New Havener Marsha Hurt brought her two young children to a vigil at the war memorial on Broadway Wednesday night to commemorate the 1,000th U.S. prisoner to be executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. It was part of a national mobilization called by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
And even though Virginia Governor Mark Warner on Tuesday had commuted the death sentence of the man who was scheduled on Wednesday to be the 1,000th person executed, the vigil went ahead as planned because the next execution is scheduled for Dec. 2.
“I was explaining to my children what’s going on,” Hurt said, “and the stance I take on it is that murder is murder. I’m against the death penalty. Murder causes one person’s grief, but the death penalty just causes more grief. To me, murder is murder, either way you slice it.”
Vigilers handed out a flier from members of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty and People Against Injustice that read, in part, “In the years since the killing of Gary Gilmore in 1977, one person has been executed, on average, every ten days in this country, despite all of the facts that we know about the death penalty: it is arbitrarily applied; it is not a deterrent; it is revenge, not justice; innocent people have been killed and later exonerated. Most importantly, execution is cruel and unusual punishment. By whatever method used, it is as bloodthirsty an act as the crimes it purports to avenge.”
Bells from the church across the street tolled during the 15-minute protest, and people held signs calling to “Execute Justice, Not People” and “End the Death Penalty.”
Sally Joughin of People Against Injustice said, “We’re supposed to be teaching people not to kill. So how do you teach them not to kill? For instance, there are some children here. How could you possibly tell them that the way we’re telling people not to kill is to kill somebody? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Connecticut —” and all of New England —” saw its first execution in 45 years last May, when Michael Ross was put to death by lethal injection after he relinquished his voluntary appeals. Six others are on death row in the state, while 3,400 are on death rows nationwide.
After this vigil, another one was held in Kimberly Square as part of an international protest for a particular prisoner on death row: Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, is scheduled to die in a California prison in two weeks, unless Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar commutes his sentence to life in prison. After being incarcerated, Williams became an advocate of ending gang violence, and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
New Haven peace activist Stephen Kobasa said executing Williams would be an act of vengeance, not justice.
