| Type | National grassroots organization NGO |
|---|---|
| Location | United States |
| Focus | Human rights activism |
| Mission | To abolish the death penalty |
| Method | petitioning, press conferences, protesting |
| Website | [1] |
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is a national anti-death penalty organization in the United States, built on the philosophy that death row inmates and their family members must be at the center of fighting to abolish the death penalty. CEDP uses the experiences of death row prisoners to shape the organization's strategies that are used in an effort to achieve their goal of the abolition of capital punishment in the United States. It is a grassroots organization with chapters in Austin and Denton, Texas; the Bay Area, in California; Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; Delaware; and numerous university chapters throughout America. Annual conventions are held in which the board of directors is voted in. Regular meetings, petitioning drives, researching individual cases of death row inmates, and press conferences are among the organization's strategies. Citizens can get involved with the CEDP through volunteering, interning, and/or donating money to the organization. [1].
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Campaign to End the Death Penalty is a grassroots organization with chapters in Austin and Denton, Texas; the Bay Area, in California; Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; and Delaware. CEDP claims to focus more of its energy and resources in the state of Texas because Texas executes more prisoners than any other state in the U.S.
Board Members:
Crystal Bybee, Mark Clements, Martina Correia, Pat Foley, Lawrence Hayes, Lily Hughes, Ronnie Kitchen, Marlene Martin, Derrel Myers, Yusef Salaam, Jeannine Scott, Liliana Segura, Lee Wengraf, and Sandra Jones.
Honorary Board Members:
Darby Tillis and Sandra Reed
Campaign Staff:
Mark Clements, Randi Jones, Lily Hughes, Marlene Martin, and Pat Foley [2].
Citizens can get involved with the CEDP through volunteering, interning, and/or donating money to the organization [3].
CEDP, along with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Death Penalty Focus of California seeks the abolition of capital punishment in the United States [4].
"With the per se constitutionality of the death penalty well-established by the U.S. Supreme Court, for more than twenty years public debate has centered on the moral and political ramifications of capital punishment, a debate dominated by groups seeking to persuade political leaders and the public-at-large of the righteousness of their respective positions. At one extreme, abolitionist groups such as Amnesty International and Campaign to End the Death Penalty have lamented the purported unfairness and immorality of the "ultimate sanction." At the other extreme, pro-death penalty groups such as the Washington Legal Foundation and Justice For All have vigorously defended the government's use of the death penalty, pointing to its purported retributive and deterrent value" [5].
Regular meetings, petitioning drives, researching individual cases of death row inmates, and press conferences are among the organization's strategies [6].
CEDP has published a newsletter, The New Abolitionist, since late in 1997 [7].
CEDP assited in the following cases: Ryan Mathews, Kevin Cooper in California, Kenneth Foster in Texas, Eugene Colvin-El in Maryland, and assisted in a statewide moratorium and blanket commutations in Illinois. CEDP was also involved in the effort to keep the death penalty out of the state of New York[8]. CEDP brought attention to the Troy Anthony Davis case. Davis was convicted of murdering an off duty police officer in Georgia [9]. CEDP is also involved in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case in Pennsylvania, and Rob Will's case in Texas[10]. CEDP sponsored a speech given by former Illinois Governor George Ryan, a Republican, at DePaul University on the death penalty. Ryan believes that capital punishment does not deter crime, and exonerated Madison Hobley, who was in attendance at the speech, in 2003. [11].
It was reported in the Washington Post that the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a peace group that is against the Iraq war, and The Campaign to End the Death Penalty were secretly monitored by undercover Maryland state Police for over a year in 2005 and 2006. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland brought attention to the monitoring by police and requested that they stop[12].