Salt of the Earth: Social justice news

Social justice news
November 2000

A Texas-sized taste for the death penalty
Vote early and vote often!
Are conservative Catholics redefining Catholic social teaching?—news analysis
An international prayer for peace—from U.S. Catholic

A Texas-sized taste for the death penalty
A new report calls for an overhaul of the Texas death penalty system because of a litany of problems including prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, phony experts, and inadequate lawyers for poor defendants. Texas leads the nation in executions; 232 people have been executed in Texas, representing more than one-third of the 668 condemned inmates executed in the U.S. since reinstatement in 1976.

The report, titled "A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty," found the death penalty appeals process too rushed and cursory to be truly effective in uncovering instances of innocence before execution. It finds that in 79 percent of the appeals cases reviewed, the judge never held an actual hearing but instead relied on documents submitted to the court. In these appeals, the report also found, lawyers for death row inmates often did a shoddy job, failing to conduct a new investigation in search of new evidence or even neglecting to raise new issues for review.

"A State of Denial" was prepared by the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit group that represents death row inmates and has often been critical of the state's capital system. It follows another critical study, presented in September by a committee of the State Bar of Texas, that described the state's system of providing legal representation to the poor as "a national embarrassment."

The service examined hundreds of capital trials and appeals, including every published death penalty decision rendered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, since 1976. Its report includes many anecdotes detailing accusations of bad representation provided to poor defendants by court-appointed lawyers. In one highly publicized case, a defendant later sentenced to death was represented by a lawyer who fell asleep during the trial. Another man later sentenced to die was represented by a lawyer who ingested cocaine on the way to trial.

Race was found to be a pervasive influence on how capital punishment is administered. The study concluded that prosecutors were far more likely to pursue the death penalty when the victim was white as opposed to black. Blacks and Hispanics often are likely to be excluded from capital juries. The result, the report said, is that black Texans are "least likely to serve on capital juries, but the most likely to be condemned to die."

The report also alleges that 121 Texas inmates have been sentenced to death based on questionable psychiatric testimony used during the sentencing phase of a trial to convince jurors that a defendant was a future danger to society. The report also documented the use of jailhouse informers and prosecutorial misconduct. In at least 43 cases, the report said prosecutors used jailhouse informers who had been deemed unreliable. The report also found 41 cases in which state officials "intentionally distorted the truth-seeking process," including examples of prosecutors changing theories or presenting false evidence to win convictions.

More:
Statement on the death penalty by Texas bishops
Texas State Bar survey results
Texas defense attorneys call for a death penalty moratorium

Vote early, vote often!
Okay, maybe we only say that here in Chicago. For the rest of you Americans, one vote should probably do it. Here at SOTE, we don't care who you vote for, we just want you to vote. Hey, it's your civic responsibility and a great way to get out of the office for a little while.

Below are some resources to familiarize you with some of the issues that confront Americans this election season:

Campaign 2000 resources
Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections has two sections: Election 2000 section follows the candidates through the 2000 primary races to the general election and compares them on the issues. Past Presidential Elections provides detailed information on national results for the major and minor candidates for US President in the presidential elections.

Ballot Watch The Initiative & Referendum Institute's report on what's on the ballot and what may be headed there. They provide regularly updated status reports on every effort underway to qualify an initiative or referendum for a statewide ballot.

Center for Responsive Politics The online source for money in politics data.

Common Cause is a nonprofit, nonpartisan citizen's lobbying organization promoting open, honest and accountable government. Supported by the dues and contributions of over 250,000 members in every state across the nation, Common Cause represents the unified voice of the people against corruption in government and big money special interests.

The 8th Day Center for Justice

Election Center The Election Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, preserving, and improving democracy. Its members are government employees whose profession is to serve in voter registration and elections administration.

The Federal Election Commission

Kids Voting USA Kids Voting USA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to securing democracy for the future by involving youth in the election process today.
League of Women Voters A nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

National Coalition for the Homeless 2000 agenda
NCCB/USCC Legislative advocacy tools and agenda

NCH Legislative Alerts

Network—A national Catholic social justice lobby

Network's priorities for the 106th Congress

Project Vote Smart A national library of factual information on over 13,000 candidates for public office. We cover them in five basic areas: backgrounds, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and the performance evaluations made on them by over 80 conservative to liberal special interests.

Public Agenda
Rock the Vote Rock the Vote is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and to helping young people realize and utilize their power to affect change in the civic and political lives of their communities.
US Catholic Conference Presidential Candidate Questionnaire
The USCC's Faithful Citizenship: Civic Responsibility for a New Millennium

Web White & Blue 2000, a non-profit, non-partisan project of the Markle Foundation designed to highlight the ways in which the Internet can expand and enhance citizen participation in our nation's democratic process. 50 states are represented here with hotlinks to state, county, and city elections offices. You can also jump from here to a listing of federal agencies that also provide election-related information. And finally, we have a selection of national organizations hosting web-sites concerned with elections.

National Political News and Features

Salon Politics 2000
Slate
The National Review
The Hill's Daily Briefing, via Political Insider.
The New York Times. Also, Political Points, a live 15-minute Webcast for political news from The New York Times on the Web and ABCNews.com, airing Monday through Friday at 1:30 p.m. E.S.T.
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
The Christian Science Monitor. Also, Whitehouse 2000 with coverage of the presidential contest.
The Boston Globe Campaign 2000
The Washington Times Election 2000
Yahoo! News Politics
The BBC Vote USA 2000
allpolitics.com from CNN
ABC News
C-SPAN Road to the Whitehouse
Breaking News from the AP Washington Wire

Election Results
2000 Presidential Primary and Caucus Results, GoVote.com

State Election Offices from The National Association of State Election Directors.

US Political Parties
US Political Parties, a Yahoo! search
Democratic Party
Republican Party
Reform Party
Libertarian Party
Association of State Green Parties

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An international prayer for peace
Religion is often seen as a cause of conflict around the world, but religious leaders can also be strong promoters of peace—especially when gathered 1,000 strong at the United Nations. The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders at the end of August was a dramatic display of diversity, with everyone from Anglicans to Zoroastrians represented. Saffron-robed Buddhist monks shared the stage with black-suited Christian clerics and turbaned swamis. Prayers were offered by rabbis, a cardinal, and clan mothers.

Although some criticized the four-day summit as more style than substance, the gathering did result in a formal declaration on peace, poverty, and the environment. "We have to ask a fundamental question: What role does religion have to play in helping resolve these conflicts, or in exacerbating these conflicts?" asked Bawa Jain, secretary-general of the summit. "Can religion play a role in the peacemaking process?"

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that too often "religion has been yoked to nationalism, stoking flames of violent conflict and setting up group against group. Religious leaders have not always spoken out when their voices could have combated hatred and persecution or could have roused people from indifference." But the fault, he said, lay "not with the faith, but with the faithful."

Several Catholic leaders attended the summit, including Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In an interview with Vatican Radio, he called the summit a positive step. "Cooperation among the followers of different religions not only can, but must contribute to respect for human rights and reciprocal love," he said. "Otherwise, religions are reduced to museum pieces. The promotion of peace is one of the points in which the majority of religions are in agreement." But the cardinal expressed some wariness about the organization of the summit, which was partially bankrolled by media mogul Ted Turner's Better World Fund. "We are interested in this meeting, but there are some aspects we don't necessarily understand. It is not clear who are the people behind it, and why," he told Catholic News Service.

Another controversy involved summit organizers' decision not to invite the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, out of deference to China. When a group of Tibetan Buddhists were allowed to read a statement from the Dalai Lama supporting the summit, the Chinese representatives walked out.—report courtesy of U.S. Catholic

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