MOMENTUM BUILDING NATIONWIDE IN SUPPORT OF A MORATORIUM ON FEDERAL EXECUTIONS AS U.S. PREPARES FOR FIRST EXECUTION SINCE 1963

Civil Rights Leaders, Clergy and Law Professors Join Call To Suspend Federal Executions
Based on Racial and Geographic Death Row Disparities

Washington, D.C., December 5, 2000 – Two weeks ago a group of prominent Americans, Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions (CMFE), including long-time colleagues and allies of President Clinton, urged the President to declare a moratorium on federal executions because of fundamental inequities in the federal death penalty process.

Today, three powerful constituencies have added their voices to that call as the ultimate deadline approaches; on December 12, Juan Garza is scheduled to be the first person executed by the federal government in 37 years.

Several letters signed by the heads of America’s leading civil rights organizations, top religious leaders and over 500 law professors were delivered to the White House late yesterday. In addition, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)— the largest and oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the U.S. – sent the White House a copy of its resolution calling for a moratorium on federal executions. The groups share the CMFE’S concern that the federal death penalty process is marred by significant and troubling disparities of race and geography. According to the Justice Department’s own statistics, 70% of the persons charged with federal capital crimes are racial and ethnic minorities, yet other data shows that the proportion of federal capital crimes committed by such persons is far less than 70%. The Department also revealed that nearly half of the recommended federal capital prosecutions come from less than one-third of the nation’s prosecutors, concentrated in death penalty states with large death rows. Juan Garza is a Hispanic man from one of these states, Texas.

Former Senators and White House officials including Paul Simon and Lloyd Cutler, Julian Bond of the NAACP, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Barbra Streisand and others, signed the CMFE letter. Several signers are supporters of the death penalty. On November 21, the American Bar Association issued a news release announcing that it was pleased the CMFE had joined the ABA in making this public appeal to the President.

Copies of the letters will be available from the CMFE website at www.federalmoratorium.org. For interviews with spokespeople contact: David Lerner at (212) 260-5000 or Caroline Simon (202) 637-6835.
 

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