NYS Assembly Hearing on the Death Penalty

Honored Members of the New York Assembly, Ladies and Gentlemen:

My name is John Marsh, I serve as interim Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica, New York, and I speak today on behalf of a national organization called Unitarian Universalists for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

 

I was born and raised in Massachusetts.  I have lived my adult life in several places.  When I was forty years old I moved to California, where, for the first time, I lived in a state that used the death penalty.  It seemed wrong to me and I became involved in the movement to bring an end to this practice.

 

Today I come to testify that the death penalty is, as Pope John Paul II has said, “cruel and unnecessary’, and that it divides us against ourselves.

 

When a human life is taken, the whole of our community is wounded.  Transgressors must be prevented from committing further atrocities and the bereaved family members and friends must have their grief honored and be given support.  The death penalty does not help this process.

 

One of the ways that the death penalty divides us against ourselves is when a District Attorney decides to pursue this penalty--he or she looks for family members of the victims who will testify that the person who committed the murder deserves this punishment.  Family members who do not agree, do not see the point in having another death compound the grief in the community, are told to keep quiet, and sometimes have their loyalty questioned:  “How can you not want the death penalty for brother’s murderer?  Didn’t you love him as much as I did?”

 

Another way the death penalty divides us against ourselves is by putting forward the false idea that some human lives are more valuable than others.  It usually starts with police officers.  Police officers put themselves in harm’s way for the good of our social order.  On the face of it, it seems reasonable to argue that anyone who kills a police officer should be given the death penalty.  Then, what about fire fighters?  Firefighters are not even carrying weapons to protect themselves when they enter life threatening situations.  Surely, anyone who kills a fireman should be given the death penalty.  Then what about bus drivers?  They also serve the public!  Are their lives any less valuable?

 

Every year there are different bills in different states to expand the death penalty.  When these bills  pass, the death penalty is enlarged, when these bills fail, the group that sponsored the legislation is given the message that their lives are not valued as much as others.  It is a lose-lose situation.

 

Delaware expanded its death penalty to include those who willfully murder children--reasoning that children are defenseless and deserve protection.  Shortly afterwards, in 1996, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson Jr., two middle class, well liked, white high school sweethearts who could not bring themselves to acknowledge their bringing a baby boy into the world—killed the infant in a motel room and deposited the small corpse in a dumpster.

 

One sponsor of the Delaware legislation said that when they enacted the law calling for the death penalty for child killers, they did not have kids like Amy and Brian in mind.  Raising the question, what kind of kids did they have in mind?  When we think of executing people, it is always other people--people not like ourselves that we have in mind.

 

When Manny Babbit, a Viet Nam U.S. Marine Corp Veteran, was executed by the state of California in 1999, many Viet Nam veterans came to his defense.  They reviewed his military record and even arranged for him to be awarded the Purple Heart while he was on Death Row.

 

When Jay Siripongs was executed by the state of California that same year, many members of the Asian community protested.  The government of his native Thailand even objected that his rights as a foreign national, under article 36 of the Vienna Convention, had been violated.

 

Every African American Muslim I have ever met believes that Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African American Muslim on death row in Pennsylvania, should be spared the death penalty.

 

When George W. Bush was governor of Texas, many of the white Christian evangelicals who would later help elect him President, including Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, criticized Bush for refusing to commute the sentence of convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker, a white woman who came to Jesus on death row--before being executed by the state of Texas.

 

When will we learn that there is no other, there is only ourselves?

 

In my twenty-five years in the ministry no experience was more poignant for me than conducting the memorial service for a young mother who was killed in anger by her husband.  The pain inflicted on that day will be with that family forever.  It will be felt by children not yet born.

 

In the immediate aftermath of this tragedy, the family of the young woman was filled with thoughts of revenge.  As days and months went by, it became clear that if there was to be restored health in the family—something different would be needed:  acceptance, acknowledgement of the loss, the need to care for a two year old girl, whose mother was murdered, whose father was a murderer, and who, herself, was and is  ....family.

 

There is no other, there is only ourselves. Thank-you for your time.

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