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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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 85007Fax: (602) 542-5680
Please also click here for additional events related to Mr. Schad’s execution.
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.
Please join us for our annual meeting on March 2, 2013, at Armstrong Hall at Arizona State University. Featuring: