This site was created for those who want to know about the death penalty, or those who dont believe in the death penalty. I hope that the site will change your perspective on the death penalty.

QUICK INFORMATION 

For new news stories, please click to the link for News.

 The difference between Life and Death Report taken from the Death Penalty Information Center is located on the LIFE AND DEATH page of the website.

  For some Facts on the Death Penalty, please visit this site, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf

Provided by Death Penalty Information Center.

For the Innocence Figures of 2004 click the link below: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=1150

TIME ON DEATH ROW:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1397

For information on the costs of the Death Penalty, please vist the page "The Issue with Cost" on my website.

Many family members of murder victims oppose the death penalty, for a variety of reasons. Some believe that it is wrong for individuals to kill and it is wrong for the state to kill. Others believe that the risk of executing an innocent person is unacceptable and that the system cannot be made to work fairly and accurately. Still others believe the lengthy legal process is just too hard on victims, and that it is just not worth the time and expense. Below are voices of murder victim family members who believe that the death penalty is not consistent public policy, does not make the public safer, does not deter crime, and does not serve victims.

Marge Mattice
(Green Bay, WI)

Marge is a Nurse Practitioner living in Green Bay. She is a member of the diocesan and the St. Norbert Abbey Peace and Justice Committees, a Norbertine lay associate and a volunteer in her parish. Her brother Thomas Williams was murdered in Houston, Texas in 2001.

"I feel like I come from a pretty sound base when I address my pro-life concerns for the death penalty. I don't think it's an answer. It's not a solution in terms of my own brother. Nothing is going to bring him back. I would get absolutely no satisfaction from seeing another person murdered. That's not a tribute to my brother or any other victim of homicide."

Aleta Reckling Chossek
(Shorewood, WI)

Aleta Reckling Chossek is the assistant to the bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Her father was murdered in Lake County, Illinois in 1994.

“The death penalty option brought no peace, no closure to our family. Murder brings out primitive emotions in families. In addition to the grief, there is the natural desire for closure, retribution, justice and, ultimately, peace. The whole family, even the youngest grandchildren, lives with the legacy of that terrible death.”

“Christians profess that Jesus took all sin upon him in his death. Yet we flawed humans seek to answer death with death. Does that not diminish Christ's suffering on our behalf? I believe that God has taken care of my sin, my father's sin and the murderer's sin. No act of man can make God's sacrifice more complete. A referendum is not a suitable vehicle for honoring people's experiences and beliefs about death and justice.”

Robert W. Hoelscher
(Austin, TX)

Robert is a member of Murder Victim’s Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), a national organization of murder victim family members who oppose the death penalty in all cases. Robert’s father was murdered when he was seven years old.

“Two days after my father’s murder, my mother called the parents of the young man responsible. She told them that she that she understood, that she had sons, too and that hatred would not bring my dad back. She forgave their son right there. As I grew up I never associated ‘closure’ with the fate of my father’s killer. And I learned from my mother that another death would bring me no peace or offer real justice for our community. Today, the teenager that so long ago made five children fatherless remains in a small prison cell in East Texas, where I continue to hope that one day he will wake up and ask himself, ‘What have I done?’”

http://www.nodeathpenaltywi.org/victimsvoices.asp

Author of Wisconsin Death Penalty Referendum Says Law Has No Chance of Passing

Sen. Al Lasee (R-DePere) of Wisconsin was the author of legislation that placed a non-binding referendum on the death penalty on the state's ballot in Tuesday's election.  Although 56% of the voters approved the death penalty proposal, which required that DNA evidence confirm the conviction, Lasee said there was no chance of such a law passing in the near future:  "I am a realist. There is no prospect," said Lasee , a longtime supporter of capital punishment. "The Democrats took control of the Senate and Gov. Doyle got re-elected."  The governor opposes the death penalty and could veto any bill enacting capital punishment.  Lasee guided the advisory referendum through the Legislature when both houses were controlled by Republicans and he was president of the Senate.  He conceded that the DNA evidence requirement would probably have been dropped from an eventual bill.
(The Capital Times (WI), Nov. 8, 2006). (DPIC)

	Spring 1995	Spring 2000
Strongly Favor	50%	33%
Moderately Favor	21	32
Moderately Oppose	11	15
Strongly Oppose	14	17
Not Sure	4	3

"What is the primary reason you FAVOR the death penalty?"

"What is the primary reason you OPPOSE the death penalty?"

"Now in regards to the murder of a child under the age of 16, do you strongly favor, moderately favor, moderately oppose or strongly oppose the use of the death penalty for persons convicted of such a crime?"

Preferred Method of Execution

"If Wisconsin were to enact a death penalty, which method of execution do you think the state should use. . .?"

Life in Prison

"Do you strongly favor, moderately favor, moderately oppose or strongly oppose life in prison without parole for persons convicted of first degree intentional murder in Wisconsin?"

Strongly Favor	65%
Moderately Favor	17
Moderately Oppose	8
Strongly Oppose	8
Not Sure	2

Questions for the Government ?

1) Why do we need the Death Penalty?

2) How does it help the way we feel about someone?

3) Does the Deaht Penalty help with violence in the US?

4) Do we really feel satisfied after someone has been executed?

5) What is the point of the Death Penalty?

6) Does the Death Penalty really make us feel safer after someone has been executed?

7) Why do we even have the Death Penalty?

8) Wouldent the government be better off without the Death Penalty?

What do you think? Send me your answers via-email to krp@1colony.com

DP Quiz

Take this little quiz from the Death Penalty Information Center and click on the True/False for the answer.

Q.1. The death penalty saves taxpayers money because it is cheaper to execute someone than to keep them in prison for the rest of their life.

True False

Q.2. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, more black people have been executed than white people.

True False

Q.3 After the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976, the first person to be executed was Gary Gilmore in Utah by a firing squad.

True False

Q.4 Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., between 5 and 10 people have been released from death row because they were innocent.

True False

Q.5. In most states with the death penalty, you could be executed even if you suffer from mental retardation.

True False

Q.6. If you commit a crime in certain states like Massachusetts or Wisconsin, you cannot receive the death penalty.

True False

Q.7. Hanging has not been used as a method of execution in the United States for over 30 years.

True False

Q.8. When the police chiefs of the U.S. were polled on their views about ways to lower the crime rate, only 1% named the death penalty as their top priority in reducing violent crime.

True False

Q.9. No woman has been executed in the U.S. for over 25 years.

True False

Q.10 The Supreme Court has said that defendants who were 16 or 17-years-old at the time of their crime can receive the death penalty.

True False

From Death Penalty Information Center.

Click on your choice for the answer.

Thank you for visiting my website! I really hope that it changed your perspective on the Death Penalty!!

Webmaster: krp@1colony.com

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