[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., VA., OHIO., IND., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 20


OKLAHOMA:

Franke: Domestic violence nearing epidemic levels


Oklahoma ranks 7th in the nation for women murdered by men, and in the
past 7 weeks or so, the state has experienced 8 domestic violence-related
homicides.

Deana Franke is angry. Frustrated, tired and angry.

Franke, executive director of Help-In-Crisis, hasnt received an increase
in funding from the state in 15 years, 2 key members of her staff have had
to quit in the past few months to find jobs that pay more, and the shelter
is at capacity, with 28 residents.

Lately, she's spent several days out of town, working with the state and
any other entity that might help her provide for victims of abuse.

"We are woefully underfunded, and services throughout the state are being
cut," said Franke. "We have closed our office in Stilwell, not because we
lack clients, but because we had no funding to operate."

Franke is just one of many directors of domestic violence agencies
experiencing a slump in funding and an increase of cases. According Marcia
Smith, executive director for the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic
Violence and Sexual Assault, Oklahoma has witnessed at least eight
domestic violence-related homicides in the past 7 weeks.

"From the metropolitan areas of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, to Stigler,
Oologah, Broken Arrow, Durant, Woodward and Tahlequah, 8 women have been
murdered by current or former spouses or intimate partners who then turned
the weapon on themselves," said Smith.

In a recently released report on 2004 data, the Violence Policy Center in
Washington, D.C., found that Oklahoma ranks 7th in the U.S. in the rate of
women murdered by men in single-victim, single-offender incidents. In
addition, 28 shelters across the state receive a total of less than $5
million to provide services to more than 16,000 women and children who are
fleeing domestic violence each year.

Rogers State University student Sherri Loghry, who recently prepared an
analysis, discovered that of the 91 inmates on Oklahoma's death row, 28
are incarcerated for a domestic violence-related murder. Of those who
committed such murders, 8 had prior protective orders and/or domestic
abuse charges against them.

Domestic or intimate partner violence is all too common and takes many
forms, said Smith.

"Research suggests nearly 25 percent of women will experience some sort of
abuse in an intimate relationship, and 10 % will suffer from severe
abuse," said Smith. "The most severe form of abuse is homicide by a
current or formerly intimate partner."

If Smith's statement bears out, it would mean that in a room of 4 of your
closest female friends or family, one or more will suffer some form of
domestic abuse. It could be your mother, your sister, your best friend or
your daughter who is the victim of a verbal assault, a beating, or worse
death. Franke indicated stalking is one of the most difficult forms of
abuse to prosecute.

"Stalking is one of the most complex ways that domestic violence plays
out," said Franke. "A stalker may do nothing more than leave a rose to let
the victim know she is being watched. That leaving of a rose does not meet
any standard for criminal behavior, but in the ongoing series of events
that constitutes stalking it requires investigation, commitment and
tenacity to prove in a court of law."

That commitment is often lacking from the local justice system, according
to Franke.

As far as how these [domestic violence or abuse] cases are handled
locally, it's sketchy, and seldom focuses on the safety of the victim or
the children, said Franke. "It is not anyone's favorite crime to
investigate, prosecute or sit in judgment on. It is not a one-time
incident with witnesses. Most often, only the victim and the defendant are
witnesses. Our justice system works well with a one-time incident that
results in theft of property, or cases where there is actual physical
evidence. It does not work as well when it is an ongoing reign of threats,
violence and fear."

Worse still, Help-In-Crisis provides treatment that is seldom used by the
court.

"Another point of interest is that we are not getting batterers referred
to Positive Choices, our treatment group for offenders, she said. This is
a sad statement, when we are offering a way for offenders to learn new
behaviors, and it isnt being utilized by the system."

To change behavior, Franke strongly believes in education.

"The state should initiate mandatory education throughout high school
around parenting and relationships, she said. We must back up and look
strategically at how to stop this epidemic. It will take commitment over a
long period of time to educate people that there is another way to live.
We have ignored this problem for so long that we have generations who
believe [abuse, battering] is OK."

In addition to women trying to help women, Franke suggests men take a
stance, and an active role.

"We must also ask men to stand up and say it is wrong to rape and batter
women and children," she said. "While this is not always comfortable, the
norm has to be that it is confronted, whether is it over language, jokes
or actual incidents. Most men believe it is wrong, and they need to find
their voice and say it is wrong. Leaders across the state in our
communities  and for that matter, across the nation  need to take a
stand."

Smith agrees with Franke, saying with the help of everyone, the tragedies
do not have to continue.

"Friends and family are often the first resource to whom victims of abuse
turn," said Smith.

"Everyone can lend a listening ear and become informed about the facts of
domestic violence and local domestic violence programs. Remind the victim
about your concern for her or his safety, and that no one deserves to be
abused. Help the person find a safe place to go."

(source: Tahlequah Daily Press)






VIRGINIA:

Justus testifies in trial----Thought he was 'apostle'


Berman Justus said he doesnt remember shooting to death his estranged wife
and her boyfriend, but remembers thinking that he had to bring the 2 to
justice.

Taking the stand in his capital murder trial Thursday, Justus testified
about the feelings of religious grandeur he experienced in the weeks
leading up to the Nov. 1, 2003, slayings, feelings aided by sleeplessness
and intense Bible readings.

While reading the Book of Revelations, Justus said, he came across his own
name and soon believed that he was an "archangel or an apostle."

"I always thought that when I was young, there was something special about
me that set me apart from everyone else," Justus said. "It grabbed a hold
of me. It was like a really good feeling."

Defense lawyers have said Justus was frantic to gain custody of his
4-year-old son after his wife, Amanda Justus, made it difficult for him to
see the child, and that he was insane when he shot her and boyfriend
Joseph White.

If convicted, Justus could face the death penalty. If acquitted by reason
of insanity, he will go to a mental hospital.

Protective orders, 911 calls and visits to the Department of Social
Services marred Justus turbulent marriage. The main reason he married his
wife, Justus testified, was because she was pregnant with their son.

"He was everything to me," Justus said of the child.

Sometime in the spring of 2003, White came to live with the couple
rent-free while he tried to save money for his upcoming wedding, Justus
testified.

Eventually, Justus said, he realized his wife and White were having an
affair, but that it didnt bother him, because he "already knew my wife was
unfaithful anyway."

Justus said he was just concerned that his son was being neglected, and
eventually he began to see a pattern in which Amanda Justus would demand
money from him and make it hard for him to see his son.

He used a spiral notebook to document run-ins with his wife, in
preparation for a custody battle. The notebook was introduced as one of
the defense exhibits Thursday.

The situation came to a boiling point in August 2003, Justus said, when he
refused to return the boy to his mother after a weekend visit because the
child had bug bites all over his body.

"I decided to keep him because when I picked him up, he was eat up with
bugs, bug bites. He was in no good shape at all. I decided then and there
to keep him until he was healed up," Justus said.

Amanda Justus took the boy and buckled him into her car, Justus said, so
he took her car keys. After a neighbor called the police, Justus said,
authorities told him to let her leave with the boy or hed be arrested.

"It was the last time I seen him," Justus said, sobbing.

In the next few months, Justus said, he filed for divorce, lost nearly 30
pounds, lost his job as a mechanic and became an insomniac, reading the
Bible into the night.

"The more I read, the more I found, the more it grabbed me inside," he
said.

The night of the killing, he said, the last thing he remembers was driving
on Spottswood Trail and pulling over at a carwash.

"I just got in the car, [thinking], ''I've got to find somebody to go to
court on my behalf to say Amandas not a good mother," Justus said.

"What happened next?" Justus' lawyer, Helen Phillips, asked.

"I have no idea," Justus answered.

"Whats the next thing you remember?" Phillips followed up.

"I remember being in the Sheriffs Office," Justus said.

What happened in the meantime, according to prosecutors, was that Justus
shot White as he slept inside his trailer in the 11000 block of Spottswood
Trail. Next, Justus shot his wife in her SUV as she returned to the
trailer from having dinner with White's mother. Justus' son was in the
backseat.

The trial continues today.

(source: Daily Progress)






OHIO:

Governor grants condemned inmate 5th reprieve


Gov. Bob Taft on Friday granted condemned killer John Spirko a 5th
reprieve from execution, guaranteeing that a new governor will decide
Spirko's fate.

Taft agreed to the request by Attorney General Jim Petro to delay the
execution to allow more time for DNA testing in the 24-year-old murder of
an Ohio postmistress.

The 4-month reprieve delays the execution until April of next year.

Petro asked for the delay at the request of Spirko's attorneys, who say
they can't finish the testing before the scheduled execution date.

Additional testing is being done on a tarp that held the body of slain
postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger and 2 rags found in a field nearby.

Spirko, 60, who says he is innocent, was convicted based on witness
statements and his own comments to investigators.

No physical evidence ties him to the killing and charges against a
co-defendant who linked him to the murder have been dropped.

Courts at all levels have previously upheld his conviction and death
sentence.

(source: Associated Press)






INDIANA:

Death penalty: Use it, or lose it


Since the death penalty was reinstated in Indiana in 1977, Lake County has
spent literally millions of dollars to send people to death row.

What is our return on investment? Absolutely nothing.

In Lake County, the debate over whether we should have a death penalty
does not even really exist.

Only one person from Lake County has been executed since the death penalty
was reinstated in Indiana. He asked for it. No one from Lake County has
been executed against his will during that time.

Not serial killers. Not cop killers. Not child murderers.

A death penalty case costs about $500,000 through the first, mandatory
appeal.

No one in Lake County has been sentenced to death since 1993, a case which
now is invalid.

The only death penalty case still active from Lake County is from 1992, a
retrial on appeal.

Eugene Britt was the last outstanding active case that had not been to
trial when, last week, prosecutors and defense lawyers reached an
agreement giving him 245 years in prison.

This is after we've spent an estimated $314,000 thus far prosecuting the
admitted serial killer, who was found in September to be mentally retarded
and ineligible for either the death penalty or life without parole.

This is after years of posturing by prosecutors that they would not step
away from the death penalty because Britt already is serving life without
parole for the 1995 murder of an 8-year-old Portage girl and was charged
with the murders of six women in Lake County.

Even cop killers no longer get the death penalty. In May, Darryl Jeter was
given life without parole for the murder of Indiana State Police Trooper
Scott Patrick in December 2003.

Polls continue to say in theory we want the death penalty available, but
if we are not going to use it, why bother with the sham?

All it does is become a drain on the wallet. As soon as a death penalty
case is filed, a special meter begins to run. If the accused has a public
defender, as in most capital cases, a 2nd lawyer is automatically
appointed. The hourly rate paid to the lawyers also goes up.

Who pays for it? You do. The Lake County Council reaches into your pocket
to pay the lawyers.

What are you getting for the estimated $1.5 million spent since 2000 on
capital cases alone? Nothing. Except a nice retirement fund for defense
lawyers.

I still believe, like many people, there are crimes that cry out for the
death penalty.

But looking at this logically, there is only one conclusion to reach. We
have invested literally millions prosecuting death penalty cases and have
nothing to show for it.

Even by Lake County standards, that's a waste of money.

(source: Northwest Indiana News)






USA:

Jesus was executed by the state, activist reminds Christians


Christians, of all people, should understand the wrongness of the death
penalty, says Scott Langley, a leader of the effort to abolish the death
penalty in North Carolina. After all, he says, Jesus was executed by the
state.

Langley's passion for seeking the abolition of the death penalty was
shaped by his upbringing in a United Methodist home in Texas. His mother,
Mary, is an ordained United Methodist clergywoman.

Texas, 1st in executions

"Growing up in the church I was exposed to Scripture and the stories of
Jesus," he says. "It was clear to me that Jesus taught us and showed us to
love our enemies and to do unto others. I saw a great contrast in those
teachings and what was happening as the state executed prisoners." Texas
ranks 1st among states in the number of executions since the death penalty
was reinstated in 1976 and 2nd, behind California, in the number of people
now on death row.

"If you believe in Jesus and follow him then you must know that he was
executed," Langley continues. "How can you avoid or ignore the death
penalty issue?"

Not long after his 1999 graduation from Southern Methodist University in
Dallas, Langley, a photographer, was changed forever when he went to the
Texas state prison in Huntsville. There he witnessed Lois Robison walking
the sidewalk, screaming, as her son was being executed inside. 18 months
earlier Larry, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had killed and mutilated his
roommate and four neighbors in Fort Worth, where Langley was born and grew
up.

Langley had his camera in the car but couldn't bring himself to retrieve
it to capture her pain and anguish. Since then he has become one of the
most visible faces of the anti-death-penalty movement.

Protests in North Carolina

Langley now lives with his wife, Sheila Stumpf, in Siler City, a small
community near Chapel Hill, N.C. They are expecting their first child this
month. They and several others live in a house that provides shelter for
those in immediate need, particularly the homeless.

Langley primarily focuses his energies on the death penalty in a state
that ranks sixth in the number of people put to death since 1976 and the
number of people on death row.

For months, Langley and other protestors have been trespassing in the
driveway of North Carolina's Central Prison in Raleigh. At least 8 people
have been arrested in the group's failed attempts to disrupt the last 4
executions. Langley has been arrested 18 times in the past 2 years.

Going to jail is not just the price one pays for acting on their
convictions, Langley says. "It's a means of identifying with families who
suffer at the hands of the legal system."

"I can't just stand on the corner, knowing the exact time and location
when a human life is going to be taken, without doing everything I can to
try to prevent it from happening," he says. "That's our responsibility as
Christians and as people of dignity. It is not enough to complain that
this happens. We must take responsibility."

God's creatures

Langley acknowledges that most death row inmates are guilty, but that
doesn't matter to him. "They are still creatures of God and human beings.
Everyone can change his life. Anyone can be redeemed."

Langley expresses optimism when he points to statistics showing the
decline in executions and the number of death sentences in recent years.
He also believes that public opinion is changing, though slowly, to oppose
the death penalty. He's also pleased with a U.S. Supreme Court decision
prohibiting the execution of individuals under the age of 17.

While not admitting to pessimism, he does express frustration at dealing
with individuals who are enthusiastic about the death penalty. "Their
attitudes seem fueled by revenge, hatred and anger. To encounter that is
disappointing." Like others in the abolitionist movement, he acknowledges
that it takes time to get somebody "from a place of frustration and hate
to a place of forgiveness and love."

Speaking recently at United Methodist-related Duke University in Durham,
N.C., Langley spoke out against the hypocrisy in today's culture. "There
is a disconnect between the way we celebrate and glorify violence on
television, movies, and music, and in Iraq, and then condemn someone to
death for committing a violent act in our own neighborhood," he says. "We
can't say it's okay to eat popcorn while watching a violent movie and then
go home and say violence is bad and we are going to punish criminals. We
need a consistent, ethical way of being."

*******************

Death penalty continues despite church's 50-year opposition


50 years ago, delegates to the Methodist General Conference granted full
clergy rights to women. Action by that top legislative body of the
denomination prompted anniversary celebrations across the United Methodist
Church this year.

Delegates to the 1956 conference in Minneapolis took another historic
action that has received little attention. For the 1st time, delegates put
the church officially on record as opposed to the death penalty.

Each Methodist and United Methodist General Conference since that time has
reaffirmed its opposition to capital punishment. Meeting every 4 years,
these assemblies are the only bodies that can speak officially for the
denomination.

In plenary debate at the 1956 conference, lay and clergy delegates debated
several issues related to a proposed update of the church's Social Creed.
They discussed the role of the United Nations and argued at length about
war and conscientious objection to military service. They talked about
capitalism and communism and whether the church should bless any
particular economic system. And, as might be expected, they talked about
abstinence from drugs and alcoholic beverages.

One thing they didn't debate--at least in the body as a whole--was the
addition of a new statement condemning the death penalty. Perhaps all the
wrinkles were ironed out in a legislative committee before being sent to
the entire body for consideration. Or perhaps a majority of delegates were
opposed to the practice and no debate was needed.

Between the 1952 and 1956 Methodist general conferences, Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg died in the electric chair, the first civilians to be executed
for espionage in the United States. They had been found guilty of
conspiring to share atomic secrets with the Soviet Union and were executed
June 19, 1953. What influence, if any, their widely publicized trial and
executions had on the 1956 delegates is not known. Debate over the
Rosenberg trial and their guilt or innocence continues to this day.

Delegates 'deplore' capital punishment

The 1956 Methodist statement opposing the death penalty included two short
paragraphs in a section of the Social Creed titled "Treatment of Crime."

"We stand for the application of the redemptive principle to the treatment
of offenders against the law, to reform of penal and correctional methods,
and to criminal court procedures. For this reason we deplore the use of
capital punishment.

"We recognize that crime, and in particular juvenile delinquency leading
to crime, is often a result of bad social conditions. Christian citizens
and churches have a special opportunity and responsibility for creating
those conditions of family life, wholesome recreation, vocational
training, personal counseling, and social adjustment by which crime may be
reduced."

While women clergy have generally prospered within the denomination since
1956, the new statement deploring the death penalty has apparently had
modest influence on governmental policies in the United States.

In an interview with United Methodist News Service, Bill Mefford, director
of civil and human rights for the United Methodist Board of Church and
Society, said change on the issue has come slowly. "Seeking to abolish the
death penalty is a slow and unpredictable process. One can't just look at
this issue and say that A plus B equals C."

The long-term challenge is not so much the changing the minds of
individual politicians as it is changing the "winds" of public opinion, he
said. "We want to further the idea that all of life is worth defending.
Church people can do that."

Number of death sentences dropping

While progress may seem slow to some, opponents celebrate the fact that
the annual number of death sentences has dropped dramatically from a total
of 300 in 1998 to 125 in 2004.

Mefford, a United Methodist layman, is a graduate of Asbury Theological
Seminary where he is currently working on a doctor of theology degree. He
joined the Washington-based Board of Church and Society staff in February.
A native of Tennessee, much of his adult life was spent in Texas, a state
which ranks first in the number of executions since 1976 (375) and second,
behind California, in the number of inmates now on death row (404).

Mefford is working to reinvigorate "United Methodists against the Death
Penalty," a network of death penalty opponents started by one of his staff
predecessors. "Capital punishment is an issue being dealt with state by
state, but we want United Methodists to know that as they work for change,
we at the national level are interested in them and want to offer
encouragement and resources."

Today, 38 of the 50 states allow the death penalty. According to the Death
Penalty Information Center in Washington, 1,045 individuals have been
executed since 1976. The largest number in a single year was in 1999 with
98 executions. As of September, 41 individuals have been executed this
year.

The church's Social Principles, found in both the 2004 United Methodist
Book of Discipline and 2004 Book of Resolutions, include a succinct
paragraph calling for elimination of the death penalty from all criminal
codes.

All human life sacred

"We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem,
restore, and transform all human beings," the Social Principles statement
says. While expressing concern about crime and the value of life taken by
murder or homicide, delegates to the most recent General Conference in
2004 reaffirmed the church's position that "all human life is sacred and
created by God." United Methodists are urged to see all human life as
"significant and valuable."

When governments implement the death penalty the life of the convicted
person is "devalued and all possibility of change in that person's life
ends," the statement declares. "We believe in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ and that the possibility of reconciliation with Christ comes
through repentance. This gift of reconciliation is offered to all
individuals without exception and gives all life new dignity and
sacredness."

That Social Principles statement is not alone among official United
Methodist pronouncements on the subject. No less than five resolutions
addressing capital punishment were adopted or reaffirmed by the 2004
General Conference delegates and are included in the 970-page 2004 Book of
Resolutions.

2 resolutions adopted first in 2000 were reaffirmed: one urging bishops to
be aggressive in opposing capital punishment and another calling for a
moratorium on the death penalty.

Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, president of the Council of Bishops, told
United Methodist News Service that she is proud of the church's long and
consistent stance against the death penalty. "Even though we are aware
that all United Methodists don't agree, there has been no significant
opposition to the church's position in 50 years. Deep in their hearts they
know it speaks to the moral rightness of our policy," said the bishop of
the Houston Area.

More lengthy statements giving reasons for opposing capital
punishment--one adopted in 1980 and another adopted in 2000--were
reaffirmed in 2004, with some revisions. Each includes specific
recommendations for individual members, congregations, and church-wide
agencies.

Delegates to the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh adopted a new
resolution specifically opposed to the practice of executing juveniles.
Since the first recognized execution of a juvenile offender in 1642, the
United States has executed at least 366 people for crimes committed as
juveniles and has, since 1990, executed more juvenile offenders than all
other countries combined, according to the resolution.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons struck down the death
penalty for juveniles

With reasoned arguments for why Christians should oppose the death
penalty, why hasn't the church's opposition during these 50 years made a
greater difference in U.S. governmental policy?

Does death penalty deter crime?

Well-meaning people of faith weigh in on both sides of the debates. Some
argue that the death penalty deters crime, but death penalty opponents
point to the 2004 FBI Uniform Crime Report which shows that the South,
where 80 % of the executions occurred, has the highest murder rate. The
Death Penalty Information Center reports that a survey of former and
present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies
indicates that 84 % of them rejected the notion that the death penalty
acts as a deterrent to murder.

When asked in a May 2006 Gallup Poll whether the death penalty deters
murder, 64 percent of those polled said it does not; only 34 percent
believe it does. This is a dramatic shift from the 1980s and early 1990s,
when the majority of Americans believed that the death penalty prevented
murder.

Various polls indicate that a majority of Americans support the death
penalty. However that percentage is declining, according to a recent
Gallup Poll. When given a choice between the sentencing options of life
without parole and the death penalty, Gallup found that only 47 % of
respondents chose capital punishment, the lowest percentage in 2 decades.
48 % favored life without parole for those convicted of murder. The poll
also revealed that overall support for the death penalty is 65 percent,
down significantly from 80 percent in 1994.

Some argue the death penalty is biased against the poor and African
Americans, and isn't something that Jesus would do. Thirty-four percent of
those executed in the United States since 1976 have been African
Americans. Another issue given prominence in recent years is the number of
mentally ill individuals executed despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Death row inmates found innocent

It could be that the growing percentage of people opposing the death
penalty has been influenced by the significant number of death row inmates
found innocent in recent years, thanks to new evidence or revelations.
Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from death row with
evidence of their innocence, according to 1993 staff reports from the
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights and
updated by the Death Penalty Information Center.

In the year 2000, eight inmates were freed from death row and exonerated.
Another 9 were exonerated from 2001 to2002; 12 in 2003 and six in 2004.
One of the most recent cases involved Jeffrey Deskovic who was convicted
and sentenced to life in prison in 1990 for the rape and murder of a high
school classmate in New York. He was freed from prison on Sept. 20, 2006,
after DNA evidence from the crime was matched with another man who also
confessed to the murder. The other man was already in prison for a murder
in the same county.

The Innocence Project reports that 184 people have been exonerated through
DNA evidence since 1989. Of the 123 who have been exonerated from death
row since 1973, 14 were freed as a result of DNA testing. The Innocence
Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in
New York was created by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld in 1992. The
recent Gallup survey of American public opinion on the death penalty found
that 63 percent of those polled believed that an innocent person has been
executed in the past five years, an increase over previous results.

Some individuals support the death penalty as justified punishment for
crimes committed.

A 1980 General Conference resolution, reaffirmed every quadrennium since,
says, "The United Methodist Church cannot accept retribution or social
vengeance as a reason for taking human life. It violates our deepest
belief in God as the Creator and the Redeemer of humankind. In this
respect, there can be no assertion that human life can be taken humanely
by the state." The statement contends that in the long run the use of the
death penalty by the state "will increase the acceptance of revenge in our
society and will give official sanction to a climate of violence."

Prison ministry transformational

Writing in the Oct. 3, 2006, issue of The Christian Century, United
Methodist Bishop Kenneth L. Carder says the criminal justice system is
dominated by notions of retribution, vengeance, punishment and isolation.
"The core values of the Christian gospel--forgiveness, compassion,
redemption, reconciliation, restorative justice--run counter to prevailing
sentiments in the justice system," says Carder, who teaches pastoral
formation at United Methodist-related Duke University Divinity School.

Involvement with prison and jail ministries keeps pastors focused on
critically important matters, writes Carder. "No place confronts us with
life-and-death challenges like death row. Relationships with the condemned
and those whose job it is to guard them and execute them are among the
most intense and transformative pastoral relationships. Capital punishment
ceases to be an abstract political, ethical and theological issue.

"Being present with persons who are awaiting execution, along with their
families and the families of the victims of violence, pushes the pastor to
the edges of faith and stability," says Carder. "Unless it is involved
with the people in jails and prisons, the church will surely lack
integrity, consistency and dependability."

The Christian Century section titled "I was in prison . . ." includes a
reading list on Christians and prisons. Recommended books are also
included in an article by Elizabeth Morgan titled, "Wrestling with the
death penalty: Crime and Punishment."

A comprehensive web site with up-to-date information about the death
penalty, including state-by-state statistics, is at the Death Penalty
Information Center . Other sites are: National Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty .

(source for both: Worldwide Faith News -- Tom McAnally, retired director
of United Methodist News Service, lives in Nashville, Tenn)