A small group of protesters braved the cold and the 4 o'clock rush yesterday afternoon to exercise their First Amendment right in an effort to drum up support for an anti-death penalty measure that went before the State College Borough Council last night.

State College residents and Penn State students stood outside the Allen Street gate and held signs with slogans attacking the death penalty and the borough's reluctance to pass a moratorium. One of the signs read, "Why do we kill people who kill people to prove that killing people is wrong?"

Members of the American Civil Liberties Union, Pax Christi and Amnesty International were all represented at the rally.

Several major cities in Pennsylvania have already granted a two-year moratorium on the death penalty in order to investigate how the capital punishment process is enacted.

At the rally, the groups passed out literature detailing the injustices of Pennsylvania's justice system. One flyer invited people to attend the meeting and said the state is "racist" when it comes to the death penalty, citing the fact that the majority of death row inmates are minorities. Another concern was the percentage of inmates who are poor.

But yesterday's demonstrators said the problems do not stop with the number of minorities or poor who are sitting on death row in the state. According to the literature, the most obvious discrepancy is the 23 innocent inmates who have been executed in the state.

Members of the ACLU handed out briefs that outlined problems with the death penalty in Pennsylvania and other states, including Kentucky, which has had a history of "race of victim discrimination."

The brief claims that 1,000 African Americans have been executed by the state since 1975. As of spring 1999, all 39 of Kentucky's death row inmates were sentenced to the death penalty for murdering a white victim.

Despite the emphasis on minority rights and the impact of this issue on the minority community, there were few minorities present.

Timothy Bowers II of State College said with a smile, "it's kind of tough." He also commented that the lack of support from African-American men was disappointing. "They lack knowledge," Bowers said, who added that his motivation for protesting was the realization that "one day that could be me."

Participants like Aria Galletti (sophomore-media studies) hoped that they raised awareness of the moratorium resolution. The resolution had been placed on the agenda for the borough council meeting and scheduled for a vote later that evening.

"Due to racism and the possibility of executing innocent people and the lack of proper counseling and issues like that we feel that the people of the borough of State College would support a moratorium," said Lisa De Christopher (graduate- engineering) the vice president Pax Christi Penn State.