KITCHEN APPLAUDS DEATH PENALTY MORATORIUM LEGISLATION

          HARRISBURG, May 1: State Sen. Shirley Kitchen today applauded the introduction of legislation that would place a moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania.

          The legislation, which Kitchen has co-sponsored, would suspend executions for two years and form a commission to thoroughly examine the state’s capital punishment system.

           “Our death row system is fraught with racial and economic bias, incompetent counsel and other issues that demand change,” Kitchen said. “It is imperative that we suspend all executions in order to scrutinize the system.”

          Economics and race are two dominating factors in our death row population. More than 90 percent Pennsylvania’s death row prisoners were too poor to afford a lawyer for their initial trial and almost 70 percent are people of color.

          “There is simply too much of an imbalance on Pennsylvania’s death row,” Kitchen said. “We need to find out why these numbers are so high, and what we can do to improve the justice system for everyone.”

          The advances in science through DNA evidence are proving that some of Pennsylvania’s death row inmates are, in fact, innocent. Since 1986, six former death row inmates have been freed from death row in Pennsylvania after conclusive evidence proved them innocent.