End The Injustice Of The Death Penalty, Not More Lives.

At 11 JoJo White wrote this poem.At 23 JoJo was murdered and his last words were, "Peace, brother, One Love." Read his parents take on who is responsible.

The real criminals are the antisocial monsters who are responsible for a system that is making war on the poor and in the process creating confused and enraged people like the man who killed our son. That man is as much a product of this system as the handgun he used. He obviously had no village that might have given him the love and respect that would have made his horrendous crime impossible. Some people will argue that he had a choice between right and wrong. But if this society denies good choices to children how do they learn to make good choices as adults? If we don't give a child a decent life, how can that child grow up to respect life?

The Death Penalty And Race.

Since capital punishment was reinstated in California in 1977, death sentences against black defendants, but not Latinos, have been disproportionately enormous by almost every measure: population, homicide rates, victim data and the sentencing patterns of other states.

California's 5-to-1 ratio of blacks on death row to blacks in the state population, measured in percentages, is much higher than the ratios in Texas, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. The national average is 3 to 1.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of justice wants why the death penalty is sought in some cases but not in others and what impact race has in that decision.  The Fresno Bee explains.

Last Wishes Of An Executed Inmate.

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.

Full story from the Clarion-Ledger here.

Effort To End CA Death Penalty By Two Polar Opposites.

In an interesting development, Mike Farrell, of Death Penalty Focus (a group that I have been involved with in the past), and "the hanging judge of Orange County, Don McCartin, have joined forces to try to end the Death Penalty.  See the story in the LA Daily News.  

Here is the perspective of a former judge who sentence 9 people to death.

Don McCartin, having sentenced nine men to death and then watched as the system examined, re-examined and finally overturned all of his convictions while executing none of them, now believes the death penalty is a hideously expensive fraud. It tortures the loved ones of murder victims by dragging them through the years of complex appeals required by the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to protect the innocent.

He's aware of the constitutional dilemma created by the tension between the need to protect the rights of the accused in a death case and the desire for some form of justice to be done. But he's outraged that the mother of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl raped and murdered in 1979, is now required to sit through yet a third trial of the alleged killer almost 30 years later. A sentence of life without parole would have allowed her to go on with her own life so long ago.

Well said.  And, as Mike Farrell said "our entire society is harmed by the dehumanization process inherent in state killing."

Check out Death Penalty Focus of California.