Petition

Signatures for a petition calling for a moratorium on the federal death penalty were collected throughout the week. 487 signatures were sent to Senator Russ Feingold, in support of the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act.

Tuesday, March 23
6:30pm Devlin 227
Milton Jones: A Victim-Centered Perspective

Milton Jones, a member of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), spoke from his perspective as a murder victim's family member. Jones' son, Eli, was murdered by two teenagers at the age of 18 for little or no reason. Jones said that, after his son's death, he went through a turmoil "you couldn't even begin to imagine." Jones found himself filled with hate. With his pastor's help, he began to search for help outside himself. He tried to avoid becoming someone "who thinks in terms of murder, hate, killing ..., barbaric, insensitive."

Spirituality was key to Jones' change of heart. "It's not up to me to harbor feelings against [the murderers]," he said, "Spiritually, I find it necessary to pray for them." MVFR also helped Jones focus on the loss of his son and not himself. "How do you express love," Jones asked, "when you are filled with hate?"

Next, Jones focused on the absurdity of the death penalty system. Milton wondered how an executioner could lethally inject someone and then go home to dinner with his family. He also found it strange that if a victim's family member tried to avenge a murder, he or she would be put behind bars. And yet, the state can legally do just that. Jones acknowledged that some family members of victims support the death penalty, even going so far as to witness an execution. "Is there joy in witnessing a death?" he asked. "Call it what you will, it's murder."

Tuesday, March 23
8:00pm St. Mary's Chapel
Prayer for Life on Death Row

During its weekly prayer, the Community of Sant'Egidio remembered victims of violence and those condemned to death, and prayed for an end to state killing.

Wednesday, March 24
7:00pm Devlin 010
The Bush Administration and the Machinery of Death

Attorney David Ruhnke, counsel for Gary Sampson in a Massachusetts federal death penalty trial, spoke on the injustice of the death penalty and efforts by the federal government to bring the death penalty to non-death penalty states. Ruhnke demonstrated that the death penalty is applied rather arbitrarily, while, according to a Supreme Court decision, it should be applied "fairly and consistently, or not at all."

Attorney Ruhnke described the federal death penalty authorization process in detail. He said that Attorney General John Ashcroft's goal is to nationalize the death penalty. One of Ruhnke's more shocking assertions was his finding of a correlation between states that lynched blacks in the past and states that currently carry out the most executions. He called race the "ever-present dirty little secret of capital punishment." 66% of federal death row inmates are black and murderers whose victims are white are much more likely to get a death sentence.

Presenting the facts in a number of cases, Ruhnke showed how unpredictable jury decisions in death penalty cases can be. He said that "every murder is worse than every other murder" and that it is "nonsensical to compare murders or the suffering of victims' families."

Return to the death penalty page.