Texas Can Help End the Death Penalty

Hello,

I'm writing to you today because of an issue that is very important to me, and may be to you as well. I learned this morning that Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis) will be introducing a bill in the Senate subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights to abolish the death penalty in the United States . The bill will be called the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2009 and is probably much like the bill of the same name he introduced in 2007. However, now the time is ripe for Texans who oppose capital punishment to speak up, since our senator, John Cornyn, sits on the same subcommittee and has the power of disapproval and destruction of the bill.

I may not know if you are for or against the death penalty - if you fully support it, you may want to just delete this email - but if you have any doubts about the efficacy of the punishment on deterring crime, or the racial bias, or even that an imperfect judicial system cannot be fully responsible for the lives of citizens, then I urge you to read Amnesty International's page on the death penalty, which can be found here.

If you are opposed to this very final and very cruel form of punishment, I ask that you, as a Texan, write to Senator Cornyn and express your wish that he support Senator Fiengold's bill. You can find a contact form to his office here. In full disclosure, I have included the letter I wrote this morning; please feel free to use it as a template for your own, or write freely about your concerns. The limit on the contact form is 10,000 characters.

Thanks for hearing me out, and please pass this email along to anyone who opposes capital punishment.

Sincerely,

Leah Manners

My letter to Sen. Cornyn:

Dear Senator Cornyn,

As a resident of the state you represent, I write to you today to ask you to support Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to end the death penalty in the United States in the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights on which you serve.

The decision by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to end capital punishment in his state makes this an ideal time to take a stance against this arbitrary, inhumane, and irresponsible form of punishment. Additionally, the recent "'crazy' but 'sane'" ruling on the case of Andre Thomas is an absolute embarrassment to Texans and our judicial system and should be used as an example of an abuse of the punishment. The fact that the Unites States remains the only first world nation to continue this horrid practice only adds to our collective shame.

Texas has already freed more than nine prisoners from death row because they were determined to be innocent after their sentencing. How many innocents has it killed?

I urge you now to take a stand against this absolutely irresponsible system of punishment, if only because people can make mistakes, including people in our judiciary system and those mistakes shouldn't be irreversible. Please do your part to push the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2009 through your subcommittee and have it heard on the Senate floor.

Sincerely,
Constituent Leah Manners

US Senator Russ Feingold reintroduces bill to abolish federal death penalty

More on S.650 is here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bdD2dj:@@@L&summ2=m&|/b
ss/d111query.html|
The text of S.650 will be at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.650:

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http://feingold.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=310109
Thursday, March 19, 2009

FEINGOLD REINTRODUCES BILL TO ABOLISH FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY
Feingold's Longtime Effort Comes as New Mexico Repeals Death Penalty

Washington, D.C. - As momentum builds in states to abolish the death penalty,
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold reintroduced legislation today to abolish the death
penalty at the federal level. Feingold's Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act
of 2009 would put an immediate halt to federal executions and forbid the use
of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. The use of
the death penalty has been questioned by a range of prominent voices across
the country, recently repealed in New Mexico and New Jersey, and abolished by
123 countries around the world. Feingold's bill would stop executions on the
federal level, which are part of a death penalty system that has proven to be
ineffective, wrought with racial disparities, and alarmingly costly.

"I oppose the death penalty because it is inconsistent with basic American
principles of justice, liberty and equality," Feingold said. "Governor Bill
Richardson and the New Mexico legislature's action to abolish the death
penalty in that stateadds to the growing momentum behind ending the death
penalty in this country. It is truly unfortunate that we are in a shrinking
minority of countries that continue to allow state-sponsored executions."

Feingold is not alone in his opposition to the death penalty. A range of
prominent voices have questioned the system in recent years, including former
FBI Director William Sessions, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor, law enforcement officials and many others across the political
spectrum. In 2007, only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan executed more
people than the United States.

In 2007, Feingold chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee, Constitution
Subcommittee hearing on oversight of the federal death penalty that
highlighted the lack of transparency at the Department of Justice in the
decision-making process about the death penalty and continuing problems of
racial disparities in the federal system. Also in 2007, the American Bar
Association called for a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment based on
its detailed study of state death penalty systems, which found racial
disparities, convictions based on bad evidence, grossly inadequate indigent
defense systems, and a host of other problems with the implementation of
capital punishment in this country.