For Victims, Against the Death Penalty

Let's spread the word

2009-07-14T10:17:00.003-04:00

Kristin Houle of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty wrote to tell us that TCADP has distributed copies of MVFHR's new report, Double Tragedies, to mental health advocates, defense attorneys, district attorneys, victims' advocates and family members, a couple of death row family members, and colleague organizations like the Texas Catholic Conference and the Texas ACLU. They also sent copies to 40 state legislators (members of key committees, those who have introduced bills related to mental health and criminal justice, etc.).

We are eager to work with others who want to help get this powerful report into the hands of people who can make good use of it:

• mental health advocates, families, and consumers
• victims’ advocates
• members of law enforcement
• district attorneys, defense attorneys, and others within the legal profession
• members of the religious clergy
• legislative allies

The report is available online, and a PDF or hard copy is available on request. We are ready to work with you to draft an accompanying letter to any of these stakeholders in the discussion of the death penalty and mental illness, or to arrange a targeted meeting or presentation of the report to key individuals or groups.

Toward a universal moratorium

2009-07-13T09:22:00.002-04:00

Renny Cushing is in Madrid this week, where he will participate in the seminar, "Towards a universal moratorium on the death penalty: The case of Arab Countries." Renny and MVFHR received this invitation from the Human Rights Office of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. The seminar is a joint project of that Ministry and of Casa Arabe, a Spanish institution that promotes analysis and research on Arab and Islamic countries. According to the invitation, the seminar

aims to analyse and debate both international legislation and concrete experiences in Arab countries about this important question, which is of great interest to the government of Spain. The seminar will provide an important opportunity to pool available knowledge, and advance prospects of achieving an international moratorium on the death penalty, making it a global achievement in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolutions 62/149 of December 2007 and 63/168 of December 2008.

Renny has been asked to speak about abolition of the death penalty for minors, pregnant women, and people suffering from mental illness. Participants are coming from Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon -- among other countries -- and it promises to be an interesting and important gathering. We'll have a report once Renny returns.

Report from NAMI convention

2009-07-09T11:04:00.002-04:00

We are back from the National Alliance on Mental Illness convention in San Francisco, where the "Prevention, Not Execution" panel was a powerful success. Panelists Nick and Amanda Wilcox, Carla Jacobs, Bill Babbitt, and Joe Bruce -- all of whom are featured in the DOUBLE TRAGEDIES report -- spoke to a packed room, and their stories, along with the remarks from NAMI's Ron Honberg and MVFHR's Renny Cushing, moved the audience to tears on many occasions and brought them to their feet by the end of the evening, ready to join the project and take action to end the death penalty for people with severe mental illness.

We are very grateful to NAMI for being such wonderful partners in this project. Here are a couple of the news stories that accompanied the release of DOUBLE TRAGEDIES.

From the Dallas Morning News crime blog, Families of victims and families of mentally ill offenders release death penalty report.

From the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, "Mentally ill killers: treat or execute?"

From Disability Scoop, "Death Penalty 'Inappropriate' for those with Mental Illness, Report Says."

Double Tragedies report released today

2009-07-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

For Immediate Release
July 6, 2009

Contact: Susannah Sheffer
sheffer (at) aceweb.com
617-512-2010

Death Penalty and Mental Illness:

Families of Victims Speak out at National Convention;
“Double Tragedies” Report Released

San Francisco, CA—For the first time, families of murder victims have joined with families of persons with mental illness who have been executed to speak out against the death penalty.

Double Tragedies, a report being released today at a special session on the first day of the annual convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), calls the death penalty “inappropriate and unwarranted” for people with severe mental disorders and “a distraction from problems within the mental health system that contributed or even directly led to tragic violence.”

The report calls for treatment and prevention, not execution. It is available online at www.nami.org/doubletragedies.

The report, a joint project of NAMI and Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), is based on extensive interviews with 21 family members from 10 states: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

“Family opposition to the death penalty is grounded in personal tragedy,” said MVFHR executive director Renny Cushing. “In the public debate about the death penalty and how to respond in the aftermath of violent crime, these are the voices that need to be heard.”

“Most people with mental illness are not violent,” said NAMI executive director Mike Fitzpatrick. “When violent tragedies occur they are exceptional—because something has gone terribly wrong, usually in the mental health care system. Tragedies are compounded and all our families suffer.”

The report identifies an “intersection” of family concerns and makes four basic recommendations:

• Ban the death penalty for people with severe mental illnesses.
• Reform the mental health care system to focus on treatment and prevention.
• Recognize the needs of families of murder victims through rights to information and participation in criminal or mental health proceedings.
• Families of executed persons also should be recognized as victims and given the assistance due to any victims of traumatic loss.

At least 100 people with mental illness have been put to death in the United States and hundreds more are awaiting execution.

Other resources:

www.mvfhr.org
www.nami.org
www.nami.org/gradeso9

California Testimony - Part 3

2009-07-02T07:54:00.000-04:00

More California testimony; see Tuesday's post for more information.

From Walt Everett:

... As a United Methodist Minister, I am concerned that these proposed regulations deny a condemned inmate full access to their chosen religious advisors at a time when an individual is arguably most in need of this kind of support. In particular, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that, under the proposed regulations, the state chaplain would be required to disclose to the prison warden the contents of private conversations with the condemned inmate. This violation of the clergy-penitent relationship is contrary to the most basic ethical obligations of clergy, and may violate state law as well. I am also disturbed by the proposed prohibition against the spiritual advisor’s being allowed into the execution chamber to provide support to the inmate as his life is being taken. Other states, such as Texas, have long permitted the spiritual advisor to be present in the execution chamber, and I cannot see why it is necessary for California to prohibit this.

From Vicki Schieber:

I recently served as a member of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, and from this experience I have learned that it is essential to understand exactly what is involved in the application of the death penalty in order to make informed decisions about it. I am concerned that the full fiscal impact of California’s proposed lethal injection regulations is not being calculated or disclosed. The public has a right to know exactly how much it will cost taxpayers to carry out executions using lethal injection at San Quentin prison in the way that the regulations propose. Similarly, I believe that the public – by which I mean all of us in whose name executions are carried out – has the right to know exactly what is being done when someone is put to death by lethal injection. I am concerned that the proposed regulations unduly limit media access to the execution process and make it impossible for the full story to be reported.

Although comments about the death penalty most often focus on how the process affects the perpetrator of a crime, my focus is on how the death penalty affects victims’ families. The Maryland Commission concluded by a vote of 20-1 that the effects of capital cases are more detrimental to victims’ families than those that involve a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. This is something that I understand firsthand. ...

and from Bud Welch:

What victims’ families are led to believe about the death penalty is not always what turns out to be true. I am concerned that the proposed lethal injection regulations in California limit the media’s access more than is necessary, and so deprive all of us of the right to know exactly what is being done in our names. Media witnesses should be allowed to view the entire lethal injection process, including the preparation that occurs in the Infusion Control Room, and should be allowed to hear what is happening in the execution chamber. My point is that this needs to be a transparent process, if it is to happen at all.

I have serious concerns about these proposed regulations, and I do not want to see them implemented as they are currently drafted. I am expressing these concerns both as the father of an Oklahoma City bombing victim and as President of the Board of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, an organization of victims’ family members all across the nation (including California) who have experienced the horror of losing a family member to murder and who do not support the death penalty.

California Testimony - Part 2

2009-07-01T07:49:00.000-04:00

Here is an excerpt from the testimony that Robert Meeropol submitted regarding California's proposed lethal injection procedures (see yesterday's post):

I write you on the 56th anniversary of the execution of my parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Obviously, I have a personal relationship with the death penalty. I was born Robert Rosenberg. My birth parents were executed in Sing-Sing prison on June 19th, 1953 when I was six years old. My last name was changed when Abel and Anne Meeropol adopted my brother, Michael, and me after the executions. I believe my brother and I are unique in American history. We are the only people to have both their parents executed by the government.

I live in Massachusetts. I am an attorney. I write you as a private citizen and in my capacities as Executive Director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children and as a Founding Board Member of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR). At MVFHR we oppose the death penalty and believe state-sponsored executions, the premeditated killings of human beings by the state, are murders. We in MVFHR also believe extra-judicial as well as judicial killings violate Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and thus constitute human rights abuses.

As a resident of Massachusetts I will, for the most part, confine myself to discussing the impact of the death penalty in general, rather than the specifics of California’s proposed regulations. I am, however, concerned that the families of those facing execution are singled out in the regulations for disparate second class treatment. They deserve better than a not so subtle reminder that they are being treated as if they are a little bit guilty. In fact, the shock of having a loved one executed cries out for special counseling and care. The callous failure of the State of California to provide such support is another indication of how the death penalty diminishes the humanity of those who promote it. ...

Testifying in California - Part 1

2009-06-30T08:40:00.002-04:00

Today, victims' family members -- among many others -- are testifying at a hearing regarding the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's proposed regulations on lethal injection procedures. MVFHR board member Bill Babbitt is testifying in person, and several other MVFHR members have submitted written testimony.

Here's an excerpt from Bill's testimony:

Because I am so concerned about the effect of executions on the innocent family members of the person being executed, I am especially concerned about the section of the proposed regulations that details the procedure for escorting the various witnesses. Whereas media witnesses and witnesses from the victim’s family are to be escorted to and from the viewing area by an administrative assistant to the prison warden, witnesses from the family of the person being executed are escorted by a Correctional Officer. And whereas the other witnesses, under the proposed regulations, will be brought back to the designated staging area after the execution and given the opportunity to debrief and gather their thoughts, family members of the executed are to be immediately transported to the West Gate and processed out of the institution. There is no reason that families of the executed need to be treated as though they are a greater risk to the institution than other witnesses, and there is every reason that families of the executed ought to be given the same dignity and respect as other witnesses. Families of the executed are innocent people going through an intensely traumatic experience and ought to be treated as such.

And here's an excerpt from Renny Cushing's testimony:

Inevitably, a society’s fiscal decisions reflect its values. When considering the fiscal impact of the application of the death penalty, I submit that a society must also consider whether it is devoting a proportional amount of its resources to meeting the real needs of victims – which includes not only compensation and assistance in the aftermath of a murder, but also focused efforts to prevent future violence. If we truly value victims and want to do right by them, there are much more direct and genuine ways to achieve that goal than administering the death penalty to the perpetrator.

I also noted at the start of this letter that I am concerned about the impact of the proposed regulations on families of the executed. Within the membership of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights are many families of people who have been executed, and over the years I have come to a deeper understanding of exactly how the death penalty harms these innocent family members. In 2006, our organization released a report, based on interviews with three dozen family members of persons who have been executed, titled Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind. I have come to see that each execution represents an additional traumatic experience that compounds the tragedy of the original murder.

For this reason, I am concerned that, under the proposed lethal injection regulations, families of the inmate will be treated throughout the execution process as second-class family members, treated differently from the other witnesses and made to feel as if they are guilty by virtue of being related to the condemned prisoner. There is no reason that the procedures cannot be equivalent for each set of witnesses. We must take into account the human costs – and eventually the societal costs – of further traumatizing the relatives, particularly the children, of people being executed.

Finally, I am concerned that the proposed regulations do not adequately protect the rights of inmates with mental disabilities. The execution of defendants with severe mental illness has recently become an issue at the forefront of our concern at Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, and on July 6 we will be releasing a report titled Double Tragedies: Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness. In that context, I note that the proposed lethal injection regulations do not provide an inmate’s attorneys with any opportunity to contest a sanity finding that may be made just prior to the pending execution. We have seen elsewhere in the U.S. that inmates clearly suffering from severely disabling symptoms of mental illness have been executed, despite the violation that this represents of human rights norms and, potentially, of our own U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ford v. Wainwright. Counsel for the person about to be executed should have the opportunity to challenge the sanity finding of the psychiatrist provided by the prison warden, if counsel believes that such a challenge is warranted.

Speaking from my own personal tragedy and on behalf of the personal tragedy that each member of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights has suffered, I oppose the implementation of the proposed regulations on lethal injection.

Watch for more testimony here over the next couple of days.

Still arbitrary

2009-06-29T08:09:00.003-04:00

Victims' families are among those gathering in front of the U.S. Supreme Court today for the start of the 16th annual four-day Starvin' for Justice Fast & Vigil. The vigil begins today on the anniversary of the Court's 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision, which found that the death penalty was applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner, forcing many states to re-write their statutes.

Here's a summary of Furman from the Death Penalty Information Center:

"In 1972, the Supreme Court held in the landmark case of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty as applied violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Due to a lack of standards for imposing the death penalty, the Court ruled that the death penalty was being applied arbitrarily and capriciously."

DPIC quotes from Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion:

"These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of rapes and murders in 1967 and 1968, many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed."

In the section of its website that discusses the arbitrariness of the death penalty, DPIC goes on to comment,

"Three decades after sentencing guidelines were approved by the Court in Gregg, the death penalty is still being unpredictably applied to a small number of defendants. There remains a lack of uniformity in the capital punishment system. Some of the most heinous murders do not result in death sentences, while less heinous crimes are punished by death."

It's worth reading the rest of DPIC's information on abitrariness. And for anyone who is feeling especially historically inclined today, here is the full text of the Furman decision.

The same show, 10 years later

2009-06-24T07:30:00.002-04:00

The excerpt from Brian MacQuarrie's book The Ride that I posted two days ago told about Bob Curley's appearance on a New England Cable News Show ten years ago. The experience of appearing on the show with Bud Welch, meeting another man whose child had been murdered and who opposed the death penalty, was the catalyst that began Bob's own journey of re-evaluating his previous support for the death penalty.

Yesterday, Bob Curley and Brian MacQuarrie appeared with New England Cable News host Jim Braude and reflected on that 1999 show, on the process of working on the book, on Bob's violence prevention work, and onhis deep feelings for other victims' family members, regardless of their position on the death penalty. It's a short segment, well worth watching.

And here is a good radio interview, on WBUR, with Brian and Bob, which also aired yesterday.

A Change in Direction

2009-06-23T08:16:00.001-04:00

Here's Bud Welch mentioned in another piece of writing, this time a story by Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, in the June 19th Huffington Post. The story is titled "Empty Arms on Father's Day."

On Father's Day we pause to acknowledge and honor the crucial role that fathers play in our families, our communities, and our nation. In the midst of the barbecues and the ceremonial exchange of ties and golf clubs, there are fathers for whom this must be the worst of times. For fathers who have lost children to homicide, it is a painful and poignant observance.

Bud Welch is a Board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He lost his only daughter Julie Marie when she was killed in the Oklahoma City federal office building bombing.

Bud speaks about how Julie's murder affected him: "For about the next eight months, (after the bombing) I struggled with the thought of what's going to happen to these people, how am I going to get some peace," he said.

On a daily basis, he would visit the rubble where the Murrah Building once stood. "I was in deep pain nine months after the bombing," recalled Welch. "I was drinking too much; I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. Eventually, the hangovers were lasting all day.

"I had this anguish about what was going to happen. The trials hadn't even begun yet, and I went to asking myself, once they (the people indicted for the bombing) were tried and executed, what then? How's that going to help me? It isn't going to bring Julie back."

Bud Welch is among the most dedicated of advocates for a change in direction. He and a growing number of families -- including some who take no position on the moral value of capital punishment, and some who support it -- are saying that in a world of limited resources we must choose those policies that will best serve the needs of victims. As with anything else, there are opportunity costs that come with the death penalty.

The question for us is whether maintaining capital punishment best serves those who need our support the most - murder victims' family members.

For many, more resources devoted to compensation, counseling, solving cold cases and punishment that is more certain, are a higher priority than the death penalty.

Meanwhile, as Father's Day approaches, I am at a loss to adequately respond to what my dear colleague Bud Welch must be feeling. I can only pledge to carry on the struggle that he and so many other fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers of murder victims are waging - the struggle to create a society that gives meaning to the terrible loss they have suffered--A society that does its level best to prevent the tragedy they have suffered from befalling another--A society that places the balance of resources on helping families heal and achieve what some have called "a new normalcy" in the wake of the worst that any one of us could possibly imagine.

For Bud Welch and other fathers experiencing empty arms on Father's Day, I wish you Peace.

How can they be against the death penalty?

2009-06-22T07:18:00.000-04:00

I've now had a chance to read Brian MacQuarrie's new book The Ride in its entirety, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's almost a cliche to declare a book "essential reading," but I really do think this book is essential reading for death penalty abolitionists. It's a dramatic story of death penalty politics within a state, showing in close detail how victims' families are vulnerable to being used for political purposes and giving a gripping account of a last-minute vote change that kept the death penalty from being reinstated in Massachusetts in 1997.

But if I urge abolitionists to read the book, it's not only for these reasons; it's also because the story takes us so deeply into the devastation that a single murder causes, and shows how jagged and personal the process of healing is -- and how long it takes. Years after a murder, when people might expect a grieving family to be well on the way to recovery, the family may in fact be dealing with new layers of pain, and this is what Brian MacQuarrie's account of the Curley family's experience shows so well.

The Ride is a hard book from which to choose an excerpt, because what I really want to say is "go read the whole thing." But here are a couple of passages from the account of Bob Curley's appearing on a television program in the spring of 1999 with Bud Welch, who had come to Massachusetts to participate on a speaking tour with other victims' families who were against the death penalty. Bob Curley, at this point, had, by his own description, "led the fight to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts," and he had been reluctant to appear on the television program with Bud but had eventually agreed:

When [the host] asked Bob if he could accept an iron-clad guarantee of life without parole, the harshest sentence allowed under Massachusetts law, Bob answered, "My position on the death penalty hasn't changed." [The co-host] then asked, "How would you feel if Sicari and Jaynes [the men responsible for the murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley] were killed by lethal injection?"

Before Bob could answer, Welch interrupted. The questions were unfair, he said. Jeffrey's death was still fresh, the pain too near, to consider any option other than revenge. Bob would never get over Jeffrey, Welch continued, and he would miss him every day. But with time, Welch suggested, maybe "he'll learn each day how to live that day a little bit better."

Bob glanced quickly in Welch's direction, again avoiding direct eye contact. But his demeanor had softened. To Bob's surprise, his supposed sparring partner had not come to castigate him or diminish him. Instead, this folksy, gray-haired man had accepted his grief and understood his rage. The exchange touched Bob, who also connected with Welch when the Oklahoman spoke of his swift, unsettling transition from anonymous citizen to high-profile spokesman for a controversial cause. ....

After the television camera had been turned off, Bob and Welch moved quietly to the front of the studio, where two limousines were scheduled to return them separately to Somerville and Cambridge. When only one car arrived, Bob unexpectedly found himself in the awkward position of sharing a ride with Welch and Renny Cushing, who were bound for Harvard University and a speaking engagement ... . During the ride to Cambridge, Cushing spoke about his father. Welch spoke about his daughter ..., And Bob, who mentioned the death penalty only briefly, spoke about the details of Jeffrey's death, as well as his ongoing efforts to bolster child-safety programs. But for most of the ride, the three men shared their stories, forged through pain and perseverance, about the task of coping with extraordinary evil.

Bob had never participated in such a discussion. In previous encounters, the relatives of murder victims had always supported the death penalty. This was new, unexpected, and confounding. Welch and Cushing both seemed like regular guys, men who spoke straight from the heart and who both knew firsthand the horrible pain of murder. How can they be against the death penalty? Bob asked himself. ...

A Friday in 1953

2009-06-19T08:44:00.002-04:00

Today is the 56th anniversary of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. June 19th was a Friday in 1953, too, which has given this past week an additional resonance for Robert Meeropol, the Rosenbergs' younger son who is now the director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (and MVFHR Board Vice-Chair). Each day week, Robby has been posting on the RFC blog a short account of his memories of that same day in 1953. Read the entire week's postings here.

It is also very much worth taking a few minutes today to watch these video clips from the RFC's 2007 event, "Celebrate the Children of Resistance," during which actors Eve Ensler and David Strathairn read the last letters that Ethel and Julius Rosenberg wrote to their children. The letters are extremely moving and remind us that, amidst all the political controversy surrounding the Rosenbergs' execution, theirs was also an execution that -- like so many in the years since -- left behind a grieving family.

Working in Japan

2009-06-16T08:49:00.003-04:00

MVFHR board member Toshi Kazama is on his way to Japan to do some valuable MVFHR work there. Toshi will be speaking to several public audiences, meeting privately with victims' families, and working with local organizers to plan an MVFHR speaking tour in 2010.

The public audiences Toshi will be addressing include several university groups, the Japanese Religious Network Against the Death Penalty, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, the Police Headquarters, two hospitals, a meeting with officials from a juvenile detention center. He will also be meeting with members of Ocean, our Japanese MVFHR affiliate.

We'll have a more detailed report on the trip once Toshi returns.

Soul-Searching

2009-06-15T14:30:00.001-04:00

Today's Boston Globe has a great review of Brian MacQuarrie's new book The Ride, which tells the story of MVFHR member Bob Curley. We'll be posting a couple of excerpts from the book soon, but in the meantime, here is an excerpt from the review by Chuck Leddy:

Bob Curley would become an outspoken advocate for capital punishment in Massachusetts. About his son's killers, he'd tell one television interviewer, "Let's go get them and put the hurt on them. Until people are willing to make a stand, it's just gonna keep going on and on." MacQuarrie offers a detailed account of the passionately fought legislative battle over establishing the death penalty. Just when it looked like the pro-death-penalty position had won, one legislator (Representative John Slattery) switched sides and voted against the measure, defeating it.

MacQuarrie describes how deeply involved Bob Curley would become in the battle, as he lobbied legislators face-to-face and even verbally attacked a few opposing State House demonstrators. Upon seeing one man with a sign opposing the death penalty, writes MacQuarrie, Curley "began screaming uncontrollably."

Although Bob Curley and his family would commit themselves to passing the death penalty in Massachusetts, they were psychologically devastated by Jeffrey's death. MacQuarrie gives us a visceral account of how this trauma affected the Curleys, especially Bob.

MacQuarrie writes of how Bob Curley's encounter with a man named Bud Welch triggered a long process of soul-searching about the death penalty. Welch's daughter had been killed in the Oklahoma City bombing committed by Timothy McVeigh, yet Welch opposed the execution of McVeigh, and the death penalty. "I always thought that if you were against the death penalty, you were a wimp," recounted Curley, but clearly Welch was no wimp. Despite his own experiences, Curley would gradually change his views on the death penalty.

MacQuarrie's account, besides explaining the impact of a terrible crime on a family and a community, also describes how it transformed a single man. It's clear from MacQuarrie's account that Bob Curley's rage could have easily destroyed him (or possibly led him to destroy others), but the book's biggest revelation is how Curley got beyond the hate to discover something positive in himself and in others. "The Ride" is a fascinating story of loss, profound anger, pain, and the difficult, soul-searching aftermath of trauma.

From India

2009-06-15T07:22:00.001-04:00

MVFHR was mentioned in a column published yesterday in The Morung Express, an English-language Indian newspaper. The column, titled "Justice, not revenge," was written by Bikram Jeet Batra, a lawyer and researcher who is working on a book about the death penalty in India).

The column begins:

In India, public support for capital punishment is quoted as the reason for continuing a practice that is increasingly being discredited worldwide. Yet, apart from half-baked media surveys and television SMS polls, there is no serious evidence to support this claim After every prominent, violent crime that takes place in the country, a recurring media response is the call for enhanced punishment and, almost inevitably, for the death penalty.

Further on, after some discussion of the media and of politicians, there's this:

While the rhetoric of the media and the politicians can be dismissed, the call for retribution and revenge cannot be ignored when it comes from a family member of a victim of a crime. It is important, however, to distinguish between a call for justice and a call for revenge killing. The thin but important line between the two demands is often ignored by the media, as also – rather conveniently – by those advocating the death penalty. Yet some families do and will call for the death sentence as an appropriate response to the murder of a loved one. Neither statistics nor human rights arguments are likely to convince them otherwise. Instead it is only time and effort spent by abolitionists working along with community and religious groups and engaging with such victims’ families that will make a difference.

In a context where family members of victims are looking for closure, a public barrage calling for revenge can easily override other views and emerge as the sole option. It is here that the role of organisations like the Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) is vital. MVFHR, as the name suggests, is an organisation made up of families of murder victims that has been crucial in asserting the importance of a societal response to murder being consistent with human rights. They argue that no death sentences should be carried out in the name of the families of victims, who should be allowed to speak for themselves. Although no such organisations exist in India, there have been instances of families responding in this manner, including – most famously – the sons of Mahatma Gandhi who sought the commutation of the death sentence awarded to their father’s assassin, Nathuram Godse. More recently, the family of murder victim Jessica Lal also asserted their moral authority, calling for a conviction of the guilty as a just response instead of resorting to the rhetoric of the death penalty.

Many families of victims demand the death sentence under pressure from peers and the public or because they believe that there could be no justice except the death sentence. In the Indian context, misinformation also plays a major role since most laypersons are unaware of the intricacies of the law on life imprisonment and mistakenly believe that it means only 14 years in prison. Unfortunately, with the real voices of such families rarely heard, manipulations and hijacking by those pushing a pro-capital punishment or other political agenda is common. A prime example is the mobilisation of the family members of those killed in the Parliament attack by some politicians to further the cause of their own organisations of ostensibly combating terrorism. This is inevitable unless abolitionist or progressive groups address the real issues and concerns of victims’ families instead of ignoring them.

Gathering with World Coalition members

2009-06-12T09:24:00.002-04:00

Renny is in Rome, representing MVFHR at the General Assembly Meeting of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The Coalition's press release says:

Organized at the invitation of the Community of Sant’Egidio, one of the founding members of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the General Assembly will be an opportunity for WCADP members to gather, share experience about the current situation of the capital punishment, and establish new strategies for its universal abolition.

The World Coalition, seven years after its creation, will hold its first annual general meeting as an independent organization in the Italian capital, where it was founded informally in 2002. The number of NGOs, trade unions, local authorities and bar associations involved has increased eight-fold between the two Rome meetings. The World Coalition hopes to reach 100 members covering 40 countries in 2009.

And from the Coalition's website, a summary of the group's plans for the coming months:

Following the campaign against the death penalty in China in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, the focus on Asia for World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10 October 2008 and the successful co-ordination of lobbying efforts to secure a second UN General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on executions in November, World Coalition members are set to design fresh campaigns for the coming months.

The title of the 2009 World Day will be “Teaching abolition”. Member organizations will target higher secondary school students by encouraging teachers to organize abolition-related activities. The World Coalition is putting together a pedagogical kit to help teachers in that task. Law school students are a secondary target group.

Later this year, the World Coalition will also launch a campaign to encourage 10 target countries to ratify the UN’s Protocol to abolish the death penalty, which makes it illegal for state parties to ever reintroduce capital punishment. The World Coalition is already planning campaigns for 2010, including a World Day focus on the United States and participation to the drafting of the UN Secretary General’s report in preparation for a fresh UN General Assembly debate on the moratorium issue.

One of the earliest leaders

2009-06-10T12:58:00.002-04:00

This op-ed by MVFHR Executive Director Renny Cushing appeared in today's Concord (NH) Monitor:

The effort to abolish capital punishment in the United States follows in large measure from the late 18th- and early 19th-century "anti-gallows" movement, which opposed public hangings. One of the earliest political leaders to call for ending executions, public or otherwise, was New Hampshire Gov. William Badger. This month marks the 175th anniversary of Badger's asking the New Hampshire Legislature to abolish capital punishment.

In his address, Badger compared the possible punishments for capital crime in New Hampshire relative to their effectiveness: solitary confinement in prison for life versus the death penalty.

"As expressed in the Constitution, 'the true design of all punishment is to reform and not to exterminate mankind,' " Badger said. "No one will attempt to controvert the principle that 'the prevention of crime is the sole end of punishment,' and 'every punishment which is not necessary for that purpose, is cruel and tyrannical.' If then the principle is admitted, that the sole end of punishment is the prevention of crime, two questions arise: How shall the offender be disposed of so as to prevent a repetition of the offense? And what punishment shall be most effectual in deterring others from its commission?"

Read the rest.

Film Clip from Germany

2009-06-10T07:20:00.001-04:00

In May, three members of the Journey of Hope, including MVFHR board member Bill Pelke, toured Germany, speaking at a total of 32 public events. The German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Amnesty International have posted clips of a short film that was made of one of the public events. Here is the one of Bill Pelke's portion of the event, in which he talks about his grandmother's murder, his initial support for the death penalty, and his eventual activism in opposition to the death penalty.

Victims' Compensation and Restorative Justice

2009-06-05T08:46:00.004-04:00

Continuing yesterday's post, the two other victim-related bills that Renny Cushing sponsored during this session and that are now on their way to the New Hampshire Governor (having passed in the House and the Senate), are:

A bill that expands the categories of those who are eligible to file victims' compensation claims. Specifically, the bill amends the existing victims' compensation law to include "a family member of a law enforcement officer, an inmate at a state or county correctional facility, and an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or who is not a legal alien."

Regarding the types of claims that may be made, the new additions are in bold:

The claimant may be reimbursed for reasonable out-of-pocket expenses, medical expenses, funeral expenses, counseling expenses, rehabilitative expenses, expenses associated with the victim’s participation in post-conviction proceedings and victim-offender dialogue programs or other restorative justice programs, and lost wages directly resulting from the crime.

And speaking of restorative justice programs, that's the other bill that Renny sponsored: "An act relative to access to restorative justice programs by victims of crime." That bill, in summary, "adds the right to access to restorative justice programs including victim-initiated victim-offender dialogue programs offered through the department of corrections to the victim bill of rights and requires the office of victim/witness assistance to provide information on such programs."

These bills, together with the Crime Victims Equality Act (see yesterday's post), offer activists in other states some powerful examples of progressive victims' rights and criminal justice legislation. Alongside the death penalty repeal bill that got some good attention in New Hampshire this session and the death penalty study commission bill that just passed, they present a vision (and now also a reality!) of the possibilities within anti-death penalty and pro-victim lawmaking.

First in the Nation

2009-06-04T13:17:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, the New Hampshire Senate passed a bill that will create a death penalty study commission; we'll post further news about that as we get it. MVFHR Executive Director and New Hampshire State Representative Renny Cushing has also been able to introduce several innovative bills that expand the rights of crime victims in the state, and we are thrilled that these too passed in the Senate yesterday (having already passed in the House).

One of these is the Crime Victims Equality Act, which "provides that crime victims shall be guaranteed all federal and state constitutional rights on an equal basis. The bill also provides that crime victims shall be treated equally under the law regardless of the victim’s position on the death penalty." The act amends the existing law regarding the rights of crime victims by inserting the following text:

The right to all federal and state constitutional rights guaranteed to all victims of crime on an equal basis, and notwithstanding the provisions of any laws on capital punishment, the right not to be discriminated against or have their rights as a victim denied, diminished, expanded, or enhanced on the basis of the victim’s support for, opposition to, or neutrality on the death penalty.

Back in 2002, when Renny and I worked together to produce the report DIGNITY DENIED, which detailed the unequal treatment that victims who oppose the death penalty sometimes receive from judges, attorneys, and victims' rights advocates, Renny drafted model legislation that he hoped states would use to ban this kind of discrimination. He said this morning, "When we published that model legislation, it never crossed my mind that I would be the lawmaker sponsoring the first bill to become law in this country banning discrimination against family members of murder victims who oppose the death penalty."

Hats off to Renny for having the leadership and vision not only to conceive of an idea but to see it through to becoming a reality. May other states follow New Hampshire's example and pass their own Crime Victims Equality Acts.

My Hate Diminished Me

2009-06-03T13:27:00.002-04:00

Victims' family members were among those participating yesterday in the protests throughout the state of Texas against the 200th execution under Governor Perry. The Texas Moratorium Network has a video clip of Dr. Jerry Williams, brother of a murder victim, speaking at the Huntsville protest.

The Moratorium Network says:

Williams' sister was brutally murdered and her killer only spent 15 years in prison. His remarks at the 200th execution protest was the first time he has spoken publicly about the murder of his sister. He explains why he doesn't believe in execution. "I hated him. I wanted to see him die. I wanted to see him suffer in prison. And I thought justice would be done only in the way, but what I realized over time was that my hate really diminished me. It damaged me and did nothing for him."

It Simply Doesn't Happen

2009-05-27T10:51:00.002-04:00

Saturday's Hartford Courant had an article, "Rell Vows to Veto Measure Abolishing the Death Penalty," which features this photo of victims' family members at a press conference.

The photo caption reads:
Families of victims of murder speak at a press conference in support of a bill passed by the legislature Thursday that would abolish the death penalty. Pictured are Gail Canzano, at podium, Elizabeth Brancato of Torrington, State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield of New Haven, Rev. Walter Everett , Cindy Siclari of Monroe and Anne Stone of Farmington

Here's the article:

Just hours after the state Senate gave final legislative approval Friday to a historic measure abolishing the death penalty in Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell came out with an expected announcement:

She said she was going to veto the measure as soon as it hits her desk.

"I appreciate the passionate beliefs of people on both sides of the death penalty debate. I fully understand the concerns and deeply held convictions of those who would like to see the death penalty abolished in Connecticut," she said in a statement.

"However, I also fully understand the anguish and outrage of the families of victims who believe, as I do, that there are certain crimes so heinous — so fundamentally revolting to our humanity — that the death penalty is warranted."

It's a position that Rell has consistently taken. But murder victims' family members who oppose the death penalty implored the governor Friday during a morning press conference to let the legislature's vote stand. The measure did not pass by a sufficient margin to override a veto.

"I ask Gov. Rell to take the weekend to search her soul, to pray, to examine her own feelings and reach a rational decision," said Gail Canzano of West Hartford, a clinical psychologist whose brother-in-law was slain.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, said that the governor was too quick to lock into a position on the death penalty bill. The bill will take days, if not weeks, to reach her desk.

The East Haven Democrat urged Rell "to reach out to our state's prosecutors and judges before taking action. Ask these front-line professionals their off-the-record opinions on whether anyone will ever be executed in Connecticut. I believe that she will be told what many of us have been told — the Connecticut death penalty is a false promise."

Lawlor said he was certain that the "unprecedented bipartisan votes to abolish our death penalty" would mean that no death penalty case "will be successful from this point forward in the state's trial courts or appellate courts."

At Friday's press conference, the Rev. Walter Everett, whose son, Scott, was killed in Bridgeport in 1987, was askedwhat he would say to Dr. William Petit of Cheshire, whose wife and two daughters were killed in a home invasion and arson in 2007 — a crime that traumatized the state.

Petit spoke in favor of the death penalty before a hushed audience of state lawmakers at a hearing in March. The bill approved by the General Assembly would not directly apply to any of the 10 inmates currently on death row or any pending cases — including the Cheshire killings. The state is seeking the death penalty for the two men accused of the crime.

Everett, a member of two groups of survivors of homicide that he said represent 4,000 families, said he believes that Petit is experiencing the rage that all families feel in the first couple of years. He said that Petit might, indeed, come to oppose capital punishment as time goes on.

Everett said he forgave his son's killer, Michael Carlucci, who is now out of prison and speaking about crime and punishment at schools and jails. Everett said that his decision to forgive Carlucci rather than seek retribution was the first step in a healing process, and that he believes both he and Carlucci are better people for it.

Anne Stone of Farmington, whose son, Ralph, was murdered in Washington, D.C., in 1997, echoed a theme shared by the families when she said that capital trials and the seemingly endless appeal process provide no closure to the survivors, even if an execution were to take place.

Canzano, who works with trauma victims, said that the death penalty offers false hope to people at a time when they are experiencing crushing grief.

"There is no trauma like murder and no grief like homicide grief," said Canzano. "But we err as a society if we believe ... the death penalty helps the survivors."

She said that capital punishment appears to promise "that something will be made right, but truth be told, this is something that can never be rectified no matter what we do. The notion of balancing the scales is ludicrous — it simply doesn't happen."

Forgotten Victims

2009-05-26T07:00:00.001-04:00

An article that appeared this past Friday in Florida's Palm Beach Post, titled "Children live with the heartbreak of parents on Death Row" and written by Daphne Duret, features members of MVFHR's No Silence, No Shame project and includes several good photos. Here's an excerpt:

... "They really are the forgotten victims in death penalty cases," Susannah Sheffer, director of the No Silence, No Shame project for Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, says of Death Row inmates' children. "It's not something that has been part of the debate about capital punishment."

Little has been done to study the effect of an execution on an inmate's children, but some say the combination of the loss of the parent, shame about the crime for which he or she is convicted, and conflicted feelings about the government often come together to inflict deep emotional and psychological trauma that follows them into adulthood.

Desiree Babbitt, now 30 and living in New England, was a toddler when her father, Manny, was sentenced to death in California for killing a 78-year-old grandmother after he broke into her house while suffering a flashback to his time in Vietnam.

She grew up knowing he was in prison but unaware he was on Death Row. After she found out, she spoke out on his behalf. She asked anyone who would listen to keep her father from being executed, saying she needed him.

In the meantime, Desiree said, her father was her world. He sent letters full of poetry and math problems, which prison guards helped him devise as she aged and her proficiency in the subject surpassed his.

Manny Babbitt was executed in 1999. Desiree was 21.

His death is a cloud that hangs over her life, she says.

Since then, she has been hospitalized more than a dozen times for mental illness. She works for several months at a time, lately as a booking agent for a club, but after awhile her depression sets in and she can no longer function.

"I'm OK today," Babbitt said Tuesday. "But if you would have called me yesterday, I probably would have been crying on the phone."

For Misty McWee of South Carolina, the death sentence and 2004 execution of her father, Jerry, fueled a downward spiral that included years of drug and alcohol abuse, a violent marriage and a suicide attempt.

She was 14 and living with her father, a former police officer, when he was charged in the murder of a convenience store clerk in 1991. She was 28 when he was executed.

Now in her early 30s, McWee says she is just now regrouping from the toll of her father's execution.

The birth of her son, now 3, has changed her life for the better, but she says she still wrestles with deep issues of anger. For years, she said, she cried for the children of her father's victim, sad that they would never see their father again.

"I hated him for what he did. I hated him for putting all of us in that situation," McWee said of her father. "But in the end, all the love you have for him takes over."

Sheffer says a death sentence for a parent leaves a child with questions. Chief among them, she says: "If killing is wrong, then why is the state killing daddy?"

The answers, or lack thereof, often breed a resentment of government institutions. ...

Abolition Vote in Connecticut

2009-05-22T10:48:00.003-04:00

This photo of MVFHR board member Walt Everett and his wife Nancy is in today's Hartford Courant with this caption:

WALTER EVERETT, whose son Scott was killed in Bridgeport in July 1987, listens to state senators debating a bill to abolish the death penalty. Everett, who forgave his son's killer, is an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. He and his wife, Nancy, at right, drove to Hartford from Lewisburg, Pa.

And here are the article's lead paragraphs:

In a historic action -- which may be rendered short-lived by a gubernatorial veto -- the state Senate narrowly gave final legislative approval early Friday to a bill that would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.

The 19-17 Senate vote came at 4:11 a.m., after nearly 11 hours of impassioned debate in the Senate chamber, and eight days after the state House of Representatives' approval of the bill by a 90-56 vote.

Now the question is whether the bill will ever become law, because Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has steadfastly said that she supports capital punishment, and repeated that Thursday.

Change of Heart

2009-05-20T07:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's Hartford Courant has a column by Susan Campbell, "A Change of Heart on the Death Penalty." The columnist refers at the end to the murder of Paul Laffin, brother of MVFHR member Art Laffin.

I remember my step-cousin Bobby as a heavy-set, fun-loving kid devoted to collecting and selling stamps and coins. He was a wheeler-dealer who probably could have been a fabulous businessman, given the right choices.

We lost track of one another. I went off to college, and Bobby went off dealing drugs. For a while, he sold cocaine, and in the summer of '94, he ended up battered and stabbed in an Oklahoma ditch. Two men attacked him at his home, then chased him across the street to continue beating and stabbing him, at one point with a broken bottle.

Court documents say Bobby was left to "languish and die," although he was able to rise up on one elbow and tell police the name of one of his attackers. The cause of death was exsanguination. He bled to death.

The men were found guilty of first-degree murder, and Bobby's family — his parents and brother — asked that they be put to death. In her victim-impact testimony, my Aunt Gayle — a lovely, churchgoing woman from whom Bobby got his sense of humor — talked about the futility of nursing her twin 3-year-old grandsons through their nightmares. She spoke of how difficult it was to explain that, no, Daddy wasn't coming home, but, yes, he could see them from heaven.

Of her dead son, she said that he had loved God and had even gone on church crusades as a youth. "And in his adult years," she said, "he strayed from God, but we had always hoped he would come back to what he was taught and what he believed. God does promise us that."

One of Bobby's killers was given life without parole. The other sits on Oklahoma's death row. A friend of mine covered the trials for the local newspaper and sent me the stories. The dead man in the newspaper bore little resemblance to the stout, laughing boy I remembered, and the details of his death were too gruesome to stomach.

It's never easy, talking about the death penalty. Last week, when the Connecticut House of Representatives finished a long and impassioned argument by voting to abolish the state's death penalty, it did so in the wake of the fatal shooting of a Wesleyan University student.

But then, is there ever a time when we can talk about our most heinous crimes without passion?

The governor has reiterated her stand that some crimes are too heinous to punish with anything but the death of the perpetrator, and for years I agreed with her.

Then, five years after my step-cousin was killed, my friend Paul Laffin was stabbed and killed behind the Hartford homeless shelter where he worked, and his loving family asked to pray for and with the killer. We were still standing in the hospital hallway waiting to hear if Paul had pulled through, and even when he didn't, his family insisted on forgiveness, and they asked that we redirect our anger from Paul's killer to a health-care system that doesn't provide nearly enough care for the mentally ill.

Paul's killer was mentally ill, and the death penalty wouldn't have been an option, but as I stood listening to Paul's wounded family, I had to lean against the hospital wall. The Laffins opened a door to grace, and those of us who witnessed that had to step through.

I would never take from my step-cousin's family their anger or hurt. That wasn't just a battered corpse in the ditch. That was their son, brother, father.

But while we're talking about the death penalty in the next few weeks, I am sitting quietly with this: Fifteen states do not have the death penalty on their lawbooks. I hope Connecticut joins them.