on hold.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf made his announcement in mid-February, shortly after he took office. In an eloquent, multi-page statement, he said he would not allow executions to go forward in Pennsylvania until the recommendations of a forthcoming study on Pennsylvania’s death penalty are fully addressed.

Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown stepped into the Governorship after the resignation of John Kitzhaber last month. As soon as she took office, she promised to continue the moratorium on executions that Kitzhaber imposed in late 2011. Brown said she believes there needs to be a broader discussion about the death penalty in the state, and she will not consider going forward with executions until that time.

Pennsylvania and Oregon join Colorado and Washington as states where governors have imposed moratoria. Elsewhere, the courts are stepping in.

Executions in Florida, Oklahoma, and Alabama are all on hold while the states wait for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling over their specific execution protocols. Ohio has canceled all executions in 2015 because they cannot get the necessary drugs needed for their lethal injection procedures. And Georgia – where the execution procedure is an official state secret – has indefinitely postponed all of its upcoming executions while they look into why their lethal drugs appeared “cloudy” when they should be clear.

When the Supreme Court announced it would once again take up questions over lethal injection, Attorney General Eric Holder offered his own opinion that the entire country should put executions on hold. Beyond the specifics of execution methods, Holder admitted, “there’s always the possibility that mistakes will be made…There is no ability to correct a mistake where somebody has, in fact, been executed. And that is from my perspective the ultimate nightmare.”

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