http://www.timesunion.com

Quoted Text

Death penalty critics speak out
Black, Puerto Rican lawmakers at annual meeting hear from opponents of capital punishment

By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer
First published: Sunday, February 17, 2008

ALBANY -- Alan Newton knows firsthand how the justice system can go terribly wrong, and now he uses his experience to talk about the time and money he says is wasted on supporting the death penalty.
     
Newton was sentenced in 1985 to 40 years in prison, convicted of raping a woman in an abandoned Bronx building in June 1984. He was in prison for 22 years before DNA evidence cleared him and he was released in 2006.
"During the time this state had a death penalty, $200 million was wasted on it," Newton said Saturday in Albany. "That is money that could have gone toward rehabilitation or crime prevention. I can tell you that we have brothers and sisters leaving the penitentiaries just as ignorant as they were when they went in. We should be doing something about that."
Newton was one of the anti-death penalty panelists who spoke during this weekend's 37th annual Legislative Conference of the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators meeting at Empire State Plaza. There were no death penalty supporters on the panel.
In 1995, the state Legislature voted, at the urging of the new governor, George Pataki, to reinstate the death penalty. The Court of Appeals effectively overturned the mandate in 2004.
Steven Mollette of Peekskill was forced to face the issue in a Schenectady County courtroom in December 2006.
Mollette's daughter, Unishun Mollette, was 19 when she was killed by bullets meant for someone else as she sat in the back seat of a car in Hamilton Hill in September 2003. Kenneth Portee is serving 50 years to life.
"I sat in that courtroom every day during the trial and there was no question in my mind he was guilty," Mollette told a gathering of about 50 people at the session held in a concourse meeting room. "Part of me wanted him to die, too. But during the sentencing his daughter and mother were there and the compassionate side of me came out. I thought I did not want that man's mother to go through what I went through."
Mollette said he believed less money should go to vengeance and more to preventive measures.
"There should be more reaching out to teach men, for instance, to help out and be more responsible for their families, their own lives and their communities," Mollette said.
David Kaczynski, who heads New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, also spoke at the session. The brother of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski said the law has many gray areas and has cost millions in taxpayer money that could have been better spent.
To date, 213 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 16 who served time on death row, according the Innocence Project, a justice research group.
"It did nothing to protect us," Kaczynski said of the death penalty. "Crime is still up and people are still getting wrongfully convicted, and it is no secret that people of color are more likely to face the death penalty."
The gathering from across the state saw a full day of individual discussion sessions Saturday on topics such as labor unions, parenting, gang violence, education, health, law enforcement and the death penalty. There was also a Youth Hip Hop Summit held at the Swyer Theatre.
The association's conference continues today with information booths; crafts, fashion and music sales; a morning church service; awards ceremony; and a gala scholarship benefit banquet.

I was always for the death penalty UNTIL the discovery of DNA. I just wonder how many people are in prison serving a sentence for a crime they never did commit. Or for that matter, how many innocent people were wrongfully executed? And for that reason and that reason alone, I am against the death penalty.