BY TED LEONARD
BOSTON - More than 250 people rallied on the steps of the Massachusetts State House here October 27 in opposition to the death penalty. Protesters carried signs demanding "Down with the Racist Death Penalty," "An eye for an eye leaves two people blind," and asking "Who will you kill when the state kills the wrong person?"

Five days later 200 people participated in a second rally at the State House in the pouring rain.

The rallies were in response to a bill to restore the death penalty that the House passed October 28 by a 81-79 vote. It was the eighth time in seven years a death penalty bill was before the House. A few weeks earlier, the state Senate passed a different bill to reinstate capital punishment.

Proponents of the death penalty took advantage of several recent murders and sexual assaults of women and children to wage an hysterical campaign for the measure. The last execution in Massachusetts took place in 1947. The October 27 platform included a representative of Amnesty International, civil libertarians, local church leaders, and elected officials.

Bobby Joe Leaster also spoke. At age 19 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. After serving 15 years for a crime he did not commit, Leaster was released when new evidence was presented that exonerated him. Quoted the day after the rally in The Boston Globe he said, "I'm a living example of what could happen."

Echoing this theme The Boston Globe in an October 28 editorial, entitled "Wrongful death" explained, "In a welter of public passion, Massachusetts executed Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti 70 years ago. Half a century later, the state apologized. A proclamation signed by Governor Dukakis acknowledged that their trial had been unfair. While their innocence has not been established beyond doubt, their guilt is certainly in question, and the proclamation directed that their names be cleared."

Alicia Jefferson, a young Black woman, explained from the platform, "There is no justice in this country. If there was they would be talking about giving us food and housing and education."

Elena Tate and Michaela McSweeny, from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School Gay/Straight Alliance, spoke. Tate said, "Young people have a huge stake in keeping the death penalty out of our state. It is a dangerous tool for the state to have and impossible to be given out justly."

The November 1 "Rally to Stop the Death Penalty" was sponsored by and included speakers from the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, Massachusetts chapter of the Lawyers Guild, the NAACP, Physicians for Human Rights, American Friends Service Committee, and a number of prisoner rights organizations. This rally was overwhelmingly young with students from nearby high schools and campuses.

If the bill passed by the House goes into effect, Massachusetts would become the 39th state to reintroduce the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court made it legal to do so in 1976.

The bill is broad in scope, covering first-degree murders that fall into 15 categories. They include the killing of cops; firefighters, judges, jurors, and witnesses; people killed by explosive devices or automatic weapons; defendants involved in drug "trafficking;" murders committed in violation of domestic restraining orders; and murders committed in front of immediate family members.

Andrew Buchanan, the Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Boston, campaigning at the November 1 rally said, "All working people, youth, and those interested in the defense of democratic rights must join the fight against the death penalty. Not only because of its barbarity but because it is a weapon leveled against all working people and all progressive social movements. It is a weapon the bosses and their politicians aim to use extensively in the deepening economic crisis, social turmoil, and working-class resistance which lie ahead."

Ted Leonard is a member of the United Transportation Union Local 1473.  
 
 
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