Pittsburgh City Council Resolution

Resolution No. 125
calling for a moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania until a fair and impartial study of the application of the death penalty is conducted.
To assure protection for the innocent to the fundamental right to life by providing a temporary moratorium on carrying out the death penalty to assure that persons able to prove their innocence are not executed.

WHEREAS, the American Bar and Pennsylvania Bar Associations have called for a moratorium on the death penalty; and

WHEREAS, more than 90% of the people on Pennsylvania’s death row were too poor to afford a lawyer for their initial trial and were left with whatever representation in the state selected for them; and

WHEREAS, after sending an individual to death row, Pennsylvania provides no funds for post-conviction legal defense, and instead, has appropriated $500,000 to the Attorney General’s office to establish an execution resource center to oppose capital appeals; and

WHEREAS, the quality of counsel for the poor in Pennsylvania capital cases has been characterized as a “problem of major proportions” by a joint task force of Pennsylvania State & Federal Courts; and

WHEREAS, of the 225 inmates on Pennsylvania’s death row, 155 (70 %) of them are people of color, giving Pennsylvania one of the highest percentages for people of color on death row in the Nation; and

WHEREAS, two of the nation’s foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, conducted an exhaustive study of Philadelphia’s death sentences which revealed that the odds of receiving a death sentence in Philadelphia are greater if the defendant is African American; and

WHEREAS, because of the advent of DNA testing ended the addition of new evidence, there has been a substantial increase in the number of individuals, sentenced to death, found innocent; and WHEREAS, it costs an estimated $3 million to try a death penalty case, which is three to ten times more than the cost of life in prison; and

WHEREAS, such notables as Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, State Representative William Russell Robinson and President and CEO Khalid Raheem of the National Council for Urban Peace and Justice are calling for a moratorium.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Pittsburgh City Council calls on the Pennsylvania Legislature to enact legislation which results in a two-year moratorium on executions and the signing of death warrants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call on the Pennsylvania Legislature to conduct a fair and impartial study of the application of the death penalty. the moratorium should remain in place until the legal, political, racial, economic, moral, and ethical problems surrounding the death penalty are fully resolved and the policy of State execution can be certified as a legal and just form of capital punishment.


In Council February 29, 2000, Read and Adopted.
SPONSORED BY GENE RICCIARDI AND CO-SPONSORED BY SALA UDIN AND MR. FERLO
Recorded in Resolution Book, Volume 134, this 9th day of March, 2000.
This resolution was passed by the Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday, February 29, 2000.




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