Full Jury Information on the Death Sentence

WHEREAS The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-39) and the judgment of Cain (Genesis 4:9-15) both repudiate capital punishment for murder.

WHEREAS The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church (68F) call for the elimination of capital punishment. This call has been reinforced in the Book of Resolutions (p. 503) and in the Official Journals of the Western Pennsylvania Conference.

WHEREAS The death penalty is based in vengeance and retribution. It neither compensates the victim nor provides closure for the survivors.

WHEREAS As early as October 1993, the US House Judiciary Committee on Civil and Constitutional Rights determined that 77 people had been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Two were women. That study only looked back as far as 1970. Radelet and Bedau identified 23 instances where innocent people had actually been executed since 1900. These numbers are now higher.

WHEREAS New forensic techniques, such as those used at Yale’s Benjamin Cardozo Law School, have determined that 80% of the inmates who protest their innocence are actually innocent of the crime of which they are convicted. These include DNA testing. Under the leadership of David Protess, Northwest University's journalism students have been instrumental in clearing 13 of the 25 people scheduled for execution in Illinois since 1976. This performance was a singular factor in Governor Ryan's decision to impose a moratorium there.

WHEREAS Under Pennsylvania law, persons who are convicted of first degree homicide may be sentenced to either execution, or life imprisonment without any possibility of parole. This information is not provided to the jurors unless the prosecution argues that the Defendant should be executed because of their future dangerousness. Only 22% of the population favors the death penalty if they know that life imprisonment without possibility of parole is an available option. Jurors have complained to Pennsylvania judges that they did not know this, and found for the death penalty only to keep the offender off the streets.

WHEREAS "The death penalty also falls unfairly and unequally upon an outcast minority. Recent methods for selecting the few persons sentenced to die from among the larger number who are convicted of comparable offenses have not cured the arbitrariness and discrimination that have historically marked the administration of capital punishment in this country. The preponderance of offenders on death row are members of a racial minority, and from impoverished backgrounds. 96% of the studies show a race-of-victim, or race-of-defendant discrimination. 83% of death penalty verdicts involve white victims, even though only 50% of the murder victims are white. The race of the victim influenced the likelihood of being charged with capital murder, or receiving the death penalty, 82% of the time. In Philadelphia, blacks receive the death penalty 38% more often than any others.

WHEREAS President Clinton's 1994 Crime Control Act requires that, "Before making a sentencing determination, the judge instructs the jury that its determination may not involve consideration of race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of either the Defendant or the victim." Pennsylvania does not require such an instruction, nor do we allow such a consideration in the Supreme Court's automatic review of death sentences.

WHEREAS The United States Supreme Court held, in McCleskey v. Kemp, that defendants must show that he was personally discriminated against in the course of the prosecution before any information regarding the pervasive patterns of racial discrimination may be presented. The “Racial Justice Act” which was passed in response to this decision, allows race-based challenges to any prosecutorial decision to seek a death sentence. Pennsylvania does not require such an instruction, nor do we provide such a consideration in the Supreme Court's automatic review of death sentences.

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED THAT the Western Pennsylvania Conference, through its Transforming Vision Team, calls upon the legislature to enact a moratorium on executions, and calls upon the Governor and the Secretary of Corrections to stop signing death warrants, at least until the issue of capital punishment can be re-evaluated.

BE IT THEREFORE FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Western Pennsylvania Conference, through its Transforming Vision Team, calls upon the legislature to enact a statute requiring judges to inform juries that a sentence of life imprisonment for first-degree homicide means that there is no possibility for parole. “Life means life.”

BE IT THEREFORE FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Western Pennsylvania Conference, through its Transforming Vision Team, calls upon the legislature to enact a statute requiring judges to inform juries that "Before making a sentencing determination, the judge instructs the jury that its determination may not involve consideration of race, color, religious beliefs, national origin, or sex of either the Defendant or the victim."

BE IT THEREFORE FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Western Pennsylvania Conference, through its Transforming Vision Team, calls upon the legislature to enact a statute requiring courts to allows race-based challenges to prosecutorial decisions to seek a death sentence, including pervasive patterns implying racial discrimination, at least during the sentencing hearing and the appellate reviews.

Roger Thomas

This Resolution was adopted by the Western Pennsylvania

Conference of the United Methodist Church in June 2000.