January 20, 2005
 

For Immediate Release
Contact: Renny Cushing
    617 491 9600 (office)
    603 926 2737 (home)
shing@earthlink.net

Statement of Renny Cushing, Executive Director
on behalf of
Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights

We are pleased that as a result of  Murder Victims Families for Human Rights et als v. Theresa Lantz et als  family members of murder victims and others who oppose the death penalty will be able to assemble outside the Osborne prison on January 26^th without fear of being arrested and jailed for expressing our opposition to executions.

Our action in Federal Court forced Connecticut officials to recognize that the First Amendment to the US Constitution remains in effect even when public employees are engaging in a ritual killing inside the walls of the prison.  The state’s efforts to keep the execution a dirty little secret by keeping citizens corralled far away from the death house, in a field in the next town over from the prison, have failed.  The voices of victims who oppose the death penalty, people like Walt Everett, whose son was murdered, Toni Bosco whose son and daughter in law were murdered, Art Laffin, whose brother was murdered, and others who know the pain that comes from homicide, will speak in front of Osborne prison next week with this human rights message: Victims say “No executions in our name.”

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Our thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut for their legal representation, and to our fellow Plaintiff’s, Amnesty International, The Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.