Diann Rust-Tierney
Executive Director
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
As I write this today, the cherry blossoms are fading, but the machinery of death is lumbering along with renewed authority and conviction.
This morning, the Supreme Court ruled in Baze v. Rees that lethal injection posed no risk of unnecessary pain and suffering for the more than 3,200 who still face execution. It is ironic that while this decision was being announced, just a few blocks away people of faith in Washington, DC welcomed Pope Benedict XVI, who shares our belief that capital punishment is an affront to humanity and has no place in modern society.
At the same time that the Baze decision was being announced, the Supreme Court heard arguments on a second death penalty case, Kennedy v. Louisiana, which challenges that state’s law that expands the death penalty to crimes other than murder.
Today we are reminded just how far we have to go in our fight to achieve abolition.
Those of us in the anti-death penalty movement know we have a tough, but lifesaving, task ahead. To end the death penalty we have to overturn capital punishment state by state. I’d like to tell you what NCADP is doing to get us closer to abolition and why.
A new Harris poll confirms what we’ve all believed to be true – support for the death penalty in the United States is weakening. Fifty-two percent of Americans say the death penalty is no deterrent to murder. An astonishing 95% of those polled are convinced innocent people have already been convicted of murder. These figures are supported by earlier polls that indicate that three-quarters of Americans believe that an innocent person has already been executed in this country. Fifty-eight percent of recent respondents said they would oppose the death penalty based upon the knowledge that innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder.
While the poll numbers are encouraging, we must do more to build the constituency for death penalty abolition across the nation. The stronger our movement is in America’s towns, cities and states, the more we can shape the public opinion that influences state legislators. Ultimately, they will respond if the voters say enough costly, state-sponsored killing is enough. And then we can rightly declare, “Mission accomplished.”
Most NCADP affiliates are small, headed by a few highly committed activists leading anywhere from a dozen to several thousand members. NCADP provides training, materials and advice that helps them build their membership, educate state legislators and encourage local citizens to shout out, “No!” to the death penalty.
Our immediate goal is to reduce the number of states with the death penalty from today’s 36. NCADP is uniquely experienced in waging these state battles – our staff includes veterans of the historic death penalty abolition victory in New Jersey as well as individuals who fought successfully to prevent capital punishment from being reintroduced in Wisconsin.