Editor’s Note: Please consider this call to action from one of our co-conspirators.
For Immediate Release
January 2, 2023
Abraham Bonowitz, Death Penalty Action
561-371-5204
Hundreds of Organizations Urge President, AG to Halt Federal & Military Death Penalty
(2pm ET Zoom press conference on Monday, January 2nd features victim family member whose killer is white supremacist currently on Federal death row.)
Washington, DC – Timed to coincide with the delivery of a new letter from Members of Congress to the Biden Administration’s Attorney General, Rev. Sharon Risher, Chairwoman of the board of directors of Death Penalty Action, will announce the delivery of an organizational letter to President Biden (copied to Attorney General Garland), signed by more than 275 organizations and accompanied by more than 20,000 petition signatures. A Congressional sign-on letter being organized by Senator Richard Durbin and Rep. Ayanna Pressley will be delivered today to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Durbin and Pressley are the lead sponsors on the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act, which has the bi-partisan and bi-cameral support of nearly 100 Members of Congress.
“We are urging the Biden Administration to do everything they can to stop seeking new federal and military death sentences, commute the existing death sentences under their jurisdiction, and to order the demolition of the federal death house at Terre Haute, Indiana,” said Risher, whose mother, two cousins and six others were killed by a man currently on federal death row. Risher advocates to end the death penalty “because his death sentence lingers over me and my family too, and we don’t want to be reminded of his horrific actions every time another appeal comes up.”
Register here for Monday’s press conference.
See the full text of the letter here.
The 275+ organizations signing the letter include the following. The complete list is here.
- American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
- Amnesty International USA
- Association of U.S. Catholic Priests
- Catholic Mobilizing Network
- Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE)
- Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty
- Death Penalty Action
- Death Penalty Focus
- Democrats For Life of America
- The Eighth Amendment Project
- EJUSA Evangelical Network
- Episcopal Peace Fellowship
- Equal Justice USA
- Faithful America
- Franciscan Action Network
- Human Rights Watch
- The Innocence Project
- L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty
- Methodist Federation for Social Action
- NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
- National Association of Social Workers
- NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
- Pax Christi USA
- Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
- Red Letter Christians
- Rehumanize International
- The United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society
- Uri L’Tzedek: The Orthodox Social Justice Movement
- Vote Common Good
- War Resisters League
- Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
- Witness to Innocence
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