The informative article by Phillip Margolis, M.D., about the Lifers of APA in the October 1 issue does not mention what we regard as the Lifers’ most important accomplishment to date.

On June 1, 1998, at APA’s annual meeting in Toronto, the Lifers, in a near-unanimous vote, passed a resolution calling upon APA to "urge all federal and state jurisdictions to abolish the death penalty and commute the sentences of the more than 3,200 death-row inmates to life imprisonment without parole."

To its everlasting credit, the Lifers of APA is thought to be the only national group of physicians that has taken such a step in the past 30 years. Thus far, motions calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in the United States or outright abolition of capital punishment have been rejected by the APA Assembly, American College of Psychiatrists, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, American Medical Association, and Society of Medical Jurisprudence.

In the face of such inaction by medical organizations in this country and recalling the APA Board of Trustees’ denunciation of the death penalty in 1969 (". . .[T]he best available scientific and expert opinion holds it be anachronistic, brutalizing, ineffective, and contrary to progress in penology and forensic psychiatry"), the Lifers of APA is truly a beacon of hope and leadership as we move into the 21st century.

Abraham L. Halpern, M.D.

Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Alfred M. Freedman, M.D.

New York, N.Y.