Death Penalty (Also see Criminal Justice)

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Most of WA House members wanted to abolish WA’s death penalty, but House leadership failed.

May 17, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

The WA State Senate’s bill to abolish the death penalty passed the State Senate. The article at the link below says 54 House members wanted to pass it, but the House leadership (Democrat Frank Chopp) did not bring it up for a vote. Chopp has been opposing efforts to repeal the death penalty in WA State. House leaders said they wanted to focus on higher priorities than this bill. https://www.thenewstribune.com/latest-news/article229414449.html?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fff8ef07-20b2-4c78-8559-6bca7143c5ca      

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Death penalty cases at U.S. Supreme Court: Information and insights

April 22, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

The death penalty is wrong in so many ways, but the conservative Republicans who dominate the U.S. Supreme Court have trouble recognizing the problems.  Although they claim to be “pro-life,” they keep supporting death. This article provides interesting information and insights: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/04/13/1850008/-Death-At-The-Court?detail=emaildkcs        

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Fascinating info: How UW research convinced our state’s highest court to toss out the death penalty

March 28, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Some of my previous posts to my blog have provided information about the Washington State Supreme Court’s UNANIMOUS decision in October 2018 that the death penalty is UNCONSTITUTIONAL because of its long pattern of racial bias. I followed this case after having heard the main defense lawyer speak to an audience in Tacoma in May 2016. We expected a decision that autumn, but the prosecution delayed the case by getting their own “expert witness.” In the end, the U.W. professors’ research convinced the Washington State Supreme Court to rule our state’s death penalty unconstitutional based on their research proving a […]

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California’s governor imposes moratorium on executions

March 16, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

California has by far the most people on death row (737) of any state in the U.S.  Legal problems with lethal injection have prevented executions for a while.  Unfortunately, California’s voters recently passed an initiative that intends to move ahead with more executions. But on March 13, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium that will prevent any executions from occurring while he is California’s Governor.  The death penalty law remains in place — and prosecutors may continue to bring more death penalty cases forward — but executions will be prevented during his term of office. He said, “Our death […]

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Remove Washington State’s death penalty law altogether.

January 31, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

In October 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled our state’s death penalty unconstitutional because of pervasive, systemic racial bias.  Now in February 2019 the State Senate is considering Senate Bill 5339 to remove the law altogether. I will testify to the State Senate’s Committee on Law and Justice at 10:00 a.m. February 5, 2019. Here is a longer version of what I will say.  The time for each person’s testimony is short, so I will mention only the main points, but the document at this link includes supporting information.  I hope you will find it useful. TESTIMONY 2019.02.05   […]

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Our systems are not “broken.” They’re working as intended. They are DELIBERATELY UNFAIR.

January 3, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

People keep saying that our nation’s systems are “broken.”  That is misleading.  They are NOT “broken.”  They are WORKING AS INTENDED!  They are DELIBERATELY UNFAIR! On issue after issue, politicians, mainstream media, and the general public keep saying that our systems are “broken.”  But if you look at how they are actually functioning — WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO — and WHAT THEY ARE PREVENTING — and WHO HAS THE POWER and WHO BENEFITS from the status quo — you’ll see that these systems are NOT really “broken.”  They are serving the rich and the powerful and preventing the changes that […]

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California is still planning to execute an innocent man.

December 16, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Kevin Cooper, who is almost certainly innocent, has been imprisoned on California’s death row for 33 years. His cell is smaller than a typical American bathroom. The State of California refuses to conduct modern DNA testing. A federal judge on the 9th Circuit says Mr. Cooper is innocent, and that “the San Bernardino sheriff’s department framed him.” The evidence does not point to him at all. The same federal appeals judge also said, ““the state failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing,” that “the state obstructed and impeded Cooper and his lawyers in almost every way imaginable in denying his […]

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PART 2 of “Choose a Better Worldview to Build a Better World”

November 30, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Our nation and world are in a horrible mess.  The December 2018 episode of “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” TV series examines how to solve the problems. A person or an entire society has a “worldview” — a way of seeing reality — that strongly directs their behavior and public policy.  The worldview that currently dominates the U.S. government and society has caused escalating greed, corruption, cruelty, oppression, war, and other bad things.  Instead, we need to replace that worldview with its opposite — a worldview that is humane, compassionate, peaceful, fair to everyone, and environmentally sustainable. An unjust society seeks to […]

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Outreach ideas for hard, scary issues

October 30, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

It is hard to inform and mobilize the public about hard, scary issues such as nuclear weapons, the climate crisis, and Trumpism’s escalating fascism. Typically, we throw facts at people, but people too fearful and powerless to open themselves up psychologically to hear those facts, let alone act upon them. The document I wrote and linked below  can help the public empower themselves to work on serious issues, including the hardest and most  frightening issues. In order to really engage the public on these hard and frightening issues, we must deliberately strategize how to address the public’s fears, feelings of […]

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More info: WA State death penalty is ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL

October 17, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

In some previous communications I made a typographical error in the date when the Washington State Supreme Court ruled our state’s death penalty unconstitutional.  It happened on Thursday October 11, 2018.  I don’t know how I mistakenly had typed October 6 in some things you might have seen.   Here are some additional sources of information reporting on the big news.   An excellent Quaker-based non-profit organization (Friends Committee on National Legislation — FCNL www.fcnl.org) cited a news article from National Public Radio (NPR) about Washington State’s death penalty being struck down.  See this link:  https://www.npr.org/2018/10/11/656570464/washington-state-strikes-down-death-penalty-citing-racial-bias?utm_campaign=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ak   The national level […]

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Washington State’s death penalty is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Our State Supreme Court ruled UNANIMOUSLY on Oct. 11, 2018.

October 12, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Wednesday October 10 was the World Day Against the Death Penalty.  One day later big news happened in Washington State USA. On Thursday October 11, 2018, Washington State’s Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional in the way it’s used here. The Court ordered that the sentences of people currently on death row are converted to life in prison.  I learned about this State Supreme Court case (State v. Gregory) in May 2016. We were expecting a decision in November 2016 or soon after. Allen Eugene Gregory, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to die, had […]

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Pope Francis OPPOSES the death penalty in ALL cases.

August 9, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Although the Roman Catholic Church has staked out positions that is says are “pro-life,” the Church has allowed the death penalty in a very few cases, although the Church has opposed the death penalty in general. Just recently Pope Francis came out STRONGLY AGAINST the death penalty in ALL cases.  This is big news from a pope who has been exercising his conscience very well on a number of issues. This article explains his decision:  Pope Francis OPPOSES death penalty in ALL cases This article is about support for his decision:  Support for Pope Francis’ anti-death penalty decision  

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Death Penalty = Archaic, creepy ritualized killing to serve symbolic rather than practical purposes

May 23, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Many people assume that the death penalty serves some useful purpose, such as protecting public safety.  Actually, as other items I’ve posted on this blog explain, the death penalty does NOT deliver what it promises, and it causes other problems instead.  See http://parallaxperspectives.org/testimony-for-legislation-to-abolish-washington-states-death-penalty Beyond the death penalty’s ineffectiveness, we should also recognize it for what it is:  an archaic, creepy example of conducting ritualized killings that serve only symbolic rather than practical purposes. In some primitive societies, people were aware of “evil” and created ritualized exercises to periodically purge the “evil” from their societies.  They did this in different ways. One […]

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The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty + other orgs do very good work.

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

For several decades the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP, www.ncadp.org ) has been doing very good work, including working with state-level organizations working to abolish the death penalty.  They recently moved to new office space shared with other organizations at “WeWorks,” so they  have a new mailing address and a new address for receiving donation checks. Mail correspondence to: NCADP c/o WeWorks 80 M Street S.E. Washington, DC 20003. Mail donation checks to a different new address: NCADP P.O. Box 829846 Philadelphia, PA 19182-9846. Other great organizations include the ACLU (at nationwide and state levels), the Death […]