Press Release on Capital Punishment Decision and Ongoing Cases
Press Release
July 2, 1976

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Press Releases, Volume 6. Press Release on Capital Punishment Decision and Ongoing Cases, 1976. 2e9fe83e-bb92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/035aea72-269b-45c0-a677-8cbf0f4a37bd/press-release-on-capital-punishment-decision-and-ongoing-cases. Accessed July 09, 2025.
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eh4 L NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. egal efense E. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 « (212) 586-8397 gV 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.