Alexander: Death Row, Many Challenges

Stewart A. Alexander
2006 Candidate
California Lieutenant Governor
Peace and Freedom Party

The U.S. Supreme Court made two important decisions on Monday, June 12, that will impact the fate of hundreds of men and women that are on death rows nationwide. Both decisions, written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, will give hundreds of longtime prisoners an opportunity to have their cases tried with the latest methods in DNA science; and secondly to determine if lethal injection amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

Death row challengers nationwide applauded both decisions as significant steps toward ending the practice of capital punishment because of mistakes that have been made; it has not proven to be a deterrent to crime, and the cruelty of executions.

Stewart Alexander, Candidate for California Lieutenant Governor, says, “I respect the decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court, however the entire process of capital punishment in America is flawed. I have many concerns; the lack of quality representation, the jury selection process for capital trials, the procedure in processing and protecting evidence, and how many cases have been tainted by unreliable, prejudice and make believe jail house witnesses. We still live in a nation where a person can be put to death because of the color of their skin, their race, their appearance, negative press coverage, or their social status.”

In many states, including California, death row inmates may stay on death row 15-25 years before they are executed, costing taxpayers billions of dollars yearly to appeal their cases. The problem with many of the cases in appeals is the big factor of time, in many cases evidence is unusable and witnesses are sometimes dead.

Often the person being executed is not the same person as they were when they entered prison; even recently in California, the State executed Clarence Ray Allen, an old man that had deteriorated in health, was cripple, blind and very ill.

Alexander says, “The victims of crime and their families should get finality and justice by commuting the death sentence of prisoners nationwide to life term sentences without the possibility of parole. Capital punish is big business in America; it should be about justice for the criminals, the victims and their families.”

Alexander is running as a candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party in California and the party opposes capital punishment. For more information search the Web for Stewart A. Alexander, Candidate for California Lieutenant Governor.
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