SOCIAL JUSTICE AT ALL SOULS

—by Steve Bell

The ALL SOULS TASK FORCE TO END THE DEATH PENALTY was founded in the spring of 1999, about two years after I became a member of the church. I had been active in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), a national, grass-roots organization, since the previous spring, and I wanted to help the members of the congregation get involved in anti-death-penalty work. So, with the support of the ministers—and the valuable assistance of Community Minister Jan Carlsson-Bull—I wrote a formal proposal that led to the creation of a new social justice task force at All Souls.

Our first major item of business was to draft a statement of purpose, which proved to be extremely valuable for generating ideas and focusing our thoughts. After several weeks of collaborative effort, we produced the following statement:

The goal of The All Souls Task Force to End the Death Penalty, inspired by the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism and resolutions adopted by the General Assemblies of the Unitarian Universalist Association, is to contribute to the effort to abolish capital punishment in the state of New York and throughout the United States.

While pursuing this goal, the task force works to stop the expansion of the death penalty and to persuade prosecutors not to seek it. The task force also educates both the All Souls and wider communities about the death penalty, the criminal justice system of which it is a part, and the societal forces from which both crime and attitudes about punishment spring. It undertakes these efforts with the deepest respect for the emotional pain of murder victims' families and friends, while recognizing that the death penalty also kills and creates more circles of grief.

In its first few months, the task force took other steps to establish itself, drafting a formal budget request for the Annual Meeting and joining Unitarian Universalists for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an independent affiliate of the UUA, while I kept members apprised of CEDP activities such as street petitioning and speaker forums.

In the spring of 2000, we organized our first public programs, a series of screenings of documentaries on criminal justice issues. We screened "The Thin Blue Line," Errol Morris's classic investigation of a wrongful conviction in Texas, "Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt?" a look into the case of Pennsylvania's most famous death row inmate and "The Farm," an Academy Award-nominated documentary about the harsh conditions at Louisiana's Angola prison farm.

This past church year we focused on the Social Justice series of Adult Education sessions during the month of October. Former New York death row inmate and CEDP founding member Lawrence Hayes spoke at our invitation. He spoke powerfully about the incident that landed him on death row (despite never having killed anyone), the commutation of his sentence, the degrees he earned while incarcerated, his community activism after his release, and his struggles with an over-zealous parole board. Mr. Hayes also articulated the moral, religious, and political basis for his opposition to the death penalty, and took questions from audience members who wondered what they could do to help the abolitionist cause. His speech boosted interest in the task force, as did the bi-monthly Volunteer Fairs.

Next, the Task Force considered a group letter to City Council Speaker Peter Vallone urging him to support a moratorium resolution in the Council. Mr. Vallone had voiced opposition to the proposed resolution, which would call on both the New York State and federal governments to halt executions while capital cases were examined for racial bias, ineffective counsel, and prosecutorial misconduct. We gathered signatures from dozens of members and friends and sent our letter to the Speaker. Shortly thereafter, he agreed to allow a hearing on the resolution—a hearing at which witnesses overwhelmingly supported the resolution.

This past spring, the PRISON REFORM TASK FORCE was formed. This group, under the leadership of Joe Cruickshank and Jan Carlsson-Bull, offered our task force an excellent opportunity to collaborate on addressing problems in the criminal justice system. At a joint meeting of the two groups, we shared ideas, a practice we plan to continue next year. Meanwhile, another speaker forum is planned for the late fall or winter, one in which we hope to feature a lawyer with expertise on the death penalty and a rabbi who illuminates the themes of punishment and mercy in scripture.