Campaign to End the Death Penalty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 17, 2006

Gov. Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency For Fifth Time: Rally Against the Death Penalty and the Execution of Michael Morales



WHEN: Saturday, February 18, 2006 at 12 Noon

WHERE: Bethel AME Church, 7900 Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA

LOS ANGELES -- On February 21, 2006 at 12:01 a.m. the state of California will take the life of yet another person, Michael Morales, since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency today.

This is the fifth person Gov. Schwarzenegger has denied clemency to since he took office two years ago. Even though clemency was denied, the irrefutable fact remains in Michael Morales' case: false testimony was given under oath by a profoundly untrustworthy jailhouse informant and serial felon.

This false testimony contributed to Michael Morales receiving the death penalty. Michael Morales' cousin, the undisputed architect of the crime, was instead sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The death sentence was even renounced by the sentencing judge.

This execution is also scheduled at a time when the Supreme Court has already agreed to hear cases that pose a challenge to lethal injection, citing that this is cruel and unusual punishment.

Today the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs announced their opposition to physician involvement in executions, after a CA judge ordered that physicians be present to oversee executions. The following statement by AMA was made in response to this ruling, As the voice of American medicine, the AMA urges all physicians to remain dedicated to our ethical obligations which prohibit involvement in capital punishment.

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty in conjunction with the LA Coalition Against the Death Penalty and Community Call to Action and Accountability have called for a rally on Saturday, February 18, to protest this upcoming execution of Michael Morales and call for an end to all executions in the state of California.

Barbara Becnel, friend and advocate of recently executed death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams will be speaking at the rally. Becnel witnessed the execution of Williams and described it as watching someone be tortured, since the prison staff had so much difficulty with administering the lethal injection.

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty has also designated March 27 to March 3 as Death Penalty Awareness Week. During this week, which coincides with "International Abolition Day" on March 1, activists plan to organize anti-death penalty events in the form of meetings, actions and informational tables on campuses and in communities across the country. Activities will raise awareness about the system of capital punishment and demand an end to this cruel and unusual punishment.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court ruling that reinstated the use of the death penalty in 1976. The Gregg ruling instituted changes in the law that were supposed to fix serious flaws in the death penalty -- flaws so troubling the court halted all executions four years earlier. In the 30 years since, there have been over 1,000 people executed--and more than 120 people exonerated and freed from death row. The death penalty system is so broken that one person condemned to death is proven innocent and freed for every eight people who have been executed during the past 30 years.

The execution system has compiled an ugly record over these 30 years. The vast majority of people sent to death row end up there not because of the crime they committed (if they committed any crime at all), but because they could not afford to hire a lawyer.

Time and time again, people of color have been sentenced to death by all-white juries, even though the Constitution states that defendants have a right to a jury of their peers. Time and time again, people have been sent to death row based on mistaken eyewitness identification, snitch testimony, shoddy forensic testing, and prosecutorial misconduct. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty believes that the time to do away with the death penalty system is 30 years overdue.

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