The 15^th Anniversary of Death Penalty Repeal in New Mexico: Conversation with Cathy Ansheles and Viki Harrison

This week marks the 15^th anniver­sary of the repeal of the death penal­ty in New Mexico. On March 18^th, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed the repeal act (HB2085), end­ing the death penal­ty in the state. The bill came into force on July 1^st, 2009. New Mexico fol­lowed New Jersey to become the sec­ond state in the 21^st Century to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through legislative means.

In hon­or of this anniver­sary and Women’s History Month, DPIC Data Fellow Łukasz Niparko inter­viewed two women who were at the fore­front of this leg­isla­tive and soci­etal change in the Land of Enchantment, as New Mexico is called: Cathy Ansheles, the for­mer Executive Director of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the first coor­di­na­tor of the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty, and Viki Harrison, cur­rent Director of the Constitutional Convention and Protecting Dissent Programs with Common Cause, who at the time of repeal served as the Executive Director of NM Repeal — lead­ing the suc­cess­ful cam­paign to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Mexico.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), New Mexico passed the Capital Felony Sentencing Act that rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Between July 1^st, 1979, and December 31^st, 2007, there were 211 death penal­ty cas­es filed in New Mexico with 15 peo­ple sen­tenced to death and only one exe­cu­tion. The one per­son exe­cut­ed, Terry Clark, had waived his appeals. Out of the remain­ing 14 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, one died before his appeal was resolved, five had their sen­tences com­mut­ed by then-Governor Toney Anaya in 1986, five cas­es were over­turned on direct appeal, and two were over­turned after later appeals. 

The repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Mexico was not retroac­tive, leav­ing two per­sons on death row: Robert Ray Fry and Timothy Allen. Their sen­tences were lat­er reduced to life in prison by the New Mexico Supreme Court on June 28, 2019. Back in 1975, New Mexico was a trail­blaz­er when it exclud­ed juve­niles from death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty, but it was the last among US states to adopt a sen­tence of life with­out parole, an alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty proven to reduce death sentences.

The advo­cates empha­sized the impor­tance of work­ing with a broad coali­tion to pass the repeal bill. Ms. Ansheles said, ​“You need to match up and con­nect the sto­ry­teller with a per­son who is inter­est­ed… in some cas­es, it might be a law enforce­ment offi­cer. It might be the moth­er of some­body who’s been mur­dered, …an exon­er­at­ed per­son, … or a reli­gious per­son. But I think it is hav­ing all those sto­ries, diverse sto­ries, and sto­ry­tellers on hand, so that you can match it up with the per­son that needs to hear it.” Ms. Harrison not­ed that repeal did not bring about any neg­a­tive con­se­quences in the state: ​“When I talk to peo­ple — most peo­ple did not even know we ever had the death penal­ty. I mean, it just lit­er­al­ly left peo­ple’s minds. After repeal, we have not seen a surge in crime. We have not seen any negative effects.”

At the time of repeal, New Mexico was the 15^th state to end the death penal­ty; today there are 23 states with­out the death penal­ty and six with a guber­na­to­r­i­al hold on exe­cu­tions. Learn more by vis­it­ing DPIC’s State by State info.

Below are light­ly edit­ed high­lights of our con­ver­sa­tions with Viki Harrison and Cathy Ansheles, also joined by Bill Stanton, a retired mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ist and Cathy’s husband.

DPIC: Please tell us a bit about your­self and your involve­ment in the move­ment to repeal the death penal­ty in New Mexico. 

Cathy: Prior to mov­ing to New Mexico, I had worked in Alabama against the death penal­ty. I worked with peo­ple on death row and with their fam­i­lies; did com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing and edu­ca­tion about the issue and some work at the leg­is­la­ture in Montgomery as well. Later, while work­ing at the Rothstein Donatelli law firm in Santa Fe on the Duran prison con­di­tions case, I became con­nect­ed with peo­ple who’d been fight­ing the death penal­ty in New Mexico for years, which even­tu­al­ly led to my becom­ing the Coalition’s first coordinator.

Viki: I have been doing non­prof­it work for a few decades. And pri­or to becom­ing the Executive Director of NM Repeal back in 2008, I had worked in New Mexico for 15 years doing ani­mal rights work. I lit­er­al­ly saw an ad in the news­pa­per with a job open­ing for this. I looked into the death penal­ty, did some research, and thought, you know, this is the time, this is a state where we do not ever use it. The last time we exe­cut­ed some­body was because he gave up all his appeals. That is how I decid­ed to join it.

Bill: I was con­vert­ed to the posi­tion of oppos­ing the death penal­ty also in Alabama, prob­a­bly over the course of a cou­ple of days in 1978, when I went to Montgomery and start­ed work­ing at the Southern Poverty Law Center. A friend just gave me some stuff to read and when I found out what the facts were about the death penal­ty, and that our legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion was often so awful for peo­ple accused in death penal­ty cas­es — this mobi­lized me to act.

DPIC: Where were you on March 18^th, 2009, when the announce­ment was made about the death penal­ty repeal in New Mexico? 

Cathy: It was late in the evening on the last day that the Governor could sign the bill and I was at the State Capitol. I ran into Rep. Gail Chasey (our repeal bill spon­sor) who said the Governor had just called her and Viki up to his office and we real­ly did n0t know what his deci­sion would be. Once the news start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing, we were stunned and thrilled, walk­ing around the Capitol hug­ging and grin­ning. And then we walked down from the Capitol to a local Santa Fe hotel bar and restau­rant and began a spon­ta­neous cel­e­bra­tion that includ­ed many of the peo­ple who had tes­ti­fied over the years.

DPIC: What was the path that led to 2009?

Cathy: When Bill and I first moved to New Mexico, we asked around to see who was doing death penal­ty abo­li­tion work, because we had been involved in this when we were in Alabama. We vol­un­teered with a group called the Committee to Stop Executions, and then formed the Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty which became statewide. One of the very first peo­ple we con­tact­ed was Patrick Tyrrell, the Executive Director of the New Mexico Association of Social Workers. Other ini­tial mem­bers of the Coalition’s ini­tial steer­ing com­mit­tee includ­ed Ruth Hoffman, with Lutheran Governmental Ministries; Michelle Giger, a mur­der victim’s fam­i­ly mem­ber from Albuquerque a crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sor at Highlands University [in Las Vegas, NM]; and some oth­er social work­ers and mem­bers of the Catholic Church and oth­er faith groups. A lot of time and work was put into mak­ing it a broad coali­tion that rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple from diverse orga­ni­za­tions and per­spec­tives. Bill helped coor­di­nate the full-page ad cam­paign in our two major news­pa­pers where peo­ple from var­i­ous cities across the state signed on. That was quite sig­nif­i­cant in the ear­ly days — peo­ple see­ing oth­er peo­ple’s names, and it grew into a lot of old school grass­roots orga­niz­ing — going around to small towns and con­nect­ing with dif­fer­ent folks at church­es, civic groups, schools, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, etc.

When we had our very first leg­isla­tive inter­im com­mit­tee hear­ing (around 1997 or 1998), we ini­tial­ly just request­ed a bill to sim­ply study the death penal­ty. Rep. Chasey and anoth­er leg­is­la­tor said they pre­ferred intro­duc­ing a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty straight away. And we were like, ​‘whoa…’ From there, it was dif­fer­ent tools that we had to use — we had to learn more about leg­isla­tive strat­e­gy, and recruit more peo­ple who were famil­iar with the pol­i­tics for mak­ing that sort of change hap­pen. Fortunately, we had excel­lent peo­ple who could do this. 

Bill: We recruit­ed peo­ple from diverse walks of life and one of the most effec­tive was a for­mer New Mexico State police offi­cer. We also had some for­mer cor­rec­tions employ­ees who were involved, and we worked a lot with vic­tims’ family members.

DPIC: What were the key argu­ments for and against the repeal of the death penal­ty? Were there any argu­ments that were unique to New Mexico?

Viki: We had been around for 12 years. We had vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers who had been fight­ing with us. And so, I walked into a great coali­tion that was ready to do the work and had been doing the work. There had been a lit­tle bit of a split off — we were the last state to imple­ment life with­out parole. [Governor] Bill Richardson was going to work for President Obama. Initially, Richardson had been sup­port­ing the death penal­ty. We met with every leg­is­la­tor, we did media, we talked to peo­ple all over the world. I mean, this was the sec­ond oppor­tu­ni­ty to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in this coun­try in the mod­ern era [after New Jersey]. We had peo­ple in prac­ti­cal­ly every coun­try in the world that were inter­est­ed and want­ed to help. And then, in January [of 2009], Richardson got into some trou­ble and was no longer poised for the Commerce Secretary [job]. So, we had to go to plan B, which we were ready for!

We were able to change his mind with facts, data and hearts and minds. We all have pow­er. Our pow­er is our voice, our leg­is­la­tors, espe­cial­ly state and local leg­is­la­tors. We have a lot of access to them. Your sen­a­tor and your rep­re­sen­ta­tive are in your com­mu­ni­ty. You can meet with them; you can talk to them. I will nev­er for­get when I was a col­lege stu­dent and I went to a talk by one of my mem­bers of Congress, Senator Jeff Bingaman. This is back when we actu­al­ly wrote let­ters. And I asked him, ​‘Why would I write you a let­ter?’ And he said, ​‘Every time I get a let­ter, I mul­ti­ply it by 10,000. Because I know if one per­son takes the time to send me a let­ter — 10,000 peo­ple are think­ing about it.’ That changed the course of how I look at advo­ca­cy: my voice times 10,000.

We made sure that the peo­ple Governor Richardson cared about reached out to him. When he was court­ing the film indus­try in New Mexico, we had film stars to call him and say, sign this bill. We had the reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties on him con­stant­ly. I mean, the Archbishop Michael Sheehan was a huge ally of ours as was Bishop Ricardo Ramírez in Las Cruces. Rabbi Joseph R. Black in Albuquerque was out­stand­ing. We were in the media con­stant­ly. We did polling that showed the major­i­ty of New Mexicans did not sup­port the death penal­ty. They sup­port­ed life with­out parole, they sup­port­ed resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Then, our New Mexico Legislature intro­duced the bill spon­sored by Representative Gail Chasey.

Cathy and Bill: The Catholic Church is very promi­nent in the state of New Mexico, which was real­ly help­ful. A lot of dif­fer­ent Catholic lead­ers were very involved over the years lead­ing up to repeal. It was also impor­tant to have the voic­es of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and law enforce­ment. One of the major things that hap­pened on the nation­al scene that had an effect all over the coun­try and in New Mexico was Illinois and their dis­cov­er­ies of peo­ple wrong­ly con­vict­ed on death row. New Mexico has its own sto­ries of peo­ple who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, e.g., The Vagos Bikers, who were wrong­ful­ly accused of mur­der­ing 26-year-old col­lege stu­dent Richard Velten. One of the things we did ear­ly on was to orga­nize a pan­el at the law school with some of the key play­ers who had been involved in the defense and the pros­e­cu­tion of The Bikers case. And that got media cov­er­age, as well as a lot of peo­ple who attend­ed and heard some first-hand accounts of how the sys­tem did not work. That was four peo­ple exon­er­at­ed just in New Mexico dur­ing the mid 1970’s. 

DPIC: How have vic­tim fam­i­lies been con­sid­ered or addressed in the debate around the death penal­ty and its repeal?

Viki: I think the biggest rea­son they sup­port us is because they do not want some­one else to be mur­dered, because they know what that fam­i­ly is going to go through. Also, the mur­der vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers have to go through appeals [of a pris­on­er]. I think that that is why mur­der vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers are impor­tant to this work — because they mat­ter, their voic­es mat­ter. You have to be incred­i­bly eth­i­cal in the way you orga­nize with mur­der vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers, you do not use them, you do not tok­enize them. You have to have space for them to decom­press. It is hard to talk about this stuff. You have to pro­tect them, and you have to support them.

DPIC: What is the long-last­ing impact (if any) of repeal­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on New Mexico, its peo­ple, and its crim­i­nal justice system? 

Viki: Before Terry Clark asked to be exe­cut­ed, we had not used the death penal­ty in New Mexico for almost 50 years. When I talk to peo­ple — most peo­ple do not even know we ever had the death penal­ty. I mean, it just lit­er­al­ly left peo­ple’s minds. After repeal, we have not seen a surge in crime. We have not seen any neg­a­tive effects. And I think the pos­i­tive effects are that peo­ple, at this point, just assume we have nev­er had it. I do not think any­body misses it.

Bill: For peo­ple like us it makes us feel good to live in a state that is not con­sumed with this kind of dem­a­goguery that often goes on around the death penal­ty. These 15 years have shown that soci­ety has not gone to hell. And peo­ple have not engaged in indis­crim­i­nate killing sprees because they knew they would not face the death penalty.

Cathy: I also think that there’s less hate­ful lan­guage in the media. There is less vengeance that is splashed on the front of a news­pa­per or on tele­vi­sion. Every year when March 18^th comes around, I feel like ​‘yes, one more year under our belt’; ​‘yes, this is going to become insti­tu­tion­al­ized’. And then, the Dobbs v. Jackson deci­sion came down. And I real­ize there is not a mag­ic num­ber of years that will guar­an­tee repeal will stay. So, while I am not quite as con­vinced as I used to be that each year makes it more per­ma­nent, I am hope­ful that it is more per­ma­nent, and 15 years with­out a death penal­ty in New Mexico is def­i­nite­ly some­thing to celebrate.

DPIC: What has been your fur­ther involve­ment with crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem reform after 2009?

Cathy: The Coalition stayed involved, both at the leg­is­la­ture and at a grass­roots lev­el of work­ing with fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims in find­ing ways for them to get com­pen­sa­tion and in help­ing to advo­cate for bills that served vic­tims and fam­i­ly mem­bers. Personally, I am retired and have been for sev­er­al years. And one of the things that I am pas­sion­ate about doing is being on the board of the New Mexico Prison and Jail Project. We keep an eye on what is going on in jails and pris­ons, espe­cial­ly in terms of men­tal health and med­ical care and file law­suits as a way to bring about change in those systems.

DPIC: What piece of advice would you give to peo­ple inter­est­ed in advo­cat­ing for crim­i­nal justice reform?

Cathy: I think one of the things that I learned is that there is not just one answer. For a state or a leg­is­la­ture or a com­mu­ni­ty, you need to know a lot of sto­ries and know peo­ple who can tell their sto­ries, dif­fer­ent sto­ries. And then you need to match up and con­nect the sto­ry­teller with a per­son who is inter­est­ed, or hope­ful­ly inter­est­ed who needs per­suad­ing. In some cas­es, it might be a law enforce­ment offi­cer, in oth­er sit­u­a­tions a deci­sion-mak­er needs to hear from the moth­er of some­body who has been mur­dered, or an exoneree or a reli­gious leader. I think it is crit­i­cal hav­ing all those diverse sto­ries and sto­ry­tellers on hand, so that you can con­nect them with the pol­i­cy­mak­er or leader who needs to hear that particular story.

Viki: I tell peo­ple to get every­one involved. Ask every­body, get every­one involved, and rede­fine what a win is – some­times it is just get­ting a com­mit­tee hear­ing that year. You can be set­ting your­self up for lots of heartache because these issues are real­ly heavy and folks’ lives are lit­er­al­ly hang­ing in the bal­ance. For us it took 12 years. It was not overnight. It also is a mat­ter of con­ver­sa­tions. You can talk to your friends and your cousins and your neigh­bors. Polling just a month ago shows that we do not lis­ten to any­body but friends or fam­i­ly. That means we are super pow­er­ful. We are more pow­er­ful than leg­is­la­tors and our friends and fam­i­ly are lis­ten­ing to you more than anybody else.

How are we going to cel­e­brate this 15^th anniversary? 

Viki: It is going to be more with friends and for­mer allies. We did a big cel­e­bra­tion for the 10^th. And I told Gail Chasey, I would do it again for the 20^th. So, for the 15^th it is going to be light­ing a can­dle remem­ber­ing Governor Bill Richardson, who we unfor­tu­nate­ly lost since our last cel­e­bra­tion. We have lost too many impor­tant peo­ple in our coali­tion, and each anniver­sary, I like to hon­or and remem­ber their impor­tant work to make New Mexico an abolition state.