Vernon petition for clemency filed & available on web

Message from Mike Stark, CEDP, MD

Fellow abolitionists,

Today the attorneys for Vernon Evans, who is on death row in Maryland and
facing an execution date the week of Feb. 6th, submitted their final
petition for clemency. This petition included both a written appeal and a
video petition. The written portion is now available on:
http://www.stopexecutionsinmaryland.org.

As many of you know a spririted and very successful rally was
organized by the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty and
the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Annapolis over the weekend
to call on Governor Ehrlich to stop the execution of Vernon Evans.
During this rally the family of Vernon Evans attempted to hand
deliver a letter to the Governor's office asking for clemency for
their loved one. They were told that noone would take their letter.

However, the press coverage was pretty amazing. See:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-
md.death29jan29,1,1380874.story?coll=bal-local-headlines
-- and --
http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_028195241.html


Let's keep the momentum up. Please make every effort to attend one
of the followign events:

1) LIVE FROM DEATH ROW (Baltimore)- Vernon himself speaks out!
Tuesday, Jan. 31, 7:00 pm, Grace Memorial Baptist Church,
1100 N. Eden Street (at Chase St.).
Featuring: death row exonorees Shujaa Graham and Kurt Bloodsworth
also with Rev. Dr. Irvin Pope of Grace Memorial Baptist Church.

2) PRAYER SERVICE (Baltimore)
Thursday, Feb. 2, at New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore

3) DEMONSTRATE at Death Row (Baltimore)
Saturday, Feb. 4, 2:00 pm, at the Supermax prison, Madison and
Fallsway, Baltimore.

Finally, here is a copy of Amnesty International's execution alert
for Vernon Evans. INcluded in it is a petition for Vernon Evans
sponsored by MD CASE.


ACTION ALERT FOR VERNON EVANS

January 25, 2006

To all Amnesty International activists in Maryland:

The State of Maryland is scheduled to execute Vernon Lee Evans, Jr.
at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center (a.k.a. Supermax
Prison) in Baltimore some time during the week of February 6,
2006. Evans, an African-American, was sentenced to death in
Baltimore County for the 1983 murders of hotel clerk David Scott
Piechowicz and his sister-in-law Susan Kennedy, who were white.
Evans would be the second black man executed in Maryland in two
months; Wesley Baker was executed on December 5, 2005.

Please contact Governor Ehrlich today to urge him to grant clemency
to
Vernon Evans!

Take Action

This execution will be the Governor's third since he took office,
the most of any other Maryland governor since the death penalty
was> reinstated in the United States. Let him know as vocally as
possible
that you oppose the death penalty!

We also encourage you to write letters to the editor of your local
newspaper, using the talking points and background information
below.

For more information on how to get involved, please visit the
website
of our coalition partner, Maryland Citizens Against State Executions
(CASE), at: http://www.mdcase.org.

Talking Points

The death penalty in Maryland is being applied in a racially biased
manner.

· A 2003 University of Maryland study commissioned by the
legislature
concluded that there is racial and geographic bias in the state?s
capital sentencing system.

· The Study reports that, in Maryland and especially in Baltimore
County, black defendants alleged to have murdered white victims are
significantly more likely than all other defendants to have the
State's
Attorney seek a death sentence and to be sentenced to death.
Vernon Evans, an African-American man convicted of killing two
white people,> was tried in Baltimore County.

Neither the legislature nor the Governor?s Office has addressed the
implications of this report. It is unconscionable for executions to
proceed in Maryland without a comprehensive review of the study's
findings.

The jury that sentenced Vernon to death never heard compelling
mitigating evidence about Vernon?s childhood, which was marked by
chronic conflict and severe violence.

Amnesty International is opposed to the death penalty in all cases
without exception. We urge clemency for Vernon Evans and renew our
calls to the Governor to halt all executions and allow for a
thorough
formal review of the findings of the race study.

Contact
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.
Office of the Governor
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21401-1925

Email through http://www.gov.state.md.us/mail/ Fax (410) 974-3275
Toll
Free 1-800-811-8336

We also encourage you to write letters to the editor of your local
newspaper.

Background Information on Racial and Geographic Disparities in
Maryland?s Death Sentencing

In recent years Maryland?s capital justice system has drawn scrutiny
and concern. In 1996 the then governor, Parris Glendening,
appointed a
Task Force on the Fair Imposition of Capital Punishment to look into
the fairness of the state?s death penalty system. The Task Force
concluded that in Maryland ''the high percentage of African-American
prisoners under sentence of death and the low percentage of
prisoners
under sentence of death whose victims were African-American
remains
a cause for concern''.
Following this, Governor Glendening commissioned a study by the
University of Maryland into the state?s capital justice system. The
study's report was released in January 2003. Entitled An Empirical
Analysis of Maryland's Death Sentencing System With Respect to the
Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction, by Professor Raymond
Paternoster of the University of Maryland, the study examined all
first
and second-degree murders committed in Maryland from September 1978
until December 1999, approximately 6,000 cases in all. This is the
most
comprehensive study of the impact of race and geography on the death
penalty in Maryland. Governor Glendening also imposed a moratorium
on
executions in May 2002, just days before Wesley Baker was due to
be
executed, pending the outcome of the study.

The University of Maryland?s study concluded that, even when other
factors are taken into account, people who kill white victims are
"significantly"
more likely to face the death penalty than killers of non-whites. It
also concluded that prosecutors in different counties within the
State
"exhibit considerable variation" in their pursuit of the death
penalty.
In terms of whether a particular "death-eligible" murder will be
pursued as a capital crime, therefore, "clearly the jurisdiction
where
the homicide occurs matters and matters a great deal".

Vernon Evans was prosecuted by Baltimore County, which was named as
one
of the US counties with the highest death sentencing rates in a
major
study of the US death penalty by Columbia Law School in 2002, as
well
as the highest error rates in capital cases. Baltimore County
accounts
for four of the five people executed in Maryland since 1978, when
the
current death penalty statute became effective.


Upon taking office in 2003, Governor Robert Ehrlich lifted the
moratorium in the state, saying that he would review every death
warrant on a case-by-case basis.

In November 2005, the State of Maryland executed Wesley Baker, even>
though there were still doubts that he was the actual gunman.

The death penalty punishes the poor. It is racist. It does not deter
crime. It kills innocent people. It is cruel and unusual punishment.

Check out the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
website at: http://www.nodeathpenalty.org.