Post by pumpkinpie on Jun 16, 2007 21:30:30 GMT -5
PENNSYLVANIA: The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, representing the bishops of the state's 10 dioceses, is one of 15 faith-based, legal and civil rights organizations that have joined to form the Pennsylvania Moratorium Coalition, a group calling for a thorough examination of the state's death penalty system and an official two-year suspension of executions while the review is taking place.
IN NEW HAMPSHIRE... the state's House of Representatives on March 27 rejected a proposed bill that would have replaced the death penalty with life in prison without parole as the maximum penalty for capital crimes.
Supporters of the legislation included Most Rev. John B. McCormack, bishop of the Diocese of Manchester, which covers the entire state. In March testimony presented to the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, he urged that it be enacted "so that citizens can expect that the state will only use lethal force when it is justifiable; in other words, when that force is applied in self-defense or the defense of others."
McCormack acknowledged that "there is moral justification for the taking of another person's life as an act of self-defense," but added: "The taking of life by capital punishment is not an act of self-defense in these modern times. We cannot turn back the clock and save anyone who has been a victim of violent crime. The time for them to exercise their right to self-defense has been tragically lost forever. What we can do, though, is rise above the unjust violence that death penalty institutionalizes, and, as a community of goodwill, not allow ourselves to contribute this culture of death and violence."
There have been no executions in New Hampshire since its current death penalty law was enacted in 1991, and there is no one on the state's death row. Gov. John Lynch (Dem.), a Catholic, is on record as saying he would veto an abolition bill if it were passed by the legislature.
SOUTH DAKOTA: On February 23, Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, a Catholic, signed a new death penalty law that takes effect July 1. It allows death row inmates to choose either a two-drug lethal injection procedure that was specified in the former law or a new three drug mixture selected by state officials.
Last August, Rounds stayed the execution of Elijah Page, 24, shortly before it was to be carried out, because prison officials planned to use the three drug method- which they deemed more humane- instead of the two drug one outlined in the law.
Page has said he wants to be executed. But lawyers for one of the other men on the state's death row filed documents in U.S. District Court on May 8 arguing that the delayed execution of Page and the resulting change in the law cast serious doubt on the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure.
No executions have taken place in South Dakota since 1947.
www.cacp.org
Volume 16, Number 2
June 12, 2007
IN NEW HAMPSHIRE... the state's House of Representatives on March 27 rejected a proposed bill that would have replaced the death penalty with life in prison without parole as the maximum penalty for capital crimes.
Supporters of the legislation included Most Rev. John B. McCormack, bishop of the Diocese of Manchester, which covers the entire state. In March testimony presented to the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, he urged that it be enacted "so that citizens can expect that the state will only use lethal force when it is justifiable; in other words, when that force is applied in self-defense or the defense of others."
McCormack acknowledged that "there is moral justification for the taking of another person's life as an act of self-defense," but added: "The taking of life by capital punishment is not an act of self-defense in these modern times. We cannot turn back the clock and save anyone who has been a victim of violent crime. The time for them to exercise their right to self-defense has been tragically lost forever. What we can do, though, is rise above the unjust violence that death penalty institutionalizes, and, as a community of goodwill, not allow ourselves to contribute this culture of death and violence."
There have been no executions in New Hampshire since its current death penalty law was enacted in 1991, and there is no one on the state's death row. Gov. John Lynch (Dem.), a Catholic, is on record as saying he would veto an abolition bill if it were passed by the legislature.
SOUTH DAKOTA: On February 23, Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, a Catholic, signed a new death penalty law that takes effect July 1. It allows death row inmates to choose either a two-drug lethal injection procedure that was specified in the former law or a new three drug mixture selected by state officials.
Last August, Rounds stayed the execution of Elijah Page, 24, shortly before it was to be carried out, because prison officials planned to use the three drug method- which they deemed more humane- instead of the two drug one outlined in the law.
Page has said he wants to be executed. But lawyers for one of the other men on the state's death row filed documents in U.S. District Court on May 8 arguing that the delayed execution of Page and the resulting change in the law cast serious doubt on the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure.
No executions have taken place in South Dakota since 1947.
www.cacp.org
Volume 16, Number 2
June 12, 2007