GO to this profound piece and hold these suggestions/reminders to heart on November 11th: here
The Shalom Center's Notes : Read the profound reminders here which should be a bridge for us all PAUSE on NOVEMBER 11th to remember all the murdered and bombed and their grieving families and the hell of the mentally ill too who've killed and their families and all who've been forced to do war crime acts for the War Criminal Big Shots!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Victim's son: "I think it would be wrong for you to get the death penalty"
Eric Rogers was 17 when he saw his parents stabbed and bludgeoned to death by his uncle at their El Cerrito home just before dawn in January 2006.
The convicted murderer, a trucker named Edward Wycoff from the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, is as unsympathetic as they come. He insists he deserves to be rewarded for ridding the world of two evil people, that he knew how to raise his sister's three children better than she and her husband did, and that, besides, they had the gall not to invite him over for Christmas.
Arguing to a jury that he should not be sentenced to die, he makes bad jokes that no one laughs at.
So it was an unlikely witness who argued for Wycoff's life Monday in the penalty phase of his murder trial in Martinez - Rogers.
Rogers, now 21, who along with his sister cradled their mortally wounded father in their home on Rifle Range Road on Jan. 31, 2006, said his uncle should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Later, he told reporters what a judge ruled he could not tell the jury - that his parents, Paul Rogers and Julie Wycoff Rogers, would have wanted Wycoff to be spared lethal injection.
'It would be wrong'
"I think it would be wrong for you to get the death penalty," Rogers told Wycoff, who has been acting as his own attorney in Contra Costa County Superior Court. "You, specifically, because you are mentally childish and immature for your age."
Rogers told Wycoff, 40, that he had the makeup of a 9-year-old boy.
Outside court, Rogers said his parents were opposed to capital punishment, and so is he.
"Killing and hatred is something I associate with my uncle, not my parents," he said.
Rogers said he recognized that it wasn't his call. "I trust the justice system," he said. "I understand that it's not up to us - it's the people."
Judge's ruling
The jury considering Wycoff's fate is the same panel that convicted him Tuesday of two counts of murder with special circumstances for using a knife and a wheelbarrow handle to kill Julie Rogers, a 47-year-old attorney and former member of El Cerrito's Planning Commission, and Paul Rogers, 48, a business and technology attorney.
Superior Court Judge John Kennedy barred Eric Rogers from stating whether he opposed the death penalty and what his parents' views on the subject were. The judge said the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that such views are "irrelevant and inadmissible in a capital trial."
Testifying on his own behalf later Monday, Wycoff said his nephew was a "a real man" for standing up for his beliefs. Then he displayed the callousness that helped persuade the jury to take all of 45 minutes to convict him.
"To go against popular opinion like that shows he turned out to be quite a good person," Wycoff said. "I did a good job getting rid of his parents. It was the right thing to do. It helped a lot."
Humor falls flat
No matter what his ultimate punishment is, Wycoff told jurors, "I will have still won that free trip to Prisoneyland." When the courtroom remained silent, he said, "I can see this audience is comically challenged."
Last week, in his closing argument in the guilt phase of the trial, Wycoff used a pen to stab at a bowl of cereal and told the grim-faced jurors, "I'm a cereal killer."
Wycoff has never argued with prosecutors' assertion that he killed his older sister and her husband because he thought they were too liberal, were "too easy" on their children, and had snubbed him on Christmas. He had hoped to adopt Eric Rogers and his two younger siblings, Alex and Laurel, after the killings.
Wycoff's defiant lightheartedness Monday was a jarring shift from the earlier testimony of Eric Rogers and his sister, Laurel, now 16.
Laurel said her father was "one of the most intelligent and compassionate people I've ever known." Her mother was "creative and really kind."
She remembered the way her dad's mustache would move up and his eyes would crinkle when he smiled. Her mom would call her a "goofy nickname" while picking her up from school and do "a little dance" when she was excited about something.
Father's final words
Laurel said she tries to block out the last time she saw her father, lying in pool of blood in a bedroom with a knife stuck in his back. His last words to her were similar to what he always told her, she said: "I will always love you, no matter what."
"I never really understood it until now," Laurel said as relatives in the gallery and at least one juror wept. "I miss everything about them. Even things that would annoy me then, I miss."
The girl said she has struggled with drinking and drugs since the killings and now has a "very cynical view of the world."
"I've sort of developed a hate for humanity," the teenager said. "I'm not happy. I don't want to wear happy colors."
The convicted murderer, a trucker named Edward Wycoff from the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, is as unsympathetic as they come. He insists he deserves to be rewarded for ridding the world of two evil people, that he knew how to raise his sister's three children better than she and her husband did, and that, besides, they had the gall not to invite him over for Christmas.
Arguing to a jury that he should not be sentenced to die, he makes bad jokes that no one laughs at.
So it was an unlikely witness who argued for Wycoff's life Monday in the penalty phase of his murder trial in Martinez - Rogers.
Rogers, now 21, who along with his sister cradled their mortally wounded father in their home on Rifle Range Road on Jan. 31, 2006, said his uncle should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Later, he told reporters what a judge ruled he could not tell the jury - that his parents, Paul Rogers and Julie Wycoff Rogers, would have wanted Wycoff to be spared lethal injection.
'It would be wrong'
"I think it would be wrong for you to get the death penalty," Rogers told Wycoff, who has been acting as his own attorney in Contra Costa County Superior Court. "You, specifically, because you are mentally childish and immature for your age."
Rogers told Wycoff, 40, that he had the makeup of a 9-year-old boy.
Outside court, Rogers said his parents were opposed to capital punishment, and so is he.
"Killing and hatred is something I associate with my uncle, not my parents," he said.
Rogers said he recognized that it wasn't his call. "I trust the justice system," he said. "I understand that it's not up to us - it's the people."
Judge's ruling
The jury considering Wycoff's fate is the same panel that convicted him Tuesday of two counts of murder with special circumstances for using a knife and a wheelbarrow handle to kill Julie Rogers, a 47-year-old attorney and former member of El Cerrito's Planning Commission, and Paul Rogers, 48, a business and technology attorney.
Superior Court Judge John Kennedy barred Eric Rogers from stating whether he opposed the death penalty and what his parents' views on the subject were. The judge said the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that such views are "irrelevant and inadmissible in a capital trial."
Testifying on his own behalf later Monday, Wycoff said his nephew was a "a real man" for standing up for his beliefs. Then he displayed the callousness that helped persuade the jury to take all of 45 minutes to convict him.
"To go against popular opinion like that shows he turned out to be quite a good person," Wycoff said. "I did a good job getting rid of his parents. It was the right thing to do. It helped a lot."
Humor falls flat
No matter what his ultimate punishment is, Wycoff told jurors, "I will have still won that free trip to Prisoneyland." When the courtroom remained silent, he said, "I can see this audience is comically challenged."
Last week, in his closing argument in the guilt phase of the trial, Wycoff used a pen to stab at a bowl of cereal and told the grim-faced jurors, "I'm a cereal killer."
Wycoff has never argued with prosecutors' assertion that he killed his older sister and her husband because he thought they were too liberal, were "too easy" on their children, and had snubbed him on Christmas. He had hoped to adopt Eric Rogers and his two younger siblings, Alex and Laurel, after the killings.
Wycoff's defiant lightheartedness Monday was a jarring shift from the earlier testimony of Eric Rogers and his sister, Laurel, now 16.
Laurel said her father was "one of the most intelligent and compassionate people I've ever known." Her mother was "creative and really kind."
She remembered the way her dad's mustache would move up and his eyes would crinkle when he smiled. Her mom would call her a "goofy nickname" while picking her up from school and do "a little dance" when she was excited about something.
Father's final words
Laurel said she tries to block out the last time she saw her father, lying in pool of blood in a bedroom with a knife stuck in his back. His last words to her were similar to what he always told her, she said: "I will always love you, no matter what."
"I never really understood it until now," Laurel said as relatives in the gallery and at least one juror wept. "I miss everything about them. Even things that would annoy me then, I miss."
The girl said she has struggled with drinking and drugs since the killings and now has a "very cynical view of the world."
"I've sort of developed a hate for humanity," the teenager said. "I'm not happy. I don't want to wear happy colors."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Cost of Executions
Quitman County, Miss., population 10,500, raised taxes for three years and borrowed $150,000 to provide legal counsel to Robert Simon and Anthony Carr, sentenced to death for the 1990 murders of four family members. A death-penalty case "is almost like lightning striking," county administrator Butch Scipper told The Wall Street Journal in 2002. "It is catastrophic to a small rural county."
In 1995, Jasper County, Miss. spent three times more on one capital trial than it did on its public library system that year. When officials went to the county supervisors to get more money appropriated for capital prosecutions, the supervisors' solution was to raise property and car taxes. "It's going to be a fairly substantial increase," Board President John Sims said to the Jasper County News at the time. "I hope the taxpayers understand ..."
In the Magnolia State, as in many states across the nation, the counties often shoulder the cost of trials. Quitman County sued the state to pick up the cost of the Simon/Carr defense, but the state Supreme Court ruled against the county in 1999
Regardless of one's personal stance on the death penalty, one inescapable fact about dispensing "an eye for an eye" justice is that it is expensive. Just how expensive is an aspect of a report from the Death Penalty Information Center, "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis."
Among the costs examined are the additional expenses added to trials when prosecutors seek the death penalty. The report juxtaposes those costs against the rarity of actually carrying out an execution. "For a single death penalty trial, the state may pay $1 million more than for a non-death penalty trial," the report states. "But only one in every three capital trials may result in a death sentence, so the true cost of that death sentence is $3 million. Further down the road, only one in ten of the death sentences handed down may result in an execution. Hence, the cost to the state to reach that one execution is $30 million."
For cash-strapped Mississippi, it's an expense the citizens can ill afford. Even with federal stimulus funds taking up some of the slack, the state's tax revenue has fallen every month for the past year, and Gov. Haley Barbour has slashed the budget for nearly every department. While Mississippi has not examined specific costs related to death penalty cases, other states have, providing guidance to estimate costs. Florida, for example, estimates each of their 68 executions since 1976 cost taxpayers $24 million; California, which has executed 13 convicts since 1976, estimates each conviction costs $250 million; and in Kansas, costs for death penalty trials are 16 times greater than non-death penalty trials ($508,000 versus $32,000). The estimated cost per conviction for its eight death-row inmates stands at $1.2 million each.
Mississippi has 60 people on death row. The inmates have been there 12 years, on average. Mack King has been there for 29 years; James Billiot for 27. Simon and Carr, the killer's that nearly broke Quitman County 19 years ago, are still there. Of the 10 inmates executed since 1976, the average length of time on death row was 13.4 years; Bobby Wilcher served 24 years and Earl Berry, 20 years.
Using a conservative calculation, the additional cost to try all 70 for capital crimes to achieve a death sentence ($300,000 each, from a 1993 North Carolina study) comes to $21 million. That number, though, does not include those tried for capital crimes and receiving lesser sentences, such as Carla Hughes, the Jackson schoolteacher tried earlier in October who received a life sentence. Using the report's "one in three" success rate for capital convictions, it is likely that Mississippi spent $63 million to achieve those 70 convictions. With only 10 individuals executed, however—one out of every seven—the taxpayer cost for those 10 deaths comes in at a whopping $441 million, or $44.1 million each.
The death penalty is also an inefficient crime-fighting tool. Included in the report is a survey of 500 randomly selected police chiefs from across the country. Asked to name the one area most important for reducing violent crime, only 1 percent of the chiefs listed the death penalty, with 57 percent saying it does little to deter violent crime. They also ranked it as the least efficient use of taxpayer funds.
"I'm not sure that the average criminal would consider the death penalty before they commit a crime," Jackson Police Chief Rebecca Coleman told the Jackson Free Press, admitting she had not reviewed the report. She did admit that the death penalty has an adverse economic impact, however. It's money she felt could be better spent elsewhere.
"I would look at more proactive means to serve as a deterrent to crime, as opposed to looking at it (reactively)" she said.
Coleman would spend the funds in the juvenile justice system, breaking the back of the cradle-to-prison pipeline. "(I would put) programs in place to educate our kids to know the benefits of good behavior as opposed to behavior ... that ultimately would have them end up on death row," she said.
By Ronni Mott, Jackson Free Press
In 1995, Jasper County, Miss. spent three times more on one capital trial than it did on its public library system that year. When officials went to the county supervisors to get more money appropriated for capital prosecutions, the supervisors' solution was to raise property and car taxes. "It's going to be a fairly substantial increase," Board President John Sims said to the Jasper County News at the time. "I hope the taxpayers understand ..."
In the Magnolia State, as in many states across the nation, the counties often shoulder the cost of trials. Quitman County sued the state to pick up the cost of the Simon/Carr defense, but the state Supreme Court ruled against the county in 1999
Regardless of one's personal stance on the death penalty, one inescapable fact about dispensing "an eye for an eye" justice is that it is expensive. Just how expensive is an aspect of a report from the Death Penalty Information Center, "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis."
Among the costs examined are the additional expenses added to trials when prosecutors seek the death penalty. The report juxtaposes those costs against the rarity of actually carrying out an execution. "For a single death penalty trial, the state may pay $1 million more than for a non-death penalty trial," the report states. "But only one in every three capital trials may result in a death sentence, so the true cost of that death sentence is $3 million. Further down the road, only one in ten of the death sentences handed down may result in an execution. Hence, the cost to the state to reach that one execution is $30 million."
For cash-strapped Mississippi, it's an expense the citizens can ill afford. Even with federal stimulus funds taking up some of the slack, the state's tax revenue has fallen every month for the past year, and Gov. Haley Barbour has slashed the budget for nearly every department. While Mississippi has not examined specific costs related to death penalty cases, other states have, providing guidance to estimate costs. Florida, for example, estimates each of their 68 executions since 1976 cost taxpayers $24 million; California, which has executed 13 convicts since 1976, estimates each conviction costs $250 million; and in Kansas, costs for death penalty trials are 16 times greater than non-death penalty trials ($508,000 versus $32,000). The estimated cost per conviction for its eight death-row inmates stands at $1.2 million each.
Mississippi has 60 people on death row. The inmates have been there 12 years, on average. Mack King has been there for 29 years; James Billiot for 27. Simon and Carr, the killer's that nearly broke Quitman County 19 years ago, are still there. Of the 10 inmates executed since 1976, the average length of time on death row was 13.4 years; Bobby Wilcher served 24 years and Earl Berry, 20 years.
Using a conservative calculation, the additional cost to try all 70 for capital crimes to achieve a death sentence ($300,000 each, from a 1993 North Carolina study) comes to $21 million. That number, though, does not include those tried for capital crimes and receiving lesser sentences, such as Carla Hughes, the Jackson schoolteacher tried earlier in October who received a life sentence. Using the report's "one in three" success rate for capital convictions, it is likely that Mississippi spent $63 million to achieve those 70 convictions. With only 10 individuals executed, however—one out of every seven—the taxpayer cost for those 10 deaths comes in at a whopping $441 million, or $44.1 million each.
The death penalty is also an inefficient crime-fighting tool. Included in the report is a survey of 500 randomly selected police chiefs from across the country. Asked to name the one area most important for reducing violent crime, only 1 percent of the chiefs listed the death penalty, with 57 percent saying it does little to deter violent crime. They also ranked it as the least efficient use of taxpayer funds.
"I'm not sure that the average criminal would consider the death penalty before they commit a crime," Jackson Police Chief Rebecca Coleman told the Jackson Free Press, admitting she had not reviewed the report. She did admit that the death penalty has an adverse economic impact, however. It's money she felt could be better spent elsewhere.
"I would look at more proactive means to serve as a deterrent to crime, as opposed to looking at it (reactively)" she said.
Coleman would spend the funds in the juvenile justice system, breaking the back of the cradle-to-prison pipeline. "(I would put) programs in place to educate our kids to know the benefits of good behavior as opposed to behavior ... that ultimately would have them end up on death row," she said.
By Ronni Mott, Jackson Free Press
Thursday, October 22, 2009
CNN Anderson Cooper 360 on Todd Willingham's Trial
October 22, 2009 CNN Anderson Cooper 360: Randi Kaye Sits Down with Todd Willingham's Unethical Trial Attorney David Martin
here
here
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
CALIFORNIA: How do executions make us safer?
PHOTO from LA Times October 2, 2009
Jeanne Woodford is the former director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the former warden of San Quentin State Prison.
Death row realism
Do executions make us safer?
By Jeanne Woodford
As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, "Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?"
We knew the answer: No.
I worked in corrections for 30 years, starting as a correctional officer and working my way up to warden at San Quentin and then on to the top job in the state -- director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. During those years, I came to believe that the death penalty should be replaced with life without the possibility of parole.
I didn't reach that conclusion because I'm soft on crime. My No. 1 concern is public safety. I want my children and grandchildren to have the safety and freedom to pursue their dreams. I know from firsthand experience that some people are dangerous and must be removed from society forever -- people such as Robert Lee Massie.
I presided over Massie's execution in 2001. He was first sentenced to death for the 1965 murder of a mother of two. But when executions were temporarily banned in 1972, his sentence was changed to one that would allow parole, and he was released in 1978. Months later, he killed a 61-year-old liquor store owner and was returned to death row.
For supporters of the death penalty, Massie is a poster child. Yet for me, he stands out among the executions I presided over as the strongest example of how empty and futile the act of execution is.
I remember that night clearly. It was March 27, 2001. I was the last person to talk to Massie before he died. After that, I brought the witnesses in. I looked at the clock to make sure it was after midnight. I got a signal from two members of my staff who were on the phone with the state Supreme Court and the U.S. attorney general's office to make sure there were no last-minute legal impediments to the execution. There were none, so I gave the order to proceed. It took several minutes for the lethal injections to take effect.
I did my job, but I don't believe it was the right thing to have done. We should have condemned Massie to permanent imprisonment -- that would have made the world safer. But on the night we executed him, when the question was asked, "Did this make the world safer?" the answer remained no. Massie needed to be kept away from society, but we did not need to kill him.
Why should we pay to keep him locked up for life? I hear that question constantly. Few people know the answer: It's cheaper -- much, much cheaper than execution.
I wish the public knew how much the death penalty affects their wallets. California spends an additional $117 million each year pursuing the execution of those on death row. Just housing inmates on death row costs an additional $90,000 per prisoner per year above what it would cost to house them with the general prison population.
A statewide, bipartisan commission recently concluded that we must spend $100 million more each year to fix the many problems with capital punishment in California. Total price tag: in excess of $200 million-a-year more than simply condemning people to life without the possibility of parole.
If we condemn the worst offenders, like Massie, to permanent imprisonment, resources now spent on the death penalty could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs and expand effective violence prevention programs, especially in at-risk communities. The money also could be used to intervene in the lives of children at risk and to invest in their education -- to stop future victimization.
As I presided over Massie's execution, I thought about the abuse and neglect he endured as a child in the foster care system. We failed to keep him safe, and our failure contributed to who he was as an adult. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to kill him, what if we spent that money on other foster children so that we stop producing men like Massie in the first place?
As director of corrections, I visited Watts and met with some ex-offenders. I learned that the prison system is paroling 300 people every week into the neighborhood without a plan or resources for success. How can we continue to spend more than $100 million a year seeking the execution of a handful of offenders while we fail to meet the basic safety needs of communities like Watts?
It is not realistic to think that Watts and neighborhoods like it will ever get well if we can't -- or won't -- support them in addressing the problems they face.
To say that I have regrets about my involvement in the death penalty is to let myself off the hook too easily. To take a life in order to prove how much we value another life does not strengthen our society. It is a public policy that devalues our very being and detracts crucial resources from programs that could truly make our communities safe.
This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times on October 2, 2008.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Texas Death Penalty, Todd Willingham and Inflammatory Texas Governor Rick Parry
Cameron Todd Willingham insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his children and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence. Read more: here Be sure to see
Ken Light's unique and startling photographs and his landmark Book TEXAS DEATH ROW University Press of Mississippi 1995 here
Excerpt from another case of Innocence? "We did the best we could with the information we had, but with a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information. The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that." Miriam Ward, FOREWOMAN OF THE JURY THAT CONVICTED RUBEN CANTU."
Current item from the Cameron Todd Willingham story:
Willingham's Mother Responds:here
SIGN PETITION GO here
==========================================
From Texas Moratorium Network:
Thank you to everyone who has already signed the petition to Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas to acknowledge that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was not arson, therefore no crime was committed and on February 17, 2004, Texas executed an innocent man.
More than 2,600 people have signed. We are also working with another organization (CredoMobile) that has collected more than 2,500 on their own similar petition. So together we have more than 5,000 petition signatures to turn in to Rick Perry on October 24 during the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty in Austin at the Texas Capitol. It starts at 2 PM. Please plan to come to Austin for the march and help us demonstrate to the world and Rick Perry that there are people in Texas who are convinced that Todd Willingham was innocent and that the death penalty should be abolished.
On October 2, Texas Moratorium Network's Scott Cobb appeared on CNN and was probably the first person to accuse Rick Perry on national TV of conducting a cover up in the Todd Willingham case.
Since Scott first accused Perry of a cover up, many others have also accused Perry of a cover up in the Willingham case, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (who is hardly a flaming liberal) who issued a press release saying, "Whether it’s University Regents or the Texas Forensic Science Commission, it’s clear that Rick Perry’s talk of checks and balances is just more arrogant political rhetoric. Only Rick Perry would arrogantly warn about the dangers of ‘unchecked government’ as he and his aides force University Regents to resign, pressure appointees and try to cover-up a critical investigation."
“Only the governor knows whether his motives were political, but these recent episodes have produced a pungent smell of politicization. And the odor is nauseating.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Although Perry has dismissed suggestions that he’s meddling, the governor’s fingerprints are all over the forensic science panel’s inquiry." - Dallas Morning News
Rick Perry yesterday vigorously defended his cover up of the execution of an innocent person in Texas by calling Todd Willingham a "monster".
Eugenia Willingham, Todd's mother, responded to Perry's statement by telephone on last night's CNN AC360, saying that Todd loved his kids and that Todd told her his trial was "a big joke" in part because his own defense lawyer thought he was guilty.
Kay Bailey Hutchison said that Rick Perry's actions and cover up has given "liberals" a valid issue to criticize the death penalty.
Dr. Craig Beyler was quoted on CNN last night saying that Rick Perry's new appointees to the Texas Forensic Science Commission should resign to restore integrity to the process. Beyler also said Perry is using his political clout to protect himself.
10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty October 24 in Austin GO to marchforabolition dot org
Please come to Austin on October 24 for the march to show the world and Rick Perry that there are people in Texas who are convinced that Todd Willingham was innocent and that the death penalty should be abolished. We have heard from media from around the world who plan to be at the march to cover the the Todd Willingham story. CNN is also planning to be there. We need you to show up so we can show the world that many people in Texas oppose the death penalty.
Speakers at the march will include two innocent, now-exonerated death row prisoners (Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty), Jeff Blackburn (Chief Counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas), Jeanette Popp (a mother whose daughter was murdered but who asked the DA not to seek the death penalty), Elizabeth Gilbert (the penpal of Todd Willingham who first pushed his innocence and helped his family find a fire expert to investigate), a family member of Todd Willingham and several other families of people on death row, including the mother of Reginald Blanton who is scheduled for execution in Texas on Oct 27 three days after the march.
The march starts at 2 PM on October 24 at the Texas Capitol. We will gather at the Texas Capitol, march down Congress Avenue to 6th street, then back to the Capitol for a rally to abolish the death penalty.
The night before the march, there will be a panel discussion on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin at 7 PM with Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty. They will speak about what it is like to be innocent and sentenced to death. The panel is in the Sinclair Suite (room 3.128) of the Texas Student Union on Guadalupe. Call us if you need more directions 512-552-4743.
Immediately after the march on October 24, we plan to hold a networking and strategy meeting inside the capitol. Everyone is invited to attend the strategy session and help us plan how to move forward to end executions in Texas. The strategy session will start about 30 minutes after the last speaker at the march.
The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center and Kids Against the Death Penalty.
If you would like to sign on as a sponsor of the march, click here to fill out the sponsorship form. It is free to be a sponsor. We just ask that you spread the word so that we get a good crowd at the march. Sponsors include Sister Helen Prejean, Bill Pelke and the Journey of Hope, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Reprieve, Iranians for Peace and Justice,Democrats for Life of Texas, S.H.A.P.E Community Center in Houston, the Dallas Peace Center, ALIVE Against the Death Penalty in Germany, Ensemble Against the Death Penalty (France), and many others. See others on the still growing list of sponsors here.
We are thinking about printing some t-shirts with Todd Willingham's picture on it and a quote from him saying, "I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do".
For more information and ways to support this effort, please call Scott Cobb
512 552-4743 or 512 961-6389
Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center
3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251
Austin, Texas 78731
==========================================
RELATED: PAST & PRESENT
Also see this article in Huff Post - Comment here at The Journey of Hope blog-site and/or in Huff Post:
here
TV news bite with place for Comments here
Time again and again for the classic article: "The Texas Memos" in "The Atlantic Monthly" here
The New Yorker A REPORTER AT LARGE about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed for setting a fire that killed his three children in Corsicana, Texas, here
Those who read the excellent New Yorker article should also read: here
Huffington Post blogger Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project, weighs in on the new evidence revealed by an investigative report GO here
Keep following the story in the DallasNews dot com...
(Also see the VIDEO in the post just below on this blog-site: The Journey of Hope)
Ken Light's unique and startling photographs and his landmark Book TEXAS DEATH ROW University Press of Mississippi 1995 here
Excerpt from another case of Innocence? "We did the best we could with the information we had, but with a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information. The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that." Miriam Ward, FOREWOMAN OF THE JURY THAT CONVICTED RUBEN CANTU."
Current item from the Cameron Todd Willingham story:
Willingham's Mother Responds:here
SIGN PETITION GO here
==========================================
From Texas Moratorium Network:
Thank you to everyone who has already signed the petition to Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas to acknowledge that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was not arson, therefore no crime was committed and on February 17, 2004, Texas executed an innocent man.
More than 2,600 people have signed. We are also working with another organization (CredoMobile) that has collected more than 2,500 on their own similar petition. So together we have more than 5,000 petition signatures to turn in to Rick Perry on October 24 during the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty in Austin at the Texas Capitol. It starts at 2 PM. Please plan to come to Austin for the march and help us demonstrate to the world and Rick Perry that there are people in Texas who are convinced that Todd Willingham was innocent and that the death penalty should be abolished.
On October 2, Texas Moratorium Network's Scott Cobb appeared on CNN and was probably the first person to accuse Rick Perry on national TV of conducting a cover up in the Todd Willingham case.
Since Scott first accused Perry of a cover up, many others have also accused Perry of a cover up in the Willingham case, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (who is hardly a flaming liberal) who issued a press release saying, "Whether it’s University Regents or the Texas Forensic Science Commission, it’s clear that Rick Perry’s talk of checks and balances is just more arrogant political rhetoric. Only Rick Perry would arrogantly warn about the dangers of ‘unchecked government’ as he and his aides force University Regents to resign, pressure appointees and try to cover-up a critical investigation."
“Only the governor knows whether his motives were political, but these recent episodes have produced a pungent smell of politicization. And the odor is nauseating.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Although Perry has dismissed suggestions that he’s meddling, the governor’s fingerprints are all over the forensic science panel’s inquiry." - Dallas Morning News
Rick Perry yesterday vigorously defended his cover up of the execution of an innocent person in Texas by calling Todd Willingham a "monster".
Eugenia Willingham, Todd's mother, responded to Perry's statement by telephone on last night's CNN AC360, saying that Todd loved his kids and that Todd told her his trial was "a big joke" in part because his own defense lawyer thought he was guilty.
Kay Bailey Hutchison said that Rick Perry's actions and cover up has given "liberals" a valid issue to criticize the death penalty.
Dr. Craig Beyler was quoted on CNN last night saying that Rick Perry's new appointees to the Texas Forensic Science Commission should resign to restore integrity to the process. Beyler also said Perry is using his political clout to protect himself.
10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty October 24 in Austin GO to marchforabolition dot org
Please come to Austin on October 24 for the march to show the world and Rick Perry that there are people in Texas who are convinced that Todd Willingham was innocent and that the death penalty should be abolished. We have heard from media from around the world who plan to be at the march to cover the the Todd Willingham story. CNN is also planning to be there. We need you to show up so we can show the world that many people in Texas oppose the death penalty.
Speakers at the march will include two innocent, now-exonerated death row prisoners (Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty), Jeff Blackburn (Chief Counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas), Jeanette Popp (a mother whose daughter was murdered but who asked the DA not to seek the death penalty), Elizabeth Gilbert (the penpal of Todd Willingham who first pushed his innocence and helped his family find a fire expert to investigate), a family member of Todd Willingham and several other families of people on death row, including the mother of Reginald Blanton who is scheduled for execution in Texas on Oct 27 three days after the march.
The march starts at 2 PM on October 24 at the Texas Capitol. We will gather at the Texas Capitol, march down Congress Avenue to 6th street, then back to the Capitol for a rally to abolish the death penalty.
The night before the march, there will be a panel discussion on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin at 7 PM with Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty. They will speak about what it is like to be innocent and sentenced to death. The panel is in the Sinclair Suite (room 3.128) of the Texas Student Union on Guadalupe. Call us if you need more directions 512-552-4743.
Immediately after the march on October 24, we plan to hold a networking and strategy meeting inside the capitol. Everyone is invited to attend the strategy session and help us plan how to move forward to end executions in Texas. The strategy session will start about 30 minutes after the last speaker at the march.
The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center and Kids Against the Death Penalty.
If you would like to sign on as a sponsor of the march, click here to fill out the sponsorship form. It is free to be a sponsor. We just ask that you spread the word so that we get a good crowd at the march. Sponsors include Sister Helen Prejean, Bill Pelke and the Journey of Hope, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Reprieve, Iranians for Peace and Justice,Democrats for Life of Texas, S.H.A.P.E Community Center in Houston, the Dallas Peace Center, ALIVE Against the Death Penalty in Germany, Ensemble Against the Death Penalty (France), and many others. See others on the still growing list of sponsors here.
We are thinking about printing some t-shirts with Todd Willingham's picture on it and a quote from him saying, "I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do".
For more information and ways to support this effort, please call Scott Cobb
512 552-4743 or 512 961-6389
Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center
3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251
Austin, Texas 78731
==========================================
RELATED: PAST & PRESENT
Also see this article in Huff Post - Comment here at The Journey of Hope blog-site and/or in Huff Post:
here
TV news bite with place for Comments here
Time again and again for the classic article: "The Texas Memos" in "The Atlantic Monthly" here
The New Yorker A REPORTER AT LARGE about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed for setting a fire that killed his three children in Corsicana, Texas, here
Those who read the excellent New Yorker article should also read: here
Huffington Post blogger Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project, weighs in on the new evidence revealed by an investigative report GO here
Keep following the story in the DallasNews dot com...
(Also see the VIDEO in the post just below on this blog-site: The Journey of Hope)
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
PFADP of North Carolina: More than 100 NC Businesses
--Call for End of the Death Penalty
PFADP Launches Grassroots Campaign for Repeal
More than 100 North Carolina businesses have passed resolutions calling on the State of North Carolina to repeal the death penalty.
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty has launched a campaign to gather thousands of repeal resolutions from congregations, businesses, community groups and even local governments.
From Hot Rod Installations in Warrenton to the Southside Seafood and Sandwich Shop in Lumberton, small businesses throughout North Carolina are calling on the state to repeal the death penalty and use the money saved to help murder victims' families and for crime prevention programs. The resolutions call for an immediate suspension of executions until the death penalty is repealed.
We've only just begun.
You can help spread this campaign. Here's what you can do:
1. Endorse "The Abolition Petition" here
WE HAVE NOT PROMOTED THIS, BUT WE ARE NOW.
2. Download a copy of the resolution from our website, here , and ask your local congregation, and businesses and community groups in your hometown to endorse it. The resolution we are using at the moment is a "pure" resolution involving moral opposition to the death penalty and few statistics. Over time we will post different versions of the resolution, including resolutions for different faith traditions. Got any suggestions or feedback? Tell us. We'd love to know your suggestions for improving the wording.
3. Join PFADP staff and volunteers on our semi-weekly "Resolution Roundups," which are day trips to gather resolutions and build new support for the abolition movement. Watch for announcements.
4. Patronize the businesses that have passed these resolutions and thank them for doing so.
5. Forward this message widely.
The following businesses have passed resolutions for repealing the death penalty. A full list can also be viewed on our website, here
Alamance County, NC
A Beauty Within (Graham)
A New Look Salon (Burlington)
Beyond Beauty (Graham)
Cater 2 U Salon (Burlington)
Court Square Florist (Graham)
Deluxe Barber Shop Mebane)
Divas Only Hair Salon (Burlington)
Downtown Connections (Burlington)
Furniture on 4th Street (Mebane)
Graham Book and Banter (Graham)
H &K Bootery Inc. (Burlington)
Michelle's Kitchen (Burlington)
Rock Crafters (Graham)
Sidetrack Grill (Elon)
Stanford's Clothing (Burlington)
Tasty Bakery (Graham)
The Elegant Relic (Mebane)
Twice is Nice (Burlington)
Beaufort County, NC
Pam's House of Beauty (Washington)
Thomasia's Hair Gallery (Washington)
Buncombe County, NC
A Sense of Humor (Asheville)
Go Girl, Inc. (Asheville)
Natural Selections (Asheville)
Nest Organics (Asheville)
Skydog Enterprises, Inc. (Asheville)
Caswell County, NC
Hunt's Flea Market (Yanceyville)
Image Masters (Yanceyville)
J. Harris Creations (Yanceyville)
La-Shea Clothing (Yanceyville)
North Road Bicycle Company (Yanceyville)
Chatham County, NC
Annie B & The Black & White Guy (Pittsboro)
Don Pablo Mexican Store (Pittsboro)
Realty World Carolina Properties (Pittsboro)
United Books and Stuff (Pittsboro)
Craven County, NC
Bear Essentials (New Bern)
Boston Deli (New Bern)
Green (New Bern)
New Bern Mexican Bakery (New Bern)
Next Chapter Book (New Bern)
Trent River Coffee (New Bern)
Edgecombe County, NC
Carolina Beauty (Tarboro)
Main Street Café (Tarboro)
Modern Barber Shop (Tarboro)
Styles Unique (Tarboro)
Granville County, NC
Aerotek Aviation LLC (Oxford)
Kim's Tailor Shop (Oxford)
Remember When (Oxford)
Salon Matisse (Oxford)
This and That Gift Shop (Oxford)
Harnett County, NC
Kim's Barber Shop (Erwin)
Johnston County, NC
God's Helping Hands Consignment (Benson)
Lenoir County, NC
J.D. Lewis Antiques (Kinston)
Nash County, NC
Men's & Women's Affair Limited (Rocky Mount)
Orange County, NC
Back Alley Bikes (Chapel Hill)
Balloons & Tunes (Carrboro)
Bliss Bakery (Chapel Hill)
Carrboro Music (Carrboro)
Cliff's Meat Market Inc. (Carrboro)
DeLaine House of Beauty (Chapel Hill)
Internationalist Bookstore (Chapel Hill)
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty (Carrboro)
Rare Earth Beads (Carrboro)
Roulette Vintage (Carrboro)
Sandwhich LLC (Chapel Hill)
Touchwood Antiques (Carrboro)
Weaver Street Realty (Carrboro)
Pitt County, NC
Links on Evans (Greenville)
The Sojourner Company, Inc. (Greenville)
Unlimited Cut(, Greenville)
Varsity Barber Shop (Greenville)
Randolph County, NC
Coffee Xchange (Asheboro)
Collectors Antique Mall Inc. (Asheboro)
Dairy Breeze (Seagrove)
El Texanito (Asheboro)
Family Circle Consignment (Asheboro)
First United Methodist Church (Asheboro)
Little Jackie Hair Salon (Asheboro)
Robeson County, NC
Matthews' Beauty Salon & Boutique (Lumberton)
Miss Jo's (Lumberton)
Mud 'N' Munchies Coffee Shop (Lumberton)
Rosie's Reflection of Beauty (Lumberton)
Southside Records and Gear (Lumberton)
Southside Seafood and Sandwich Shop (Lumberton)
The Lady Bug (Lumberton)
Rockingham County, NC
Lashawn's (Eden)
Love Wig (Reidsville)
Vance County, NC
Changes A Head Salon (Henderson)
Kathleen's Alterations (Henderson)
La Chic Beauty Shop (Henderson)
Olympia (Henderson)
Soul Delicious (Henderson)
Southside Office Supply (Henderson)
True Thrift Shop (Henderson)
Wake County, NC
Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh)
Warren County, NC
A & S Pest Control (Norlina)
A Touch of Heaven Barber & Style Shop (Warrenton)
Hot Rod Installations (Warrenton)
Watauga County, NC
641 RPM (Boone)
BeansTalk (Boone)
Boone Florist (Boone)
Jeff Martin Ceramics (Boone)
Open Door (Boone)
Protronics (Boone)
The Dancing Moon (Boone)
The Purple Iris (Boone)
Wayne County, NC
JJ Ashley Bakery (Goldsboro)
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
www.pfadp.org
110 W. Main St., Suite 2-G, Carrboro NC 27510
(919) 933-7567
PFADP Launches Grassroots Campaign for Repeal
More than 100 North Carolina businesses have passed resolutions calling on the State of North Carolina to repeal the death penalty.
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty has launched a campaign to gather thousands of repeal resolutions from congregations, businesses, community groups and even local governments.
From Hot Rod Installations in Warrenton to the Southside Seafood and Sandwich Shop in Lumberton, small businesses throughout North Carolina are calling on the state to repeal the death penalty and use the money saved to help murder victims' families and for crime prevention programs. The resolutions call for an immediate suspension of executions until the death penalty is repealed.
We've only just begun.
You can help spread this campaign. Here's what you can do:
1. Endorse "The Abolition Petition" here
WE HAVE NOT PROMOTED THIS, BUT WE ARE NOW.
2. Download a copy of the resolution from our website, here , and ask your local congregation, and businesses and community groups in your hometown to endorse it. The resolution we are using at the moment is a "pure" resolution involving moral opposition to the death penalty and few statistics. Over time we will post different versions of the resolution, including resolutions for different faith traditions. Got any suggestions or feedback? Tell us. We'd love to know your suggestions for improving the wording.
3. Join PFADP staff and volunteers on our semi-weekly "Resolution Roundups," which are day trips to gather resolutions and build new support for the abolition movement. Watch for announcements.
4. Patronize the businesses that have passed these resolutions and thank them for doing so.
5. Forward this message widely.
The following businesses have passed resolutions for repealing the death penalty. A full list can also be viewed on our website, here
Alamance County, NC
A Beauty Within (Graham)
A New Look Salon (Burlington)
Beyond Beauty (Graham)
Cater 2 U Salon (Burlington)
Court Square Florist (Graham)
Deluxe Barber Shop Mebane)
Divas Only Hair Salon (Burlington)
Downtown Connections (Burlington)
Furniture on 4th Street (Mebane)
Graham Book and Banter (Graham)
H &K Bootery Inc. (Burlington)
Michelle's Kitchen (Burlington)
Rock Crafters (Graham)
Sidetrack Grill (Elon)
Stanford's Clothing (Burlington)
Tasty Bakery (Graham)
The Elegant Relic (Mebane)
Twice is Nice (Burlington)
Beaufort County, NC
Pam's House of Beauty (Washington)
Thomasia's Hair Gallery (Washington)
Buncombe County, NC
A Sense of Humor (Asheville)
Go Girl, Inc. (Asheville)
Natural Selections (Asheville)
Nest Organics (Asheville)
Skydog Enterprises, Inc. (Asheville)
Caswell County, NC
Hunt's Flea Market (Yanceyville)
Image Masters (Yanceyville)
J. Harris Creations (Yanceyville)
La-Shea Clothing (Yanceyville)
North Road Bicycle Company (Yanceyville)
Chatham County, NC
Annie B & The Black & White Guy (Pittsboro)
Don Pablo Mexican Store (Pittsboro)
Realty World Carolina Properties (Pittsboro)
United Books and Stuff (Pittsboro)
Craven County, NC
Bear Essentials (New Bern)
Boston Deli (New Bern)
Green (New Bern)
New Bern Mexican Bakery (New Bern)
Next Chapter Book (New Bern)
Trent River Coffee (New Bern)
Edgecombe County, NC
Carolina Beauty (Tarboro)
Main Street Café (Tarboro)
Modern Barber Shop (Tarboro)
Styles Unique (Tarboro)
Granville County, NC
Aerotek Aviation LLC (Oxford)
Kim's Tailor Shop (Oxford)
Remember When (Oxford)
Salon Matisse (Oxford)
This and That Gift Shop (Oxford)
Harnett County, NC
Kim's Barber Shop (Erwin)
Johnston County, NC
God's Helping Hands Consignment (Benson)
Lenoir County, NC
J.D. Lewis Antiques (Kinston)
Nash County, NC
Men's & Women's Affair Limited (Rocky Mount)
Orange County, NC
Back Alley Bikes (Chapel Hill)
Balloons & Tunes (Carrboro)
Bliss Bakery (Chapel Hill)
Carrboro Music (Carrboro)
Cliff's Meat Market Inc. (Carrboro)
DeLaine House of Beauty (Chapel Hill)
Internationalist Bookstore (Chapel Hill)
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty (Carrboro)
Rare Earth Beads (Carrboro)
Roulette Vintage (Carrboro)
Sandwhich LLC (Chapel Hill)
Touchwood Antiques (Carrboro)
Weaver Street Realty (Carrboro)
Pitt County, NC
Links on Evans (Greenville)
The Sojourner Company, Inc. (Greenville)
Unlimited Cut(, Greenville)
Varsity Barber Shop (Greenville)
Randolph County, NC
Coffee Xchange (Asheboro)
Collectors Antique Mall Inc. (Asheboro)
Dairy Breeze (Seagrove)
El Texanito (Asheboro)
Family Circle Consignment (Asheboro)
First United Methodist Church (Asheboro)
Little Jackie Hair Salon (Asheboro)
Robeson County, NC
Matthews' Beauty Salon & Boutique (Lumberton)
Miss Jo's (Lumberton)
Mud 'N' Munchies Coffee Shop (Lumberton)
Rosie's Reflection of Beauty (Lumberton)
Southside Records and Gear (Lumberton)
Southside Seafood and Sandwich Shop (Lumberton)
The Lady Bug (Lumberton)
Rockingham County, NC
Lashawn's (Eden)
Love Wig (Reidsville)
Vance County, NC
Changes A Head Salon (Henderson)
Kathleen's Alterations (Henderson)
La Chic Beauty Shop (Henderson)
Olympia (Henderson)
Soul Delicious (Henderson)
Southside Office Supply (Henderson)
True Thrift Shop (Henderson)
Wake County, NC
Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh)
Warren County, NC
A & S Pest Control (Norlina)
A Touch of Heaven Barber & Style Shop (Warrenton)
Hot Rod Installations (Warrenton)
Watauga County, NC
641 RPM (Boone)
BeansTalk (Boone)
Boone Florist (Boone)
Jeff Martin Ceramics (Boone)
Open Door (Boone)
Protronics (Boone)
The Dancing Moon (Boone)
The Purple Iris (Boone)
Wayne County, NC
JJ Ashley Bakery (Goldsboro)
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
www.pfadp.org
110 W. Main St., Suite 2-G, Carrboro NC 27510
(919) 933-7567
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Bill Pelke in Columbia, South Carolina Wed. October 21st
Bill Pelke, internationally famous expert on the death penalty, will tell his story of forgiveness and healing.
WHAT: Journey of Hope ... From Violence to Healing
WHEN: Wednesday, October 21, 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Room 005, BA Building (Close/Hipp Bldg.), USC Campus, Columbia, SC
Bill Pelke is the president and co-founder of the Journey of Hope ... from Violence to Healing and has authored a book by the same name. He is a board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and served as chair from 2004-08. Bill is also a founding and present board member of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, an incorporating board member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, and serves on the boards of Alaskans Against the Death Penalty and the Journey of Hope. He is a cofounder of the Abolition Action Committee and the annual Fast and Vigil at the US Supreme Court.
In 1985 Bill’s grandmother, Ruth Pelke, was murdered by four ninth grade girls. Paula Cooper, who was fifteen years old at the time of the murder, was deemed to be the ringleader and sentenced to die in the electric chair by the state of Indiana.
Originally supportive of the judge’s decision, Bill went through a spiritual transformation which led to forgiveness and healing. Bill realized the death penalty was not the proper solution and worked successfully to have Cooper’s sentence commuted to 60 years in prison. She is still in prison today, but no longer under the sentence of death. Bill has dedicated his life to abolition of the death penalty.
Join us to hear Bill’s story on Wednesday evening, October 21 at 7:00p.m. in room 005 of the BA Building (the Close/Hipp Building) at the Darla Moore School of Business on the University of South Carolina campus. (You can find a map of the area including the Close/Hipp Building by going to here and typing “Business Administration” into the “Places” search box.) There will be time for questions, and refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty (SCADP) and the USC Chapter of Amnesty International. For more information, see here or call 803-516-4681
WHAT: Journey of Hope ... From Violence to Healing
WHEN: Wednesday, October 21, 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Room 005, BA Building (Close/Hipp Bldg.), USC Campus, Columbia, SC
Bill Pelke is the president and co-founder of the Journey of Hope ... from Violence to Healing and has authored a book by the same name. He is a board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and served as chair from 2004-08. Bill is also a founding and present board member of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, an incorporating board member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, and serves on the boards of Alaskans Against the Death Penalty and the Journey of Hope. He is a cofounder of the Abolition Action Committee and the annual Fast and Vigil at the US Supreme Court.
In 1985 Bill’s grandmother, Ruth Pelke, was murdered by four ninth grade girls. Paula Cooper, who was fifteen years old at the time of the murder, was deemed to be the ringleader and sentenced to die in the electric chair by the state of Indiana.
Originally supportive of the judge’s decision, Bill went through a spiritual transformation which led to forgiveness and healing. Bill realized the death penalty was not the proper solution and worked successfully to have Cooper’s sentence commuted to 60 years in prison. She is still in prison today, but no longer under the sentence of death. Bill has dedicated his life to abolition of the death penalty.
Join us to hear Bill’s story on Wednesday evening, October 21 at 7:00p.m. in room 005 of the BA Building (the Close/Hipp Building) at the Darla Moore School of Business on the University of South Carolina campus. (You can find a map of the area including the Close/Hipp Building by going to here and typing “Business Administration” into the “Places” search box.) There will be time for questions, and refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty (SCADP) and the USC Chapter of Amnesty International. For more information, see here or call 803-516-4681
Friday, October 09, 2009
RICHARD NETHERCUT: Memoriam for World Day Against the Death Penalty
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field...
Dedicated to the life and work of Richard Nethercut Living a life of compassion, caring and forgiveness...October 23, 1925 -- October 6, 2009 Posted here for October 10th
“If you choose nonviolence, the only path you’re left with is dialogue.”
Lobsang Sangay*
For World Day Against the Death Penalty, October 10th, take a sobering look at all the PLANNED STATE MURDERS around the world -- here
NOW, see this humbling and challenging Memoriam:
RICHARD NETHERCUT made something beautiful beyond belief out of something ugly and horrific. And there are lessons here for our killing world all the way around. There are here the fertile seeds out of the ashes of death: the BETTER WAY of FORGIVENESS as seen by all major spiritualities. These quieting heart lessons live on after Richard's life looks apparently "over" and the vignettes speak to many other realms of our world's hellish responses to tragic events. May Richard's life continue to show us a better way...
Oct 9, 2009, at 12:06 PM, Renny Cushing wrote:
For Victims, Against the Death Penalty
The web log of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009
In Memoriam: Richard Nethercut We are saddened to learn of the death of MVFHR member Richard Nethercut, who had been reported missing a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday we got the news of his death, and we want to take a few moments to remember him here.
Dick's daughter, Jaina, had been murdered in 1978, and Dick became an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. Here is part of the testimony he gave as part of an MVFHR panel speaking against reinstatement of the death penalty in Massachusetts in 2007:
"As a murder victim family member, I oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty, which from my perspective will only add to the suffering of the victim’s family rather than lessen it. My daughter, Jaina Nethercut, was raped and murdered in a Seattle hotel on January 15, 1978 at age nineteen. … The rape and murder of a 19-year-old could carry the death penalty under this bill. This is the last thing my wife and I would have wanted because it would do violence to us and what we stand for to execute our daughter’s killer."
And here is an excerpt from the book - Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge - by Ellis Cose:
A thin, angular man in his seventies with dark, mostly receded hair and a gentle, earnest manner, Nethercut spends much of his time these days working with prisoners. It was a path he could not have foreseen while growing up in Wisconsin during the 1930s. After serving two years in the army during World War II, he earned a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and eventually ended up in Hong Kong, as a foreign service officer. In Shanghai in 1960, Nethercut and his wife, Lorraine, adopted a two-year-old girl of Russian descent.
Eight years later, Nethercut was assigned to the State Department's Washington headquarters. Their daughter, Eugenia - or Jaina, as they called her - had trouble adjusting to America. Nonetheless, she made it through high school and decided to go to Washington State University. But instead of focusing on her studies, Jaina began hanging out with a sleazy crowd. And in January 1978, she ended up in a welfare hotel in Seattle, apparently looking for marijuana.
She went to the room of a man she reportedly had met the previous night. The man, stoned out of his head, attacked her. She struggled. She managed to get out of the door; but she was dragged back in, raped, and strangled with a pair of stockings. It was Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Jaina was nineteen years old.
The news left Nethercut angry, shocked, and struggling with feelings of powerlessness. He also felt a great deal of guilt. For Jaina's move out west seemed, at least in part, an attempt to distance herself from her family. She wasn't even using the family name, which, for Nethercut, was a source of shame.
Police captured the assailant immediately. And though Nethercut couldn't bear to go to the trial, he was happy the man was sentenced to life in prison. Still, Nethercut was unable to put the tragedy behind him. He was depressed, and his State Department career seemed stalled. Though only in his mid-fifties, he took early retirement two years after Jaina's death and moved to Concord, his wife's hometown, the place where his daughter was buried.
Shortly after the move, Nethercut felt an inexplicable desire to contact the man who had murdered his daughter. He wrote to the chaplain at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington. Weeks later the chaplain called as the murderer waited to get on the line. The conversation lasted roughly ten minutes. Nethercut scarcely remembers what was said. He does recall that the conversation was awkward. "We both danced around the issue. We were quite polite with each other. I wanted to learn more and I didn't learn more. . . . I couldn't understand what had happened." The man expressed regret and yet never acknowledged his crime, and certainly didn't provide the explanation and apology Nethercut so desperately craved. Nevertheless, Nethercut muttered words - insincere though they were - of forgiveness.
The men exchanged Christmas cards a few times; but there was no real relationship to maintain - and no release from the confusion and impotence Nethercut felt. For years, he bottled up his emotions: "I kept my daughter's death to myself. I suppressed it. I didn't go through an authentic grieving process." He blamed himself for being a bad father and wallowed in anger and guilt. Finally, he got psychiatric help for his depression; and he got more involved in the activities of his Congregationalist church.
At a religious retreat in 1986 Nethercut had an encounter that radically changed his life. A Catholic bishop suggested that he become part of a prison Bible fellowship program. The idea strongly appealed to Nethercut, who was searching for a way to fill "the hole in my soul . . . I really wanted to do something positive." Several years later, he got involved in the Alternatives to Violence Program, a two-and-a-half-day immersion experience that brings together prisoners and outsiders to role-play, confess, confide, empathize, and explore ideas about the causes-and cures-for violence. In one of those sessions Nethercut got a chance to role-play the part of the man who had murdered Jaina.
In the exercise, he went before the pretend parole board to make his case for freedom; and for the first time, he felt he understood some part of the man who had killed his daughter. It was unexpectedly empowering.
In 2001, at a national conference of the Alternatives to Violence Program, Nethercut met another man who had murdered a woman. That man, who was no longer in prison, had reached out to the family of the woman he had killed; and the family had refused his apology. As the killer and Nethercut talked of their respective experiences, they realized they could help each other. Shortly thereafter they went through a ceremony with a victim-offender mediator. His new friend apologized for the murder and Nethercut accepted. The ritual served its purpose: "I no longer feel the need to hear directly from the man himself."
Nethercut's life has come to revolve around his volunteer work in prison-and in promoting prison reform and nonviolence. It is his way of honoring his daughter, of "giving a gift of significance to my daughter's life." He sees in many of the young prisoners and ex-offenders something of his daughter. "They are angry, alienated, at the same time . . . looking for love, acceptance." And he has come to realize, he says, voicing John Lewis's precise words, that everyone has "a spark of the divine."
Thoughts of the murderer-given parole after seventeen years despite his life sentence-no longer torment Nethercut, who has finally and totally forgiven the man. "FORGIVENESS IS SOMETHING YOU DO FOR YOURSELF," said Nethercut. "It releases you from a PRISON of YOUR OWN MAKING. You forgive the individual and move on. . . . Reconciliation is a step further. . . . That takes both sides."
Nethercut feels that he is a man transformed, and he is no longer depressed. "I feel more whole, more kind of at peace." Through his work, his faith, determination, and grace, he has turned a tragedy in his past into something about which he feels unequivocally positive.
Renny Cushing
rrcushing@earthlink.net
(sent from webmail)
=======================
Find out some of what transpired during the search for Richard and a place for expressing emotions of both loss and gratitude for his life:
here
Find much more on the life of this great holy man -- here
Here are some quotes which those close to Richard wish to share with stoppers-by:
“From my perspective, the death penalty only adds to the suffering of the victim’s family, rather than lessening it. I believe the work I do now in prison and with ex-prisoners honors and gives significance to my daughter's life. In forgiving her killer without condoning his heinous action, I am free to get on with my life,
no longer imprisoned by rage or grief, and this has been very healing for me."
Richard Nethercut
_____
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
“Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.”
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
_____
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
_____
The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.
--Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
____
* Quote at top on dialogue from Lobsang Sangay is fleshed out more during this testimony to the Senate regarding China and Tibet: here
Dedicated to the life and work of Richard Nethercut Living a life of compassion, caring and forgiveness...October 23, 1925 -- October 6, 2009 Posted here for October 10th“If you choose nonviolence, the only path you’re left with is dialogue.”
Lobsang Sangay*
For World Day Against the Death Penalty, October 10th, take a sobering look at all the PLANNED STATE MURDERS around the world -- here
NOW, see this humbling and challenging Memoriam:
RICHARD NETHERCUT made something beautiful beyond belief out of something ugly and horrific. And there are lessons here for our killing world all the way around. There are here the fertile seeds out of the ashes of death: the BETTER WAY of FORGIVENESS as seen by all major spiritualities. These quieting heart lessons live on after Richard's life looks apparently "over" and the vignettes speak to many other realms of our world's hellish responses to tragic events. May Richard's life continue to show us a better way...
Oct 9, 2009, at 12:06 PM, Renny Cushing wrote:
For Victims, Against the Death Penalty
The web log of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009
In Memoriam: Richard Nethercut We are saddened to learn of the death of MVFHR member Richard Nethercut, who had been reported missing a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday we got the news of his death, and we want to take a few moments to remember him here.
Dick's daughter, Jaina, had been murdered in 1978, and Dick became an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. Here is part of the testimony he gave as part of an MVFHR panel speaking against reinstatement of the death penalty in Massachusetts in 2007:
"As a murder victim family member, I oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty, which from my perspective will only add to the suffering of the victim’s family rather than lessen it. My daughter, Jaina Nethercut, was raped and murdered in a Seattle hotel on January 15, 1978 at age nineteen. … The rape and murder of a 19-year-old could carry the death penalty under this bill. This is the last thing my wife and I would have wanted because it would do violence to us and what we stand for to execute our daughter’s killer."
And here is an excerpt from the book - Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge - by Ellis Cose:
A thin, angular man in his seventies with dark, mostly receded hair and a gentle, earnest manner, Nethercut spends much of his time these days working with prisoners. It was a path he could not have foreseen while growing up in Wisconsin during the 1930s. After serving two years in the army during World War II, he earned a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and eventually ended up in Hong Kong, as a foreign service officer. In Shanghai in 1960, Nethercut and his wife, Lorraine, adopted a two-year-old girl of Russian descent.
Eight years later, Nethercut was assigned to the State Department's Washington headquarters. Their daughter, Eugenia - or Jaina, as they called her - had trouble adjusting to America. Nonetheless, she made it through high school and decided to go to Washington State University. But instead of focusing on her studies, Jaina began hanging out with a sleazy crowd. And in January 1978, she ended up in a welfare hotel in Seattle, apparently looking for marijuana.
She went to the room of a man she reportedly had met the previous night. The man, stoned out of his head, attacked her. She struggled. She managed to get out of the door; but she was dragged back in, raped, and strangled with a pair of stockings. It was Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Jaina was nineteen years old.
The news left Nethercut angry, shocked, and struggling with feelings of powerlessness. He also felt a great deal of guilt. For Jaina's move out west seemed, at least in part, an attempt to distance herself from her family. She wasn't even using the family name, which, for Nethercut, was a source of shame.
Police captured the assailant immediately. And though Nethercut couldn't bear to go to the trial, he was happy the man was sentenced to life in prison. Still, Nethercut was unable to put the tragedy behind him. He was depressed, and his State Department career seemed stalled. Though only in his mid-fifties, he took early retirement two years after Jaina's death and moved to Concord, his wife's hometown, the place where his daughter was buried.
Shortly after the move, Nethercut felt an inexplicable desire to contact the man who had murdered his daughter. He wrote to the chaplain at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington. Weeks later the chaplain called as the murderer waited to get on the line. The conversation lasted roughly ten minutes. Nethercut scarcely remembers what was said. He does recall that the conversation was awkward. "We both danced around the issue. We were quite polite with each other. I wanted to learn more and I didn't learn more. . . . I couldn't understand what had happened." The man expressed regret and yet never acknowledged his crime, and certainly didn't provide the explanation and apology Nethercut so desperately craved. Nevertheless, Nethercut muttered words - insincere though they were - of forgiveness.
The men exchanged Christmas cards a few times; but there was no real relationship to maintain - and no release from the confusion and impotence Nethercut felt. For years, he bottled up his emotions: "I kept my daughter's death to myself. I suppressed it. I didn't go through an authentic grieving process." He blamed himself for being a bad father and wallowed in anger and guilt. Finally, he got psychiatric help for his depression; and he got more involved in the activities of his Congregationalist church.
At a religious retreat in 1986 Nethercut had an encounter that radically changed his life. A Catholic bishop suggested that he become part of a prison Bible fellowship program. The idea strongly appealed to Nethercut, who was searching for a way to fill "the hole in my soul . . . I really wanted to do something positive." Several years later, he got involved in the Alternatives to Violence Program, a two-and-a-half-day immersion experience that brings together prisoners and outsiders to role-play, confess, confide, empathize, and explore ideas about the causes-and cures-for violence. In one of those sessions Nethercut got a chance to role-play the part of the man who had murdered Jaina.
In the exercise, he went before the pretend parole board to make his case for freedom; and for the first time, he felt he understood some part of the man who had killed his daughter. It was unexpectedly empowering.
In 2001, at a national conference of the Alternatives to Violence Program, Nethercut met another man who had murdered a woman. That man, who was no longer in prison, had reached out to the family of the woman he had killed; and the family had refused his apology. As the killer and Nethercut talked of their respective experiences, they realized they could help each other. Shortly thereafter they went through a ceremony with a victim-offender mediator. His new friend apologized for the murder and Nethercut accepted. The ritual served its purpose: "I no longer feel the need to hear directly from the man himself."
Nethercut's life has come to revolve around his volunteer work in prison-and in promoting prison reform and nonviolence. It is his way of honoring his daughter, of "giving a gift of significance to my daughter's life." He sees in many of the young prisoners and ex-offenders something of his daughter. "They are angry, alienated, at the same time . . . looking for love, acceptance." And he has come to realize, he says, voicing John Lewis's precise words, that everyone has "a spark of the divine."
Thoughts of the murderer-given parole after seventeen years despite his life sentence-no longer torment Nethercut, who has finally and totally forgiven the man. "FORGIVENESS IS SOMETHING YOU DO FOR YOURSELF," said Nethercut. "It releases you from a PRISON of YOUR OWN MAKING. You forgive the individual and move on. . . . Reconciliation is a step further. . . . That takes both sides."
Nethercut feels that he is a man transformed, and he is no longer depressed. "I feel more whole, more kind of at peace." Through his work, his faith, determination, and grace, he has turned a tragedy in his past into something about which he feels unequivocally positive.
Renny Cushing
rrcushing@earthlink.net
(sent from webmail)
=======================
Find out some of what transpired during the search for Richard and a place for expressing emotions of both loss and gratitude for his life:
here
Find much more on the life of this great holy man -- here
Here are some quotes which those close to Richard wish to share with stoppers-by:
“From my perspective, the death penalty only adds to the suffering of the victim’s family, rather than lessening it. I believe the work I do now in prison and with ex-prisoners honors and gives significance to my daughter's life. In forgiving her killer without condoning his heinous action, I am free to get on with my life,
no longer imprisoned by rage or grief, and this has been very healing for me."
Richard Nethercut
_____
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
“Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.”
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
_____
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
_____
The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.
--Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
____
* Quote at top on dialogue from Lobsang Sangay is fleshed out more during this testimony to the Senate regarding China and Tibet: here
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Two More Exonerations From Death Row: 137th and 138th Persons Freed in Oklahoma
Two men who were charged with murder in a 1993 drive-by shooting were released on October 2 after spending almost 15 years on Oklahoma’s death row. District Attorney David Prater dropped charges against Yancy Douglas (left),35, and Paris Powell (right), 36, after deciding the state's key witness was unreliable.
"Ethically, and on my duty, I could not proceed in this case and had to dismiss it," Prater said.
Derrick Smith, a rival gang member to the defendants and the state's main witness, was one of the apparent targets in the shooting. A federal appeals court in 2006 found that Smith had received a deal from the prosecutors that was not revealed to the defense and overturned the convictions. Smith testified against Powell and Douglas in their 1997 trial, but later admitted he never saw who shot him, that he was drunk and high that night, and that he testified only because prosecutors had threatened him with more prison time.
The District Attorney added, “We all came to the opinion that without Derrick Smith, we did not have a case we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Jack Fisher, Powell’s attorney, said his client has always maintained his innocence and that Powell’s release is “bittersweet. It should have happened a long time ago. It’s unfortunate that he had to spend 16 years of his life in jail. What it boils down to is they had no evidence he was guilty. The testimony that they used to convict him was false.”
(S. Murphy, "Two ex-death row inmates released from Oklahoma prison," Associated Press, October 5, 2009; R. Surette, "Why 2 Death Row Inmates Were Set Free," News9.com, Oct. 6, 2009). See Innocence.
Douglas was the 137th inmate exonerated from death row since 1973, and Powell is the 138th, according to a list of exonerations maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center. Ten inmates have been exonerated and freed from Oklahoma. The criteria for inclusion on the list are:
Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-
a) their conviction was overturned AND
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped
b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.
(Source: DPIC)
Monday, October 05, 2009
Shouting from the rooftops!
In 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that there has not been "a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."
Thanks to the September 7 New Yorker article, “Trial by Fire,” we can shout with authority the name of Cameron Todd Willingham, but we need your help to get the message out. Find out more about NCADP's “Shouting from the Rooftops” campaign here.
You can also read a recent op-ed from Diann Rust-Tierney about Cameron Todd Willingham here.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Botched Executions New York Times Editorial
The New York Times
October 3, 2009
Editorial - Botched Executions
Ohio’s attempt to execute Romell Broom last month by lethal injection was the death penalty at its most barbaric. Even after that horribly botched failed execution, the state wants to continue putting people to death, starting next week. Ohio should at the very least call a moratorium so it can ensure that it has the technical competence to put people to death humanely. But every state should use this shameful moment to question whether they ought to be putting people to death at all.
The execution team in Ohio spent about two hours trying to access a vein on Mr. Broom’s arms and legs. They stuck him with a needle about 18 times, returning to areas that were already bruised. In one case, the needle reportedly hit a bone. Mr. Broom tried to help, pointing to veins, massaging his arms to keep a vein open and straightening tubes. At one point, some witnesses suggested he was crying.
Mr. Broom’s case is extraordinary because his execution was actually halted and he was returned to death row. Botched executions, however, are far too common. The Death Penalty Information Center has a harrowing list on its Web site.
In an Alabama electrocution, flames erupted from the electrode attached to a prisoner’s leg, and even after his flesh burned, doctors found a heartbeat. In Florida in 2006, a prisoner required two lethal injections to die. After the first, he seemed to grimace and mouth words.
The Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Kentucky’s use of lethal injection last year, but it left open the possibility that lethal injection could be cruel and unusual in some circumstances. The record in that case was thin, but Ohio’s use of lethal injection raises more obvious concerns. In the last four years, it has had three botched executions, including one in 2006, which took nearly an hour and a half and left the prisoner’s body with 19 puncture wounds.
We have long believed that capital punishment is wrong in all cases, but even those who support it should not accept cruel procedures.
Ohio should halt any further executions until it conducts a comprehensive study of what is going wrong in its administration of lethal injection and what can be done to ensure that a travesty like Mr. Broom’s attempted execution does not happen again.
Ultimately, every state should pause and consider that ending the life of a healthy man or woman is no simple matter and that even in the 21st century, executioners do not have their job down to anything like a science. No government should put people to death until it can show that the condemned person will not be racked with pain, catch on fire or prove so difficult to kill, as in Mr. Broom’s case, that the executioners are forced to try again another day.
October 3, 2009
Editorial - Botched Executions
Ohio’s attempt to execute Romell Broom last month by lethal injection was the death penalty at its most barbaric. Even after that horribly botched failed execution, the state wants to continue putting people to death, starting next week. Ohio should at the very least call a moratorium so it can ensure that it has the technical competence to put people to death humanely. But every state should use this shameful moment to question whether they ought to be putting people to death at all.
The execution team in Ohio spent about two hours trying to access a vein on Mr. Broom’s arms and legs. They stuck him with a needle about 18 times, returning to areas that were already bruised. In one case, the needle reportedly hit a bone. Mr. Broom tried to help, pointing to veins, massaging his arms to keep a vein open and straightening tubes. At one point, some witnesses suggested he was crying.
Mr. Broom’s case is extraordinary because his execution was actually halted and he was returned to death row. Botched executions, however, are far too common. The Death Penalty Information Center has a harrowing list on its Web site.
In an Alabama electrocution, flames erupted from the electrode attached to a prisoner’s leg, and even after his flesh burned, doctors found a heartbeat. In Florida in 2006, a prisoner required two lethal injections to die. After the first, he seemed to grimace and mouth words.
The Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Kentucky’s use of lethal injection last year, but it left open the possibility that lethal injection could be cruel and unusual in some circumstances. The record in that case was thin, but Ohio’s use of lethal injection raises more obvious concerns. In the last four years, it has had three botched executions, including one in 2006, which took nearly an hour and a half and left the prisoner’s body with 19 puncture wounds.
We have long believed that capital punishment is wrong in all cases, but even those who support it should not accept cruel procedures.
Ohio should halt any further executions until it conducts a comprehensive study of what is going wrong in its administration of lethal injection and what can be done to ensure that a travesty like Mr. Broom’s attempted execution does not happen again.
Ultimately, every state should pause and consider that ending the life of a healthy man or woman is no simple matter and that even in the 21st century, executioners do not have their job down to anything like a science. No government should put people to death until it can show that the condemned person will not be racked with pain, catch on fire or prove so difficult to kill, as in Mr. Broom’s case, that the executioners are forced to try again another day.
TEXAS: POLL at Todd Willingham's Hometown Paper
EYES ON TEXAS here
GO here to VOTE!
Please vote on the Todd Willingham case about Gov. Perry involvement.
Vote down on right at Willingham's hometown paper #Texas forensic commission purge is political.
Thanks,
Peace,
Bill
Bill Pelke, President
Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing
PO Box 210390
Anchorage, AK 99521-0390
Toll Free 877-9-24GIVE (4483)
Bill@JourneyofHope.org
www.JourneyofHope.org
Cell 305-775-5823
"The answer is love and compassion for all of humanity"
GO here to VOTE!
Please vote on the Todd Willingham case about Gov. Perry involvement.
Vote down on right at Willingham's hometown paper #Texas forensic commission purge is political.
Thanks,
Peace,
Bill
Bill Pelke, President
Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing
PO Box 210390
Anchorage, AK 99521-0390
Toll Free 877-9-24GIVE (4483)
Bill@JourneyofHope.org
www.JourneyofHope.org
Cell 305-775-5823
"The answer is love and compassion for all of humanity"
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
I forgave him
She sits before the white balcony curtain, in a black galabia. "The really strange thing about my life today is that I have no secrets," says Robi Damelin, 65, an activist in Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace (also known as the Parents Circle-Families Forum, or PCFF). "I used to be a very private person. And though I had a public relations firm in Tel Aviv and a lot of journalist friends, none of them were ever invited to my home. Today everything is open, free. After David was killed I went to a psychologist. She said to me: 'You know, Robi, now you are free.' I didn't understand her then. She said to me: 'What else can happen to you? From now on, you'll do things and there won't be any fear or ego getting in the way.' She was right. Since David was killed my whole life has changed, it's taken another direction. All my priorities and sense of proportion changed. I don't think people can understand what it really means to lose a child." Seven years ago, a Palestinian man took up a position on a hill overlooking the British Police Junction, north of the West Bank settlement of Ofra, and for more than 20 minutes used an old rifle to pick off soldiers and civilians at the Wadi Haramiya checkpoint. He fired 25 bullets and killed three civilians and seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers, including Damelin's son, David. The sniper escaped unharmed. The incident, and the excellent shooting skills it seemed to indicate, provoked wild speculations about the identity of the gunman. Some said he must have been a skilled marksman from the Palestinian Authority's Force 17, or even a sharpshooter from the Irish Republican Army. Two and a half years later, in October 2004, Ta'er Hamad, 24 and a member of Fatah, was apprehended by an IDF unit operating in the village of Silwad. During his interrogation he disclosed that in 1998 he had found an old rifle and 300 bullets, and would take it out to the wadis to practice shooting. He also said that on the day of the attack, he had only stopped shooting because the rifle had come apart in his hands.
The capture of the shooter and the discovery of his identity left Damelin restless. "When he was caught I didn't feel any satisfaction," she says. "There's no logic in revenge and I never sought revenge. For me, his capture was the real test of my perception of myself, a test to see if I really mean what I say when I talk about reconciliation, about peace. I thought, 'How can I go around the world talking about reconciliation and peace, if I myself am not ready to start on this path?' For four months I agonized, I searched deep inside myself, I tried to understand whether I really meant it, and in the end I decided to write a letter to the sniper's family." Palestinian friends from the Families Forum delivered the letter to the family, which read as follows:
"This for me is one of the most difficult letters I will ever have to write. My name is Robi Damelin, I am the mother of David who was killed by your son. I know he did not kill David because he was David, if he had known him he could never have done such a thing. David was 28 years old, he was a student at Tel Aviv University doing his masters in the philosophy of education. David was part of the peace movement and did not want to serve in the occupied territories. He had compassion for all people and understood the suffering of the Palestinians. He treated all around him with dignity. David was part of the movement of the officers who did not want to serve in the occupied territories, but nevertheless for many reasons he went to serve when he was called up for reserve duty.
"What makes our children do what they do, they do not understand the pain they are causing your son by now having to be in jail for many years and mine who I will never be able to hold or see again or see him married, or have a grandchild from. I cannot describe to you the pain I feel since his death and the pain of his brother and girlfriend, and all who knew and loved him," Damelin wrote.
Military Court Judge Yehuda Lieberman convicted Hamad and sentenced him to 11 life sentences.
"I understand that your son is considered a hero by many within the Palestinian people. He is considered to be a freedom fighter, fighting for justice and for an independent, viable Palestinian state," Damelin wrote in the letter to Hamad's family, "but I also feel that if he understood that taking the life of another is not the way and that if he understood the consequences of his act, he could see that a nonviolent solution is the only way for both nations to live together in peace... Our lives as two nations are so intertwined, each of us will have to give up on our dreams for the future of the children who are our responsibility... I do not know what your reaction will be, it is a risk for me, but I believe that you will understand, as it comes from the most honest place within me. I hope that you will show the letter to your son, and that maybe in the future we can meet."
Please read the rest of the story here
Please also visit Robi's page at the Forgiveness Project
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Death Row: The Cruel and Unusual Wait
On Tuesday, Sep. 15, the state of Ohio was set to execute Rommell Broom, a man convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl 25 years ago. After two hours of poking and prodding, however, the technicians were unable to find a suitable vein where they could administer the lethal injection. Regardless of the cause, the end result was that the execution attempt failed and Broom walked out of the chamber under his own power, still breathing the same oxygen as the rest of us, his execution postponed by one week.
Unsurprisingly, Broom’s attorneys immediately responded seeking to cancel or at least postpone this execution. One of the grounds they appealed on was that executing Rommell Broom seven days after the botched execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. They contended that one week was simply not enough time to recover from both the physical and emotional trauma of a failed execution attempt. Broom’s execution has since been delayed pending a series of proceedings.
The idea that waiting seven days to die could constitute cruel and unusual punishment underscores a much larger problem with the United States imposition of the death penalty. Rommell Broom was sentenced to die 25 years ago. The United States’ 3,300 death row inmates can now expect to wait an average of 12 years from the day of their sentencing to death by lethal injection or electric chair, a doubling of the time gap in the mid-1980s, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice. The psychological toll and physical deterioration of death row inmates has been well chronicled, with at least two Supreme Court Justices questioning the constitutionality of the long delays between conviction and the carrying out of sentences.
Delaying executions this long leads to greater philosophical questions. If we sentence someone to death at the age of 20 and execute them at the age of 45, are we even punishing the same person? The long delays are mainly due to mandatory appeals introduced after capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976 after a four-year suspension. These reforms have led to lengthier appeals — the flipside, however, is even more frightening.
If we were to cut down the mandatory appeal process in order to speed up the execution of inmates, we would undoubtedly risk executing innocent individuals. Even with our current system in place this is a terrifying concern. In 2004, Todd Willingham was executed by the state of Texas for starting a fire that killed his three daughters. In a report sent in August of this year to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, however, an expert fire investigator concluded, as did two other experts in 2004 and 2006, that the blaze was accidental, not arson. This finding may not make life any easier for death penalty opponents, however; in a recent ruling, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia joined by Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
The cases of Rommell Broom and Todd Willingham are cause for serious concern even amongst ardent supporters of the death penalty. In 1972 the Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, holding the system states used to apply the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment due to the random and arbitrary manner in which death sentences were handed down. Since that time the death penalty has roared back, with states slowly developing new rules designed to eliminate the arbitrary nature in which individual is handed a death sentence. This has resulted in “Frankenstein” statutes that have done little to solve the real problems. We currently have over 3,000 individuals on death row. In 2008 we executed 37; this year we have executed 38. Long delays have certainly resulted in more arbitrariness as to which inmates actually succumb to the death penalty. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, we have continued to reform and fight the simple fact that the death penalty is an imperfect system with permanent consequences. The execution of innocent men, and the execution of individuals who have had 20 years to change, make it clear that the United States should join the rest of the Western world in rejection of this arbitrary practice.
Op-Ed by Richard Elkind in the Cornell Daily Sun
Unsurprisingly, Broom’s attorneys immediately responded seeking to cancel or at least postpone this execution. One of the grounds they appealed on was that executing Rommell Broom seven days after the botched execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. They contended that one week was simply not enough time to recover from both the physical and emotional trauma of a failed execution attempt. Broom’s execution has since been delayed pending a series of proceedings.
The idea that waiting seven days to die could constitute cruel and unusual punishment underscores a much larger problem with the United States imposition of the death penalty. Rommell Broom was sentenced to die 25 years ago. The United States’ 3,300 death row inmates can now expect to wait an average of 12 years from the day of their sentencing to death by lethal injection or electric chair, a doubling of the time gap in the mid-1980s, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice. The psychological toll and physical deterioration of death row inmates has been well chronicled, with at least two Supreme Court Justices questioning the constitutionality of the long delays between conviction and the carrying out of sentences.
Delaying executions this long leads to greater philosophical questions. If we sentence someone to death at the age of 20 and execute them at the age of 45, are we even punishing the same person? The long delays are mainly due to mandatory appeals introduced after capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976 after a four-year suspension. These reforms have led to lengthier appeals — the flipside, however, is even more frightening.
If we were to cut down the mandatory appeal process in order to speed up the execution of inmates, we would undoubtedly risk executing innocent individuals. Even with our current system in place this is a terrifying concern. In 2004, Todd Willingham was executed by the state of Texas for starting a fire that killed his three daughters. In a report sent in August of this year to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, however, an expert fire investigator concluded, as did two other experts in 2004 and 2006, that the blaze was accidental, not arson. This finding may not make life any easier for death penalty opponents, however; in a recent ruling, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia joined by Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissenting opinion: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
The cases of Rommell Broom and Todd Willingham are cause for serious concern even amongst ardent supporters of the death penalty. In 1972 the Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, holding the system states used to apply the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment due to the random and arbitrary manner in which death sentences were handed down. Since that time the death penalty has roared back, with states slowly developing new rules designed to eliminate the arbitrary nature in which individual is handed a death sentence. This has resulted in “Frankenstein” statutes that have done little to solve the real problems. We currently have over 3,000 individuals on death row. In 2008 we executed 37; this year we have executed 38. Long delays have certainly resulted in more arbitrariness as to which inmates actually succumb to the death penalty. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, we have continued to reform and fight the simple fact that the death penalty is an imperfect system with permanent consequences. The execution of innocent men, and the execution of individuals who have had 20 years to change, make it clear that the United States should join the rest of the Western world in rejection of this arbitrary practice.
Op-Ed by Richard Elkind in the Cornell Daily Sun
Friday, September 25, 2009
Virtual Vigil and Prayers Needed for Missing FMVR Member (MVFR Friend)
From Sue Norton's friend in Boston, Marguerite Helen. Sue says: Dick is a member of MVFR and very active against the death penalty. Placed her with approval from Bill PelkeFrom Marguerite:
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:19 PM
Subject: virtual vigil
I decided that there really isn't time to contact the mother and then the members of the Meeting, so I'll have a private vigil.
I don't know if you have heard it already, but an FMVR member, Dick Nethercut, is missing. I think that he was included in an MVFR book? The last contact anyone had with him was about 8 pm Sat night. He was very reliable about getting where
he had agreed to or letting someone know if he couldn't make it, and was expected at two places Sunday. His red taurus is missing; his cell phone and materials for a meeting were on a table in his apartment.
The word is being spread widely among those of us who do AVP because he is a principal AVP person in this area; has been working on nonviolence
with prisoners for years. The search is very widespread now. I don't know whether or not it has been sent to the MVFR members and friends -- if not, please do so.
Prayers and vigils for him are, of course, requested.
Marguerite Helen / Mugs
One way to do a virtual vigil (suggested by Connie blogger here) Light A Candle here with your name and message: Every day thousands of people from all over the world light candles here
Thursday, September 24, 2009
September 25, A National Day of Remembrance
NOTE: We send prayers and our sympathy to the many murder victims on this day including our visionary founder, Bill Pelke. Please note the post just above this one for the special request to vigil and pray for a missing Murder Victim and friend of the abolition against the death penalty movement. And also see and send out the SPECIAL EVENT notice for Western North Carolina - Asheville happening with featured MVFM and author of "Coffee House God" just below the Commemoration.
From Equal Justice USA:
Greetings! Today is the third annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Murder touches hundreds of families each year. Our work to end the death penalty has put us in contact with many of these families and the organizations that serve them. They have taught us that homicide survivors suffer a special kind of traumatic grief and that the critical services they need to heal, including specialized counseling by trauma experts, financial assistance, and other ongoing support, are sorely lacking.
===============
The following is a special invitation to all who are in Western North Carolina...
Please take note that ... September 25, is A National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. "So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them." - Gates of Prayer
I hope to see you at MVFR (Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation -- here ) member Therese Bartholomew's book discussion and signing Saturday, October 3, at 3pm at Malaprops Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St., Asheville.
Thank you for your help and attendance at last week's UNCA panel discussion, "Let Justice Roll! Racial Justice in North Carolina". I've attached a couple of photos. If you'd like to see my album, "WNC Working for the NC Racial Justice Act", please visit here
Thanks to Connie Nash for writing and submitting this excellent article about Edward Chapman here
:
Here's a list of upcoming events (please contact me for further details):
Tuesday, September 28, 6:15pm -- Charlotte Coalition meeting, Charlotte;
Saturday, October 3, 3pm -- MVFR member Therese Bartholomew Book Discussion & Signing at Malaprops Bookstore & Cafe, Asheville;
Thursday, October 8, 5:30pm -- Buncombe Coalition meeting, UCC, Asheville;
Thursday, October 15, 7pm -- Haywood Coalition meeting, Osondu, Waynesville.
In sympathy,
Alex
--
Alex Cury, Western Region Coordinator
North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium
www.ncmoratorium.org here
acury@ncmoratorium.org
(828) 253-5088 (O)
(828) 318-7741 (C)
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
From Equal Justice USA:
Greetings! Today is the third annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Murder touches hundreds of families each year. Our work to end the death penalty has put us in contact with many of these families and the organizations that serve them. They have taught us that homicide survivors suffer a special kind of traumatic grief and that the critical services they need to heal, including specialized counseling by trauma experts, financial assistance, and other ongoing support, are sorely lacking.
===============
The following is a special invitation to all who are in Western North Carolina...
Please take note that ... September 25, is A National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. "So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them." - Gates of Prayer
I hope to see you at MVFR (Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation -- here ) member Therese Bartholomew's book discussion and signing Saturday, October 3, at 3pm at Malaprops Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St., Asheville.
Thank you for your help and attendance at last week's UNCA panel discussion, "Let Justice Roll! Racial Justice in North Carolina". I've attached a couple of photos. If you'd like to see my album, "WNC Working for the NC Racial Justice Act", please visit here
Thanks to Connie Nash for writing and submitting this excellent article about Edward Chapman here
: Here's a list of upcoming events (please contact me for further details):
Tuesday, September 28, 6:15pm -- Charlotte Coalition meeting, Charlotte;
Saturday, October 3, 3pm -- MVFR member Therese Bartholomew Book Discussion & Signing at Malaprops Bookstore & Cafe, Asheville;
Thursday, October 8, 5:30pm -- Buncombe Coalition meeting, UCC, Asheville;
Thursday, October 15, 7pm -- Haywood Coalition meeting, Osondu, Waynesville.
In sympathy,
Alex
--
Alex Cury, Western Region Coordinator
North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium
www.ncmoratorium.org here
acury@ncmoratorium.org
(828) 253-5088 (O)
(828) 318-7741 (C)
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Lethal injection is the wrong debate
By Ray Krone, director of communications for Witness to Innocence, an organization of exonerated former death row prisoners and their family members. First published in SF Gate on 1/14/08
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in Baze vs. Rees, which challenges the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection.
While the court wrestles with technical issues concerning the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, there's a much larger reason our country is rethinking the death penalty: the possibility of sentencing to death and executing an innocent human being.
Unlike almost any American, I speak from experience.
I spent more than 10 years in Arizona prisons for a crime I didn't commit, including nearly three years on Death Row. In 1992, I was sentenced to death for killing a bartender, even though I was at home, asleep, when the murder was committed.
In 2002, through the tireless work of my attorneys, I was the 100th person to be exonerated and released from death row since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States. Despite DNA evidence that exonerated me, it took years before the prosecution grudgingly acknowledged it had no case against me. If it had been up to the state of Arizona, I'd be dead today.
Who knows how many more innocent people sit on death row today, guilty of nothing more than the fact that they couldn't afford a lawyer? And can anyone honestly say with certainty that of the nearly 1,100 people who have been executed in the past 30 years, not a single one wasn't innocent?
As my story illustrates, even with DNA testing there will always be a chance an innocent person will be sentenced to death and executed.
Recently, the New Jersey Legislature and governor showed courage and common sense when they abolished that state's death penalty. One of the primary reasons cited was the possibility of executing an innocent person.
New Jersey Sen. Raymond Lesniak, one of the bill's sponsors, recalled the case of Byron Halsey, who spent 22 years in prison for the murder and rape of two children before being released after DNA testing linked another man to the crime.
"There are hundreds of Byron Halseys throughout the United States who were wrongly convicted of murder," Lesniak said. "No doubt, some were sentenced to death and executed."
Meanwhile, in December, at the same time the bill to abolish the death penalty was making its way through the New Jersey legislature, three more former death row prisoners were released. Michael McCormick (Tennessee), Jonathon Hoffman (North Carolina) and Kenneth Richey (Ohio) had spent a combined total of more than 40 years on death row before being freed.
Sen. Lesniak summed the problem up best when he said, "It's impossible for human beings to devise a system free of the risk of human error."
The last time I checked, our criminal justice system was devised and run by human beings.
And instead of equal justice under the law, in far too many capital cases we see incompetent legal representation, racial discrimination and prosecutorial misconduct. These blemishes to our justice system are problematic, to say the least. But when a human life is at stake, such potentially fatal flaws are an embarrassment to a nation that considers itself the standard bearer for human rights.
So while the U.S. Supreme Court contemplates whether or not killing a person with a particular combination of chemicals is cruel and unusual punishment, all of us should recognize a much larger, more obvious fact: If sentencing to death and possibly executing an innocent person isn't cruel and unusual punishment, nothing is.
Quite literally, I'm living proof of that.
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