2008 Alternative Spring Break Schedule

Below is the schedule for 2008. There may still be some slight changes. Go to TSADP blog for daily spring break blogs by participants.

• Monday, March 10
  

  • Before 2 PM Housing check-in for people who have signed up for housing. We have rented several hotel rooms. We will let you know the locations of the hotels and contact you about which location you will be staying at. If you can not check in earlier in the day, then just go directly to the location of the first event and you can check in to your room after the workshops. Monday's events will take place on the UT-Austin campus in Garrison 1.126.
  • 5:15-5:45 PM -- Meet at Garrison 1.126 for snacks and socializing before the first speaker.
  • 5:45 - 6 PM -- Introduction to the Alternative Spring Break by Hooman Hedayati of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty and Scott Cobb of Texas Moratorium Network.
  • 6 :-6:45 PM -- A talk with Rick Reed, a former Dallas and Austin assistant district attorney who opposes the death penalty.
  • 6:45-7:00 "Live Phone Call from Inside a Prison" event organized by the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty featuring a live phone call from an inmate whose death sentence was commuted to life by former Governor Ryan in Illinois. Victor Safforld (AKA Cortez Brown), one of the Death Row 10, will call in and speak to us on the phone from inside a supermax prison in Illinois.
    7:00 – 7:10 PM Break - Pizza provided
  • 7:15 - 8:15 PM Alan Clarke, a lawyer who has handled death penalty cases and co-author of a new book entitled "The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty". Room to be announced.
  • Evening Time on your own for enjoying Austin, including the SXSW film festival.
    
    
    
• Tuesday, March 11 - Meet at Garrison 1.126
  

  • 1:00 - 2:15 PM Workshop: "Lobbying and Influencing Legislators" led by Doug Lewin, chief of staff for Texas State Rep. Lon Burnam. During the workshop, participants will learn how to interact effectively with legislators or legislative aides and plan for the next day's lobbying activity.
    
  • 2:15- 2:30 PM BREAK
  • 2:30 - 3:20 PM Workshop "How to Debate the Death Penalty" led by Bryan McCann, coach of UT's nationally-ranked speech and debate team. Bryan is a member of Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

  • 3:20 - 3:30 BREAK
    
  • 3:30 - 4:30 Mental Illness and the Death Penalty led by Kristin Houlé, who served for five years as the Program Associate for Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. She was involved with Amnesty International for more than 12 years and held several volunteer leadership roles (including State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for Kentucky) before joining the staff in 2002. Kristin was the lead organizer of AIUSA's National Weekend of Faith in Action on the Death Penalty (NWFA). In 2007, Kristin received a Soros Justice Fellowship to work on the issue of the death penalty and mental illness in Texas.
  • 5 PM - Petition Signature Gathering Competition: We will divide into teams and fan out throughout Austin to collect signatures on a petition against the death penalty. People can collect signatures at places such as where SXSW events are taking place, outside certain bookstores or other stores if they allow it, on the streets in downtown Austin and wherever else the teams want to try. The team that collects the most petition signatures (with names, addresses, email addresses and possibly phone numbers) will win a prize of $100. We will decide as a group what size the teams can be. Options are 1, 2, 3, 4, or more person teams.
  • 7 PM: Meet back at Goodall Wooten to see who won

• Wednesday, March 12 Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day and MVFR Panel - Meet at Texas Capitol
  

  • 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Murder Victim Family Member Panel.
  • Location: The Texas State Capitol in room E2.016, which is in the underground level of the Capitol.
    Panelists include:
  • Renny Cushing, Founder and Executive Director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights. His father's murder in 1988 has shaped his work as an advocate for crime victims and as an opponent of capital punishment. As a victim-abolitionist Renny has been a pioneer in the effort to bridge death penalty abolition groups and the victims' rights movement)
  • Delia Perez Meyer, who is fighting to exonerate her brother, Louis Castro Perez, who is on death row in Texas.
  • Kerry Cook, an innocent man who spent 22 years on Texas Death Row and recently wrote a book, "Chasing Justice".
  • Jeanette Popp, mother of a mother victim. Jeanette's duaghte, Nancy was murdered in Austin in 1988 and two innocent men were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life. Later, the real killer confessed and the innocent men released after 12 years spent in prison. Jeanette asked the Travis County DA not to seek the death penalty against Nancy's killer.
  • 11:30 Lunch Break
  • 12:00 Get in line for 1 PM Film Showing at the SXSW Film Festival. Bring $10 for admission. We will see the documentary, "At the Death House Door ", which follows the remarkable career journey of Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous 'Walls' prison unit in Huntsville, Texas. During that time he presided over 95 executions, including the very first lethal injection done anywhere in the world. After each execution, Pickett recorded an audiotape account of that fateful day. The film also tells the story of Carlos De Luna, a convict whose execution bothered Pickett more than any other. Pickett firmly believed the man was innocent and two Chicago Tribune reporters turn up evidence that strongly suggests he was right.
  • 3 PM: Visits to Legislative Offices
  • 4 PM "A People’s Tribunal Against the Death Penalty". Location: South Steps of the Texas Capitol . Everybody from spring break and others from the public will have an opportunity to put the death penalty "on trial." It will be conducted as a sort of public "trial" at which the "defendant" is the death penalty. Everyone will be able to "testify' against the death penalty as a "witness" saying why the death penalty should be abolished.

• Thursday, March 13: Protest and Rally Day

  • 1 PM-2:45 PM Meet at Garrison 1.126
    Skills Building Workshop: "Winning Step-By-Step: How to Organize and Win Moratorium and Abolition Resolutions at the Grassroots Level" led by Sarah Craft. This workshop will cover how to convince student governments, city councils, churches and othe:r organizations to pass resolutions. Sarah Craft works for Equal Justice USA (www.ejusa.org). EJUSA is a national leader in the movement to halt executions, providing hands-on technical assistance, grassroots organizing support, and capacity building to state and local campaigns across the country.
  • 2:45 to 3:00 PM Break
  • 3:00 - 4:00 "Youth Media Workshop" led by Campus Progress.
  • 4:00 - 6 PM Organize and Carry out a protest around the case of Rodney Reed. Rally for an innocent man on Texas' death row beginning at the Capitol (11th and Congress) and marching down Congress, Sixth, and then back tot he Capitol. The exact type, location and message of the protest will be decided on by the students. Coordinated by Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
  • 7PM - Meet at Goodall Wooten dormitory at 2112 Guadalupe in the lobby for discussion of the protest as well as the entire spring break. Fill out feedback forms. We can all go out to eat together afterwards.
    
  • 8 Pm - 9PM Last Supper - Spring Breakers will go out and eat their last supper. Location will be decided by the students.

• Friday, March 14: Fun Day
• This is Spring Break, so today we will have some fun and take a break after all the hard work we have done all week. Everyone is free to choose their own activities. Some things people could do are: Go swimming at Barton Springs Pool, attend a SXSW film or music event , go shopping, take a Segway tour of Austin, go jogging around Town Lake, go bike riding, visit a museum or do something else. Some of these activities cost money, so plan accordingly.
• 11 AM -- UT Campus tour for anyone interested -

Register for the 2008 Alternative Spring Break

George White at Texas Capitol

In the following days I will post a series of videos that includes speeches given by exonerated death-row inmates, murder victim family members, public officials and anti-death penalty activists. The following is a short video of George White talking during the Lobby day of 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break in Ausin, Texas. This October George will travel to Texas as part of the annual Journey of Hope from Violence to Healing.

On February 27, 1985, the White family experienced first-hand the insanity and horror of murder. George and his wife Charlene were shot repeatedly by an armed robber at his place of business in Enterprise, Alabama. George held Charlene in his arms as her life slipped away. Their children, Tom and Christie, were only 12 and 5 at the time. The nightmare had just begun. Sixteen months later, George was charged with murdering his wife. Following a capital murder trial that was later described as "a mockery and a sham", George was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was overturned in 1989 and he was released from prison, but George remained in legal limbo until 1992, when proof of his innocence was finally brought forward. Following a brief hearing the trial court ordered the charge against him forevermore dismissed. The nightmare had lasted more than seven years...had the State of Alabama had its way, George White would be a dead man today.

Understanding fully how easy it is to become advocates for revenge, the White family, however, rejects the death penalty as a solution and as way of healing the wounds of their loss.

Shooting, Borris Miles style!

Earlier this year Rep. Borris Miles, D-Houston removed a few art pieces from the Death Penalty Art Show without permission from the State Preservation Board, because he found them to be offensive toward African Americans and Christians. Houston Chronicle is now reporting that Borris Miles used a pistol and shot one of the two men who were trying to steal from the construction site of the house he is building:

Miles was upstairs at the construction site at 3742 South MacGregor Way at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday when he heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate, police said. He spotted two men, Houston police spokeswoman Johanna Abad said this morning.

"He yelled at them and one threw a small pocket knife," HPD spokesman Victor Senties said. Miles pulled his weapon and "struck the suspect in the lower left leg."

The land on which Miles is building his new home is valued at $120,715, according to Harris County tax records. The 9,200-square-foot house is valued at $435,325.

Good thing no one from the Texas Moratorium Network was present at the Capitol when he discovered the art show on the morning of March 13, 2007. He might have shot them too.

Bonus videos:



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.

MTV's The Amazing Break

You can watch the video online at mtv.com or here:

The Queque

Dave Mass of the San Antonio Current was one of our guest speakers at the Media training workshop, during the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Spring Break. You can read more on his talk at their new blog Chisme Libre. The other speaker was Pedro de la Torre III, Associate Manager of Organizing and Outreach for Campus Progress. Campus Progress has always been a sponsor of our projects by providing both financial and leadership support.

SA Current always has a fundamental significance for us at the TSADP. Because they were the first paper to cover our activities. A few months before my graduation from high school, I organized TSADP's first protest in front of Bexar County courthouse in downtown San Antonio on April 2005. We were able to gather around twenty students from local high schools and the Trinity University to protest execution of Douglas Robert and Milton Mathis.

They also published a very hilarious piece this week on Rep. Miles and the art show censorship during the spring break. You can read the full article online.

It ain’t no easy trick for the Queque to escape not only the office, but the city for a couple days mid-week. Especially if our main goal is to check out the hottest new Nordic indie-rock outfits. But even political bloodhounds can’t resist the scent of SXSW blowing in from the 35: armpit patchouli, flat and fetid bargain beer, and freshly mowed grass (the class-B-misdemeanor variety).

To justify the trip, the Queque wormed our way into a 20-minute speaking slot at the Alternative Spring Break, which is the annual activist-training camp thrown by the Texas Students Against the Death Penalty for high-school and college activists. (Can you imagine the stories? “One time ... at death-penalty camp ...”). We met with Say-Town’s own survivalists, both from the International School of the Americas: Jew-froed, Matisyahu acolyte Sam Kohn and Aryan Hedayati, brother to Hooman Hedayati, TSADP’s president. Dave Maass embarrassed himself, but for details you’ll have to read his confession on our Chisme Libre blog.

The Queque’s pilgrimage coincided with the death-penalty art censorship controversy. Surely you read about it, perhaps in the LA Times, the NY Times, the Washington Post, or the Guardian? Last week, the Texas Moratorium Network moved much of the artwork from their annual anti-death-penalty art show, “Justice for All?”, to the E2 Capitol Annex. Representative Boris Miles, a Democrat from Houston, happened upon these two images while leading his 5 and 8-year-olds down the corridor:

“Doing God’s Work,” a watercolor by Portland-based artist and Art Institute of Chicago alumnus Shanon Playford; and “The Widowmaker,” by death-row inmate and native Cuban Reinaldo Dennes, which links racist lynchings to the death penalty.

In order to protect his children from the horrors of art reflecting the horrors of Texas state policy, Miles yanked the two works off their easels and locked them in his office — that’s instead of complaining to the State Preservation Board, which oversees Capitol displays, or Representative Harold Dutton, who sponsored the exhibit. The first offends Christians, the second offends blacks, Representative Miles told student activists. Scott Cobb, president of the Texas Moratorium Network, found it amusing and wished only that it had been a Republican censor instead.

The Queque is obviously a proponent of free speech, especially at the Capitol, the most public of public buildings, where ideas should flow as freely as snot from a crying babe’s nose. All things should be discussed under the Pink Dome, particularly the ugly stuff, like the rapes and abuse within the Texas Youth Commission. Rapes and abuse, by the way, are not appropriate for children.

Next week we hope to hear that Miles is tearing up the tile at the Capitol with his bare hands. This mosaic pattern is certainly questionable:

MTV TRL update

The 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break is going to be on MTV 's TRL
today at 4:19 pm (3:19 central) and then a longer version is going to be aired on
MTV's "The Amazing Break" on March 24, Sunday at 8 AM Eastern (7 AM Central) with
repeats to follow on other dates.

Also here is a 3 minute MTV commercial against death penalty in Spanish called
"mistake," directed by A Toscana.

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.

Students spend spring break opposing death penalty

3/17/2007
By: News 8 Austin Staff


Most think spring break is a time for relaxation. But instead of the usual R&R, a few teenagers came to Austin for the week to learn about the death penalty.

The Texas Students Against the Death Penalty sponsored the event as their alternative spring break.

One student was on the fence about capital punishment, and came to make up her own mind.

"I always heard it was a human rights violation, but I wanted to get to know the facts, and thought it would be interesting to get a different perspective," Katy ISD sophomore Zainab Alam said.

Their alternative spring break was literally a working vacation. They learned about organizing protests and setting up nonprofit chapters.

Some of these students intend to keep the ball rolling once they get home.

"This gives me a lot of personal stories and equipment to go back to my school and start my own chapter of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty," San Antonio ISD junior Sam Kohn said.

The TSADP is made up of both high school and college students across the state. Texas executed 24 people in 2006, 45 percent of the 53 total executions in the U.S. last year. Texas has executed eight people so far in 2007.

Pictures - top: "Day of the Innocence Rally" below: Sam "Innocence and The Death Penalty", a talk and question and answer discussion with Sam Milsap, former Bexar County District Attorney. Mr Milsap prosecuted Ruben Cantu, but now believes that Cantu may have been innocent. Cantu was executed in 1993.

2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

The 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break sponsored by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Campus Progress, Texas Moratorium Network, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Campus Progress, Equal Justice USA, Amnesty International, the ACLU, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Resist, INC Foundation , Victims of Texas and Murder Victims' Families for Human Rightsand several other organizations was a big success. Students received valuable training and experience in grassroots organizing, lobbying, preparing a direct action and media relations. During the week, students immediately put what they learned into action during activities such as the "Day of Innocence Rally" at the Texas capitol, when they visited members of the Texas Legislature and lobbied them on the need for a moratorium on executions. They also organized a protest in the heart of the SXSW music festival in downtown Austin during the Direct Action Day.

As a result of all their hard work throughout the week, the students generated hugely positive media coverage that helped educate the public on the issue of the death penalty. Scott Cob, president of Texas Moratorium Network compared the week's events to past struggles for social justice by saying, "this is an historical echo to what happened in the 1960s when people came down to the South during the Civil Rights Movement to help people register to vote, what they called freedom summers. This is very similar to what was going on back then, but here the issue is the death penalty."

Planning for the alternative spring break began last October. During the weeks leading up to the event, the students who organized the program had to solve various problems, such as finding replacements for a couple of speaker cancellations and finding cheap housing in Austin during the busy SXSW film and music festival. This year we had students coming from as far away as the UK, Mexico and Canada.

Austin was definitely the place to be during spring break 2007 for young people whose goals include becoming part of the next generation of human rights leaders. As one of the students said, "I could have gone to the beach and changed my state of mind for a week instead I came to Austin this week to change the world forever." During the spring break, students also had plenty of free time to enjoy Austin - the Live Music Capital of the World.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1066 executions in the United States (as of March 12, 2007). Texas performed 387 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.

During the week students had the chance to meet and talk with people who have first-hand experience with the death penalty, such as, Kerry Cook, an innocent man who spent 22 years on Texas Death Row and recently wrote a book, "Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After 22 Years on Death Row". Shujaa Graham, an African American man who spent 3 years on California's death-row for a crime he did not commit. Moreese "Pops" Bickham, who was on death row when the Furman v Georgia decision was announced in 1972 abolishing the death penalty. He is now the oldest living survivor of the Furman v Georgia decision. George White, an innocent man who spent years in prison wrongfully convicted of killing his wife only to be finally exonerated. Christina Lawson, whose father was murdered when she was a child and whose husband, David Martinez, was executed in Texas on July 28, 2005 for a murder completely unconnected to the murder of her father as a child.

The students also got a lesson in free speech during the week when a Texas state representative took it upon himself to remove two death penalty themed artworks in an exhibition at the state capitol that had been placed as a part of the spring break. He called the artworks extremely inappropriate and highly objectionable".

Several of the students have said that they intend to remain active in the anti-death penalty movement when they return home, including Zainab Alam of Katy, Texas, a spring breaker who spoke at the "Day of Innocence" rally and plans to start a new TSADP chapter in her school.

You can find the full schedule of this year's events at Texas Students Against the Death Penalty's website: http://www.springbreakalternative.org

Pictures from top to bottom: 1. Students protesting the death penalty during the SXSW festival in downtown Austin. 2. Protest at the Governor's mansion. 3. Talking to Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) during the Lobby Day. 4. Shujaa Graham listening during the "Day of Innocence Rally."

"Day of Innocence" Rally on South Steps of Capitol

Today: 6:00 - 7:00 PM "Innocence and The Death Penalty", a talk and question and answer discussion with Sam Milsap, former Bexar County District Attorney. Mr Milsap prosecuted Ruben Cantu, but now believes that Cantu may have been innocent. Cantu was executed in 1993.
Location: Waggener 101 on the UT-Austin campus.

Tomorrow: "Day of Innocence" Rally on South Steps of Capitol Speakers include Kerry Cook, an innocent man who spent 22 years on Texas Death Row and recently wrote a book, "Chasing Justice"; State Rep. Harold Dutton; Senator Eliot Shapleigh; Shujaa Graham, an exonerated former death row inmate; Renny Cushing, Executive Director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights; Martha Cotera, whose 25-year-old son Juan Javier was murdered in a carjacking and drowning in Austin in 1997; Christina Lawson, Director of Victim's of Texas, a student speaker from the alternative spring break; Bill Pelke, chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and director of Journey of Hope, Lee Greenwood, mother of Joseph Nichols, who was executed in Texas on March 7, 2007; and others TBA.

For details visit: http://springbreakalternative.org

pre-spring break media coverage

Breakin' It Down! Wire Tap

Alternative Spring Break The Nation

Texas Alternative Spring Break UT Austin

Spring Break for advocates SMU Daily Campus

Students fight death penalty in alternative spring break The Daily Texan

Spring Break Altruism Austin Chronicle

Texas Alternative Spring Break

by Sarah Samuel
March 7, 2007

MTV is coming to Austin next week to cover students as they give up their spring break to participate in a week long program concerning the death penalty.

Created in 2004 by Texas Moratorium Network, Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break will commence March 12.

“Alternative Spring Break is an excellent tool for creating awareness,” said
20-year-old Jackson Smith who attended last year’s event. “It impacts students so
they will go back with a thorough knowledge and personal understanding about the
death penalty.”

From March 12 to March 16, students will participate in media training, attend a
lobby day, engage in panel discussions, and listen to speakers such as Shujaa
Graham, an exonerated death row inmate.

After the event’s first year, Texas Moratorium Network handed over the
organization of Alternative Spring Break to Texas Students Against the Death
Penalty, a University of Texas student organization.

According to Hooman Hedayati, president of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, the goal of the event is to educate students enough so they will not forget the issues and will go back home and affect other people.

The 24-hour college network, mtvU, covered the anti-death penalty spring break in its prior years, but this year MTV decided to include the event in its spring break series “The Amazing Break.” Ian Rowe, senior vice president of public affairs at MTV, said this decision came when they began hearing from young people and realized this cause was a grassroots movement in colleges across the country.

About 50 students from all over Texas and across the country have registered for this year’s anti-death penalty spring break, which is more than the past two-year’s attendance combined. Because the event is open to the public, many more Austin community members are expected to attend.

Registration is free, except for out-of-town students who must pay $25 for housing. Texas Students Against the Death Penalty arranged for those who need housing to stay in the Goodall Wooten dormitory near the University of Texas campus, and because of the increase in attendance, some students will stay in a hotel.

The rally on Tuesday will be on the South steps of the Capitol and the protest on Thursday will be conducted at the governor’s mansion. Students will attend workshops held at the University of Texas campus and the Texas State Travis Building. There will also be panel discussions in the Capitol’s committee rooms and a book-signing panel at UT on Wednesday.

“Students will learn life skills needed as young people to help shape a better world,” said Renny Cushing, a second-year speaker and founder of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights.

Last year’s students rode a bus to Huntsville, Texas to protest the execution of Tommie Hughes for the murder of two Dallas women during a robbery. This protest was described by several participators as the most significant part of Alternative Spring Break last year.

“It was surreal to be present at the execution,” said Smith. “The whole experience was really emotional and personal.”

“It was rewarding to see them become engaged and try to solve a problem,” said Scott Cobb, coordinator at the Texas Moratorium Network. “The bus ride to Huntsville provided a bonding experience for the students, because it opened up many conversations about the effects of the death penalty.”

Alternative Spring Break hopes to have an impact on death penalty legislation in Texas, but according to many participants, its main impact will be on the students.

“There is no other human rights oriented spring break event that I am aware of where young people are invited to come, participate, and be trained,” said Cobb.

“Alternative Spring Break has already made an impact,” said Christina Lawson, a 29-year-old woman whose husband was executed in 2005. “It informs and encourages the next generation who will influence many others.”

The Austin Alternative Spring Break 2007 episode will air March 22 as an MTV news special during the network’s show “Total Request Live.” It will then air as the first of five segments in “The Amazing Break” on Sunday, March 25.

“This was a call to action that was different and intertwined with many emotions,” said MTV producer Megan Desales. “MTV likes to show ordinary students doing amazing things that will prompt other people in the future.”

Rep Farrar files bill to abolish death penalty in Texas

State Representative Jessica Farrar filed a bill (HB 3740) Friday to abolish the death penalty in Texas. She is the second Texas legislator to file such a bill this session. Rep Dutton has filed an abolition bill every session since 2003.

Other states also considering legislation to abolish the death penalty this year include Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire and New Jersey.

Spring break registration

You can still register. All events are free and open to the public, both students and non-students.

Race to Execution Screening

Tuesday 7 PM - Screening of RACE TO EXECUTION. The movie reveals how, beyond DNA and the issue of innocence, the shameful open secret of America's capital punishment system is a matter of race. Once a victim’s body is discovered, his or her race—and the race of the accused—deeply influence the legal process: how a crime scene is investigated and the deployment of police resources, the interrogation and arrest of major suspects, how the media portrays the crime and ultimately, the jury selection and sentencing.

UTC 1.146 on the UT-Austin campus. Map. UTC is next to the PCL Library.

Race discrimination infects America’s capital punishment system. According to a landmark study regarding race and the death penalty, a black defendant who kills a white victim is up to 30 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a white defendant who kills a black victim. RACE TO EXECUTION, a film by Rachel Lyon, traces the fates of two death row inmates, Robert Tarver in Russell County, Alabama and Madison Hobley in Chicago, Illinois. Their compelling personal stories are enlarged and enriched by attorneys who fought for these men’s lives, and by prosecutors, criminal justice scholars and experts in the fields of law and the media.

RACE TO EXECUTION reveals how, beyond DNA and the issue of innocence, the shameful open secret of America's capital punishment system is a matter of race. Once a victim’s body is discovered, his or her race—and the race of the accused—deeply influence the legal process: how a crime scene is investigated and the deployment of police resources, the interrogation and arrest of major suspects, how the media portrays the crime and ultimately, the jury selection and sentencing.

Hugh Kite, a white man, general store owner and mainstay of his rural Alabama community, was murdered during the course of a robbery on September 15, 1984. Less than four months after Kite was murdered, Robert Tarver, a black man, was sentenced to die. The prosecutor at Tarver’s trial rejected all but one of the African Americans qualified for jury service. Eleven white Alabamans and one African American composed Tarver’s “jury of his peers.” And as prosecutors have long known, a trial can turn on who is sitting in the jury box. Recent research indicates the extent to which the make-up of the jury affects sentencing: when five or more white males sit on a capital trial jury, there is a 70 percent chance of a death penalty outcome. If there are four or fewer white males, the chance of a death sentence is only 30 percent.

Whether in the rural South or the inner city North, virtually all-white juries are commonplace—and potentially lethal to black defendants. In 1987, in Chicago, Madison Hobley, a young black medical technician married to his high school sweetheart, lost his wife and son in an apartment house blaze. Hobley was accused of setting the fire. Police officers claimed that Hobley had signed a written confession but that spilled coffee had destroyed the document. A panel consisting of 11 white jurors and one African American juror convicted Madison Hobley and sentenced him to die.

With key 2005 Supreme Court decisions overturning death sentences in Texas and California due to racial discrimination in jury selection, RACE TO EXECUTION offers a timely analysis. The film examines the subtle yet persistent ways in which American culture consistently overlooks matters of race in criminal justice. Neither advocating nor repudiating capital punishment, the film catalyzes dialogues about the inherent imbalances that lead to inaccuracy and unfairness in the application of the “ultimate punishment.”

The film concludes with the exoneration of one man and the execution of another. In both cases, race is a factor impossible to avoid. Yet there are signs that the death penalty is being used less often in the United States and scrutinized differently than it was even five years ago. The Supreme Court heard five death penalty cases in 2005 alone. Is this progress, or are recent reforms still inadequate? The varied voices heard in RACE TO EXECUTION contribute to a thoughtful examination of the factors that influence who lives and who dies at the hands of the state.

Sam Milsap, former Bexar County DA, to speak in Austin March 12 at 6 PM

Sam Milsap, the former Bexar County DA, will speak on March 12 at the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break. Milsap prosecuted Ruben Cantu, but now believes that Cantu may have been innocent of the crime for which he was executed in 1993.

Mr Milsap will speak from 6 - 7 PM in a room to be announced on the UT-Austin campus. The public is welcome to attend. It is free.

Mr Milsap will discuss the Cantu case and the issue of innocence and the death penalty.

There will be a "Day of Innocence" rally and Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day at the Texas capitol on Tuesday, March 13, 2007. The rally starts at noon on the South Steps of the capitol.

Donate to the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

Help us put on the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break in Texas March 12-16, 2007. There will be five days of activism, training and education against the death penalty. It is aimed at high school and college students, but the workshops and activities are open to the general public. There will be a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day on March 13, when we will be at the Texas capitol urging legislators to stop executions.

There is also a Direct Action Day.

This is a great project that will have a large impact on young people as well as policy-makers, both of whom will learn about how problematic the death penalty is.

Your financial contribution will help us in many ways, including bringing workshop presenters to the event, including people exonerated from death row and family members of murder victims and paying for housing for the students participating in the program.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Twenty-four people were executed in Texas 2006. There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1062 executions in the United States. Texas has performed 383 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.

As of Feb 14, there have been five executions in the United States in 2007 and four of those executions have taken place in Texas. While many other states have put executions on hold, Texas continues at its usual torrid pace.

Help us stop executions in Texas!

Go to change.org to donate online.

New Spring Break posters!

Expect too see this poster on your campus very soon!
To download the high quality version click here.

2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

Cross-posted on Campus Progress.

Looking for something to do during spring break this year? Here's an idea: come to Austin, Texas for a week of activism and education against the death penalty as part of the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break. The event is open to both high school and college students. Register now.

The 2007 anti-death penalty spring break, organized by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty and co-sponsored by Campus Progress, Amnesty International, Texas Moratorium Network, NCADP and other groups, is designed to to give students something more meaningful to do during their week off, rather than just spending time at the beach or sitting at home catching up on school work. This is the place to be if you want to become a part of the next generation of human rights leaders. Go to the beach to change your state of mind for a week, come here to change the world forever.

Students will participate in workshops led by experienced, knowledgeable presenters who will teach them skills that they can use to go back home and set up new anti-death penalty student organizations or improve ones that may already exist. The skills participants will learn can also be used in other issues besides the death penalty. During the week, students will immediately put what they learn into action during activities such as a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day and a Direct Action Day. There will be opportunities to write press releases, speak in public, meet with legislators or their aides, and conceive and carry out a direct action.

"This is an historical echo to what happened in the 1960s when people came down to the South during the Civil Rights Movement to help people register to vote, what they called freedom summers. This is very similar to what was going on back then, but here the issue is the death penalty." said Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Twenty-four people were executed in Texas in 2006. There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1060 executions in the United States. Texas has performed 381 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.

This spring break was featured last year on mtvU, NPR and the front page of The Huntsville Item. MTV is planning to send their crew to Austin again this year to shoot the spring break for "The Amazing Break," an MTV show featuring alternatives to beer and beaches. Coverage by MTV and other media outlets ensures that the anti-death penalty message of the alternative spring break will reach thousands and thousands of people.

Throughout the week students will participate in workshops and have a chance to talk and eat with people that they probably never imagined they would encounter in their daily lives, such as Shujaa Graham, an African American man who spent 3 years of his life on California's death-row for a crime he did not commit or Renny Cushing, a former New Hampshire state legislator whose father was brutally murdered or Christina Lawson, whose husband was executed by the state of Texas in 2005.

Other speakers include Moresse Bickham, who was on death row when the Furman v Georgia decision was announced in 1972 abolishing the death penalty on grounds that it violated the U.S. constitution. Another ruling four years later allowed executions to resume. Bickham was released in 1996 and at 89 is now the oldest living survivor of the Furman v Georgia decision.

Participation in the Annual Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break is an invaluable experience. Participants will come away with firsthand knowledge of the anti-death penalty movement and a new understanding of how they can affect public policy. Plus, they will an opportunity to form new friendships that could last a lifetime. During the spring break students will have plenty of free time to enjoy Austin, the Live Music Capital of the World. The famous SXSW Festival is the same week as spring break, so if anyone is interested they can attend some of the films or music events during their free time.

Thanks to contributions from Campus Progress, Resist Foundation and other groups there is no participation fee for the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break except for those people who need housing. If you do not need housing, because you live in Austin or you are making your own housing arrangements, then your participation is free, but please register so we know how many people to expect. Participants are expected to travel to Austin at their own expense and pay for their meals and incidental expenses while in Austin. We will provide some free pizza and snacks a couple of times. Housing is available for a fee of $25. That's right. $25 for all five days. That's $5 a night. Students will stay in rooms with one or two other people at a dormitory near the University of Texas at Austin.

See you in Austin!

Public Radio interview with Audrey Lamm