Support Victims, Reduce Violence, Redirect Savings

When murder happens, it is the family of the victim that suffers the most and the longest, yet our system focuses exclusively on the murderer.

We believe that it is time to shift our focus and put victims’ families first.

Victims’ Families First

Financial support for children who lost a parent to murder

Expanded services such as: ◦ Grief counseling ◦ Crisis intervention ◦ Funeral assistance ◦ Crime scene cleanup ◦ Emergency funds

Unpaid employee leave to attend court proceedings

Repeal the Death Penalty, Shift Savings to Support Victims

The death penalty is an unfair, racist, violent system fraught with human error.

It is arbitrary. In the U.S., 2% of known murderers are sentenced to death.

Race or the location of the crime are more compelling factors than the nature of the crime.

It is not reserved for the worst of the worst.

Why Repeal the Death Penalty?

Race-of-victim and race-of-defendant discrimination.

PA study—blacks 4 times more likely to get DP.

Only 1% of all chief District Attorneys in counties using the death penalty in the US are African-American.

“Who lives, who dies and who decides.”

State Black Offender- White Victim

White Offender- White Victim

Black Offender-Black Victim

White Offender – Black Victim

Delaware 178.5 51.9 25.5 88.2

Georgia 99.2 41.7 4.5 21.4

Indiana 42.3 21.6 5.6 0

Maryland 52.2 14.0 2.4 7.3

Nevada 101.1 37.0 24.9 12.5

Pennsylvania 48.6 22.2 17.7 11.9

South Carolina 67.8 27.1 2.9 50.3

Virginia 64.5 18.3 3.6 2.3

Delaware Cornell StudyA recent Cornell University study of the death penalty found that 70% of Delaware death sentences were imposed in white victim cases, although the majority of murder victims over the same time period were black.

Death Sentence Rate per 1000 Murders (1977-2011)

2007 2008 2009Murder rate DP

5.83 5.72 5.26

Murder rate non-DP

4.10 4.05 3.9

% difference 42% 41% 35%

Not a Deterrent In a 2005 survey of 500 police chiefs, 2% said that the death penalty was an effective way to reduce violent crime. Higher priorities included increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy.

Murder rates higher in death penalty states.

Innocent People Are Sentenced & Executed

Since 1973, 140 people have been released from death rows in 26 states with evidence of their innocence. Only a small number due to DNA.

Every study ever conducted has concluded that the death penalty is more expensive than life without parole.◦ California spends an estimated $137 M per year.◦ Florida spends about $51 M per year.◦ Maryland found 20 yrs of DP cost $186 M for

five executions.

Voters listed the DP last as a priority for state spending after emergency services, creating jobs and crime prevention.

Cost is Staggering!

Use of the death penalty perpetuates violence and the notion that the use of violence to solve problems is okay.

“Why to we kill people, to show people, that killing people is wrong?”

Research has shown that murders actually occur more often in the weeks and months immediately after an execution.

There is a Brutalizing Effect

Family members who have lost a loved one to murder.

Family members of the person executed. State officials and state employees who

work with death row prisoners and who must oversee executions.

Jurors asked to sentence someone to death. Prosecuting and defense attorneys, judges

and court personnel who work on death penalty trials.

Whose mental health is impacted because of the death penalty?

A least 100 persons known to have been severely mentally ill have been executed in the U.S.

Several hundred more are on death rows across the country.

In Delaware, Shannon Johnson, who we executed in April, was known to be mentally ill and probably mentally retarded. James Cook, who was recently re-sentenced to death is also known to be mentally ill.

We execute people with severe mental illness.

NAMI has long been against execution of the mentally ill.

“Prevention, Not Execution” is key.

Even though state laws list mental disease and defects as a factor that should mitigate against the death penalty, there is evidence that defendants with severe mental illnesses are more likely to be sentenced to death than those convicted of similar crimes without mental illnesses.

National Alliance on Mental Illness

In the report “The Execution of Mentally Ill Offenders,” AI suggested that murders committed by people with severe mental illness raise questions of societal responsibility—and failure of responsibility—in a particularly vivid way.

More often than not, warning signs were not heeded and adequate services were not provided.

Amnesty International 2006

This is not to excuse or condone crime by the mentally ill or anyone else for that matter.

Horrendous murderers need to be severely punished, but life without parole keeps our communities safe without perpetuating violence.

Repeal the death penalty and redirect savings to support victims of crime—the way forward for Delaware.

Repeal the Death Penalty

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