Rais Campaign for a World Without Hate

Also read Rais Bhuiyan's Website and get involved with his campaign for a World Without Hate

Rais Bhuiyan is in the middle

Also see World Without Hate website GO worldwithouthate.org or CLICK here

And see the article here

Save One Life to Save the Human Race: More on Rais Bhuiyan

I missed this article earlier and reading it today found tears rolling down - it's one of the most moving stories of my life:

Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi immigrant, was shot by Mark Stroman, a white supremacist, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. First Posted at Huff Post: 7/18/11 07:54 PM ET Updated: 7/18/11 09:11 PM ET

Just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, a masked man stormed into the Dallas convenience store where Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, worked as a cashier. He asked where Bhuiyan was from -- then shot him in the face at point-blank range before he could reply.

His attacker was Mark Stroman, an avowed white supremacist and methamphetamine addict, who was caught and confessed to the shooting as well as two other attacks on South Asian convenience store workers. Those men died, while Bhuiyan survived, although he was blinded in one eye and still carries 35 shotgun pellets embedded in his face.

In less than 48 hours, Stroman is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Texas death chamber at Huntsville for the crimes. A last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution was rejected without comment in June.

But even as the clock runs down on Stroman's time on death row, an unlikely advocate is trying to spare his life: Bhuiyan, the man he casually shot and left for dead nearly a decade ago.

Over the past several months, Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, has mounted an aggressive campaign to convince Texas authorities to commute Stroman's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He has asked the state board of pardons and paroles to make a positive recommendation for clemency to Gov. Rick Perry, and has asked Texas prison administrators for permission to meet face-to-face with Stroman for a victim-offender reconciliation process.

After those efforts were met with no response from Texas officials, Bhuiyan filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that his rights as a crime victim to meet with his attacker had been unjustly denied. That lawsuit was moved from state to federal court on Monday and remains unresolved.

In an interview with HuffPost, Bhuiyan said his efforts on behalf of Stroman were motivated by his Muslim faith. The Koran teaches that those who forsake retribution and forgive those who have wronged them become closer to God, he said.

"My faith teaches me that saving a life is like saving the entire human race," he said.

Bhuiyan is not alone in his efforts to save Stroman's life. He has support from family members of the other victims, including the widows of the two murdered men, Waqar Husan and Vasudev Patel, he said.

"We decided to forgive him and want to give him a chance to be a better person," Nadeem Akhtar, Husan's brother-in-law, said in an interview.

Akhtar said that his sister, Husan's widow, had written a letter requesting that the Dallas district attorney's office support the effort to obtain clemency for Stroman. The district attorney's office declined to support the petition, however.

According to those close to Stroman, the efforts by Bhuiyan on his behalf have contributed to a change of heart in a man who called his crimes "patriotic" before his trial and who prosecutors once described as a cold-blooded killer.

In an interview last week, Stroman told Ilan Ziv, a documentary filmmaker, that he was remorseful for the crimes and was deeply moved by Bhuiyan's attempts to save his life.

"I received a message that Rais loved me and that is powerful," said Stroman, who suffered extreme abuse and neglect as a child at the hands of his alcoholic parents, according to court records.

"I want to thank him in person for his inspiring act of compassion. He has forgiven the unforgiveable and I want to tell him that I have a lot of love and respect him," he added.

Ziv, who met with Stroman for several hours on Monday, said the condemned man had little hope that Bhuiyan's efforts would succeed in sparing his life.

"He's very realistic," Ziv said. "He knows he's got no chance."

Stroman's last bid for a reprieve will come in less than 48 hours, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles weighs his petition for clemency or a stay of execution. The board has voted for clemency just once in the last 10 years, a period when the state carried out a record 231 executions. A spokeswoman for Perry's office said the governor has not expressed an opinion on the petition to the board.

Bhuiyan's request to meet face-to-face with Stroman before the execution -- a meeting that Stroman has enthusiastically agreed to -- is also unlikely to occur. Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said that both victims and offenders must go through months of counseling and complete other preparatory work before such a meeting can take place.

"There just is not enough time to prepare the victim and the inmate for a meeting," Lyons said.

Bhuiyan said he would have begun the mediation process long ago, but was not informed of his rights to such a meeting by the Dallas district attorney. That complaint was the basis for his lawsuit attempting to force the state to postpone Stroman's execution until the mediation meeting could take place; a state judge in Austin ruled Monday that the suit belonged in federal court.

If the suit is dismissed and Stroman's bid for clemency is denied, the execution will almost certainly go ahead as scheduled at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening.

For Bhuiyan, such an outcome would be a tragedy. "If he's given a chance, it's very likely that he can contribute to society," he said. "If he can educate one person who is full of hate, that is an achievement."

Yet at least one mind has been changed by Bhuiyan's outreach -- his attacker's.

"It is due to Rais' message of forgiveness that I am more content now than I have ever been," Stroman said in the interview with the documentary filmmaker. "If I don't make it I want Rais to carry on his work teaching people not to be prejudiced."

"We need to make sure there is not another Mark Stroman," he concluded.

A "Catch-up" Page From JOH FB

Hello:

I'm so grateful that there is such an active FaceBook page and discussion blog going on here for JOH and my plans are to find better ways to interconnect with the folk participating there in a few weeks as well as to upgrade my own technical abilities as blogger and would-be more of a helper to the JOH website/movement.

Meantime here are a few excerpts BUT best to go directly to that LINK I just gave you above to read the rest and get the other links directly. Plz add your comments to BOTH those discussions as well as here at the JOH blogsite.

See info on The Ella Bella Butterfly Foundation
A 501(c)3 (pending) dedicated to the prevention of violence through criminal justice reform and victim advocacy efforts. (Page: ‎194 people indicated they liked this) which was just posted 23 hours ago TOP of the JOH FB page for Friday

Also see Bill Pelke's post on NC restorative Justice Conference before that entry see Lisa Rea's posting via Bill and find link there to "listen in" to crime victims along with Bill, Lisa, Debbie and others - the post is entitled:
Listening to crime victims: North Carolina restorative justice conference — RJ Online - This concerns what happens "When crime victims speak about the effect violent crime has had on their lives"

I was glad to see Hooman Hedayati and others liked this one:
"Iranian Woman Forgives" posted both on this blogsite below in our July Archives and on the JOH FB page...While not usual post, this one certainly speaks to one of our major themes: forgiveness. Iranian blinded by acid pardons her attacker.

I was also grateful to the current "host" on the FB page discussion - Debbie Kearns -who carefully followed the story about the victims and victim families who forgave the man recently executed in Texas and tried to stop his execution:

GO see that interesting set of excerpts, video and comments:

Debbie Kearns comment here condenses the jist to this saga:

"So far, Rais Bhuiyan and the families of Patel and Hasan are crying because nobody in Texas listened to their pleas for clemency for Mark Stroman, whose evidence of child abuse and of his sister who got killed by 9/11 went TOTALLY ignored by the Texas courts...

'Somewhere, these death penalty-supporting yahoos (including Brian the death penalty-supporter) are saluting Texas' and Georgia's cruel governors for "a job well done in sending these monsters to hell and ensuring that justice is served for victims' families", which is, in fact ...justice is NEVER SERVED FOR VICTIMS' FAMILIES AT ALL ... At least both Mark and Andrew made their peace with God and are now with their deceased family members in heaven. May they and their victims rest in the peace and justice that were totally denied for them on earth." (Gilles Denizot left a note that "The Georgia execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung has been rescheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m.")

Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain." (Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair, Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign...)

Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor By Patricia BohEmail: pboh@smu.edu Published: Friday, July 22, 2011

"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman...See More here on this blogsite in the July Archives for 2011-07-23 21:07:00 GMT

Debbie Kearns added: "...Gov. Perry claims that he supports crime victims' rights, yet he TOTALLY ignored the rights of Bhuiyan and of the families of Patel and Hasan! He's just so arrogant that he only supports the rights of victims who support the death penalty!"

(Note: Rais Bhuiyan, Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting, was said to try to sue the State of Texas, evidently, to Try to Spare Attacker's Life By Anna Merlan posted Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM - ​At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, was to announce that he's filing suit today against Gov")

Also see blogs.dallasobserver.com or GO here

Then there's this story I missed here which got attention from both Debbie and Bill Pelke since the case relates to one we at JOH know well: Va. judge throws out drug dealer’s death sentence in slaying which was at The Washingtonpost (Hope Bill or Terri S will write up something more fully on this case soon for our JOH blog!) The jist was that Veteran Prince William County prosecutors withheld or ignored crucial evidence and potential testimony in the capital murder case, a federal judge rules...
Samir Bouzid liked this and Bill Pelke said: "Debbie, thank you for your post. This is a very special case to all of the Journey of Hope family. Terri Steinberg is one of us."

Thanx, JOH Family, for remaining true to our principles of forgiveness, compassion and seeking a better way.

Continue to support Journey of Hope with your Comments, Suggestions and in other ways.

Gang 'Interrupters' - Stopping the next killing

We in the Abolition Movement must work toward prevention. Here's an inspiring movement...

Gang 'Interrupters' Fight Chicago's Cycle Of Violence
August 1, 2011

Listen to the Story - Fresh Air from WHYY - [44 min 1 sec] GO here

Ameena Matthews, a violence interrupter with the Chicago organization CeaseFire, mediates disputes to prevent gang violence from escalating.

Aaron Wickenden, a violence interrupter with the Chicago organization CeaseFire, mediates disputes to prevent gang violence from escalating.

For 11 years, former gang members in Chicago have entered dangerous neighborhoods in the city and staged group interventions for at-risk youth, in an effort to try to stop the cycle of retaliatory gang violence that plagues the city's western and southern neighborhoods.

The men and women, known as "violence interrupters," work with an organization called CeaseFire, which operates under the assumption that violence moves through a city in the same way that an infectious disease moves through the body. To fix crime, says the organization, violence needs to be stopped at the source.

But there's a problem: "Not just anybody can come in and tell a guy to put his gun down," says CeaseFire's director Tio Hardiman, in a scene from The Interrupters, a new documentary about the group. "Most of the violence interrupters come from the hierarchy in some of these gangs. [And they] have one goal in mind: to stop killings. They're not trying to dismantle gangs. What they're trying to do is save a life."

Chicago's Schools, Police Work To Stem Violence:

The film is a collaboration between Hoop Dreams director Steve James and journalist Alex Kotlowitz, who profiled their organization in 2008 for The New York Times Magazine. The topic of violence in Chicago hit particularly close to home for both men, James tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

"Alex saw three people in the course of writing [his book There Are No Children Here] perish on the streets," he says. "And for me, two people [related to the cast] from Hoop Dreams ... were murdered. ... What we wanted to do, in some ways, was to refocus some attention on this issue because it feels like we've gotten to a point where murders are down, but they're still way too high. And I think there's this feeling that we've kind of done what we can do — and it's just the way those neighborhoods are at this point."

Members of CeaseFire establish relationships with people affected by violence and then work to get them to channel their anger in non-violent ways. The film profiles three of the interrupters, including a man whose father was murdered and another who committed a murder when he was 17.

The third subject of the film is Ameena Matthews, one of only two female members of Chicago's interrupters team. Matthews is the daughter of a famous gang member and had been in a gang herself — which, she says, gives her credibility when navigating potentially volatile situations among teens on the streets.

"The first thing they'll say [to you] if you come on the block and you haven't lived or walked the walk, [is] 'How can you tell me anything? You don't know how I live. You don't know how I breathe. You don't know nothing,'" Matthew says. "And nine times out of ten, these little young guys and girls that I encounter, they know my father."

I'm looking at 13, 14, 15, 18, 19-year-old men and women dying on the streets of Chicago. That's what's so profound to me about the violence.

- Ameena Matthews
Gang members who aren't familiar with Matthews or her father will often do research on her before she comes back to talk to them again, she says.

"And when I come back around, the way they look is 'Oh my goodness, what did I do to have this person come and speak to me?'" she says. "It's a door opener."

When Matthews was heavily involved in gang activities, it was her Muslim faith, her children and grandmother who served as her own violence interrupters, she says.

"[My grandmother] would step in the middle of raids, asking, 'Where's Ameena?'" she says. "Guns were drawn and she's not even looking at the guns or the gas that was thrown in the building to smoke us out, she's yelling my name and telling me to get my behind out. ... She was there."

Iranian Woman Forgives

While not usual post, this one certainly speaks to one of our major themes: forgiveness. Iranian blinded by acid pardons her attacker - GO here

NEW: Larry Swearingen execution stalled (Texas)

Photo found at Justice Denied dot org

Larry Swearingen’s Execution Is Stayed So His Actual Innocence Claim Can Be Considered

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of Larry Swearingen’s execution scheduled for August 18, 2011. The Court’s Order issued on July 28 was based on Swearingen’s writ of habeas corpus filed on June 22, 2011 that raises a single claim: he is actually innocent of murdering Melissa Aline Trotter because at the time of her death he was in the Montgomery County Jail.

Larry Swearingen during prison interview on July 27, 2011 (Justin Dehn)

Texas is one of eight states that allows a free-standing claim of actual innocence, and the Court ordered the stay so that the new due process violation alleged in his petition — that he is actually innocent — can be reviewed and resolved by the trial court.Swearingen was convicted in 2000 of murdering Ms. Trotter, a 19-year-old freshman at Montgomery College in Conroe, Texas.

Ms. Trotter was last seen by family and friends on December 8, 1998, and her clothed body was found on January 2, 1999 by hunters in the Sam Houston National Forest north of Conroe. Swearingen was a friend of Ms. Trotter’s and he was seen with her on the college campus the day she disappeared, but he wasn’t seen leaving with her. Three days after she was last seen the 27-year-old Swearingen was arrested on December 11 for outstanding traffic tickets. He was in custody from then until Ms. Trotter’s body was found three weeks later. He was subsequently charged with kidnapping, raping, and murdering her.

The prosecution’s case during Swearingen’s trial was circumstantial because there was no direct evidence he was Ms. Trotter’s assailant and DNA tests excluded him as the source of blood under her fingernails and of a pubic hair recovered from a vaginal swab. READ rest of article here


Photo/article also found at Death Penalty Information Center)

CA Death Pen. Law author has deep regrets

Donald Heller: My view is that as a civilized society, we've reached the point where capital punishment should be completely abolished. And we are a civilized country, with some idiosyncrasies, capital punishment being one.

Author of CA Death Penalty Law Has Change of Heart

Los Angeles Times columnist and radio personality, Patt Morrison, interviewed Donald Heller, author of California's current death penalty statute, on July 16th about why he no longer supports capital punishment.

In the interview Heller cites "the enormous toll it [takes] on people involved" including defense lawyers, judges and other players in the system, the high cost and the risk of executing the innocent.

Heller, a former prosecutor, only became vocal about his opposition to the death penalty after the execution of Thomas Thompson in 1998, a man Heller believes was innocent. He admits, "The way I look at it, what I created can and may already have resulted in the death of an innocent person. And that's pretty heavy."

"The thing I regret most that I cannot change -- except by what I do now -- was drafting the death penalty initiative," Heller laments.

Read the full interview with Donald Heller posed at death penalty dot org here

Find another link here

Crime victims’ rights “...symbolic, says Texas

Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain." (Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign...)

Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor

By Patricia Boh

Email: pboh@smu.edu

Published: Friday, July 22, 2011

"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman, was executed by the state of Texas on July 20th for shootings that killed two men and seriously injured a third in 2001.

His death sentence has garnered intense media coverage due to the aggressive campaign for life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death sentence.

Stroman's main defender is none other than his only living victim, Rais Bhuiyan.

Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain."

Following the 9/11 attacks, Mark Stroman went on a Dallas-area shooting spree with the intention of gunning down people of Middle Eastern descent "as a patriotic response to terrorism."

The shootings took place in the Dallas area during September and October 2001.

Stroman, an alleged member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was free on bond for a gun possession arrest at the time of the shootings.

All three of Stroman's hate crime victims were South Asian convenient store workers. Both Waqar Husan, a Pakistani immigrant, and Vasudev Patel, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India died. Bhuiyan was critically injured. He survived the shooting, although he is now blind in one eye and still has 35 shotgun pellets embedded in his face.

During his recovery, Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, pledged to "dedicate his life to the poor and needy."

Embodying this new resolve, Bhuiyan, as well as the families of Husan and Patel, took legal action to dispute the death penalty sentence.

Under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedures, article 56.02, crime victims have the right to seek mediate with their attacker. Bhuiyan claims that this right was violated. The plaintiffs claim that the prosecutor never consulted regarding the death penalty charge. Members of the jury also claim that they would have honored the families of the victims and not agreed on the death penalty charge.

Bhuiyan appealed to have the death penalty charge changed to life in prison on grounds of clemency. Gov. Rick Perry and other Texas officials ignored Bhuiyan's campaign.

In response, Bhuiyan filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming his rights were violated. Unfortunately, all efforts failed to prevent the state's decision to execute Stroman.

Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign a year ago. A well-known human rights activist and advocate for abolishing the death penalty, Halperin is "not surprised but […] extremely disappointed in the callousness that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Perry have taken toward these specific pleas for mercy and compassion and life from both the survivor and the victims' family members."

"The governor of the state is an enemy of human rights, apparently no friend of crime victims, and [presents] a fraudulent picture of himself as a champion [of crime victims' rights]," said Halperin.

Perry has been a strong advocate of crime victims' rights in the past. In response to Bhuiyan's claims of his violated rights, Perry's legal team stated, "the ‘right' [guaranteed to crime victims] is essentially symbolic . . ."

This is the eighth execution in the state of Texas this year. During his tenure as Governor of Texas, Perry has overseen 233 executions.

Bhuiyan, a native of Bangladesh, became a naturalized US citizen last year. This fall, he will attend SMU to study journalism and human rights.

GO here

Also see the ACLU blog for July 23 or Go to the preceding posts on The Journey of Hope blog

Victim Forgives yet Texas Kills

Victim Forgives, Texas Executes
Fri Jul 22, 2011 14:18
78.35.100.163

Jul 21st, 2011
Posted by Anna Arceneaux, Capital Punishment Projectat 2:45pm
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Victim Forgives, Texas Executes

Last night, Texas executed Mark Stroman for a string of hate crimes against men he thought were Arab-Americans, including two murders, in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Texas went through with the execution despite a powerful plea for clemency from a surviving victim of Stroman’s attack, Rais Bhuiyan. Joined by family members of the deceased victims, Bhuiyan called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Stroman’s execution and commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. Bhuyian, drawing from his Muslim faith, wanted to do more than forgive Stroman, he wanted to save his life.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Texas officials who rejected clemency for Stroman, Bhuiyan became, as we warned against last week, another irrelevant victim. Had Bhuiyan supported the death penalty, it’s much more likely he would have had a seat at their table.

The Texas Department of Corrections also denied Bhuiyan the opportunity to meet with Stroman before his death, though the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees him that right as a crime victim. Bhuiyan challenged the denial in court, but his“poignant testimony was cut short” last night by order from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

One of the jurors in Stroman’s trial also came forward to speak out against his execution and expressed her deep regrets in participating in the decision to sentence Stroman to death. She had no idea that Bhuyian and relatives of the other victims wanted to forgive Stroman, and, in fact, had the opposite impression based on the prosecution’s presentation of the case. Gov. Perry ignored her calls too.

The State of Texas may have taken the life of Mark Stroman yesterday, but it can not take away Rais Bhuiyan’s courageous message of extraordinary compassion and forgiveness. The story of this relationship born of the hatred of one but ending in reconciliation is a lesson for us all, and Bhuiyan’s quest to end the cycle of hatred and violence in this country will live on.

Find a posting on aclu.org blog here

Find earlier story on this blogsite or Go here

Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting Seeks to Prevent Execution

Rais Bhuiyan, Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting, to Sue the State to Try to Spare Attacker's Life By Anna Merlan
published: Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM

​At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, will announce that he's filing suit today against Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials. The suit is a last-ditch effort to prevent Stroman's execution, which is scheduled for July 20 in Huntsville.

Bhuiyan, who was working behind the counter of a Pleasant Grove convenience store when he was attacked, says in the pleading that Perry has violated his rights as a victim of a violent crime by ignoring his requests to meet with Stroman for mediation, something he's entitled to by law. "Victim restoration," improving the quality of care for victims of violent crime, is something Perry has long said is part of his platform as governor. An excerpt from the suit:

Plaintiff wishes to see reconciliation with Mark Stroman, and to pursue fill mediation with him. Plaintiff feels this way because his parents raised him with the religious principle that he is best who can forgive easily. He believes, as a Muslim, that human life is precious and that no one has the right to take another's life.

Plaintiff also seeks solace for the widows and children of murder victgims Vasudev Patel and Waqar Hasan, who are also victims in this tragedy, and who support Plaintiff in his efforts to seek reconciliation.

Plaintiffs is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is a long standing mechanism within many faiths, Islam being one of them, toward the healing of the soul. As a Muslim, Plaintiff is of the belief that when he forgives or promotes mercy for his attacker, the government should no longer have a duty or a right to exact the ultimate punishment upon Mr. Stroman.

We couldn't reach Bhuiyan this morning, but he and his attorney have sent a statement explaining the motivations behind the suit -- and offering a defense of Stroman's actions that resulted in two men dead and another blinded in one eye.

Bhuiyan's lawyer, Khurrum Wahid, said in a statement, "It is ironic that Rais Bhuiyan was shot by someone thinking it was a blow against Muslims, yet Islamic law would respect Rais' desire for forgiveness. The state of Texas has failed him as a victim. After suffering such a traumatic experience, surely we should respect Mr. Bhuiyan, rather than traumatize him again. We often hear, 'What about the rights of the victim!' The victim has rights even when his voice is not one of vengeance but one of forgiveness."

A press release sent last night lays out in more detail what Bhuiyan's camp says were the circumstances surrounding Stroman's state of mind before his shooting spree, which left two other men dead and Bhuiyan blinded in one eye and disfigured. Says the release:

"Fueled by his addiction to methamphetamine, which he used to medicate his post-traumatic stress disorder, Mark Stroman was close to the edge when he caught his girlfriend having an affair. Then came 9/11, and Mark Stroman responded to the fact that his half sister was killed in the World Trade Center by setting out take revenge on 'Arabs." He killed two innocent men and tried to kill Mr. Bhuiyan."

It remains unclear if Stroman's claim to have lost his half-sister on September 11 was ever verified.

Bhuiyan and his lawyer contend that the the Dallas County District Attorney's Office "pushed forward with the death penalty" without consulting him or the families of the other victims, who he says support his campaign. They also charge that Stroman's lawyer put up a "desultory" defense.

In recent weeks, Bhuiyan has taken his campaign to save Stroman's life internationally, with profiles appearing in both The Guardian and The Independent. The last time he spoke to Unfair Park, Bhuiyan said he was moved by the support he's received in his quest. "This cause is truly a human cause," he said. In the statement he released yesterday, Bhuiyan added that "along with the families of the other victims in the case, I have been ignored and sidelined, year after year. My parents taught me to believe passionately in compassion and respect. If Governor Perry really means it when he says victims' rights are a priority, we need action rather than hollow words.
END article

See Bhuiyan Vs. Perry here

COMMENTS are running over 50 last I looked. GO here

Struck By Lightning: Commentary of New DPIC report

Original post:
Tue, July 12, 2011 1:22:08 Capital Punishment In The U.S. Found in The U.S. Public Record GO here

Struck By Lightning: Capital Punishment In The U.S.
By William Fisher
The Public Record
Jul 12th, 2011

It couldn’t have taken more than a two-minute visit to the web site of The Innocence Project to persuade most rational adults that the death penalty is not only cruel and unusual, but a costly and ineffective way to deter murder.

That’s the gist of a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). It’s entitled “Struck by Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Re-instatement in 1976.” Richard Dieter, DPIC’s executive director, is the report’s author.

For those whose memories may be a bit hazy on this subject, the U.S. did have a moratorium on executions from 1972 to 1976, when the United States Supreme Court approved the reinstatement of the death penalty.

The moratorium came about in a 1972 court case, Furman v. Georgia, in which the United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States,

The moratorium came to an end when Gregg v. Georgia was decided in 1976. The Supreme Court consolidated Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, and thus also invalidated the death penalty for rape.

Gregg v. Georgia, et al reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court’s acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. Referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg, the Supreme Court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comport with the Eighth Amendment bar on “cruel and unusual punishments.” The decision essentially overturned the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972).

The report notes that by the end of the 1960s, all but 10 states had laws authorizing capital punishment, but strong pressure by forces opposed to the death penalty resulted in an unofficial moratorium on executions for several years, with the last execution during this period taking place in 1967. Prior to this, an average of 130 executions per year occurred.

From 1930, the first year for which statistics are readily available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to 1967, 3,859 persons were executed under civil (that is, nonmilitary) jurisdiction in the United States. During this period of nearly half a century, over half (54%) of those executed were black, 45 percent were white, and the remaining one percent were members of other racial groups — American Indians (a total of 19 executed from 1930-1967), Filipino (13), Chinese (8), and Japanese (2), the report says, adding:

The vast majority of those executed were men; 32 women were executed from 1930 to 1967. Three out of five executions during that period took place in the southern U.S. The state of Georgia had the highest number of executions during the period, totaling 366 — more than nine percent of the national total. Texas followed with 297 executions; New York with 329; California with 292; and North Caroline with 263. Most executions — 3,334 of 3,859 — were for the crime of murder; 455 prisoners (12%) — ninety percent of them black — were executed for rape; 70 prisoners were executed for other offenses.

Athough the death penalty had earlier been held unconstitutional because of its arbitrary and unpredictable application, the Court was willing to sanction new systems that states had proposed to make capital punishment less like “being struck by lightning” and more like retribution for only the “worst of the worst” offenders.

The Court also deferred to the states’ judgment that the death penalty served the goals of retribution and deterrence.

After three and a half decades of experience under these revised statutes, the randomness of the system continues. Many of the country’s constitutional experts and prominent legal organizations have concluded that effective reform is impossible and the practice should be ended. In polls, jury verdicts and state legislative action, there is evidence of the American people’s growing frustration with the death penalty. A majority of the nine Justices who served on the Supreme Court in 1976 when the death penalty was approved eventually concluded the experiment had failed.

Nonetheless, in 1976, the newly reformed death penalty was allowed to resume. However, it has proved unworkable in practice. Keeping it in place, or attempting still more reform, would be enormously expensive, with little chance of improvement. The constitution requires fairness not just in lofty words, but also in daily practice. On that score, the death penalty has missed the mark.

Four states have abolished the death penalty in the past four years, and nationwide executions and death sentences have been cut in half since 2000. A review of state death penalty practices exposes a system in which an unpredictable few cases result in executions from among thousands of eligible cases. Race, geography and the size of a county’s budget play a major role in who receives the ultimate punishment.Many cases thought to embody the worst crimes and defendants are overturned on appeal and then assessed very differently the second time around at retrial. Even these reversals depend significantly on the quality of the lawyers assigned and on who appointed the appellate judges reviewing the cases.

In such a haphazard process, the rationales of deterrence and retribution make little sense.

In 1976, the newly reformed death penalty was allowed to resume. However, it has proved unworkable in practice. Keeping it in place, or attempting still more reform, would be enormously expensive, with little chance of improvement. The constitution requires fairness not just in lofty words, but also in daily practice. On that score, the death penalty has missed the mark.

The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s “Death Row USA” shows that the number of people on death row in the United States is continuing to slowly decline, falling to 3,242 as of October 1, 2010. In 2000, there were 3,682 inmates on death row. Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 44% white, 42% black, and 12% Latino/Latina. California continues to have the largest death row population (714), followed by Florida (394) and Texas (322). Pennsylvania (220) and Alabama (204) complete the list of the states with the five largest death rows in the country. California and Pennsylvania have not carried out an executiion in over five years. Death Row USA is published quarterly by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The report contains the latest death row population figures, execution statistics, and an overview of recent legal developments related to capital punishment.

Four states in the past four years have abolished the death penalty, bringing the total of states without capital punishment to sixteen. As growing costs and stark unfairness become harder to justify, more states are likely to follow that path.

The post-Gregg death penalty in the United States has proven to be a failed experiment.

The theory that with proper guidance to juries the death penalty could be administered fairly has not worked in practice. Thirty-five years of experience have taught the futility of trying to fix this stem. Many of those who favored the death penalty in the abstract have come to view its practice very differently. They have reached the conclusion that if societyʼs ultimate punishment cannot be applied fairly, it should not be applied at all.

There have been 272 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 34 states; since 2000, there have been 205 exonerations.
17 of the 272 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.
The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years. The total number of years served is approximately 3,521.
The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 27.
Races of the 272 exonerees:

161 African Americans
80 Caucasians
21 Latinos
2 Asian American
4 whose race is unknown
The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 122 of the DNA exoneration cases.
Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursued—until DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused.
In more than 25 percent of cases in a National Institute of Justice study, suspects were excluded once DNA testing was conducted during the criminal investigation (the study, conducted in 1995, included 10,060 cases where testing was performed by FBI labs).
About half of the people exonerated through DNA testing have been financially compensated. 27 states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have passed laws to compensate people who were wrongfully incarcerated. Awards under these statutes vary from state to state.
22 percent of cases closed by the Innocence Project since 2004 were closed because of lost or missing evidence.
Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. They were convicted in 11 states and served a combined 209 years in prison – including 187 years on death row – for crimes they didn’t commit.

Kirk Bloodsworth served eight years in Maryland prison – including two years on death row – for a murder and rape he didn’t commit, before he was exonerated in 1993.

Rolando Cruz, and his co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, served more than 10 years on Illinois death row for a murder they didn’t commit before DNA testing proved both men innocent in 1995.

Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were sentenced to death in the infamous Ford Heights Four case in Illinois for a pair of 1978 murders they didn’t commit. Jimerson was cleared in 1995 after a decade on death row and Williams served more than 17 years on death row before he was freed in 1996.

Robert Miller spent nine years on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before he was cleared by DNA testing in 1998.

Ron Williamson spent a decade on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA testing secured by the Innocence Project proved him innocent in 1999. His co-defendant, Dennis Fritz, was sentenced to life and spent 11 years in prison before DNA cleared him as well.

Ronald Jones, an Innocence Project client, served a decade on Illinois death row for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his release in 1999.

Earl Washington, a Virginia man with limited mental capacity, was sentenced to death after he allegedly confessed to committing a 1982 murder he didn’t commit. He served a decade on death row, once coming within nine days of execution before receiving a stay. He would serve a total of 17 years behind bars before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project cleared him in 2000.

Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on Florida’s death row after serving 14 years for a murder and rape he didn’t commit. He was cleared by DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project 11 months after his death.

Charles Irvin Fain served more than 17 years on death row in Idaho for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence in 2001.

Ray Krone served a decade in Arizona prison – including four years on death row – for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence in 2002.

Nicholas Yarris served more than 21 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his release in 2003.

Ryan Matthews served five years on Louisiana’s death row for a murder he didn’t commit before he was exonerated by DNA testing in 2004. His co-defendant, Travis Hayes, was sentenced to life in prison and served eight years before he was cleared in 2007.

Curtis McCarty served 21 years in Oklahoma prison – including nearly 18 years on death row – for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA tests secured by the Innocence Project led to his exoneration in 2007. He was convicted twice and sentenced to death three times based on forensic misconduct.

Kennedy Brewer, an Innocence Project client, served 15 years behind bars – including seven years on death row – for a murder and sexual assault he didn’t commit before DNA testing from 2001 finally led to his exoneration in 2008.

Michael Blair served 13 years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA testing obtained by his lawyers at the Innocence Project proved his innocence and led to his exoneration in 2008.

These DNA exoneration cases have provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events, but arise from systemic defects that can be precisely identified and addressed. For more than 15 years, the Innocence Project has worked to pinpoint these trends.

Eyewitness Misidentification Testimony was a factor in 75 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the leading cause of these wrongful convictions. At least 40 percent of these eyewitness identifications involved a cross racial identification (race data is currently only available on the victim, not for non-victim eyewitnesses). Studies have shown that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. These suggested reforms are embraced by leading criminal justice organizations and have been adopted in the states of New Jersey and North Carolina, large cities like Minneapolis and Seattle, and many smaller jurisdictions. Read more.

Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science played a role in approximately 50 percent of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing. While DNA testing was developed through extensive scientific research at top academic centers, many other forensic techniques – such as hair microscopy, bite mark comparisons, firearm tool mark analysis and shoe print comparisons – have never been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation. Meanwhile, forensics techniques that have been properly validated – such as serology, commonly known as blood typing – are sometimes improperly conducted or inaccurately conveyed in trial testimony. In other wrongful conviction cases, forensic scientists have engaged in misconduct.

False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions in approximately 25 percent of cases. In 35 percent of false confession or admission cases, the defendant was 18 years old or younger and/or developmentally disabled. Twenty-two of the first 265 DNA exonerees pled guilty to crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project encourages police departments to electronically record all custodial interrogations in their entirety in order to prevent coercion and to provide an accurate record of the proceedings. More than 500 jurisdictions have voluntarily adopted policies to record interrogations. State supreme courts have taken action in Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia require the taping of interrogations in homicide cases. Read more.

Snitches contributed to wrongful convictions in 19 percent of cases. Whenever snitch testimony is used, the Innocence Project recommends that the judge instruct the jury that most snitch testimony is unreliable as it may be offered in return for deals, special treatment, or the dropping of charges. Prosecutors should also reveal any incentive the snitch might receive, and all communication between prosecutors and snitches should be recorded. Fifteen percent of wrongful convictions that were later overturned by DNA testing were caused in part by snitch testimony.

When the death penalty was permitted to go forward in 1976, many distinguished legal scholars warned that the task of creating an objectively fair system for deciding which criminals deserved to die and which should be allowed to live was impossible. A majority of those on the Supreme Court that approved the experiment ultimately concluded the attempt to fix the death penalty had failed.

Thirty-five years later a strong body of empirical evidence confirms that race, geography, money, politics, and other arbitrary factors exert a powerful influence on determining who is sentenced to death. This is the conclusion not only of experts, but increasingly that of the general public as well. Unfairness ranks near the top of the American publicʼs concerns about the death penalty.

As the use of the death penalty has declined, the rationale for its continuation has disappeared. With defendants already facing life without parole, no one is likely to be deterred by an added punishment that is rarely imposed and even more rarely carried out many years later, and that is dependent on so many unpredictable factors. Nor does the wish for retribution justify a death penalty that is applied so sporadically. The reality is that those in society generally, and those families of murder victims in particular, who look to an execution to counter a terrible homicide will very likely be disappointed.”

Thus, the report concludes, receiving the death penalty is still like being struck by lightning.

William Fisher, a regular contributor to The Public Record, has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He reports on a wide-range of issues for numerous domestic and international newspapers and online journals. He blogs at The World According to Bill Fisher.

--

Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary - NYTimes

Photo of David Dow by Katya Glockner

Over the past two decades, Dow has represented more than 100 death row inmates as an appellate lawyer.

July 8, 2011
Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary By DAVID R. DOW
Houston

LAST week was the 35th anniversary of the return of the American death penalty. It remains as racist and as random as ever.

Several years after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, a University of Iowa law professor, David C. Baldus (who died last month), along with two colleagues, published a study examining more than 2,000 homicides that took place in Georgia beginning in 1972. They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks.

What became known as the Baldus study was the centerpiece of the Supreme Court’s 1987 decision in McCleskey v. Kemp. That case involved a black man, Warren McCleskey, who was sentenced to die for murdering a white Atlanta police officer. Mr. McCleskey argued that the Baldus study established that his death sentence was tainted by racial bias. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that general patterns of discrimination do not prove that racial discrimination operated in particular cases.

Of course, the court had to say that, or America’s capital justice system would have screeched to a halt. Georgia is not special. Nationwide, blacks and whites are victims of homicide in roughly equal numbers, yet 80 percent of those executed had murdered white people. Over the past three decades, the Baldus study has been replicated in about a dozen other jurisdictions, and they all reflect the same basic racial bias. By insisting on direct evidence of racial discrimination, the court in McCleskey essentially made the fact of pervasive racism legally irrelevant, because prosecutors rarely write e-mails announcing they are seeking death in a given case because the murderer was black (or because the victim was white).

In Texas, though, they do come close. In 2008, the district attorney of Harris County, Chuck Rosenthal, resigned after news emerged that he had sent and received racist e-mails. His office had sought the death penalty in 25 cases; his successor has sought it in 7. Of the total 32 cases, 29 involve a nonwhite defendant.

Since 1976, Texas has carried out 470 executions (well more than a third of the national total of 1,257). You can count on one hand the number of those executions that involved a white murderer and a black victim and you do not need to use your thumb, ring finger, index finger or pinkie.

Well, you might need the pinkie. On June 16, Texas executed Lee Taylor, who at age 16 beat an elderly couple while robbing their home. The 79-year-old husband died of his injuries. Mr. Taylor was sentenced to life in prison; there he joined the Aryan Brotherhood, a white gang, and, four years into his sentence, murdered a black inmate and was sentenced to death. When Mr. Taylor was executed, it was reported that he was the second white person in Texas executed for killing a black person. Actually, he should be counted as the first. The other inmate, Larry Hayes, executed in 2003, killed two people, one of whom was white.

The facts surrounding Lee Taylor’s execution are cause for further shame. John Balentine, a black inmate, was scheduled to die in Texas the day before Lee Taylor’s execution. Mr. Balentine’s lawyers argued that his court-appointed appellate lawyer had botched his case, and that he should have an opportunity to raise issues the lawyer had neglected. Less than an hour before Mr. Balentine was to die, the Supreme Court issued a stay.

Lee Taylor’s lawyers watched the Balentine case closely; their client too had received scandalously bad representation, and, they filed a petition virtually identical to the one in the Balentine case. But by a vote of 5-to-4, the justices permitted the Taylor execution to proceed. If there were differences between the Balentine and Taylor cases, they were far too minor to form the boundary between life and death. But trivial distinctions are commonplace in death penalty cases. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., one of the five justices in the McCleskey majority, retired from the court in 1991. Following his retirement he said he had voted the wrong way. If Justice Powell had changed his mind a year sooner, Warren McCleskey, who was executed in Georgia in 1991, would still be alive.

And because of a vote from a single Supreme Court justice, John Balentine lives while Lee Taylor died. When capital punishment was briefly struck down, in 1972, Justice Potter Stewart said the death penalty was arbitrary, like being struck by lightning.

It still is, and it’s the justices themselves who keep throwing the bolts.

David R. Dow, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, is the author, most recently, of a memoir, “The Autobiography of an Execution.”

For information on the memoir GO here and for more BIO GO here

*** Reprints from the NYTimes
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CELEBRATE JOURNEY OF HOPE

POST to be updated soon...

photo is from abolition.org Fast and Vigil page

Meantime, there's a lot of activity currently on the JOH facebook page Please GO Journey of Hope...From Violence to Healing here

And here's the newest RIGHT link THANX largely to Gilles Denizot here

Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing is an organization led by murder victim family members joined by death row family members, family members of the executed, the exonerated, and others with stories to tell, that conducts public education speaking tours and addresses alternatives to the death penalty.

Journey Storytellers come from all walks of life and represent the full spectrum and diversity of faith, color and economic situation. They are Real People who know first hand the aftermath of the insanity and horror of murder. They have Real Stories that recount their tragedies, and their struggles to heal as a way of opening dialogue on the death penalty in schools, colleges, churches and other venues.

The Journey spotlights Real People with Real Stories. Some choose not to seek revenge, and instead select the path of love and compassion for all of humanity. Some see forgiveness as strength and as a way of healing. Others come by different paths. Listen to the Voices of Experience because all reject the Death Penalty as Bad Public Policy and believe...

YES, there's a better way and PEOPLE of all sorts including Victims Family Members, former Death Row prisoners and many other "types" are a part of the healing and change together.

Great News: NC RJA delayed until next year!

June 17, 2011

We have great news to report to you this morning.

NC Senate leadership has indicated that they will not be voting on repeal of the Racial Justice Act this year and will likely wait until May 2012 to take it up.

As long as we continue to work together, the Racial Justice Act will continue to be the law of the land.

Thank you!
PFADP

Three Needles. Six Minutes. The End.

Gary Haugen was in prison for killing his ex-girlfriend's mother when he killed a penitentiary inmate in 2003 and was sentenced to death. Haugen's execution by lethal injection in a room similar to this Texas chamber is set for Aug. 16.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Execution forces Portland’s faith community to confront death penalty
By Peter Korn

The Portland Tribune, Jun 16, 2011

T. Allen Bethel has met his exception. A gentle and thoughtful man, Bethel is senior pastor of Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland. He and other Portland-area clergy are well aware that on Aug. 16 the state Department of Corrections is scheduled to put convicted killer Gary Haugen to death in the first Oregon state execution in 14 years.

Most members of the local faith community who take up the highly charged issue these days speak out against the death penalty, though there are certainly clergy on both sides.

Proponents and opponents know that the issue is framed differently here because Oregon is also home to physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.

Physician-assisted suicide essentially allows individuals to say they would rather die than live in circumstances they cannot bear. Haugen went to Marion County Circuit Court to ask that he be put to death rather than live out his life in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

When he considers those two ideas, Bethel, a staunch opponent of capital punishment, says maybe Haugen should get his wish.

“My belief is, I would fight for his life,” Bethel says. “But each of us has the right to say what I want or do not want done with my body.”

Oregon’s lethal injection execution system uses three sterilized needles and takes about six minutes for the combination of drugs to kill the prisoner. The state has used the lethal injection method since Oregon’s capital punishment was reinstated in 1984. Prior to that, Oregon executed prisoners for many years in a gas chamber.

Many religious leaders on both sides of the issue see Aug. 16 as an important day. Some see it as a shameful moment. Others see it as justice being done.

Tribune Photo: Christopher Onstott • The Rev. T. Allen Bethel of Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland says he opposes the death penalty, but might make an exception for soon-to-be executed Gary Haugen, who has said he prefers death to spending the rest of his life in prison.

Sanctity of life
Gary Haugen has killed twice. He was serving a life sentence for the 1981 sexual assault and beating death of his ex-girlfriend’s mother in her Northeast Portland home, when he was sentenced to death in 2003 for the stabbing to death of a fellow inmate.

Haugen, 49, has released his lawyers, saying he doesn’t want to appeal his execution. He’s ready to die. But dozens of local religious leaders have joined an organization called Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. They have asked Gov. John Kitzhaber to block Haugen’s execution and commute his sentence. The group also plans a ballot measure to eliminate Oregon’s death penalty.

Bethel supports those efforts, for the most part. Until six years ago, Bethel says, he found himself supporting the death penalty for a few cases. He has been inside prisons as a chaplain. He has talked to prisoners. His congregation, he figures, has people on both sides of the issue.

But six years ago, Bethel began to wrestle with what he truly meant when he spoke about the sanctity of life, and he came to the conclusion that he had to go all in against executions.

“How do we right a wrong when we can’t right the wrong?” Bethel asks. “Today I advocate for the sanctity of life.”

Choice is another matter. Haugen says he wants to die. Maybe, Bethel says, he should be given his one final choice because maybe it wouldn’t be Haugen at all who was truly making the choice. It might just appear that way.

“The kicker for me is this: all of our lives are coming to an end,” Bethel says. “In my belief, God is the final decision-maker as to when life ends.”

Bethel says he doesn’t know one local minister who is for the death penalty. That in itself is revealing, because nationally, recent polls show 62 percent of Americans support the death penalty in murder cases. If the majority of Portland’s faith community leaders feel similarly, they are being quiet about it.

On the other side of the issue is Lanny Hubbard, a theology instructor at Portland Bible College and an elder at the charismatic City Bible Church in Northeast Portland. Hubbard is certain a number of local ministers support the death penalty, but most would rather do so quietly.

Churches here have enough trouble maintaining healthy congregations; taking on an issue such as capital punishment could lose them members.

“It boils down to marketing and image,” Hubbard says. “How does the world perceive us? If they perceive us as irrelevant and hostile, they won’t come to our church. They’re afraid if they said I am for the death penalty, immediately they’re going to be put in a place where that also means they’re going to be gay bashers and they’re going to light abortion clinics on fire.”

Hubbard isn’t shy about explaining his pro-death penalty view. He believes justice and the social order require it be used in “ironclad” murder cases. Putting the murderer to death, he says, tells society that we value life. Not doing so devalues it, he says, quoting an Old Testament passage calling for public execution: “So all Israel will hear and be afraid and never again do such a wicked thing.”

“There is a moral balance in the universe that must be maintained,” Hubbard says.

Hubbard’s support for the death penalty doesn’t extend to the celebrations that sometimes take place outside the penitentiary after an execution, which he calls “sickening.”

“It should never be vindictive,” Hubbard says. “It should never be vengeful. The issue is justice, it’s not getting even.”

***

‘It’s about our values’
That doesn’t work for Matt Cato, director of the Office of Life, Justice and Peace for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland. The Catholic Church, Cato says, stands against the death penalty, which he says is consistent with its position against abortion and physician-assisted suicide.

“We protect life,” Cato says. “We’re very much against (capital punishment). Just because someone decides to take their life we don’t approve of it. In this case, (Haugen) is choosing to die just like someone at the end of life and suffering. We don’t believe that’s justification for taking a life.”

While Cato suspects local Catholics are fairly evenly split on the issue of capital punishment, the Rev. Lynne Smouse Lopéz, pastor at Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Alameda, says she’s pretty sure most of her congregation are against it. As for her personal view, Lopéz says, “I’ve always been against the death penalty and always will be, I’m sure.”

Lopéz believes that everyone is redeemable and that putting someone to death denies that possibility.

“What I have to believe is that everybody has good in them,” Lopéz says. “We are created in the image of God. …We can be broken, but I also believe we can be healed and be made whole. Some people maybe have to be kept away from society to protect themselves and others, but I just cannot give up on them as human beings.”

As for Haugen asking for his own execution, Lopéz admits to equivocation.

“I’d rather we then say, ‘It’s OK if he wants physician-assisted suicide, but not put to death in an execution.’ ”

Haugen’s case is not an aberration. Two men have been executed in the past 77 years in Oregon (in 1996 and 1997) and both chose to abandon the lengthy and costly appeals process in state courts.

But for Rabbi Michael Cahana of Temple Beth Israel in Northwest Portland, volunteering for execution shouldn’t matter. He agrees with Lopéz that government should not be executing people, even as he acknowledges the Jewish Torah is full of instances of capital punishment.

“To extend to the state the irrevocable power of execution is not in line with Jewish theology,” Cahana says. “It’s one thing to say God makes these decisions, an entirely different thing to say human beings do.”

Cahana says despite the biblical executions, Jewish law as it has evolved over the centuries made it so hard to convict somebody to the standard of capital punishment that it was essentially irrelevant.

Imam Mikal H. Shabazz, director of the Oregon Islamic Chaplains Organization, has concerns similar to Cahana. Both have trouble accepting capital punishment in a country where the criminal justice system has been shown to sometimes send innocent convicts to their deaths. But Shabazz is bound by another authority — the Koran — which he says is unequivocal in supporting capital punishment for a variety of crimes, including rape and sedition.

So Shabazz supports capital punishment, but not so much in the United States.

As for Haugen asking to be put to death, he’s willing to consider that an exception.

“He (Haugen) is not backing off. He says, ‘This is what I did,’ and he wants the full measure of the law,” Shabazz says. “He’s saying, ‘All I have to give is my life.’ I think his right should be accepted.”

Shabazz has a qualifier. Islamic law, he says, gives the family of a victim great latitude in either demanding a murderer be put to death or shown mercy. The family’s desire should trump Haugen’s wish, he says.

Haugen’s last wish, or the wishes of his victims’ families, shouldn’t come first in the eyes of Tom O’Connor, who was chaplain for the Oregon prison system until 2008.

O’Connor, a Catholic who writes about the role of religion and spirituality in prisoners’ lives, has spent a great deal of time with Oregon’s nearly three dozen death-row inmates. He says as a rule they are tortured individuals and dangerous. Yet O’Connor calls the death penalty “inhumane and ineffective.”

Much as the Bible College’s Hubbard feels the lack of a death penalty diminishes society’s ability to value life, O’Connor believes something nearly the opposite: that the existence of the death penalty diminishes the value of life for those inside our prisons.

Acceding to Haugen’s wish to die is giving the inmate a power he no longer deserves, according to O’Connor.

“We’re getting sucked into Mr. Haugen’s issues, not our issues,” O’Connor says. “For us as a people, forget Mr. Haugen. This is not about him. It’s about us and our values and what kind of society we really value.”

Copyright 2011 Pamplin Media Group, 6605 S.E. Lake Road, Portland, OR 97222 • 503-226-6397

***3rd photo above: by Tribune's Christopher Onstott Subject is Ron Steiner:
Board Chairman who told members of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty last week that the group would try to persuade Gov. John Kitzhaber to commute Gary Haugen’s death sentence.

Find the original story here

NC Racial Justice Act S9 Vote: JUST IN

June 16, 2011 7 PM or so EST... Repeal still pending so our URGENT and COLLECTIVE ACTIONS may help make a crucial difference. (The vote was closer than the earlier committee vote.)

Minutes ago, the NC House of Representatives voted in favor of Senate Bill 9 by a vote of 63 - 53. The bill will now move to the NC Senate for a concurrence vote.

Take action now and encourage your senator to vote ‘no’ on Senate Bill 9, here

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
www.pfadp.org
110 W. Main St., Suite 2-G, Carrboro NC 27510
(919) 933-7567

NC RJA from People of Faith Against the Death Penalty

It's a Moral Issue & We Told Them So

The bill to repeal the NC Racial Justice Act, S9, was rescheduled for a vote on the NC House floor today, Thursday, June 16 during the session starting at 10:00 a.m.

Meanwhile, more than two dozen religious leaders and state legislators from across North Carolina appeared at our press conference at the NC General Assembly Tuesday, June 14.

We all laid out the moral failure that repealing the NC Racial Justice Act would be.

Here are some television news stories:

* ABC Local here

* Triangle News 14 here

You can find photos from the press conference here:

* http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150202476791829.310463.109511491828 (Don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page.)


Take a minute and contact your legislators. Pass this one if the vote is delayed and Click here, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1576/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6422

Stay strong. Because of you, justice will prevail.

============

VIDEO: Religious Leaders Take on Appeal of the Racial Justice Act

GO here

Pending Vote on Repeal of NC Racial Justice Act: new articles

wral.com here

Asheville Citizen Times here


SEE items below and CALL your NC House legislators and a few extra republicans if you have a chance to plead for an end to the call for Repeal. Even if you are in another state...why not call a few of our state house legislators? Normally, we try to stay bi-partisan here yet in this state the Republicans have been calling for Repeal as a block.

The vote may take place momentarily or could be delayed. So don't delay your call or FAXES which may work better in this case...

Check back for more news later...

Be Honest about Race Bias: Keep Racial Justice Act

Pastor's Pitch on Saving the NC RJA

Interesting pitch for preserving Racial Justice Act in North Carolina by blogger
by Doug B. on 11. Jun, 2011 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Race, Class, and Gender, Who Sentences?

A local North Carolina paper has this fascinating commentary by Reverand Shawn Blackwelder, the pastor of Riverside United Methodist Church in Elizabeth City, NC, headlined "Be honest about race bias: Keep Racial Justice Act." Here are excerpts:

From time to time, each of us is called to speak out about issues of justice and honesty, and I feel the N.C. Racial Justice Act is one of those issues. The state of North Carolina became a model of justice, honesty and courage in 2009 when the Racial Justice Act was passed and signed into law. It simply provides for a court review to determine whether racial bias influenced a death sentence or a prosecutor’s decision to seek a death sentence. If race is found to have been a factor, the defendant would not go free, but would be re-sentenced to life without parole....

Like everything to do with the death penalty, the Racial Justice Act has its opponents as well as its supporters in the legislature. Currently, the opponents are directing the conversation, as the N.C. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote next week on a bill to repeal the Racial Justice Act. If this bill passes, it would be a huge step in the wrong direction, and I hope that Gov. Perdue will veto the measure.

I need to say a few words about what the Racial Justice Act is not. It is not an attempt to vilify those in law enforcement or the courts. I have law enforcement officers in my congregation, and I know that because they are on the front lines, putting themselves out there, they are often much more aware of and sympathetic to the problems of race and injustice. In short, they know more about it and do more about it than most of us....

Recently I hosted a press conference with local pastors in support of the Racial Justice Act. We held it in the sanctuary in the shadow of the cross, which reminded us of two things: first, Jesus Christ, who was unjustly tried and subjected to the death penalty and second, that we are all sinners in need of grace. So, it is a legal matter and a matter of justice, but it is also a spiritual matter and a matter of honesty....

The N.C. Racial Justice Act does not seek to point fingers at anyone; rather, it just seeks to make us be honest with ourselves about how our particular sin of bigotry may at times corrupt our attempts at justice in the legal system. And considering the finality of the punishment, that’s something we need to do.

The N.C. Racial Justice Act offers a practical and honest way to improve our criminal justice system, and reduce the historical and institutional effects of our particular sin of racial bias. I want to thank the legislative leaders and our governor for their honesty and moral courage in supporting the Racial Justice Act. I encourage them to continue to do so. It’s simply the right thing to do. I also want to encourage all people of faith in this area to be in prayer for how we might further seek a kind of justice that honors God and shows a love for our neighbors.

Some related posts on the North Carolina Racial Justice Act:

Robust legislative debate over NC Racial Justice Act
NC Racial Justice Act going to governor's desk
NC Gov signs new racial justice act concerning capital prosecutions
Will NC's new Racial Justice Act effectively kill the state's death penalty?
New research suggests race of victim impacts NC death penalty administration
NC defender officer urging that racial bias claims be brought in every capital case
NC prosecutors bring complaints about state's Racial Justice Act to court
State judge refuses to overturn Racial Justice Act in North Carolina
Upcoming MSU symposium to examine North Carolina Racial Justice Act
Talk of profound changes to North Carolina's potent Racial Justice Act

And see the posts below:

Repeal or no on RJA Full Vote: NC House to Vote Tuesday June 14th

SB 9 is expected to be heard on the NC House floor on June 14th. In addition to the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, the House is also considering... GO here

See the articles below and cut/paste the following:

http://thejourneyofhope.blogspot.com/2011/06/urgent-nc-racial-justice-act-vote.html NC racial justice act - repeal vote June 14 2011

http://thejourneyofhope.blogspot.com/2011/06/costs-of-repeal-of-nc-racial-justice.html