My friends, I join you here today to make a great noise. I join you here today to speak for those who have no voice in our society, for those who are paying their debt to society and are incarcerated throughout this state, in places as far flung as Pelican Bay and El Centro-the 162,685 men and women who languish within the control of the California Department of Corrections' barbaric system of criminal injustice. We come together here today to confront our government here in this sacred place where our laws are made, where our human and democratic rights are protected. We raise our voices to demand that our legislators listen, to demand that our Governor listen. We demand that they do something about this six billion dollar beast called the CDC whose voracious appetite for our tax dollars remains unaccountable to anyone. We demand that they listen to our voices on behalf of the silenced victims of this system who are needlessly suffering and dying every day because of outrageous corruption, inhumane overcrowding, unacceptable brutality, and grossly  negligent  health care. We demand that our legislators and governor address the systemic failure of this barbaric system to even come close to approaching  treatment of the prisoners in their charge that bespeaks a civilized democratic society.  

But I also come here today to urge you to protest the crown Jewel of the State's system of Criminal injustice- that place called Condemned Row at San Quentin on the shores of beautiful San Francisco Bay. I invite you today to join with me in calling on our Legislators and Governor to put a moratorium in place in this state-to  stop the machine of death in our state long enough to investigate this system which imposes the most drastic of punishments any civilized state can demand. We demand that if the state is to be given the power to take a human life that such a system function at the absolute highest levels of integrity and fairness. We need a time out  to the pleas of sane, rational and fair-minded people, but especially people who staff our courts, -lawyers, judges and even members of our supreme judiciary throughout our country who are calling for a time out on executions-for a moratorium to carefully and rationally study whether what we do in the name of justice meets our highest standards of justice. 

I don't know if you are aware of this but in June the criminal justice system of this country released a man by the name of Ryan Matthews, from his death Row cell in Louisiana. He was freed after  persistent and dogged attempts by his legal counsel finally forced the state to provide definitive DNA proof which exonerated him from his sentence of guilt. He was number 115 since capital punishment was resumed in this country in 1977. He will not be the last. Given the numbers, we should expect that about 1% of all people on death rows around this country will be found innocent. Of the more than 6000, who have already been executed there were surely more who should have been freed rather than killed. In this state, this means that there are at least 6 men or women on Death Row who are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted who are sitting awaiting death right now. And that does not include those who have been  sentenced to death who are mentally ill, developmentally disabled and simply incompetent  by any normal moral standard of responsibility.  That doesn't include those who are on the Row because of incompetent counsel which is most of them, or jury improprieties,  prosecutorial and police misconduct, malfeasance or judiciary prejudice. There are no people who are not poor on the Row. There are no people who had top flight counsel on the Row. The Row is a place predominated by poor men and women of color or who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

They have been convicted by a system which the California Prosecutors Association has told us repeatedly is free from the problems which plague other states. We are told that our system functions at the highest levels of professional expertise, concern for justice and judicial scrupliosity which predominate in our D.A.'s offices, our courts and our appellate system We are assured that these men a women of highest moral and legal integrity are more than enough of a surety that our capital punishment system in this state is above reproach. 

I am here to tell you what I assume you already know--the emperor has no clothes. Our system of criminal justice as a whole and in particular as it  pertains to the death penalty- that ultimate weapon of the state is mired in bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, racism and judicial malfeasance at every level. We have developed a system which has replaced concern for guilt or innocence with procedural correctness. Those who believe that our system of appellate procedure closes the gap of integrity on capital punishment have never watched as our courts has asserted that evidence is inadmissible or that, because the process was carried out according to the rules. According to a recent study carried out by the University of Santa Clara Law School, California had over 80 serious defects in its system of capital criminal procedure and systematic function. Many of these are the very same issues that cause Governor Ryan of Illinois to call a moratorium on executions in that state. 

In this time when our state is mired in a budgetary mess that forces us to watch as serious problems facing our state are not dealt with because we have no money, we continue to spend more than 90 million dollars a year to keep the death penalty in place. Money we desperately need to make our state a better place. Who could we feed or house with that money? Who could we educate or make healthier with that money? What could we do with that money that would make it less likely that even one more person will be warehoused in our society's most shameful penal system. 

Brothers and sisters, every human being is a precious human being-Every person is a beloved precious child of God. There is no one who hasn't made mistakes and no one that ought not to say of those in prison, or even on death row, There but for the grace of God go I.  I stand here with you this day to demand that we address this system that perverts, distorts and destroys that human life and which treats that human life as useless trash to be stashed in the back forty of our state to rot. Every man and woman in our prisons deserves the rights and dignity due to us all as human beings made in the image of God.  We demand a moratorium on the machine of death in this state. We demand that this crown jewel of this corrupt system be examined and found to be the worthless counterfeit glass we know it to be. Stop the machine of death and see that the machine indeed cannot be fixed. In the name of everything hole and right I challenge this government of ours to live up to its oaths to protect and defend all people in this state. We need a moratorium NOW. Thank you.