By Alvin Benn
Montgomery Advertiser
Alabama needs to get rid of the death penalty and restore voting rights to convicted felons who have done their time, the head of the state's NAACP said Saturday.
Edward Vaughn of Dothan highlighted the two criminal justice issues in an interview at the Alabama NAACP's 54th annual meeting in Montgomery, attended by more than 120 delegates from across the state.
"Alabama should join the civilized world," he said.
Vaughn described elimination of capital punishment and restoration of felon voting rights as key agenda items for his organization in the coming year.
"Michigan doesn't have the death penalty," said Vaughn, who lived in Detroit and served four terms in the Michigan Legislature before returning to his hometown six years ago.
"It never had one, even before it became a state," he said. "It has worked well there."
Like Vaughn, Esther Brown wants Alabama to abolish the death penalty. The first step toward that end, she said, should be a cessation of executions.
"We want a moratorium," said Brown, who lives in the Chambers County community of Lanett. "There should be a time out for an independent study to determine the fairness of the application of the death penalty."
The state's decision to use lethal injection instead of the electric chair for executions has not impressed her organization, Brown said, "because we don't know if that is any better."
Brown said a large percentage of inmates on Alabama's death row are there because their victims were white "even though more African-Americans are murdered in Alabama."
"We're one of the few states with jury overrides," she said, referring to a law that allows circuit judges to set aside jury recommendations for life in prison without parole and then impose the death penalty. "We also execute the (mentally ill)."
On restoring voting rights to convicted felons, Vaughn said it is the right thing to do for those who have served their prison sentences.
"If someone has paid their debt to society, it seems to me that they should be allowed to come back into society," he said.
Those in control of Alabama's voting procedures, Vaughn said, know that many convicted felons are black and they don't want them to swell the ranks of voters.
"I think it's a deliberate attempt to control a certain segment of our population," he said.
Montgomery Advertiser
Alabama needs to get rid of the death penalty and restore voting rights to convicted felons who have done their time, the head of the state's NAACP said Saturday.
Edward Vaughn of Dothan highlighted the two criminal justice issues in an interview at the Alabama NAACP's 54th annual meeting in Montgomery, attended by more than 120 delegates from across the state.
"Alabama should join the civilized world," he said.
Vaughn described elimination of capital punishment and restoration of felon voting rights as key agenda items for his organization in the coming year.
"Michigan doesn't have the death penalty," said Vaughn, who lived in Detroit and served four terms in the Michigan Legislature before returning to his hometown six years ago.
"It never had one, even before it became a state," he said. "It has worked well there."
Like Vaughn, Esther Brown wants Alabama to abolish the death penalty. The first step toward that end, she said, should be a cessation of executions.
"We want a moratorium," said Brown, who lives in the Chambers County community of Lanett. "There should be a time out for an independent study to determine the fairness of the application of the death penalty."
The state's decision to use lethal injection instead of the electric chair for executions has not impressed her organization, Brown said, "because we don't know if that is any better."
Brown said a large percentage of inmates on Alabama's death row are there because their victims were white "even though more African-Americans are murdered in Alabama."
"We're one of the few states with jury overrides," she said, referring to a law that allows circuit judges to set aside jury recommendations for life in prison without parole and then impose the death penalty. "We also execute the (mentally ill)."
On restoring voting rights to convicted felons, Vaughn said it is the right thing to do for those who have served their prison sentences.
"If someone has paid their debt to society, it seems to me that they should be allowed to come back into society," he said.
Those in control of Alabama's voting procedures, Vaughn said, know that many convicted felons are black and they don't want them to swell the ranks of voters.
"I think it's a deliberate attempt to control a certain segment of our population," he said.
technorati tags: Death+Penalty, Capital+Punishment, NAACP, Alabama
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