August 2002 Issue 25

Members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty are looking forward to our second annual convention on November 9-10 in Chicago.

The convention weekend will be full of interesting presentations and discussions, as Campaign members and others take a look at our movement and how best to build it in the upcoming year.

We’ve decided to focus this year on the question of racism--and its impact on the death penalty and the criminal justice system as a whole.

The Road To Winning The Moratorium In Maryland

On May 9, just one week before the scheduled execution of Wesley Baker, Governor Parris Glendening called a halt to all executions in the state of Maryland.

Far from being the act of an enlighted governor, the Maryland moratorium was the product of years of public pressure. The key lesson to learn from this victory is that activism from below can change things. Our persistence and stubbornness even in the face of difficulties succeeded in shifting the climate to the point that this success was possible.

Reports From Campaign Chapters Around The Country

The March for Abolition in Chicago, May 14 2002

WASHINGTON, D.C.
by Morgan Macdonald
Chants of "Keep D.C. death penalty free" filled the air as 70 people gathered July 23 to protest the imposition of capital punishment in Washington, D.C. The rally marked the beginning of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s (CEDP) fight to prevent the possible executions of Rodney Moore and Kevin Gray, both of whom may receive death sentences for murders committed in the D.C. area.

Two Immigrants Targeted For Their Beliefs

Demonstration for Sacco and Vanzetti, Boston, 1925

Seventy-five years ago this month, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death by the state of Massachusetts.

They had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery and killing of two men, a paymaster and a guard who were delivering wages to a shoe company. During the seven years of their imprisonment, people around the world organized a campaign to save these two men--both Italian immigrants and anarchists. But despite overwhelming support and the preponderance of evidence pointing to their innocence, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed.

Supreme Court Does The Right Thing... 13 Years Later

Texas death row prisoners Brian Roberson and Oliver Cruz were both executed on August 9, 2000. Oliver Cruz had an IQ of just 64. Despite this fact, he was still executed under then-Texas Governor George W. Bush. As much as 10 percent of the death row population across the United States is mentally retarded with an IQ of less than 70.

Abolitionists won a major victory in the struggle to end the death penalty when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its former ruling and declared that executing the mentally retarded was a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. We welcome this ruling and see it as a step toward ending the death penalty.

Dear friends,

I am a condemned prisoner here on San Quentin’s death row. I was very lucky that I was able to get a copy of your newsletter the New Abolitionist and was so impressed with the news that it contained.

I wish that I could afford the $12 to subscribe. I would be very grateful if you could send me back copies that you may have left over from your printing?

To all the members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty,

I just returned from Baltimore to visit Kenny Collins, my son, who is on death row. Another year has passed, and we are still waiting to hear from the judge to rule on Kenny’s case. He said last August when we were in the court that he would let us know in a few months after he reviewed our new evidence that Peter Keith, my son’s lawyer, uncovered.