Press Release on Capital Punishment Decision and Ongoing Cases

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NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 

egal efense E. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 « (212) 586-8397 

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PRESS RELEASE PRESS wee 

July 2, 1976 

The Court's decisions today very probably strike down 

death sentences imposed upon approximately 300 persons in 

19 or 20 States. The decisions may ~~ I say may because 

the Court's opinions can almost never be fully deciphered 

by a quick reading -- save the lives of another 55 persons 

in another two or three States. 

However, the Court has upheld capital punishment sta- 

tutes in Georgia, Texas, and Florida under which 147 persons 

have been sentenced to die. These decisions may ~~ again 

may —~ also pave the way for execution of 100 to 140 persons 

in other States ~~ that is, a possible total of as many as 

290 persons in the entire country ~~ who have been sentenced 

to death under statutes that are arguably similar to those 

upheld in the decision today. 

Since the capital cases decided today were argued late 

in the Term on an expedited pasis and since a relatively 

short time elapsed between oral argument and the announcement 

of today's decision, we intend to file a petition for rehear- 

ing in these cases. We hope and expect that it will receive 

thorough consideration by the Court over the summer, and that 

Contributions are deductible for U.S. income tax purposes 



Press Release 
Page 2 
July 2, 1976 

this nation's 200th year will not -- after all -- be marked 

by a resumption of official electrocutions, gassings, hang- 

ings and shootings. We will, of course, seek stays of execu- 

tion to preserve the lives of our clients pending this re- 

consideration. 

The Legal Defense Fund commenced its campaign against 

capital punishment in 1967. We undertook this effort because 

capital punishment is a primitive response to the problem of 

dealing with crime which falls with uneven incidence upon 

the black and minority population in this country. 

The death row population continues to consist of a dis- 

proportionately great number of blacks, Chicanos and American 

Indians and almost entirely poor, undereducated, ignorant, dis- 

turbed persons. 

We believe that the country can no more treat crime 

problems by brutal random killings of mostly black and minority 

criminals (some of whom later turn out to have been innocent) 

than by any other practice of superstition. 

We believe that the disparate, racial infliction of death 

offends the Constitution of the United States. We intend to 

continue to persuade the Supreme Court of the United States 

to end this barbarism and are confident that we will prevail. 



Press Release 
Page 3 
July 2, 1976 

Finally, we will make every effort possible with our 

limited personnel and financial resources to assure that no 

man or woman is executed before full and careful considera- 

tion of both the validity of his or her sentence and the 

validity and fairness of the underlying conviction. We 

urgently enlist the help of volunteer attorneys across the 

nation to help us to minimize the likelihood that people 

will be put to death for want of means to bring to the 

attention of state and federal courts and of clemency author- 

ities issues and evidence upon which their lives literally 

depend.