[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 1, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S1022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      INTERNATIONAL ABOLITION DAY

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I rise to mark 
International Abolition Day. This day marks the occasion in 1847 when 
the state of Michigan became the first English-speaking territory in 
the world to abolish capital punishment. As one of the first acts 
following conferral of statehood on Michigan, the Michigan legislature 
abolished the death penalty for all crimes except treason. I note, with 
tongue and cheek and with all due respect to my distinguished 
colleagues from Michigan, that the date marking International Abolition 
Day probably should be 1853, when my great state, the state of 
Wisconsin, became the first state to abolish the death penalty for all 
crimes. Wisconsin has been death penalty-free for nearly 150 years. It 
is clear that the people of the Midwestern states have shown great 
courage and leadership on this issue since almost the birth of our 
great Nation.
  Mr. President, International Abolition Day is a day to remember the 
victims and survivors of violent crimes perpetrated by individual 
criminals. But it is also a day to remember those killed by state-
sponsored executions. And it is a day for education and discussion of 
alternatives to the death penalty.
  Just as the people of Michigan over 150 years ago learned the painful 
reality of the fallibility of our criminal justice system and 
confronted the death penalty's main use, as a tool of vengeance, people 
throughout the United States today are beginning to question their 
longstanding support for the death penalty. On January 31, Governor 
Ryan effectively imposed a moratorium on executions in Illinois until a 
state panel can examine the administration of the death penalty and why 
so many innocents have sat on Illinois' death row. In a recent Gallup 
poll, even though a majority of Americans still support the death 
penalty, support for the death penalty is at a 19-year low. And when 
asked whether Americans prefer the death penalty or life imprisonment 
without the possibility of parole, support for the death penalty drops 
even further.
  These are just some of the many positive developments that have 
nurtured the reawakening of the American conscience to the great 
responsibility and stain that state-sponsored executions place on our 
society. I look forward to the day when our federal government and the 
38 states with the death penalty will recognize the adequacy of 
sentencing alternatives and abolish this barbaric punishment for all 
time.

                          ____________________