Posted by Jason Kleinman, Legislative Assistant

The death penalty is one of the most controversial social issues facing our nation today. According to an October 2005 Gallup poll, 64% of Americans support capital punishment. Though this seems like a high number, support for the death penalty is at its lowest point since the 1970s.

Over the past few months, we have seen a growing number of anti-death penalty protests. On December 2, 2005, North Carolina executed Kenneth Boyd. Boyd became the 1000th person executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. This tragic milestone led many to question the need for capital punishment. They questioned the racist undertones of a system in which the number of blacks executed significantly outnumber the number of whites. The questioned the death penalty’s proven ineffectiveness at deterring crime. They questioned how many of the 1000 people executed may have actually been innocent of the crime for which they were put to death.

Weeks later, Stanley Tookie Williams was scheduled to be executed by the state of California. Williams, founder of the notorious street gang the Crips, was found guilty of murdering four people and sentenced to death (though he contended he was innocent of these crimes). While on death row, Mr. Williams wrote numerous books educating young people to avoid gangs, crime, and incarceration. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 2001 and several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. People throughout America sent letters and made phone calls, urging Governor Schwarzenegger to grant Mr. Williams clemency. These requests fell on deaf ears, as Mr. Williams was executed on December 13, 2005.

Following the cries of injustice surrounding the death penalty, last Monday the state of New Jersey acted to suspend executions while a commission examines the fairness and expense of the state’s death penalty. New Jersey is now the third state to initiate a moratorium on executions, but the first to do so through the State Assembly. The state of California is also considering a bill that would create a moratorium on executions

As a nation, we cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the problems of capital punishment. We cannot continue to remain silent as minorities and the poor continue to receive death sentences at a disproportionate rate and innocent people may be sitting on death row. I ask our friends in California to contact their local law makers and urge them to support AB 1121, the California Moratorium on Executions Act. I ask our friends in other states to urge their leaders to consider a similar measure, as well. It is our duty as citizens to ensure equality and justice, and we cannot achieve these goals with a system that continues to execute its people.