New York: Our First Target State
We have been funded to do target screenings in certain states that are working towards repeals and moratoriums. Our first state is our home state of New York and I’ve been emailing and calling as many New Yorkers as I can to set up screenings.
New York’s death penalty is in a bit of a holding pattern. Hopefully it will remain that way but Governor Pataki can call the state legislators in at any time to vote to bring the death penalty back. Many state organizations such as New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty and The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).
The NYCLU has some interesting information about the death penalty’s misuse, especially in New York State:
“A recent Columbia University study found that of every three capital cases reviewed, two were overturned due to error, bias or incompetence. Will New York be more fair or just? Consider that between 1905 and 1974 New York executed more innocent people than any other state in the country. (H. Bedau & M. Readlet, “21 Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases,�? 40 Stan. L. Rev. 21, 72-73 (1987))�?
This is why we chose New York as a target state. We want to do as many community screenings as we can as well as get as many legislators as possible to see the film. Our hope is that we will be able to show people the problems that exist within the death penalty through a different medium than they are used to, the medium of film.
October is our New York month and though we already have a one-week run at The Quad Cinema in New York City, we all know that New York is a huge state. It is not enough to do a few screenings in Manhattan and call it a day. (We do have an additional screening in Pleasantville, New York with Human Rights Watch but Westchester is not quite upstate.)
This week has been a tough week to organize any type of screening. The Republican National Convention (RNC) has taken over the city and anyone who is an activist anywhere in the city is participating in someway. The news is filled with RNC coverage. One great letter to the editor slipped through the oversaturated RNC coverage in The New York Times. My favorite line was. "The death penalty is a complicated, wasteful, moral mess. The criminal justice system works much better when it is unavailable."
I am pleased to be able to move past the RNC. Maybe now people can return my phone calls.
(By the way, if you are in New York and are interested in putting together some community screenings in the month of October, feel free to email me at angela@bigmouthproductions.com. The further upstate and the more diverse the audience, the better.)
Posted by Angela at 05:14 PM
Comments
thank you very much for your help. You guys 11703 rock, thanks again.
Posted by: Tuki Medaber at October 3, 2006 04:41 AM
