Sister Helen Prejean, advocate and author of Dead Man Walking, is gathering this week with California faith leaders, death row exonerees, and advocates to call on Governor Gavin Newsom to commute all death sentences.
California’s death penalty law was declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in 1972 but was quickly reinstated by the voters. The statute survived initiatives in 2012 and 2016 that sought to repeal it. Despite Governor Newsom’s moratorium on executions in 2019, the death penalty is still the law of the state, which has 640 condemned incarcerated people, the most in the nation.
But the state’s public defenders and civil rights groups say capital punishment, as practiced in California, is inherently and systematically racist. Blacks and Latinos are far more likely than whites to be sentenced to death, and murder defendants disproportionately face capital charges if their alleged victim was white.
Known around the world for her vigorous opposition to all executions, Sister Helen Prejean ignited a national debate on capital punishment in 1993 with her book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, later inspiring an Academy Award winning movie, play, and opera. As the Dead Man Walking opera makes its return to the San Francisco Opera 25 years after it premiered there, Sister Helen Prejean is now calling on Governor Newsom to commute all death sentences in California before he leaves office.
Felony Murder Elimination Project stands with Sister Helen and also urgers Governor Newsom to use his constitutional authority to commute the row. All eyes are on Governor Newsom to grant clemency in all California death-sentenced cases, to protect the vulnerable, and stand for human rights and human dignity.
We also encourage our supporters and advocates to do the same, using the 9/11 Death Penalty Social Media Toolkit for calls to action, sample graphics, tweets, posts and captions.
You can access the toolkit here —>>> 9/11 Death Penalty Social Media Toolkit
