Over the past year, the campaign to end the death penalty in the US has gained momentum. The number of executions in the United States has dropped to the fewest in a decade and the annual number of death sentences is now at a 30-year low. The struggle by abolition advocates to expose the human rights abuses that take place on death row has encouraged a reconsideration of the death penalty in the United States.

People all over the world are turning a critical eye to the US, especially Texas. And now it looks like the nation’s leading executioner is beginning to feel the pressure.

On Tuesday, December 19, Texas representative Jerry Madden, chair of the Texas House Corrections Committee, invited a group of human rights advocates to meet at the Capitol to discuss living conditions at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, which houses death row inmates.

Today we have Bryan McCann, national spokesperson for the Death Row Inner-communalist Vanguard Engagement campaign to end the death penalty or D.R.I.V.E. on the air with us to talk about the meeting and its impact on the struggle to end the human rights violations taking place behind prison walls.

KPFT: Hello Bryan! Thank you for coming on the air with us this evening.

Bryan: Thank you for having me.

KFPT: It seems (pause)… so I’d like to begin. It seems a little out of the ordinary that a Texas state representative would contact grassroots death penalty abolitionist organizations. Why did Representative Madden call the meeting?

Bryan: We too were taken by surprise, for sure, because you know for the past three or four years Texas has been nothing short of unresponsive. The main reason that Mr. Madden gave was that he had received a number of letters from mainly overseas advocates of the DRIVE Movement. DRIVE being a group of death row inmates, launching a number of nonviolent protests on death row in conjunction with a lot of outside support. But eh… Madden’s office had received a number of letters from the activists expressing their grievances about the conditions on death row; poor maintenance of buildings, sensory deprivation, and inadequate health care, as well as disproportionate responses from prison guards when those actual acts of civil disobedience take place.

So, the letters were kind of a given reason but I think, as you importantly noted at the beginning of the show was that there’s been a broad turning tide against capital punishment throughout the United States, and that is in no small part affecting Texas. For instance the New York Times recently ran a story about a hunger strike on death row in protest of conditions. And then also the recent de facto moratoriums in Florida, California and Maryland, I think no doubt are just putting more and more pressure on the state of Texas, kind of being the belly of the beast of capital punishment. And I think all of these factors kind of coalesce to make people like Jerry Madden begin responding to the anti-death penalty movement.

KPFT: Ok… so hmmm… can you talk to us about who else was invited to the meeting and you all discussed?

Bryan: Myself, I was contacted directly, being the national spokesperson of DRIVE, I’m the plaint person on a lot of these issues. So there was myself, Stephanie Collins who is a law student at the University of Texas as well as a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and Claire Dube whose brother Kenneth Foster Jr. in on Texas death row and one of the leading members of the DRIVE Movement.

We came there and we discussed the nature of the letters but also more broadly some of the grievances of the guys at the Polunsky Unit, which houses death row in Livingston. And Mr. Madden and his two assistants were responsive to a number of issues and they did in fact allow us to leave with a list of six things that they said they would look into. Things such as the lack of programs, recreation, arts and crafts on death row, the use of chemicals, specifically riot and tear gas to discipline inmates while they are in their cells and then they are often not allowed to shower after they are gassed. Which in our opinion constitutes a gross human rights violation. A number of concerns about visitations, for instance inmates on death row only get to change their visitation list once every six months. And also visitors on death row routinely get ill because of just the poor conditions at the Polunsky Unit. A number of the different disciplinary measures that... that again we feel are unfair. The fact that they are in 23-hour lockdown and not allowed religious services and are shut off from society for most of the day.

And then, by and large just generally the conditions they are on death row. The fact that there are inadequate health care services to respond to what are ramped illnesses because life there is so awful and so contrary to prevailing standards of human rights. So, they said they would look into a number of these issues. So the step for us is to continue that dialogue and ensure that they do in fact look into them in a substantive way.

KPFT: Right. So, you spoke a little bit about the death penalty coming at a controversy in the news and earlier this month, use of the lethal injection cocktail was finally identified as inhumane by two of the thirty states currently using it.

Bryan: Right.

KFPT: California and Florida have placed moratoriums on the death penalty in their states after it took 34 minutes and a second injection to kill Angel Nieves Diaz, a Florida death row inmate. Do you view these moratoriums as a step towards abolition or just a temporary response to pressure?

Bryan: I see there is a big moment of opportunity for a step towards abolition but it’s by no stretch of the imagination a guarantee. If you look at a lot of what’s come out of the state governments of both California and Florida, they see this as a fixable problem. That they can make lethal injection and the death penalty less cruel and unusual, and more humane. And I think the obligation befalls anti-death penalty activists to insist that every execution is inhumane. Not just because it causes pain and suffering to the person being executed, but also because a host of others issues: The fact that capital punishment disproportionately targets ethnic minorities; That poor people are the ones who get executed in this nation because they have to rely on often inadequate public defenders; The fact that innocent people have been sent to death and also have been exonerated from death rows; In addition to the fact that it is cruel and unusual and doesn’t prevent crime in itself.

As long as activists are able to see this as a point of entry and really capitalize it and generalize it to bigger problems with the death penalty, I think there can and will be a major step up that we’ve been looking for over the past years towards abolition. But if we allow it to just stay focused on lethal injection as an issue, it’s going to allow people like Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger to simply say they’ve fixed it and made it less inhumane.

KPFT: So, it seems like the death penalty abolition movement has made some big steps. What’s next on the agenda? How are you all taking this momentum to act?

Bryan: In terms of the contact we’ve had with Jerry Madden’s office, with specifically with regards to the DRIVE Movement and the grievances about the conditions at the Polunsky Unit. We intend to just continue to open up dialogue with Madden’s office by sending him more and more letters, both internationally, within Texas and across the nation. And also accompany those letters with letters to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

But also just continue building our movement in Texas. The anti-death penalty movement in Texas is very vibrant and very strong, but we also feel it needs to be bigger. That people, there are many people who are against capital punishment in the state of Texas, but just aren’t that active. And we’re hoping that more and more people see this turning tide against capital punishment as an opportunity to get involved and build a stronger movement that… that Rick Perry, the Legislature and the TDCJA can’t help but pay attention to and reckon with. And I think more nationally it really becomes important to, again like I said, not allow the focus to remain on lethal injection. To recognize that as important an issue it is, but also make broader political arguments. That the death penalty is incompatible with justice and is a human rights violation. And does not serve the interest of the vast majority of people in this country. Really only the interest of the state that carries it out in our names… but we’re not the ones that are benefiting from it. Communities are destroyed, poor people are placed on death row because they can’t afford attorneys, innocents are executed, and in the meantime, crime isn’t prevented.

KPFT: Ok. Well we’re just about out of time. I want to thank you so much for joining us. Do you want to give us the website so that people can contact you and lend a hand?

Bryan: Absolutely! The DRIVE Movement website is www.drivemovement.org and the national website for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty is www.nodeathpenalty.org.

KPFT: Ok, well thank you Bryan.

Bryan: Thank you.

KPFT: Ok bye bye.

Bryan: Bye.

an innocent man on Texas Death Row