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Why Oppose the Death Penalty?
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NADP NEWS | Moving Forward with Determination! | July 2011 | In This Issue
• Welcome to NADP NEWS!
• My Journey into the Movement - By: Stacy Anderson, Executive Director
• Nebraska Officals Express New Determination to Execute!
• Norma and her Toyota take on the death penalty in Nebraska
THE ABOLITIONIST | Summer 2011 | In this Issue
NADP NEWS | Help Wanted | May 2011 | In This Issue
• Welcome to NADP NEWS!
• NEBRASKA: It's Time to Re-evaluate the Death Penalty
• Full-time Executive Director Position Available
Nebraska Supreme Court Sets Execution Date | Click to View
It's Official! Illinois Repeals the Death Penalty! | Click to View
NADP NEWS | March 2011 | In This Issue
• Welcome to NADP NEWS!
• Judiciary Committee Hearing on LB276 - Friday, March 4th
• Death penalty's cruel toll on the victims
• Midlands Voices: Execution costly, legally unsound
View older issues of NADP NEWS and The Abolitionist HERE!
NADP NEWS | Moving Forward with Determination!| July 2011
Hello NADP Supporters!
I hope that you have all stayed as cool as possible during this long strech of hot and humid Nebraska weather! While the thermometer has been rising through out the state our work at NADP has been heating up as well. We are very happy to share some exciting updates with you on our work to end the death penalty here in Nebraska.
First, it is my pleasure to introduce you to our new Executive Director, Stacy Anderson. As we were looking to fill this position we had the fortunate problem of having a great number of very qualified candidates, and we are very lucky to have Stacy joining our team! I will let Stacy tell you a bit more about herself below, however please feel free to contact her in the office at her new email address stacy@nadp.net.
The state continued to see a small number of our elected officials pushing us in the direction of carrying out the first execution in nearly 15 years. As most Nebraskans are re-evaluating our state's use of the death penalty our leaders seem to have lost sight of the many serious questions that remain about the state's new method of execution as well as the huge financial burden that the death penalty continues to place on our state. We take a moment to bring everyone up to speed on the current status of the death penalty in Nebraska.
Finally, we offer up a bit of inspiration to everyone who is working to help us put an end to executions in Nebraska. As we have all been enjoying barbeques with our friends, trips to the swimming pool to cool off on a hot day, and family vacations to excting destinations, 84 year-old, great-grandmohter, Norma Fleisher has been visiting each of Nebraska's 93 counties to start up conversations about the death penatly. To quote Laurel Johnson, one of our board memebers, “I knew there was much to be learned from Norma the first time I met her several years ago. As a young person (age 23), I find myself not only inspired, but also challenged by what she is doing. It is remarkable; her stamina, her sharpness, her ability to communicate about her passion. I admire her initiative. I realize that if an 84-year-old woman can drive to 93 counties in her old beat-up car to spread her message, we can all think about what more we can do now, no matter what stage we are at in our lives!” Read more about Norma's journey in this recent article from the front page of the Lincoln Journal Star.
Onward to justice,
Amy Miller,
NADP Board Chair
My Journey into the Movement
By: Stacy Anderson, Executive Director
I pulled to the side of the road. I could no longer see through the tears. They had found her body. This girl who I had mentored for a few years, had gone missing, and I had been holding out hope they would find her alive. My grief gave way to rage as an acquaintance from my high school years turned himself in and confessed to her murder. I wanted him dead!
Still, the teachings of my faith started running through my brain. Vengeance is not mine. Forgive as I’ve been forgiven. Love my enemies. I was conflicted to say the least.
Growing up in Nebraska, in a conservative household, I was taught to believe if you killed someone, you should be killed…simple as that...it’s Justice! However, as I read up on the subject, I was horrified to learn the truth about the death penalty in the U.S. It is a painfully broken system, full of racial/class bias, innocence issues, and arbitrary judicial technicalities. Even though I had received my bachelor’s degree in political science and worked at the Legislature, I still had not learned about the complexity of capital punishment.
I could no longer be in favor of the death penalty. I could not even stay on the fence. I had to take a stand against it. My faith had also taught me that complacency in the face of injustice is just as bad as carrying out the injustice myself. So, I joined the movement. I started donating to NADP, talking to friends and family and writing to government officials. Not long after I joined the NADP board, we learned that Jill Francke would be leaving to go to grad school in Chicago.
After the interview process, I was humbled and thrilled to be selected as the next Executive Director. I could not be coming in at a better time in the Nebraska movement. As Nebraska continues to struggle financially and the state seems to be cutting corners to get the lethal injection drugs needed, Nebraskans are asking if the death penalty is worth our time and money.
In addition to the changes in the legal/political landscape, Jill has done amazing work in her time at NADP, building an incredibly sturdy base for the future. I am forever indebted to her for carrying on the tradition of hard work that was started in 1981 at NADP. It is nice to know I am not starting from square one, but coming alongside a group of people who have invested much into this movement to get us to where we are today.
I hope to carry on this work as seamlessly as possible, and keep the momentum rolling toward abolition! I also hope to forge new partnerships and coalitions with people who are currently indifferent about and uninvolved in the movement. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to meeting and working with many of you in the coming months.
Nebraska Officials Express New Determination to Execute!
Problems with lethal injection persist
There has been a flurry of activity with regard to the death penalty in Nebraska since the Nebraska Supreme Court issued a Stay of Execution for Carey Dean Moore on May 25, 2011. The Supreme Court issued the stay while it reviewed the appeal filed earlier that month after the execution date was set. One of the issues raised was whether Nebraska had illegally obtained the sodium thiopental needed to carry out the first step in the lethal injection protocol.
Nebraska Attorney General, Jon Bruning, almost immediately filed an appeal to have the stay lifted so the state could move forward with the execution. The press recently learned that Nebraska officials knew that there were serious questions with its importation of the drug since April. Additionally the day after the stay was granted, the Attorney General and the Nebraska Department of Corrections received notice from the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency that they had, in fact, illegally obtained their supply of Sodium Thiopental and it must be destroyed.
Despite this knowledge, the Attorney General continued to push for the June 14th execution date, failing to inform the Supreme Court or Moore's lawyers of the notice from the DEA! Given these recent developments, Moore's lawyers are working to amend their appeal to include these issues.
It is becoming clear that Nebraska officials are not giving up the fight anytime soon. They continue to seek a new source of Sodium Thiopental and have obtained the proper permits to import the drug from other countries. The most telling indicator that this fight is far from over came as Governor Dave Heinemen expressed his frustration about the delays and declared a new determiniation to see the men on death row executed as swiftly as possible.
With this new mounting pressure and determination to carry out exections, we here at the NADP need your support even more! Talk to your friends about these developments. Share these articles on your facebook page. Let us help you organize an event in your area to make people aware of the recent activity and get the discussion going. Consider donating, so we can continue this fight from all areas of the state. With your partnership we can mount an equally strong campaign against the death penalty in Nebraska!
Norma and her Toyota take on the death penalty in Nebraska
By: Cindy Lange-Kubick / Lincoln Journal Star | Wednesday, July 13, 2011
DAVID CITY -- Norma Fleisher has finished her soft serve at the Runza on Fourth Street. She's wearing her Summer of 2011 uniform -- SAS shoes, faded jeans, black fanny pack and one of two matching T-shirts she washes out at night in motel room sinks. If she doesn't have an invite, she dines alone, parking the car where folks will see her signs. She keeps a journal in chicken-scratch pencil and reads while she waits for someone to take notice. The church sent her to Nashville instead. Said she wasn't suited for a Third World country, the small woman with soft white hair and gold-rimmed glasses explains. It costs a lot more to kill someone, Norma says, than it does to keep him alive and in prison for life. "We sit for what we stand for," she says with a smile, the curved handle of her cane resting between her knees.Last summer, the idea that led her to David City on this steamy Sunday started to take shape. |
Back in Nebraska in 1999 -- after her time in Tennessee -- Norma joined Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty. She became a regular at its weekly vigils. She was sitting in front of the Governor's Mansion when Sally Ganem came out, curious. A fellow death penalty opponent, the brother of a Lincoln woman murdered in 1980, went to see her in Central City. Read this article online: |
When an NADP supporter read the article about Norma, she sent us a donation with the attached note:
"I think this is an inspired, wonderful project!
I cannot host but I can send some gas money.
Anyone want to join me in this?
I'll send my check to NDAP, so if there's any money left over - it will go to a good cause!"
-Carol McShane
If you woud like to join Carol in donating gas money for Noma's trip, please send a check to the NADP with "Norma" in the memo line. Also, the rest of Norma's schedule is up on our website. If you'd like to connect with her in one of her stops, please email us at NADP and we will get you connected with her.
THE ABOLITIONIST | Summer 2011
NADP NEWS | Help Wanted | May 2011
Greetings,
If you swing by the NADP office you won't see a physical "Help Wanted" sign in our window but we do need your help with two important tasks. As you know from our last update, the State of Nebraska set a June 14th execution date for Carey Dean Moore. In response NADP is launching a state-wide petition calling for an end to executions in Nebraska. Please take a moment today to sign this petition and to send it to your friends, family, and co-workers. We know that the tide has turned against the death penalty. It is the time for us to stand together and make our collective voice heard! Read and sign the petition here.
Additionally, our extremely talented Executive Director, Jill Francke, has decided to return to school to get her Master's degree. She's been accepted as a Harris Fellow in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. In other words, they loved her so much, they offered her a free ride to pursue her masters in How To Save the World, and when she's done we hope she's coming back to the abolition movement. However, she will be off to Chicago in July, and that means NADP will be in the process of hiring a new Executive Director. We've loaned Jill to Illinois once before, when she spent time there helping in the final push for abolition. We're hoping that means her educational detour is just a loan, too, since we're going to miss her passion, her intelligence, and her good humor. Feel free to continue to contact Jill at jill@nadp.net for the next few months, and please help us circulate the job posting in the meantime.
We will be sending along more information about the petition efforts and the pending execution date as it becomes available. Please send along any questions or comments you have to Jill at jill@nadp.net. Thank you in advance for your help today!
Yours in the struggle,
Amy Miller, Chair
NADP Board of Directors
NEBRASKA: IT’S TIME TO RE-EVALUATE THE DEATH PENALTY!
Click here to sign the petition!
Nebraska has a long history of moving away from the death penalty. In 1979, the Nebraska Legislature was the first in the country to pass a bill to end the death penalty. Again in 1999, Nebraska was the first state to pass a bill placing a moratorium on executions. Both of these attempts to re-evaluate our state’s death penalty were met by a governor’s veto. These efforts to address the application and fairness of Nebraska’s death penalty were a good idea in the 1970s, the 1990s, and are an even better idea today.
Whether one supports, opposes, or is uncertain about the use of the death penalty, serious questions remain about the system's fairness, cost, and effectiveness.
In 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared our only method of execution, the electric chair, unconstitutional. A year later, the Legislature changed the state's method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection over the objections of legal authorities, medical experts, judges, law enforcement officers, and the families of those who have lost loved ones to murder. The hastily drafted and adopted measure to implement lethal injection remains open to legal challenges that will result in numerous appeals, at great cost to taxpayers.
Last year, as Nebraska began to face huge budget deficits, the Legislature refused to study the cost Nebraska's death penalty system. However, we can easily predict the outcome of such a study--more than a dozen states have found that having the death penalty is up to 10 times more expensive than replacing it with a sentence of life without parole. Some of the newest and strongest opponents of executions include police officers, prosecutors, and judges, who remain philosophically in favor of capital punishment but see it as a waste of precious resources the could be used toward proven public safety programs. One does not need to be opposed to the death penalty to see that there are far better ways to spend our increasingly limited resources.
Nebraska has now set a date of June 14 to execute Carey D. Moore, who has been on death row for over 30 years. This would be the first execution held in Nebraska in more than 13 years. We must ask why the state is pursuing this faulty course despite so many unanswered questions.
Why the rush to test a new method of execution? Why spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars seeking an execution when the state is in the throes of a budget crisis, compelled to slash funding for education, health care, and public safety? Why continue this broken, bloated government program?
We, the undersigned, call on the State of Nebraska to re-evaluate its use of the death penalty. If not now, when, and at what cost to our state’s future?
SIGN THE PETITION HERE!
Please send this petition to your friends, family, and coworkers!
Full-time Executive Director Position Available
Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty Foundation
Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty Foundation (NADP), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, seeks a motivated, experienced Executive Director to lead our campaign to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska. NADP is comprised of individuals and partner organizations across the state, united in our efforts to end the death penalty. NADP is a state affiliate of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
This full-time position will be located in NADP's office in Lincoln and will report directly to the NADP Board of Directors. The Executive Director will work with the board, a part-time field organizer, and volunteers to design and implement grassroots strategies to mobilize NADP members and supporters to take meaningful action on NADP’s mission. The position will require travel within the state.
Responsibilities:
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Coordinate the statewide educational and legislative campaign to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska.
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Supervise a part-time field organizer and volunteer leaders.
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Coordinate NADP’s public policy advocacy at the Nebraska Legislature.
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Implement a communications strategy involving media outreach, event publicity, website and social media maintenance, and constituent contact through email, postal mail and phone.
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Represent NADP in public forums, including coalitions, community groups, and various public speaking engagements.
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Expand the network of individual and organizational supporters throughout the state, build common ground and cultivate a diverse network of unlikely allies.
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Develop and implement a fundraising plan focused on increasing small donations, cultivating large donors, and writing grants.
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Obtain general support and program grants and fulfill their implementation and reporting requirements.
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Conduct administrative duties including creating and monitoring an annual budget of over $80,000, tax compliance, and office management.
Qualifications:
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A bachelors degree (or equivalent experience) and experience in grassroots, issue-oriented organizing or other relevant experience.
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Excellent leadership and communication skills, both written and oral; experience as a public spokesperson and advocate a plus.
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Experience in supervising and motivating staff and volunteers and working cooperatively with a team.
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Proficiency with computers, including Microsoft Office software and online organizing tools; experience with Salesforce.com database and Wordpress website platforms a plus.
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Experience with online organizing and communication.
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Ability to work effectively with legislators and other professional staff.
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Comfort with analyzing and articulating complex issues and communicating them to a variety of audiences; a quick study on a dynamic array of death-penalty related issues.
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Self-motivated with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment, to manage several projects simultaneously, and to adjust to frequently changing demands.
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Familiarity with and a demonstrated commitment to death penalty abolition; personal enthusiasm and a confident, professional presentation.
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Direct or personal experience with the criminal justice system, law enforcement, or murder victims family members a plus.
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Commitment to diversity; a personal approach that values the individual and respects differences of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, political affiliation, and socioeconomic circumstance.
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Ability to work occasional overtime or irregular hours, to attend evening meetings, and to travel.
Salary & Benefits: $32,000+/year full-time, vacation, sick, and compensatory leave, and reimbursement for health insurance.
To Apply: Please send a cover letter and resume to position@nadp.net, or call Nic Swiercek at 402-659-1420 with questions. Interviewees may be requested to provide a writing sample and references. Applications will be accepted through June 10, 2011. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.
Target start date: July 2011, negotiable. Final Candidates will be asked to interview in Lincoln.
Nebraska Supreme Court Sets Execution Date
We got word late yesterday afternoon that the Nebraska Supreme Court has set an execution date of June 14th for death row prisoner Carey Dean Moore. You can read more in this article from the Omaha World Herald. Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty stands in firm opposition to the state's attempt to bring the death penalty back to Nebraska.
While we are not surprised by the announcement of an execution date, we see this as another major step in the wrong direction for the citizens of Nebraska. The tide has turned against the death penalty both here in Nebraska and around the country. Nebraskans see that capital punishment is an incredibly flawed system, which has been highlighted by the recent controversy surrounding lethal injection. Legal experts in Nebraska agree that there are years, if not decades, of appeals that could delay any pending execution. This execution date is a costly extension of a painful process that has already taken more than thirty years. As the state struggles to fund education, health, and public safety programs, we must continue to call for an end to this bloated, broken government program, which costs dramatically more than its more-proven alternatives.
At this critical time we need your support to help us expand our campaign to put an end to the death penalty in Nebraska. Today I ask that you to take two simple actions. First, we are asking each of our supporters to get 10 new individuals signed up to support our campaign to end the death penalty in Nebraska. You can forward them this email and ask them to sign up at http://nadp.net/signup.htm, or you can download a sign-up sheet here that your friends and family can sign and send into our office. We have more than doubled the size of our supporter base in the last 5 years, and we need your help to keep growing!
Second, please write a letter to the editor of your local paper. You’ll be most influential if you keep your letter short and constructive. Typically this means 150-250 words. (Be sure to include your address and phone number. This personal information won’t be published in the newspaper. It’s just so the newspaper can verify the letter’s authenticity.) Click here to find links to on-line editions of many Nebraska newspapers. We must raise our voices in opposition to the state's latest attempt to carry out an execution, and a letter to the editor is a great way of making your feelings known. If your letter is published, please send an email to carla@nadp.net so we can keep track of it here in the office.
If you are still thinking, "There has to be more I can do!", we would ask you to make a tax-deductible donation to our work. Your donation will allow us to continue giving voice to Nebraskans who oppose the death penalty. Your support means we will continue to educate and organize the thousands of Nebraskans who have not yet thought about the horrors of the capital punishment system. Quite simply, we cannot do this work with out your support!
We will send along more information and more ways to be involved in the efforts to prevent this and any other execution in Nebraska. Stay tuned to our email updates and to our website. As always, we welcome your questions, comments, and requests here in the office. You can reach me by email at jill@nadp.net or by phone at (402) 477-7787.
It's Official! Illinois Repeals the Death Penalty!
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation to end the death penalty!
Updated:
March 10, 2011
"I have found no credible evidence that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on the crime of murder and that the enormous sums expended by the state in maintaining a death penalty system would be better spent on preventing crime and assisting victims’ families in overcoming their pain and grief." -IL Governor Pat Quinn
After 10 years of moratorium and limbo, legislators in Illinois have voted to get rid of the state's death penalty, and the Governor has now signed the bill into law! Illinois becomes the fourth state to abolish its death penalty in just four years. The Montana Senate has already voted to abolish the death penalty, hearings on abolition bills have take place in Connecticut, Washington, and Nebraska, and hearings are scheduled in Maryland... if that doesn't sound like momentum, I don't know what does!
In addition to signing this historic piece of legislation, Governor Quinn also commuted the sentences of the 15 men on Illinois' death row to life in prison. Please take a minute to watch and read his statement here.
It is days like today that remind us here at NADP just how close we all are to living in a world without the death penalty. It remains our pleasure to stand along side you and the thousands of other Nebraskans who are working to move Nebraska into the land of abolition!
As many of you know, the Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on LB276, a bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska. Nebraskans from all walks of life took the time to come to the Capitol and voice their support for abolition of the death penalty in Nebraska. We heard testimony from those who have lost their loved ones to violence, from the families of people who were on juries that sentenced people to death, from faith communities, and from people who have been fighting for justice for longer than many of us have been alive. One of our state's most steadfast repeal supporters, Lela Shanks, offered these words of support and encouragement: "In the course of history, it has been compassion and nonviolence that have moved the human race forward, not revenge and violence."
If you have not done so, now is the time to contact your Senator in support of LB276! To find your Senator's contact information visit the Find Your Senator page on the Unicameral website. Once you identify your Senator, or if you have trouble with the site, please send us an email at carla@nadp.net so we can send you personalized messages in the future.
I hope you take a minute today to celebrate the amazing victory in Illinois, and I hope you take another moment to help keep the momentum going here in Nebraska! Send and email to your Senator, make a tax-deductible donation in support of our work, and tell your friends and family to visit our website to get more information about the efforts to make Nebraska one of the next states to put an end to capital punishment!
Greetings,
In two short days, the Judiciary Committee of the Nebraska Legislature will again begin consideration of a bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska. We are calling on all our supporters to contact their legislator in support of this bill. Together we will continue to give voice to the growing number of Nebraskans who want to see an end to capital punishment in Nebraska. Learn more about the hearing and how to contact your senator here.
As the Nebraska Legislature prepares to consider the issue of the death penalty again this year, I was reminded of how long and difficult this processes is on the families of murder victims. I was very moved by a recent editorial in the Baltimore sun entitled "Death penalty's cruel toll on the victims". Its focus is on Maryland’s death penalty and the families of murder victims who have been caught up in the system there. But it also captures, in general, the various dimensions of harm that the death penalty reaps on families of homicide victims here in Nebraska and around the nation. Read it here.
Finally, we invite you to read an op-ed by Omaha attorney Mike Nelsen that ran in Sunday's Omaha World Herald. Mr. Nelson talks about his concerns with the cost of Nebraska's death penalty system and the likelihood of ongoing legal challenges to the recently enacted lethal injection protocols. Check it out here.
Onward to Justice,
Jill
Judiciary Committee Hearing on LB276 - Friday, March 4th
There is still time to contact your Senator!
We wanted to remind everyone that the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on LB276, a bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska, this Friday, March 4th. If you have not yet contacted your Senator in support of this bill we ask you to do so TODAY!
Not sure who your senator is? Visit the Find Your Senator page on the Nebraska Legislature's website where can enter your address to find your Senator. We would like to send you geographically relevant messages, so once you identify your Senator, or if you have trouble with the site, please send us an email at carla@nadp.net.
If you have already contacted your Senator we would invite you to forward this message to five of your friends or family members who might be interested in taking action as well. You can also direct them to visit our website, www.nadp.net for more information.
Public testimony on LB276 will be heard by the Judiciary Committee on Friday, March 4th. The hearing will be held at the State Capitol in Room 1113. There are three bills being heard by the Committee that day, and the hearing will begin at 1:30pm. If you would like to watch the hearing but are unable to attend in person, you can stream it live on NET's Nebraska Capitol Live site. We need you to make your voice heard in support of ending the death penalty in Nebraska by contacting your Senator TODAY!
Death penalty's cruel toll on the victims
The Baltimore Sun | February 25, 2011
As Maryland’s de facto moratorium on executions drags on and lawmakers in Annapolis prepare for another set of hearings in the years-long push by advocates to outlaw capital punishment, it is understandable that the families of those who were murdered by the five men on death row would be frustrated and angry. Phyllis Bricker, whose parents were murdered by death row inmate John Booth-El, gave voice to the anguish that has caused in a recent interview with The Sun’s Julie Bykowicz: “There’s been no closure, no justice. … We’re still here, and now we’re fighting the legislature. Nobody ever told us we’d have to do that.”
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Twenty-two convictions of people sentenced to death were overturned in 2009 alone, according to the Justice Department, and appeals courts overturned another 42 sentences — together, that’s more than the 52 people who were executed nationwide in that year. The story of Kirk Bloodsworth is familiar to many in Maryland. He was sentenced to death in 1985 for the murder of a 9-year-old girl in Rosedale, only to be freed nine years later after DNA evidence showed he was not the killer. But his story is hardly unique. Among the cases chronicled by the Justice Project, with which Mr. Bloodsworth now works, are those of Earl Washington Jr. of Virginia, who spent 18 years in prison, nine of them on death row, before he was exonerated by DNA evidence; Joseph Amrine of Missouri, who spent 17 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit; and Anthony Porter of Illinois, who spent 16 years on death row and was within two days of execution when the state Supreme Court agreed to a stay to examine his mental fitness. During that delay, a key witness recanted, another came forward, and the real killer made a videotaped confession. |
Midlands Voices: Execution costly, legally unsound
By: Mike Nelsen | February 27, 2011
The writer, of Omaha, is a lawyer. He is not involved in the Carey Dean Moore case, but he is involved in two other Nebraska death-row cases.
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Ultimately, however long it takes to get to that point, the Nebraska Supreme Court will have to decide whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, or whether the death penalty itself violates the U.S. Constitution, irrespective of the method of execution. |
View older issues of NADP NEWS and The Abolitionist HERE!
