WASHINGTON — If you happen to walk by the Supreme Court between June 29 and July 2 in any given year, chances are you will encounter a group of activists holding a vigil and hunger fast against the death penalty.
The Abolitionist Action Committee has been protesting at this very spot for the last 20 years. This year more than 50 activists participated in the hunger fast and vigil. They only consumed water and juice for the duration of four days.
Scott Langley, a freelance photographer from New York and an organizer of the protest, said the aim is to educate tourists as they pass by on Capitol Hill in the hope that that they will pressure their state legislators to enact bills outlawing capital punishment.
“It’s a slow fight. Its chipping away at this huge bolder that we face of eliminating capital punishment. And it’s the small victories that we have to celebrate because in the bigger picture those are going to add up,” said Langley.
The committee, a grassroots group seeking an alternative to the death penalty, has its reasons for conducting the protest in the days preceding a national holiday even though Congress is on break and the Supreme Court is in recess. June 29 coincides with the 1972 Georgia v. Furman Supreme Court ruling, which found the death penalty unconstitutional on grounds that it was used in an arbitrary and capricious manner. And it was on July 2, 1976 that the high court allowed executions to resume in the country in the Gregg v. Georgia ruling.
At present 32 states can carry out the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit educating people about capital punishment, six states have abolished the death penalty since 2007. Maryland is the latest to outlaw it, based on evidence that the death penalty does not work and a strong belief in the dignity of every human being.
Brian Evans, a death penalty activist with Amnesty International USA, said that there are 25 states that have either abolished the death penalty or haven’t executed anyone in 10 years. This, he says, is indicative of a downward trend in handing out death sentences. But the states that continue to carry out executions are in the deep South, Texas and Florida in particular.
“There were nine states that carried out executions last year. So it’s a minority of states that have an execution in any given year,” said Evans.
In what abolitionists called a setback, Texas last week conducted its 500th execution since 1976, and Florida passed the Timely Justice Act 2013, which is designed to speed up the pace of death penalties in that state.
So is this fast in front of the Supreme Court a futile attempt to rid the American criminal justice system of the death penalty?
Evans feels that there is much more awareness now about how problematic the death penalty is as compared to the closing decades of the 20th Century. While the number of states banning death penalties is low, Evans said, the number of of people being executed is falling significantly in certain states. Texas last year had nine death sentences, which was a significant drop from the previous year, but Florida had 22, which wasn’t much of a change from 2011.
With improved forensic techniques, such as DNA testing, advocates have warning of the implications of sentencing someone to death, on the chance that there could be a wrongful conviction.
Terri Steinberg of Fairfax, Va., has a son in prison fighting a death sentence. According to Steinberg, her son Justin Wolfe, was falsely accused and convicted of being involved in a contract murder.
“As a mom I have to try and juggle the other kids at home while fighting to save the life of their brother. It’s difficult. It’s a nightmare and exhausting,” Steinberg said of the impact of her family.