[GPCA Updates] GP ADVISORY Green Party members speak out to stop execution of Troy Davis in Ga., urge end of the death penalty

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Friday, September 16, 2011



Green Party members speak out to stop execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, urge
abolition of the death penalty

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on criminal
justice and the death penalty: http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-criminal.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States today called for a halt
to the impending execution of Troy Davis, scheduled for September 21 in
Georgia, and cited the case an example of why the death penalty must be abolished.

Green Party members will participate in public events urging the Georgia Board
of Pardons and Parole to stop the execution when the board meets on Monday,
September 19.

"Supporters of capital punishment insist that it should only used when no
doubt remains about the guilt of the accused.  The Troy Davis case shows that
death-row inmates are facing execution even when significant doubts emerge.
We know that racial disparities in sentencing and abuses by prosecutors such
as the withholding of exculpatory evidence have led to wrongful sentencing.
The only way to prevent erroneous executions is to end capital punishment
altogether," said Leenie Halbert, co-chair of the Green Party of the United
States and formerly active in Angels of Mercy in Louisiana and a volunteer
with Sr. Helen Prejean's Moratorium 2000 campaign.

Mounting doubts about the evidence against Troy Davis include seven of the
nine witnesses recanting their testimony and the statements by several of the
witnesses that they were pressured by the police to identify Troy Davis as the
murderer of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989.  Of the two
remaining witnesses, one is the initial suspect.

Theresa El-Amin, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States, has
arranged for a bus from Columbus to Atlanta on Friday afternoon, September 16,
for Greens and others to participate in a "Too Much Doubt to Execute!" march
and prayer service at Ebenezer Baptist Church with national and local civil
rights, faith, and community leaders.  The event is sponsored by Georgians for
an Alternative to the Death Penalty, NAACP, and Amnesty International.

Greens noted that the Supreme Court's McClesky v. Kemp ruling (1987) upheld
the death penalty despite evidence of racial discrepancies in sentencing,
which amounted to approval by the nation's highest court for racism in the
application of capital punishment.  (Mr. Davis is Black.)  See "United States
of America: Death by Discrimination -- The Continuing Role of Race in Capital
Cases," Amnesty International, April 23, 2003
(http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/046/2003/en).

Furthermore, the Supreme Court, in Herrera v. Collins (1993), ruled that the
Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment does not prohibit the
execution of a person known to be innocent, if he or she has already been
tried and sentenced to death.  Greens have called this decision a license for
the state to murder the innocent.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by
President Clinton, has imposed roadblocks, in the name of combatting
terrorism, that have made it more difficult for death-row inmates to get new
trials.

The Green Party Platform's section on criminal justice endorses abolition of
the death penalty
(http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/social-justice.php#1001998).

"We urge all states to follow the example of Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, who
imposed a moratorium on executions in his state in 2000 because of the number
of inmates whose sentences were overturned because of the flawed and biased
justice system.  Capital punishment is not only irreversible, it's barbaric
and inhumane and a violation of human rights that calls into question all
death penalty case convictions.  Capital punishment does not deter crime, but
instead has been used to exterminate the poor and people of color who are
consistently treated unfairly in the justice system," said Rev. Darryl! LC
Moch of Inner Light Ministries, co-chair of the DC Statehood Green Party and a
member of the Green Party Black Caucus
(http://www.gp.org/caucuses/black/index.php).


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191
• Green candidate database and campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/ballotstatus
• Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
• Video Page http://www.gp.org/video/index.php

Press conferences, forums, and other events at the Green Party's 2011 Annual
National Meeting in Alfred, NY, broadcast and archived on the Green Party's
Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
• 2011 Annual National Meeting http://nygreenfest.org

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the
United States (Summer 2011 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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