Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 21:52:53 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fwd: Mumia related...


Looks like one of my predictions may come true. Several months ago I
told some friends that Mumia's butt would probably be saved by a general
death penalty moratorium, not by anything the Mumia movement could do.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Mumia related...
Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:39:42 -0800
Resent-From: iww-list-AT-iww.org
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:39:07 PST
From: "Mike Ballard" <classconscious-AT-hotmail.com>
To: iww-list-AT-iww.org

From: Tom Condit <tomcondit-AT-igc.org>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 13:29:47 -0800

From: Mark Clement
       MClement-AT-bruderhof.com


Pennsylvania Considers Death Penalty Moratorium

Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee
Holds Hearings On Death Penalty Moratorium

Harrisburg, PA. February 14, 2000. The Judiciary Committee
of Pennsylvania's Senate will hold hearings on Senate Bill
952, which calls for a 2-year moratorium on executions in
Pennsylvania. The hearings will be held on Tuesday,
February 22nd, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the State
Capitol in Harrisburg. Some of the witnesses testifying for
the moratorium will be:

Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua - Archdiocese of Philadelphia
David Baldus - Law Professor, foremost researcher on race
and the death penalty in the US; Ernie Preate and Shane
Creamer - Former Attorneys General of Pennsylvania;
Andre Dennis - Former Chancellor of Philadelphia Bar Assn.
Johann Christoph Arnold - Bruderhof Elder and frequent
visitor to death row; Lawrence Marshall - Law Professor
at North Western University, Chicago; Jerome Shestak -
Former head of American Bar Association;
Caroline Roberto - President of the Pennsylvania
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Robert Dunham -
Attorney with Federal Defender Association of
Philadelphia.

The witnesses are being coordinated by former Pennsylvania
Attorney General Ernie Preate. Once a leading and
nationally recognized advocate of the death penalty, and
author of a book on how to convict in capital cases,
Preate successfully argued for death penalty law before the
US Supreme Court, and won. Now he leads the movement in the
opposite direction, calling for an immediate moratorium on
the death penalty he helped create.

Evidence proving that the application of the death penalty
is racially skewed in Pennsylvania, most conspicuously in
Philadelphia, will also be introduced during the hearings.
An executive study by one of the country's foremost
researchers on race and capital punishment, Law Professor
David Baldus and colleagues, has constructed a careful
analysis of race in death penalty convictions in
Philadelphia. This study reveals that the odds of
receiving a death sentence in Philadelphia are four times
(3.9) higher if the defendant is a person of color. More
than 50% of the death sentences rendered in Pennsylvania
are cases from Philadelphia, which comprises only 14% of
Pennsylvania's population. Of the 226 death row inmates
in Pennsylvania, 126 are from Philadelphia and 82% of
those are people of color.

More than 90% of Pennsylvania's death row prisoners were
too poor to afford a lawyer for their initial trial, and
were left with whatever representation the state selected
for them. After sending an individual to death row,
Pennsylvania provides no funds for post-conviction legal
defense, and instead, has appropriated $500,000 to the
Attorney General's office to establish an execution
resource center to oppose capital appeals.

Governor Ridge signed 132 death warrants in his first term
in office.  This is more than four times the number of death
warrants signed by all the previous governors of the last
three decades combined.  Since beginning his second term in
1999, he has signed 61more death warrants.
= = = = 


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