Mission Statement:
We, as the Marianist Family, because of our belief in the sanctity of all human life and in the dignity of all persons, pledge ourselves to prayer, education, reflection, and action to abolish the death penalty. This practice is unjust, inhumane and inconsistent with the Gospel message. By our witness we seek to change hearts and minds concerning this injustice.
Issue Statement:
We, as the Marianist Family, endorse legislation for a moratorium on executions in order to study the inequities in the application of the death penalty.
Issue Team Chair: Lauren Olson (olsonle3@gmail.com)
MSJC Death Penalty Team at their recent meeting in San Antonio
- (left to right) Lauren Olson (chair), Fr. John Manahan, Sr. Grace Walle, Bro. Jerry Sullivan,
Jim Vogt (MSJC Director), Bro. Brian Halderman, Bob Stoughton.
Important Death Penalty Issue Team News (below):
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ACT NOW to stop impending executions (visit www.ncadp.org for more info)
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Maryland: One Step Forward, One Step Back?
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The Clustering of the Death Penalty
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Serving on a Jury and Opposing the Death Penalty?
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Public Pushback Against the Death Penalty
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Repeal is Making Legislative News in Five States
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Focus on Maryland
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Issue Team Discusses Restorative Justice -- and More -- at Annual Meeting
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America's Retreat from the Death Penalty
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Maryland Governor Puts Repeal on Agenda
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Will Maryland be the Next State to Repeal?
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Where Justice and Mercy Meet
ACT NOW to stop impending executions
For a current list of impending executions visit www.ncadp.org
Maryland: One Step Forward, One Step Back?
(May 11, 2013) "Maryland has effectively eliminated a policy that is proven not to work," Governor Martin O'Malley said in conjunction with his signing the bill repealing his state’s death penalty on May 2. As John Dear, S.J. wrote for the National Catholic Reporter, “This is cause for great rejoicing and gratitude. Maryland becomes the 18th state to abolish the death penalty. Six states have done so in the last six years. That leaves 32 states.” Dear’s article includes a gripping summary of the case of Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland native who became the first person freed from death row because of DNA evidence. Bloodsworth is now a tireless advocate for repeal.
But according to the Baltimore Sun, Bloodsworth’s work in Maryland may not be over: “One day after Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation to abolish capital punishment in Maryland, death penalty supporters said Friday they will launch a petition drive to give voters the opportunity to overturn the new law. The effort raises the prospect of another hard-fought referendum campaign (in 2014) after Maryland voters had the final say on several ballot questions in 2012.”
The Clustering of the Death Penalty
(May 11, 2013) The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) has made available a new set of data illustrating the geographic arbitrariness of the death penalty, and demonstrating that capital punishment is actually carried out in only a small percentage of U.S. jurisdictions. DPIC analyzed the counties within states that are responsible for the most executions, the most death row inmates, and the most recent death sentences. For example, one map shows that less than 1% of counties in death penalty states accounted for 30% of the executions in the U.S. since 1976. Similarly, less than 1% of the counties were responsible for 27% of current death row inmates and 35% of recent death sentences. For more information on each of these areas and on the geographic arbitrariness of the death penalty, visit this new section of DPIC’s Web site.
Serving on a Jury and Opposing the Death Penalty?
(April 15, 2013) “For many Americans, their beliefs about the death penalty are rooted in their religious convictions or their concerns about flaws in the system,” writes the “I Want to Serve” project. “To serve on a jury in which the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty, the law requires you to consider imposing both a life sentence and the death penalty. If you are unwilling to consider voting for capital punishment, you are disqualified from service. The process of excluding jurors who cannot give the death penalty or would only give the death penalty is called ‘death-qualification.’ Death-qualification is an issue of civic importance for several reasons, and should be understood by all those interested in performing jury duty.”
“I Want to Serve” began in Louisiana as a joint project of the Louisiana Coalition for Alternative to the Death Penalty and the Louisiana Interchurch Conference. It has since grown into a national project sponsored by the Catholic Mobilizing Network and Harvard University’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. Visit their Web site to learn how to support their efforts to “put an end to the silencing of people who oppose executions on juries.”
Public Pushback Against the Death Penalty
(April 15, 2013) In early April Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler announced he would seek the death penalty for James Holmes, the suspect in the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting. “To give you a sense of how far the public debate over capital punishment has moved toward rationality over the past few decades,” writes Andrew Cohen in The Atlantic, “you need only read (the) editorial in The Denver Post” about the prosecutor’s decision. “In the surest sign yet of the rise of the practical argument against the death penalty” the Post wrote “we think the decision was a mistake.”
As Cohen summarizes the editorial, “Save the money it would take to sentence him to death. Deny him the notoriety he might claim by litigating his capital case through the courts for 15 years. And all the while spare the survivors and family members of the victims the psychic trauma of reliving that awful night over and over again in court.”
Repeal is Making Legislative News in Five States
(Updated March 21, 2013): Legislatures in five states are taking – or getting ready to take – action to repeal the death penalty. In Maryland – one of the states targeted by the Issue Team – the repeal bill has been passed by both the Senate and the House; the bill has been sent to Governor O’Malley who has already said he will sign it. Repeal bills have also been introduced in Nebraska, Delaware and Kansas and one is being prepared in Colorado.
Focus on Maryland
“Maryland would be the first state to repeal its death penalty and redirect some of the savings to survivors’ of homicide victims. This is groundbreaking legislation that we can all be proud of,” writes the Catholic Mobilizing Network as national attention focuses on Maryland’s attempt to abolish capital punishment. Recent events have included a Faith Leaders Lobby Day and some passionate public testimony by Kirk Bloodsworth who, “twenty years ago, … walked out of a Maryland prison, the first inmate in the nation to be sentenced to death and then exonerated by DNA.” To stay informed and to find out how to help, visit the Web site of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions.
Issue Team Discusses Restorative Justice – and More – at Annual Meeting
How would you react in the event that one of your own family members were murdered? It is impossible, for most of us anyway, to answer that question with certainty. Houstonian John Sage is someone who can answer that question because he has.
In 1998, five years after his sister was murdered, he founded Bridges To Life, designed to “connect communities to prisons in an effort to reduce the recidivism rate (particularly that resulting from violent crimes), reduce the number of crime victims, and enhance public safety. The spiritual mission of Bridges To Life is to minister to victims and offenders in an effort to show them the transforming power of God’s love and forgiveness.” "After experiencing the gut-wrenching aftermath of my sister’s murder, I have great empathy for victims of crime. Crime plunges innocent victims into a dark side of society that they do not ask for or deserve. Victims of crime are the very heart and soul of Bridges To Life,” shares John on the program’s Web site. Bridges To Life, which sends trained volunteers and crime victims into prisons to work directly with offenders, is a concrete example of a growing movement called Restorative Justice (RJ).
The Issue Team, during its recent annual meeting in San Antonio on Feb. 1 – 3, 2013, spent a good part of its time discussing RJ and its application to the death penalty. Joining the Team for this conversation were Kimberly Gibbs from Bridges To Life and Jessie Sprague from the Center for Legal and Social Justice. The Team also attended a Death Penalty Workshop sponsored by Team member Bro. Brian Halderman, S.M. and his colleagues from the San Antonio Institute for Social Justice, “The Exonerated and Wrongfully Convicted.” The afternoon included a documentary about an exoneree, Juan Melendez, reflections by retired Bexar County (TX) District Attorney Sam Millsap and by Roger Barnes, U. of Incarnate Word Sociology Professor, and robust questions, answers, and discussion among the attendees. (Millsap secured a large number of death penalty sentences while in office but is now an outspoken opponent of capital punishment based largely on the fact that one of the people he prosecuted, Ruben Cantu, was very likely innocent based on evidence developed many years after his execution.) A prayer service used by the Team is posted under "Death Penalty Files" for others to use as a resource.
America’s Retreat from the Death Penalty
2013 began with a January 2 editorial in the New York Times which concluded “that under evolving standards capital punishment is cruel and unusual and should be abolished.” The Times pointed out that “When the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it said there were two social purposes for imposing capital punishment for the most egregious crimes: deterrence and retribution. In recent months, these justifications for a cruel and uncivilized punishment have been seriously undermined by a growing group of judges, prosecutors, scholars and others involved in criminal justice, conservatives and liberals alike.” The editorial, citing additional criticism of the death penalty system as arbitrary, discriminatory, and unfair, points out that a national consensus is emerging and calls on the Supreme Court to abolish capital punishment.
Maryland Governor Puts Repeal on Agenda
On January 15 Governor Martin O’Malley formally announced that his administration would be sponsoring legislation to repeal the death penalty in Maryland, one of the states targeted by the Issue Team. According to the Baltimore Sun, “By putting death penalty repeal on his legislative agenda for the first time since 2009 — when he had to settle for a compromise that left capital punishment on the books — O'Malley signaled not just a willingness to push for its passage but also a confidence that he has lined up enough votes to win.” His announcement quickly drew national editorial support. Readers interested in legislative advocacy will find some new resources from the Catholic Mobilizing Network quite useful: here is a set of current talking points specific to Maryland and here is a set of talking points on Catholic teaching.
Will Maryland be the Next State to Repeal?
“There is no good and sufficient reason to have the death penalty and plenty of reasons against it,” said former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti, Chair of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, when the Commission recommended repeal four years ago. Civiletti was being quoted in The Calvert Recorder (Prince Frederick, MD) in a recent editorial advocating repeal of the death penalty in Maryland – one of the states targeted by the Issue Team. Days later, on December 13, Governor Martin O'Malley reaffirmed his support for repeal in a meeting with NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous and Maryland NAACP State Conference President Gerald Stansbury. The Team stands with Maryland Citizens Against State Executions and with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in urging people to take action no matter where they live by calling Governor O'Malley at 410-974-3901 or 800-811-8336. Thank him for his leadership on this issue, urge him to sponsor the death penalty repeal bill and to work with the state legislature to end the death penalty in 2013.
Where Justice and Mercy Meet
Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty, being published in early 2013, “comprehensively explores the Catholic stance against capital punishment in new and important ways,” says the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty. According to the CMN “The foundation for the church’s position on the death penalty is illuminated by discussion of the life and death of Jesus, Scripture, the Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Written for concerned Catholics and other interested readers, the book contains contemporary stories and examples, as well as discussion questions to engage groups in exploring complex issues. The book can be pre-ordered at a discount using links available here.
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