Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in PA

Death Penalty Moratorium

Action Alert

 

On October 9, the American Bar Association (ABA) released a report showing that Pennsylvania’s death penalty system is inaccurate and unfairly applied.  Your involvement can spread the word and help suspend this broken law while these problems are further studied and addressed.

 

If you can do one thing:

 

Contact: Your State Senator

Reach him/her: Contact information for your legislators can be found on the LAMPa website, by contacting the LAMPa office at (717) 545-3500, or via email to lampa@lamp.org.  

 

Access the LAMPa website at http://www.lamp.org.  On the homepage, look for the box, “Find Your Elected Officals.” Enter your zip code and click “Find.”  Click on the “State” tab.  (In many locations, you will need the Zip+4 code to access the information.  If you don’t know it, click on the button “Look up Zip+4” at the bottom of the open window.)
 

 

Tell him/her: "Pennsylvania’s death penalty is inaccurate and unfair.  A new report by the ABA’s Assessment Team shows that the problems suspected are really there.  Please support Senate Bill 850, a moratorium on executions, while these problems are fully addressed."

SAMPLE LETTER/EMAIL TO LEGISLATORS

Dear Senator [senator’s name],

On October 9, the American Bar Association released a study that showed Pennsylvania’s death penalty to be unfair and inaccurate.  The ABA found that there are insufficient safeguards in place to protect the innocent.  The ABA also found that Pennsylvania fails to provide adequate defense attorneys for capital defendants and continues to have significant racial bias in the administration of capital cases.

I am ashamed that our state continues to carry out a system of life and death that is so broken.  Sending even one innocent person to death row is unacceptable, and allowing someone to face execution based on his/her skin color is an outrage. 

Pennsylvania must suspend executions. These problems need to be thoroughly studied and fully addressed.  Please support Senate Bill 850, a moratorium on executions.

Sincerely,
Your name and full mailing address
 

 

 

 

If you can do two things:

 

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper in response to their article (or lack thereof) about the Assessment Team’s report, saying that Pennsylvania needs to halt executions while the broken death penalty is examined and the problems revealed in the report are thoroughly reviewed and addressed.  For ideas and assistance in writing a letter to the editor, contact the LAMPa office at lampa@lamp.org or (717) 545-3500.

 

 

If you can do three things:

 

Alert others.  Ask your group, congregation/synod, or city council to pass a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions.  Passing a resolution is easier than you think!  Over 4,600 groups around the country have done it, including almost 200 in Pennsylvania.  For sample materials and assistance, contact the LAMPa office or the Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition pamoratorium@gmail.com or by visiting the website at www.pamoratorium.org.  To see the full list of moratorium endorsers nationally, visit www.ejusa.org.

 

The American Bar Association report proves once and for all that our state’s death penalty is broken! We can’t stand by when such inequities plague our system.  The time to act is now!

 

 On May 1, 2007 Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania (LAMPa) joined with over a dozen other statewide groups in calling for a moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania.  The Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition was formed to encourage grassroots momentum and legislative action supporting a suspension of executions while questions of fairness and accuracy are thoroughly reviewed and fully addressed.

 

It would be appreciated if you would file a post-email report with the LAMPa office at www.lamp@paonline.com, including information about any advocacy you do on this issue.

 

For more information on how to get involved, contact the LAMPa office at (717) 545-3500 or lampa@lamp.org.  For information about the Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition and its activities, visit www.PAMoratorium.org

 

ELCA Policy Base:  The ELCA social statement, The Death Penalty (1991), outlines our position in opposition to capital punishment.  Executions harm society by mirroring and reinforcing existing injustice.  It perpetuates cycles of violence.  The practice of the death penalty undermines any possible moral message we might want to send.  It is not fair and fails to make society better or safer.  The message conveyed by an execution is one of brutality and violence. Because of our church’s commitment to justice we oppose the death penalty. 
Our church is committed to restorative justice which means addressing the hurt of each person whose life has been touched by violent crime.  Restorative justice makes the community safer for all.  Executions focus on the convicted murderer, providing very little for the victim’s family or anyone else whose life has been touched by the crime.  Capital punishment also focuses on retribution, reflecting a spirit of vengeance.  Executions do not restore broken society and can actually work counter to restoration.  We recognize the need to protect society so we advocate removing offenders from the general population, placing them in a secure facility and denying them the possibility of committing further crime.
 
Despite attempts to provide legal safeguards, the death penalty has not been and cannot be made fair.  The system cannot be made perfect since biases, prejudice, and chance affect who is charged with a capital crime, what verdict is reached, and whether appeals will be successful.  Since human beings are fallible, the innocent have been executed in the past and will inevitably be executed in the future.  Death is different punishment from any other.  The execution of an innocent person is a mistake that can never be corrected. 

 

 

Pennsylvania’s death penalty

—Did you know?—

 

There are compelling concerns about unfairness and inaccuracy in Pennsylvania’s death penalty.  The American Bar Association report gave Pennsylvanians one more reason in a growing body of evidence that the system is broken.  Now it’s time for the legislature to do its own assessment and tackle this problem head on.  Consider the facts:

 

Innocent lives in the balance

¨     Since 1973, at least 123 death row inmates have been released after evidence proved their innocence.

¨   Six men have been wrongfully convicted and released from Pennsylvania’s death row, twice as many people as the state has executed.

¨   Pennsylvania does not guarantee that biological evidence will be saved for the full length of the defendant’s incarceration, making it even harder for those who have been wrongly convicted to prove their innocence.

¨   Studies show that poor eyewitness identification may be the leading factor in wrongful convictions, yet Pennsylvania does not require law enforcement to use lineup procedures that increase accuracy.

 

The right to a decent lawyer?

¨     More than 90 percent of Pennsylvania’s death row prisoners were too poor to afford a lawyer for their initial trial. 

¨   Many indigent defendants in Pennsylvania, including those with mental disabilities, are not allowed access to expert witnesses and investigators, both of which are often crucial in capital trials.

¨   Insufficient or inconsistent funding for public defenders in capital cases in Pennsylvania has the dual effect of deterring the most qualified and experienced attorneys from trying these cases and limiting the power of those who do take the cases from defending their clients to the best of their abilities.

 

Racially skewed

¨   Pennsylvania has largest percentage of minorities on death row than any other state at 70%, even though less than 14% of the population of the state are people of color.

¨   Independent researchers found that, even after controlling for case differences, blacks in Philadelphia are 3.9 times more likely to get the death penalty than other defendants who committed similar murders.

¨   Pennsylvania law meets zero of the ten recommendations made by the American Bar Association to reduce the impact of race in the administration of the death penalty.

 

A lottery of geography

¨   Where a crime happens can be as important as what type of crime is committed in determining who lives and who dies.  Of those sentenced to death in Pennsylvania, more than half come from Philadelphia County, which accounts for only 14 percent of the state's population.

¨   Although Philadelphia's murder rate is only about 3 times greater than that of Harrisburg, the proportion of those condemned to death is 11 times greater in Philadelphia.

 

Pennsylvanians want a justice system that is fair

¨   A recent poll found that 62% of Pennsylvanians favor suspending the death penalty until questions of fairness can be studied. 

¨   More than two thirds of Pennsylvanians agree that the death penalty is unevenly applied to the poor, and more than half agree that it is unevenly applied to African Americans. 

¨   Almost 200 organizations throughout Pennsylvania have called for a moratorium on executions, including professional associations, small businesses, churches, and city councils.