INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY

MEDIA ADVISORY                                                                                                     CONTACT: Stephanie Rabinowitz

Immediate Release
 Phone: 202-835-8760

 

Institute Disappointed and Concerned By President Clinton’s Decision
Not To Grant Clemency to Juan Raul Garza

Washington, D.C. – Institute President Joseph K. Grieboski released the following statement regarding the six-month stay of execution granted by President Clinton on December 7 to Juan Raul Garza:

“While I am certainly pleased that President Clinton chose not to go ahead with the execution of Juan Raul Garza, the President did not respond to the outcry of hundreds of religious leaders who asked plainly and straight-forwardly for clemency. Instead, President Clinton chose to pass the responsibility to his successor. In addition, President Clinton did not respond to the civil rights leaders, law professors, former White House and Justice Department officials and other prominent Americans who emphatically called on him to declare a moratorium on federal executions. I am disappointed and disheartened that President Clinton did not take the courageous path, but instead, opted to for the easier one.

As Pope John Paul II mentions in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, ‘Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this…to kill a human being, in whom the image of God is present, is a particularly serious sin. Only God is the master of life!…This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty.’

The President took a small step by once again postponing Mr. Garza’s scheduled execution. However, deferring Mr. Garza’s fate to the next Administration and ordering the continuation of an internal Department of Justice study for several more months is not the act of courage or leadership that was called for in the face of evidence of serious racial and geographic disparities throughout the federal death penalty system. While we must hope and pray that whoever is finally determined as President Clinton’s successor will have the courage, will, and dedication to do what is just and right by granting clemency to Juan Raul Garza, we must also make clear that the religious community in this country will not reduce its pressure on President Clinton to establish a moratorium on federal executions before he leaves office.”
 
 
 
 

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