After hearing Lance Lindsay, the Executive Director of Death Penalty Focus speak, the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club unanimously passed a resolution calling for an immediate Death Penalty Moratorium in California.

According to Lindsay, a recent Field Poll shows that 73% of Californians endorse the concept of a moratorium on the death penalty. Other polls show that the vast majority of Californians support restitution and life sentences without the possibility of parole, over the death penalty.

Death Penalty Focus’ Campaign for a Moratorium on Executions (CME) is a massive coalition effort with over 300 endorsing organizations, including MGO, Amnesty International, the ACLU, and many others. CME is lobbying cities and counties to endorse the Moratorium, as Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have done. Some of the arguments in support of the Moratorium’s "fix it, don’t nix it" strategy focus on the unfairness of the death penalty being imposed disproportionately on people from poor and minority backgrounds.

CME wants California to follow the lead of Illinois and Maryland which have placed a moratorium on executions unless and until the criminal justice systems’ endemic unfairness in imposing the death penalty is resolved. In Illinois, 13 people on death row were exonerated of their crimes, more people than were executed.

Accordingly, Illinois Governor George Ryan called for a moratorium on executions until he has a moral certainty that no innocent person will be executed. Maryland Governor Paris Glendening followed suit. Every Western democracy other than the United States has abolished the death penalty.

Lance Lindsay explained that CME’s mission is "to get politicians out of the business of killing."

To get involved in the Moratorium effort, contact Gary Sirbu, Chair of MGO’s Criminal Justice Committee, at gsirbulaw@aol.com or visit MGO’s website at www.mgoclub.org or CME’s site at www.californiamoratorium.org.

Back to CJC Main Page