Help Save Troy Davis from Execution Once Again!

Hello Readers and Journey Family! I found this in my email box today addressed to: Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

Troy Davis has been on death row in Georgia for 18 years for the murder of a Police Officer in Savannah; a murder he maintains he did not commit. And, after 18 years, the case against him has crumbled. His execution date has been delayed 3 times because the pieces just don't add up. Now, the state of Georgia may be about to kill the wrong man. Follow the links below and join Amnesty International USA's call to urge Georgia Governor Perdue to prevent the execution of Troy Davis.

here

All best,
Peter Rothberg
The Nation

Troy Davis was convicted in 1991 for the murder of a police officer. After 18 years on death row, the state of Georgia is prepared to kill a man who may be innocent:
Tell Georgia Governor Perdue to prevent the execution of Troy Davis!

The state of Georgia seems determined to kill Troy Davis. Despite mounting evidence proving his innocence, Troy's life still hangs in the balance. Urge Georgia Governor Perdue to exercise leadership and prevent the execution of Troy Davis!

While Troy Davis has sat on death row for the last 18 years, the case against him has crumbled. His execution date has been delayed 3 times because the pieces just don't add up. The state of Georgia may be about to kill the wrong man:

7 of the 9 witnesses have recanted their testimonies
No murder weapon nor any physical evidence has been found to link Troy to the crime
And if that wasn't enough to cast a shadow of doubt: One of the remaining two witnesses has actually been implicated as the real killer

Troy Davis was sentenced to death despite a tainted case and serious claims of innocence.

Pursuing the case against Troy Davis is an outrageous display of injustice. The family of police officer Mark MacPhail, whose life was tragically cut short by this crime, and the people of Georgia deserve true justice. It cannot be accomplished by executing a man with such strong claims of innocence.

The story of Troy Davis is not over. You have the power to help tip the scale in favor of justice. Please take action today.

here

Sincerely,

Sue G. Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Pursue Love

After much reflection during the last few days I've decided to post the following as well as the posting just below called "Unconditional Love". Perhaps several others who read this may want to join me in using it as a reference? Some of us constantly need the centering power of love along with some possible definitions. I slip so easily yet such a "Bill of Love" helps to leads the way way back to forgiveness and the Journey of Hope. (So does our Bill Pelke help lead the way by his own vision and life!)

The Love Chapter (also see the posting just below)

If I have all the eloquence of mortal languages or angels yet speak without love
I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.

Love is patient and kind and gives others the benefit of the doubt. Love seeks not to take offense nor to hold resentment. Love lives in readiness to trust, hope and to endure anything. In fact, love does not end.

Love takes no pleasure in other folks' undoing or flaws. Love does not insist on its own way.

Now we see in a mirror only dimly. Love will help us to see face-to-face.

Faith, hope and love abide with us still. Yet the greatest of these is love.

Pursue it - want love more than anything else.

+++++++++

Taken freely from 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament attributed to St. Paul. This is my attempt to splice together phrasing from the New Revised Standard Version,The Jerusalem Bible and paraphrased according to my own understanding.

There are of course many other interpretations just as legitimate.

Perhaps there are others here who use other spiritual or ethical literature or scripture from various traditions who may want to share what helps and guides in this Journey of Life?

Be sure to see the sister post just below...

Unconditional Love

In the COMMENTS section of one of my favorite writers about those tortured and left for dead in Guantanamo, a faithful reader of his blogs, Frances Madeson, has written a beautiful tribute to this writer. Frances says the following, today, February 16, 2009, of Andy Worthington and his work

(To Andy): In addition to everything else your work has been, it is an act of unconditional love to the whole wide world. You have loved your neighbor as yourself, and you are, as a result, golden. Innocence can never be restored; our rose colored glasses have been crushed into a fine powder. But they have been replaced by depth perception and ocular clarity, which will serve us far better going forward, as we must.
Frances...

Find the entire article and the Comments section here and/or go to the post here just below...

Shortly before my mother-in-law died, our minister preached on 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament of the Christian bible. This beautiful section of scripture which speaks so poetically of unconditional love -- provided the nurture which helped me to get through a grueling 10 or so days of sharing round-the-clock hospital & home presence and care of my beautiful mother with her other loved ones. While my little part was so imperfect, nevertheless I was able - through this vision of love - to put aside the weights of that which was unresolved and to be at peace with this amazing mother, so gifted while so unlike me in many ways. I was also able to make a final peace with her and her with me. I was given new lens by which to see more clearly the expansive good she had imparted in her son, my beloved husband, our children and others. (The degree of which I had earlier missed.)

Yet, there are others in our lives much harder to love. Some of us are victims' family members. Others may be released at last from prison with final proof of innocence. All of this is so hard to forgive.

There are so many who have reason to rage personally as well as as citizens and those from other countries and cultures at those who have terribly infected humanity -- those like our recent past - and some current - leaders in church and government today.

Where might we personally and corporately be able to apply this universal creed for loving and forgiveness?

So, here is my response to Frances...This is edited from the first version which I spontaneously posted a few moments ago on Andy's site...

So well put, Frances -- & you express such a wide & passionate heart...keep us informed about your progress to give of yourself for the tortured ones & what you learn along the way about loving them.

1 Corinthians 13 in the so-called New Testament of the Christian Bible is sheer poetry, clarity and guidance from the few who live out this timeless principle. This Bible with which I have grown up is to my limited understanding - a scripture written through the sometimes egoistic view of many different folk throughout the years who really cared to understand life, ethics, God, the enemy and the Beloved Community. So therefore, I would say that it is a scripture written largely according to people & perhaps at times with the mark of the Holy Spirit as well-- from the unfathomable ink well of the deepest, most truthful and loving Spirit of us all - Who is within us & beyond us at the same time. This Spirit - which I still fully embrace - is how I discern, how I recognize authentic peacemakers, healers and the like, from whatever perspective...

Although I'm a long, long way from my some of biblical upbringing in interpretation and focus of interests - I still find a universal quality to this portion of scripture - the Love chapter -which our US citizenry and leaders and we ourselves as well - would do well to heed (I who am very willful, often non-loving, unforgiving - and way too often merely spouting polemics and political rights "dogma" second-hand -- I need to heed this chapter on unconditional love at least as much as most folk!).

"...although I do good works & have not love, I am a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol..."

So whenever I want to give up myself - my psyche & my body even up - for someone personally or someone I've merely read about or even for an archetype - whenever I seek through sacrifice to somehow benefit one of the most powerless & the most voiceless among us -- (and I have tried to do this from time to time) - I try to remember this poetry from scripture and ask myself: how can I do so & still love...not only the victim yet also the victimizer...a feat which only a few manage to accomplish in one lifetime...

Perhaps this understanding of what's required for healing, human rights and peace on earth is universal enough to connect with readers here of all persuasions, even the pantheists, the atheists, the agnostics, those of any of the major or minor faiths and those of a variety of cultures and countries apparently so different from our own?

How - or in which way - do any here personally find resonance with this theme?

Connie

Rahim Ahmadi has 3 days to live

by SCE Campaign
15-Feb-2009

SCE President, Nazanin Afshin-Jam received news from former child-prisoner Reza Alinejad of the imminent execution of Rahim Ahmadi believed to be carried out this Wednesday, February 18th 2009.
Reza Alinejad who was recently saved from death row and released from prison, got a phone call from his past cellmates informing him that Rahim Ahmadi had been sent to the section where prisoners are held before they are to be executed.

Reza Alinejad described Rahim Ahmadi as a good and quiet boy who minded his own business. He said that he would often read his prayer books and pray. He also said that he was really good at handicrafts like knitting and sewing, activities given to prisoners to keep them occupied.

Background:

Despite a few Judges acknowledging that Rahim used a knife in self defense, his death sentence was confirmed by Iran’s head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi. On August 8th 2005, when Rahim was 15 years old, he stabbed and killed a man named Reza. Shiraz police were notified that the attacker had fled the scene and started a widespread manhunt. Rahim turned himself in the following day. During investigation, Rahim said:

“the day before the incident happened, Reza and two of his friends confronted me. They beat me and ran away and of course, I hit them back. The next day, the three of them came after me again. I was standing at my front door, when they attacked me. I managed to grab a knife away from one of them. In self-defense, I stabbed Reza. I had not planned to kill anyone and if I had not hit Reza, they would have hit me”.

Although Rahim was no more than 15 years old, the presiding judges considered him an adult from a religious standpoint and sentenced Rahim to death. He was transferred him to Adelabad prison in Shiraz where he spent the last 5 years in jail. The sentencing was confirmed by the Supreme Court and sent to Ayatullah Shahroudi for final approval. His death sentence was confirmed and he now awaits imminent execution.

Please send your urgent action by phoning or faxing the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations:

Mohammad Khazaee, Ambassador and Permanent Representative
622 Third Ave. New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 687-2020 / Fax: (212) 867-7086
E-mail: iran@un.int

And writing to the Head of Judiciary in Iran

His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri,
Tehran 1316814737,
Islamic Republic of Iran
Phone: [00 98 21] 391 1109
Fax: [00 98 21] 390 4986
Email: Shahroudi@Dadgostary-tehran.ir

Salutation: Your Excellency

(Due to the short time left, we ask you to either send faxes or e-mails or make phone calls.)

48 Hours MysteryMy Father's Killer

Accompaniing these videos please also read "Introducing the Journey of Hope - Family: SUEZANN BOSLER"

Power to Forgive

WHEN Brian Aim came face to face with Jahche Broughton – the teenager who murdered his daughter Karen – for the first time in New Zealand last week, he would have been justified in unleashing a torrent of abuse.
Broughton – his hair gelled as if he was attending a rock concert rather than appearing in court – had just pleaded guilty to battering the pretty backpacker to death with a baseball bat.

But instead of branding Broughton evil or saying he hoped he would rot in hell, the 52- year-old builder, from Orkney, was restrained and dignified. Though clearly shattered by his loss, he thanked the police for the work they had done to bring the 15-year-old to justice and insisted that what had happened to his daughter would not turn him against the country she had fallen in love with. More astonishingly, he spoke of forgiveness and of the need to avoid going down a "spiral of hatred".

Aim had already voiced his desire to meet with the killer and his family in an attempt to gain a greater insight into what happened to Karen, 26, as she walked home after a night out in the lakeside resort of Taupo. Once again, his measured tones seemed remarkable to those who could only imagine a compulsion for revenge.

But in fact, Aim's attitude – that forgiveness and reconciliation have something to offer the victim as well as the perpetrator – is one that is gaining credence. In the same way that nations have sought a more conciliative approach to conflict resolution (such as South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission), individuals, too, have found ways to empathise with and eventually forgive those who have committed atrocities.

Take Ginn Fourie, whose daughter Lyndi was killed when members of the Azanian People's Liberation Army fired indiscriminately at diners in a restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1993. She has not only forgiven the gunmen but formed a strong bond with the man who ordered the attack, Letlapa Mphahele, even though he never apologised for his actions. And Jo Berry, whose father, the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, was killed in the Brighton bombing in 1984, has struck up a friendship with the former IRA terrorist who planted it, Patrick Magee.

To forgive may be divine, but it may also be the healthier approach: US research suggests forgiveness is not only good for our spiritual wellbeing, but has actual physical benefits in terms of lower blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

But not all experts agree. Psychologist Dr Jeanne Safer, author of the book Must We Forgive?, believes the pressure on those who have suffered great wrongs to forgive can 'revictimise' them. "First someone screws you. And then it's your fault you don't want to embrace them in heaven."

So why do some people choose forgiveness over vengeance and how difficult is the journey from anger to absolution?

Marina Cantacuzino is the founder of The Forgiveness Project, an initiative that encourages victims of crime to share their stories. She says the journey towards acceptance is complex and differs very much from person to person. For Rosalyn Boyce, who was raped repeatedly in her own home by a knife-wielding attacker while her daughter, two, slept next door, it was made all the more difficult by the fact that the man involved – a serial offender – showed no sign of regretting his actions.

Rosalyn, who is now a life coach, was cut and threatened with death before her attacker ran off. He was later caught and given three life sentences. Afterwards, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, for which she was prescribed Prozac and tranquillisers. But soon Rosalyn realised no one was going to help her but herself, so she ditched the medication and "embarked on a long, hard journey of self-discovery".

She says: "To me, forgiveness now equated to my own freedom. It meant that I no longer had to feel any attachment to my rapist or the act of rape and by doing so I could free myself from the crime and move on with my life. Once I chose to perceive forgiveness on these terms a massive burden was lifted."

Ten years on, Rosalyn admits her attitude to the rapist is better described as "neutral detachment" than complete forgiveness. "I think if I felt there was any remorse, I would be able to forgive him entirely," she says. "Instead, I have a situation where I – and his other victims – believe that were he to be let out he would attack again even more violently. So trying to forgive him is something I've had to do entirely alone, for me."

There are others who have no desire to forgive and whose lives become consumed by the need for retribution. Ann West, mother of Moors murder victim Lesley-Ann Downey, dedicated her life to ensuring Myra Hindley remained in jail and went to her grave filled with hatred for the woman who had taken her child's life. On being diagnosed with cancer, she said: "I hope my name lives on and will haunt Hindley every day in a cell until she dies."

While West's bitterness is entirely understandable, many psychologists believe striving to forgive is a healthier approach.

Dr Loren Toussaint, of Luther University in Iowa, has carried out research he says proves that an ability to forgive lowers blood pressure and reduces depression in the over-45s. "Sometimes people do not want to forgive because they feel the person involved doesn't deserve their forgiveness," he says. "Then it becomes a game of one-upmanship and what you are actually doing is handing control back to the original offender because there's nothing you can do to change the fact they've hurt you."

He says research is beginning to show the concept of forgiveness is stronger in collectivistic than individualistic cultures. When Charles Roberts killed five children in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, before turning the gun on himself, their forgiveness was immediate, communal and entirely in line with their belief system.

On the other side of the debate, while Safer accepts that for the Amish people the concept of forgiveness is fundamental, she insists putting pressure on people to forgive when they don't want to can be just as damaging.

"People seem to believe the opposite of forgiving is seeking vengeance, but that's not the case," she says. "We have found the process of working through a terrible event involves several steps and the outcome may be forgiving or not forgiving, and both are equally valid. Those who are made to feel otherwise are being given an additional burden."

The London-based Forgiveness Project – which began in the run-up to the Iraq war when Cantacuzino, a journalist, started collecting stories of forgiveness as an antidote to the prevailing language of pay-back – takes all of this on board.

It doesn't sermonise, preferring to provide a platform for people to describe how they endured terrible traumas without being overwhelmed by them. And it recognises that even those who have achieved a degree of acceptance will have days when negative feelings flare up again. "Forgiveness is a journey not a destination," Cantacuzino says.

That Brian Aim is still on that journey is clear from the mixed emotions he expressed last week after the court hearing into his daughter's murder. Still raw with grief, he spoke of how he had hoped to take his daughter down the aisle in her wedding dress, but was forced instead to take her down the aisle in her coffin. Describing his daughter's murder as "one moment's madness", he added: "Jahche will never know how much he has taken from us."

Perhaps shaken by at last seeing her killer face to face, Aim tried to clarify his feelings, saying: "Forgive is possibly too strong a word. Maybe we should have said that we will live to tolerate what he has done."

This inner conflict is something Jo Berry clearly identifies with. On The Forgiveness Project website she describes how her desire to forgive Magee fluctuates: "For me the question is always about whether I can let go of my need to blame, and open my heart enough to hear Pat's story and understand his motivations. The truth is that sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. It's a journey and it's a choice, which means it's not all sorted and put away in a box."

Most of those who have contributed their stories do seem to believe in the inherent value of forgiveness. "Some people think it means excusing or condoning or that is a magical key to serenity," Cantacuzino says. "In fact, it is difficult and complex, but potentially very potent. For many it is a liberating route out of victimhood, a choice, a process, the final victory over those who have done you harm."
by Dani Garavelli
(Source: ScotlandonSunday)

Watching Steve Henley's execution tears at reporter's heart

This is a report standing in the Tennessean and reading it I couldn't help but wonder what society does to these people who have to stand there and watch an other person being killed.

The victims of a crime definitely deserve our sympathy, murder victim family members definitely do as well, but reading this report I remember once again that other - innocent - people deserve our sympathy as well, people such as reporters having to cover an execution, prison guards having to help in killing a person, priests having to accompany the prisoner in his last hours and through the execution.... All these people - no matter if they notice it this minute or not - are being victimized as well, their soul is being hurt by being forced to participate in something which is nowhere close to any action human nature normally allows: the killing of an other human being.

Here is the report I was writing about:

Editor's note: The Tennessean's Kate Howard, who is the newspaper's public safety reporter, covered the execution of convicted murderer Steve Henley last Wednesday morning. This is her account of covering the imposed sentence. Mark Silverman's column will return.

This morning I watched as lethal drugs flowed into the veins of a man.

Steve Henley was a murderer, or at least that's what the courts decided when they convicted him of shooting an elderly farm couple and burning down the house with their bodies inside. He lived under a death sentence for 23 years.

"I'm an innocent man."

It was the last thing he said before the warden said "Proceed," and sent him to death with just two powerful syllables.

I had spent the earlier hours at a variety of places: at a prayer vigil for Steve, where resistance songs were played and mourners bemoaned state killing at what felt like a funeral six hours premature. I stood in the 18-degree weather with a handful of early protesters, one of whom spent 20 years on death row himself before new technology made him a free man. He was opposed to any type of killing whether Steve was guilty or innocent, he said. I stood in the well-heated press tent with reporters who gave me pitying looks when they learned I was a witness, and the quiet ones who would be going in with me.

I spent an hour, an extremely awkward hour, getting shuffled with Steve's family from one concrete, clockless conference room to another while they counted down the minutes. The warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution had brought us into the room himself and let us know right off the bat there were no interviews on these premises. There were six of us intruding on those sacred moments, media witnesses who were told to stay silent.

But we listened while they talked about their father's fast car, the Chevelle that's since been sold that his son would give anything to drive again. His father could shift so fast, Greg Henley said, that he'd tape a $100 bill to the dashboard and offer it to you — if you could lean forward far enough to get it once he stepped on the gas. They talked about his innocence, how they couldn't believe the state was killing a good, innocent man.
We scribbled as quietly as we could with the provided pencils and notebooks, trying to record the moment as the family bowed their heads, held hands and prayed one last time for Steve.

Son says he forgives the state
His pastor, a staunch anti-death penalty advocate, said she couldn't believe this was really happening after all these years. His son Greg, who said he didn't comprehend reading that well, was repeating over and over the statement he planned to give later to the press, trying to commit it to memory.
"I forgive the state of Tennessee for executing my daddy. I forgive the state of Tennessee for executing my loving daddy. I forgive the state of Tennessee for executing my loving daddy, and I want you to know he is an innocent man."

Later, as we rounded an hour of silence on our side of the room, the press witnesses were confronted with a well-meaning question from Greg.

"Can I ask you a question? Are you guys … are you pro-death penalty, or anti, I guess?"
Another reporter lifted his head and said the warden told us not to talk to them. Greg apologized.

His sister said that they'd know how we felt once they watched our reports and gave me in particular a knowing nod.

With that, the stony-faced guard at the door nodded to us that it was time. We walked single file through the visiting room — there was a play castle, dolls and children's toys in the corner — to a small concrete room. A row of squeaky chairs faced a window. The blinds were drawn. Behind it was Steve, or Henley to those of us in the back.

We sat that way for 12 minutes, with the noises of preparation and shadows of prison officials leaking through. The microphone turned on. Greg stopped rocking back and forth. Steve's daughter asked for a bucket.

The blinds were lifted, and Henley was strapped to the gurney. A microphone was coming down from the ceiling for his last statement. He raised his head, turned to see his family, and stuck out his tongue. With his hands strapped down, he tried to blow a kiss. He made his statement. He said he was sorry for what Fred and Edna went through, but he didn't do it. He said he hoped this procedure would give some peace to them and their family, although he didn't believe death brought anything but pain. He said he was an innocent man.

Proceed.

His family began to sob. They stood by the window, shouted to him. He told them to quit crying, called them a pitiful bunch. He told them — perhaps his pastor especially — to never quit.

"I feel it coming," he shouted from the death chamber.

His head was already down, he snored a few times and went silent. In the witness chamber, it was chaos.

They were screaming, sobbing. His daughter began to throw up. His sister and his pastor joined together in the Lord's Prayer, so impassioned that even the pastor stumbled over the words.

I bit my lip and furiously wrote, knowing my notes were never going to match my memory or capture what was happening in that moment. The color drained from his face. He started to turn blue. And slowly it grew quiet in the witness chamber, too.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

I looked at the other reporters. They were still writing.

Soon Henley's sister turned and stared me and the others straight in the face.

"Not a tear in anyone's eye back there," she said to nobody in particular. "Don't human life mean nothing to you? You're like a pack of dogs."

Yesterday, throughout the day most of my colleagues asked me how I felt about covering this execution, watching a man die. I kept saying I wasn't sure yet. A few told me about other reporters they've known who covered them. Some were vague about the impact. Others told me I'd be traumatized.

Before it was time, I had called my boyfriend and asked him, what if I got emotional? What if I cried in front of the other reporters? He told me I would be professional and I would be real. If I cried, then I was being real about it. After all, I was watching a man die.

In truth, it probably was the only time I did successfully hold back tears. I have always been emotional, and always, during a good interview, find myself feeling my subject's emotions. It would be a lie to say I don't often wipe away a tear when interviewing people who have lost someone to murder or illness or ruthless tornadoes.

But on those days I never watched it happen. I have always come along in the aftermath, and felt the hot tears coming when I've heard about grief setting in.

This morning I watched it happen, a true rarity in the world of reporting on crime.

And today, who knows why, the tears held until I got home.

Sheriff Joe’s Inhumane Circus

Sheriff Joe’s one-man circus has made headlines again in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

His latest taxpayer-financed media stunt involved the "forced march" of undocumented inmates who are serving out their criminal sentences. Sheriff Arpaio closed down the city streets so that everyone could witness their public humiliation as they walked in chain gangs from a "hard" jail to the infamous Tent City, where they will be forced to endure unsafe conditions including summer months with temperatures of upwards of 120 degrees.

Not only was this inhumane, but violated international human rights principles — not to mention American values — that require us to treat people who are incarcerated with dignity and respect. But Sheriff Arpaio has absolute contempt for the dignity of the people in his custody and demonstrates this by treating people like circus animals.

Though he claims otherwise, Arpaio wasn’t motivated by budgetary or security concerns to march shackled immigrants to the Tent City; he was motivated by the opportunity of self-aggrandizement and the promotion his anti-immigrant agenda. For those reasons, and for those reasons alone, he chose to re-route traffic and waste dwindling law enforcement resources.

Almost all of the people in the forced march were Latino and their humiliation struck one more blow to fairness and human decency in our community. And although the sheriff blatantly continues with his racial profiling practices in so-called "crime suppression sweeps" in Latino neighborhoods, the absence of significant protest from white officials in Arizona and from any federal agency allows the racial targeting to continue unabated.

There was simply no reason for this degrading spectacle other than Arpaio’s lust for media attention. If he decided — based on overcrowding and/or security concerns — that these inmates needed to be transferred, then he should have proceeded — as most jail officials do — using buses, without creating a circus and marching these individuals in chain gangs over a distance of one mile.

Joe Arpaio is legally and morally obligated to treat people in a humane manner. He should put an end to this one-man circus show and start doing his job of upholding the law, rather than violating people’s rights and pandering to the most reactionary and racist elements of the anti-immigrant movement.
(taken from the blog of ACLU)

Kansas: Death penalty too expensive

Death penalty opponents in Kansas have criticized capital punishment, saying it is unfair and pointing to instances around the country where innocent people were wrongly sentenced to death.

On Thursday, they took a different strategy as legislation was introduced to abolish the Kansas death penalty. They said that given the current budget problems, the death penalty was too expensive and unnecessary because Kansas law has an alternative — life in prison without parole.

“I know this session everyone is scrambling to find resources to fund things that the state needs, and now that we have life in prison without parole, the question is what does the death penalty get us that life without parole doesn’t,” said Donna Schneweis with Amnesty International and the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

State lawmakers are looking for ways to bridge a nearly $200 million budget shortfall.

There have been no executions in Kansas since the state re-established the death penalty in 1994. There are 10 men awaiting the death sentence in Kansas.

In a 2003 state audit report that looked at 22 first-degree murder cases, the median cost for cases in which the death penalty was imposed was $1.2 million, compared with $740,000 for the median non-death penalty cases reviewed. The calculations included the cost of long-term incarceration.

The report said numerous factors made death penalty cases cost more, such as lengthier court trials and appeals, and hiring more experts.

Senate Bill 208 would abolish the death penalty, but it would not apply to those already sentenced to death.

State Sen. Caroline McGinn, R-Sedgwick, introduced the bill, saying, “We need to be thinking outside the box,” when it comes to saving money.

McGinn said the death penalty hasn’t proven to be a deterrent to crime, and there is always the risk that an innocent person could be executed.
(Source: LJWorld.com)

The Wrong ManAbolish death penaltyUgandas hands are bloody enough

Journey of Hope member Edmay Mpagi spent 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit - video by ai USA

Last week I met Edmay Mpagi who in 1982 was sentenced to death for murder. He spent 18 years waiting to be executed only to be “pardoned” in 2000 after it was discovered that the man he had “killed” – George William Wandyaka - was alive and kicking! Wandyaka died of natural causes in 2002 over two decades after he was supposed to have been murdered.

While on death row, Mpagi witnessed and survived the executions of 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996, and 1999. Many of the victims who Mpagi shared a meal with went to the gallows insisting on their innocence.

Some or all may have been guilty but the fact that Mpagi’s case which went through the appeals process and was failed by learned judges, casts serious doubts on this.

Mpagi’s supposed accomplice, a cousin; Fred Masembe, passed on in jail in 1985 due to complications associated with fear and stress, related with the thought of imminent death that hangs ubiquitously around the condemned section of Luzira Prison.

Mpagi’s tragic experience brought to mind another infamous one in which the accused Ms Night Kulabako was lucky that the person whose death she had allegedly ordered, turned up in court to witness the proceedings, probably out of curiosity or providence! But she also served time on remand as the police went through the process of investigation and gathering “incriminating evidence.”

For those who were too young there is the fresh rape case of Uganda Vs Dr Warren Kizza Kifefe Besigye in which one of the witnesses, the then Director of CID turned up in, armed with a long tale of lies and fraudulent documents that were poorly pieced together. The defendant did not even bother to defend himself. The case collapsed under the weight of its own lies and contradictions.

The pathetic state of the police leaves it subject to manipulation by the rich and powerful. In Mpagi’s case, a grudge against his father and uncle saw the police put together a case of robbery, which later turned into one of murder.

Even when well-intentioned, the police are too poorly facilitated to surely carry out investigations that will produce evidence to incriminate an accused person beyond reasonable doubt. The Lord help us if such evidence convinces court and leads to a sentence of death.

Then in a county where almost half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, not many accused persons can afford to retain a lawyer of their own choice for the length of the trial.

The indigent lawyers or State briefs that are provided to the accused by the State are in some instances not committed and dedicated to the task of defending the accused. In Mpagi’s case, he first met his lawyer in court!
From then on, discussing evidence and strategy was an uphill task as the lawyer always insisted that as a learned person he “knew what he was doing” and did not necessarily rely on the input of the accused.

We also have to consider that the (irreversible when executed) right to life is left in the hands of judges who being human are subject to judgmental failures like the rest of us.

In 1988, Justice Moses Kalanda, who was found guilty of fraudulently using another’s academic certificates in his academic pursuits before becoming a judge, rightly or wrongly sentenced to death Lt. Stansilus Ssajjabi and Muhammed Kyeyune for treason.

Since the Supreme Court in the case of Suzan Kigula vs the Attorney General left it to Parliament to decide the fate of the constitutionality of the death penalty, this is my advice to the legislators.

It comes from English jurist William Blackstone. “Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
For the sake of the salvation and safety of that one Fred Masembe, Edmay Mpagi and Night Kulabako, let us abolish the death penalty.

If the State as a murderer in its own right is thirsty for human blood, let it be satisfied with what it is getting from its failures.
Let those who are guilty of murder and genocide by stealing with impunity the money intended for the victims of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis go scot free.
Let those who pocket the money for proper infrastructure and end up building roads that lead to rampant fatal accidents enjoy themselves without reprimand.

Let those who fly their children abroad at the expense of the taxpayer to deliver babies while pregnant mothers die in labour in run-down facilities at home “have a blast” as young people say.

Let those who have made a killing as merchants of death in the wars of Uganda by failing to protect innocent people because they have to draw the salaries of ghost soldiers and get a cut by purchasing junk helicopters and junk tanks prosper despite the “envy” of the Bayuda as famous singer Chameleon would sing.

The State has enough blood on its hands. Upholding the death penalty only adds more.
(by Nicholas Sengoba - Daily Monitor online)

Edmay Mpagi and Connie Nash speaking at St. Mary's Law School

The Forgotten Victims: The families of death row inmates

The Journey of Hope blog are so glad that our family are featured here! Congratulations!

Long article yet there are lots of poignant photos and the read is worth every moving word.

For the original publication with an extra large view of the photos - and for credit go here

The Forgotten Victims
The families of death row inmates

By Federica Valabrega / Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Celia McWee's loved and lost ones.

Celia McWee, 83, looked forward to Saturdays for 13 years. This was her favorite day of the week because she would use it to make herself pretty for her Sunday morning visit. But she wouldn’t go to church. She would visit the state prison. She would drive three hours from Augusta, Georgia, to Ridgeville, South Carolina, to visit her son, Jerry McWee. Jerry had been on death row since he robbed and killed John Perry, a grocery store clerk in rural Aiken County, in 1991. He was executed on April 14, 2004. He was 52.

“Saturday was an exciting day because it was my day to choose the outfit I was going to wear, to go to the beauty shop because I wanted to look my best for him,” she said, crying. “And Sunday going up there was exciting because it was something to look forward to. But on the way back, it was nothing but tears.”

For as long as her son was in prison, her weekly schedule kept her going, she said. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she would not leave the house until she received her son’s phone call. Tuesdays and Thursdays were her days to go grocery shopping, do the laundry, and vacuum. And then came Sundays, when she would share a ride with other inmates’ mothers to the prison. She would meet them at a gas station in Columbia, South Carolina.

Although her son was executed four years ago, not a day goes by that McWee does not recall the sound of his shackles dragging on the floor of the prison each time she visited him.

“The noise that most stands out in my mind is when they would bring them from one building to the other, and we could hear them walking with those chains around their ankles and around their waist and their wrists,” she said. “That is torture. I mean, to see your son being brought in worse than you do to a dog.”

McWee’s house is filled with pictures of her son. She proudly reminisces about the day Jerry got married and when, despite having only a high school education, he joined the police force. Then she shows a black-and-white print of Jerry in an emergency medicine technician (EMT) uniform. After two years as a police officer and five as a firefighter, Jerry had decided to make his life all about helping others in need. That is when he went back to school to study emergency medicine.

Portraits of Jerry in his police officer uniform.

“He was the kind of guy that would go out of his way to help others,” she said. “He was a people person like me, used to helping the ones in need. Never would I have imagined this could have happened to my family. Everything was so nice and dandy, and it took so little time to turn things around. It is true he is in a much better place now, but I still feel he should be with me instead.”

McWee’s feeling is common to many relatives of inmates executed by the state. They are trying to recover from the trauma of waiting many years for their loved one’s scheduled death. But often their suffering is made worse because many people still do not recognize their pain as legitimate.


Zipped wounds

Like McWee, Bill Babbitt had a tough recovery. His younger brother Manny, a decorated Vietnam War veteran severely affected by post-traumatic stress syndrome, was executed at San Quentin State Prison on his 50th birthday — May 3, 1999. He had been charged with robbing Leah Schendel, an elderly woman who died of a heart attack during the crime in Sacramento, California.

What makes Babbitt feel better is touring the country to talk about his brother’s “unfair” execution; Babbitt is a member of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), a group founded in Philadelphia in 2004. The group offers support and advocacy for victims.

He gives his testimony using what he calls “the power of remembrance,” letting his “zipped wound” open, and pouring out what he thinks needs to be said about Manny’s case. He is trying to educate the public about why the death penalty was unnecessary in his brother’s case. Yet many still consider his efforts to be those of a “second-class victim” who is defending a criminal, he said.

“My job is to educate and tell them, ‘Hey, you lose a rabbit or a dog or a cat, and you grieve over it,’” he said. “‘Manny was a human being. Why should I not grieve over him just as well?’ It is the unfairness of that I have to talk about.”


A trail of victims

The families who survive the state execution of their inmate relative are still not specifically referred to as “victims of abuse of power,” as defined by the United Nations General Assembly’s 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.

Article 18 of the declaration defines a victim of abuse of power as a person “who, individually or collectively, [has] suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of [his or her] fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that do not yet constitute violations of national criminal laws but of internationally recognized norms relating to human rights.”

In some countries, including the United States, killing by lethal injection is not considered an abuse of power. The declaration does not include the death penalty as a “violation of internationally recognized norms relating to human rights.”

Jerry's son and daughters. Misty, the oldest of the four, is at top center.

“But these people [families of death row inmates] have, in many ways, suffered a trauma, and their experience, in many ways, parallels the experience of survivors of homicide victims,” said Susannah Sheffer, director of No Silence, No Shame, a project of MVFHR.

The problem is that people don’t think of the inmate as someone who might have a family who will grieve when he is executed.

“Families of the executed are invisible victims, hidden victims. People are not even thinking through the fact that when an execution is carried out, it’s going to leave a grieving family,” Sheffer said. “A lot of people hold the family responsible, [a] kind of ‘guilt by association.’ They think this [the inmate] is a monster, so the parents must have created that.”

Jerry McWee’s mother said she is haunted by the image of her son strapped on the execution bed, blowing her the last kiss. She also said she was not the only one to suffer from her son’s death.

“It is a horrible, horrible experience to have to go through for years. It not only punishes the inmates, it punishes so many people,” said McWee. “One of Jerry’s daughters, Misty, exactly one year after his execution, tried to commit suicide. She cut her wrists, because she said she had to be with her father and that she did not belong on this earth.”


The legacy of guilt

Babbitt has been battling feelings of guilt instead. Babbitt turned Manny in to the police, and later he was not able to stop his execution. Babbitt believed his brother’s death was particularly unfair because his brother suffered from a mental illness. It was out of desperation and fear that his brother would commit more crimes that Babbitt decided to collaborate with the police, who promised him his brother was going to be fine, he said.

That is why he told Manny to go out to play some pool, when in fact the police were waiting outside of his house to arrest him. But Babbitt did not expect Manny to be convicted and sentenced to death. The hardest part of all was having to explain to his mother why he let that happen, he said.

“My mother loves me, and I know she has forgiven me for turning Manny in. The problem is I have not forgiven myself for promising Ma that Manny would not get executed,” he said. “I took a gamble with my brother’s life, and I lost.”

Since the day Manny was executed, Babbitt has not felt strong enough to see his family, even on holidays. He believes he is not “worthy of their love and trust anymore,” he said. He feels uncomfortable around them even though they forgave him for what he did.

Portraits of Joyce: in her senior year, in her graduation gown, and in her wedding dress.

“If it wasn’t for my faith in Jesus, I would have killed myself. But I didn’t want my family to have to go to another funeral. I had to be strong and live to tell that story,” he said. “I will see my brother again when my time is up on Earth.”


No Silence, No Shame

Babbitt and McWee know each other well now. They met at No Silence, No Shame’s first gathering for families of death row inmates in Texas in the spring of 2004. The conference was organized to allow people who share the same grief to share their stories with one another.

According to Renny Cushing, director of MVFHR, the project is now trying to “put a face with the name of the family of the condemned prisoners,” by bringing the testimonies of these family members into courts. Cushing said the hope is that juries judging a death row case will consider these testimonies before announcing their verdict.

Cushing is also a survivor. In 1988, his father, Robert Cushing, was killed through his screen door at his home in New Hampshire by two bullets fired by an off-duty policeman. Officer Robert McLaughlin Sr. had a dirty record: He had killed his best friend, had taken part in an armed robbery, and had arrested an elderly town woman for no good reason, according to Cushing in his testimony in "Forgiving the Unforgivable” on MVFHR’s website. Cushing and his brother had been keeping an eye on the officer ever since, and McLaughlin didn’t like that pressure, said Cushing. That is why McLaughlin went to the Cushing house that night — to settle the score, so to speak, but he shot the wrong person, said Cushing in the testimony.

“If the state is going to kill someone’s father, we would like to have the court think about what that would mean, and the people who are most effective [at] talking about that are individuals [whose] father was executed when they were children,” Cushing said.

On average, 50 to 60 people are executed every year by the government, and they typically have three family members each. That means 150 to 240 more victims are created annually, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

No Silence, No Shame is trying to reduce those numbers by making the public aware of these survivors’ experiences, to show the ripple effects of the death penalty.


Studying loss

Sandra Jones, a research sociologist and professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, released a study on the issues of grief and loss faced by the families with a relative on death row.

Jones spent years building relationships with families of death row inmates. She has taken it upon herself to bring kids of inmates to see their fathers in the Delaware County Prison in Pennsylvania when their own family members refuse to do so.

Celia McWee, looking at her family portrait in her house in Augusta, Georgia.

She became particularly close to Brian Steckel’s family. Steckel was convicted of raping and killing 29-year-old Sandra Lee Long. Jones witnessed Steckel’s execution in 2005. She is now writing a book about her personal experience with death row inmates’ families. She said the government ignores these families because it feels guilty.

“If the system gave these families the attention they deserve, it would come across [as] really hypocritical, because they are the very system that is killing their loved ones,” she said.

She also explains that the reason death row inmates’ families are often forgotten is that the survivor victims themselves do not want to be put in the spotlight, since they feel guilty for and are ashamed of their loved ones’ mistakes.

“The family gets criminalized along with their loved ones, and stigmatized to the extent that they don’t feel comfortable coming out and demanding attention because they feel guilty. They have a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. They [ask] themselves what they could have done differently,” she said.

“Writer Elizabeth Sharpen sometimes refers to them as the ‘double losers,’” Jones said. “A lot of these guys on death row have murdered a wife or an uncle or somebody within the family, and so the surviving family members are put into this position where if they support and grieve the loss of the loved one on death row, they are made to feel they did not really love the one who was murdered.”

Losing a child to the death penalty becomes a never-ending loss, one “similar to having a disabled child that you are grieving for every unmet milestone he misses throughout life,” said Jones. It becomes a “wound that never heals and keeps opening up with every failed appeal.”

Between losing a child to a murderer and losing one to death row — as is the case for McWee — the latter seems to be the more painful of the two because of the “never-ending wait.”

Having to wait for your son to be executed is “horrible, because you know it is coming, but you don’t know when,” said McWee, whose son, Jerry, was executed 14 years after her daughter, Joyce, was murdered by Joyce’s husband on December 31, 1980.

“[My daughter’s murder] was a shock, but [it was] nothing compared to the death penalty hanging over your head for 13 years,” she said. “News of her murder came unexpectedly, [but] the wait is horrible. One day he called me at 12:30, and he said, ‘Mother, I have been served.’ I had no idea what he meant. All I knew was that lunch was served at 11:30. So I said, ‘What [do] you mean, you have been served? What did you eat for lunch?’ So he said, ‘Mother, you don’t understand. I have been served with my death warrant — they have given me my day of execution.’”


Murder is murder

Even murder victim families sympathize with state execution survivor families, finding it unjust that their pain is labeled differently from theirs.

The Rev. Walter Everett, a pastor at St. Jones United Methodist Church in Sunbury, Connecticut, lost his son, Scott, in 1987. Scott was murdered by Mike Carducci in Easton, Connecticut. The pastor has been part of MVFHR since it was founded. He said he feels close to parents whose children are on death row.

Everett said it is important to educate people about the death penalty without making a distinction about different victims. He travels around the country to speak about the experience he shares with many families whose loved ones have been executed under the death penalty.

“I see them just as much a ‘victim’ as I am. That person, regardless of what their son or daughter has done, or their loved ones, they still love them, so they become a victim when that person is killed,” he said. “Since I got to know several people whose family members were executed, I see the pain they have gone through, and I believe their story should be told as much, because their pain is just as deep as my pain.”

Everett took part in a vigil in California to stop the execution of Clarence Ray Allen, a 76-year-old, and at that point blind and in a wheelchair. Allen was put to death on January 17, 2006, for planning three murders from his cell while serving a life sentence.

Celia McWee, pensive over the pain she has suffered from the loss of both her son and daughter.

“I went out there and I met his children. Lovely people. And they hurt, they pained as he went through that,” he said.

Former death row inmates who have been exonerated share the belief that their families’ grief rarely receives attention. Since executions now take place behind closed doors, the system has become “sterile,” said Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person on death row to be exonerated because of DNA evidence.

Bloodsworth served nearly nine years in a Maryland prison for the 1984 rape and murder of nine-year-old girl he had never met.

“They don’t want to show the ‘crying mother’ over the executed son. No matter what he has done, he is still paying for that, and they don’t show that part of it,” he said. “She has got no say. She raised a murderer. That is how they are looking at her, and that was not her fault, necessarily.”

Bloodsworth regained his freedom on June 28, 1993, but his mother, Jeanette, did not live to see him walk out of prison. She died earlier that year. Bloodsworth was taken in chains to see her body, but prison officials refused to allow him to attend the funeral.

Mother and son: portraits from prison.

“My mother went through hell watching me. I was her son, and I was going to be executed, and nobody cared about a word she said. I thought that was a terrible way to have to treat somebody,” he said.

Rob Warden is the director of the Center on Wrongful Conviction in Chicago, and has been a legal affairs writer for more than 25 years. He said that while the stories of inmates’ family members are not necessarily ignored, the focus is often on the person “walking out of the door.”

“The stories of relatives of wrongful conviction in general tend to be overlooked,” he said, “because they are so overshadowed by the poignancy of the innocent person or the person who was executed himself.”

This does not imply that these stories should not be told. On the contrary, they should not be forgotten, Warden said.

“We should understand that when we execute somebody, no matter how heinous that person might be, it is over for that person,” said Warden. “But the pain that is inflicted on parents, or siblings, or children, is permanent. It is everlasting. It will be there. It is ongoing.”

Celia McWee tells the story of her son Jerry's execution.

The Road to Justice and Peace

Senator Raymond Lesniak delivered the following speech at the Memorial de Caen International Human Rights Competition in Caen, France on Sunday, February 1, 2009. The competition included lawyers from Washington, D.C., France, Belgium, Guinea, Senegal, and Switzerland with speech topics ranging from governmental to military abuses of human rights.

The Senator's speech below won first place in the international competition. He will donate his first-place winnings, roughly $9,740 from the Caen City Council, to The Road to Justice and Peace: a non-profit started by the Senator to advance the abolition of the death penalty around the globe, to support the families of murder victims, and to promote humane alternatives to incarceration.

I come here today not to plead a case for a victim whose fundamental human rights have been violated. But, rather, to plead the case that the death penalty violates the fundamental human rights of mankind. In my country, The United States of America, over 3,000 human beings are awaiting execution, some for a crime they did not commit. I plead the case that the death penalty in the United States, Iraq, Pakistan, Japan, wherever, exposes the innocent to execution, causes more suffering to the family members of murder victims, serves no penal purpose and commits society to the belief that revenge is preferable to redemption.


On December 17, 2007, New Jersey became the first state in the Union to abolish the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. When Governor Jon Corzine signed the legislation I sponsored into law, he also commuted the death sentences of eight human beings. The Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome, Italy, a lay Catholic organization committed to abolishing the death penalty throughout the world, lit up the Roman Coliseum to celebrate this victory for human rights.

How was this victory achieved? First, by demonstrating that the death penalty creates the possibility of executing an innocent human being. One of our founding founders, Benjamin Franklin, quoting the British Jurist William Blackstone, said: "It's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to imprison an innocent person." Yet Governor Corzine and my legislation let no guilty person go free. It merely replaced the death penalty with life without parole, eliminating the possibility of putting to death an innocent human being.

Byron Halsey could have been one such human being. On July 9, 2007, Byron walked out of jail a free man after serving 19 years in prison for a most heinous crime: the murder of a seven year old girl and an eight year old boy. Both had been sexually assaulted, the girl was strangled to death, and nails were driven into the boy's head.

Halsey, who had a sixth grade education and severe learning disabilities, was interrogated for 30 hours shortly after the children's bodies were discovered. He confessed to the murders and, even though his statement was factually inaccurate as to the location of the bodies and the manner of death, his confession was admitted into evidence in a court of law. The prosecution sought the death penalty.

Halsey was convicted of two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated sexual assault. He was sentenced to two life terms: narrowly evading the death penalty by the vote of one juror who held out against it during the sentencing portion of his trial.

After spending nearly half his life behind bars, post-trial DNA analysis determined, with scientific certainty, that Byron did not commit the murders. A witness for the prosecution at his trial is now accused of those crimes.

But for the good judgment of that one juror, Mr. Halsey might have been executed, and the real killer would never have been discovered and brought to justice.

Stories like Byron's are not uncommon. Since 1973, 130 human beings on death rows throughout the United States have been released from jail for being wrongfully convicted. During that time over 1,100 prisoners were executed. How many of them were innocent? 3,309 remain on death row throughout the U.S. How many of them are innocent? How many of the innocent will be executed?

It could be Troy Davis. He's been imprisoned since 1989 in the State of Georgia for a murder he maintains he did not commit. In one of Davis' numerous appeals, the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court said, "In this case, nearly every witness who identified Davis as the shooter at trial has now disclaimed his or her ability to do so reliably. Three persons have stated that Sylvester Coles confessed to being the shooter." Coles had testified against Davis at the trial.

On September 23, 2008, less than two hours before Davis was due to be put to death by lethal injection, he received a stay of execution by the US Supreme Court. On October 14 the stay was lifted and the State of Georgia issued an Execution Warrant for October 27. Three days before this execution date, the 11th Circuit Court stayed the execution to consider a new appeal.

Will Troy Davis be the next innocent person saved from execution, or will he be the next innocent person executed? Does the death penalty serve any purpose, other than to do harm to everyone involved, and society in general? Does the death penalty even console the families of murder victims?

Not according to 63 family members of murder victims who stated, in a letter to the New Jersey Legislature:

"We are family members and loved ones of murder victims. We desperately miss the parents, children, siblings, and spouses we have lost. We live with the pain and heartbreak of their absence every day and would do anything to have them back. We have been touched by the criminal justice system in ways we never imagined and would never wish on anyone. Our experience compels us to speak out for change. Though we share different perspectives on the death penalty, every one of us agrees that New Jersey's capital punishment system doesn't work, and that our state is better off without it."

Or more specifically stated by Vicki Schieber whose daughter, Shannon, was raped and murdered, "The death penalty is a harmful policy that exacerbates the pain for murdered victims' families."

Some argue that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder, yet more than a dozen studies published in the past 10 years have been inconclusive on its deterrent effect.

In testimony before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2006, Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, testified that states without a death penalty statute have significantly lower murder rates than their counterparts with the death penalty. Mr. Dieter also testified that of the four geographic regions in the U.S., the South, which carries out 80% percent of all executions in the country, has the highest murder rate. Conversely, the Northeast, which implements less than 1% of all executions, has the lowest murder rate in the nation.


Even those who believe the death penalty can act as a deterrent admit that existing research has inconclusive results. Professor Erik Lillquist of Seton Hall University School of Law testified that recent econometric studies conclude that the death penalty can act as a deterrent, but only if the death penalty is implemented in a "sufficient" number of cases. Conversely, he also maintained that other studies suggest that executions can cause a "brutalization effect," in which the murder rate actually increases.


Professor Lillquist stated:

"It just may be impossible to know what the deterrent or brutalization effect is here . . . at least as an empirical matter - simply because we're never going to have a large enough database that can be removed from the confounding variables, such that we can come to a conclusion. When scientists run studies in general, we try to do it in a controlled environment. You can't do that with murders and the death penalty."

Jeffrey Fagan, Professor of Law and Public Health, Columbia University and Steven Durlauf, Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in a letter to the Editor in the Philadelphia Enquirer on November 17, 2007:

"Serious researchers studying the death penalty continue to find that the relationship between executions and homicides is fragile and complex, inconsistent across the states, and highly sensitive to different research strategies. The only scientifically and ethically acceptable conclusion from the complete body of existing social science literature on deterrence and the death penalty is that it's impossible to tell whether deterrent effects are strong or weak, or whether they exist at all."

The professors concluded:

"Until research survives the rigors of replication and thorough testing of alternative hypotheses and sound impartial peer review, it provides no basis for decisions to take lives."

While the death penalty inevitably executes the innocent, exacerbates the pain and suffering of families of murder victims and serves no penal purpose, the worse damage it does is to a society that believes it needs to seek revenge over redemption.

The need for revenge leads to hate and violence. Redemption opens the door to healing and peace. Revenge slams it shut.

A society that turns its back on redemption commits itself to holding on to anger and a need for vengeance in a quest for fulfillment that can not be met by those destructive emotions. Redemption instead opens the door to the space that asks healing questions in the wake of violence: questions of crime prevention, questions of why some human beings put such a low value on life that they readily take it from others, questions that help us understand how to help those impacted by violence; questions that take a back seat, and are often ignored, when our minds and emotions are filled with a need for revenge.

Thirty-six states and the federal government of the United States still impose the death penalty. The United States has more human beings in prison and more violence than just about every other civilized country in the world. As long as we continue to choose revenge over redemption, it's likely we will continue to be a leader in the amount of violence and size of our prison population.

It doesn't have to stay that way.

When New Jersey abolished its death penalty, it chose redemption over revenge, healing over hate, peace over war. We need more states and our federal government to make those same choices.
Consider the following headlines which appeared side by side in the New York Times: "Iraqi Leaders Say the Way Is Clear for the Execution of 'Chemical Ali'." The other headline read: "Bomber at Funeral Kills Dozens in Pakistan."

Both Iraq and Pakistan have the death penalty. After the announcement setting the execution date for "Chemical Ali," San Jawarno, whose father and other family members were killed in attacks directed by "Chemical Ali" said, "Now my father is resting in peace in his grave because Chemical Ali will be executed."

The two events, the bombing in Pakistan and the words of the bereaved son whose father was killed, are not unrelated. We must speak up, at every forum, in our homes, our churches, synagogues, mosques and temples, in our legislative bodies, wherever an opportunity exists, to convince political leaders, community leaders, religious leaders, anyone who will listen, that the death penalty has no reason to exist, promotes violence, and brings peace to no one: in the grave or not.

That was to be the end of my plea to abolish the death penalty. Then I read a report from Amnesty International about the 13-year-old girl who was stoned to death in a stadium packed with 1000 spectators in Kismayo, Somalia. Her offense? Islamic militants accused her of adultery after she reported she had been raped by three men.

Will this senseless, inhumane killing ever end?

Perhaps. The brutality of the death penalty and of Islamic militants can end, if we speak out against it, wherever it exists, in any shape, in any form.

The death penalty is a random act of brutality. Its application throughout the United States is random, depending on where the murder occurred, the race and economic status of who committed the murder, the race and economic status of the person murdered and, of course, the quality of the legal defense.

I'm proud of the people of the State of New Jersey for electing political leaders who ended this random act of brutality. And I applaud Amnesty International for alerting the good people of the world to the brutality of the Islamic militants in Somalia who stoned to death that poor girl.

No good comes from the death penalty, whether it's imposed by duly elected governments, or by radical, religious fanatics. No good.

The burden of proof in the Court of Public Opinion should be on those advocating for the death penalty. That burden has not been met.
Just ask Byron Halsey. Or Troy Davis. Or, if you could, that 13 year old girl.
Senator Raymond Lesniak and Bill Pelke at NCADP Conference 2008

Wisconsin man freed 23 years after wrongful conviction

Robert Lee Stinson sentence was overturned after the Innocence Project intervened.

MILWAUKEE — A man sentenced to life in prison for killing a woman in 1984 had his conviction overturned and was released Friday on a personal recognizance bond after spending 23 years behind bars.

Robert Lee Stinson, 44, of Milwaukee, walked out of the New Lisbon Correctional Institution in street clothes and hugged his sister and members of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. A judge vacated the sentence after the Project argued that bite-mark analysis and DNA evidence that didn't match evidence from the crime scene, defense attorney Byron Lichstein said.

Stinson was convicted in 1985 of first-degree murder in the death of a 63-year-old Milwaukee woman. Evidence suggested she had been raped, and her body also had eight different bite marks, Lichstein said.

Stinson still faces a charge of first-degree homicide related to the woman's death, Lichstein said. A status hearing is set for July 27, according to online court records.

At trial, two forensic odontologists testified that Stinson's teeth were a match, even though Stinson was apparently missing a tooth in a place where the bite marks indicated a tooth, Lichstein said.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said in a statement Friday that Stinson's conviction was not wrongful, and that he was convicted based on "state-of-the-art scientific evidence available at the time of his trial."

"The question today is whether there is newly discovered evidence in this case to warrant a new trial, and we agree that such evidence exists," Chisholm said. The statement did not specify the evidence.

Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Norman Gahn said he has six months to decide whether to retry Stinson.

Lichstein, who last spoke to Stinson on Thursday, said his client was happy but in shock.

"I don't think it had completely sunk in," Lichstein said. "Personally, I feel a real sense of relief. It's been a long time coming for Mr. Stinson."

Stinson's conviction was based almost exclusively on evidence suggesting that bite marks matched Stinson's teeth, Lichstein said. The lawyer said he did not know why special technology was necessary if the missing tooth could have indicated there was no match.

"I wish I could tell you. I wasn't around back then," he said.

Steven Kohn, Stinson's trial attorney, said he didn't remember the details of the prosecution but recalled that the two state experts had discussed the case at a conference for forensic odontologists, leaving them unable to serve as defense witnesses. Kohn said he was forced to rely on an expert whose expertise was in dental records, not forensic odontology.

DNA taken from saliva on the victim's sweater also did not match Stinson.

For a decade, attorneys and even some forensic experts have ridiculed the bite-mark identification as sham science and glorified guesswork.

Critics say human skin changes and distorts imprints until they are nearly unrecognizable. As a result, courtroom experts end up offering competing opinions. But odontologists insist the science is sound if applied properly.

Since 2000, at least eight people in five states who were convicted largely on bite-mark identification have been exonerated, according to the Innocence Project.

Stinson attended a celebratory reception with family and other Innocence Project lawyers Friday afternoon. He previously told lawyers the first thing he wanted to do as a free man was to eat shrimp, which he did later at an Applebee's restaurant in Wisconsin Dells.

He maintained his innocence and said he planned to work on a book about his experiences, adding: "I'm finally out and I'm going to enjoy my life."

On the Net: Wisconsin Innocence Project
By DINESH RAMDE and TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press Writers Dinesh Ramde And Todd Richmond, Associated Press Writers – Fri Jan 30, 5:41 pm ET

Sentence Disparity: A Troubling Reality

Steve Henley: here

NOTE: There are still a few more hours to call from anywhere - and for those in Nashville, Tennessee, get out the word that there's a phone bank. Now is the time to act. Please contact the Tennessee Parole Board 615-741-4543 and the Governor 615-741-2001 to ask that they commute Henley's sentence.

Other Ways to Take Action and Make Contact:
here

The last opportunity to phone bank is on Monday, February 2, from 5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. at the TCASK State Office (508 Main St., Nashville, TN 37206). There will be pizza and soft drinks.

Even if you can only come by for a little bit, it will still have an impact. Please contact Isaac Kimes at isaac@tcask.org or (615) 256-3906 if you plan on attending.

###

Steve Henley and Terry Flatt were convicted of the 1985 murders of Fred and Edna Stafford, an elderly couple living in Jackson County. All the evidence, including the motive for the crime, was provided by Terry Flatt, who made a deal with prosecutors and served just over five years. Steve Henley, who has maintained his innocence from the beginning, received the death sentence. Henley and Flatt had known each other about three months prior to the murders. What happened on July 24, 1985, is in dispute.

Terry Flatt's Account: Flatt and Henley bought and sold a transmission that day and were headed toward Pine Lick Road where Henley's grandmother and the Staffords lived around 6:30 p.m. Flatt said that Henley stated that there were some people there who owed him money and had wronged his grandmother. They passed the Stafford's house and noticed neighbors were visiting. Henley let Flatt out of the truck on the road near Henley’s grandmother's driveway. Henley was gone about 5 to 10 minutes and came back with a .22 rifle. Henley drove about 50 or 75 yards down the road, put more shells in the rifle, filled a plastic jug with gasoline from a five gallon gas tank in his truck, and headed towards the Stafford’s home around 7:00 p.m. The Staffords were standing in the road by a newly opened bridge. Henley took a pistol from the truck and forced the Stafford's toward the house, ordering Flatt to get the rifle. About 30 feet from the house, Henley told Flatt to give him the rifle and to get the gas can. Henley then shot both the Staffords inside the house. When Flatt returned with the can, Henley threw him the rifle and shot Mrs. Stafford with a pistol in the hallway. The house was then set on fire.

Flatt and Henley left and hid the guns along Keeling Branch road as they headed to Gainesboro, about 15 minutes away, for Henley to see Harold Hix about a job. Upon leaving Hix's house, they met a patrol car who pulled them over and asked where the Stafford's lived. Henley then showed the officers Pine Lick Road.

Problems with Flatt's testimony: Flatt initially lied to authorities about his involvement in the murders saying, "I don't know nothing about no shooting." However, after he implicated himself, he then provided information to the Sheriff. He also acknowledged in his testimony that when he talked to the Sheriff he may have brought up how he could get less time and in another statement said "nothing has really been promised, but we kindly had a little bit of an agreement, some kind of agreement." The jury believed that Flatt would receive a 25 year sentence for his testimony, yet he was paroled after only 5 years in prison. Flatt also admitted to injecting Dilaudid, a powerful painkiller, twice the day of the murders, including a strong injection at 4:30 p.m. He had been using Dilaudid for seven or eight months prior to the crime. Flatt contradicted himself in his testimony stating on his way to Henley's grandmother's house, his mind was not very clear because of the Dilaudid injections and beer. Flatt later stated the events of the day were clear in his mind.

Steve Henley’s Account: Henley spent the day preparing to work on a sprayer for a friend’s father and purchasing a transmission to sell. He picked up Terry Flatt in the morning because he thought he would need help loading the transmission. After picking up the transmission, he and Flatt bought a six pack of beer, and the two headed to Cookeville to sell the transmission. Later, Henley and Flatt headed to his grandmother’s house to pick up some parts for the sprayer. On the way, they stopped for more beer and when Henley came out of the market, Flatt was injecting Dilaudid. They arrived at his grandmother's at around 6:30 p.m. Henley denies having any problem with the Staffords. Because Flatt was intoxicated, Henley did not want him near his grandmother so he dropped Flatt off below the bridge that goes to his grandmother's house past the Stafford's house. Henley kept a .22 rifle in his truck between the gear shift columns because he used it to shoot rabbits in his grandmother’s garden. Flatt wanted to keep the rifle in case he saw a rabbit to shoot. Henley and his grandmother both testified that he was with her for 30-45 minutes. His grandmother stated that he did not have the gun at her house that evening. Henley went back down to the spot where he dropped Flatt off, and Flatt stepped out of the corn field across from where Henley left him. Flatt put the rifle behind the seat and got in. Flatt wanted to go to Gainesboro away from the Stafford house, but Henley wanted to go see Harold Hix about a job which took them by the Stafford's. Henley didn't notice anything unusual at the Stafford's since the corn was high and obscured his view. Henley came down Keeling Branch towards Hix's house, and the two stopped to go to the bathroom just off the road. They arrived at Hix's house, and while Henley talked to Hix about the job, Flatt was in and out of the truck outside. Henley stated that he did not have a plastic container to transfer any gas. When they drove back from Hix’s house, a patrol car pulled them over, and officers asked where Fred Stafford lived. Henley drove them to the road, pointing toward Pine Lick Creek. He and Flatt headed toward Gainesboro, stopping for more beer. Henley only had $5 so he charged $2.50 to his friend's account, though Flatt testified that Henley had $131 in cash on him that he took from the Staffords.

Problems with the investigation: On August 1, after Henley and Flatt were arrested, Flatt told Ishmul Wood of the Fire Marshall's office that he poured gasoline in a general area of the house though Wood took no samples nor did Wood take samples from the road where the gasoline had reportedly been poured from one can to another. The shell casings were found on August 2, only after Flatt told authorities his story. Wood testified that he could not say whether the shells were placed at the scene before or after the fire and had no evidence that the fire was arson. The pistol was discovered a day or two after the rifle when the Sheriff instructed officials to go back and search the location of the rifle again. Henley testified that he did not recognize the pistol. Only one shell casing was found inside the house, the others outside. Of the nine shells which were tested, only one was fired from the rifle, and it was not tested to see if it endured a fire. Further testimony revealed that the crime scene may not have been secured during the investigation. The state never produced the plastic gas can which Flatt claims Henley used. Furthermore, Henley interacted with a variety of people around the time of the murders, and no one noticed anything unusual about his behavior. Henley was picked up by the police a few days later on a contempt of court charge for owing money to Production Credit Association for a farming debt. Henley had filed for bankruptcy over his farming losses and was in a dispute over what he owed. His only prior conviction was for transporting stolen property across state lines in 1981, for which he got a two year sentence on probation.

In his sentencing hearing, Henley’s attorney made grave errors which led to Henley’s death sentence. His attorney never spoke to Henley’s family about testifying but in court, called Henley’s mother to the stand with no preparation. She asked the attorney to leave the courtroom to talk with her and was so terrified of saying something that would hurt her son that she would not take the stand. This decision left the jury with the impression that Henley’s mother did not want to testify on her son’s behalf, which could not have been further from the truth. His attorney then called Henley’s grandmother, who was also unprepared but did testify. This grossly inadequate representation by his attorney at sentencing led to a reversal of Henley’s death sentence by the Criminal Court of Appeals in 1996 only for it to be reinstated by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

How can two men who were together on the night of the murders receive two such different sentences? How can the word of a drug addict who implicated himself in the crime and with everything to lose secure another man’s death sentence? Steve Henley should not be executed with this much doubt in the case. In fact, a majority of appellate court judges (5-4) have ruled that Henley sentence should have received a life sentence. Now Henley faces execution on February 4, 2009. Now is the time to act. Please contact the Tennessee Parole Board 615-741-4543 and the Governor 615-741-2001 to ask that they commute Henley's sentence.

Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing
PO Box 120552, Nashville, TN 37212
615-256-3906 tcask@tcask.org
Copyright © TCASK. All Rights Reserved.

here

Pending U.S. Executions: February

(as of 1/30/09)

Please note that these dates are only tentative.

Execution dates known or thought to be considered SERIOUS are marked with a *.The designation indicates that an execution is considered more likely to be carried out.

Please note that this designation should in no way be construed as absolute. Stays can be granted or denied at the very last momemt prior to an execution.

A name with no * designation may simply mean that not enough information is currently available to know whether the execution date is serious. In other words, please DO NOT automatically equate the fact that a name with no * designation means that his/her assigned execution date is not serious. It might, in fact, be (very) serious.

2009

February

4* David Martinez Texas

4* Steve Henley Tennessee

10* Dale Scheanette Texas

12* Johnnie Johnson Texas

12* Danny Joe Bradley Alabama

19* Edward Bell Virginia

20* Luke Williams South Carolina

(Courtesy of Rick Halperin and others)