Moratorium leader sees hope for end of death penalty

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 19, 2001 by Patrick O'Neill

In spring of 1999, Stephen Dear had a hunch. As head a statewide group in North Carolina called People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, Dear had attended a national anti-death penalty conference in Texas.

There he became committed to a new effort being promoted by abolitionists: a moratorium. Ostensibly a temporary measure to determine whether the death penalty is being administered fairly, opponents hope a moratorium will expose capital punishment as irreparably unjust, and lead states and the federal government to abolish it.

Dear saw possibilities in a moratorium. While a significant majority of U.S. citizens -- perhaps as many as 70 percent of North Carolinians -- generally support the death penalty, Dear believes those same proponents might not be so enthusiastic if they knew what he knows: Death rows in the United States are disproportionately full of poor people of color who often have had inadequate representation. at trial. ** People of Faith is a statewide group that seeks to abolish the death penalty and provide support for inmates on death row, their families and families of victimes.

Idea takes off

When Dear floated the moratorium idea by his board, interest was minimal. Eighteen months later, with Dear at the helm, has propelled North Carolina into the forefront of the burgeoning moratorium effort. By the end of 2000, nine cities in North Carolina, including the state's largest city, Charlotte, had passed moratorium resolutions. More cities are expected to join in this year.

More than 140 other groups, from individual congregations to university student governments, have also passed moratorium resolutions.

Dear, a native of Elizabeth City, N.C., believes logic and justice are on his side. Part of the reason the moratorium effort is growing, he said, is death penalty advocates don't have to change their position to get on the bandwagon. In fact, a lot of the momentum for a moratorium is coming from Republicans and conservatives who support the death penalty but are starting to question the way capital punishment is applied.

The media of late has been full of stories of condemned men being freed from death row because new evidence has exonerated them. The prospect of an innocent person being executed is enough to give pause to the most ardent proponent of capital punishment, Dear believes.

Sr. Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and one of the nation's most prominent death penalty foes, came to Raleigh last year to help bolster the moratorium effort. Prejean has become one of Dear's greatest fans.

"The great thing about Steve Dear is he, more than anyone else in this country, is able to galvanize and change public opinion about the death penalty," Prejean said. "He has been the first to show the dynamics between religious communities, city councils and state legislatures. First, he gets religious congregations to sign on for a moratorium against the death penalty, and then religious congregations call on the city council, and then the city council builds the collective will within the state to call on state legislators."

At an anti-death penalty gathering held recently at the United Nations, it was announced that 250,000 U.S. signatures had been collected for the U.N.'s Moratorium 200 Campaign, a resolution asking for a global halt to executions. Dear and People of Faith were responsible for the 21,000 signatures collected in North Carolina. Only California, by a few hundred signers, gathered more.

Widespread support

"The widespread public support for a moratorium on executions in North Carolina is undeniable, and it continues to grow," Dear said. "The tide is turning. Whatever you think about the death penalty, you've got to admit there's change happening. We have great changes coming about in America."

Dear's group has received significant support from the state's more than 300,000 registered Catholics. Raleigh diocese Bishop F. Joseph Gossman asked his pastors to promote the moratorium effort from the pulpit and collect signatures after Masses during Advent. The People of Faith board has always included a large number of Catholics.

Dear finds it isn't hard to be persuasive. "It's easy to give a talk about the death penalty because the numbers are on our side every way you look at it. It's just not working the way anybody would want it to work."

The numbers he cites are compelling:

* Since 1970, more than 80 condemned inmates -- four from North Carolina -- were found to be innocent and freed from death row.

* In North Carolina, 98 percent of those facing capital charges cannot afford to hire an attorney.

* In North Carolina, a person charged with killing a white is 4.4 times more likely to receive a death sentence.

* Sixty-six percent of all executions in North Carolina have been of African-Americans, a group that constitutes less than 20 percent of the state's population.

* More than 60 percent of the state's 216 death row inmates are non-whites.

At the conference in Texas in 1999, Dear agreed to help push the moratorium effort to force a review of the death penalty in the United States. To get the effort underway in North Carolina, Dear sent out 500 letters with moratorium resolutions to 25 cities and scores of congregations.