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Take Action: Next Steps
Ideas for Next Steps on the Road to Abolition
There are many ways for your faith community to stay involved in the death
penalty abolition movement. The following lists contain ideas for faith communities
throughout the country, as well as state-specific ideas for next steps.
General Ideas for Next Steps
- Contact the people who attended your NWFA event or participated in your activity
and involve them in the core organizing group. If your event involved your entire
faith community, issue a call for interested members to become involved in further
work on the death penalty.
- Form a permanent social action network within your faith community that focuses
on the death penalty.
- Organize vigils on the day of an execution on your state. Or, if your state
does not have the death penalty, or does not carry out executions with any frequency,
organize a vigil to remember those executed around the country during a given
period.
- Build intra-faith coalitions focused on abolishing the death penalty (for
example, with all Episcopal churches in your area).
- Build interfaith coalitions with a variety of faith traditions.
- Contact and/or join death penalty abolition groups in your city or state.
- Become involved in Amnesty International's Abolition, Interfaith, and Urgent
Action Networks.
Select State-Specific Ideas for Next Steps
If you live in one of the states listed below, consider taking one of the steps
suggested by AI activists and volunteer leaders. If your state does not appear
in this list, contact your State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator (SDPAC) for
ideas or information. You may also contact
the appropriate regional office of Amnesty International.
Alabama
Contact Project Hope Against the Death Penalty (www.phadp.org),
the Southern Poverty Law Center (in Montgomery, www.splcenter.org)
or Alabama Arise (www.alarise.org) for more
information on becoming involved in the abolition movement.
Alaska
Regularly remember the men and women on death rows across the country, their
families, and the families of their victims in prayer requests.
Ask political candidates about their position on the death penalty, especially
during campaign season, and let them know where you stand. People campaigning
for votes need to know that not all of their potential constituents support the
death penalty. If they hear it enough times, they will finally realize that opposing
the death penalty is not political suicide.
Attend the "Fry Fish - Not People" Salmon Bake, held annually in
mid-July as a fund-raiser for Alaskans Against the Death Penalty. Each participating
chef brings about 10 lbs of salmon to cook, and a panel of judges (usually local
politicians or celebrities) have a blind taste test to determine the top three
salmon recipes. The winning chefs are awarded certificates and bragging rights.
For a donation, attendees get all the salmon they can eat and a variety of salads
and side dishes to go with it. Great Harvest Bakery donates bread and cookies
for dessert. [We have done this for seven years now, and it has become a must-attend
event for local abolitionists. Being an abolitionist is hard work, but that doesn't
mean we can't have some fun!]
Arizona
Engage in the campaign to pass a bill abolishing the death penalty for juveniles
(writing letters, phoning, e-mailing and visiting legislators).
Join the Coalition of Arizonans Against the Death Penalty (CAADP) or Amnesty
International.
Give the CAADP authorization to speak on your behalf at clemency hearings,
and report back to you when they do so.
California
Sign up for Californians for a Moratorium on Executions email updates. Send
a message to CAmoratorium-subscribe@topica.com
today!
Plan to attend a statewide interfaith conference on March 15, 2003, co-sponsored
by California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty. For more information
about "Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Symposium on Crime,
Punishment and the Common Good in California," which will be held on the
campus of Loyola Marymount Univeristy in Los Angeles, contact the Office of Justice
and Peace, Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Phone: 213-637-7550 E-mail: criminal justice@la-archdiocese.org.
If you would like email socalcpf@yahoo.com.
Florida
Ask a member of your faith community to monitor the Floridians for Alternatives
to the Death Penalty (FADP) Update list, which will inform you of any happenings
and opportunities for action. To join, send a message to fadpupdatesubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Visit www.FADP.org for a comprehensive calendar
of upcoming death penalty-related events.
Georgia
Sign up for the Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty mailing list
(either email or snail mail) to receive alerts, updates, and information about
ongoing work in Georgia; you can join online at www.geocities.com/gfadp.
Protest individual executions as they are scheduled, through letter writing
and participating in vigils. There are a growing number of vigil sites around
the state.
Join the state moratorium campaign! Materials including petitions, resolutions,
postcard actions, and fact sheets are available at www.georgiamoratorium.org.
Pass your own moratorium resolutions and collect signatures for petitions and
postcards.
Illinois
Attend the Amnesty International Midwest Regional Conference on Friday, October
18, 2002, in Chicago. The Opening Plenary will focus on "Abolishing the Death
Penalty." Governor George Ryan has been invited; Bill Schulz, AIUSA Executive
Director, will be the Keynote Speaker. Visit www.amnestyusa.org/events/midwestern/
for more information.
Attend the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty National Conference
in Chicago on October 24-27, 2002 (www.ncadp.org).
Establish a committee for ongoing work on death penalty abolition.
Participate in the Spring 2003 Lobby Day for Abolition of the Death Penalty
in Springfield, Illinois, sponsored by the Amnesty
International Midwest Regional Office.
Iowa
Join Amnesty International to get involved with anti-death penalty efforts
on a national and international level. See the enclosed brochure for a sign up
form.
Join Iowans Against the Death Penalty.
Kansas
Join the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
Sign up for the Amnesty Death Penalty Legislative Network, which focuses almost
exclusively on death penalty legislation and action in Kansas. To sign up, contact
dms2@mindspring.com.
Kentucky
Attend a Death Penalty Round Table Discussion on Thursday, November 14, 2002
at St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The location is 7501
Tangelo Drive. The discussion is open to the public and will give an opportunity
to discuss the pros and cons of the judicial system. For additional information,
contact KCADP at kcadp@earthlink.net.
Participate in local vigils in observance of executions that have taken place
throughout the country.
Maryland
Beginning in January 2003, contact legislators regarding efforts to change
the wording of the state's death penalty law from "preponderance of the evidence"
to "beyond a reasonable doubt." Also contact legislators to express
support for a death penalty abolition bill.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts's anti-death penalty activists can find several local organizations
to work with throughout the year at www.nodp.org/ma/
and stay in touch with one another via the MADPEN e-mail list at www.nodp.org/madpen/.
Local events/meetings are updated regularly at www.nodp/madpen/cal.html.
Nevada
Join or connect with the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, a statewide
organization that is working to end the death penalty in Nevada. The Coalition's
members include people from many different faith communities as well as activists
for human rights, civil liberties and social justice. Contact: nh@pinecrest.reno.nv.us.
New Mexico
Attend a Death Penalty Repeal Conference on Saturday, November 9, 2002 at First
Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque. Amnesty International NM groups are co-sponsoring
the conference with the NM Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty and other concerned
groups from around the state. The conference will feature Kerry Cook, former death-row
inmate from Texas, as its keynote speaker. There will be workshops on various
topics, including death penalty basics, how to speak to others about the death
penalty, legislative action, faith communities and the death penalty, and more!
Day-care will be provided. For more information, send email to lopribb@aol.com
or the NM Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty (Santa Fe) at nmrepeal@aol.com.
Ohio
Form a local, regional, or statewide coalition of faith communities against
the death penalty, which would coordinate educational efforts and actions on the
death penalty. The coalition could hold press conferences or participate in press
conferences focused on upcoming state killings and could have faith leaders ready
to participate in media events, such as debates, forums, and TV talk shows, during
the week of or on the day of state killings.
Declare days of fast and silent vigil during state killings. In Ohio, executions
occur in the morning (10AM). There is a clear message that it's business as usual
-- we should all accept it and go about our normal routine. As a protest and witness,
individuals may decide not to work the morning of, or the day of, a state killing
but instead fast, pray, and keep silent. Some people might decide to do longer
fasts, especially during times of special significance for their faith communities
(the week of Ash Wednesday, for example). Anyone can do this anywhere--at home,
at school, at work. One doesn't have to drive to a vigil site.
Organize a faith-based call for clemency during significant religious holidays.
Organize an abolition march to the statehouse, to the governor's mansion, or
to the killing site itself. Or, organize a march calling for clemency either for
a particular inmate with a death warrant or for all death row inmates. A Good
Friday march and vigil could also be organized.
Organize memorial vigils for the victims of violence and the victims of state
homicide on the anniversaries of killing dates in that state. Don't let the state
or the public forget what was done on that date in the name of the people.
Tennessee
Become involved with your local chapter of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish
State Killing (TCASK), or establish your own chapter, if one doesn't currently
exist in your area.
Stay tuned for information on several death penalty-related bills that will
be introduced when the legislature reconvenes in January.
Texas
Contact Amnesty's State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator in Texas at rhalperi@mail.smu.edu,
for updates on upcoming events and campaigns. For daily news about the death penalty
in Texas, the USA, and around the world, see Death Penalty News & Updates
webpage at: http://web.cis.smu.edu/~deathpen/
Ask your friends, family, and neighbors to join you in urging Governor Perry
to impose a moratorium on executions. Host a letter-writing event at your place
of worship.
Support legislative actions to: raise the minimum age for death-sentencing
eligibility to 18; call for a 2-year moratorium on executions in Texas; and call
for complete abolition of the death penalty in Texas.
West Virginia
Activists in West Virginia may get involved with death penalty abolition efforts
in other states in their region (Virginia and Maryland, for example). Contact
Mona Cadena AIUSA's Mid-Atlantic
Region for action ideas for your group.
Monitor death penalty-related federal legislation and write your Members of
Congress.
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