[CUADPUpdate] News & Opportunities.

[Abraham J. Bonowitz]

Sent *only* to the recipients of CUADPUpdate
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Greetings All!

See www.ABOLITION.org for photos and updates on 
the January 17 action at SCOTUS.

Today was another one of those banner news days for our movement.....

CONTENTS
Abolition Bill Introduced in Maryland - Governor says he'll sign it.
Executions on Hold in NC
Human Rights Travel Tours - NEW!
Abolitionist Spring Break - Register NOW!
Rawanda to Abolish the Death Penalty
Quote of the Week
Remembering Neil Walker

*****************


ABOLITION BILL INTRODUCED IN MARYLAND - GOVERNOR SAYS HE'LL SIGN IT

Congrats to all who had a hand in this....  Now the *really* hard work begins!

<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-death0125,0,2192676.story?coll=bal-mdpolitics-headlines>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-death0125,0,2192676.story?coll=bal-mdpolitics-headlines 



Md. lawmakers seek to repeal death penalty




O'Malley says he would sign bill that favors life without parole as alternative

By Brian Witte
The Associated Press

January 25, 2007, 5:59 PM EST

Lawmakers announced plans today to introduce 
legislation that would repeal the death penalty 
in Maryland -- a measure Gov. Martin O'Malley 
said he would sign if the General Assembly approves it.

State Sen. Lisa Gladden, D-Baltimore, and 
Delegate Samuel Rosenberg, D-Baltimore, are 
sponsoring bills that would replace the state's 
death penalty with a prison sentence of life without parole.

O'Malley, a Democrat who personally opposes the 
death penalty, said he "sure would" sign a bill 
repealing the death penalty in favor of life without parole.

"We waste a lot of money pursuing a policy that 
doesn't work to reduce crime or to save lives, 
but we could be putting that money into crime 
reduction," O'Malley said in a brief interview 
not long after legislators supporting the measure 
held a news conference. "I'm much more in favor of life without parole."

Although Gladden and Rosenberg both said they 
believe support for a repeal has grown, they said 
they would need to find more votes to get the measure through both chambers.

"While I think that it's a difficult task, I 
don't think it's impossible," Gladden said.

Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man who spent two 
years on death row and was later released from 
prison because of DNA evidence, said at the news 
conference that he was "living proof that the 
criminal justice system makes serious mistakes."

Bloodsworth was convicted twice of killing a 
9-year-old girl in 1984. He was placed on death 
row following his first trial. He was convicted 
again in a second trial, but received a life 
sentence instead of capital punishment. He was 
exonerated by DNA evidence in 1993.

Bloodsworth said his experience proved an 
innocent person can end up on death row.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody 
in this room and anybody in the state of Maryland," Bloodsworth said.

Gladden said Bloodworth's case demonstrated a 
need for ending capital punishment.

"I think that we have standing examples of why 
it's important that we repeal this," she said. 
"It doesn't work. The system's broken."

Last month, the state's highest court ruled that 
executions in Maryland can't go forward until a 
legislative committee reviews Maryland's lethal 
injection protocol. The Court of Appeals ruling 
was made four days after executions were halted 
in California and Florida over concerns that 
lethal injections, as carried out, constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Delegate Anne Healey, who co-chairs the committee 
that would have to hold hearings on the protocol, 
said it was up to the governor to decide whether 
the committee should take up the review. She said 
she hasn't heard from O'Malley on the matter.

Healey, D-Prince George's, said she's not sure 
lawmakers want to wade into such a divisive debate this year.

"I think it's a big question mark whether people 
are interested taking it up this year," said 
Healey, who opposes the death penalty.

Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley, a death 
penalty supporter who represents parts of 
Frederick and Carroll counties, said he believes 
the lethal injection review should be taken up to 
affirm the use of capital punishment in the 
state. However, the Republican said he didn't 
think the committee would bother this session, 
because lawmakers want to focus on budget issues.

"I think it's going to put it on the back burner," Brinkley said.

Sen. Paul Pinsky, a death penalty opponent who 
co-chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on 
Administrative Review that would have to hold 
hearings on the state's lethal injection 
protocol, said it was unclear whether the 
committee would take up the matter this year.

"Right now, we have a default moratorium, which I think is fine," Pinsky said.

************



EXECUTIONS ON HOLD IN NC

NOTE: Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens is the 
former director of the NC Attorney General’s 
Office’s death penalty unit­the state’s arm for 
prosecuting the death penalty. He has a record of 
being especially pro-death penalty.

We don’t expect the NC Supreme Court to overturn 
the ruling if the state were to appeal it today. 
Of course, anything can happen.

(01/25/07 -- RALEIGH) - A Wake County judge has 
suspended executions in North Carolina, putting a 
halt to an execution scheduled for 2 a.m. Friday morning.

Marcus Robinson, 33, was scheduled to receive a 
lethal injection at Raleigh's Central Prison.

Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens suspended 
his execution, two others scheduled for the 
coming weeks until the governor and Council of 
State approve an execution protocol that doesn't 
include a doctor participating. The judge says the law requires such approval.

Attorneys for Marcus Reymond Robinson also want 
the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution so 
the courts can review evidence that he has a long-standing brain injury.

The lawsuit was filed in conjunction with inmate 
James Edward Thomas, who is scheduled to be 
executed February 2nd for a slaying and sexual 
assault he says he doesn't remember.

SCOTT WRITES
>IMAGE UPDATE:
>
>Photos of scenes from the courtroom today in 
>Wake County, NC where Judge Donald W. Stephens 
>halted two planned executions until Gov. Mike 
>Easley and the Council of State can approve a 
>new procedure for having a doctor present.
>
>http://www.langleycreations.com/photo/deathpenalty/stay-of-executions-2007/index.html
>
>Scott Langley
>Death Penalty Photo Documentary Project
>www.langleycreations.com/photo/deathpenalty
>photo at langleycreations.com
>214-226-0503

****************


HUMAN RIGHTS TRAVEL TOURS WITH RICK HALPERIN

http://www.smu.edu/humanrights

*******************



ABOLITIONIST SPRING BREAK - REGISTER NOW!

Hooman writes:

I hope everybody is doing great. I just wanted to 
let you know about the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty 
Alternative Spring Break that Students Against 
the Death Penalty is organizing. This year’s 
spring break will be featured on "The Amazing 
Break," a MTV show featuring alternatives to beer 
and beaches. Last year’s spring break was 
featured on the mtvU (MTV’s University channel), NPR and etc.

You can register online 
at: 
<http://www.springbreakalternative.org/>http://www.springbreakalternative.org 
and also join the facebook group at: 
<http://utexas.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204628751>http://utexas.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204628751

This event is also co-sponsored by TCADP, TMN, 
CEDP, EJUSA, MVFHR, Campus Progress, NCADP and ACLU.

Alternative Spring Breaks are designed to give 
students something more meaningful to do during 
their week off, rather than just spending time at 
the beach or sitting at home catching up on 
school work. The specific purpose of this 
Alternative Spring Break is to bring students to 
Austin for five days of anti-death penalty 
activism, education and entertainment. We will 
provide participants with workshops that will 
teach them skills they can use to go back home 
and set up new anti-death penalty student 
organizations or improve ones that may already 
exist. The skills participants will learn can 
also be used in other issues besides the death 
penalty. Activities include a Death Penalty 
Issues Lobby Day and a direct action day.

Students will gain valuable training and 
experience in grassroots organizing, lobbying, 
preparing a direct action and media relations. 
They can apply what they learn against the death 
penalty or in their activities involving other issues.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of 
executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the 
executions in the United States in 2006. 
Twenty-four people were executed in Texas 2006. 
There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. 
Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that 
allowed executions to resume after a four-year 
period during which they were considered 
unconstitutional, there have been 1058 executions 
in the United States. Texas has performed 380 of 
those executions, which amounts to about 35 
percent of the national total. According to the 
2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.

Although the majority of the participants will be 
students, it is also a good opportunity for young 
people who are not students to become active. 
There are after all lots of young people who for 
various reasons don't go to college, but who may 
want to do something against the death penalty. 
The events and workshops are also open to the 
general public of any age, although the housing is reserved for young people.

Participation in the Annual Anti-Death Penalty 
Alternative Spring Break is an invaluable 
experience. Participants will come away with 
firsthand knowledge of the anti-death penalty 
movement, a new perspective on issues facing our 
country, and will form new friendships that could 
last a lifetime. During the spring break students 
will have plenty of free time to enjoy Austin, 
the Live Music Capital of the World. The spring 
break is at the same week as the SXSW Film and 
Music festival (also the only Carbon Neutral festival in US 2007.sxsw.com).

There is no participation fee for the Anti-Death 
Penalty Alternative Spring Break except for those 
people who need housing. If you do not need 
housing, because you live in Austin or you are 
making your own housing arrangements, then your 
participation is free, but please register so we 
know how many people to expect. Participants are 
expected to travel to Austin at their own expense 
and pay for most of their meals and incidental expenses while in Austin.

Housing is available for a fee of $25. We will 
house participants in double rooms at a dormitory 
near the University of Texas at Austin. Most 
students will be at The Goodall Wooten, a few 
people will stay in a dorm near the Wooten. You 
will share the room with one or two other students.

<http://www.springbreakalternative.org/>http://www.springbreakalternative.org

If your organization is interested to co-sponsor 
this event please let me know. You can send $1+ 
donations to the following address or just donate online with a credit card:

<http://www.springbreakalternative.org/donate.html>http://www.springbreakalternative.org/donate.html

Texas Students Against the Death Penalty
Attn: Hooman Hedayati
1600 Wickersham Ln #3084
Austin, Texas 78741

I will appreciate if you include the alternative 
spring break in your next newsletter and/or send 
the website link to local student groups.  Please 
let me know if you have any questions or if you 
are interested to get a student group from your State and come to Austin.

Thanks

Hooman Hedayati
Texas Students Against the Death Penalty

*************


RAWANDA TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Rwanda set to abolish death penalty

  Rwanda's Government has approved plans to scrap 
the death penalty which has been a major obstacle 
to the transfer back home of defendants facing 
trial over the 1994 genocide, says a report on 
the Mail & Guardian Online site.

<http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20070122082526751>http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20070122082526751

***************


QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Thanks to Connie Nash for sending this:

     QUOTE OF THE WEEK  at  Sojourners  Sojo.net
     Jan 25 2007

"The most effective answer to this leadership vacuum
would be a new era of political activism by ordinary
citizens. The biggest, most far-reaching changes of
the past century ­ the labor movement, the civil
rights movement, the women’s movement ­ were not
primarily the result of elective politics, but rather
the hard work of committed citizen-activists fed up
with the status quo. It’s time for thoughtful citizens
to turn off their TVs and step into the public arena.
Protest. Attend meetings. Circulate petitions. Run for
office. I suspect the public right now is way ahead of
the politicians when it comes to ideas about creating
a more peaceful, more equitable, more intelligent
society."

- Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist. (Source: from
"Long on Rhetoric, Short on Sorrow The New York Times,
January 25, 2007)

http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/bobherbert/

**************


REMEMBERING NEIL WALKER

I remember Neil Walker as "that really tall 
lawyer" who came to Amnesty International 
gatherings back when I first started going to 
such things in the late '80's.  I have not seen 
him in a long time and didn't really know him, 
but he's one of those human rights giants who 
should be remembered....  Here are a few recollections...

 >>> "Bart Stapert" <stapertb at xs4all.nl> 1/24/2007 4:38 PM >>>

Dear friends,

As some of you may have heard by now, Louisiana 
death penalty attorney Neal Walker passed away 
this weekend. Although I am far away and have not 
worked with Neal as much as many others on this 
list, I would like to express a few of my 
feelings about this deep and tragic loss.

We have lost a big one. Neal was very intense, 
6'9" of true integrity, yet non-assuming and a 
real mentor to all who have entered the death 
penalty field when he was around. Non-judgmental 
in his efforts to explain the ins and outs of 
what needed to be done to people who were still 
learning. I keep thinking of a letter to a client 
I once read when I was in his office at the 
Louisiana Resource Center. It said something to 
the effect of "At this office, we do not cut 
corners. We will do whatever it takes to 
represent you." Those who have worked with Neal 
much more than I have will undoubtedly second 
that this was truly his credo. Clients felt it, 
juries and judges sensed it, and as colleagues we just knew it.

Neal was very private in a way; other than his 
love for Zydeco and other music I at least never 
knew all that much about him. When he was in the 
bad bike accident years ago, it was mostly his 
colleagues who came to the rescue: Clive, Jelpi 
Picou, Ben Cohen, David Utter, Danalynn and 
several others literally took turns to care for 
him 24/7 and they made sure he was transferred 
from Charity Hospital to better care. Neal seemed 
to have a certain lonesome quality about him. Yet 
he absolutely loved his clients: those on death 
row, but post-Katrina also the hundreds of 
evacuees who were spread around jails and prisons 
in the state. Single-focused determination is the 
word that comes to mind when thinking about Neal.

And also, at a time like this I wonder if we as a 
movement look out for each other enough, for how people are really doing.

Bart Stapert

Bart Stapert
Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology
Utrecht University

****

didn't know him really beyond a few weeks, about to go into a
desperate trial for me, last year where he had really great thoughts and
was on call email, cell phone or otherwise (without me asking for this).
Can't say even that I ever met him in person.  Just know that he was
THERE and responding every time I sent out a phone call or email for
help trying to respond for years.

But, I will say a loud AMEN to your thought!

Teresa L. Norris

****

 >>> "Denny LeBoeuf" <dennylaw at cox.net> 1/25/2007 8:41 PM >>>

Here are the details regarding Neal's Memorial/Celebration.

Date: February 3, 2007 (Saturday)
Time: 4:30pm
Place: 2616 Royal Street (at Franklin Avenue)
             New Orleans, LA  70117

Everyone is invited.  Please spread the word far and wide.  Thanks.

I've been trying to write about Neal all day.  I 
have some adjectives: valiant, eccentric, 
private, industrious.  He had a truly deep, analytic
mind.  He was pretty left-brained but once he'd 
marched from start to finish through a case he 
had it whole, for good.  He had good ideas and good instincts too.

When Neal argued before the state Supreme Court, 
which he did many times as the head of the 
Capital Appellate Project, every decent appellate 
lawyer in town went if they could get away.  He 
was brilliant, brave, conversational, persuasive, 
and unflinching.  It was a master class, every 
single time. He won too, in some pretty 
unfriendly courts, more often than almost any of us.

I've known him a long time, since he came to town 
in '91.  He and Nick both interviewed me for my 
job at the Loyola Resource Center.  He 
said:  she's tried some cases and she knows some 
music, we should hire her.  In our first digs we 
were all sharing offices - Jack and Nick on the 
phone in the same room at the same time, how did 
they do that? - and me and Gary in one room, 
Barbara practically in a hallway - but Neal had a door that he could close.

That was the private Neal.  He would shut that 
door and work for days, then come out and do an 
imitation of an opponent or a witness or one of 
us - and we would fall down laughing.

One night, under warrant, Scalia's clerk called 
to ask when we were going to file the latest cert 
petition.  When Neal said he didn't know - Nick
and I were in federal district court at the time 
- the clerk called back to warn him that there 
would be no single-justice stay from Scalia. "Oh 
sure, take all the suspense out of it, why don't you" said Neal.

He was implacable and fearless in a trial 
court.  I have seen him take the state's witness 
all the way down, whimpering, crawling off the 
stand, and turning, no doubt, to drink for 
oblivion.  It wasn't personal, and I rarely saw 
him lose his cool.  If you got between him and 
the life of his client, you had to go.  Going 
hard or going easy, that wasn't his problem.

He could pick at the state's case endlessly, 
until one that looked just awful started to 
unravel.  He really got mitigation, knew the power and
the science of mental health evidence.  He was a great teacher.

When the Resource Centers were killed off Neal 
headed the Louisiana Capital Appellate 
Project.  He was also trying cases with Clive 
Stafford Smith, his dear friend, at Louisiana 
Capital Assistance Center, LCAC.  When Clive 
left, Neal took over as Director.  He was one of 
the finest capital defenders in the country, in 
the opinion of many who have earned the right to that opinion.

He was fair.  He was funny.  He was masculine.  I can't believe he's dead.

He loved New Orleans.  He did not romanticize his 
clients or his friends, didn't feel the need, but 
he might have had rosy glasses looking at
this city.  He was a fixture at zydeco dances, he 
drove to Opelousas on weekends for the music, he 
played a fine blues harmonica.  I have a poster 
of one of his gigs, a show at Moma's Blues on 
Rampart Street.  "You can see the Zulu king, down 
on Rampart on Dumaine" sings Professor 
Longhair.  Neal and I listened to Fess one night 
in the office, and I think I introduced him to 
Fess's last bass player at JazzFest.

He turned his love for the city into action after 
Katrina.  Here's what Pam Metzger wrote:

Neal was one of those brave few lawyers who 
stayed on after Katrina.  Along with Phyllis Mann 
and others, Neal spent those first unspeakable 
weeks after Katrina combing the jails across the 
state.   He freed, literally, hundreds of 
prisoners. He has saved lives across three 
decades.  He was a gentle giant in our small 
criminal justice community. I do not know how 
many more deaths this little group can take 
before we are too diminished to continue fighting as Neal would have.

As sad as I feel, I cannot imagine how bereft 
Neal's clients feel.  People at LCAC, the office 
he headed, bravely and wisely decided to go to
Death Row to give them the news in 
person.   There was much love for him there, and he will be truly mourned.

Neal was in Kentucky for years, he and Kevin 
McNally worked side by side.  Their old friend 
Gary Johnson said people used to think they were 
brothers.  Much pain in Kevin's voice Tuesday, 
but I asked him if he would write something.  Maybe he can.

I went to my storage unit today, dug into the 
boxed remainders of my old office on Elk Place, 
(never reopened after Katrina).  I found the 
picture taken at the LACDL banquet one year - 
mid-90's, I guess - the very first Sam Dalton 
award for capital defense.  It went to all of us 
at the Resource Center, which was also, at that 
time, the very beginning of what became LCAC.

Eight of us.  Nick Trenticosta, David Utter, 
Clive Stafford Smith, Gary Clements, me, Carol 
Kolinchak.  No Barbara Warren, Kim Watts, or Jack 
Holdridge, although in my memory they were there 
that night.  And Marie LeBoeuf Campbell, and Neal 
Walker, may they both rest in peace.

I'll bring the picture to the party.

Denny LeBoeuf

***************



Have a lovely weekend....

--abe