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Copyright
Senator Julian Bond
May 10, 1985

It is with some hesitation that I approach this audience tonight.

Your presence here indicates that you already stand with that body of Americans convinced that the death penalty is morally wrong, and that you share opposition to premeditated murder by the state, and that you intend to insure that Louisiana joins that minority of states that refuses to take human life.

My task, then, is to preach to the converted, and while I claim no special expertise in the this subject, I can claim particular credentials of time and circumstance.

I come from one of the four states - Florida, Texas, Ohio and my own Georgia - responsible for rolughly 70% of the death sentences imposed after the Supreme Court spoke in Furman vs Georgia 10 ¹³ years ago.

I come for the state which to date has executed more persons than any other, and has executed more women than any other. Georgia today houses more people on death row - 113 - than all but three states, Florida with 227, California with 168 and Texas with 193. More than 20 other prisoners in Georgia are awaiting new trials or new sentencing trials.

I come from the region of the United States where the death penalty is imposed most often.

And finally, I come form the state that gave the legal literature Furman vs Georgia, the 1972 Supreme Court decision that characterized the imposition of the death penalty as "freakishly rare," "irregular," "random," "capricious," "uneven," "wanton," "excessive," "disproportionate," and "discriminatory."