Death Penalty Focus- Urgent Action Needed!

There are 3 important action items. Please take a moment to help with one, two or all of the action alerts!!

1. Support the San Francisco DA's decision not to seek the death penalty!!

Send letters of Support to:

Ms. Kamala Harris
Office of the District Attorney
Hall of Justice
880 Bryant Street, Room 325
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 553-1752

Send letters to the editor of your local paper! It's easy, click the link below:
http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=letters

Sample Letter to the Editor
Like you, our hearts go out to the family and friends of Isaac Espinoza. This was a tragic and senseless death, as every murder is, a cause for grief and personal reflection.

And like you, we reject the perpetuation of violence that seeking the death penalty for the killer of Officer Espinoza represents. The desire for revenge is an understandable emotional response to a violent act, but capital punishment is a wrong answer to the widespread social problem of violence. Killing another person to teach that killing is wrong will be no more effective at stopping violence in San Francisco than it has anywhere else. States that vigorously administer capital punishment, like Texas and Oklahoma, have higher murder rates than states that do not kill, such as Michigan and Minnesota. If it is not a deterrent to crime, which it is not, then the death penalty is not about justice -- it is about vengeance. In a civilized society, an official policy of revenge killing is wrong.

There will be many emotional cries in the coming days for the "ultimate punishment" to be inflicted on the murderer of Isaac Espinoza. We commend you for recognizing that the ultimate punishment is Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP). Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1977, more than 3,000 convicted murderers have been sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole - and it means what it says. Only two people sentenced to LWOP have been released -- after they were found to be innocent. Today, studies show California's death penalty system to be deeply and tragically flawed, failing to provide the most basic safeguards for preventing the execution of innocent people, and consistently condemning only those people who are poor and unable to adequately defend themselves.

Thank you for being true to your campaign pledge to not impose the death penalty, despite emotional appeals for vengeance. The law is not about fulfilling emotional needs, it is about fulfilling justice. The pain of losing one life can never be assuaged by taking another.


2. Don't Expand the Federal Death Penalty!
Please place calls to Senate Judiciary Minority Staff: 202-224-7703 and California Senator Dianne Feinstein: 202-224-3841. Or send a free fax:
http://www.aclu.org/CriminalJustice/CriminalJustice.cfm?ID=14925&c=15

Less than 18 months after the Senate passed rational and balanced federal juvenile justice legislation, two Senators have introduced a new punitive bill that would expand the use of the death penalty and create new ill-defined crimes.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced the Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act of 2003 (S. 1735), a measure that includes dangerous provisions that would expand the use of the death penalty to additional crimes and create additional federal gangcrimes that lack clear definition.

Under this proposed legislation, people could be convicted and sentenced to death for ill-defined illegal "participation" in a "gang", which could be as few as three people. The law's loose definitions and expansion of the death penalty would increase the probability that people are wrongly convicted and possibly even executed.

This legislation would interfere with the right to a fair trial and should not be allowed to pass.

3. FLORIDA RESIDENTS ONLY!
End the Juvenile Death Penalty In Florida! The Supreme Court will be considering the juvenile death penalty again this year. It is important that as many states as possible pass legislation banning the juvenile death penalty. Please take a moment to show your support.
http://www.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathPenalty.cfm?ID=15505&c=17










Stefanie L. Faucher
Program Director

Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415-243-0143
Fax 415-243-0994
stefanie [at] deathpenalty.org
http://www.deathpenalty.org
http://www.californiamoratorium.org

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