The challenge

More than 3,500 people in the United States await execution. Most come from poor neighborhoods noted for high crime rates, drugs, untreated mental illness, inadequate schools and substandard health care. Most are people of color. In 1990, public pressure prompted an investigation by the Chicago Police Department's Office of Professional Standards, which concluded that a police lieutenant and fellow officers had engaged in two decades of systematic abuse. Most of this abuse was directed at African-American men. Death penalty critics charge that false confessions and tainted convictions put many men in prison, some on death row. In Illinois and in 37 other states, capital punishment remains, as do related questions about law enforcement and the justice system.

Seeds of commitment

Greta Holmes, Alice Kim, Noreen McNulty, and Joan Parkin are the leaders of Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), a Chicago-based, grassroots organization with chapters and members in numerous states. Through CEDP, prisoners, high school and university students, activists, and lawyers work together to show the public the human faces on death row. Shortly after McNulty moved to Chicago in 1995, she attended a hearing for Aaron Patterson, a prisoner who was appealing his death sentence. His story, including allegations of police torture, inspired McNulty to work toward ending the death penalty. McNulty, who is CEDP's administrator, has been working for the campaign since 2001. Kim, who works as a research administrator for a women's H.I.V. study in Chicago, joined CEDP in 1998. Holmes grew up in an African-American family intensely committed to working for social justice. She joined CEDP in 1999. Community organizer Parkin, a social-justice activist in New York City, moved to Chicago in 1998 and joined CEDP.

Accomplishments

In the late 1990s, as a growing body of evidence suggested the depth of inequality within the Illinois justice system, illustrating that capital punishment in Illinois was being meted out unfairly, journalists, lawyers, prisoners' families, and activist groups – including CEDP – joined the fight to win release for prisoners who had not received fair trails. In describing its reasons for opposing the death penalty, CEDP states that “… minorities and the poor are disproportionately singled out for the death penalty, safeguards against executing the innocent are inadequate, the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, and it is a vengeful, barbaric punishment inconsistent with the ideals of a civil society." CEDP has been particularly effective in changing public and official opinion. In 1999, the organization began arranging for death-row inmates' families to testify at public hearings. CEDP also held news conferences where families and prisoners described false accusations, police brutality, and forced confessions. In 2000, Gov. George Ryan declared a temporary moratorium on executions, while a state commission reviewed the capital punishment system. In 2002, the commission recommended sweeping changes in that system.

Former prison inmate Madison Hobley and others on death row in Illinois owe their lives to CEDP, and to groups that share its mission. In 1987, Chicago police arrested and beat Hobley, an African-American who had never been in trouble with the law, and accused him of arson and the deaths of seven people. Hobley was tried and sentenced to die. In January 2003, thanks to CEDP's persistence – and a petition filed with the Illinois Prison Review Board by Hobley’s lawyers – Ryan pardoned Hobley (who had spent 16 years behind bars) based on his innocence, and also pardoned three other death-row inmates. The governor also commuted the sentences of 156 inmates on death row. These inmates, and 11 others who had been sentenced to death but who were not in the custody of the Department of Corrections, were given life terms. Two-thirds of these prisoners were African-American or Latino.

The death penalty still exists in Illinois, but the CEDP campaign helped change the tone of the capital-punishment debate in the United States. Because of CEDP and other activist organizations, the public discussion of the death penalty occurs within the context of the criminal-court system's deficiencies. CEDP is particularly adept at reaching out to the prisoners' families and giving them central roles in the campaign against the death penalty. These families, in turn, bring more people to the cause. Across the country, groups are replicating CEDP's techniques, giving a human face to capital punishment. CEDP "was always behind the scene helping us,” Hobley recently wrote, “and they put our (family members') faces and voices in the forefront."

Leadership style

CEDP has a small central office and a large, collective approach to leadership. McNulty visits, one-on-one, with prisoners' families to integrate them into the campaign. Holmes is a stalwart grassroots organizer and skillful when it comes to encouraging shy newcomers to participate. Parkin's strong suit is reaching out to prisoners; she helps them see themselves as fighters in a cause beyond their own needs. Kim is a strategist who anticipates problems and sets schedules. Over the years, they have met with legislators, organized protests, hosted conferences and arranged public conversations with death-row prisoners at public forums, using amplified speakerphones. These innovative telephone meetings, dubbed "Live from Death Row," bring inmates before an audience of as many as 100 people, including CEDP chapter members, former prisoners, prisoners' family members, and anyone else who is interested. People favoring capital punishment sometimes change their views.

"If you can't accept setbacks or defeat, you may as well get out of this work," says Rob Warden, Executive Director at the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions. The members of CEDP "have tasted defeat and haven't lost their appetite for the struggle," he says. All but McNulty are volunteers. They have held three national conventions in Chicago, and confer closely with groups with related missions, including Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation and the We Demand Justice Committee.

The future

Many people in Illinois remain unaware that the death penalty is still on the books. Six prisoners recently were sent to death row, and nearly 200 death-penalty cases are pending in Cook County alone. Across the state, 90 percent of prisoners in pending capital-offense cases are non-white, according to a 2004 report by the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty. CEDP continues to educate the public on the reality of the death penalty and to reach out to prisoners’ family members. Holmes hopes to establish a network of African-American churches that will speak out against the death penalty. Parkin plans to continue working with people wrongfully convicted, and with victims of police brutality. Even if the death penalty is abolished, Kim hopes to continue and expand her work with prisoners. She wants to promote a justice system that focuses on rehabilitation.

More about Holmes, Kim, McNulty, Parkin and CEDP

"This group of leaders is able to meet and deal with anyone. They have the intellectual ability, the education, and a high degree of emotional intelligence."
– Rob Warden, Executive Director, Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions