On March 25, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced H.R. 1430, the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act. This important legislation would amend the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 to include domestic partners and other family members. Please use HRC's Online Action Center to urge your Representative to co-sponsor this legislation today! We have prepared sample language that you can edit to make more personal if you like. To send your FREE FAX, visit http://hrc.grassroots.com/domesticpartners/urgefmla More information on the FMLA Inclusion Act is available at HRC's Online Action Center. http://hrc.grassroots.com/domesticpartners/urgefmla
This past Monday, the same day the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced the creation of a panel to recommend statewide standards for defense lawyers in capital trials, Gov. Ed Rendell signed the death warrants of two African-American men. The Commonwealth's new "liberal" governor has now signed four warrants - all for people of color - in his first 10 weeks in office, in an apparent effort to keep pace with former Gov. Tom Ridge, who ended his 6-plus years in office with 220 death warrants under his belt. With attention intensely focused on the war in Iraq, we cannot allow our efforts to bring an end to government-sponsored killing in our own backyard to wane! We must act NOW, especially in light of many of our elected officials' apparent apathy about the issue and others' steadfast resolve to maintain - or increase - the use of the death penalty. Pennsylvania Abolitionists has launched a major six-month campaign demanding that the governor and state legislature comply with the recommendations of the state Supreme Court committee's March 4 report calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. To kick off the campaign, we are asking all concerned citizens of the Commonwealth to FLOOD THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE WITH PHONE CALLS AND FAXES ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, demanding he recall (nullify) the death warrants he has already signed and impose an immediate moratorium on executions.
This Enewsletter will update you on Pennsylvania's latest death penalty information and tell you how you can take action to stop state-sanctioned killing in your state.
Peace,Jeff Garis Executive Director
(To unsubscribe to future email updates [or to subscribe if you are receiving this as a forward from a friend], reply with your name and
"subscribe"/"unsubscribe" to <PAUADP@aol.com>We honor all requests.)
1. RENDELL SIGNS TWO MORE DEATH WARRANTS - TAKE ACTION NOW! REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE GOVERNOR WITH A CALL AND A FAX ON APRIL 23!!
On Monday, the governor signed the death warrants of Roderick Johnson, 27, of Berks County and Gilbert Jones, 72, of Philadelphia. In yet another brash act showing complete disregard for the recommendations of several Pennsylvania Supreme Court committees, Rendell brought to four the number of warrants he has signed since taking office. Executions by lethal injection were scheduled for May 27 for Johnson, and May 29 for Jones. Write the governor and demand that he rescind all of the warrants he has signed. Demand that he respect the state Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System's findings that race plays a major, if not overwhelming, role in the imposition of the justice system in some counties in Pennsylvania. Demand that he follow the committee's recommendations and impose an immediate moratorium on excecutions.
Please write a letter to the governor with these demands. If you have not already done so, write and send him a letter TODAY. If you've already written him, write him AGAIN! And on Wednesday, April 23, we are asking all citizens of the Commonwealth to flood the governor's office with phone calls and faxes. (For talking points and a PDF version of our latest flyer to distribute to prospective letter writers, please send us an e-mail.)
Last week, Gov. Rendell proclaimed April "Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Month." We will respond by inundating him with messages that there is nothing beautiful about a state that continues to maintain a policy of killing its own citizens.
Contact the governor at:
Governor Ed Rendell
225 Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120
phone: 717-787-2500
fax: 717-772-8284
The phone/fax action will follow the official announcement launching
Pennsylvania Abolitionists' six-month campaign demanding that the governor and state legislature comply with the state Supreme Court committee's recommendations. This grassroots mobilization will extend to every corner of the state and will encompass a variety of tactics from letter writing and signature gathering to nonviolent civil disobedience. We need your commitment and your action in order to end the death penalty in Pennsylvania, so please get involved TODAY! Write a letter, help organize a vigil or demonstration, join a chapter of Pennsylvania Abolitionists. Make your voice heard!
2. NEW PA. SUPREME COURT PANEL TO STUDY STANDARDS FOR DEATH PENALTY CASES Scrutiny of Pennsylvania's death penalty from the highest level of the state's judicial system is intensifying. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced the creation of a panel to recommend statewide standards for defense lawyers in capital trials, adding weight to the March 4 report released by the state Supreme Court's Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System calling for a moratorium on executions in the Commonwealth. The committee, consisting of 17 members, includes judges, district attorneys and defense lawyers. It has been charged with recommending statewide standards for defense lawyers in capital murder trials. Last month's Supreme Court committee report concluded that the lack of standards for death penalty lawyers in Pennsylvania is negligent and unconstitutional. At least 21 of the other 37 death penalty states have adopted uniform standards for lawyers who represent defendants in capital cases. Since 1994, at least 38 Pennsylvanians have had their death sentences overturned because of defense lawyers' mistakes and incompetence, and almost two thirds of those reversals have come in the past two years. Two stories this week in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review detail both the state Supreme Court's creation of the panel and the profound inadequacy of defense counsel in death penalty trials. One article highlights the glaring deficiencies in the defense of Kelly O'Donnell, whose 1993 death sentence was reversed because her attorney, who was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine, did not call a single witness on her behalf during the penalty phase of her trial. Explaining that he no longer represents death penalty defendants, the attorney was recently quoted as saying, "I don't like representing scumbags."
To read these stories, go to:
www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_126723.html
www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_126578.html
4. NEXT MORATORIUM COMMITTEE MEETING MAY 10
Pennsylvania Abolitionists' Moratorium Committee will meet next on Saturday, May 10 at the Susquehanna Art Museum, 301 Market Street, Harrisburg, from 1-5 p.m. This will be a critical meeting to discuss and refine our strategy in light of the developments discussed above. We need to expand the base and scope of the Moratorium Committee; we need people to come together from all regions of the state: Philadelphia, Erie, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh, Williamsport, Harrisburg and elsewhere. If you have not been to a committee meeting in a while, we look forward to welcoming you back. If you have never been to a meeting, please join us - we welcome your participation!
***********************************************************************
PENNSYLVANIA ABOLITIONISTS
United Against the Death Penalty
P.O. Box 58128, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Phone: 215-724-6120 Fax: 215-729-6189
Website: www.pa-abolitionists.org
***********************************************************************
A protestor, who refused to give her name, bears the wounds after she says was hit by Oakland police weapon during a anti-war protest in Oakland, Calif., Monday, Aug. 7, 2003 outside the port area. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) |
Berkeley resident Clay Hinson (R), who was shot once in the chest and twice in the back during an anti-war protest, shows his wounds to an Oakland Police sergeant (L) who takes his statement at the West Oakland train station, April 7, 2003. Oakland police fired rubber bullets and wooden pellets on Monday to disperse hundreds of anti-war protesters in what was believed to be their first such use against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq (news - web sites) began. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne |
A United States Marine Corps color guard carry the casket of Corporal Brian Matthew Kennedy during funeral services at the First United Methodist Church Monday April 7, 2003 in San Diego. The 25-year-old Kennedy was killed in Iraq (news - web sites) March 21, 2003. (AP Photo/Pool,Peggy Peattie ) |
A U.S. Army honor guard carries the casket of U.S. Army Cpl. Greg Sanders out of St. Bridget Catholic Church in Hobart, Ind., Monday, April , 2003. Sanders was killed by enemy fire on an iraq (news - web sites) battlefield on March 24. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) |
David Bloom, co-anchor of NBC's 'Today' show weekend editions, died in Iraq (news - web sites) while covering the war, NBC said on April 6, 2003. Bloom's death was not combat-related, NBC said. He died after he suffered a pulmonary embolism. (NBC via Reuters) |
U.S. Marines of the 3rd batallion, 4th regiment, walk past the body of a dead Iraqi, after they secured a key bridge leading into Baghdad in the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Monday, April 7, 2003. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours) |
A child with head and chest injuries is comforted at a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq Monday April,7. 2003. The child was injured in coalition airstrike on the al-Mansour district in Baghdad. (AP Photo/ALI Haider). |
Injured Iraqis receive treatment at Baghdad's al-Kindi hospital. Explosions and gunfire echoed around the Iraqi capital as US forces staged a raid on President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s main presidential compound(AFP/Ramzi Haidar) |
Ali Ismail Abbas, 12, wounded during an airstrike according to hospital sources, lies in a hospital bed in Baghdad, April 6, 2003. Abbas was fast asleep when war shattered his life. A missile obliterated his home and most of his family, leaving him orphaned, badly burned and blowing off both his arms. 'It was midnight when the missile fell on us. My father, my mother and my brother died. My mother was five months pregnant,' the traumatized boy told Reuters at Baghdad's Kindi hospital. 'Our neighbors pulled me out and brought me here. I was unconscious,' he said on Sunday. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber |
A young Iraqi civilian injured in the US-British bombing of a residential area near Hilla, southern Iraq (news - web sites). At least nine Iraqi civilians died when a coalition missile hit a residential area in central Baghdad.(AFP/File/Ramzi Haidar) |
