INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY

MEDIA ADVISORY                                                                                                     CONTACT: Stephanie Rabinowitz

Immediate Release
 Phone: 202-835-8760

 

RELIGIOUS LEADERS PETITION PRESIDENT CLINTON FOR A CLEMENCY FOR JUAN RAUL GARZA
AND FOR A MORATORIUM ON FEDERAL EXECUTIONS

Washington, D.C. –  On December 5, more than seventy religious leaders from across the religious spectrum delivered a letter to President Clinton, calling upon him to grant clemency to Juan Raul Garza and to institute a moratorium on federal executions.

Mr. Garza’s execution, set for December 12, will be the first federal execution in almost forty years. Voicing their strong moral and ethical support for a moratorium on executions, the religious leaders commented that “serious questions regarding the fairness of the administration of the federal death penalty are squarely before” the President.

A Mexican-American, Mr. Garza is representative of the racial and geographic disparities exposed in the recent Justice Department survey of the federal capital punishment system. The Department’s own statistics reveal that nearly 70 percent of defendants sentenced to federal capital have been members of racial minorities. The study also shows that U.S. Attorneys in a handful of states are responsible for submitting nearly half of all potential federal capital prosecutions for approval by the Attorney General. The President has acknowledged that he is “troubled” by the results of the Justice Department survey, which, according to the Attorney General, is still on-going.

Believing in the sanctity of life, including that of crime victims and of those who are convicted of crimes, this diverse group of clergy and lay religious leaders from across the nation appealed to President Clinton not to make the resumption of federal executions after forty years part of his legacy.  In calling upon the President to grant clemency to Mr. Garza and to declare a moratorium on federal executions, these representatives of the nation’s faith communities also asked the President to pay heed to the fact that more Americans have reservations about the death penalty than at any time since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Among those signing the letter are C. Naseer Ahmad, Human Rights Committee, Ahmaddiyya Movement of Islam; Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches; Rabbi Jerome Epstein, President of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism; Joseph K. Grieboski, President, Institute on Religion and Public Policy; Most Reverend Frank Tracy Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate, Episcopal Church USA; Archbishop Nicholas Lambrou, Archbishop-Primate, Autocephalous Holy Eastern Orthodox Church, Archdiocese of the Americas;  Sister Helen Prejean, Author, Dead Man Walking;  Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President, Union of American Hebrew Congregations; and many others.
 

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