STARVIN' FOR JUSTICE 2007

The 14th Annual Fast & Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty
at the U.S. Supreme Court
June 29th - July 2nd, 2007

A four day vigil maintaining a presence at SCOTUS, the Supreme Court Of The United States. Some of the participants fast during this time, but fasting is not required. We encounter thousands of visitors to the Court and share our message that no matter how you slice it, the death penalty is BAD PUBLIC POLICY. Much of the time is spent talking to individuals and creating visibilty. Several larger events are held at key times during the event to highlight specific concerns, with a series of speakers each evening to educate, enlighten and entertain…

Click Here to see pictures and more info on what goes on during the Fast & Vigil!

Among the confirmed Evening Program speakers for 2007 are the following. You never know who might show up... Each evening will feature full-length talks plus Q&A with between two and four speakers, including people with direct experience and also movement activists and professionals.

CLICK HERE to see the schedule of who is speaking when!

• Moreese Bickham - whose death sentence was changed due to the Furman decision and who completed his sentence and was released.
• SueZann Bosler, Murder Victim Family Member
• Joan Cheever - Author of "BACK FROM THE DEAD: One Woman's Search For The Men Who Walked Off America's Death Row."
• Renny Cushing - Murder Victim Family Member
• David Elliot - Communications Director, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
• Georgi Fisher - Murder Victim Family Member
• Shujaa Graham, California Death Row Survivor
• Marshall Hartman - Advocate for the Condemned/Participant in Furman Legal Effort
• Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins and Bill Jenkins - Murder Victim Family Members
• Art Laffin - Murder Victim Family Member
• Christina Lawson - murder victim family member and widow of an executed prisoner
• Ron McAndrew - former prison warden who has participated in executions
• Bill Pelke - Co-founder of the F&V; Murder Victim Family Member
• Phyllis Prentice - Organizer & Spouse of an Exonerated Death Row Prisoner
• Delia Perez Meyer - Sister of Texas Death Row Prisoner
• Shabak WaQlimi - Exonerated and Freed from Florida's Death Row
• George White, Murder Victim Family Member, Exonerated Prisoner

And other Death Row Family Members and Murder Victim Family Members....

International Death Penalty Abolition Day

"DEATH PENALTY FOUNDATIONS CRUMBLING"

Celebrating 160 Years Without Death Penalty

With judicial, legislative or executive moratoriums on executions in place in at least eight states, March 1st, 2007, International Death Penalty Abolition Day, brings with it not only a celebration of the past but an indicator of the future. The death penalty in the United
States is on its way out.

Executions have been suspended, literally, from coast to coast, as Florida and California grapple with the question of how to prevent botched lethal injection executions. Other states have joined them in suspending executions: Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee. Indeed, more than one third of the nation's approximately 3,350 people on death rows across the U.S. are in states where a moratorium exists on carrying out the death penalty.

Abolition Day 2007 is the 160th anniversary of the date in 1847 when the State of Michigan officially became the first English-speaking territory in the world to abolish the death penalty.

"People in the United States are beginning to take a hard look at how our criminal justice system is failing," said Bill Pelke, Chairman of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Founder of The Journey of Hope ...From Violence to Healing. "As a former
supporter of the death penalty who has lost a loved one to murder, I know that anyone who examines the system from a non-emotional standpoint will find that economically, socially and morally, the practice of the death penalty is bad public policy. Billions of
dollars have been spent on the deathpenalty in this country since 1972, for a net result of 1063
executions. This is hardly a good return on that investment. Alternatives to the death penalty exist that punish severely while protecting society, without more killing."

Organizers of "Abolition Day" events point to the State of Michigan as an example that viable alternatives to the death penalty exist. "They got rid of the death penalty because they found that they could not trust themselves to use it fairly, and they learned too late that they had killed an innocent man," said Pelke. Michigan has been without the death penalty for 160 years. The first act of their new legislature whenMichigan became a state was to abolish the death penalty.

"Politicians owe it to the people of this country to take a serious look at the alternatives to the death penalty already in use across this country," said Pelke. "Violent criminals can be punished, and society protected, through the use of long-term prison sentences before a convicted person can be considered for parole. It works in Michigan and in other states like California, which has the oldest 'Life Without Parole' (LWOP) statute in the country. Except for
those who have been exonerated, not one of the people sentenced to LWOP has been released. We are saying to the people of our country, 'Don't make us become that which we deplore. Don't kill in our names. We can do better.'"

FOR A LISTING OF SOME OF THE EVENTS SCHEDULED ACROSS THE UNITED
STATES, as well as background information on Abolition Day, please visit CUADP.org and click on the Abolition Day Banner.