They never knew what hit them in the state legislature yesterday! From out of the clear blue sky, over 50 citizens, concerned with the completely arbitrary and unfair manner in which the death penalty is applied, targeting the innocent, the mentally ill, racial minorities, and the poor, descended on the capital for the first ever Justice Day on the Hill!

All in all, over 30 different legislators were visited by their constituents, including almost half of the states 33 senators. A terrific turn out for a first effort, and each and every person involved should be thanked and congratulated.

The day began at 8:30 with a welcome and orientation from the TCASK staff. This was followed immediately by people heading out to meetings (the earliest of which were scheduled at 9:00. The majority of the meeting were over by noon, but a number of participants stayed around and the last meeting was not scheduled until 4:00.

A large contingent of students from MTSU came and visited 4 different Rutherford County legislators (including Kent Coleman - the vice-chair of the judiciary and a strong supporter of fairness and accuracy in our criminal justice system) as well as some of the students from other areas of the state visiting their own reps.

A smaller group of students and faculty arose before 6:00 am to drive all the way from Bethel college and visit 4 different legislators in 3 hours! And legislators who, in some cases, haven't put a great deal of thought into the death penalty. So Kudos to Allen McQueen, Jeremy Buford, Jeff Watson, and Professors Janet and David Reid!

And finally, we should recognize Jason Pflug, who drove all the way from Cleveland, TN to visit legislators yesterday. All in all we had folks from McKenzie, Jackson, Dickson, Nashville, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Cleveland, Lenoir City, and Knoxville at the capitol.

And we need to send out a big thank you Whitney Mitchell and Stacy Rector who volunteered at the TME table keeping everyone organized and on task, and without whom the day could not have succeeded. And, of course, Big Poppa himself, my favorite muffin, TCASK's rocking E.D., Mr. Randy Tatel whose guidance and help (from arranging the lunches for all participants, to leading meetings) made everything we accomplished yesterday possible.

The important point to remember (and for anyone who has taken TCASK lobby training - you know this already) is following up. Everyone who participated will receive and email from me today which will remind them to send a thank you note to their legislators including any more information requested and reminding them of any and all commitments that they made. It's all about the follow-up!

one of the cool things about life itself is that you never know what a new day will bring to you...

for example the 14th of this month brought to me a retired navy captain who strongly opposes the death penalty...

in his e-mail follow-up to our phone conversation he writes, "I have never been for the death penalty but have gradually worked more and more to oppose it for over the past 10 years..."

but you can read in his words that his opposition has been passive, internalized, or static but not so much an active volunteer vocation...or at least he's been isolated from any form of strategic, collective action...

what has changed things for him is coming face-to-face with the death penalty in human flesh, blood, and spirit... you see, the son of a childhood friend of this 30 year naval veteran "Summary Court Martial Officer, Trial Counsel and Defense Counsel," has been charged with murder and it appears that the prosecutor and some of the community want to kill this young man, the son of his childhood friend...

i thought about that ... how one defines him or herself as a friend should a close friend face this tragic situation ... consider the pain and grief of this boy's mother and father - they have cried desperately over both what the victim's family is suffering but also what they may suffer as well...they wonder how much they are to blame, they love their son dearly even though he committed a horrible act in a moment of weakness ...

and so my new acquaintance, this retired naval captain writes, "The fact that this is a good friend's son make it personable and forces me to stop procrastinating...A few weeks a friend _______________, who has worked for years opposing the death penalty sent me an email with the words "thank you for trying to save the young man's life". This email changed my way of thinking. It is black and white with me now. A person either wants _______________ to live or they want him to be killed. Some even want him killed sooner to avoid the cost of 'all those appeals'."

somewhere in this small story lies a key for alex, myself, and all of tcask's volunteers ... how do we motivate and mobilize people like captain _________ to come on board sooner rather than later ... we believe in our strategy and the tactics we are employing to realize our goals but it sure would be nice to unlock this mystery...

peace out - <3

was a time when fiddle player charlie daniels supported and campaigned for jimmy carter - now he's just another, as jerry jeff walker might yell out, REDNECK...

seems that ol' charlie's reactionary politics runs extreme to the max...i mean in the 70's he was singin' bout' bein' a stoned, long-haired country boy...

by the early-mid 90's, when support for the death penalty topped out in the polls, charlie was advocating the death penalty for drug dealers...

why i even know some republicans that think that's a bit harsh ...

we know that there are some wonderfully talented musicians who support our position and our efforts, people like steve earle, rodney crowell, emmylou, nanci griffiths, natalie maines, michael kelsh, and more...they is, as we say down south, good folk...

so as i sit here this afternoon i'm just wonderin' what happened to drive tokin'-smokin' charlie daniels over the edge ... i mean just as moderates and conservatives are becoming wise to the malfunctioning of the death penalty system, a dried up talent such as mr. daniels pushes the envelope to the right, gettin down with the likes of sean hannity and rush limbaugh - well i guess they're all in show biz and sellin' the product is what they're all about ...

nonetheless (and sixpence none the richer) our work, district by district in the state, continues to bring us in touch with thoughtful tennesseans, mainstream middle americans who still hold a value like fairness dear to their heart and are willing to fight for it if they're given the tools and encouragement...

and we're thankful because they encourage us in return and we're uplifted by every classroom, conference, and convocation we address ...

now that's what i'm talkin' about...

peace out - <3

tennessee supreme court justice adolpho birch, jr. announced his upcoming retirement from the court. justice birch has been the only judge on the court to honestly address and admit to the failures of the state's death penalty proportionality review and has consequently voted, usually as a lone dissenter, to overturn death sentences in this state. to be clear, he votes to uphold any conviction where constitutional or judicial error can not be found but votes to overturn death sentences because the state's proportionality review is an utter and abject failure.

we will deeply miss the ethical standard justice birch has brought to the state's highest court...

Justice's law review
March 19, 2006

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Adolpho A. Birch Jr., who became the state's first African-American chief justice in 1996, will end a 43-year judicial career when he retires at the end of August. Birch, 73, of Nashville, has spent 13 years as one of the five justices on the high court.

Birch, whom Gov. Phil Bredesen described as a "trailblazer," is the only Tennessee judge ever to have served at all levels of the court system -- General Sessions, Criminal Court, Court of Criminal Appeals and Supreme Court.

In a recent e-mail exchange with The Commercial Appeal, Birch recently responded to questions about his tenure on the Supreme Court and his earlier work as a civil rights-era lawyer. Here are excerpts from that conversation:

Q: Now that you are retiring from the Supreme Court, what is the one enduring memory you have of your service on the bench?

The one enduring memory I have is the collage of people who have helped and inspired me, and those whom I have, perhaps, inspired. I have had the enviable privilege of working with so many talented professionals. Along the way I have also met countless numbers of people with character and integrity. One regret is that I cannot thank each of them individually for the impact each has had on my career and my life.

Q: What do you consider the most significant case the court decided during your tenure?

Because I view all of the cases the Supreme Court decides as significant, I have made it a practice not to identify any one case as more significant than others. There is one, however, which had tremendous impact on education, and that case is Tennessee Small School Systems v. McWherter. That case held that the state had an obligation to maintain a public school system that afforded substantially equal educational opportunity to all students, regardless of their county of residence.

Q: What were your feelings about being the first African-American to serve as chief justice?

I always approach the "first black to do this or that" accolade with extreme caution. The reason is, for every "first one" there looms large in the past a host of others who tried but were rebuffed and rejected by unconstitutional laws and practice. I am ever mindful of the sacrifices those forebears made, and I fully realize I stand upon their broad shoulders. But for their sacrifices, none of this would have been possible.

Q: You've been criticized in the past as being against the death penalty and faced an organized effort several years ago to oust you from the bench primarily because of your death penalty rulings. What are your overall views about the death penalty?

My overall views of Tennessee's death penalty protocol are available for inspection in the Southwestern Reporter (encyclopedia of case law), beginning with the Second Series. Not to be curt, but I'm sure you understand that this is all I can say.

Q: As a lawyer in Nashville in the 1960s, you handled a lot of civil rights cases. What was it like as an African-American attorney in those days, representing lunch-counter protesters and citizens seeking basic civil rights?

It was indeed tough to represent lunch-counter protesters and others who sought to enforce their constitutional rights. Any black lawyer who practiced in the South in the '50s and '60s can attest to the discourteous, rude and insulting treatment accorded both client and lawyer. Indeed, if not insulted, we were ignored. This dismissive treatment intensified because of the frontal attack on unconstitutional practices.

Q: When most people think of the leaders of the civil rights movement, they naturally think of black preachers such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others who were at the forefront. Talk about the significant impact that black lawyers had on the movement as well.

Black lawyers were the architects of the civil rights movement -- Charles Houston, William Hastie, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Motley, James Nabrit. It was their blueprint, unerringly followed, that culminated in the monumental decision in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Q: As someone who has been part of the judicial system for so long and has witnessed so much change for the better, why do you think so many African-Americans still believe the system remains unfair to them?

I think the perception of unfairness in the judicial system is more informed by "class" divisions and economic factors than "pure" racial discrimination. Admittedly, there is much overlap and blurring of lines, but if you can agree that "rich" and "poor" are values that have different meanings for different individuals, then "fair" and "unfair" must be subjected to the same analysis.

Q: What advice do you give young people who may be interested in a career in law?

Decide to invest every ounce of your being into its study and practice; 99 percent just won't do.

Q: What are your plans after retirement?

Nothing definite. I do have four grandchildren who are a source of great joy for me.

on tuesday in the nashville city paper a letter to the editor appeared that bridged a divide that we often find in our outreach work ... while we support broad criminal justice system reforms, tcask is a single-issue organization precisely for this reason ... the issue of the death penalty, as the lil' jesuit dude likes to say, cuts a weird swath across political and social groupings ... allies on this issue are not likely to be all buddy-buddy on issues across the board ... for example, the anti-death penalty movement attracts people from both the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" movements ... it creates a fine line that we must walk as organizers and explains why tcask is a narrowly focused single-issue group ...

read and comment...

To the Editor:

I have been confused about the "right to life" debate for quite some time now.

Every person I have ever met who claimed to be "Pro-Life" has answered my question "So you're against the death penalty?" with a resounding "No!" Confusing, to say the least. How can you be pro-life and pro-death at the same time?

So I called Tennessee Right To Life and asked if any of the funds from the "Choose Life" license plates would be used to fight the death penalty. Confusion reigned on the other end of the line with everyone telling me they were just volunteers and didn't know the answer. All said they would have someone call me back to explain their position on the death penalty. I'm still waiting, and, thankfully, not holding my breath.

Anyway, can anyone explain this dichotomy to me?

37130
Dr. J.L. Brockman

Yes, it's Wednesday morning. At 8 am to be exact, every college student's favorite time, I mean most college kids only see 8 am if they haven't been to bed yet, but I'm hear and giving a talk to a race relations class on race and the death penalty. (By the way, if you kids think that 8:00 is early, someone mapquest the trip from Nashville to Bethel, so the math, and realize that I was up at 4:45 this morning. UGH!)

Actually, I was asked to do another presentation, right afterwards, to a sociology class, so I want to make these distinct presentations. But where does one begin to talk about race and the death penalty?

Why not at the founding of the country? This is not the tactic I'd take with everyone, but in a college race class, let's dig up some roots (since I've got an hour). Let's look at the development of the slave economy leading to a high concentration of blacks in the South (and let's dispel the illusion that the North wasn't racist and just remember that until after the civil war, there was a relatively tiny number of blacks in the North). And let's remember that slave owners became obsessed with the fear of slave insurrection. And even more frightened when those slaves were free. How do we control these people? Extra-legally, with lynching, the KKK, etc. "Legally" with executions. Now the link between lynching and execution has been hard to pin down scientifically, but there are some serious connections that we should look at. For just a few:

- These are (primarily) Southern phenomena

- They are, generally, white-on-black punishment for black-on-white crime

- They are "necessary" to maintain social order (specifically to protect white women - check out the stats on executions for rape for instance)

- Both have defenders who claim states' rights and want Washington to stay out of the way they run things.

So that's a good place to start our discussion, followed closely by the fairly poor due process in the current death penalty system, which can lead to the issue of innocence as well (and the number of exonerees that have been people of color. And that, is how we git 'er done!

so yesterday, monday the 20th, i went to spring hill high school outside columbia, tn (and outside the saturn auto plant) and spoke with a class of 25 sophomores, juniors, and seniors ...

their teacher, a great guy named david huebner, told me they had been studying the death penalty for a coupla weeks and that overall this buncha' semi-rural tennessee teenagers was pro-death penalty ...

so whaddya do w/kids like that -- to make an impression, a dent on their psyche, to stimulate a little bit of thought here...

on the advise of the lil' jesuit dude i started out with the story of paul house and down the issue road of innocence ... this led to 2 more examples -- truncated versions of the stories of juan melendez and ray krone ... each time i brought the point home by asking "who wants to go tell mama house, mama melendez, mama krone, that their innocent son had to die because we need the death penalty???" -- i never got a single volunteer - point made ...

where to next??? -- so i began to use alex's rhetorical device ("but does it work???") to some effect - i'm certainly not as good at it as he is but we walked through some of the arguments for the death penalty that way and it was, i think effective ... for those who weren't sleeping ...

but i wanted a closer, a sort of mariano rivera of death penalty presentations, and i came back to a discussion of "what about the victims..." - and it was effective ...

i walked them through distinguishing healing from closure, walked them through the delay in healing caused by the death penalty system, walked them through how we let down the families of brenda blanton lane for example, and then went to the family of robert glen coe ... their family history of abuse against all four of the coe siblings, robert's severe mental illness, and how his sister sat down, and watched through a glass window, their brother strapped down, his body filled with poisons, and the life sucked right out of him by the state of tennessee ...

i did it slowly, dramatically, in detail, and with effect ...

i think that's at least one way you approach seemingly pro-death penalty teenagers...

peace out - <3

i'm sittin' at my desk - only for a minute or two today - wonderin' how the heck this came to be - and ain't it a beautiful thing...

ya see i'm borrowing nanette's truck for the 3rd time in a week because tcask needs at least 2 functioning, safe to drive, cars to keep up with the demand for its services ... i.e. educational presentations and mobilization events...

my brother donated a 2000 dodge intrepid to tcask in 10/04 and it has served our work well ... but now we need another, safe, reliable vehicle 'cause right now i won't see the lil' jesuit dude all week until friday ...

he's in lenoir city tonight, knoxville tomorrow, and carroll county wednesday and thursday ... and thursday night he bops over to chattanooga for a very special meeting and he'll be in the office friday...

i was at spring hill high school (by the saturn plant) today talking with a current events elective class of about 25, ill be on the hill tomorrow lobbying and assisting with mental health day on the hill, and thursday i'm presenting to a class of social work students at tn state university ... oh, and i have a boatload of administrative, fundraising, and outreach work to do by the end of the week ...

so as much as we use the bus we need a second car ... or else we'll have to say NO to some invitations and that would be a tragedy ...

what a change in needs in just a year ---

got a used, well-maintained, and reliable jeep, suburu, or honda anyone???

2006 is our year of 1st annuals at TCASK. We've had our first annual New Year's Resolutions drive, our first annual Concert for Life, and, coming up soon, our first annual Justice Day on the Hill. That's right, folks, it's time for us to get out there and actually talk to our state representatives, and about 40 people will be converging on the capitol on March 29th to do just that!

The day's schedule will be fun, we'll have registration and opening remarks between 8:00 am and 9:00 am followed by appointments with your legislators to discuss the need for a moratorium on capital punishment here in Tennessee. Folks will get to meet not only with their state representatives and senators, but can accompany their neighbors on their visits as well. We'll provide box lunches for everyone to attend, and then around 1 pm we'll hear from speakers from our many partner organizations in a press conference that everyone is encouraged to attend. And you should all be on your way by 2:00. And it's not too late too sign up and join us! Call me (Alex) at the office at (615) 227-6101 or email alex@tcask.org and I'll get you signed up.

But do hurry because the amount of detail and logistics work in setting up a day on the hill is astonishing. First we have to actual get all the information for all the people coming. Then we need to put together individualized folders for all legislators that we'll be visiting. Then we need to call and set up appointments (that don't conflict) for everyone who will be joining us. And we need display tables. And a place to put on our programs. And to schedule a press conference and find a venue and make sure that it can work for all the partners that will be speaking. And put together information for all of our members who are coming: talking points, appointment schedules, etc.

Phew. I'd like to say a public thank you to Whitney Mitchell, from MTSU, who is doing a political campaign internship with us and is in the office today doing a ton of work on this day and making it all possible (if you can, find some work study students to help you, people). But we will git 'er done. We already have people from more than 33% of the senate districts in the state! You could be next!

Now I may be able to blog about rhetoric. I may be able to construct speeches and orate them, but this is the South and it is a story telling culture, and the fact is, I don't have any great personal stories to share in regards to the death penalty. And a single story is worth every fact and statistic that I can throw out there.

Fortunately, there are amazing stories a-plenty, and yesterday a sitting on the floor, standing room only crowd at MTSU got to hear a few of those. A panel on women's perspectives on the death penalty was put together for Women's History Month (by the wonderful Dr. Amy Staples, aka, "Puddin Head" - see http://tcask.blogspot.com/2006/02/in-praise-of-puddin-head.html). This panel included Regina Hockett, whose daughter was murdered 10 years ago, and Joyce House (pictured below) , whose son, Paul House, has been on Tennessee's death row for over 20 years and is innocent.

All four presenters did a fantastic job, but I want to talk particularly about Joyce. Our capital punishment system does everything it can to tell us that the people on death row aren't people, they're inhuman, or they're monsters. Those kind of people don't have families. They're unloved and unlovable, we're told. And within ourselves, we've each probably internalized some of that. So now picture a small, sweet woman standing in front of 90 people and saying very simply that the state is trying to kill her son, who is innocent and confined to a wheel-chair due to M.S., for which he is not receiving proper medication. Let Joyce tell you flat out, "The system doesn't work," because she knows from personal experience. Then try to think about the death penalty the same way.

These are the stories that have the capacity to change the way we conceive of the death penalty, by changing the way we conceive of in inmates. Saying, "I want to kill that animal" is one thing. Saying, "I want to kill Joyce's son" is something completely different.

the first time i was prepared, in fact i initiated the conversation, but this time i was caught unawares --- so it's a damn good thing that i'm honest about our work, why i'm involved in it, and understand clearly that no matter how flat the pancake is, it still has two sides...

i was engaging 30-some odd members of the mid-cumberland council of healthcare social workers in a conversation yesterday about the intersection of mental illness and the death penalty and it was a good group of people to speak with even if they were, overall, a little more skeptical than i anticipated...

and i opened with some facts surrounding greg thompson's mental illness as if they were the beliefs of a hypothetical client they were interviewing ... i then exposed the factual nature of this hypothetical client and countered it with the insane proposition of the tn attorney general, who, knowing that greg is diagnosed with schizophrenia, has relentlessly pursued his execution over the past 2+ years...

i then gave some background on the actual murder and case and then came the punchline from the back of the room - "i grew up with brenda lane"...

brenda lane was the murder victim in this case ... by all accounts a wonderful, giving, bright, human being who was deeply loving and deeply loved ...

the woman who knew brenda was straight forward, easy-speaking, and thoughtful - it wasn't a tension filled moment, just a surprise ... but it could have been different had i not already spoken of the victim and her family with gentility, compassion, and concern ... and in fact it opened up the conversation and i was pleased when my hour with them concluded ...

i had spoken to the methodist communications staff back in the fall of 05' for community shares and tcask ... this was where brenda blanton lane was working, a recent hire, when her life was so tragically cut short by a deeply disturbed and severely mentally ill greg thompson ... that was a powerful moment and again it was aided by my honest compassion and true concern for murder victim's and the survivors of their homicide...

so who would have guessed that a childhood friend of brenda lane's would have been in the group i was addressing ... it just goes to show that if you do this work as an organizer your heart better be in a spiritually or humanistically centered place -- because if it's not you'll be exposed by unexpected meetings in a small world...

peace out - <3

David Elliot at the National Coalition to Abolish State Killing and the founder and main author of the ridiculously successful Abolish the Death Penalty blog, recently posted saying that one of the sideline advantages of having so many anti-death penalty blogs is that when one can't think of something to blog about on a given day, we can borrow from eachother. In that spirit, you have got to check out this entry on the NCADP blog. I just want to say that it is these kind of people that make us abolitionists look good. This guy is just nuts! Check out this post:
http://deathpenaltyusa.blogspot.com/2006/03/death-penalty-for-gays-and-lesbians.html or simply visit http://edgeshow.com/column/?p=10.

So there I was, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, on a pay phone in a men's room (with all the surrounding pleasantry that entails) in a Hard Rock Cafe on Beale Street, the birth place of the blues, in Memphis, Tennessee. What in the World? Well, you see, with the advent of cell phones, and their emergence as a empire dominating our culture, the pay phone is going the way of the dodo. And those of us without cell phones are left in smelly men's rooms to make calls when we're on the road.

This post may come as a surprise to many who know me as an opposer of all things cell phone (when my mother recently purchased one, it nearly broke my heart). And I want to say off the bat, that I still think they are contributing to the atomization of our society and making us stupider and incapable of planning ahead. However, all that being said, I am starting to appreciate the utility of electronic, portable communications for an organizer.

Let's take this weekend for instance. Now I had been asked, several weeks ago to speak at St. Luke's United Methodist Church on Sunday morning (a great church with a really nice congregation, I thoroughly recommend it), but I was just going to make a quick day trip, wake up early (very early) on Sunday morning, drive to Memphis to two different talks at the church, have lunch with some folks, and head back. No problem. Then at the last minute on Friday, I got a call from some wonderful people I had met at Catholic Day on the Hill inviting me to speak to the district meeting of the St. Vincent De Paul society in Memphis on Monday night. Wow. Movers and shakers from every Catholic parish in Memphis all in one room and asking to hear what I have to say? You bet I can make it!

The only problem is that I was left with basically nothing to do between 1 pm on Sunday and 6 pm on Monday. I hadn't planned on staying around Memphis, so I hadn't set up any meetings. All of a sudden I have all this time to play with. Now I'd like you all to try to get a hold of pastors and organizational leaders at the last minute to set up meetings and the like. It is not easy. So you leave messages, but I had to just ask people to give me a call at home and then somehow I have to try to check messages. So here we are, back in the men's room.

Now people who talk on their phones while driving scare me. And hearing snippets of halves of conversations all the time walking down the street still bugs me. But I'll admit that when I'm up on the hill, or on the road in Memphis, or in a more rural area, say Carroll County where I'm heading tomorrow, they can be useful. So I guess that the lesson here for me is, get over yourself. Abolishing the death penalty is enough of a challenge. Utilize every tool that is presented to you. Man! that bugs me!

one thing you want to do as an organizer is build actions in steps so that they lead somewhere ... such was the case with this year's march 1st legislative write-a-thon ...

march 1st is an annual day for collective action across the state - something we plan, create tools for, and mobilize people to participate in ... we moved from doing outdoor rallies at the legislature to holding "write-a-thons" that target elected officials with a message we want them to hear ...

2006 is our 4th year of this event but it's the first time that we have followed it up with a lobby day-on-the-hill ... exactly 4 weeks apart ....

this year's event was huge for us - we have generated 1063 letters to date and there is going to be a write-a-thon in carroll county on the bethel college campus this week so we may will surpass the 1100 mark and perhaps the 1200 mark!!!

how does this support our lobby day???

we targeted 7 state officials that we asked everyone to write to (as well as their own state senator and representative) -- these targets included the chairs and vice-chairs of the house and senate judiciary committees -- if we figure an average of 8 letters per writer then we believe that each of these key committee members received over 130 letters each in support of moratorium and study legislation -- THAT'S A LOT OF LETTERS!

so on march 29th an extra visit for many people will be to stop by to say hi joe fowlkes, kent coleman, curtis person, and doug jackson and say i hope that you will support fairness in our criminal justice system and support the house bill or senate bill we wrote you about ...

it may even be enough to move the house bill out of sub-committee and perhaps even committee this year ...

so for those good citizens who wrote their 8 letters get a sense of the power that your letters have when combined with the intentional action of other good citizens ... great work!!!

and next year we'll write 2500 letters and in 2008 we'll write 5000 letters ... and we'll pass legislation ...

for those of you who didn't pick up the pen, no matter how against the death penalty you are, you still have the chance to join those of us who acknowledge that we can accomplish more in unison than we can splintered and alone ...

peace out - <3

as organizers we develop tools, script trainings, craft messages, and personalize outreach all in hopes of building a cohesive grassroots movement that will one day build and another day exercise political power…

and in the end we must, as rock n’ roll shari silberstein (sitting abolitionist of the year) of equal justice usa likes to say, trust the integrity of the process…

and one thing that means is an event will have a life of its own or at least unfold in acts like a play … like last night’s event in sewanee, tennessee on the campus of the university of the south…

act 1

it was raining either proverbial or actual cats and dogs on I-24 depending upon who you asked as regina hockett and I careened down the highway to sewanee from nashville … it was sort of like living a passage out of a fear and loathing novel as prayer and good kharma were the likely tools that got us safely on campus … but we were supposed to be there for the screening of the empty chair at 7:00 – our car skidded to a stop at the front door of bishop’s common at 7:41 … by the time I walked in, dripping wet and windblown after parking the car, there sat regina, juan melendez, reverend bill carroll in the middle, an ominous empty chair, and then 12th district attorney general michael taylor --- i was set up but was reassured in remembering to trust the integrity of the process…

act 2

it was kind of a cat and mouse dance between me and ol’ mike taylor … he is about to try a capital murder case and not his first … like many a d.a. he likes to obfuscate the absolute discretion they hold in deciding to pursue death by laying out the limitations placed upon them (aggravating factors etc…) – so I counterpunched with a re-frame explaining not only the discretion but why it results in geographic disparities and cases that look alike resulting in wide varying sentencing outcomes … and so it went between us – parry, parry, jab, hook, parry, duck, jab, feign, parry, sidestep, jab … juan melendez says I won the match on points … I felt nimble … I thought taylor was gonna take the match to the world wrestling federation level when I called him on his assertion that the defense has access to far greater resources than the prosecution in a capital case … d.a. taylor hunts down meth labs with the best of em’ but I thought for sure he might be dipping into confiscated stashes of the scurrilous white powder when he made that comment … we both let it go there…

act 3

the closing act was the real show of the evening – the unscripted portion of the play … a woman in the audience, hope, started in on regina right off the bat after the video (regina’s 12 year old daughter adrienne was murdered 10 years ago in an Antioch parking lot) with “you don’t believe in the death penalty???” -- which regina does not … hope’s sister had been murdered less than 2 years ago and she is still deeply grieving … she expressed her anger, outrage, and full feelings of frustration and pain … regina and juan, coming from experiences that give them the right to address someone like hope expressed their concern for her and made the point over and over again that she may best be served by forgiving her sister’s killer, not for the killer’s sake but for hers!!! in so doing, in letting go of the hatred and anger, a person in hope’s shoes takes away the power that a murderer holds over them … this dialogue dominated a large portion of the 75 minute discussion and in the end hope was shown love and compassion by panelists and audience members alike as tears were shed, honest smiles were managed, and we hope that hope is in a better place today to work through her grief than she was yesterday…

so there you have it – an event that had a life of its own while still getting across a message that benefits our work and goals … now its back to work, following up, deepening old ties and cultivating the newer ones

peace out - <3

It's not just that I'm lazy. Our blog has been without posts for over a day at least in part because we've actually been working hard. Wednesday in particular was a tour de force performance. You see, Wednesday was Catholic Day on the Hill here in Nashville. From all across the state more than 500 Catholics aged 13- 83 arrived in Nashville to lobby the state government on a broad range of issues that are important to the Catholic faith (By the way: shout out to Jennifer Murphy and the entire Catholic Public Policy Commission for getting this huge event together).

What's really exciting for us, though, is that our bill was on the agenda for the day, so we had 500 people up on the hill, and at least some of them were talking about the death penalty!

In some ways what is even better than how many people are talking is who is talking. For instance, the wonderful Beverly Marrero is sponsoring the moratorium legislation in the house. Now, while Marrero is a strong supporter of fairness in our judicial system, she has also been at odds with the CPPC over the issue of abortion rights. So Representative Marrero is used to getting somewhat angry visits on Catholic Day on the Hill. Instead, this year, she received a delegation from her home city, Memphis, thanking her for her sponsorship of the moratorium bill. What a pleasant surprise! A friendly visit and a set of congratulations. Who wouldn't want to hear that?

And that is exactly what we have to keep doing, bringing unlikely messengers to our issue. Because the death penalty certainly does cut a very unique swath across the population. Our issue can unite traditional liberals with "conservative" church going folks, with people who are against the state's wasting money. We just need to keep bringing new and unusual messengers to our decision makers. Thanks to the Catholics for doing a great job of this on Wednesday!

for most of us innocence is an issue - not the only issue but clearly THE issue... in fact it is likely an empirical reality that when framing a death penalty discussion around innocence that we do not readily trigger "cognitive dissonance" in death penalty supporters...

last night in nashville i was reminded that innocence is more than an issue - it's people too...

i went to the airport and picked up my friend juan roberto melendez who came to tennessee to do presentation at the university of the south on march 8th and participate in a panel with yours truly, regina hockett, and a couple of others on march 9th ...

and i sprang an unplanned event on juan - the monthly tcask nashville meeting ... we had 15 people present including 3 high school students, 2 university students, and 2 scottish-brits in the mix ...

and juan is a wonderful storyteller -- he blew me away emotionally, once again, and it's the 7th or 8th i've listened to him ---

now juan was on death row for 17 years, 8 months, and 1 day ... and, as the saying goes, was released in spite of the system, not because of the system ... and consider the collateral damage on his mother who prayed every day to g_d to please release her innocent son from death row and who now prays for nothing except to say thank you, thank you, thank you each and every day...

so next time some one responds that the system just doesn't work quickly enough, that that's the problem, invoke mama melendez and remember that her son juan roberto is alive by fiat, miracle, happenstance, precisely because the death penalty system is deeply flawed as are the people whose job it is to administer it...

innocence is a great frame, a great issue, but never ever forget that innocence is people too...

peace out - <3

it's phenomenological really if you think about it ... the sudden and rapid increase in the attention that lethal injection is receiving in the courts and in the media ... in fact legal battles are ongoing in california, florida, indiana, kentucky, louisiana, maryland, missouri, new jersey, north carolina, ohio, oklahoma, texas, virginia, and tennessee ...

WOW! seems natural to rush over to this attention getting issue and jump right in as activists - right???

WRONG ... dead wrong ... lethal injection as "cruel and unusual" because it causes pain is a losing argument in the general public ... there are even people who oppose the death penalty and yet don't care if a "killer suffers for a few minutes..."

therefore it is just as likely that such a tactic will create public backlash from the people we actually need to be communicating with in order to mount serious challenges to an ineffective and wasteful public policy ...

this is one for the lawyers to run with inside the judicial system, not for organizers to proactively attach themselves to just because it appears to be the "flavor of the day..."

for now, the supreme court is dealing with only a technical part of the fight, whether inmates can bring last-minute civil rights challenges to lethal injection ... the court has a chance to broaden its review to address a contention that the drug cocktail used in most states causes pain that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment ... a florida case that may in fact already be acted on raises that issue, and a second one, from here in tennessee, the case of abu-ali abdur'rahman, comes up for a vote this spring ... the ruling in the california case of michael morales has resulted in a de facto moratorium and could result in a lengthy delay for any and all of the state's approximately 650 death row inmates ...

...so let's wish our legal allies the best of luck as they pursue this avenue of challenge up and down the legal system but for public education and policy change, we are best sticking to all of our messages that we already know work better -- about the many flaws in the system from innocence to bias to the diversion of resources ...

peace out - <3

Sometimes I think we get wrapped up in the immediate. We need people to contact their legislators now. We need people to contribute today. Kids can't vote, and they generally have no money, so we tend to not worry so much about them, but the fact is, we should start. The next generation is going to be making a lot of decisions about what our country looks like, and the the high schoolers of today will be shaping our final decisions to do away with capital punishment. So they are important.

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to speak to the Youth Meeting at the Nashville Friends meeting, and I gotta tell you, those kids rocked my world! They are smart and sensitive, but more over profoundly moral people (maybe a little more so then older people who become more and more de-sensitized to the injustice in the world). The idea that we can execute innocent people is absolutely abominable to anyone, but these young people felt it more. Executing the mentally ill, or children is unacceptable. And you know what else? They're ready to do something about it! This morning I've already received an email from one of them registering for our Justice Day on the Hill (March 29th for those of you who haven't been keeping up), and another has posted death penalty information to her personal blog encouraging (maybe even ordering) other people to attend. Check it out: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=18780127&blogID=94658390&MyToken=c970ac14-d083-40bc-89b6-d3ed57a0c696

But there may be an even more important, though less tangible, reason to work with young adults. Yes they bring energy, yes, they feel injustice maybe more acutely, but they're also an inspiration. The way they respond to the death penalty reminds us why we became involved in the first place. And the fact that they're ready to get up and do something about it renews our own hopes and efforts, because when we see kids get involved like this, we know that we will win this fight. So, I've got a new prescription for feeling run down or burned out. Forget that take a day off stuff! Go talk to the kids!

it seems that sometimes that ours is very small ... like check out this seeming non-sequiterian overlap from alex's and my lives...

i have a myspace and one of my friends is a 15 year old nashville high school student whom i've never met but spend time mentoring on-line ... yesterday alex went to the friend's meeting house and spoke with the youth group ... my on-line mentee was there and was very moved (emo-like) by alex's presentation and as a result she blogged on her myspace about the death penalty and the tcask lobby day on the hill march 29th... (blog entry below - she rocks big time) ...

oh, and how did alex get the invitation to speak??? the director of nami-tn is a member of friend's meeting as well as one of our legislative partners ... she invited him ...

so, tell a story, how small is your world??? ...
_______________________________________________________

Sunday, March 05, 2006

State sponsored murder, anyone? Current mood: discontent
So basically.
this is what's happening.

On Wednsday, March 29, from 8.30 - 2 you will be at the capital building lobbying against the death penalty, okay?
okay.

Some death penalty statistics:
Out of 120 people on Tennessee's death row, NONE of them could afford their own attorney.

16% of Tennessee's population is African American. 40% of Tennessee's death row is African American.

A black person is 7 times more likely to be executed for killing a white person than a white person is for killing a black person.

For every 7.5 people executed, one will eventually be proven innocent, too late.

4/5 people on death row are mentally ill.

Until 2000, it was legal in the United States to execute children as young as 13. Only four other countries in the world allow this. Any guesses?

Iraq.
Iran.
Saudi Arabia.
Somolia.

One of President Bush's reasons for going to war with Iraq was children being "killed". the word "executed" was strategically replaced.

Myth: Execution is cheaper than life imprisonment.
Fact: It costs more to execute a person than to keep them alive in prison for the rest of their life. An idictment where the death penalty is on the table involves TWO trials instead of one, which involves more attorney hours, and literally millions of dollars in court fees. To keep someone alive in prison costs much less, especially if taken into acount the debt the work off in prison.

Myth: The death penalty deters crime.
Fact: the OPPOSITE is true. If the death penalty detered crime, there would be no murder in Texas. Texas has the highest murder rate in the country. Also, a spike in crime is shown directly after an execution. One theory, though hard to prove, is that when people see the government kill someone, they feel it is justifiable, however subconsciously. Out of the 14 states who have outlawed the death penalty, 12 have murder rates signifigantly below the national average.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." - Ghandi.

"He may deserve to die, but you do not deserve to kill him."- Pope John Paul II
"Let he who is sinless cast the first stone."-Jesus Christ.

"If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed." -Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

"Tennessee's death penalty system is still broken despite years of reform." -Federal Judge Gilbert Merrit

and my favorite:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, commited citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Meade.

Baaaasically, even if you kind of support the death penalty in theory, it just doesnt work.
How do you justify saying to someone "Oh, yeah, you know your son, the guy we just kind of sent 1000 volts of electricity through the other day? Weeellll, we kinda found out he didnt do a damn thing. Our bad, but hey, rest easy."

How do you justify saying to someone, "Hey, man, good news! We're not going to lethally inject you next week after all! Sure, we robbed you of a life, a career, and a family, but you're what, 70 now? you have at least a year, maybe two before you croak! enjoy life!"

There's so many death penalty stories I could tell you that would make you cry and/or vomit. But my hands hurt from typing and thinking about it upsets me so fucking much, you do not even understand.

For more information, contact Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing
http://www.tcask.org/
615-463-0070

Please show up on the 29th. I'll love you forever.
Really, it would mean a lot if you did.
Love always.

So one of the things that I failed to mention in Monday's much-commented on blog "How Hitch-hiking Imitates Organizing" (read it at http://tcask.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-hitch-hiking-imitates-organizing.html) was some of the other responses that I got from people who gave me rides on my trip down to Mobile. Everyone mentioned that they picked me up because I looked young and"nice" (I was wearing fairly nice looking clothes, etc.) but at least 3 of my 6 rides also said that one of the things that I had going for me was that I was white. I'm also male. And, I'll admit it, I always tell my baby sister that she is not allowed to hitch-hike. A great friend and organizer emailed me in response to my blog entry and I wanted to share their comments on this tricky aspect of our work. How do we dialogue with a society which is dominated by white males while also bringing the populations that have such a serious stake in issue into the discussion?

Here's the email that I received:

"I also thought about his (a friend who had hitch-hiked across the country) approach because at the end of Bomb the Suburbs he talks about how class and white male privilege allowed him to get picked up and to navigate hitchhiking throughout the country.

I wonder in a movement that is predominately white and male, how do we create a hitchhiking scenario where people of color and women would be "picked up?" Organizing in a way that pushes the envelope to allow people who do not fit the model a place to sit in the car free of the fear of being raped, lynched/killed or arrested? How do we explore the organizing paradigms that have shaped our approaches to organizing to include a race and class analysis in hopes that we all can reach our goal, together.

I agree with you suggestions about organizing. I consider myself an Southern organizer groomed by organizers of the SNCC and Ella Baker School in which they stressed the importance of dressing up, giving and doing your best for the people you serve. I also wonder how that is changing in the south and abroad. Could it be intimidating or a boundary for some people we are hoping to organize?

At any rate, this is our movement and we are making waves in the South."

I'm not sure that there are easy answers here, but that makes asking the questions all the more important to me, and they are questions that we have to be able to answer in almost any movement for social change.

one of the ways in which state organizations experiencing what i call "resource deprivation" can max their productive output is to establish deep-seated relationships with national organizations...that way us small fish can tap into a potpourri of skills, ideas, and programs that we would never be able to generate and sustain all by our state-based lonesomes...

so - yo, yo, yo i want to shout out at my good buddy k-bear (that's kristin houle for you neophytes) up at the program to abolish the death penalty of amnesty international usa...

now k-bear rocks our world down here in tennessee which shouldn't be unexpected because she's a close-by neighbor from the bluegrass state just north of us on i-65...but more than just a help oriented personality and naturally curly hair she runs point for the national weekend of faith in action on the death penalty annually facilitated in the last half of october...

now down here in the belly of the former confederate states where we "enjoy" a culture of violence and death second to none other in the country and that includes the use of executions (legal or extrajudicial) as a historical tool of control over certain populations (gil scott-heron knows what i'm talkin' about)...if we're going to successfully challenge the death penalty (i.e. junk that "bad boy") we will have to meet up with people where they interact in the south and overwhelmingly those opportunities come through the doors of faith communities...

so if you're serious about organizing in your state the nwfa every october ought to be one of your core tools to establish new contacts, initiate relationships, and ultimately facilitate the empowerment of local leaders and activists to carry out a coordinated, strategic assault upon capital punishment...

tcask has set 3 years worth of goals related to nwfa a part of its capacity building goals...

but hey, it's not all work and no-play -- just the other day i received a note from k-bear congratulating me on winning the on-line scavenger hunt created to teach amnesty death penalty activists how to navigate the workgroup manager...i received a nice amnesty international journal but more importantly a nice note from the k-bear...

so all you state orgs get jiggy with the real deal and establish relationships with national peoples and you just keep on rockin our ever lovin' world down here in tennessee k-bear!!!

peace out - <3

At TCASK, we spend a lot of time on the big picture, the huge systemic injustice that is the death penalty system, but for many abolitionists, it's also important to bring that system back down to the personal level and offer companionship to those people caught up in the system. With that in mind, below is a recent announcement from Tennessee's incredible Visitor on Death Row program.

On May 13, 2006 there will be a Visitor On Death Row orientation at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute from 9 a.m. til noon. This will include a trip to Death Row. The orientation is for those who are interested in possibly making a commitment to be a friend to someone with a death sentence in Tennessee. I need the names of those who wish to be a part of this orientation as quickly as possible. Unless your name is on the list to get in, you will not be allowed to stay for the orientation. Additional information will be sent closer to the time of the orientation to those who indicate an interest. Please call or send an e-mail indicating your interest to: Michelle Baier at Baier-Lambert@webtv.net or 615-297-0525

Visiting on Death Row
In 1978, when Tennessee’s new, allegedly constitutional death penalty law began sending people to death row, the folks at Southern Prison Ministry decided that everyone under a death sentence needed a friend. So they started recruiting a visitor for every condemned prisoner who wanted one.

Over the years, as Tennessee’s Death Row has gradually filled up, through a variety of channels others have begun visiting individuals under a death sentence, and many faithful and rich relationships have been formed. Then in 1992, as the pace of capital sentences began to pick up across the state, the Visitor On Death Row (VODR) program began an effort to find a non-family visitor for every death sentenced prisoner who has no other regular visitor and wants a VODR friend. VODR planners also decided to make available opportunities for sharing and support among Death Row visitors in order to build community, prevent burnout, and offer an opportunity for consultation with problems.

In early 1993, VODR began doing visitor orientation sessions once or twice a year on Saturday mornings at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, including a walk to the Death Row area where visitation takes place. Since that time, the orientation team has recruited and oriented over 100 persons, mostly from area churches. Many of those persons are still visiting the Death Row prisoner with whom they were paired. Others have opted not to visit, moved out of town, been unable to "click" with their prisoner, or seen the prisoner transferred to another prison after having the death sentence changed to life.

VODR orienters, who have all visited Death Row prisoners for many years, offer individual support and consultation to newer Death Row visitors as needed and as called upon. One feature VODR orienters wish to emphasize is the support group and mentors that newer persons will need to actively engage so to stay the original course the orientation emphasizes; that of being a friend and to take the visits as a serious commitment. The leader of the VODR Support Group is Theeda Murphy. The orienters are also available to help out with questions. Names and contact information are added at the end of this article.

If there ever were an opportunity to be with the poor and marginalized, this is it. The most common characteristics of those who wind up on Death Row are likely to be these: (1) they are poor; (2) they are charged with killing a white middle- or upper-class person; (3) they had a bad lawyer who had few resources to work with; and (4) they came from an abusive home environment and stand a good chance of having permanent brain damage. For some VODR visitors, visits to the house of the condemned are rooted in the convictions that these, too, are children of God, our own brothers and sisters, and for one of them to be killed by the state would constitute just one more crucifixion in a day when violent pseudo-solutions to the problem of violence are more the norm than the exception. However, you do not have to be of any religious persuasion to visit. As a matter of fact, the purpose of visiting is to be a friend, not to proselytize.

Our visits with prisoners do not signify that we condone murder or want convicted killers to be freed. There are long prison sentences available for murder (which are used much more often than the death sentence anyway), and many Death Row visitors also work with, and on behalf of, crime victims as well as prisoners.

To be a visitor or penpal call Michelle Baier at 615-297-0525 or Baier-Lambert@webtv.net

Last night I visited Cookeville and spoke at St. Thomas Aquinas church, and it was a great trip - great audience, fun talk, interesting questions. I visited a friends farm in the area while I was out there, and in fact a lot of the people in the audience were farmers. Charlotte Burks, who represents the area, is a farmer.

Matter of fact, if you look at a map of Tennessee, you've got Memphis way to the West, Nashville in the middle, and Chattanooga and Knoxville over in the East, but there is a lot of in between room with not a lot in it - at least not a lot of people. Notice any people in the picture above?

This can be a challenge for an organizer. How do we get people together in areas where they are spread out? Because there are a lot of those areas in Tennessee and we won't win this thing if we don't address the whole state. So how do we do it (I'm really asking here)?

Well, I don't claim to have it all figured out, but one secret is the same as with any organizing: Go where the people are. Especially in rural areas we need to find where people congregate already. Number 1 place - probably churches, so go to churches. Another is colleges. Even rural areas have 'em and you can find collections of young people with a lot of energy and, if they're way out there, maybe not a lot to do. ( for instance, here's a typical conversation: "What do you want to do Friday night?" "I don't know, dude, this town is lame and everyone IDs." "Hey! We could abolish the death penalty!" ) And there are probably other organizations as well. So we just have to keep working at finding them. Where are the people in your area? Tell us and we'll go talk to them. Or better yet, go talk to them yourself!

it would be amazing if all one had to do to set a strategic event in motion was, like dorothy, click one's heels 3x and there you have it - a Legislative Letter Writing Lobby Day...

ahhh - but it doesn't happen THAT way - it's a lot of planning, coaxing, evaluation, encouraging, and - oh yes - the necessary detail of work, work, work...

consider just yesterday, february 28th, the day before the 4th annual tcask march 1st write-a-thon...you see, tcask uses international death penalty abolition day as a statewide collective action tool and...

and our state office creates an organizer's toolkit, selects the politicians to target, generates the primary message in letter form, supports local organizers with advice and ideas, handles both media advisories and press releases - well i think you get the idea: we empower local volunteer leaders by supplying them with all the tools necessary to make it easy for them to organize a successful event...

consider some details from yesterday...

• check and make sure that all media advisories sent out monday went to the proper media contacts for each event
• send to all potential letter writers(~1200 tennesseans) an updated target list (including chairs and vice-chairs of the house and senate judiciary committees) with full addresses and the recommended letter text
• create customized letters addresses to the 7 primary targets (the 4 above plus, governor, lt. governor, and speaker of the house), customize the text as necessary (ask the governor to exercise party leadership rather than support bill #), and e-mail them as attachments to the local leaders of organized events, uh, adding additional letters for their specific district representative and senator as possible...
• write a press release for march 1st, customize it for each organized event assigning quotes to the local volunteer leader in each one and list them as the contact person, and e-mail or fax it to the media representatives in their specific communities (as was done with media advisories the day before)

then go buy a bottle of cheap merlot, catch the #10 bus, transfer to the #26 bus, stop off at kroger's to get your mother a gallon of milk, walk a mile more to home, eat some rice-aroni knock-off for dinner, and crash before you get the cork out of the bottle ...

wake up the next day and start all over again...

so when you read about a successful, strategic collective action remember what the details are behind its success...but check your ego at the door - it's just what organizers do...