There will be a vigil in Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park Wednesday Nov. 30 for the 1,000th execution in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Rev. Jack Zylman.

“This is a somber milestone in the history of capital punishment, but it comes at a time when the use of the death penalty in this country is sharply declining,” he said. “Death sentences, the size of death row, executions, and public support for the death penalty are all lower than they were five years ago.”

The vigil will start at 5:30 p.m. near the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Kelly Ingram Park at Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street North.

“This event presents an opportunity to reflect on the application of the death penalty over the past 30 years,” Zylman said. “The majority of Alabamians have said they support a moratorium on the death penalty. It is time to stop executing our citizens and fellow human beings and look at what we are doing.”

Scheduled to be executed this week are Eric Nance in Arkansas on Monday, Nov 28; John Hicks in Ohio on Tuesday, Nov 29 and Robin Lovitt in Virginia on Wednesday, Nov 30.

Sponsors of the vigil include Amnesty International, USA, Pax Christi, the Alabama Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the Birmingham Alliance Against Racist and Pollitical Repression.

The Birmingham News must be feeling the heat from the blogosphere. The editorial board came out against the death penalty Sunday and in a series of editorials that continue.

The stories are archived on the page linked below. Unfortunately, you must enable cookies in your browser to get to the stories and then you must wait, and wait, for the ads to roll and pop and load. Even in Google alerts, the links do not work unless you hit the “print” button.

The good news is - we doubt many people will take the time to go through this - if you open a new print window in your browser and leave it open, when you click on each story it will pop up in the window and you can read each story without having to wait for each individual page with only part of the story to load.

Geez, we don’t think the inventors of the Internet - and we’re not talking about Al Gore - had this in mind when they created it.

Why are we just now blogging about it? Even though we knew about it in advance, the Newhouse Web design team that puts the Birmingham News online must think online readers only care about sports. Finding the “Opinion” section is damned near impossible.

But I guess the purpose is to drive online readers crazy hoping to sell more copies of the print edition - and to try getting intelligent, educated liberaltarians in the Birmingham metro area to stop calling it The Birmingham Snooze.

Choosing Life in a Death Penalty State

This just in from the Rev. Jack Zylman:

The state of Alabama is to execute John W. Peoples, Jr. this Thursday, Sept. 22.

There is a vigil planned to protest this execution at 5:45 PM, Thursday, September 22, 2005 at
Kelly Ingram Park, 16th Street North and 6th Avenue in Birmingham.

John W. Peoples Jr. claims that his counsel at the time of his trial was inadequate. Additionally, Peoples provided most of the State of Alabama’s evidence against himself before counsel represented him and while in police custody.

In addition to evidence gathered from Peoples before he had the protection of an attorney, the State also based its prosecution on the admittedly perjured testimony of co-defendant and alleged accomplice Timothy Gooden.

The Alabama Circuit Court denied motions for change of venue based on the publicity that the case had received locally.  Also, the Alabama Circuit Court allowed Jimmy Chastin to remain a juror although Chastin was a reserve Talladega County Deputy Sheriff who rode along with law enforcement authorities during the investigation of the location of the Franklins’ bodies.

While Peoples was in jail, the state seized a tape recorder that Peoples used for communication with his attorney, violating attorney-client privilege.

John W. Peoples Jr. has no significant history of prior criminal activity and his constitutional rights were repeatedly violated throughout the investigation and trial.

For more information, call 205-821-0650 or 205-933-7678

Sponsored by: Amnesty International USA, Project Hope to End the Death Penalty, Alabama Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty, Pax Christi, and others.

Rev. Jack Zylman
1321 16th Avenue South
Birmingham, Ala. 35205-6020
phone: 205-933-7678
cell:  205-821-0650