As opposition to death penalty rises
Executions start in federal prisons
By Monica
Moorehead
One year ago on June 22, African American political and
death row activist Shaka Sankofa/Gary Graham was legally
lynched in Texas by "Governor Death"--George W. Bush.
Sankofa was sent to death row at the age of 17 on the
testimony of one eyewitness, with inadequate legal counsel
and without any physical evidence placing him at the scene of
a murder.
His real "crime"--like thousands of others who languish on
U.S. death rows--was being a person of color and poor.
Activists here and worldwide will mark this horrific occasion
by staging various protests calling for the end of the death
penalty. They will also demand freedom for revolutionary
Mumia Abu-Jamal on death row in Pennsylvania.
One important reason why "President Death" Bush was the
target of such massive, militant protests throughout Europe
in mid-June is that he remains today a mass murderer in the
eyes of millions of activists seeking social justice.
The debate around the racist use of the death penalty has
taken center stage once again.
The June 11 execution of Timothy McVeigh, the right-wing
Oklahoma City bomber, was the first in 38 years carried out
by the federal government. Over 700 people have been executed
by state governments since the death penalty was reinstated
in 1977.
Juan Raul Garza, a Mexican-American man, was executed on
June 19--the second person put to death by the federal
government in less than two weeks. Garza was convicted of a
number of drug-related murders over a decade ago. Bush, when
he was governor in 1993, declined clemency for Garza, and has
twice refused a stay of execution since becoming
president.
Of the almost 4,000 prisoners on death row, the
overwhelming majority are people of color. Of the 157 federal
defendants charged with multiple drug-related murders from
1995 until 2000, 83 percent were people of color. Federal
prosecutors recommended the death penalty in 57 percent of
those cases.
Yet arch-racist and reactionary Attorney General John
Ashcroft recently concluded, after "reviewing" 950 cases,
that race was not a determining factor in how the federal
death penalty is administered.
Despite much evidence of CIA, Pentagon and police
involvement in drug crimes, none of these agents of the state
have faced the death penalty for their crimes.
Various states have passed bills outlawing the execution
of mentally disabled people. But, carrying forth the terrible
legacy of George W. Bush, his predecessor, Texas Gov. Rick
Perry, has just vetoed such a bill.
Recent polls indicate that public support for the death
penalty is waning after some in the media have shown that
innocent people have been railroaded to death row and that
neither the threat nor the implementation of the death
penalty is a deterrent to anti-social behavior.
The capitalist media are incapable of telling the whole
story, however. That is that the death penalty should be
abolished because it is a tool of political and economic
repression at the disposal of the super-rich ruling class,
which is used most of all against those communities that are
most oppressed and therefore most likely to rebel.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS
:: SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page