July 1999

Dear Friend,

The Moratorium Now! campaign is celebrating a major milestone. Over 500 groups have now joined the call for an immediate moratorium on executions! Congratulations for your hard work and solid commitment.

The National Tally of endorsers is enclosed. We remain on track toward our goal of 2,000 groups by the end of 2000.

As we rounded the 500th corner, Chapel Hill, North Carolina became the fourth city in the nation to adopt a moratorium resolution as the statewide campaign gains momentum. The United Church of Christ is urging its congregations to publicly support a halt on executions. And an organizing drive in Rochester, New York has already gathered 40 organizational resolutions. Similar initiatives are spreading across the country. Could your town be next?

This grassroots initiative is provoking official action:

• A bipartisan group of legislators introduced a two-year moratorium bill in the Pennsylvania Senate on May 10.
  
• In late May, Nebraska's legislature unanimously (43-0) overrode Governor Johanns' veto of an appropriations bill to fund a two-year study of the fairness of the state's death penalty. (A separate bill imposing a two-year halt on executions, also vetoed by the governor, was never brought up for an override vote.)
  
• In June, state legislator Ellie Kinnaird introduced a resolution in the North Carolina Senate calling for a two-year moratorium on executions.

Yet for every group that has now called for a moratorium, seven people are imprisoned on death row. Over 3,500 men and women await death at the hands of a death penalty system that the American Bar Association has called "a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency."

Our efforts must continue and intensify!

Please continue working to break through the wall of public support for the death penalty. You can knock away one brick by finding a local church, business or community group to adopt a moratorium resolution. Click here to see our online organizing packet, which includes model resolutions. Be sure to send copies of all ratified resolutions to your local, state and national elected officials and to Equal Justice USA, so we can add your group to the ever-growing tally.

Help Spread the News!

The movement needs publicity if we are to achieve the massive public education necessary to create a national climate for change. Stories about Moratorium Now! organizing need to find their way into every local paper hungering for local news.

Help build a grassroots Moratorium Now! media campaign. Alert the media about resolutions and other actions taken by local groups. Issue a press release or write a letter to the editor. Local and regional media will often cover controversial issues much more readily than the national press. Your efforts to spread the word are vital to the expansion of the movement for a moratorium. Equal Justice USA can help you develop the materials and skills you need for working with the press. The materials can be found on our online organizing packet.

Because of your commitment, this campaign is growing. Over the next few months, we will add new staff to our organizing efforts. (Look for introductions in our next mailing.)

Equal Justice USA's Moratorium Now! campaign is truly a grassroots effort, which means we rely on people like you for 95 percent of our budget. Please give $50 if you can. Click here to make a donation using our secure server.

Your support hastens a nationwide moratorium and the death penalty's ultimate demise. Let us hear from you soon!

P.S. Moratorium Now! is gaining media attention! Recently, Equal Justice USA staff has been quoted in an Associated Press wire story, been interviewed by the NBC Nightly News and appeared on Court TV. A feature article on the moratorium movement is planned for a future issue of Governing Magazine - a leading publication among legislators. Contact your local media and urge them to cover moratorium organizing activities in your area.