Forward to Hands Off Cain 2009 Report by Gail Chasey
Member of the State House of Representatives of New
Mexico
The Road to Abolition in New Mexico
How did we succeed?
The New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty
deserves all the credit. It grew from a handful of
organizers in 1997 to include thousands of people and
140 organizations of vastly diverse backgrounds,
ideologies and perspectives. The faith communities -
Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Quaker, Presbyterian,
Jewish, Unitarian, and many others - made it an issue
of conscience, invoking the power of redemption.
Families devastated by the murder of their own loved
ones described the cruel impact of the death penalty
on them. Far from providing closure or comfort, death
penalty trials and constitutionally guaranteed appeals
re-open the wounds for many families. Their hearts
simply break again and again when all attention
focuses on the defendants and their fate, rather than
on honoring the memory of those they lost.
The Coalition worked at the grassroots level,
obtaining funds to hire a director (3 superb women
over a 12-year period), to bring in experts like Sr.
Helen Prejean to inspire and teach, and to build its
numbers. Members learned how to contact and speak
with their elected representatives. The Coalition
conducted public opinion polls, affirming that 64% of
New Mexicans favored replacing the death penalty
with a sentence of life without parole and redirecting
money saved to help victims’ families. Armed with
these data, emboldened by their sheer numbers, and
kept up-to-date by email and the website, members
became increasingly skilled at making their voices
heard in committee hearings and in the outcome of
elections.
We introduced the bill in each of our biannual 60-day
sessions beginning in 1999. In the first few years, it
failed to clear all necessary committees for a vote by
the full House of Representatives. Those losses were
painful, but during that time, we gradually gained
support of important House and Senate leaders so
that the bill began to receive more favorable
hearings. Coalition members also worked to gain
support from both Democrats and Republicans.
Though it was more difficult to get conservative
support, some Republicans joined with progressive
Democrats in this vote for moral reasons; others
because they believe the system is flawed - that the
danger of executing the innocent is too great. One
explained that a friend from Russia cautioned her,
“Never let your government kill someone in your
name.”
Governor Bill Richardson had been a supporter of
capital punishment but never closed the door to a
dialogue with us - one that began with his election in
November 2002 and continued through the day he
signed the bill. We came within reach of victory in
2005, and again in 2007, when the House of
Representatives passed the bill by comfortable
margins with support from both Democrats and
Republicans. Our numbers were much closer in the
Senate, but we were denied a debate by that
chamber in both 2005 and 2007 when the bill failed
by a single vote in the Judiciary Committee - bitter
disappointments, from which we simply had no choice
but to recover.
What changed in 2009? The Presidential election was
a factor. Barack Obama’s strength at the top of the
ballot helped progressive candidates in all races,
increasing our support in the New Mexico Senate. The
Governor signaled that he would consider signing the
bill if it reached his desk. It appeared that our
arguments had begun to resonate with him -
particularly with regard to innocence and the
potential for prosecutorial abuse. It became
increasingly apparent that the world was watching -
people from other parts of the country and
throughout the world cared about what was
happening in our state. Not only did the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty provide critical
support, when the bill cleared its final hurdle in the
Senate, the Governor was urged to sign the bill by
people not only from our state but from all over the
world.
And when he signed it on March 18, 2009, the whole
world celebrated with us.
On April 15, the Comunita di Sant’Egidio lit the
Colosseo in our honor. Members of Amnesty
International from around the globe continue to send
messages of thanks. Death Penalty Focus, dedicated
to worldwide abolition of the death penalty, honored
the Governor in May. At that event in Los Angeles,
Bryan Stephenson, an attorney who represents poor
people and death row prisoners in the Deep South,
said: “The opposite of poverty is not wealth; it is
justice.”
We believe justice is more likely to prevail in New
Mexico now that we have ended the “random
brutality” of the death penalty. We are honored that
Hands Off Cain acknowledges New Mexico's role in
this world-wide movement to obtain justice without
vengeance and we thank you for your work.
lam deeply grateful to share The Abolitionist of the
Year Award for 2009 with Governor Richardson. |
dedicate it to my fellow travelers - those on whose
shoulders | have stood, who inspired and sustained
me in this effort - the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal
the Death Penalty, Murder Victims Families for
Reconciliation, the exonerated, the New Mexico
Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, my family and
friends, an enlightened legislature and a courageous
Governor.
July 5, 2009
