Friday, June 11, 2010

California: Breaking News: Execution Procedures Rejected!

More Than 7500 Supported California Racial Justice Act!

Also look below for more information re: Sat., June 12, 2010 - San Francisco, CA
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty - 2010 Annual General Assembly and ONE DAY FREE workshops.

This will be a landmark event -- the first meeting of more than eighty death penalty abolition organizations from around the world to be held in the United States.

CALIFORNIA is a major place to look right now for several firsts including the FIRST World Coalition Against the Death Penalty Conference in San Fransisco. Although I'm unable to be there, it's great to be in California following the event at the same time from the same state.

Connie

This week California's Office of Administrative Law rejected the proposed lethal injection regulations drafted by the Department of Corrections (CDCR) citing numerous, serious problems! This was, in great part, due to all of the objections raised by you! CDCR was given 120 days to fix these problems.

Today, less than 3 days later, CDCR opened another comment period starting today, ending on June 25th. However, it is clear that they have still failed to address many of the serious concerns that have been raised. We will be asking everyone to submit another round of comments next week when we send out sample talking points.

This decision demonstrates what we already knew to be true: California's death penalty is broken beyond repair and should be abolished!

What you can do in the meantime:
Please take a few minutes to send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

Letter writing tips:

1. Keep it simple. Less is more. Less than 200 words preferred.

2. Always include your full name, address, and phone number.

3. If possible, respond directly to a related article in your local paper.

Talking points:

# The death penalty is failed government program. Let's stop throwing good money after bad and end it already.

# We should be investing in violence prevention programs, instead of wasting money killing prisoners.

# The death penalty costs millions more than the alternative, life without parole.

# There is no humane way to kill a prisoner. We should stop the tinkering and just abolish the death penalty.

# The death penalty is a failed public safety policy. It doesn't deter crime and it doesn't make us safer.

# The United States is one of the few remaining democracies that still kills prisoners.

More Than 7500 Supported California Racial Justice Act!
We are so pleased to announce that more than 7500 individuals took action to support the RJA. More than 25 civil rights and religious organizations also supported the bill. The bill, SB 1331, advanced out of the CA Senate Public Safety Committee, but failed to advance out of the Appropriations Committee. While the bill will no longer advance this year, tremendous progress was made and the bill may be brought back in the future.

Thank you to all our supporters who took action!

Election Results and the Death Penalty: Check out today's piece in the California Progress Report by Natasha Minsker for her take on California's election results as they relate to the death penalty FIND here

Experience is shared by many murder victim family members across California, particularly people of color. GO here

Jun 11, 2010 Just Released: The California Progress Report's Voter Guide summarizes the recommendations of leading progressive organizations on June 2010 state ballot (Yes, we know our readers here may well vote differently on various issues - still there may be some items here which relate specifically to Death Pen issues. So you may want to check this out here

Upcoming Events

Sat., June 12, 2010 - San Francisco, CA
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
2010 Annual General Assembly

This will be a landmark event -- the first meeting of more than eighty death penalty abolition organizations from around the world to be held in the United States.

There will be one day of FREE workshops for members of the public.

Saturday, June 12th
8am - 5pm
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
198 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Registration Required.

Questions? Please contact: Elizabeth Zitrin at ezitrin@deathpenalty.org.

For more information on the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty visit (AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY) www.worldcoalition.org OR CLICK here

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