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AFRICAN AMERICAN LEADERS URGE CLINTON TO
DECLARE MORATORIUM ON FEDERAL EXECUTIONSProtest Launched Against First Federal Execution in Nearly 40 Years
Mexican American Inmate Scheduled for Death December 12
WASHINGTON, DC * The Black Leadership Forum (BLF), a confederation of 26 prominent civil rights and service organizations and leaders, is urging President Clinton to declare an immediate moratorium on federal executions. In a letter sent to the president on December 4, the group insisted that the President*s executive moratorium would be "a fitting capstone to [his] rich presidential legacy of fairness and equity."
The letter calls on President Clinton to grant clemency to Juan Raul Garza, scheduled to be put to death on December 12, the first scheduled execution from the federal death row in nearly 40 years. Garza, a Hispanic from Texas, reflects the disparity in the racial and geographic composition of the federal death row. Hispanics and African Americans disproportionately constitute those condemned in federal sentences.
The BLF effort is part of a larger initiative launched by Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions, a coalition of prominent individuals in the arts, law, religion, civil rights and public policy. The Citizens group, including both supporters and opponents of capital punishment, has gained increasing momentum in its push for a federal moratorium.
The letter, signed by BLF Chairman Joseph E. Lowery, Executive Director Yvonne Scruggs and other heads of national organizations (list attached), laments "the racial disparities that plague the administration of capital punishment across the land and, in particular, the gross racial disparities reflected in the federal death row population." Raising concerns about fairness, the letter notes that "capital punishment is most often reserved for those at the margins of society." Geographic disparities are also evidenced by statistics indicating that almost half of the cases where capital punishment is sought occur in just a handful of federal districts including areas covering Texas, Missouri and Puerto Rico, the letter notes.
While the black leaders commend the president for granting Garza a reprieve in August to seek clemency under new federal guidelines, they remind Clinton that he has publicly expressed concern about the "disturbing racial composition" of federal death row inmates and has agreed that more answers are needed on the disproportionate representation of minorities in some geographical districts.
The letter suggests that even those who support capital punishment would agree that until the nation is assured "the federal death penalty is neither biased nor arbitrary in its application, no federal executions should proceed."
SIGNERS OF BLACK LEADERSHIP FORUM APPEAL
FOR FEDERAL MORATORIUM ON FEDERAL EXECUTIONSDr. Joseph E. Lowery
ChairmanDr. Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich
Executive Director and COODr. Ramona H. Edelin
Executive Director Congressional Black Caucus FoundationHugh Price
President National Urban LeagueGerald Reed
President and CEO Blacks In GovernmentSullivan Robinson
Executive Director and CEO Congress of National Black ChurchesDr. Wallace Hartfield
President Congress of National Black ChurchesDr. Dorothy Height
Chairman Emeritus National Congress of Negro WomenDr. Jane E. Smith
President National Congress of Negro WomenJohn J. Oliver, Jr.
President National Newspaper Publishers AssociationDaisy M. Wood
Past President National Pan Hellenic CouncilThe Honorable David Dinkins
Former Mayor New York City
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