People's Tribunal Against the Death Penalty

One of the events during last week's anti-death penalty spring break was the People's Tribunal Against the Death Penalty. During the tribunal, students and members of the public put the death penalty "on trial." It was conducted as a sort of public "trial" at which the "defendant" was the death penalty. At the end judge Stefanie Collins found the death penalty guilty in all counts.

Video: Free Kenneth Foster Rally

Free Kenneth Foster Rally
July 21, 2007
Austin, Texas
www.Freekenneth.com

Former inmates speak out against death penalty

By JIM BERGAMO
KVUE News
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Former death row inmates spoke out against the death penalty Tuesday as part of the 'Day of Innocence" rally outside the State Capitol.

Protesters say not only should Texas do away with the death penalty, but it should not be expanded to include repeat child sex offenders who do not kill their victims.

"The death penalty is bad public policy," said former Alabama death row inmate Charles White.

Texas Senator and El Paso Democrat Eliot Shapleigh agreed, "This state must respect the rule of law."

Rally organizers say recent reports indicate that Texas may have executed three innocent men: Ruben Cantu, Carlos De Luna and Cameron Willingham.

KVUE Online Video

KVUE's Jim Bergamo reports

"Those are just the ones we know about 'cause -- let's face it -- this is a penalty where the state can bury its mistake. Who knows about it?" Kerry Cook asked. Cook knows first hand. He spent 13 years on Texas' death row for the murder of a secretary until the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that prosecutors had hidden evidence.

"There's a legislative bill to expand the madness. Let's don't fix it, let's don't stop and repair it. Let's expand the madness," Cook said.

Cook was referring to Senate Bill 5, which would expand Jessica's Law and apply the death penalty to repeat child sex offenders. Cook went before a Senate committee on criminal justice to testify against the bill.

"I'm not showing compassion for the convicted sex offender. I would be in favor of castration and life without parole," Cook said. But he says the death penalty is not the answer. "We're going to expand the death penalty? The system is broken, it's not broken from the liberal point of view, it's simply broken. And this is not the time to be expanding it, this is the time to be doing something about it."

One of those taking part in the rally was Shujaa Graham, who's experienced both sides of the death row debate. His uncle, a policeman, was murdered. And Graham himself spent five years on California's death row until he was exonerated in the death of a prison guard.

"In my home, I never heard my mother or my father talk about capital punishment. So in order to get justice I don't have to see blood," Graham said.

Dianne Clements, with Houston based Justice For All, told KVUE News, "There's absolutely no evidence, none, zilch, nada -- that an innocent person has been executed in Texas."

She says if the system, as highly scrutinized as it is, was wrought with wrongful executions, those deaths would have come to light by now.

More on Rep. Borris Miles and the Capitol art show

Here is the video of the art show and interview with Rep. Miles. Last Monday Rep. Borris Miles, D-Houston removed a few art pieces from the Death Penalty Art Show because he found them to be offensive. Yesterday a group of students went to his office during the lobby day of the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break to ask him about his action. Unfortunately as you see Rep. Miles refused to discuss his action and ended the discussion.

The level of discourse in a state capitol building should not be reduced to only what is appropriate to children under 8. Creating public policy is not a g-rated Disney movie. We can not intelligently discuss the problems affecting the state by limiting how we discuss public issues to only what is suitable for a 5 year old. The state capitol is the one building in the entire state where we must be allowed to fully engage on and grapple with difficult issues facing the state. Lynching is a part of Texas history that continues to impact our society. Executions take place today most frequently in those states where in the past lynchings were common.

If anyone would like to read more about the connection between lynchings and the death penalty, read " The Rope, The Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990" By James W. Marquart, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen. "This book is the single most comprehensive examination to date of capital punishment in any one state, drawing on data for legal executions from 1819 to 1990. The authors show persuasively how slavery and the racially biased practice of lynching in Texas led to the institutionalization and public approval of executions skewed according to race, class, and gender, and they also track long-term changes in public opinion up to the present."