Please join the Mid-Missouri FOR for a…

Vigil for Life and Remembrance

5:00- 6:00 pm, Friday, 2 December

Boone County Courthouse, E. Walnut St. in Columbia.   

We will be gather to mark the bloody milestone of 1000 people being executed across the United States since capital punishment was reinstituted in 1976. And please spread the word.

State workers in either South or North Carolina on Friday, 2 December will likely execute a man, making him the 1000^th human being executed in the United States. Participants in Friday's vigil will gather solemnly, declining to allow the grotesque milestone to pass unnoticed. They will read aloud the names of the 66 men executed in Missouri during this era--4^th most of any U.S. state-- along with the names of the people they were convicted of murdering. Those attending will also be able to sign a “Declaration of Life,” stating that should he or she be murdered, they would be morally opposed to having those who may commit the murder, considered for the death penalty. Individuals will convene to affirm the precious-ness of all lives and mourn those people killed-- the 999 individuals previously executed and all victims of murder in communities across the country, while attesting to the human right to life that all people possess, including the 3500 people still living under death sentences in our nation's prisons.

One person has been executed in this nation on average, every 10 days since 1977. No one is scheduled to be executed in Missouri while 53 men remain incarcerated under a death sentence in the state. The death penalty is however, on the decline. Death sentences nationwide have dropped by more than 50% since the late 1990’s, executions annually are down by 40% since 1999. The trend is clear, as a growing number of US citizens are challenging the practice as evidence shows capital punishment to be ineffective, unfair, and inaccurate.

The Mid-MO FOR and the statewide group with which it's affiliated, Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, oppose any execution on moral grounds. MADP member groups held vigils condemning the death penalty in St. Louis and Kansas City on Tuesday night.

Mounting evidence of systematic problems have prompted many death-penalty proponents to join with our groups in advocating that an official, thorough study of the state system at least be undertaken while a simultaneous moratorium on executions be instituted (similar to legislation which has and continues to receive bi-partisan and widespread public support). Among troubling realities of capital punishment: since 1973, 121 people nationally have been found to have been wrongfully-convicted, sentenced to death then exonerated, including three in Missouri; more than 80% of the people executed in the U.S. were killed for crimes involving White victims, even while about 50% of murder victims are White; almost all of those executed were poor, thus many had shoddy representation; frequently, they suffered from mental illness and/or retardation (individuals with the latter condition are now at least constitutionally protected from being subjected to the death penalty). The punishment remains a Southern phenomenon. When considering Missouri appropriately in the geographic region, southern state governments killed more than 85-percent of all people executed during that time.

Earlier today, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitt, who was scheduled to be killed Tuesday night. He would have been the 1,000th person executed. Next in line for the macabre distinction are Kenneth Boyd, set to be executed by North Carolina officials at 2:00 am, Friday, 2 December, then Shawn Humphries, who South Carolina officials plan to execute Friday evening at 6:00.

For more information please e-mail, call 573-449-4585 or log onto www.1000executions.org .

In peace, solidarity and remembrance,

Jeff Stack

Mid-MO FOR coordinator