Moratorium on Death Penalty

Re “ABA Calls for Halt to Executions,” Feb. 4:

The call, by the American Bar Assn., for a moratorium on executions is a principled and eminently sensible act. Certainly the death penalty is meted out unfairly to the poor and people of color. Members of the legal profession know that when due process is administered in a random, incoherent and irrational fashion there will be disrespect for the law.

I hope the ABA will become an active advocate in educating citizens and elected officials, who under guise of “being tough on crime” have extolled the death penalty as a remedy, knowing full well that public safety and murder rates are unaffected by capital punishment.

I find it ironic that our government cites Amnesty International as we piously censure other countries for abuse of human rights, ignoring the fact that Amnesty also criticizes our country as an offender because of the death penalty.

GRACE N. EHLMANN

North Hollywood

* How appropriately hypocritical for the ABA to call for a halt to executions on the grounds that “administration of the death penalty has become so seriously flawed.” Anyone care to hazard a guess as to who is responsible for those flaws?

EARL EAGER ALBERT

Temple City