Join Activists from Across Virginia At the Annual Conference of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Saturday October 14  9:30­4:00

Westminster Presbyterian Church, 
190 Rugby Rd.
Charlottesville

Joe Jackson and Bill Burke, authors of Dead Run- The Shocking Story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America. The newly released soft-covered edition will be available.

Other topics which will be discussed are the Virginia Moratorium campaign (how to get your house of worship, city/county governing body, civic organization, etc. to adopt a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty), our legislative agenda for next session, and an update from the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center.

     For more information, call 263-8148 (Charlottesville area) or toll- free
1-888-567-8237. 
Name ______________________________________ 

Address _______________________________________________________

State, Zip ____________________   phone______________________________ 

e-mail ___________________________________    Directions will be sent or 
e-mailed to you. 

PLEASE RETURN registration to VADP, PO Box 4804, Charlottesville, VA  22905
Or e-mail- mail@vadp.org and visit our web site http://www.vadp.org

Bobby Lee Ramdass has been scheduled to be executed on October 10 for the September, 1992 murder of a Fairfax County convenience store clerk. On November 23 of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay 3 hours before the scheduled execution based on his lawyer’s arguments that the jury was not told that Ramdass would never be eligible for parole if sentenced to life in prison.

But on June 12, the high court in a 5-4 decision, decided that since Ramdass had yet to be sentenced for a second robbery conviction, the “second strike” was not counted, and the Judge was correct in informing confused jurors not to concern themselves whether Ramdass would be eligible for parole. Three jurors have since said that they would not have voted for death, if they would have been told that Ramdass would be ineligible for parole.

This execution has also been targeted as the annual “Fill the Field” event, where the goal is to show a strong presence at the execution site. 
Please plan on making the trip down to Greensville Prison which is 50 miles south of Richmond off of I- 95. 
Contact Tim Stanton at (804) 748-3265 or loistim@erols.com for more information.

You can let Gov. Gilmore know about your concerns by contacting him at 
P O Box 1475 
Richmond, VA 23219 
(804) 786-2211 
or e-mail governor@gov.state.va.us

While summer is usually a quieter time, it has not necessarily been that way for VADP. Your support from our last fund­raising letter has been the most from any request that we’ve ever had. Last month we sent a very good Washington Post article about the problems within Virginia’s death penalty system to every state legislator. We hope to continue sending these bits of information as they become available. 

We assisted the Amnesty International group in Charlottesville in putting on a very successful “Death Penalty Awareness Day” on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Over 200 people stopped by to sign petitions, hear speakers and live music, and partake in some birthday cake for former Death Row prisoner Joe Giarratano.

We opened our new office at the Virginia Organizing Project. In the near future we hope to employ a staff person. This will all depend on our ability to raise the funding required. 

Our issue has once again taken center stage around the highly controversial execution of Derek Barnabei. New DNA testing in Earl Washington’s and Roger Coleman’s cases (see articles) have given us more ammunition. 

We are seeing renewed activity across the state. On Friday January 12, Sr. Helen Prejean will be in Virginia Beach as a guest of St. Nicholas Catholic Church, and the Church will host a day- long workshop on the death penalty on Saturday the 13th.

A group in Lynchburg is coordinating a Death Penalty Awareness Week, Feb. 18­25, with an address by Sr. Helen Prejean on Friday Feb. 23. (see article)     We are expecting to keep the issue strong in the next General Assembly. We plan to assist Legislator’s in presenting bills for a moratorium on the death penalty, a bill to preserve evidence from being destroyed, and to continue efforts to repeal the 21-Day Rule.

We are also proud to announce that we have created VADP Educational Fund and are currently applying to the IRS for a 501C-3 tax-exempt status.  This will allow you to deduct your contribution to VADP from your annual tax return. 

You can help by writing Letter’s to the Editor in your local newspapers, getting a group in your area to endorse the moratorium, and setting up day-long workshops. Displaying our bumpersticker, “Yes Virginia, There is an Alternative to the Death Penalty” and wearing a T-shirt with the message are other ways that you can have your voice be heard. We cannot remain silent! 

We hope to see you at the conference in Charlottesville on Oct. 14. 

Our efforts for a moratorium on executions continue.  More and more organizations our drafting resolutions in support. Below is a list of organizations that have already signed on. If your group has adopted a resolution and is not listed, please let us know. If you would like 
information on getting such a resolution passed please contact us at mail@vadp.org or (804) 263-8148 (Charlottesville area) or toll free 888-567-8237.

Legal Community
Charlottesville- Albemarle Bar Association (April 14, 1999) 
Virginia College of Criminal Defense Attorneys (July, 1999) 

Press 
Virginian Pilot (July 6, 1999) 
Staunton News-Leader (Feb. 11, 2000) 
Potomac News (Feb. 13, 2000) 
Roanoke Times (Feb. 19, 2000) 
Richmond Free Press (April 13, 2000) 

Legislative Governing Bodies
Charlottesville City Council (Jan. 18, 2000) 
State Black Caucus (June 26, 2000) 

Religious Groups
Catholic Diocese of Richmond (January, 1998) 
Manassas Church of the Brethren (Nov. 22, 1998) 
St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Triangle, VA (Dec. 18, 1999) 
Episcopal Diocese of Virginia (Feb. 6, 2000) 
Methodist Federation for Social Action, Virginia chapter (Feb. 12, 2000) 
Virginia Council of Churches (Feb. 16, 2000) 
St. Pius X Catholic Church, Norfolk (March, 2000) 
Maury River Friends Meeting, Lexington (March 26, 2000) 
Rev. Pat Robertson (April 7, 2000) 
St. Jerome Catholic Church, Newport News, VA  (May, 2000) 
First Unitarian Church of Richmond (June 4, 2000) 
Charlottesville Friends Meeting (June 4, 2000) 
Catholic High School, Hampton, VA (Spring 2000) 
Virginia People of Faith for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 
Herndon Friends Meeting (May 14, 2000) 
United Methodist Church of Virginia (June 13, 2000) 

Other
Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 
ACLU of Virginia 
Common Ground Network for Peace, Justice, and the 
Environment-Harrisonburg (April 4, 2000) 
The Virginia Organizing Project (June 4, 2000) 
Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice (August 13, 2000) 

“The Barnabei case represents one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice and one of the most compelling cases of innocence I have ever seen in all my years of practicing law.”  Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law, Harvard University

On September 14, Derek Barnabei was put to death, despite reasonable doubt to his guilt and the results of a complete investigation into missing DNA evidence. This case garnered international recognition, especially in Italy. The Italian people have been very vocal in their opposition to the death penalty and being that Barnabei was of Italian descent, it became front page news in the Italian Press. 

This case was reminiscent of the Joseph O’Dell case in 1997 and the Roger Coleman case (see article below) in 1992. In all 3 cases disputed DNA findings were at issue. Barnabei, for years had appealed to the Gov. to test DNA evidence from the fingernails of the victims. When the Gov. finally relented a week before the scheduled execution, the Norfolk Court Clerk proclaimed the evidence was missing. The Gov. ordered an investigation, after alleging that Barnabei’s investigator or a news crew may have been responsible. The evidence was found the next day in a different room, and after declaring that the evidence had not been tampered with, the results, according to the Gov. showed that the evidence in question did indeed match Barnabei’s. The Gov. immediately declared that the execution would proceed.

Barnabei’s defense team argued that they were not allowed to be present during testing and that the execution should be stayed until the State Police findings about the missing evidence was completed.  Additionally, the defense argued that the DNA findings were manipulated. Also at question were a number of other pieces of evidence that were not tested and the fact that the chief police investigator requested that these pieces of evidence including the fingernails, not be tested. The question that remains is if the DNA evidence underneath the 
victim’s fingernails match Barnabei, why did the defense for years appeal to the Gov. and 
the Court’s to test that evidence. 

The execution of Derek Barnabei was the 6th Virginia execution this year. Since the last VADP Action Michael Clagget (July 6) and Russel Burket (Aug. 30) have been executed.

On the day before the execution of Derek Barnabei, Gov. Gilmore ordered further DNA testing and a State Police investigation into the case of former Death Row prisoner Earl Washington. Earl Washington spent 12 years on Virginia’s Death Row, (1983-95) before Gov. Doug Wilder commuted his death sentence due to evidence of possible innocence. Earl has been languishing in General Population for the last 5 years hoping that DNA testing would prove his innocence, if the State would only agree to test the evidence.

On June 1, Gov. Gilmore finally relented, but there has been no word from the Gov. until just recently. In ordering further testing and investigation the Gov. said that he wanted justice to be done.  Gov. Wilder refused to pardon Earl on the DNA evidence that showed that he was not the perpetrator, theorizing that there could have been two people involved in the crime. The victim, in her dying words to her husband said that only one black man was 
the attacker.

Earl Washington, with an IQ of 69 was convicted in 1982 of the rape and murder of a Culpeper woman. The prosecution based its case on confessions that Earl made. In his appeals, defense lawyers have based those confessions on the police leading Earl into making those confessions. Earl’s case has garnered national attention with recent profiles in a PBS Frontline special and ABC’s Nightline. The Virginia Press has also been active in writing about this case.

Centurion Ministries of Princeton N.J. which investigated the case of Roger Coleman, who was executed in 1992 despite claims of innocence, has joined with the Boston Globe in asking a Buchanan County Circuit court Judge to give the group the biological evidence left over from the case. A Virginia law allows­but does not require­judges to donate evidence to charity after a case is complete. Centurion Ministries is considered a charity because it is a non-profit organization.

Roger Coleman was convicted and executed for the 1981 rape and murder of his  sister-in-law in Grundy, Virginia. Despite a number of alibis, the courts refused to step in. Gov. Wilder allowed the execution to go forward after administering a polygraph under very stressful conditions.

Both the Boston Globe and the Washington Post have made formal requests to the Judge, Gov. Gilmore, and Attorney General Early that the evidence be tested and not destroyed. Roger Coleman’s case drew international attention in 1992 including a front-page Time magazine feature. In July, the Globe persuaded a Georgia judge to allow DNA testing left over from a man executed in 1996.

Judge Williams, has ordered the evidence- which has been stored in a California laboratory where the evidence was tested in 1991 returned to Virginia State Police. Centurion Ministries has requested that the lab test the DNA and not return it to Virginia State Police. 

On September 14, by a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the capital murder conviction of Walter Mickens Jr. because the defendant’s trial lawyer failed to disclose that he was also the victim’s attorney at the time of the slaying. The appeals panel said that Mickens will be freed from Virginia’s Death Row unless the state retries the case within 180 days. 2 years ago, lawyers working on Mickens’ appeal discovered court records showing that Mickens’ trial lawyer was representing the victim, Timothy Hall on assault and concealed weapons charges at the time of the slaying. Mickens was convicted in 1993 of murdering Hall in Newport News.

A Justice Department study just released shows that from 1995-2000, U.S. Attorney Helen Fahey’s office which is responsible for the eastern district of Virginia has prosecuted 66 defendants under federal death penalty statutes, the most of any district except Puerto Rico. Fahey asked for the death penalty in 21 of the 66 cases which is the most of any jurisdiction.

The study also reported that minorities predominate in these federal death-penalty requests. Minorities account for about 74 percent of the cases. In Fahey’s district which includes Richmond and east,  out of the 66 cases, 59 were black, five were white, and 2 were Hispanic. Of the 21 defendants for whom she sought the death penalty, all were black except for one Hispanic.

Four Virginians are now on Death Row at the federal facility in Indiana. 

Mitigation Specialist, Marie Deans, and Denise Lunsford, a Charlottesville Attorney, have formed The Virginia Mitigation Project to assist defendants facing the death penalty in Virginia, particularly at the trial level. The Project received its non-profit status in July.

According to the United States Supreme Court, in a capital case, the trial is the main event, but without the necessary resources, it is unreasonable to expect any attorney to mount a defense that, in fact, makes the trial the main event. 

In most capital trials in Virginia, two attorneys face the Commonwealth Attorney, his or her staff, the police department, government forensic labs and experts, and an array of mental health experts.  While facing this wealth of resources, the appointed attorney must rely on the Commonwealth Attorney to identify and, hopefully reveal, exculpatory and mitigating evidence.

Death penalty law is a vast, ever-changing and esoteric area, difficult to keep up with especially for lawyers who have a practice to run. Even experienced lawyers can fail to object to the admission of evidence that is properly excluded, especially during the sentencing phase. Evidence that is admitted without objection or evidence that should be brought out but is not, cannot be the subject of an appeal.

Investigation and preparation are vital and must be done before trial. Evidence uncovered and brought to the Court’s attention more than three weeks after the trial cannot be considered by Virginia courts.

The Virginia Mitigation Project wants to help balance the scales of justice in capital trials.

In Virginia 2 men have been given conditional pardons and 2 have been given clemency because evidence of innocence was uncovered too late to be considered by the courts. All four had been given death sentences at trial. All four were on death row, and all four continue to languish in our prisons. None of these men had mitigation specialists at their trials and in none of the cases was a thorough investigation carried out prior to trial.

The Project also will monitor all capital cases, including those murders which fit the statute but are not charged capital. Such monitoring has not been done since the Virginia Coalition on Jails and Prisons closed in 1993 due to lack of funds. Without such monitoring, no one in Virginia (including the governor and the courts) actually knows how the death penalty is applied and works in Virginia. 

Marie Deans and Denise Lunsford are both members of VADP and Murder Victims’ 
Families for Reconciliation. Bruce Williamson, a Charlottesville attorney, is the President, Gayle Harris, a researcher from Alexandria, is Vice President. Chip Wright, a Richmond attorney, is Sec./Treas. All are members of VADP. 

You can contact the Project by at 804/971-1261, by mail to P.O. Box 5467,  Charlottesville, VA 22905 or by email <mitigation@mindspring.com>  Donations will be greatly appreciated.

VADP welcomes the Mitigation Project and wishes them much success in keeping men off of Death Row. VADP and the Mitigation Project plan to work together to exchange information and these two organizations can only compliment each other. As many of you know Marie received the 1st Joseph M. Giarratano Award for Truth in Action in May of 1999 and has long been considered the “mother” of the Abolition movement in Virginia. 

Lynchburg / VA Beach Events

CENTRAL VIRGINIA DEATH PENALTY AWARENESS WEEK IN LYNCHBURG

An ad hoc coalition of Central Virginia organizations headed by the local colleges are planning a Death Penalty Awareness Week for February18-25, 2001. The week's events will be centered around the question: Should Virginia have a moratorium on the death penalty? The featured speaker for the main event on Friday, February 23, will be Sr. Helen Prejean, csj, author of the award-winning Dead Man Walking.

The goal of the week is to identify and communicate to the community the issues surrounding the use of the death penalty in the United States and Virginia today. This program will provide a balanced presentation of the issue from the ethical, religious, legal, historic, punitive, economic, and social perspectives.  Specific target audiences will be houses of worship, high schools, colleges, elected officials, law enforcement and legal system professionals and all interested individuals.

A partial list of sponsors include Lynchburg College, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, and the Lynchburg Peace Education Center. They are interested in procuring a number of guest speakers for the many venues being planned. If you or your organizations might assist with that, please contact Chris Barrett at the Lynchburg College Center for Community Development and Social Justice at 804-544-8156 or at barrett_c@mail.lynchburg.edu.

Is reliance on the death penalty a sign of disrespect for human life?  Is it an illusion to believe that the death penalty protects life by taking life? Does the death penalty contribute to a culture of life or to a culture of death? Does the implementation of the death penalty reflect a prejudice against the poor or people of color? Does society have a right to take the life of a person- even a guilty one? Even if society has the right, should it exercise that right when modern penal systems provide a secure alternative of life in prison without parole?

These and other questions will be addressed at this conference on Friday evening/Saturday January 12-13 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church on Little Neck Rd. in Virginia Beach. The conference features a keynote address on Friday evening by Sr. Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and the Saturday panels feature dialogues with local and national figures and an address by the Rev. William Moore- who survived many years on Georgia’s Death Row. A $15 fee includes lunch.

On Saturday September 2, over 200 people stopped by to gather information, sign petitions, listen to speaker’s, hear music, and partake in a birthday celebration for former death row prisoner Joe Giarratano on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville.  The event under the theme, “A Question of Justice: A Call for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty” was organized by the Charlottesville chapter of Amnesty International with assistance from VADP, the Charlottesville Quaker Friends Meeting, and the Charlottesville Center 
for Peace and Justice.

The event highlighted a moratorium on executions, the 21- Day Rule, and the cases of Derek Barnabei and Joe Giarratano. Speakers included local religious leaders, community activists, J. Lloyd Snook, who represented Joe Giarratano during his appeals as well as other death row prisoners, and Charlottesville mayor, Blake Caravati. 

Charlottesville was the first Virginia locale, and remains the only locale that has passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. 

As technology advances, particularly in the area of DNA evidence, our system of criminal justice needs to be flexible enough to adapt in order to prevent the execution of those who are, subsequent to conviction, proven to be actually innocent. Proof of actual innocence should not be precluded by any deadlines for introduction of evidence bearing on actual guilt or innocence.
       — Virginia Democratic Party Platform
 

UPCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday October 10: "Fill the Field" The annual effort to bring protesters to vigil at the execution site in Jarratt (I-95 north of Emporia, 50 miles south of Richmond). Contact Tim Stanton at loistim@erols.com

Tuesday ­ Wednesday October 10, 11: 
Virginia Council of Churches Jubilee Justice: Redemptive Violence or Restorative Justice. Virginia Diocesan Center at Roslyn in Richmond. Contact VCC (804) 321-3300.

Saturday October 14: 
VADP Annual Conference, Westminster Presbyterian Church, 
Charlottesville. For more information, call (804) 263-8148 or e-mail: mail@vadp.org

Wednesday October 18: 
Interfaith Action for Social Justice- Fall Legislative Meeting. Featured Speaker: Retired Senator Joseph Gartlan, Jr. Heritage Presbyterian Church, 8503 Fort Hunt Rd., Alexandria 7­9:30 PM. Contact Bonnie Lowrey at (703) 578-1653. 

Saturday- Sunday October 28-29: 
Amnesty International National Weekend of Faith in Action on the death penalty. Contact 800-AMNESTY, ext. 508 or www.amnesty-usa.org

Friday ­ Sunday November 3-5: 
Amnesty International Regional Conference, Richmond. Contact AIMARO office, 202-544-0200.

Friday ­ Saturday January 12,13: 
Challenge of Faith: The Death Penalty. Friday night address, Sr. Helen Prejean. Saturday conference. St. Nicholas Catholic Church, 712 Little Neck Rd. Va. Beach.

Sunday ­Sunday February 18-25: 
Death Penalty Awareness Week ­ Lynchburg and surrounding areas. Theme ­ Should there be a moratorium on executions in Virginia? Featured event ­ Sr. Helen Prejean, Friday Feb. 23. Contact Chris Barrett at the Lynchburg College Center for Community Development and Social Justice at 804-544-8156 or 
Barrett_c@mail.lynchburg.edu