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OPAL to Participate in Sunday’s Vigil for Death-Penalty Moratorium
DECEMBER 7, 2000--Members of the Oberlin Peace Activist League (OPAL) will take part in an Interfaith Vigil for a Death Penalty Moratorium at 3:30 P.M. Sunday, December 10, at the bandstand on Tappan Square.
Joining OPAL will be members of the First Church of Oberlin, Peace Community Church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and the Catholic Action Commission of Lorain. The vigil is occurring two days before the execution of Juan Raul Garza, the first federal execution in 37 years. Garza was convicted in 1993 for three drug-related murders in Brownsville, Texas.
"One of 21 federal prisoners on death row, Garza was scheduled to be executed August 5, but was granted a temporary reprieve by President Clinton because of concerns about racial and geographic disparities within the federal death penalty system," says OPAL member Ann Neary, a junior from Indianapolis.
"The purpose of the vigil is not only to pray for Mr. Garza and for President Clinton to grant clemency," she says, "but to remember the victims of violence and their families who continue to suffer from their loss."
The vigil supporters also hope to call attention to the United Nations Human Rights Day December 10 and the current Moratorium 2000 campaign to gather signatures nationwide for presentation to the United Nations before its declaration on Universal Human Rights December 18.
"As people of faith and of moral conscience, our local coalition's member churches and individual members are committed to the intrinsic value and dignity of human life and the basic human rights of every person." says Jeff Campbell, parish outreach coordinator of the Catholic Action Commission. "This is the basis for our opposition to the death penalty."
"As a result," Neary says, "we must point out the racial and class disparities in how the death penalty is applied, in addition to recent cases of blatant legal misrepresentation and the conviction of innocent people at the federal and state levels. The Moratorium 2000 campaign calls for a cease in federal executions, not to fix the system but as a first step in its ultimate abolition."
The vigil, open to the public, will last 45 minutes.
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