Good news from Singapore and Malaysia

Our Asia Program Director Toshi Kazama reports good news from Singapore and Malaysia this week.  Each country has just taken steps to abolish mandatory death sentences for people convicted of drug trafficking. Here's an article about this news in Malaysia, and here's one from Singapore.

Toshi's visit to Singapore and Malaysia this week is a follow-up to his succesful visit to these countries last fall, when he gave several presentations and met with lawyers and public officials. In this photo, Toshi (right) is standing with Member of Parliament Liew Chin Tong (center) and human rights lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying; they are holding a report from MVFHR, prepared at the request of Justice and Law Minister Aziz, about how various U.S. states have declared a moratorium on the death penalty. 

Help stop Georgia execution

Our friends at Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Amnesty International have put out an urgent request for support to halt the execution of Warren Hill, which is scheduled for July 18. The deadline for signing this petition is tomorow, July 12. Here's Amnesty's quick summary of the situation:

Warren Hill is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on July 18, despite having been ruled "mentally retarded" by a preponderance of the evidence by a Georgia state judge. Executing persons with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional, and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has the opportunity and the responsibility to do what courts have been unable to do - prevent this execution and preserve the integrity of Georgia justice.

An op-ed in the Daily Report, a legal publication, notes that the victim's family does not want Warren Hill to be executed:

Hill's final chance for life is to plead for clemency before the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board's discretion to commute Hill's death sentence is Georgia's last chance to prevent an unconscionable and immoral execution.

The board now has the opportunity to show mercy and compassion to Hill by granting clemency and by commuting his sentence to life without parole. The victim's family has expressed its support for commutation. By acceding to their wishes, the board can act as the "fail safe" necessary when the legal machinery of our capital punishment system makes a mistake.
Further, granting mercy to Hill would finally acknowledge the nationally recognized safeguards for defendants with developmental and intellectual disabilities on death row, and protect the constitutionally mandated rights of men and women with these disabilities.

The World Coalition: Celebrating 10 Years

Penal Reform International has a nice summary of the Tenth General Assembly of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which was held in Amman, Jordan last week.  


Representing Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights at the General Assembly, Renny Cushing led a workshop on working with murder victims' family members. The General Assembly each year is a valuable opportunity for MVFHR to participate in discussions about the death penalty around the world; this year's panels included a discussion of the death penalty in the Middle East since the Arab Spring and an exploration of steps towards developing and adopting an Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights on abolition of the death penalty, to name just a couple of examples.

I cannot stand by

Great piece by MVFHR board member Yolanda Littlejohn in North Carolina's Star News online:

I was very disappointed and disheartened last week to learn that the N.C. House of Representatives voted to repeal the Racial Justice Act. Despite what supporters of Senate Bill 416 claim, this bill is a repeal of the law because under the revised language, statistics alone would not be sufficient to prove racial bias. A prosecutor would essentially have to admit to making a racially biased decision in jury selection or in pursuing the death penalty in the first place. I find it highly unlikely that any prosecutor is ever going to admit to making a decision based on race.

My sister, Jaquetta Thomas, was brutally murdered in 1991. I understand firsthand the pain of having a loved one taken by violence. More important, I understand that victims' families deserve justice that is equal and fair. Justice that is tainted by racial bias is not justice, and it creates a broken system that continually re-traumatizes victims' families.

As a family member of a victim of murder I am also distressed that the provision allowing an inmate to make a claim based on the race of the victim has been removed in the repeal bill. All victims' lives are equally precious, yet the statistics show that death sentences are much more common when the victim is white.

Since a death sentence is supposedly reserved for the most egregious of crimes, our system is demonstrating a belief that murdering a white person is more egregious than murdering a black person. By removing this provision in the new law, our government is agreeing that white life is of more value than black life. I cannot stand quietly by and pretend that this is okay.

Read the full piece.

Moral Unease

Yesterday's Mississippi Clarion-Ledger has a column by University of Mississippi Professor Sarah Moses, titled "An Invitation to Moral Unease," that talks about victim opposition to the death penalty and mentions MVFHR.  Here's an excerpt:

News this past week of the June 5 execution of Henry Curtis Jackson here in Mississippi was juxtaposed for me with news that Ohio's governor granted a stay of execution for a death row inmate on the very same day.

I have been troubled about the increase in executions here in Mississippi starting with an unusual announcement in May 2011 that the state intended to execute three inmates in one month. This most recent execution heightened my sense of unease for several reasons, including opposition from the family members of Jackson's victims and questions as to Governor Bryant's use of his pardoning power. 

Furthermore, I think all of us who live in this great state should share my moral unease when we realize that Mississippi's increasing enthusiasm for executions is out of step with national death penalty trends. As news stories reported last week, the relatives of Henry “Curtis” Jackson's victims publicly appealed to the governor for clemency thus raising serious questions about our supposed commitment to victims. The courage of Regina Jackson and Glenda Kuyoro, Jackson's own sisters, is even more remarkable when you consider the gruesome facts of the crime: Regina was stabbed multiple times by her brother, and Henry murdered four of the women's children aged 2 to 5 and paralyzed another.

Despite their profound loss, the women pleaded with the governor not to add to their family's tragedy by allowing the state to kill their brother. As Regina wrote, “As a mother who lost two babies, all I'm asking is that you not make me go through the killing of my brother.”

To be sure, the feelings of murder victims' family members differ from case to case. In recent executions in Mississippi some family members have expressed a belief that justice was served for their slain loved one. On the other hand, Regina and Glenda are not alone in opposing execution of their family members' murderer.

In one of the most high profile executions in recent U.S. history, Bud Welch spoke out against the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, arguing that it would be a disservice to his daughter's memory who was killed in the bombings.

Of course, one of the justifications that lawyers, legislators, and governors often offer in support of the death penalty is that it honors the victim's family. But organizations like Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) have long pointed out that states and prosecutors are not as eager to honor victims' families when they oppose the death penalty, as seen in the Jackson case.

And when you read victims' families' testimonies on the MVFHR website, it is clear that it is simply not true that executions are the only way for victims' families to experience healing and closure. Furthermore, the voices of Regina Jackson and Glenda Kuyoro remind us that the loved ones of death row inmates are our fellow citizens, too, and that executions add to the tragedy of murder by creating loss and sadness for another family.

"9/11 Husband Urges No Death Penalty"

From Monday's NBC New York News, "9/11 Husband Urges No Death Penalty for Accused Terrorists":

The husband of a 9/11 victim who was among the handful of relatives at Guantanamo Bay for the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged terrorists says the accused murderers should not be put to death if convicted.

Blake Allison won one of 10 lottery tickets available for relatives of 9/11 victims who wanted to see their loved ones' accused killers formally arraigned on terrorism, conspiracy and other charges last weekend, reports The New York Post.

His wife, Anna, was a software consultant en route to visit a client in Los Angeles and was on board American Airlines flight 11. She was 48.

Allison told friends and family he wanted to go to Guantanamo Bay to "see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife," reports the Post. While there, the 62-year-old ended up meeting with the lawyers of the accused, offering to testify against the death penalty should a military commission convict them of capital charges, according to the paper.

The wine-company executive's staunch opposition to the death penalty predates his wife's death. Allison told the Post he believes the death penalty should be off the table in the 9/11 case, though he acknowledges his wife's relatives and the relatives of the other 9/11 victims who went to Guantanamo Bay disagree.

"They want what they perceive as justice for their loved ones," Allison said of the other families. "I would never tell anybody in my position what they should feel."

"The public needs to know there are family members out there who do not hold the view that these men should be put to death," he added. "We can't kill our way to a peaceful tomorrow."

Allison said that his opposition to the death penalty does not mean he doesn't seek justice for his wife's killers, nor does it mean he believes that, given the opportunity, KSM and the alleged terrorists would take a different course of action.

"But for me, opposition to the death penalty is not situational," he told the Post. "Just because I was hurt very badly and personally does not, in my mind, give me the go-ahead to take a life."

Short film from AI South Korea

Amnesty International South Korea has produced a 19-minute video, "The Death Penalty: Another Murder," that features several people speaking about the death penalty in South Korea, including Kim Dae-jung, former death row inmate and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience and the 15th President of South Korea.  At about 13 minutes into the film, you can see members of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights with our banner and then a brief interview with Executive Director Renny Cushing.

Read our earlier post about our participation in events last September in connection with South Korea's 5,000th day without an execution.

We didn't give up

Monday's National Catholic Reporter has an interview with MVFHR member Toni Bosco, "Connecticut repeal thrills long-time death penalty opponent":

Writer, journalist and well-known death penalty opponent Antoinette Bosco, 83, has been against the death penalty her whole life. When she moved to Connecticut in 1981, she continued her campaign to abolish the death penalty in the state with the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. What makes her commitment even more compelling is that her son and daughter-in-law were murdered in 1993 in Montana. She and her other children wrote to the judge and said they did not want the killer executed.


On April 25, the campaign in Connecticut came to a close -- Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a law to repeal the death penalty. NCR talked to Bosco about the decision. The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.


NCR: What have you learned from working to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut?
Bosco: The nice thing I've learned is that a lot of people who never thought they'd be interested in this have joined. That is a good thing. We do make "converts" on this. And the other thing is that we have just had a repeal of the death penalty law in Connecticut. When I first started back in the '80s, if anybody said to me, "It'll take 25, 30 years, but it will happen," I would've said, "Yeah, sure," because I knew how adamant so many people were that we have to keep it. But it happened. It happened just now that Gov. Malloy signed the repeal of the state's death penalty. So I just feel, "Thank God for the young people." Thank God for them. Because they were the ones I have to give credit to, along with a few of us old ones. So you can understand, can't you, how happy I feel about this? Because sometimes you just felt like giving up. But we didn't. 

Read the full interview.

This Mother's Day: Walk for Peace

This Sunday, MVFHR will be participating in the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute's Mother's Day Walk for Peace.  The Peace Institute was founded in 1994 by Tina Chery after her 15-year-old son, Louis, was murdered in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  The Peace Institute does vitally important work in reaching out to family members and helping them to rebuild their lives after a homicide. They have created a special curriculum for young children who have had a sibling or parent or caretaker murdered, and they work within the community to prevent violence and promote peace. Without the Peace Institute, so many Boston-area families would be left to cope alone after murder, at a time when a lack of help and support only compounds the grief, pain, and isolation that comes after a family member is killed. 

You can support Team MVFHR as we walk with hundreds of other murder victims' family members, demonstrating our solidarity with other victims and offering our support to  those who do so much to provide help after homicide and work to prevent it fron happening to others.  

Go here to donate to our Team.

Read our blog post about last year's Walk for Peace.

Read an earlier post about the Peace Institute's work.

Valuing All Lives

From yesterday's Greensboro, North Carolina News-Record, this op-ed by MVFHR board member Yolanda Littlejohn, "The promise of the racial justice law":


North Carolina took a step closer to applying justice equally in death sentencing April 20, and also took a step toward valuing all lives regardless of race.

As a family member of a murder victim, I believe this is a big step toward a better quality of justice for murder victims’ families and all citizens of North Carolina. All lives matter; all lives have value; all lives should be treated equally. We should insist that our courts act accordingly.

In the first case heard under the N.C. Racial Justice Act, Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks found that racial bias did indeed play a role in death sentencing in our state.

The judge pointed to “a wealth of evidence showing the persistent, persuasive and distorting role of race in jury selection” in the specific case of Marcus Robinson and also in capital murder trials across the state. The evidence was so clear that the judge rightly changed Robinson’s sentence from death to life in prison without parole. He also called for broader action to correct the widespread problem of race unjustly influencing death sentencing. 


Studies presented at Robinson’s hearing showed that white lives have routinely been valued more than black lives in our state. To my mind and heart, this is not justice.

I lost my sister, Jacquetta Thomas, when she was murdered in Raleigh in 1991. I know the pain, grief and anger of losing a loved one to murder. The wrong individual, Gregory Taylor, was convicted and served more than 17 years for her murder.

He was freed in 2010 after an investigation by the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission. I never believed Taylor was guilty, and I often have thought about what would have happened if he had been executed. 

My experience strengthened my belief that we need a judicial system that treats everyone’s life as having equal value. If there is inequality, if there is racial bias, there is no justice for the loved ones taken from us.

Judge Weeks said something else that really spoke to me as a family member of a murder victim. He said, “The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutor’s discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence.”

I want a court system that is strong. I want a trial process that I can trust.

Finally, North Carolina is beginning to see the racial injustice that has been going on for many years in our death penalty system. The troubling revelations of racial bias brought to light by this hearing offer us a chance to look at how broken the system is. While the RJA doesn’t repeal the death penalty, I pray this ruling will eventually lead to the death penalty being abolished in our great state.

I am especially proud of our state for examining our justice system, acknowledging injustice within the system and acting on it. I am convinced this can only strengthen our system and result in greater justice for us all — including justice for our murdered loved ones.

If anything, the RJA doesn’t go far enough. In light of this ruling that confirmed racial bias in our death penalty system, it’s time for North Carolina to seriously consider repealing the death penalty, as five other states have done in the past five years.