I recently read a story that appeared as a news report from Channel 6 WATE in Knoxville. The title of the story, “Many Say Tennessee Death Penalty System Broken.”

Of course, I was hopeful that the story would cover a number of the many problems highlighted by the Tennessee Study Committee including the lack of adequate defense attorneys and services for those on trial for capital murder, the lack of recorded interrogations, the lack of open file discovery procedures, the disproportionate numbers of those with severe mental illness on death row, the lack of more reliable eyewitness identification procedures, the lack of preservation and proper storage of biological evidence, etc.

Instead the story focused on only one problem the Committee addressed: the length of time that people await execution in Tennessee, an average of 20 years. I am the first to admit that delay is problematic for everyone, particularly for victims’ families forced to endure this process as well as for citizens whose tax dollars are spent in years of litigation.

In the report, U.T. Law Professor Dwight Aarons points out that if we were dealing with the issue on the front end when determining whether or not to seek death and sought it less frequently, the time and money saved would be substantial. The reality is that the bulk of the cost with the death penalty comes, not from all the appeals but from the costs of the inital trial, with many defendants getting life sentences anyway after all the money is spent on seeking the death penalty

However, I was bothered by former Sevier County District Attorney General Al Schmutzer’s comment “If putting someone in jail deters some people from committing crimes, obviously putting someone to death would deter that many more.” Whoa there.

Here is where opinion and fact get confused. Such an assumption is neither obvious nor accurate. The fact is that a recent survey of the top criminologists in this nation released in June of this year show that a full 88% reject the idea that the death penalty is a deterrent to homicide (“Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologis,” Northwestern University School of Law’s Journal of Cimrinal Law and Criminology by Professor Michael Radelet and Tracie Lacock.)

And, in a brand new study just released by Columbia Law School called, “Execution and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities,” Professors Franklin Zimring, Jeffrey Fagan, and David T. Johnson compare homicide rates in two similar cities, Singapore and Hong Kong, cities whose use of the death penalty is radically different. The bottom line of that study is that over the past 35 years with Singapore executing a high number of people and Hong Kong with no executions in a generation, the homicide rates in both cities were almost the same.

The fact is that the majority of reliable studies on deterrence have shown no deterrent effect.

Here is another fact not mentioned in the article: in the modern era, though Tennessee has only executed 5 people, our state has also released 2 men from death row who were wrongly convicted, Paul House and Michael McCormick, both of whom spent over 20 years each fighting their convictions. What would have happened to them if we sped up the process? Is killing some innocent people just the price we pay for the death penalty? And if so, how does that make us any different as a society than those who we are condemning?

To date, 135 people have been released from death rows nationwide when evidence of their innocence emerged. It seems to me when you are talking about deciding who lives and dies, with these kind of mistakes, speeding things up is a recipe for disaster. With alternatives like life without parole, why do we take such horrible risks with the death penalty.

So, actually General Schmutzer and I do agree: the death penatly system in Tennessee is broken.

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Yesterday, North Carolina’s General Assembly approved making the state the second in the country, following Kentucky, to allow attorneys to use statistical data to demonstrate how racial bias factors into the decision of prosecutors to seek or jurors to impose the death penalty.

The Senate voted 25-18 for a measure that the NAACP and other advocates said was needed in a state that has released three black men from death row. Gov. Beverly Perdue is expected to sign the legislation.

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, in partnership with other advocates, worked tirelessly to get this bill passed.

Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty stated:

This is a great spiritual victory for North Carolina, the South, and our whole country. We have passed through the horrors of Jim Crow, through the racial politics of Jesse Helms, and now we have come to acknowledge that racial bias infects our courts over one of the greatest powers citizens give to government, the power to take human life. This is a victory brought by nonviolent social activism, the indomitable spirit and hard work by thousands of people including a scrappy, underfunded, but disciplined coalition of citizens’ groups, and some legislators who decided to stand empowered and do the right thing despite pressure from their political bosses and all in the face of misinformation and additional pressure from some district attorneys

About 700 clergy throughout North Carolina recently called for passage of the NC Racial Justice Act.

TCASK congratulates our colleagues in North Carolina for this monumental step in ensuring that the death penalty system in that state is applied more fairly. However, Dear acknowledged what abolitionists nationwide already know–that though this is a good step, the death penalty system can never be totally fair nor accurate and should be repealed.

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On Wednesday’s edition of NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno shares poetry from her new book Slamming the Door Open about the murder of her daughter, Leidy, in 2003. Leidy had just completed nursing school when an ex-boyfriend, angry about their break-up and the fact that Leidy caught him stealing her credit card information, broke into her apartment and strangled her with a telephone cord.

A TCASK board member who was traveling on Wednesday heard the broadcast and called me to say that I needed to hear the story. I finally got a few minutes to listen to it this morning. Kathleen is brutally honest about her own process and the feelings she experienced in the wake of her daughter’s murder–feelings that she did not know she was capable of prior to this tragic loss.

I hope you will take the time to listen to this interview and to hear these moving and soulful poems. For those of us who have never experienced the tragedy of a murder in our families, Kathleen’s poetry opens up the depth of that pain and hurt in a powerful way for others to glimpse and touch, if only tangentially.

Read the story or hear the interview here.

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One year ago yesterday, Jim David Adkisson entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville during a children’s musical performance and began shooting. Before he was finally tackled by a courageous member of the congregation, Adkisson had killed 2 people–Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry, an elder who attempted to block him from shooting other people–and wounded six.

Adkisson claimed he was attacking “the liberals,” particularly those who welcome gays and lesbians. Adkisson pleaded guilty to the rampage and is now serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. One year later, church members have not allowed Adkisson to dictate their response to this tragedy. They are not acting from a place of hate with a thirst for vengeance as he was. Instead,the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church is a living witness to its faith in the power of love and inclusivity, moving other congregations to become more welcoming of gay and lesbian people while starting new churches along the way.

I am so grateful for the witness of communities of faith such as this congregation who, though violated and attacked, refuse to allow violence, hate, and fear to dictate their response to tragedy. Instead, they choose to celebrate life and to welcome others who might be targets of discrimination.

I hope we can all learn from their witness.

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Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong heartiness problem such as soul trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very much dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile malfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has set a December 2nd execution date for Cecil Johnson, an inmate who has served on Tennessee’s death row for 28 years. Johnson was convicted of the 1980 armed robbery and murders of three Nashvillians, including a 12 year-old boy.

TCASK is currently creating a summary of this case for our website in order to give readers more information as to how the case unfolded. Ultimately, Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death with no physical evidence, no murder weapon, no proceeds recovered from the robbery, and without the disclosure of key files by the prosecution putting testimony used against him in doubt. The State’s case hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses as well as a “last hour” change of story by Johnson’s own alibi witness for a promise of immunity by the prosecution.

TCASK will have much more to share concerning this case. Check our website for the summary in the next few days.

Click here to read more.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as soul trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

On Thursday, July 9th, Herman Lindsey of Florida became the 135th death row exoneree since 1973 after the Florida Supreme Court unanimously ordered his freedom. The Court determined that there was not enough evidence to convict him of murdering a Fort Lauderdale pawnshop worker in 1994. Lindsey’s exoneration was the 23rd in Florida since the reinstatement of the death penalty. The court ruled that the Broward County prosecutors needed to show there is “a reasonable and moral certainty that the accused and no one else committed the offense charged. It is not sufficient that the facts create a strong probability of, and be consistent with guilt. They must be inconsistent with innocence.”

Only three days earlier, Ronald Kitchen was exonerated in Illinois when the state’s Attorney General dropped all charges against him. Kitchen and a co-defendant had been convicted of a 1988 murder, and Kitchen was sentenced to death. Kitchen confessed to the crime after being subject to interrogation by a police unit that used torturous tactics against suspects.

Kitchen’s case is yet another exoneration linked to disgraced former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. Kitchen had claimed that detectives under Burge’s command coerced him into confessing to the murders through torture, including hitting him in the head with a telephone, punching him in the face,striking him in the groin, and kicking him. Years after Kitchen’s conviction, Police Commander Burge was fired after the Police Department Review Board ruled that he had used torture. Burge currently awaits trial on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in relation to a civil suit regarding the torture allegations against him.

Additionally, the case against Kitchen was weak at best, lacking physical evidence and with the prosecution’s reliance on a dubious key witness. Kitchen served 21 years prior to his release.

Kitchen’s exoneration was Illinois’ 20th death-row exoneration. Florida and Illinois rank first and second in the United States, respectively, in death-row exonerations. Last week’s exonerations bring to four the number of death-row exonerations in the last two months. In mid-May, Paul House of Tennessee and Daniel Wade Moore of Alabama were also exonerated within three days of each other.

In 2007, Michael McCormick of Tennessee was found not guilty in a new trial after fighting his conviction for 20 years.

All of these cases highlight the grave risks of executing innocent people, risks that will persist in any human and thus imperfect system. With alternatives like life without parole, why do we continue to insist on the death penalty? How many innocent people have already been executed in this country because mistakes were made? Enough is enough.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be highly dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong heartiness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.