Rick Halperin speaks about July 4th

July 4, 2009

Across America today, on Independence Day, there will be traditional
fireworks, parades, summer fun for children in swimming pools and at
ballgames, and a pervasive national outpouring of patriotism, reflected in
both flag displays and the singing of the national anthem at countless
events.

There are also almost 3,300 individuals who will not be any part of
these festivities; they are mostly forgotten, despised and reviled....
they are America's condemned.

They sit on death rows in 34 states, as well as in a military prison in
Kansas and a fedeal facility in Indiana.  Most are overwhelmingly guilty
of vile, heinous, outrageous and terrible crimes.  Many are mentally ill,
even profoundly mentally ill, and a good number are innocent of the crimes
for which they were convicted.  Collectively, they are, in part,
responsible for a great deal of anger, hurt, pain and rage in our society.

They face death by firing squad, hanging, electrocution, cyanide gas, and
lethal injection (there are more methods of legitimate state-sanctioned
execution in the the USA than in any other country in the world).

As this nation is trying to emerge from the worst global financial crisis
in 70 years, it remains in desperate need of trying to find, uphold and
defend its moral soul.  We are a long way from accomplishing this
important national task.

Most of America's political and judicial leaders, both male and female, in
both major parties, remain committed to upholding the ideology and
practice of human extermination. As long as any nation in the world,
inclduing the USA, retain and practice the barbarism of killing people in
the name of the law, they can never be free.  If people support, or are
indifferent to the liquidataion of condemned individuals, how can we be
surprised that other horrors, such as torture, hate crimes, and crimes
against women, continue at such an alarming pace.

To be sure, some advances in the abolition of the US death penalty have
been achieved in the last decade:  America has stopped executing its
juvenile and mentally retarded offenders; New Jersey and New Mexico have
legislatively ended the death penalty, and other states have, in recent
years, come close to doing the same. Over 130 innocent people have been
released from America's death rows to date, and more will emerge to the
free world in the years ahead.

But this "progress" has come at a frustratingly, agonizinly slow pace.
Of the 1168 individuals put to death in America since executions resumed
in 1977, 736 have occurred since 1998, including 200 just in Texas alone
since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.  There is no immediate end in
sight to this horror.

There will undoubtedly be the traditional praise and self-congratulatory
editorials and op-eds in our newspapers today, from coast to coast, from
our major cities to our small communities, reminding us of how lucky we
are to live in such a great nation.  And in many ways, that sentiment is
correct.

But it is a fallacy to believe that assessment when considering what is
happening in this country regarding the issue of the death penalty.  It is
time to face the truth, admit national pain, and come to grips with the
fact that on this issue, 233 years after the Declaration of Independence
was proclaimed (and 402 years after the British first settled here), we
are a national disgrace and failure.  We remain wedded to the love of
violence, and to the preposterous idea that some people in our society
(and even around the world), can be classified as "lesser" or "other"
humans, 'deserving' to be stripped of their human dignity, caged like
animals for years, physically and psychologically tortured and
terrorized, and then ultimately liquidated in the name of the law.

On this day, when so much celebrating in America will occur, I hope and
trust that people will take a hard look at the sobering realities of
this nation and its nightmare of the death penalty.  Now is the time for
all people of conscience, everywhere, to re-dedicate themselves with
renewed fervor to end this terrible scourge, so that America may join the
ranks of most nations in the world that have long since recognized the
links between advancing human progress with ending the death penalty.

When the US does abolish the death penalty, it will then, and only then,
have reasons to be proud and celebrate itself.

Rick Halperin
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and
Amnesty International USA
(Dallas, Texas)