Citizen Reporter

I truely important announcement was made today in Philadelphia…. humanity and justice have finally begun to reach the government of that state. Like many states before it… it is taking steps to hault executions… executions that have been found to be carried out on innocent people and often as a result of an inherently racist system. How many more states still kill prisoners? How many of those prisoners were actually proven innocent later… it’s about time Pennsylvania came clean with a flawed and inhumane system.

Article follows:

Posted on Wed, Mar. 05, 2003

Pennsylvania report urges execution ban

A state Supreme Court committee says more time is needed to study the role of race in death-row cases.

By Ralph Vigoda

Inquirer Staff Writer

The state should declare a moratorium on executions until the role of race in death-penalty cases can be determined, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court committee has concluded.

The report mirrors studies at the federal level and in other states that are grappling with death-row populations that include a large number of minority inmates. Illinois and Maryland were the only two states that enacted moratoriums, but Maryland’s new governor, Robert Ehrlich Jr., lifted its when he took office in January.

“There’s a concern around the country about the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. “There have been too many mistakes, and in trying to get to the root cause, you sometimes find that race plays a role.”

Other suggestions in the 549-page report from the Committee on Racial and Gender Bias – released yesterday, three years after the state Supreme Court appointed the committee to study Pennsylvania’s criminal-justice system – include spending more money on public defenders’ offices and hiring more courtroom interpreters for those with limited English skills.

Gov. Rendell, a former prosecutor, does not favor halting executions.

“The governor believes we need to make the death-penalty process more fair by guaranteeing access to DNA evidence and guaranteeing access to legal representation but does not support a moratorium,” said his spokesman, Ken Snyder.

The next step is for two task forces to consider the report. Rendell’s wife, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, is chairwoman of one of them; the other is led by Philadelphia City Solicitor Nelson Diaz.

The report recommends further study of the death-penalty issue without taking a stand on whether any moratorium should be permanent. It does not ask prosecutors to stop seeking the death penalty.

“The committee found serious questions exist about the fairness and evenhandedness of the present system of capital litigation and sentencing, and believes a thorough and comprehensive study needs to be undertaken to determine the impact of race,” said Andre Dennis, a Philadelphia lawyer and one of the committee members who focused on the issue of race and the death penalty.

“The moratorium should exist until that happens and there are procedures in place to ensure that the death penalty is administered fairly and impartially.”

Pennsylvania is one of 38 states with a death penalty, and one of 11 in which reports studying the fairness of justice systems have been commissioned, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. (In New Jersey, a bill passed in January by the Assembly calls for establishing a nonpartisan commission to examine the death-penalty system. It is pending in the state Senate.)

Statistics from the state Corrections Department show that 69 percent of death-row inmates in Pennsylvania are minorities, or 168 out of 242. The minority population of Pennsylvania, the report points out, is 11 percent.

“There is no way you can look at those numbers and conclude that the system plays on an even playing field,” said William DiMascio, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a Philadelphia organization that monitors prisons. “Something is amiss here.”

Such studies are not without critics. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims’ rights organization in Sacramento, Calif., yesterday called the Pennsylvania report worthless.

“For two reasons,” spokeswoman Susan Blake said. “One, the sources to which the committee looked and quoted are significantly opposed to the death penalty.

“Two, comparing the number of minorities in the general population to the number of minorities on death row is irrelevant. The general population doesn’t commit murder. The correct comparison is the death-row population to the number of people who commit murder.”

She pointed to FBI statistics showing that of nearly 14,000 murders in Pennsylvania in the 25 years from 1974 to 1999, 63 percent were committed by minorities. That, she said, is close to the state’s death-row percentage.

Beyond the death-penalty question, the committee tackled dozens of issues. For example, it recommended that the state, rather than counties, fund public defenders’ offices.

Some suggestions are simple, such as having separate areas in courthouses for the accused and victims in domestic- and sexual-violence matters.

The report also recommends statewide standards for trial and appellate lawyers in capital cases, and includes a list of practices that could serve as models throughout the state; one county, for example, has child care for jurors.

“This report is really a blueprint for recommendations,” said committee member Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. “There are plenty that are not going to take a lot of money. I think we’re hopeful that, as Supreme Court Chief Justice [Ralph J.] Cappy said, this won’t be a report that will sit on the shelf.”

Pennsylvania has executed three people, all white, by lethal injection since 1995, when capital punishment resumed after a 33-year hiatus. Gary Heidnik was put to death in July 1999; Leon Moser and Keith Zettlemoyer were executed in 1995.

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Contact staff writer Ralph Vigoda at 610-313-8109 or rvigoda@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writers Leslie Pappas and Amy Worden contributed to this report.

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India played Pakistan in cricket. Many may not care for sport or for cricket, which is certainly an obscure but imporant sport nonetheless. What is of significance of this happenning? The Indian government normally doesn’t allow their team to play Pakistan, all part of their “Sworn enemy” policy towards the nation they have all their nuclear missles pointed at. And of course, it should be mentioned that Pakistan has nuclear missles point at India. And if that wasn’t sick enough, since the countries share a border, any detonation of a nuclear bomb would kill Indians and Pakistani’s… nevermind the nuclear winter that would occur if multiple missles were fired.

But back to the game… it was a most significant event. Before the match began, the team captains exchanged ties as a sign of friendship. In this case, politicians in both countries should learn how to play their political games just as the cricket players handle their games… Vajpaye and Musharaff need to exchange ties, before anymore lives are lost and before they destroy the entire earth.

I truely good use of the UN’s time and resources would be to oblige those countries to disarm.. but alas.. only weak countries receive inspectors.

Yesterday, according to NYTimes/BBC/LeMonde, the US military upped the number of troops being send to the southern Phillipines to help “fight” the Abu Sayef “terrorist” group that is allegedly linked to Al Qaeda, much like every terrorist group these days. This increase in troop presence in the Phillipines will bring the number of US military there to close to 3,000. On the same day, a pair of CIA operatives, which are essentially secret soldiers, were captured by the FARC rebel group in Colombia. The US has decided to increase the amount of “advisors” (you’ll remember president LBJ sending a few thousand advisors to a place called Vietnam) it has in that region… pushing it to around 1,000. How many thousands of US military are left in Afghanistan? How many thousands are running around pretending to shoot at each other and getting killed in accidents in the Kuwait area? How many thousands are stationed in South Korea for whatever bizarre reason? Japan?

The point of all this? Well… it’s clearly a military economy in the US. Its one of the biggest employers in the world, the American military. It makes money for weapons manufacturers, natural resource corporations, etc. Trouble is, how big is too big? Will there ever be a point when the military is suddenly facing crises in multiple places? What if Abu Sayef demolishes the 3 thou marines? What if the FARC picks off US military one by one? What if the Taliban, who are reorganizing in the North, what if they come down armed to the teeth and reak havoc on US and allied troops? What if Urban warfare isn’t as glamorous as it sounds in Iraq? All these things are possible… perhaps not on the scale the I propose… but if they were to even happen on a small scale… why is it worth it? To make the world a better place? OR is it political? Is it about power, and not about humanity?

I think of perhaps an odd example… but I think about the Portuguese military in the 70’s… for years they’d been sent up and down Africa.. fighting in Mozambique, Guinea-Bassau, and Angola, Goa (to some extent).. the neverending colonial wars… in the great name of Portuguese-Africa. Thousands upon thousands fought and died, on both sides. But at some point, they had had enough. It was the military that rose up! The military that stopped shooting and started asking, “Why are we doing this? Why are we here? Who is this leader of ours?” They changed the country… not alone, but they were the spark, and without them it may have never ended.

Perhaps in the US… the spark has to come from the same place. Could it be that one day… and soon… the military men and women, who have for so long followed orders without question.. will they turn and ask their commander-in-chief, “Why am I fighting? Where is the proof? What is the purpose? Why must I die? Why must I kill?”

Last week’s Courrier International which is published by the Le Monde Group, included an interview from the New York Times Magazine with Qaddafi back in January. This was a really long and detailed interview, with the journalist and the leader of Libya dicussing the past, the present, and the future. From this interview, usual media portrayals, and the infamy of his name Qaddafi is generally seen as a tyrant. Reading this interview and seeing the man, hearing him speak, sometimes proud and pompous, sometimes regretful and remorseful, you see a man that has shaped his part of the world as much as the world has shaped him. He admits that back in the eighties he believed armed struggle was the best way to advance your movement, he now says he was wrong. He denounces terrorism, and was the first arab leader to present Washington with his security reports on terrorist groups worldwide. Yet he never forgets how the Reagan administration targeted him, bombed Libya, killing his 1 year old adopted daughter while she slept. These days he seems obsessed with the new formed African Union, created in the spirit of the European Union, in order to unite Africa and promote developement.

Why are these things significant? Because Qaddafi represents man who was considered crazy and a threat to the world/United States. He was targetted. He was bombed. He was denounced over and over again by Reagan, Bush, and even GWBush denounces him. Yet the UN has lifted sanctions… after so many years of delay, Qaddafi released the Lockerbie bombing suspects to face trial. He has also agreed to pay the conpensation. He has also given over his powers as administrative/ government leader in Libya to parliament. He retains the title of “leader” wielding only symbolic importance in his country. He may not be a good man. But he is a clear example of what happens to semi-dictators in the Arab world if you approach the situation with patience and using measures besides war.

Qaddafi is not unique. Many aging Arab leaders, who used to be considered mad threats, later became old and quirky, but not crazed killers. Reagan used to refer to Qaddafi as “The rabid dog of the middle east”… but years later, it is clear that Reagan was just trying to get political attention… because that raging dog, has become a calm K-9, interested more in hanging nice pictures of himself in the streets and being remembered as a great leader.

And so once again there’s a president waging a vague Cold War Part II against terrorism, and he declares another middle east dictator a “threat”… history repeats itself… only this time, it could be far bloodier.

The biggest danger in the world, is not the average American who might be in favor of war in order to “liberate” another country. No, the biggest danger in this world is the education system that produced that American. Because it was that system, those schools, that curriculum, and those teachers, who gave that person the tools he would use to interpret the world around him, for the rest of his/her life. Sure, parental figures are important, but reality is, whoever your guardian, they’re probably working 1 or 2 jobs just to keep that roof over your head and the clothes on your back, etc. Your real education today, when its not coming from your loved ones, is coming at you from all sides when it comes to TV and school. And if that school doesn’t teach a person to ask questions, to ask how things work, to seek more information than that which is spoonfed to them, then that person may never learn to do so.

Never has this been more apparent than now. Tabloid newspapers publish embarassingly ignorant headlines depicting the French as the culture which America saved and died for which now turns their back on the United States. With a large photo of Normandy to boot. CBS’s Andy Rooney, who has already received piercing criticism from this journalist, in his old wise age, still has his own program on that network, where he presents news to the public, with his own commentary mixed in. This week Rooney decided to “englighten” the viewers about the French. This man who neither speaks French or has ever lived there longer than his tour of media duty in the 40’s, told millions of CBS watchers about how the French “Have no right to an opinion” because they “owe” the United States for having saved their country and defeated the Germans in WWII.

This same idea has been spreading like wildfire throughout the American media. Whats alarming is not that it’s spreading in a populist, racist, ill-informed, and attention seeking media environment. Rather, it is that so many Americans read this and it appeals to this sensitive memory or this national pride, it touches of some misplaced anger, and the result is poor humor like “Surrender like the French.” This is poor humor because it ignores the sufferring and starvation endured by France during the occupation, and it negates the enormous resistance movement and all those who died for it. It ignores that fact that untold millions of Russians and Germans had already died long before Normandy. It ignores how many millions of innocent Polish, Russians, Germans, Czechs, French, and British died before America finally decided to get involved.

Rooney has a right to his opinion. But once he gets in front of millions to put forth information, he then has a responsibility, to the public. If he presents one side of an arguement or opinion, he must present the otherside, otherwise he’s nothing but a propaganda producing would-be journalist. Furthermore, if he is indeed a journalist, then part of his job is to question public officials and government decisions.

It is not for the journalist or any media to promote or support the decision of elected officials, they have media people to do that for them. No, it’s the media’s role to keep them in check, to make sure their information isn’t full of holes and half-truths. But alas, that’s what a media is supposed to do, it hasn’t been doing that in America or several other countries for quite a long time. There’s a long overdue reform that the people must demand of the very media that seek their attention. Trouble is, if people aren’t educated properly, only schooled in “their” national history and never told the other side of the story, never shown the other truths that are out there, they’ll just keep eating the same spoon-fed government propaganda… and they’ll even say thank you.

“1,2,3,4 WE DON’T WANT YOUR OIL WAR!” … how many different languages can you imagine that being said, it one single day, in every corner of the globe? Never before… never has the world seen an excess of 10 million stand up, march, sing, dance, speak, draw, debate and perform their beliefs that this plan for War in Iraq is unjust, immoral, illegal, and wrong… amongst the countless other reasons. February 15th, 2003 will always be remembered and referred to, for the stark message the people of the world sent their governments and the government of the United States, “We live in this world too, We don’t support your war, We Will Stand Up Against Your Muscle and Manipulation!” And stand they did: Amsterdam 70 thousand, Brussels 50 thousand, Paris 150 thousand, Berlin almost 500 thousand, Rome 600 thousand plus, Madrid 750 thousand, Lisbon 60 thousand, Cape Town 10 thousand, Tokyo 25 thousand, Ottowa 10 thousand plus, London 1 MILLION!, and perhaps the most significant and most telling, NYC 500 thousand! And they thought Americans were just going to sit home and watch war on TV! This day is one that the people of the world can be proud of, showing that it’s not just “You’re with us or against us” but it is about international law and human rights!