[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., WYO., ARIZ., NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 7



TENNESSEE----impending execution

Catholic officials pleased with new conscience protection rule



Don Johnson, set to be executed May 16 by the state of Tennessee for the brutal 
1984 murder of his wife Connie Johnson, has several people in his corner 
advocating clemency for him.

His supporters include the 3 Catholic bishops of Tennessee. But now, Johnson’s 
stepdaughter Cynthia Vaughn, who once supported his execution, has forgiven him 
and publicly spoken out against his execution.

During a talk at Vanderbilt Divinity School earlier this year, Vaughn described 
the long and painful journey between the time Johnson killed her mother to 
coming face-to-face with him inside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution 
nearly 30 years later.

“I had waited almost 30 years, confined to my own internal house of hell, and 
he had caused it,” she said, describing her attitude going to visit Johnson for 
the first time: “I had one mission, to tell him what I thought of him. … I 
blamed him for all my troubles and pain over the last 3 decades.”

But then, “I realized it wasn’t the man on the other side of the thick prison 
glass that caused me so much heartache, it was me. I realized it was time for 
everything to end, that’s enough, let it go,” she said. “I looked at him and 
told him, ‘I have to tell you something, I can’t keep hating you. It’s not 
doing anything to you, but it’s killing me, so I forgive you.'”

Vaughn then describes racing away from Riverbend to meet a friend: “I couldn’t 
wait to tell him, I was free and I could feel it,” she said. “Ever since then, 
I can’t hate him (Johnson). I don’t have it any more. Life changed.”

Vaughn said she can now find peace and happiness at home in Mississippi with 
her children and among her friends in her church community. “I love my life 
now,” she said.

The state’s bishops, in a hand-delivered April 23 letter to Gov. Bill Lee, 
asked him to spare Johnson’s life. “As we approach the Easter season and its 
celebration of redemption through Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and death, it 
is within your power to establish your legacy as a governor of Tennessee who 
does not preside over an execution on your watch,” it said.

“I’ve seen he’s a man of faith,” Johnson himself said of Lee in a video message 
to the governor. “I would ask that he does what God leads him to do. I would 
ask him to do what he feels in his heart is the right thing to do.”

At this point, Lee, who took office in January, has the sole authority to 
commute Johnson’s sentence from death to life in prison. He has said that he is 
actively reviewing Johnson’s request for clemency but has not made a decision 
yet.

Deacon James Booth, director of prison ministry for the Diocese of Nashville, 
said he is in awe of Vaughn’s act of forgiveness. “It really is a Christ-like 
response,” he told the Tennessee Register, newspaper of the Diocese of 
Nashville. “Her strength of character is stunning.”

“For Don, that restoration of a relationship with his daughter, and her 
willingness to be a public advocate for his life, is a tremendous source of 
consolation,” Deacon Booth said.

Deacon Booth leads a Catholic Scripture-based discussion group at the prison on 
Saturday mornings, and has gotten to know Johnson, who is a regular 
participant. Johnson is an ordained elder in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 
but “he is an active and respectful member of our group,” Deacon Booth said.

Johnson acknowledges his horrible crime of 35 years ago and accepts 
responsibility for that action, but does not deserve to die because of it, 
Deacon Booth said.

Catholic teaching opposes capital punishment in all instances and Johnson’s 
case is an example of the transformation and redemption that’s possible in 
prison. “Considering where he came from, how he was raised, and his own crime, 
the distance from where he was then to where he is now is astronomical,” Deacon 
Booth said.

Last August, Pope Francis ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic 
Church, which now says that “the church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, 
that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the 
inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for 
its abolition worldwide.”

The Tennessee bishops’ letter to Lee said: “Rather than serving as a path to 
justice, the death penalty contributes to the growing disrespect for human life 
and continues a cycle of violence in society. Even when guilt is certain, the 
execution is not necessary to protect society.”

Deacon Booth said he feels Johnson “has a very strong case for clemency,” 
especially with Vaughn supporting the effort. “She’s the one who has lost the 
most because of her father’s crime,” he said, “and she has forgiven him.”

(source: Catholic News Service)

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

Tenn. bishops urge governor to stop executions



The bishops of Tennessee have requested that the new governor halt four 
executions planned for this year, reiterating the Church’s teaching on the 
sanctity of human life.

“It is within your power to establish your legacy as a governor of Tennessee 
who does not preside over an execution on your watch,” the bishops wrote April 
23 to Governor Bill Lee.

The letter was published May 3, and was signed by Bishop Richard Stika of 
Knoxville, Bishop Mark Spalding of Nashville, and Bishop David Talley of 
Memphis.

The letter welcomed Lee's Republican administration and asked him to reconsider 
a recent plan from the state to fast-track death sentences.

The bishops said the death penalty is both unneccesary and faulty, stating that 
“nationally, we have seen many people released from death row after they have 
been found to have been innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. 
Based on a human system as it is, there is always the chance that the state 
executes an innocent person.”

The bishops added that “Even when guilt is certain, the execution is not 
necessary to protect society,”

“We clearly state our strong opposition to the state carrying out the death 
penalty,” they said. “We urge you to use your authority as governor to put an 
end to the fast-track executions.”

Lee’s administration has inherited a 2 year plan by former Governor Bill Haslam 
to fast-track the execution of nine men on death row, as the state's supply of 
lethal injection drugs is in flux.

The first scheduled execution is that of Donnie Johnson on May 16. He was 
sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Connie, in 1984. The bishops 
noted that “even their daughter has spoken against his execution.”

Tennessee has also scheduled the executions of Stephen West Aug. 15, Charles 
Wright Oct. 10, and Lee Hall Dec. 5.

The bishops drew attention to St. John Paul II's role in commuting the death 
sentence of Darrell Mease in Missouri in 1999: “At that time, the pope called 
for the end to the death penalty as both cruel and unnecessary.”

St. John Paul II “said that it is simply not necessary as the only means to 
protect society while still providing a just punishment for those who break 
civil laws. Rather than serving as a path to justice, the death penalty 
contributes to the growing disrespect for human life and continues a cycle of 
violence in society,” they said.

The statement encouraged Lee to converse with the bishops and investigate the 
Church’s teaching on capital punishment. The bishops said they would happily 
provide further information on the subject and go over any questions the 
governor may have.

(source: Catholic News Agency)








WYOMING:

Wyoming Sen. Lynn Hutchings lampooned on John Oliver show for death penalty 
comments



Wyoming Sen. Lynn Hutchings was lampooned by comedian John Oliver on his HBO 
show “Last Week Tonight” in a segment about lethal injections and the death 
penalty.

“I know there are different views on the death penalty,” said Oliver. “Some 
believe it’s a deterrent to crime. Some believe it’s righteous justice. And 
some, like Wyoming state senator Lynn Hutchings, believe it’s justified for the 
weirdest possible reason.”

To begin his segment, which had nearly 400,000 views as of Monday morning, 
Oliver cited comments made by the Cheyenne Republican during the general 
session to justify her vote against a bill to repeal Wyoming’s death penalty, 
when the senator argued “The greatest man who ever lived died via the death 
penalty for you and me,” in reference to Jesus Christ.

Oliver questioned her reasoning.

“Your argument for the death penalty is that they got us a Jesus once, and 
maybe one day if we kill enough people, we’ll get another one?” he said, to 
laughter. “We’ll get a bonus Jesus? Let’s just keep rolling the dice, papa 
needs a new pair of Jesuses.”

Oliver then goes on to cite several studies exploring the death penalty, 
highlighting a Brennan Center for Justice Study showing that the death penalty 
is not an effective deterrent against crime and is often more expensive than 
actually keeping individuals in prison.

Wyoming Democratic official calls for senator's resignation after she is 
accused of comparing homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia

Hutchings has drawn a substantial amount of negative, national media attention 
for comments she made during the legislative session. In addition to her 
pro-death penalty comments gaining the attention of numerous national outlets 
back in February, Hutchings was also cited in publications like the Huffington 
Post for an incident where she allegedly made comments to a group of teenagers 
outside of the legislative chambers that compared homosexuality to bestiality 
and pedophilia. She denied making the comparison, but the teenagers told 
journalists she did.

Wyoming Equality, a LGBTQ rights group, filed a complaint over the incident. 
However, the result of the complaint is not publicly known because the Wyoming 
Legislature's Management Council, which considered the matter, keeps private 
complaints against individual lawmakers.

(source: Casper Star-Tribune)








ARIZONA:

HBO's John Oliver savages Arizona in death penalty story on 'Last Week Tonight'



If John Oliver is talking about Arizona, it’s probably not to praise the 
sunsets.

Whew. Oliver, on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” constructed a brutal, 
meticulous bit-by-bit takedown of the death penalty in his main story — and 
Arizona was one of the bits.

It started with a cute and funny segment about the desert rain frog. Hey, 
deserts, could this be … nope. The frog lives in Namibia and South Africa. 
Oliver turned on a dime and started going after a subject closer to home: 
lethal injection as a form of execution. He briefly outlined general 
objections, before going into great detail about how we go about killing 
people.

He outlined the three-drug lethal-injection cocktail used in some states, 
including Arizona, pretty much making the case that it isn’t any better than 
the electric chair, which it replaced because it’s supposedly more humane.

The first drug administered is an anesthetic, which Oliver said becomes 
critical, because it prevents you from feeling the effects of the 2nd, more 
torturous drugs. States used to use sodium thiopental, but it stopped being 
made in 2011 and is no longer available to be imported.

“Some states have tried to weasel around that restriction,” Oliver said.

Care to guess the one he mentioned?

Yes, Arizona. And in such a weird way. It involved the execution of Jeffrey 
Landrigan. The Arizona Republic (which Oliver didn’t mention) disclosed that 
Arizona and other states were illegally getting a drug called sodium thiopental 
from Dream Pharma, a drug supply house operating out of a driving school in 
London.

Yes. A driving school. Imagine how that went over with Oliver.

“Holy (expletive)!” he shouted. “That is the most-lethal thing to come out of a 
British driving school since Prince Philip.” (The husband of Queen Elizabeth II 
gave up driving after being involved in a crash. At age 97.)

Later Oliver talked about Arizona inmates suing to stop the use of midazolan, 
used in place of sodium thiopental in many cases.

“The (Arizona) Department of Corrections hit on an ingenious solution to that,” 
Oliver said, “saying that inmates could simply bring their own execution drugs, 
which is pretty difficult, isn’t it, what with those drugs being restricted and 
those prisoners BEING IN PRISON!

“It’s basically telling a 1-year-old to provide his own birthday cake. ‘How the 
(expletive) am I supposed to do that? I don’t have the money, I can’t drive, I 
can't even get out of this chair and I’m somehow supposed to obtain my own 
Fudgie the Whale? This is the worst birthday I’ve ever had!”

Oliver then showed video of Charles Ryan, the director of the Arizona 
Department of Corrections, acknowledging that he had never heard of a prisoner 
buying his own drugs for execution in Arizona. Had he heard of any prisoner, 
anywhere, doing that?

“Not yet.”

Sometimes they just make it too easy.

“‘Oooh. Not yet!’” Oliver said. “‘No inmate in the history of America has ever 
done this, but I think our inmates can pull it off.’ And he’s almost sweet, how 
much he believes in the people he’s in charge of putting to death.”

Oliver went on to note other absurdities before ending with a callback joke to 
the theme he’d been using throughout — about how you shouldn’t put prisoners to 
death in much the same way you shouldn’t have sex with your mother.

(It’s funnier that that sounds. I mean, it would have to be.)

For the record, the last person Arizona executed was Joseph Wood in 2014. He 
gasped and snorted for nearly two hours as Department of Corrections staff 
injected him with 15 doses of a drug cocktail that failed to work as expected — 
and somehow this didn’t make “Last Week Tonight” because Oliver had other 
examples as bad or worse from other states (and who knows, at this point maybe 
he wanted to pick on another state).

After Wood’s execution, the federal courts halted executions in Arizona for 
nearly 3 years until a settlement and new policies could be implemented. The 
new policy allows for two fast-acting barbiturates, neither of which is readily 
available in the United States.

There are currently no scheduled executions in Arizona. Oliver makes a pretty 
compelling — and hilarious, odd as that sounds — reason to keep it that way.

{The show can be viewed at: 
https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2019/05/06/hbo-john-oliver-last-week-tonight-slams-arizona-over-lethal-injection-executions-death-penalty/1120842001/]

(source: Arizona Republic)








NEVADA:

NV Supreme Court hears argument against Bean death penalty



The Nevada Supreme Court will deliberate after hearing an argument to vacate 
the death penalty against Jeremiah Bean, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for 
killing five people in 2013.

Attorney Thomas Qualls argued May 6, 2019 that since the US Supreme Court ruled 
people who are "intellectually disabled" cannot be sentenced to death, Bean 
should not have been so sentenced. Qualls says the medical community generally 
considers any IQ lower than 70 to count as "intellectually disabled," and Bean 
has measured anywhere from 65 to 72. He says even at 72, given a five-point 
margin of error, Bean should be ineligible to be put to death.

Bean was convicted of the murders of 5 people in Lyon County and Storey County 
over Mother's Day weekend 2013. He was also convicted of burglary, grand 
larceny, arson, robbery, burglary obtaining a firearm and grand larceny of a 
firearm.

Lyon County District Attorney Stephen Rye argued in favor of keeping the death 
penalty.

The court gave no indication when it will rule on the case.

(source: KOLO TV news)

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

Nevada inmate on death row 34 years back in court in Reno



A convicted murderer who has been on death row in Nevada for 34 years returned 
to court Monday to try to get his execution sentence reduced to life in prison 
after a federal appeals court ruled his rights were violated during the penalty 
phase of his original trial.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld 67-year-old Tracy Petrocelli's 
murder conviction 2 years ago in the 1982 killing of a Reno car salesman, 
months after Petrocelli had killed his girlfriend in Seattle.

But the San Francisco-based court ordered a new sentencing hearing partly 
because it concluded Petrocelli's attorney should have been present and he 
should have been read his Miranda rights when he was interviewed in jail by a 
psychiatrist who later testified for the prosecution.

Petrocelli has filed multiple appeals since he was sent to death row in 1985. 
Nevada hasn't executed anyone since 2006.

Petrocelli testified during his original trial that he believed the 
psychiatrist, Dr. Lynn Gerow, had come to see him in response to his request 
for counseling and that his comments were confidential. Gerow testified that 
based on his evaluation, Petrocelli had a "psychopathic" personality, for which 
"there is no cure."

In ordering a new sentencing hearing, the 9th Circuit said that Gerow was 
acting at the request of the prosecutor, failed to provide Miranda warnings, 
did not seek or obtain permission from Petrocelli's appointed counsel to 
evaluate him, and testified that Petrocelli "was dangerous and incurable."

The appellate court concluded "the violation had a substantial and injurious 
effect on the jury's decision to impose the death sentence."

Washoe County District Judge Egan Walker said Monday the jury resentencing 
Petrocelli will choose from death, life in prison without parole or life in 
prison with parole.

A former Reno detective who says he's biased in favor of the death penalty was 
among 19 prospective jurors eliminated from the pool on Monday, the 1st-day of 
jury selection for the 12-member panel and 3 alternates that will hear 
testimony expected to last 3 weeks.

The retired police detective told the judge he isn't sure whether he testified 
at the original trial but knows the details of the case — the robbery and 
murder of the Reno car salesman, James Wilson.

"I'd love to serve in a death penalty case, but I don't think the defense would 
want me," the ex-detective said.

Walker also excused a woman Monday who said she was a family friend of the 
police officer who "picked up the defendant" after he was arrested in Las Vegas 
in 1982 for the fatal shooting of Wilson during a test drive north of Reno near 
Pyramid Lake in March 1982.

Prosecutors said in court filings that witnesses at the resentencing will 
include Wilson's son, Eddie, who said he saw his father leave the car lot with 
Petrocelli. Eddie Wilson says his father distrusted banks and kept between 
$2,000 and $10,000 in cash on him.

Petrocelli said the shooting was an accident. He said he was driving a 
Volkswagen pickup with Wilson when the 2 argued about the sale price and Wilson 
twice tried to grab the steering wheel. Petrocelli said he then pulled out a 
gun and as they struggled, the gun went off 2 or t3 times. He said he didn't 
know what to do so he buried Wilson's body beneath rocks near the lake.

Petrocelli also was convicted of kidnapping and fatally shooting girlfriend 
Melanie Barker in Seattle in late 1981 after he escaped from prison in 
Washington state, and in 2008 he was convicted of murder in the 1981 shooting 
of 30-year-old Dennis Gibson in San Bernardino County, California. Gibson had 
been on a surfing trip and heading for Baja California when his body was found 
on a hiking trail near Calico Ghost Town.

Petrocelli's case in Nevada produced a precedent-setting standard adopted by 
the state Supreme Court regarding the admissibility of evidence of "past bad 
acts" when a defendant faces charges for a new crime, but it has no direct 
bearing on the resentencing. Judges frequently order a so-called "Petrocelli 
hearing" during the pre-trial phase of discovery to determine whether a jury 
will be allowed to hear such evidence under special circumstances.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

Does the death penalty give victims closure? Science says no



The death penalty debate is back in the news following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 
recent moratorium on capital punishment.

As expected, many Californians are up in arms about the sudden reversal of this 
raw, hotly contested issue.

Proponents claim capital punishment gives victims and their families closure.

Is this true? Or does the death penalty create more problems than it solves?

Consider revenge. The theme of retribution is timeless, arising from such 
diverse sources as the Bible, Shakespeare and Quentin Tarantino.

It so permeates our thought processes that we barely hear ourselves say, 
“Turnaround is fair play,” or “Revenge is sweet.”

Yet a 2008 study conducted by Kevin Carlsmith and published in the Journal of 
Personality and Social Psychology found that people who punish others in the 
hopes of making themselves feel better actually feel worse. They end up 
ruminating about the event far longer than non-avengers.

According to Carlsmith, “Those who don’t have a chance to take revenge are 
forced, in a sense, to move on and focus on something different. And they feel 
happier.”

Executions do not offer emotional catharsis as many would suggest.

Brad Bushman of Ohio State University reported in a 2002 study that subjects 
who were given the opportunity to vent their hostilities had higher levels of 
aggression and anger than those participants who did nothing at all.

The death penalty keeps victims involved in the tragedy for years, even 
decades, as multiple hearings, appeals and trials drag on.

Victims and their families feel stuck in a time warp, being repeatedly 
re-traumatized by the legal system and accompanying media coverage.

Capital punishment does not change the facts of the precipitating event. 
Research conducted by Scott Vollum at the University of Minnesota showed that 
executing perpetrators actually increased family members’ feelings of emptiness 
because it didn’t bring back their loved ones.

San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow shared his support for the 
death penalty after California Gov. Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on death 
row executions. "It's the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crime," Dow 
said. By David Middlecamp

A mere 2.5 % of victims’ family members and friends reported closure following 
an execution. And 1 in 5 said the execution failed to help them heal at all.

A more emotionally satisfying solution seems to be life without possibility of 
parole.

A paper published in 2012 in the Marquette Law Review compared the emotional 
well-being of survivors in Texas, a death penalty state, and Minnesota, a life 
without possibility of parole state.

Researchers found that victims in Minnesota experienced greater control over 
the sentencing process, which was “successful, predictable and completed within 
two years after conviction.”

In contrast, the appeals process in Texas was “drawn out, elusive, delayed, and 
unpredictable,” and created “layers of injustice, powerlessness, and in some 
instances, despair” for those involved.

The authors were quick to point out that Minnesotans experienced acute grief 
and sorrow due to their traumas. But “the criminal justice system allowed 
survivors’ control and energy to be put into the present and to be used for 
personal healing,” they found.

The debate about capital punishment will no doubt rage on.

Instead of proceeding with archaic and inaccurate information, let’s consider 
the data and do what really works best.

(source:Linda Lewis Griffith -- sanluisobispo.com)








USA:

Ending the Death Penalty Is One Step Toward Ending Mass Incarceration



When historians assess the ultimate demise of the death penalty in the United 
States, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium will be a key turning point. 
His sweeping move halting executions for 737 people — more than 1/4 of the 
death row population nationwide — reflects just how deeply this practice has 
failed.

The significance of the moratorium was clear from the moment the news leaked. 
Every major media outlet covered the story. Elected officials scrambled to 
announce their verdicts. Leading thinkers in the criminal legal reform movement 
praised the action, offering analysis on what exactly has disappeared and why.

What is missing to date is a broader conversation around the opportunities we 
will have when we finally rid ourselves of the death penalty. No longer will we 
waste immense resources to center our system around the notion that killing is 
justice. Freed from that polarizing policy that has sucked all the air out of 
the room, we can reimagine responses to violence that break cycles of harm, 
build safety and healing for all, and put us on the road to ending mass 
incarceration.

Uncompromised, uncompromising news

We know so much more today about the toxic impacts of our criminal legal 
system. Mass incarceration and over-policing have compounded centuries of 
racism and chronic poverty in communities of color, fueling a poisonous cycle 
of trauma, violence and legal system overreach.

The death penalty is one of the most visible symbols of that cycle, fostering a 
national culture of violence that normalizes the idea of killing our most 
vulnerable in the name of justice. This reality lies in plain sight when you 
look at the lives of those executed. The Death Penalty Information Center 
compiled information on the 25 men executed in 2018, and it’s horrifying. 72 % 
suffered from serious mental illness, some type of brain disability, 
substantial childhood trauma, or some combination of the three.

Such detriments are compounded by the racism that is endemic to the death 
penalty and the criminal legal system as a whole. So, when people of color face 
these kinds of challenges, they are more likely to fall through the cracks than 
to receive the kind of support that might have made the difference. Studies 
have found, for example, that doctors are less likely to believe people of 
color when they express pain. Children of color are less likely to be perceived 
as youthful. People of color who survive violence are less likely to have 
access to healing to prevent their getting swept into the cycle, and more 
likely to be sentenced to die when they commit it. Nationally, nearly 60 % of 
the people on death row are people of color. And although about half of all 
homicide victims are Black, only 15 % of victims were Black in cases where 
someone was executed. In short, communities of color disproportionately bear 
both the burden of violence and our harmful responses to it.

Communities of color disproportionately bear both the burden of violence and 
our harmful responses to it.

Indeed, the death penalty is a modern-day extension of lynching. It’s no 
coincidence that executions began to increase in the U.S. as lynchings started 
to decline, in the beginning of the 20th century.

Michelle Alexander documented the rise and intergenerational effects of mass 
incarceration in her book, The New Jim Crow, and has become one of our leading 
thinkers on how racial inequity continues to plague the U.S. because of our 
failing criminal legal system. Recently, she addressed the issue of violence 
and our overly punitive response to it. Drawing from an essential new book, 
Until We Reckon by Danielle Sered, Alexander wrote that “if we fail to face 
violence in our communities honestly, courageously and with profound compassion 
for the survivors — many of whom are also perpetrators of harm — our nation 
will never break its addiction to caging human beings.”

This call to action demands a new vision for addressing violence that begins 
with prevention and places healing and equity at the center. The death penalty 
has no place in that vision. The choice to pursue a death penalty sentence is a 
decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, every year, on a 
practice that does not deter crime and drains funds from services that are 
proven to prevent it.

The death penalty is the epitome of our misguided approach to justice.

To be clear, I’m not talking about merely replacing the death penalty with life 
without parole sentences, which fail on nearly the same scale. Like executions, 
they also target the most vulnerable (a full 2/3 of people currently serving 
life without parole are people of color) without delivering public safety 
gains. There is mounting evidence that people age out of crime, leaving 
life-without-parole sentences without any purpose other than to inflict 
suffering until death.

Our charge is altogether different. We have an opportunity to reimagine the 
punishment paradigm altogether. As we dismantle capital punishment state by 
state, we free up crucial resources that can be invested in solving the root 
causes of trauma, violence and mass incarceration that devastate communities of 
color, deepen racial disparities and scar millions. I am talking about proven 
violence intervention programs that use public health strategies to interrupt 
violence before it happens; trauma-informed healing in communities harmed by 
violence; restorative justice programs that allow people to truly own and 
repair the harm they cause; and other community-based solutions that emphasize 
safety and healing over retribution and more pain. In those instances where 
safety necessitates some limited period of separation, that separation should 
not inflict more suffering. Rather, it should create the conditions necessary 
for people to take responsibility, change, and come out better off.

Think about what might happen if we diverted hundreds of millions of dollars 
away from the punitive justice that has done so much harm and toward strategies 
that can replace mass incarceration with thriving neighborhoods.

California’s achievement cannot be overstated. The death penalty is the epitome 
of our misguided approach to justice. Until this vestige of our shameful past 
is eliminated, our society cannot truly value Black lives, nor imagine a legal 
system that fully embraces the values of equality, fairness and human dignity.

(source: truthout.org)