The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.15           April 20, 1998 
 
 
Activists Protest Death Penalty In Florida  

BY GLEN SWANSON AND RACHELE FRUIT
MIAMI - "The state of Florida is about to carry out the legal murder of four people in the eight-day period beginning March 23," stated Angel Lariscy, who represented the Socialist Workers Party at the Militant Labor Forum here March 20.

Judy Buenoano, Gerald Stano, Leo Jones, and Daniel Remeta are scheduled to be electrocuted in Rayford, the site of Florida's electric chair.

The State Senate unanimously endorsed continued use of the chair they affectionately refer to as "Old Sparky," on March 18. Last year, foot-high flames shot up from Pedro Medina's head as he was executed, causing months of debate about the use of the 75-year-old instrument of death. The state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last fall that the chair could remain in use.

Most of the discussion in the media focused on what is the "best" method to kill death row prisoners. Florida is one of only six states in the nation that mandates electrocution as the method of execution.

"The unanimous decision of the state Senate and the ease with which it is discussed is part of the nationwide push to increase the use of the death penalty," Lariscy said. "These legal lynchings have nothing to do with fighting crime. They are meant to dehumanize the working class and to stifle resistance. Capital punishment is meted out to those without capital, while the crimes of capital go unpunished.

"From the workers who are maimed and killed from unsafe working conditions to the millions of children who die from preventable diseases because of lack of medical care, these are among the greatest crimes committed today," Lariscy added. "The class that wields economic and political power gets away with mass murder every day. As we sit here, the workers of Iraq continue to face the trigger-happy U.S. government."

Also speaking at the forum was Ray Taseff from the American Civil Liberties Union. He stated that although in the polls support for capital punishment seems high, "public support for the death penalty goes down once you start to probe it with questions like, `Do you support the execution of juveniles or the mentally retarded?' Some politicians, however, such as U.S. Senator Bob Graham, have made their careers on the death penalty." Both speakers pointed to U.S. president William Clinton's attendance at the Arkansas execution of Ricky Ray Rector, who was mentally incompetent, during Clinton's first presidential election campaign. "Fifty percent of all the executions carried out since 1976 have taken place since Clinton became president," Lariscy stated.

Taseff said that there is a debate now among progressive lawyers whether competent, zealous attorneys should be involved in death penalty litigation at all. "Does our involvement give credibility to the institution, does it feed the machinery of death, or is it our obligation to save even one life if we can?"

Lariscy said that the legal fights against the death penalty are important but that ultimately a political fight by the labor movement, which is the eventual target of the state's death apparatus, will be required to stop it. "The 1972 Supreme Court decision, which temporarily halted the use of the death penalty, came on the heels of the massive working class-based civil rights movement that exposed institutionalized racism in the U.S. and demanded a new respect for human life."  
 
 
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