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The Arkansas Campaign to Establish a Death Penalty Study Commission and Moratorium will launch on April 17, 2008 in Little Rock, Arkansas. This short paper describes the effort and includes a volunteer
form for people who would like to be involved: Word Document | Web page

For more information, contact Dave Rickard: rickardd@comcast.net

Read our online newsletter:
Edition 2007-2: Word Document | Web page

NATIONAL WEEKEND OF FAITH IN ACTION
This October 19-21, hundreds of faith communities, interfaith organizations, and human rights groups will participate in Amnesty International USA’s tenth annual National Weekend of Faith in Action on the Death Penalty (NWFA). Set aside some time during this weekend for an activity or event that focuses on the death penalty, using the ideas and resources provided by AIUSA as your guide. Participants in the NWFA will receive a DVD of the film “Race to Execution”, information on other films and speakers, resources for reflection, discussion and action, and helpful tips on organizing for the NWFA and beyond. Participants will also learn about the perspectives of various faith traditions on the death penalty, and will receive contact information for groups or individuals active on the death penalty in their state. Please help us organize this nationwide examination of the death penalty!
--Abe Bonowitz

Read more about the NWFA: www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction
Register for the NWFA: www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction/register.html
Posted: July 22, 2007:
It has troubled me for sometime that most of the anti-death penalty lists I'm on are often loaded up with personal messages rather than news. Here in Ohio, one of our good people did set up just a "news" list and limited invitations to it. The other day someone suggested using Google Alerts. I set it up for once a day postings on "Death Penalty" news and have been quite happy with it. You might to want to give it a try. Just go to Google and search for "Google Alerts".
Peace,
Mac Goekler
NEW RESOURCE: Religion and the Death Penalty Web Page
Posted: February 26, 2007
The Death Penalty Information Center's new Religion and the Death Penalty Web page is now available online. In recent years, a growing number of religious organizations have participated in the nation's death penalty debate. The purpose of this new Web page is to provide access to information regarding the efforts of these faith groups and to highlight recent developments related to religion and the death penalty.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
February, 2007
Hi All,

Our campaign last year to raise the Minimum Wage was a great success! Now we have a new opportunity. Gov. Strickland has postponed all the pending executions. We have for years been trying to get our state assembly to review our death penalty system, but the conservatives have always blocked our efforts. It now seems that our new governor and attorney general are willing to consider an executive study of a failed and flawed system. The Associated Press three part series published two years ago clearly proved a need for this study. Most of us UUs would like to see the death penalty abolished, but our general population needs to be convinced and a thorough study of the issue (similar to the Illinois study) will go a long ways. Please review the following link
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/16723023.htm
We have joined a coalition of like minded social justice seekers in this campaign to tell our governor how we feel. Please send a letter, FAX, email or postcard. Some of our coalition partners will be furnishing pre-addressed postcards -- please let me know how many you need. Please feel free to pass this email along to other folks who want a change in our state murder system. This is a big first step to ending an unjust system. Of course, we want all executions to be postponed until the study is complete. Please share your thoughts with our governor.

Governor Ted Strickland
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6108
General Info: (614) 466-3555
Fax: (614) 466-9354
Gov. Ted Strickland: http://governor.ohio.gov/

Peace
Mac Goekler
co-chair Ohio UUs for Advocacy
mgoekler@neo.rr.com
The Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF -- a mail/internet church for those UUs who do not live near a church) has a prison ministry. CLF has currently 300 prisoners members and is gaining more each day. CLF
needs penpals for its "Letter Writing Ministry". All the mail goes through CLF and prisoners do not get the penpals full names. This is important faith work. If you are interested in becoming a CLF penpal contact CLF at: www.clfuu.org or CLF Prison Ministry, 25 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108
 Peace,
Mac Goekler

January 11, 2007
NAPA / Mother hopes to face her daughter's killer / His plea avoids death penalty, in part by agreeing to meet victims' families (from San Francisco Chronicle)
Link to article here

Statement by the Rev. Cathy Harrington
  

Upcoming UUADP/Unitarian Universalist Events

UU General Assembly info at UUA Web Site

GA 2008: JUNE, FT. LAUDERDALE, FL.
6/26-30/2008
UUADP participates in each year’s General Assembly, with a thought-provoking speaker and a booth in the exhibit hall. It is an opportunity for UU activists against the death penalty to make connections with each other and obtain resources for use in their congregations and home communities.

Watch this space for information about UUADP’s presence at the next General Assembly, June 25-29, 2008, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Among the speakers UUADP has presented at General Assembly in past years:

Bill Pelke of the Journey of Hope

Mike Farrell, human rights activist and actor, from Death Penalty Focus of California

Renny Cushing of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (pdf file)

Dr. Rick Halperin of Amnesty International and Southern Methodist University.


December, 2006
Number of inmates on US death row declines
WASHINGTON (AFP)
- Fewer convicts are being sent to death row in the United States, though 3,254 still faced death by execution by the end of 2005, according to an annual US Justice Department report. At the end of 2000, 3,601 prisoners sat on US death rows, a figure that fell largely because fewer death sentences were handed down. In 2005 US courts delivered 125 death sentences, far below the 325 in 1995.The drop largely results from the advent of conclusive genetic identification, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "All the cases of innocents released through DNA testing at the end of the 1990s have made juries reluctant" to condemn defendants to die, he told AFP. "Prosecutors are seeking it less, and life without parole became a real alternative," he said. There were 128 new arrivals on death row in 2005, while 194 left. Sixty inmates were executed, 21 died of natural causes, three committed suicide and one died by overdose. Death sentences of 109 were modified on appeal, commuted to life in prison or rendered inapplicable by a March 2005 Supreme Court decision forbidding execution of prisoners who were minors at the time of the crime. Of those executed in 2005, 98 percent were men, 42 percent were African Americans, who represent only 13 percent of the US population. The youngest person executed was 20, the eldest, 90. The average wait time on death row was 10 years, eight months. The US state with the largest number of death row inmates, 646, is California, which also has the largest population of US states. Texas has 411. However, California has executed only 12 since capital punishment was re-instated in 1976 in the United States, while 355 were killed in Texas. Of the 52 inmates whose death sentence was carried out, 24 died in Texas.

Upcoming National Abolitionist Events

Your best source is the Upcoming Events page on the web site of Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, with whom we work closely.

Click here to go to the CUADP Upcoming Events page.

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© 2007 Unitarian Universalists for Alternatives to the Death Penalty