Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona

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An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth

April 21, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

The following letter to the editor ran in the Casa Grande Dispatch in March.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
By the Rev. Anthony F. Fasline and Joan M. Bundy

On the days that the State of Arizona puts to death a prisoner from Death Row—or as it says above the door to the cell block, “Condemned Row”—a small contingent of protesters holds vigil across the street from the prison in Florence, where inside its walls, the execution will occur. Standing in silence, they hold up signs protesting the impending execution. Among them, one reads: “AN EYE FOR AN EYE GIVES US A BLIND SOCIETY.” Another: “KILLING DOESN’T DO IT/CLEMENCY DOES.” Yet another: “DEATH NO/LIFE YES.” The group is comprised of some men, some women, each of different faiths, all of diverse backgrounds. One is an attorney, another a Catholic priest, yet another an artist. Their commonality is their belief that killing a human being is wrong, no matter the circumstances. They see the irony and illogic in the long-held state argument that “we kill to teach that killing is wrong.” Sometimes a passing motorist makes an inquiry or shouts an objection. A kind response is always given, joined with a “God bless you.”

At the time when the lethal injection is scheduled to begin, the small group gathers in a circle, with hands joined, and a prayer is given for the victims of the perpetrator’s crime and for the one being executed, who is also a victim of the crime. Then the group departs in silence.

Most faith communities believe that capital punishment is wrong. The Catholic Church, for example, teaches: “Capital punishment can be legitimately employed but the cases in which the execution of the offender is absolutely necessary are ‘very rare, if practically nonexistent.'” The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church state: “We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings. The United Methodist Church is deeply concerned about crime throughout the world and the value of any life taken by a murder or homicide. We believe all human life is sacred and created by God and therefore, we must see all human life as significant and valuable. When governments implement the death penalty (capital punishment), then the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change in that person’s life ends. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that the possibility of reconciliation with Christ comes through repentance. This gift of reconciliation is offered to all individuals without exception and gives all life new dignity and sacredness. For this reason, we oppose the death penalty (capital punishment) and urge its elimination from all criminal codes.” (The Book of Discipline, 2004).

One may hypothesize a rare case where capital punishment might be employed but one need not hypothesize that prisoners under constant surveillance, by watchful guards, “caged” much of each day, with his or her death sentence commuted to a lifetime in prison, without parole, is not a threat to society and that the common good of society is protected from the perpetrator. Furthermore, many of the offenders committed the crimes when they were very young and/or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The have years to adjust to prison life and many, if not most, have turned their lives around. If they do exhibit assaultive or any other unacceptable behavior, they are retained at the highest necessary level of security.

The demand of “an eye for an eye” has indeed led us to a “blind state.” We who are blinded by our commitment to a modality of punishing and killing need to “see” with open hearts and think not of killing but of clemency. Rav Kook, a Jewish mystic, has written: “It is our right to hate an evil man for his actions but because his deepest self is the image of God it our duty to honor him with love (life).” Does this not lead us into the domain of Divine Mercy? Why do the politicos after many years of “political footballing” put a prisoner to death rather than simply granting clemency so the offender can spend the rest of his or her life being remorseful and gaining redemption? Putting a man to death by political or juridical decision is a blasphemous inflation of human authority, of believing that it is appropriate for humans to decree who shall live and who shall die.

How many of us who are “blinded” to the injustice of killing will stand against capital punishment and opt for clemency?

To find out more about capital punishment and alternatives, come and visit our local chapter of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona (DPAA), which meets at the clubhouse at Val Vista RV Park at 7 p.m. the third Monday of each month. You may just want to join us in seeking peace and justice for all.

For more information on this local DPAA chapter, please contact us at info@azdeathpenalty.org.

Filed Under: Editorials, Media, News and Events, Updates Tagged With: media, news, updates

Death Penalty Discussed on Colbert Report

March 11, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

The March 4 episode of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, featured Kirk Bloodsworth, the first American who had been sentenced to death row and who was later exonerated (though his sentence had been commuted to life sentences at the time of his exoneration).  Bloodsworth is the Advocacy Director for Witness to Innocence.

You can watch the interview by clicking here.

Filed Under: Media, News and Events, Updates Tagged With: media, news, updates

Letter to Editor: End Capital Punishment

March 10, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

DPAA President Bob Schwartz had a letter to the editor in The Arizona Republic on March 2, 2013, in response to a previous letter by the county attorney.  Bob wrote:

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery tells us that those whom Arizona killed in 2012 “earned” their deaths. It seems that the county attorney just invented a new judicial standard. And how did Arizona earn the moral purity needed to carry out the premeditated killing of those men?

Bob added:

More death does not do any service to the dead or their survivors. We all deserve a justice system that is more than sanitized revenge.

You can read the entire letter by clicking here.

Filed Under: Editorials, Media, News and Events, Updates Tagged With: media, news, updates

Abolitionist of the Year Award: Remarks by Dennis Seavers

March 10, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

Below are remarks that DPAA Advisory Board member Dennis Seavers made upon receiving the 2012 Abolitionist of the Year Award at DPAA’s March 2, 2013 Annual Meeting.

Although all of us here are opposed to the death penalty, each of us has arrived at that view in different ways, perhaps pulled more by the weight of this argument than that one.  For some, the racist application of the death penalty may figure prominently; for others, the cost of capital punishment is an overarching concern.  Even if you have several reasons that you’re opposed, you may, if you’re like me, have a particular reason that’s closest to your heart, that reflects your outlook on the world.  Each of us has a story to tell, and I thought on this occasion that I’d briefly share mine.

One of my favorite contemporary writers is the novelist, short-story writer, and essayist Joyce Carol Oates.  Oates writes about what she has called “the human soul caught in the stampede of time.”  Oates’s fiction often contains episodes of violence or trauma that affect the characters in ways that significantly shape their lives, sometimes later in life as an echo of that original trauma.  As the critics Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar have written, “The violence associated with some of [Oates’s] fiction is a result of her sense that ordinary people cannot always articulate or even understand the ways in which they are trapped in the convulsions of history.”

Our actions are often motivated by forces that are not always visible to us, or are not of our choosing, or, if chosen, have consequences that are exceedingly difficult to escape — forces such as genetics or substance abuse or whether we were subjected to violence in childhood. People have a tendency to unwittingly cast about for a larger, public stage on which to project their own psychodramas.

What I’ve seen in my professional and personal experience says that the difference between the lives of most people and those who succumb to violence and crime often stems from factors that are largely, though not completely, beyond our control. If we were to have lived their lives, can we truly say that we would have avoided their mistakes?  I believe that we simply don’t forge our own paths in life; outlines of the paths we choose have been shaped and placed there by society, history, family, and the vicissitudes of life.

Some might see this a pessimistic view of human nature that leaves little room for personal responsibility, but I think it’s a realistic view, not the sanguine view of unfettered personal responsibility, or the myth of our lives being entirely forged by our own actions. Responsibility has a social dimension, and we as a society shirk our responsibility by deifying the personal dimension.  And, at any rate, holding people responsible for their crimes has never been a shortcoming in our society.

The way people can escape the “convulsions of history” is to understand their own lives, their own stories, as best they can.  Their stories have to be told.  One of the tragedies of the death penalty is that it silences those stories.  And those who justify capital punishment also silence the stories by presenting a distorted view of the perpetrators of crime, as if the entirety of a person’s life could be reduced to the crimes committed.  It’s true that the victims’ stories have also been silenced.  But rather than restoring the victims’ voices, the death penalty only amplifies the tragedy.  The violence of each death — victim and perpetrator — ripples outward, sometimes through generations.  The death penalty relies on silence and secrecy, which corrupts, as we saw when our state recently subverted the law to acquire an execution drug.

But the death penalty does not have the last word.  It’s into this silence that we insert our own voices of resistance, and our advocacy for life, by working to abolish capital punishment.

Filed Under: News and Events, Updates Tagged With: news, updates

Edward Schad Execution Stayed

March 6, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

Edward Schad’s execution, which was scheduled for Wednesday, March 6, has been canceled.

The US Supreme Court refused to lift a stay of execution that had been issued by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The appeals court had issued the stay so that Mr. Schad could have a hearing on the question of whether his defense counsel was ineffective.

The US Supreme Court’s vote was 7-2, with Justices Scalia and Alito indicating that they would have allowed the execution to proceed.  To read the court’s order, please click here (PDF).

Filed Under: Media, News and Events, Updates Tagged With: media, news, updates

Letter to Editor: County Attorney’s Execution Column Weak

March 1, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

Dale Baich, a federal public defender who represents death-row prisoners, wrote a response to a letter to the editor by County Attorney Bill Montgomery.  Montgomery, who in turn was responding to a column previously mentioned in this blog, claimed that the inmates had earned their death sentences.  Baich disagreed:

What the county attorney fails to mention is that the equally if not more culpable co-defendants of Richard Stokley, Daniel Cook and Robert Towery were offered plea deals and have been released from prison. Thomas Kemp’s equally culpable co-defendant received a life sentence. Both Samuel Lopez and Robert Moorman were severely mentally impaired. Moorman was described by experts as having the mind of a 12-year-old child.

To read the entire letter, please click here.

Filed Under: Editorials, Media, News and Events Tagged With: media, news, updates

Editorial column in Arizona Republic

February 22, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

EJ Montini, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, published a column earlier this month addressing the death penalty and SB 1048, which would have repealed capital punishment.  Montini wrote:

Before we decide whether to kill the pretty young accused murderer Jodi Arias there are a few people in Arizona who would like us to ask ourselves if we should kill anyone.

 

“The reason I introduced the bill ([S]B1048) and will keep introducing the bill is that I hope someday we will repeal the death penalty,” said state Sen. Ed Ableser, a Democrat from Tempe. “I have to maintain a hope that we can talk about capital punishment in a serious way.”

You can read the whole column, which also features quotes from DPAA Co-President Dan Peitzmeyer, by clicking here.

Filed Under: Editorials, Media, News and Events Tagged With: media, news, updates

Editorial: Arizona can be next state to reject the death penalty

February 19, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

An editorial “My Turn” column by Bob Quick ran in Sunday’s The Arizona Republic.  Bob argued:

As we begin Arizona’s second century, it is time for a candid dialogue on the future of capital punishment. We need to evaluate its fair and equitable administration, deterrence, cost effectiveness, and its morality.

Is the death penalty a core Arizona value to carry forward into our second century?

…

My fellow Arizonans, our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage challenges us to stand up and be counted. It is not our destiny to be spiritual couch potatoes. It is our obligation to be in solidarity with the poor, the broken, the disenfranchised, the imprisoned and the condemned.

The Arizona death penalty must be discarded as was slavery, indentured servitude, child labor and opposition to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

To read the entire editorial, please click here.

Filed Under: Editorials, Media, News and Events Tagged With: media, news, updates

Clemency Hearing for Edward Schad

February 18, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

February 27, 2013, 8:30 a.m., Arizona State Prison Complex, Florence, Arizona

Edward Schad, who is scheduled to be executed on March 6 at 10:00 a.m. for the 1978 murder of Lorimar Groves, a 74-year-old Bisbee resident, has a clemency hearing scheduled at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. We strongly encourage everyone at least to submit a written statement to the Board for consideration. (Please submit it in time for the Board to be able to consider your statement before the February 27 hearing.) To submit a statement, please contact:

Arizona Board of Executive Clemency
1645 W Jefferson Ste 101
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Fax: (602) 542-5680

Please also click here for additional events related to Mr. Schad’s execution.

Filed Under: News and Events, Updates Tagged With: news, updates

ASU’s Local to Global Justice Teach-In

February 13, 2013 by Dennis Seavers

February 22 to 24, 2013 (DPAA will be on a panel on February 24)
1050 S Forest Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287

DPAA has been selected to participate in the panel, entitled “Local to Global Struggles for Human Rights” scheduled for Sunday morning (February 24th) at 11 a.m. in Education 117.

Here’s more information about the event from the Local to Global Justice web site.

For the past 11 years, Local to Global Justice has organized Teach-Ins that serve as social forums and the event has continued to expand in the number and quality of workshops, musicians, and speakers. It is always free and includes two to three healthy meals. Over 150 people attended the first Teach-In, and attendance at recent teach-ins has ranged from 300-500 people. We are anticipating another excellent turnout for the February 22-24, 2013 Teach-In!

 

The 12th annual Teach-In is titled Justice for Women/Justice for All, and will again include more panels and plenary sessions to maximize cross-group dialogue. We have invited speakers working nationally and internationally for women’s rights and social justice.

As in past Teach-Ins, there will again be a hands-on exhibit of permaculture gardening and other skill shares, engaging activities and workshops for children and youth, and tabling from over 40 campus and community groups. We will again feature music and performances from a number of groups from the Southwest, including indigenous musicians.

For more information, please see the Local to Global Justice events page.

Filed Under: News and Events, Updates Tagged With: news, updates

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