News Update 04.15.08
North Carolina
Over the weekend, People of Faith Against the Death Penalty held an interfaith service and provided dinner for the friends and family of death row inmates. The event provided a rare opportunity for death row families to come together in an environment free of judgment. “As a pastor, I have worked with families on both sides of this terrible issue,” said keynote speaker Rev. William Barber. “Love and compassion cannot be one-sided, we must offer it to everyone who is in pain and needs support.”
Along with North Carolina death row exoneree Glen Chapman, Maryland exoneree Kirk Bloodsworth spoke this week to a high school class outside of Asheville. Bloodsworth told the boys of the nine years he spent in prison for a child rape/murder he did not commit, and offered advice to Chapman on the difficulties of adjusting to life in the free world. Chapman was released from death row this month with little more than the clothes on his back.
Robert Charles Haulcy, charged in a 2004 murder outside of a Fayetteville Waffle House as well as the 1997 killing of a Ft. Bragg soldier, has entered a plea in both slayings that will spare him the death penalty.
Elsewhere
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan…the United States? According to a new report from Amnesty International, we round out the top five most-executing nations in the world for 2007, even with the moratorium that has been in place since September. Globally, capital punishment has been abolished by law or in practice in 135 countries.
The US Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the child rape death penalty case. How Appealing provides these links for more information (one, two, three, four), while StandDown Texas offers these (one, two, three).
Posted by deathwatch 
