ACLU of Santa Cruz County, CA

The ACLU of Northern California is actively engaged in efforts to abolish the death penalty. Much of this effort revolves around educating people on such issues as wrongful convictions, uneven application among racial and ethnic groups, and the worldwide movement to abolish the death penalty. (Over 100 countries no longer apply a death penalty to criminals.)

A number of articles and fact sheets are made available through the ACLU Northern California web site: http://www.aclunc.org/issues/criminal_justice/death_penalty/index.shtml

The ACLU position on this issue is well articulated there, as follows:

"Since the death penalty was reinstated 30 years ago, at least three innocent people have been executed and 123 wrongfully convicted people have been freed from death row. Today, nearly 3,500 people are on death row in the U.S.; almost 20 percent of them, more than 650 people, are in California.

"Mistakes are made at every stage of the death penalty system.  The quality of an individual's legal defense, race, and the geographic location where the incident took place have more influence on who will be sentenced to die than the facts of the crime. The death penalty fails victims and fails to promote public safety.

"The ACLU believes that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. Its discriminatory and flawed application violates our rights to equal justice and due process of law."