KEEP THE PRESSURE ON TO SAVE TROY DAVIS' LIFE! AN APPEAL FOR MORE EMERGENCY DEMOS, SEPT. 19 AND SEPT. 20!
Whether you use FB or not, you should easily be able to SIGN petition on Death Penalty Focus California site here
Other Options below:
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is scheduled to meet on Monday, Sept. 19 to determine if Troy Davis is executed on Sept. 21 or is granted clemency. Hundreds of cities held Sept. 16 protests. Let's continue to keep the pressure on the Board to stop this racist execution by holding emergency protests on Monday, Sept. 19 and Tuesday, Sept. 20. Let the International Action Center know about your action so that it can be listed for others in your cities. Use the September 16 Actions form here to let us know about your action.
Please continue to sign and urge others to sign the petitions which have generated more than 3 million emails. Remember that this petition goes to every member of the Board along with the Georgia legislature, the governor, the White House, U.S. Congress and major media. The petition url is here
For more information on the campaign, go to the Amnesty International USA site here
For those who are new to this information, here's a brief summary:
Troy Davis is an African American on death row in Georgia. Davis was convicted in the 1989 killing of a police officer despite what Amnesty International calls "overwhelming doubts about his guilt." No physical forensic evidence was presented at Davis' trial, and 7 of the 9 non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, with at least two saying they were pressured by police to finger Davis as the killer.
TAKE ACTION NOW to let the Georgia Parole Board, Governor, Legislature, and congressional delegation as well as President Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban, Congressional leaders and members of the media know you demand No Execution of Troy Davis!
Your messages will go to hundreds of public officials, including the Governor of Georgia, the entire Georgia legislature, each member of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the full Georgia Congressional delegation, as well as President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary-General Ban, and national and local media representatives.
SIGN ONLINE PETITION AT iacenter.org/troydavis or CLICK here
The text of the message reads as follows (you will have the opportunity to edit it if you wish):
To: Governor Deal, Georgia Pardons and Parole Board, Georgia Legislature, Georgia Congressional Delegation, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Congressional Leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban
cc: members of the media
STOP THE EXECUTION OF TROY DAVIS, NOW SET FOR WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21!
On March 28, 2011, the US Supreme Court failed to take up the appeal of Troy Anthony Davis, the Savannah, Ga. man whose scheduled execution has been halted three times in the past because of the growing evidence and public belief in his innocence. He was convicted solely on eye witness testimony, and 7 of the 9 non-police witnesses have since recanted, several alleging that police coerced them into making false statements.
I join with millions in the US and around the world in demanding that you stop the execution of Troy Davis. Serious doubt remains. I call on all those with authority and influence in this decision to grant clemency to Troy Anthony Davis and overturn the death sentence.
Innocence matters to me. Justice matters to everyone.
(We) urge you to act now.
SIGN ONLINE PETITION here
International Action Center
c/o Solidarity Center
55 W 17th St Suite 5C
New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646
iacenter@iacenter.org
www.iacenter.org
Monday, September 19, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Duane Buck, Perry, Ethnicity and the US Supreme Court
Excerpt from article below:
"That Buck committed a terrible crime is not disputed. What is problematic is the notion that a person convicted of a serious crime can thereby be denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process, and face execution on the basis of his ethnicity."
SEPTEMBER 16, 2011:
TEXAS:
Duane Buck and Texas's fatally flawed death penalty
by James Abbot-Jackson The Guardian
----Governor Rick Perry claims Texas's capital punishment regime is thoughtful and clear. I've seen at first hand it's anything but
On Thursday evening, a few hours before Duane Buck was due to be executed for capital murder, the US supreme court intervened to grant him a stay of execution. Buck was sentenced to death in part because of his ethnicity: a psychologist in the original sentencing hearing testified that Buck was likely to be a future danger to society because he was black. The supreme court was acting in response to an 11th-hour motion filed by Buck's lawyers to prevent his execution on constitutional grounds – his state clemency petition having been rejected earlier this week.
Distressingly, but unsurprisingly, Buck's case is entirely consistent with the operation of the death penalty in Texas (pdf). A study by the Capital Jury Project in 2001 found that "white jurors thought black defendants were more dangerous than white defendants and believed that black defendants could be paroled sooner from prison than whites even when no evidence had been presented as to these points."
When asked about the death penalty recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry said that he "never struggled" with the idea of innocent people being executed on his watch, arguing that "the state of Texas has a very thoughtful, very clear process in place." Texas has executed 235 prisoners during Perry's terms as governor.
The case of Anthony Graves, a man who spent 12 years on death row (as a result of "egregious prosecutorial misconduct") before being declared innocent last year, contradicts this analysis. I have been fortunate enough to meet Graves, who now works as an investigator at the Texas Defender Service, and, despite his warmth and optimism, he is adamant that the state of Texas tried "to murder" him. Graves was the 12th person on Texas death row to be exonerated since 1973.
It is not merely a possibility that innocent people have been sentenced to death in Texas; it is a fact.
Perry's view is reflective of the prevailing societal attitude in Texas, which I have observed as an intern at the Texas Defender Service, the organisation which is acting on behalf of Duane Buck. According to the majority public opinion in Texas, anyone accused of crimes such as Buck's deserves to die and the question of whether that person receives a fair trial is a peripheral issue. As a result, many of the fundamental flaws that affect the death penalty regime in Texas have been ignored.
One of the most significant problems is the "future dangerousness" standard adopted by the Texas death penalty statute. At the sentencing hearing, the jury has to find that the defendant poses a "future danger to society". The Texas appellate court has held that the facts of the original crime – which have to be proven at the preceding "guilt-innocence" stage of a trial – may be sufficient to demonstrate that the defendant could be a future danger, an approach that empties the sentencing hearing of any significance.
It has also been held that psychiatric testimony as to the future dangerousness question, often given by expert witnesses who have never examined the defendant, is admissible, despite the inherent uncertainty of predicting recidivism. This practice has come under severe criticism from the American Psychiatric Association, which has said that "[t]he large body of evidence in this area indicates that, even in the best of conditions, psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness are wrong in at least 2 out of every 3 cases."
That Buck committed a terrible crime is not disputed. What is problematic is the notion that a person convicted of a serious crime can thereby be denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process, and face execution on the basis of his ethnicity. The fact that the Texas criminal justice system was prepared even to contemplate proceeding with an execution given this state of affairs is symptomatic of the flaws that plague the death penalty regime in Texas – a process that is anything but clear and thoughtful.
Also see Huff Post here and here where the comments are past the 1,000 numbers with this one standing on it's own today: “We really need a Constitutional amendment that spells out the process by which a state is allowed to secede. The second part of the amendment should spell out how we expel a state which the rest of us don't want to be associated with anymore. As soon as the amendment is ratified we should expel Texas.The same day.”
"That Buck committed a terrible crime is not disputed. What is problematic is the notion that a person convicted of a serious crime can thereby be denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process, and face execution on the basis of his ethnicity."
SEPTEMBER 16, 2011:
TEXAS:
Duane Buck and Texas's fatally flawed death penalty
by James Abbot-Jackson The Guardian
----Governor Rick Perry claims Texas's capital punishment regime is thoughtful and clear. I've seen at first hand it's anything but
On Thursday evening, a few hours before Duane Buck was due to be executed for capital murder, the US supreme court intervened to grant him a stay of execution. Buck was sentenced to death in part because of his ethnicity: a psychologist in the original sentencing hearing testified that Buck was likely to be a future danger to society because he was black. The supreme court was acting in response to an 11th-hour motion filed by Buck's lawyers to prevent his execution on constitutional grounds – his state clemency petition having been rejected earlier this week.
Distressingly, but unsurprisingly, Buck's case is entirely consistent with the operation of the death penalty in Texas (pdf). A study by the Capital Jury Project in 2001 found that "white jurors thought black defendants were more dangerous than white defendants and believed that black defendants could be paroled sooner from prison than whites even when no evidence had been presented as to these points."
When asked about the death penalty recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry said that he "never struggled" with the idea of innocent people being executed on his watch, arguing that "the state of Texas has a very thoughtful, very clear process in place." Texas has executed 235 prisoners during Perry's terms as governor.
The case of Anthony Graves, a man who spent 12 years on death row (as a result of "egregious prosecutorial misconduct") before being declared innocent last year, contradicts this analysis. I have been fortunate enough to meet Graves, who now works as an investigator at the Texas Defender Service, and, despite his warmth and optimism, he is adamant that the state of Texas tried "to murder" him. Graves was the 12th person on Texas death row to be exonerated since 1973.
It is not merely a possibility that innocent people have been sentenced to death in Texas; it is a fact.
Perry's view is reflective of the prevailing societal attitude in Texas, which I have observed as an intern at the Texas Defender Service, the organisation which is acting on behalf of Duane Buck. According to the majority public opinion in Texas, anyone accused of crimes such as Buck's deserves to die and the question of whether that person receives a fair trial is a peripheral issue. As a result, many of the fundamental flaws that affect the death penalty regime in Texas have been ignored.
One of the most significant problems is the "future dangerousness" standard adopted by the Texas death penalty statute. At the sentencing hearing, the jury has to find that the defendant poses a "future danger to society". The Texas appellate court has held that the facts of the original crime – which have to be proven at the preceding "guilt-innocence" stage of a trial – may be sufficient to demonstrate that the defendant could be a future danger, an approach that empties the sentencing hearing of any significance.
It has also been held that psychiatric testimony as to the future dangerousness question, often given by expert witnesses who have never examined the defendant, is admissible, despite the inherent uncertainty of predicting recidivism. This practice has come under severe criticism from the American Psychiatric Association, which has said that "[t]he large body of evidence in this area indicates that, even in the best of conditions, psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness are wrong in at least 2 out of every 3 cases."
That Buck committed a terrible crime is not disputed. What is problematic is the notion that a person convicted of a serious crime can thereby be denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process, and face execution on the basis of his ethnicity. The fact that the Texas criminal justice system was prepared even to contemplate proceeding with an execution given this state of affairs is symptomatic of the flaws that plague the death penalty regime in Texas – a process that is anything but clear and thoughtful.
Also see Huff Post here and here where the comments are past the 1,000 numbers with this one standing on it's own today: “We really need a Constitutional amendment that spells out the process by which a state is allowed to secede. The second part of the amendment should spell out how we expel a state which the rest of us don't want to be associated with anymore. As soon as the amendment is ratified we should expel Texas.The same day.”
Troy Davis Updates
Nation of Change Troy Davis and the Politics of Dath here
Two from Truthdig.com REPORT here
The Case for Troy Davis and Against Gov. Rick Perry here
Video GO here
Keep watching Rick Halperin's Death Penalty News and Updates and follow Mike Farrell and Death Penalty Focus of California (find BOTH sites on right column)
Two from Truthdig.com REPORT here
The Case for Troy Davis and Against Gov. Rick Perry here
Video GO here
Keep watching Rick Halperin's Death Penalty News and Updates and follow Mike Farrell and Death Penalty Focus of California (find BOTH sites on right column)
Friday, September 16, 2011
Amnesty's Letter for Spiritual Leaders/ Stephen Dear's Implementation: Letter on Behalf of Troy Davis
Special Event on Troy Davis' behalf - GO here
You can also email Stephen Dear at info@pfadp.org with your full contact information and we will manually add you to the list of endorsers. (Mention whether or not you are a spiritual/religious leader)
Yesterday in Atlanta I (Stephen Dear) had the privilege of helping to present the unprecedented collection of signatures of 3,500 faith leaders on the letter for clemency for Troy Davis to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. PFADP's staff and I were literally up all night preparing the documents for the parole board and media. We have had never had to prepare so many signatures on such a letter. No one has ever had to spend so much time doing that, as far as we can tell.
If you signed the letter, thank you. If you or your organization asked faith leaders to sign the letter, thank you. The parole board holds its clemency hearing on Troy Davis on Monday. We will continue to collect endorsements and send them in to the parole board as long as we need to.
Hundreds of events are taking place today and this weekend around Troy Davis. If you would like to incorporate prayers into your faith community's liturgies this weekend click here for a liturgy you could use.
I want to tell you about the press conference and delivery to the parole board yesterday.
It was so heartening to be joined by faith leaders such as Rev. R. L. White, pastor of Mt. Ephraim Baptist Church, one of Atlanta's largest and oldest churches, and Rev. Debra Metzgar Shew, Canon for Community Ministries for the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, and others as we stood with representatives of Amnesty International, the NAACP, and other groups who have led this unprecedented call for clemency. In addition to the clemency letter, we helped carry into the parole board's offices the petition signatures of more than 665,000 people from around the world gathered by Amnesty International, NAACP, and many other groups. Here is a video of that moment.
Below is part of my statement at yesterday's press conference.
"Today we are delivering a letter calling for clemency for Troy Davis from the leaders of faith communities across Georgia and from every single state in the nation and beyond, leaders from every major faith tradition, religious leaders who support the death penalty and those who oppose it all speaking with one voice: allowing the execution of Troy Davis would be both unnecessary and unconscionable.
"Nearly 3,500 faith leaders have signed the letter. That is several times more faith leaders than have signed any other such letter for clemency in modern American history – if not in all of history. More than 1,000 religious leaders from the South have endorsed clemency for Davis, including about 250 pastors in Georgia, some of them Southern Baptist pastors.
"The Troy Davis case is so fraught with doubt that it fails to meet any standard of acceptability held by any religious organization we are aware of, including the standard of clear and convincing guilt established by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000. These faith leaders from across the religious and political spectrum are saying there is no morally acceptable position supporting the execution of Troy Davis.
"Thanks to the egregious problems with Troy Davis's case this letter represents a new level of engagement from America's faith community on what is happening in our courts and death chambers.
"We hold the family of Officer Mark MacPhail in our prayers and we hold each of the parole board's parole board's members in our prayers as they fulfill their duty to review this case. We respectfully urge the parole board to grant clemency to Mr. Davis."
Indeed, let us continue to act and pray for healing, for justice, and for life.
In gratitude and solidarity,
Stephen Dear
Executive Director
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty
www.pfadp.org
110 W. Main St., Suite 2-G, Carrboro NC 27510
(919) 933-7567
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thousands of Religious Leaders - & Others - Speak for Clemency
Find the above photo and recent news items on Ga's Troy Davis scheduled execution posted on Creative Loafing Atlanta Newspaper here
See Huff Post article here
==============
Leaders in Support of Clemency
By Herbert Pinnock | Christian Post Contributor
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty (PFADP), a nonpartisan, nonprofit, interfaith organization, has registered the support, through a signed petition, of over 3,000 faith leaders from all 50 U.S. states who are urging the Georgia Board to consider clemency for death row’s Troy Davis.
Davis, 42, convicted of the murder of Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail in 1991 has remained on death row for over two decades, even while his supporters assert that the case against him has fallen apart.
According to PFADP, the petition “contains by far the largest single set of endorsements from faith leaders for clemency than any letter of its kind in our country’s modern history.”
A number of other important faith leaders, such as Roman Catholic head Pope Benedict, have come out in support of clemency for Davis
Monsignor Martin Krebs, U.S. envoy for the Pope, sent a letter urging state officials to consider the special circumstances in the case: “The Pope continually exhorts all people, and especially those men and women who serve in government, to recognize the sacredness of all human life.”
Of late, much attention has been given to reports that many of the state’s witnesses have recanted previous statements and have sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying against Davis.
According to Stephen Dear, executive director of PFADP, request for signatures from religious leaders on clemency petitions usually result in comparatively fewer signatures. This is not surprising, considering the opinions of many Christians and conservatives in respect to the question of law and order.
In a recent debate of Republican presidential candidates, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has attracted a great deal of evangelical support, received the loudest cheer when NBC’s Brian Williams stated that he had executed more individuals than any other governor in modern times.
Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on September 21, 2011. His supporters are hopeful that the Georgia Board of Pardons & Paroles, which has scheduled a hearing in his case for September 19, will grant him clemency.
GO here
FOLLOW this and other stories on the People of Faith Against the Death Penalty FB page here
If you're a religious or spiritual leader plz add your name and speak out against Troy's execution here
SEE Journey's FB page/blog for catch-up...
While I've been away on small family trips & adjusting to older children back home --there's been a lot of important material on the Journey's facebook page and blogging so Plz go the a good look and get involved if you are able/willing here Debbie Kearns has been on top of the news there (looks like) 24/7...
Note that another current Texas execution story involved another story of forgiveness...this time from the sister-in-law.
While we all gather for the final unified effort to halt Troy's state killing, Texas is ignoring the racial bias in Duane Buck case...
READ much more on that FB link above...THANX Debbie for your consistent and heart-felt work! You are a heroine of love for death row inmates and for the JOH!
Note that another current Texas execution story involved another story of forgiveness...this time from the sister-in-law.
While we all gather for the final unified effort to halt Troy's state killing, Texas is ignoring the racial bias in Duane Buck case...
READ much more on that FB link above...THANX Debbie for your consistent and heart-felt work! You are a heroine of love for death row inmates and for the JOH!
GEORGIA: CALL - FAX Gov's Office
GO to Amnesty USA here and to Real Clear Politics here
Too Much Doubt - Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. Nearly two decades later, Davis remains on death row — even though the case against him has fallen apart. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial.
Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles — the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.Breaking News: An execution date for Troy Davis is scheduled for September 21! In the days before Davis' execution, the Georgia Board of Pardons & Paroles will hold a final clemency hearing – a final chance to prevent Troy Davis from being executed.
You may also wish to sign this endorsement from People of Faith Against the Death Penalty - North Carolina (Same time ALSO plz CALL/FAX as over the years many of us have found these efforts to be VERY powerful just before an execution - Also find religious leaders - including high-ranking Catholic Bishop's offices - to do the same.)
Today is the last day that we will be accepting endorsements from religious leaders on the letter calling for clemency for Troy Davis. Thank you for all of your efforts thus far.
Please help us in this final push. The letter will be hand delivered at 10:30 a.m. EDT tomorrow at a press conference outside the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles' offices in Atlanta.
We have only a few hours left - we will stop accepting endorsements at 5 p.m. EDT today. Think about any additional religious leaders you can approach and encourage them to immediately take action to save the life of Troy Davis.
The letter is at www.troyletter.org.
In peace,
Amanda, Beto and Steve
Read More Below...
Too Much Doubt - Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. Nearly two decades later, Davis remains on death row — even though the case against him has fallen apart. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial.
Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles — the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.Breaking News: An execution date for Troy Davis is scheduled for September 21! In the days before Davis' execution, the Georgia Board of Pardons & Paroles will hold a final clemency hearing – a final chance to prevent Troy Davis from being executed.
You may also wish to sign this endorsement from People of Faith Against the Death Penalty - North Carolina (Same time ALSO plz CALL/FAX as over the years many of us have found these efforts to be VERY powerful just before an execution - Also find religious leaders - including high-ranking Catholic Bishop's offices - to do the same.)
Today is the last day that we will be accepting endorsements from religious leaders on the letter calling for clemency for Troy Davis. Thank you for all of your efforts thus far.
Please help us in this final push. The letter will be hand delivered at 10:30 a.m. EDT tomorrow at a press conference outside the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles' offices in Atlanta.
We have only a few hours left - we will stop accepting endorsements at 5 p.m. EDT today. Think about any additional religious leaders you can approach and encourage them to immediately take action to save the life of Troy Davis.
The letter is at www.troyletter.org.
In peace,
Amanda, Beto and Steve
Read More Below...
GEORGIA----impending execution
From Dr. Rick Halperin's Death Penalty News & Updates:
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011:
Troy Davis faces execution on 21 September, despite 7 of 9 non-police witnesses recanting. Where is the justice in that?
Death brings cheers these days in America. In the most recent Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Florida, when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked, hypothetically, if a man who chose to carry no medical insurance, then was stricken with a grave illness, should be left to die, cheers of "Yeah!" filled the hall. When, in the prior debate, Governor Rick Perry was asked about his enthusiastic use of the death penalty in Texas, the crowd erupted into sustained applause and cheers. The reaction from the audience prompted debate moderator Brian Williams of NBC News to follow up with the question, "What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?"
That "dynamic" is why challenging the death sentence to be carried out against Troy Davis by the state of Georgia on 21 September is so important. Davis has been on Georgia's death row for close to 20 years, after being convicted of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder.
Last March, the US supreme court ruled that Davis should receive an evidentiary hearing, to make his case for innocence. Several witnesses have identified one of the remaining witnesses who has not recanted, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, as the shooter. US District Judge William T Moore Jr refused, on a technicality, to allow the testimony of witnesses who claimed that, after Davis had been convicted, Coles admitted to shooting MacPhail. In his August court order, Moore summarised, "Mr Davis is not innocent."
One of the jurors, Brenda Forrest, disagrees. She told CNN in 2009, recalling the trial of Davis, "All of the witnesses – they were able to ID him as the person who actually did it." Since the 7 witnesses recanted, she says: "If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be not guilty."
Troy Davis has 3 major strikes against him. First, he is an African American man. Second, he was charged with killing a white police officer. And 3rd, he is in Georgia.
More than a century ago, the legendary muckraking journalist Ida B Wells risked her life when she began reporting on the epidemic of lynchings in the Deep South. She published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases in 1892 and followed up with The Red Record in 1895, detailing hundreds of lynchings. She wrote:
"In Brooks County, Georgia, 23 December, while this Christian country was preparing for Christmas celebration, 7 Negroes were lynched in 24 hours because they refused, or were unable to tell the whereabouts of a colored man named Pike, who killed a white man … Georgia heads the list of lynching states."
The planned execution of Davis will not be at the hands of an unruly mob, but in the sterile, fluorescently lit confines of Georgia diagnostic and classification prison in Butts County, near the town of Jackson. The state doesn't intend to hang Troy Davis from a tree with a rope or a chain – to hang, as Billie Holiday sang, like a strange fruit:
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
The state of Georgia, unless its board of pardons and paroles intervenes, will administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital. Georgia is using this new execution drug because the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized its supply of sodium thiopental last March, accusing the state of illegally importing the poison.
"This is our justice system at its very worst," said Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Amnesty International has called on the state board of pardons and paroles to commute Davis' sentence. "The board stayed Davis' execution in 2007, stating that capital punishment was not an option when doubts about guilt remained," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "Since then, two more execution dates have come and gone, and there is still little clarity, much less proof, that Davis committed any crime. Amnesty International respectfully asks the board to commute Davis' sentence to life and prevent Georgia from making a catastrophic mistake."
It's not just the human rights groups the parole board should listen to. Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel peace prize laureates President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, also have called for clemency. Or the board can listen to mobs who cheer for death.
(source: The Guardian)
***************
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011:
Troy Davis faces execution on 21 September, despite 7 of 9 non-police witnesses recanting. Where is the justice in that?
Death brings cheers these days in America. In the most recent Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Florida, when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked, hypothetically, if a man who chose to carry no medical insurance, then was stricken with a grave illness, should be left to die, cheers of "Yeah!" filled the hall. When, in the prior debate, Governor Rick Perry was asked about his enthusiastic use of the death penalty in Texas, the crowd erupted into sustained applause and cheers. The reaction from the audience prompted debate moderator Brian Williams of NBC News to follow up with the question, "What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?"
That "dynamic" is why challenging the death sentence to be carried out against Troy Davis by the state of Georgia on 21 September is so important. Davis has been on Georgia's death row for close to 20 years, after being convicted of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder.
Last March, the US supreme court ruled that Davis should receive an evidentiary hearing, to make his case for innocence. Several witnesses have identified one of the remaining witnesses who has not recanted, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, as the shooter. US District Judge William T Moore Jr refused, on a technicality, to allow the testimony of witnesses who claimed that, after Davis had been convicted, Coles admitted to shooting MacPhail. In his August court order, Moore summarised, "Mr Davis is not innocent."
One of the jurors, Brenda Forrest, disagrees. She told CNN in 2009, recalling the trial of Davis, "All of the witnesses – they were able to ID him as the person who actually did it." Since the 7 witnesses recanted, she says: "If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be not guilty."
Troy Davis has 3 major strikes against him. First, he is an African American man. Second, he was charged with killing a white police officer. And 3rd, he is in Georgia.
More than a century ago, the legendary muckraking journalist Ida B Wells risked her life when she began reporting on the epidemic of lynchings in the Deep South. She published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases in 1892 and followed up with The Red Record in 1895, detailing hundreds of lynchings. She wrote:
"In Brooks County, Georgia, 23 December, while this Christian country was preparing for Christmas celebration, 7 Negroes were lynched in 24 hours because they refused, or were unable to tell the whereabouts of a colored man named Pike, who killed a white man … Georgia heads the list of lynching states."
The planned execution of Davis will not be at the hands of an unruly mob, but in the sterile, fluorescently lit confines of Georgia diagnostic and classification prison in Butts County, near the town of Jackson. The state doesn't intend to hang Troy Davis from a tree with a rope or a chain – to hang, as Billie Holiday sang, like a strange fruit:
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
The state of Georgia, unless its board of pardons and paroles intervenes, will administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital. Georgia is using this new execution drug because the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized its supply of sodium thiopental last March, accusing the state of illegally importing the poison.
"This is our justice system at its very worst," said Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Amnesty International has called on the state board of pardons and paroles to commute Davis' sentence. "The board stayed Davis' execution in 2007, stating that capital punishment was not an option when doubts about guilt remained," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "Since then, two more execution dates have come and gone, and there is still little clarity, much less proof, that Davis committed any crime. Amnesty International respectfully asks the board to commute Davis' sentence to life and prevent Georgia from making a catastrophic mistake."
It's not just the human rights groups the parole board should listen to. Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel peace prize laureates President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, also have called for clemency. Or the board can listen to mobs who cheer for death.
(source: The Guardian)
***************
GEORGIA: Troy Davis To Have Additional Clemency Hearing
Don't take a chance on a change in favor of Troy's life, SIGN petitions, CALL and FAX Governor's office NOW.
Posted: September 12, 2011 at Death Penalty Info dot org or GO here where you will also see some other very recent developments in other states and nationally. Videos on key issues are now available here as well.
Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis will have a third clemency hearing before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on September 19, two days before his scheduled execution. The hearing will allow Davis to present witnesses the Board did not hear from in prior hearings as well as "renewed claims of innocence" regarding his conviction for killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Doubts about Davis' guilt were raised when some prosecution witnesses changed their stories after giving testimony against Davis, including accusations pointing to another suspect as the triggerman. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Davis an evidentiary hearing on his new evidence before a federal court judge. After the hearing, District Court Judge William Moore said "the State's case may not be ironclad," but nevertheless concluded that Davis had not convincingly proved his innocence. In 2007, the Pardons Board halted Davis's execution because of unresolved doubts about his guilt. Ultimately, they denied clemency. There are now 3 new members on the Pardons Board.
Posted: September 12, 2011 at Death Penalty Info dot org or GO here where you will also see some other very recent developments in other states and nationally. Videos on key issues are now available here as well.
Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis will have a third clemency hearing before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on September 19, two days before his scheduled execution. The hearing will allow Davis to present witnesses the Board did not hear from in prior hearings as well as "renewed claims of innocence" regarding his conviction for killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Doubts about Davis' guilt were raised when some prosecution witnesses changed their stories after giving testimony against Davis, including accusations pointing to another suspect as the triggerman. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Davis an evidentiary hearing on his new evidence before a federal court judge. After the hearing, District Court Judge William Moore said "the State's case may not be ironclad," but nevertheless concluded that Davis had not convincingly proved his innocence. In 2007, the Pardons Board halted Davis's execution because of unresolved doubts about his guilt. Ultimately, they denied clemency. There are now 3 new members on the Pardons Board.
Monday, September 12, 2011
MEDILL Innocence Project (Is Judge Shannon Being Fair?)
Evan Benn,
shown in 2009, is a former student of Northwestern University. He says he's disappointed with Judge Diane Cannon's ruling, that the students were acting under the direction of defense attorneys.
Jeff Roberson/AP
A judge in Chicago is ordering Northwestern University to turn over to prosecutors more than 500 emails between a high-profile professor and his investigative journalism students.
The students were part of the school's Medill Innocence Project, which has helped exonerate and free a dozen men convicted of murders they did not commit.
In this particular case, though, the judge ruled that the students weren't acting as journalists, protected by the Illinois reporter's privilege law, but as investigators for the defense.
There are concerns that if the ruling stands, it could have a chilling effect on the work of journalism students across the country. READ REST of STORY and watch VIDEO here
M. Spencer Green/AP
David Protess, shown in 2009, is no longer with Northwestern University. But he led the Medill Innocence Project when students discovered evidence questioning the guilt of Anthony McKinney, jailed since 1978. The judge in the case has ruled that the students weren't acting as journalists, protected by the Illinois reporter's privilege law, but as investigators for the defense.
NPR.org 09/12/2011 at 5:30 PM ET
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
NEW RESOURCES: 2011 DEATH ROW USA Report Now Available
Posted: September 07, 2011
The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row USA" showed a slight increase of 9 inmates in the death row population in the United States between October 1, 2010 and January 1, 2011. However, death row is still significantly smaller now (3,251 inmates) than in 2000 (3,682 inmates). The size of death row also declined overall in 2010. The size of death row is affected by the number of death sentences and the number of executions. Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 44% white, 42% black, and 12% Latino/Latina. Texas, Louisiana, and Connecticut had death rows consisting of 70% minority defendants. California continues to have the largest death row population (721), followed by Florida (398), Texas (321), Pennsylvania (219), and Alabama (206). California and Pennsylvania have not carried out an executiion in over five years. The report contains the latest death row population figures, execution statistics, and an overview of recent legal developments related to capital punishment.
Also See:
NEW RESOURCES: States Ranked by Executions Per Death Sentence
Posted: September 06, 2011
DPIC has updated its Executions Per Death Death Sentence page to reflect data through 2010. This page lists states in order of the percentage of death sentences resulting in an execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. If every death sentence resulted in an execution, the state would be at 100%, or a rate of 1.00. Using this ratio of executions per death sentence, the first five states are Virginia (.725), Texas (.498), Utah (.368), Missouri (.347), and Delaware (.311). Of those states that have carried out at least one execution, the five states with the lowest rate of execution are Pennsylvania (.008), California (.015), Idaho (.025), Oregon (.028), and Tennessee (.035). Four states with the death penalty during this time period had no executions: Kansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York. The latter two have abandoned the death penalty. Nationally, about 15% of death sentences have resulted in an execution (a rate of .150). Another measure of state execution rates is executions per capita (population). Under this standard, Oklahoma and Texas are the leading states.
Find both items here
The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row USA" showed a slight increase of 9 inmates in the death row population in the United States between October 1, 2010 and January 1, 2011. However, death row is still significantly smaller now (3,251 inmates) than in 2000 (3,682 inmates). The size of death row also declined overall in 2010. The size of death row is affected by the number of death sentences and the number of executions. Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 44% white, 42% black, and 12% Latino/Latina. Texas, Louisiana, and Connecticut had death rows consisting of 70% minority defendants. California continues to have the largest death row population (721), followed by Florida (398), Texas (321), Pennsylvania (219), and Alabama (206). California and Pennsylvania have not carried out an executiion in over five years. The report contains the latest death row population figures, execution statistics, and an overview of recent legal developments related to capital punishment.
Also See:
NEW RESOURCES: States Ranked by Executions Per Death Sentence
Posted: September 06, 2011
DPIC has updated its Executions Per Death Death Sentence page to reflect data through 2010. This page lists states in order of the percentage of death sentences resulting in an execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. If every death sentence resulted in an execution, the state would be at 100%, or a rate of 1.00. Using this ratio of executions per death sentence, the first five states are Virginia (.725), Texas (.498), Utah (.368), Missouri (.347), and Delaware (.311). Of those states that have carried out at least one execution, the five states with the lowest rate of execution are Pennsylvania (.008), California (.015), Idaho (.025), Oregon (.028), and Tennessee (.035). Four states with the death penalty during this time period had no executions: Kansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York. The latter two have abandoned the death penalty. Nationally, about 15% of death sentences have resulted in an execution (a rate of .150). Another measure of state execution rates is executions per capita (population). Under this standard, Oklahoma and Texas are the leading states.
Find both items here
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Rais Campaign for a World Without Hate
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Save One Life to Save the Human Race: More on Rais Bhuiyan
I missed this article earlier and reading it today found tears rolling down - it's one of the most moving stories of my life:
Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi immigrant, was shot by Mark Stroman, a white supremacist, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. First Posted at Huff Post: 7/18/11 07:54 PM ET Updated: 7/18/11 09:11 PM ET
Just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, a masked man stormed into the Dallas convenience store where Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh, worked as a cashier. He asked where Bhuiyan was from -- then shot him in the face at point-blank range before he could reply.
His attacker was Mark Stroman, an avowed white supremacist and methamphetamine addict, who was caught and confessed to the shooting as well as two other attacks on South Asian convenience store workers. Those men died, while Bhuiyan survived, although he was blinded in one eye and still carries 35 shotgun pellets embedded in his face.
In less than 48 hours, Stroman is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Texas death chamber at Huntsville for the crimes. A last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution was rejected without comment in June.
But even as the clock runs down on Stroman's time on death row, an unlikely advocate is trying to spare his life: Bhuiyan, the man he casually shot and left for dead nearly a decade ago.
Over the past several months, Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, has mounted an aggressive campaign to convince Texas authorities to commute Stroman's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He has asked the state board of pardons and paroles to make a positive recommendation for clemency to Gov. Rick Perry, and has asked Texas prison administrators for permission to meet face-to-face with Stroman for a victim-offender reconciliation process.
After those efforts were met with no response from Texas officials, Bhuiyan filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that his rights as a crime victim to meet with his attacker had been unjustly denied. That lawsuit was moved from state to federal court on Monday and remains unresolved.
In an interview with HuffPost, Bhuiyan said his efforts on behalf of Stroman were motivated by his Muslim faith. The Koran teaches that those who forsake retribution and forgive those who have wronged them become closer to God, he said.
"My faith teaches me that saving a life is like saving the entire human race," he said.
Bhuiyan is not alone in his efforts to save Stroman's life. He has support from family members of the other victims, including the widows of the two murdered men, Waqar Husan and Vasudev Patel, he said.
"We decided to forgive him and want to give him a chance to be a better person," Nadeem Akhtar, Husan's brother-in-law, said in an interview.
Akhtar said that his sister, Husan's widow, had written a letter requesting that the Dallas district attorney's office support the effort to obtain clemency for Stroman. The district attorney's office declined to support the petition, however.
According to those close to Stroman, the efforts by Bhuiyan on his behalf have contributed to a change of heart in a man who called his crimes "patriotic" before his trial and who prosecutors once described as a cold-blooded killer.
In an interview last week, Stroman told Ilan Ziv, a documentary filmmaker, that he was remorseful for the crimes and was deeply moved by Bhuiyan's attempts to save his life.
"I received a message that Rais loved me and that is powerful," said Stroman, who suffered extreme abuse and neglect as a child at the hands of his alcoholic parents, according to court records.
"I want to thank him in person for his inspiring act of compassion. He has forgiven the unforgiveable and I want to tell him that I have a lot of love and respect him," he added.
Ziv, who met with Stroman for several hours on Monday, said the condemned man had little hope that Bhuiyan's efforts would succeed in sparing his life.
"He's very realistic," Ziv said. "He knows he's got no chance."
Stroman's last bid for a reprieve will come in less than 48 hours, as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles weighs his petition for clemency or a stay of execution. The board has voted for clemency just once in the last 10 years, a period when the state carried out a record 231 executions. A spokeswoman for Perry's office said the governor has not expressed an opinion on the petition to the board.
Bhuiyan's request to meet face-to-face with Stroman before the execution -- a meeting that Stroman has enthusiastically agreed to -- is also unlikely to occur. Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said that both victims and offenders must go through months of counseling and complete other preparatory work before such a meeting can take place.
"There just is not enough time to prepare the victim and the inmate for a meeting," Lyons said.
Bhuiyan said he would have begun the mediation process long ago, but was not informed of his rights to such a meeting by the Dallas district attorney. That complaint was the basis for his lawsuit attempting to force the state to postpone Stroman's execution until the mediation meeting could take place; a state judge in Austin ruled Monday that the suit belonged in federal court.
If the suit is dismissed and Stroman's bid for clemency is denied, the execution will almost certainly go ahead as scheduled at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening.
For Bhuiyan, such an outcome would be a tragedy. "If he's given a chance, it's very likely that he can contribute to society," he said. "If he can educate one person who is full of hate, that is an achievement."
Yet at least one mind has been changed by Bhuiyan's outreach -- his attacker's.
"It is due to Rais' message of forgiveness that I am more content now than I have ever been," Stroman said in the interview with the documentary filmmaker. "If I don't make it I want Rais to carry on his work teaching people not to be prejudiced."
"We need to make sure there is not another Mark Stroman," he concluded.
A "Catch-up" Page From JOH FB
Hello:
I'm so grateful that there is such an active FaceBook page and discussion blog going on here for JOH and my plans are to find better ways to interconnect with the folk participating there in a few weeks as well as to upgrade my own technical abilities as blogger and would-be more of a helper to the JOH website/movement.
Meantime here are a few excerpts BUT best to go directly to that LINK I just gave you above to read the rest and get the other links directly. Plz add your comments to BOTH those discussions as well as here at the JOH blogsite.
See info on The Ella Bella Butterfly Foundation
A 501(c)3 (pending) dedicated to the prevention of violence through criminal justice reform and victim advocacy efforts. (Page: 194 people indicated they liked this) which was just posted 23 hours ago TOP of the JOH FB page for Friday
Also see Bill Pelke's post on NC restorative Justice Conference before that entry see Lisa Rea's posting via Bill and find link there to "listen in" to crime victims along with Bill, Lisa, Debbie and others - the post is entitled:
Listening to crime victims: North Carolina restorative justice conference — RJ Online - This concerns what happens "When crime victims speak about the effect violent crime has had on their lives"
I was glad to see Hooman Hedayati and others liked this one:
"Iranian Woman Forgives" posted both on this blogsite below in our July Archives and on the JOH FB page...While not usual post, this one certainly speaks to one of our major themes: forgiveness. Iranian blinded by acid pardons her attacker.
I was also grateful to the current "host" on the FB page discussion - Debbie Kearns -who carefully followed the story about the victims and victim families who forgave the man recently executed in Texas and tried to stop his execution:
GO see that interesting set of excerpts, video and comments:
Debbie Kearns comment here condenses the jist to this saga:
"So far, Rais Bhuiyan and the families of Patel and Hasan are crying because nobody in Texas listened to their pleas for clemency for Mark Stroman, whose evidence of child abuse and of his sister who got killed by 9/11 went TOTALLY ignored by the Texas courts...
'Somewhere, these death penalty-supporting yahoos (including Brian the death penalty-supporter) are saluting Texas' and Georgia's cruel governors for "a job well done in sending these monsters to hell and ensuring that justice is served for victims' families", which is, in fact ...justice is NEVER SERVED FOR VICTIMS' FAMILIES AT ALL ... At least both Mark and Andrew made their peace with God and are now with their deceased family members in heaven. May they and their victims rest in the peace and justice that were totally denied for them on earth." (Gilles Denizot left a note that "The Georgia execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung has been rescheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m.")
Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain." (Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair, Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign...)
Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor By Patricia BohEmail: pboh@smu.edu Published: Friday, July 22, 2011
"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman...See More here on this blogsite in the July Archives for 2011-07-23 21:07:00 GMT
Debbie Kearns added: "...Gov. Perry claims that he supports crime victims' rights, yet he TOTALLY ignored the rights of Bhuiyan and of the families of Patel and Hasan! He's just so arrogant that he only supports the rights of victims who support the death penalty!"
(Note: Rais Bhuiyan, Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting, was said to try to sue the State of Texas, evidently, to Try to Spare Attacker's Life By Anna Merlan posted Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM - At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, was to announce that he's filing suit today against Gov")
Also see blogs.dallasobserver.com or GO here
Then there's this story I missed here which got attention from both Debbie and Bill Pelke since the case relates to one we at JOH know well: Va. judge throws out drug dealer’s death sentence in slaying which was at The Washingtonpost (Hope Bill or Terri S will write up something more fully on this case soon for our JOH blog!) The jist was that Veteran Prince William County prosecutors withheld or ignored crucial evidence and potential testimony in the capital murder case, a federal judge rules...
Samir Bouzid liked this and Bill Pelke said: "Debbie, thank you for your post. This is a very special case to all of the Journey of Hope family. Terri Steinberg is one of us."
Thanx, JOH Family, for remaining true to our principles of forgiveness, compassion and seeking a better way.
Continue to support Journey of Hope with your Comments, Suggestions and in other ways.
I'm so grateful that there is such an active FaceBook page and discussion blog going on here for JOH and my plans are to find better ways to interconnect with the folk participating there in a few weeks as well as to upgrade my own technical abilities as blogger and would-be more of a helper to the JOH website/movement.
Meantime here are a few excerpts BUT best to go directly to that LINK I just gave you above to read the rest and get the other links directly. Plz add your comments to BOTH those discussions as well as here at the JOH blogsite.
See info on The Ella Bella Butterfly Foundation
A 501(c)3 (pending) dedicated to the prevention of violence through criminal justice reform and victim advocacy efforts. (Page: 194 people indicated they liked this) which was just posted 23 hours ago TOP of the JOH FB page for Friday
Also see Bill Pelke's post on NC restorative Justice Conference before that entry see Lisa Rea's posting via Bill and find link there to "listen in" to crime victims along with Bill, Lisa, Debbie and others - the post is entitled:
Listening to crime victims: North Carolina restorative justice conference — RJ Online - This concerns what happens "When crime victims speak about the effect violent crime has had on their lives"
I was glad to see Hooman Hedayati and others liked this one:
"Iranian Woman Forgives" posted both on this blogsite below in our July Archives and on the JOH FB page...While not usual post, this one certainly speaks to one of our major themes: forgiveness. Iranian blinded by acid pardons her attacker.
I was also grateful to the current "host" on the FB page discussion - Debbie Kearns -who carefully followed the story about the victims and victim families who forgave the man recently executed in Texas and tried to stop his execution:
GO see that interesting set of excerpts, video and comments:
Debbie Kearns comment here condenses the jist to this saga:
"So far, Rais Bhuiyan and the families of Patel and Hasan are crying because nobody in Texas listened to their pleas for clemency for Mark Stroman, whose evidence of child abuse and of his sister who got killed by 9/11 went TOTALLY ignored by the Texas courts...
'Somewhere, these death penalty-supporting yahoos (including Brian the death penalty-supporter) are saluting Texas' and Georgia's cruel governors for "a job well done in sending these monsters to hell and ensuring that justice is served for victims' families", which is, in fact ...justice is NEVER SERVED FOR VICTIMS' FAMILIES AT ALL ... At least both Mark and Andrew made their peace with God and are now with their deceased family members in heaven. May they and their victims rest in the peace and justice that were totally denied for them on earth." (Gilles Denizot left a note that "The Georgia execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung has been rescheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m.")
Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain." (Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair, Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign...)
Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor By Patricia BohEmail: pboh@smu.edu Published: Friday, July 22, 2011
"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman...See More here on this blogsite in the July Archives for 2011-07-23 21:07:00 GMT
Debbie Kearns added: "...Gov. Perry claims that he supports crime victims' rights, yet he TOTALLY ignored the rights of Bhuiyan and of the families of Patel and Hasan! He's just so arrogant that he only supports the rights of victims who support the death penalty!"
(Note: Rais Bhuiyan, Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting, was said to try to sue the State of Texas, evidently, to Try to Spare Attacker's Life By Anna Merlan posted Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM - At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, was to announce that he's filing suit today against Gov")
Also see blogs.dallasobserver.com or GO here
Then there's this story I missed here which got attention from both Debbie and Bill Pelke since the case relates to one we at JOH know well: Va. judge throws out drug dealer’s death sentence in slaying which was at The Washingtonpost (Hope Bill or Terri S will write up something more fully on this case soon for our JOH blog!) The jist was that Veteran Prince William County prosecutors withheld or ignored crucial evidence and potential testimony in the capital murder case, a federal judge rules...
Samir Bouzid liked this and Bill Pelke said: "Debbie, thank you for your post. This is a very special case to all of the Journey of Hope family. Terri Steinberg is one of us."
Thanx, JOH Family, for remaining true to our principles of forgiveness, compassion and seeking a better way.
Continue to support Journey of Hope with your Comments, Suggestions and in other ways.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Gang 'Interrupters' - Stopping the next killing
We in the Abolition Movement must work toward prevention. Here's an inspiring movement...
Gang 'Interrupters' Fight Chicago's Cycle Of Violence
August 1, 2011
Listen to the Story - Fresh Air from WHYY - [44 min 1 sec] GO here
Ameena Matthews, a violence interrupter with the Chicago organization CeaseFire, mediates disputes to prevent gang violence from escalating.
Aaron Wickenden, a violence interrupter with the Chicago organization CeaseFire, mediates disputes to prevent gang violence from escalating.
For 11 years, former gang members in Chicago have entered dangerous neighborhoods in the city and staged group interventions for at-risk youth, in an effort to try to stop the cycle of retaliatory gang violence that plagues the city's western and southern neighborhoods.
The men and women, known as "violence interrupters," work with an organization called CeaseFire, which operates under the assumption that violence moves through a city in the same way that an infectious disease moves through the body. To fix crime, says the organization, violence needs to be stopped at the source.
But there's a problem: "Not just anybody can come in and tell a guy to put his gun down," says CeaseFire's director Tio Hardiman, in a scene from The Interrupters, a new documentary about the group. "Most of the violence interrupters come from the hierarchy in some of these gangs. [And they] have one goal in mind: to stop killings. They're not trying to dismantle gangs. What they're trying to do is save a life."
Chicago's Schools, Police Work To Stem Violence:
The film is a collaboration between Hoop Dreams director Steve James and journalist Alex Kotlowitz, who profiled their organization in 2008 for The New York Times Magazine. The topic of violence in Chicago hit particularly close to home for both men, James tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.
"Alex saw three people in the course of writing [his book There Are No Children Here] perish on the streets," he says. "And for me, two people [related to the cast] from Hoop Dreams ... were murdered. ... What we wanted to do, in some ways, was to refocus some attention on this issue because it feels like we've gotten to a point where murders are down, but they're still way too high. And I think there's this feeling that we've kind of done what we can do — and it's just the way those neighborhoods are at this point."
Members of CeaseFire establish relationships with people affected by violence and then work to get them to channel their anger in non-violent ways. The film profiles three of the interrupters, including a man whose father was murdered and another who committed a murder when he was 17.
The third subject of the film is Ameena Matthews, one of only two female members of Chicago's interrupters team. Matthews is the daughter of a famous gang member and had been in a gang herself — which, she says, gives her credibility when navigating potentially volatile situations among teens on the streets.
"The first thing they'll say [to you] if you come on the block and you haven't lived or walked the walk, [is] 'How can you tell me anything? You don't know how I live. You don't know how I breathe. You don't know nothing,'" Matthew says. "And nine times out of ten, these little young guys and girls that I encounter, they know my father."
I'm looking at 13, 14, 15, 18, 19-year-old men and women dying on the streets of Chicago. That's what's so profound to me about the violence.
- Ameena Matthews
Gang members who aren't familiar with Matthews or her father will often do research on her before she comes back to talk to them again, she says.
"And when I come back around, the way they look is 'Oh my goodness, what did I do to have this person come and speak to me?'" she says. "It's a door opener."
When Matthews was heavily involved in gang activities, it was her Muslim faith, her children and grandmother who served as her own violence interrupters, she says.
"[My grandmother] would step in the middle of raids, asking, 'Where's Ameena?'" she says. "Guns were drawn and she's not even looking at the guns or the gas that was thrown in the building to smoke us out, she's yelling my name and telling me to get my behind out. ... She was there."
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Iranian Woman Forgives
While not usual post, this one certainly speaks to one of our major themes: forgiveness. Iranian blinded by acid pardons her attacker - GO here
NEW: Larry Swearingen execution stalled (Texas)
Photo found at Justice Denied dot org
Larry Swearingen’s Execution Is Stayed So His Actual Innocence Claim Can Be Considered
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of Larry Swearingen’s execution scheduled for August 18, 2011. The Court’s Order issued on July 28 was based on Swearingen’s writ of habeas corpus filed on June 22, 2011 that raises a single claim: he is actually innocent of murdering Melissa Aline Trotter because at the time of her death he was in the Montgomery County Jail.
Larry Swearingen during prison interview on July 27, 2011 (Justin Dehn)
Texas is one of eight states that allows a free-standing claim of actual innocence, and the Court ordered the stay so that the new due process violation alleged in his petition — that he is actually innocent — can be reviewed and resolved by the trial court.Swearingen was convicted in 2000 of murdering Ms. Trotter, a 19-year-old freshman at Montgomery College in Conroe, Texas.
Ms. Trotter was last seen by family and friends on December 8, 1998, and her clothed body was found on January 2, 1999 by hunters in the Sam Houston National Forest north of Conroe. Swearingen was a friend of Ms. Trotter’s and he was seen with her on the college campus the day she disappeared, but he wasn’t seen leaving with her. Three days after she was last seen the 27-year-old Swearingen was arrested on December 11 for outstanding traffic tickets. He was in custody from then until Ms. Trotter’s body was found three weeks later. He was subsequently charged with kidnapping, raping, and murdering her.
The prosecution’s case during Swearingen’s trial was circumstantial because there was no direct evidence he was Ms. Trotter’s assailant and DNA tests excluded him as the source of blood under her fingernails and of a pubic hair recovered from a vaginal swab. READ rest of article here
Photo/article also found at Death Penalty Information Center)
CA Death Pen. Law author has deep regrets
Donald Heller: My view is that as a civilized society, we've reached the point where capital punishment should be completely abolished. And we are a civilized country, with some idiosyncrasies, capital punishment being one.Author of CA Death Penalty Law Has Change of Heart
Los Angeles Times columnist and radio personality, Patt Morrison, interviewed Donald Heller, author of California's current death penalty statute, on July 16th about why he no longer supports capital punishment.
In the interview Heller cites "the enormous toll it [takes] on people involved" including defense lawyers, judges and other players in the system, the high cost and the risk of executing the innocent.
Heller, a former prosecutor, only became vocal about his opposition to the death penalty after the execution of Thomas Thompson in 1998, a man Heller believes was innocent. He admits, "The way I look at it, what I created can and may already have resulted in the death of an innocent person. And that's pretty heavy."
"The thing I regret most that I cannot change -- except by what I do now -- was drafting the death penalty initiative," Heller laments.
Read the full interview with Donald Heller posed at death penalty dot org here
Find another link here
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Crime victims’ rights “...symbolic, says Texas
Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain." (Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign...)
Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor
By Patricia Boh
Email: pboh@smu.edu
Published: Friday, July 22, 2011
"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman, was executed by the state of Texas on July 20th for shootings that killed two men and seriously injured a third in 2001.
His death sentence has garnered intense media coverage due to the aggressive campaign for life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death sentence.
Stroman's main defender is none other than his only living victim, Rais Bhuiyan.
Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain."
Following the 9/11 attacks, Mark Stroman went on a Dallas-area shooting spree with the intention of gunning down people of Middle Eastern descent "as a patriotic response to terrorism."
The shootings took place in the Dallas area during September and October 2001.
Stroman, an alleged member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was free on bond for a gun possession arrest at the time of the shootings.
All three of Stroman's hate crime victims were South Asian convenient store workers. Both Waqar Husan, a Pakistani immigrant, and Vasudev Patel, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India died. Bhuiyan was critically injured. He survived the shooting, although he is now blind in one eye and still has 35 shotgun pellets embedded in his face.
During his recovery, Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, pledged to "dedicate his life to the poor and needy."
Embodying this new resolve, Bhuiyan, as well as the families of Husan and Patel, took legal action to dispute the death penalty sentence.
Under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedures, article 56.02, crime victims have the right to seek mediate with their attacker. Bhuiyan claims that this right was violated. The plaintiffs claim that the prosecutor never consulted regarding the death penalty charge. Members of the jury also claim that they would have honored the families of the victims and not agreed on the death penalty charge.
Bhuiyan appealed to have the death penalty charge changed to life in prison on grounds of clemency. Gov. Rick Perry and other Texas officials ignored Bhuiyan's campaign.
In response, Bhuiyan filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming his rights were violated. Unfortunately, all efforts failed to prevent the state's decision to execute Stroman.
Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign a year ago. A well-known human rights activist and advocate for abolishing the death penalty, Halperin is "not surprised but […] extremely disappointed in the callousness that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Perry have taken toward these specific pleas for mercy and compassion and life from both the survivor and the victims' family members."
"The governor of the state is an enemy of human rights, apparently no friend of crime victims, and [presents] a fraudulent picture of himself as a champion [of crime victims' rights]," said Halperin.
Perry has been a strong advocate of crime victims' rights in the past. In response to Bhuiyan's claims of his violated rights, Perry's legal team stated, "the ‘right' [guaranteed to crime victims] is essentially symbolic . . ."
This is the eighth execution in the state of Texas this year. During his tenure as Governor of Texas, Perry has overseen 233 executions.
Bhuiyan, a native of Bangladesh, became a naturalized US citizen last year. This fall, he will attend SMU to study journalism and human rights.
GO here
Also see the ACLU blog for July 23 or Go to the preceding posts on The Journey of Hope blog
Crime victims’ rights “essentially” symbolic, says Governor
By Patricia Boh
Email: pboh@smu.edu
Published: Friday, July 22, 2011
"Arab slayer" turned peace seeker, Mark Stroman, was executed by the state of Texas on July 20th for shootings that killed two men and seriously injured a third in 2001.
His death sentence has garnered intense media coverage due to the aggressive campaign for life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death sentence.
Stroman's main defender is none other than his only living victim, Rais Bhuiyan.
Stroman's last words reflect Bhuiyan's campaign message: "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain."
Following the 9/11 attacks, Mark Stroman went on a Dallas-area shooting spree with the intention of gunning down people of Middle Eastern descent "as a patriotic response to terrorism."
The shootings took place in the Dallas area during September and October 2001.
Stroman, an alleged member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was free on bond for a gun possession arrest at the time of the shootings.
All three of Stroman's hate crime victims were South Asian convenient store workers. Both Waqar Husan, a Pakistani immigrant, and Vasudev Patel, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India died. Bhuiyan was critically injured. He survived the shooting, although he is now blind in one eye and still has 35 shotgun pellets embedded in his face.
During his recovery, Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, pledged to "dedicate his life to the poor and needy."
Embodying this new resolve, Bhuiyan, as well as the families of Husan and Patel, took legal action to dispute the death penalty sentence.
Under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedures, article 56.02, crime victims have the right to seek mediate with their attacker. Bhuiyan claims that this right was violated. The plaintiffs claim that the prosecutor never consulted regarding the death penalty charge. Members of the jury also claim that they would have honored the families of the victims and not agreed on the death penalty charge.
Bhuiyan appealed to have the death penalty charge changed to life in prison on grounds of clemency. Gov. Rick Perry and other Texas officials ignored Bhuiyan's campaign.
In response, Bhuiyan filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming his rights were violated. Unfortunately, all efforts failed to prevent the state's decision to execute Stroman.
Director of the SMU Embrey Human Rights Program and former Amnesty International, Chair Rick Halperin, Ph.D., became involved in Bhuiyan's campaign a year ago. A well-known human rights activist and advocate for abolishing the death penalty, Halperin is "not surprised but […] extremely disappointed in the callousness that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Perry have taken toward these specific pleas for mercy and compassion and life from both the survivor and the victims' family members."
"The governor of the state is an enemy of human rights, apparently no friend of crime victims, and [presents] a fraudulent picture of himself as a champion [of crime victims' rights]," said Halperin.
Perry has been a strong advocate of crime victims' rights in the past. In response to Bhuiyan's claims of his violated rights, Perry's legal team stated, "the ‘right' [guaranteed to crime victims] is essentially symbolic . . ."
This is the eighth execution in the state of Texas this year. During his tenure as Governor of Texas, Perry has overseen 233 executions.
Bhuiyan, a native of Bangladesh, became a naturalized US citizen last year. This fall, he will attend SMU to study journalism and human rights.
GO here
Also see the ACLU blog for July 23 or Go to the preceding posts on The Journey of Hope blog
Victim Forgives yet Texas Kills
Victim Forgives, Texas Executes
Fri Jul 22, 2011 14:18
78.35.100.163
Jul 21st, 2011
Posted by Anna Arceneaux, Capital Punishment Projectat 2:45pm
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Victim Forgives, Texas Executes
Last night, Texas executed Mark Stroman for a string of hate crimes against men he thought were Arab-Americans, including two murders, in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Texas went through with the execution despite a powerful plea for clemency from a surviving victim of Stroman’s attack, Rais Bhuiyan. Joined by family members of the deceased victims, Bhuiyan called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Stroman’s execution and commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. Bhuyian, drawing from his Muslim faith, wanted to do more than forgive Stroman, he wanted to save his life.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Texas officials who rejected clemency for Stroman, Bhuiyan became, as we warned against last week, another irrelevant victim. Had Bhuiyan supported the death penalty, it’s much more likely he would have had a seat at their table.
The Texas Department of Corrections also denied Bhuiyan the opportunity to meet with Stroman before his death, though the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees him that right as a crime victim. Bhuiyan challenged the denial in court, but his“poignant testimony was cut short” last night by order from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
One of the jurors in Stroman’s trial also came forward to speak out against his execution and expressed her deep regrets in participating in the decision to sentence Stroman to death. She had no idea that Bhuyian and relatives of the other victims wanted to forgive Stroman, and, in fact, had the opposite impression based on the prosecution’s presentation of the case. Gov. Perry ignored her calls too.
The State of Texas may have taken the life of Mark Stroman yesterday, but it can not take away Rais Bhuiyan’s courageous message of extraordinary compassion and forgiveness. The story of this relationship born of the hatred of one but ending in reconciliation is a lesson for us all, and Bhuiyan’s quest to end the cycle of hatred and violence in this country will live on.
Find a posting on aclu.org blog here
Find earlier story on this blogsite or Go here
Fri Jul 22, 2011 14:18
78.35.100.163
Jul 21st, 2011
Posted by Anna Arceneaux, Capital Punishment Projectat 2:45pm
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Victim Forgives, Texas Executes
Last night, Texas executed Mark Stroman for a string of hate crimes against men he thought were Arab-Americans, including two murders, in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Texas went through with the execution despite a powerful plea for clemency from a surviving victim of Stroman’s attack, Rais Bhuiyan. Joined by family members of the deceased victims, Bhuiyan called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Stroman’s execution and commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. Bhuyian, drawing from his Muslim faith, wanted to do more than forgive Stroman, he wanted to save his life.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Texas officials who rejected clemency for Stroman, Bhuiyan became, as we warned against last week, another irrelevant victim. Had Bhuiyan supported the death penalty, it’s much more likely he would have had a seat at their table.
The Texas Department of Corrections also denied Bhuiyan the opportunity to meet with Stroman before his death, though the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees him that right as a crime victim. Bhuiyan challenged the denial in court, but his“poignant testimony was cut short” last night by order from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
One of the jurors in Stroman’s trial also came forward to speak out against his execution and expressed her deep regrets in participating in the decision to sentence Stroman to death. She had no idea that Bhuyian and relatives of the other victims wanted to forgive Stroman, and, in fact, had the opposite impression based on the prosecution’s presentation of the case. Gov. Perry ignored her calls too.
The State of Texas may have taken the life of Mark Stroman yesterday, but it can not take away Rais Bhuiyan’s courageous message of extraordinary compassion and forgiveness. The story of this relationship born of the hatred of one but ending in reconciliation is a lesson for us all, and Bhuiyan’s quest to end the cycle of hatred and violence in this country will live on.
Find a posting on aclu.org blog here
Find earlier story on this blogsite or Go here
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting Seeks to Prevent Execution
Rais Bhuiyan, Victim of Post-9/11 Shooting, to Sue the State to Try to Spare Attacker's Life By Anna Merlan
published: Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM
At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, will announce that he's filing suit today against Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials. The suit is a last-ditch effort to prevent Stroman's execution, which is scheduled for July 20 in Huntsville.
Bhuiyan, who was working behind the counter of a Pleasant Grove convenience store when he was attacked, says in the pleading that Perry has violated his rights as a victim of a violent crime by ignoring his requests to meet with Stroman for mediation, something he's entitled to by law. "Victim restoration," improving the quality of care for victims of violent crime, is something Perry has long said is part of his platform as governor. An excerpt from the suit:
Plaintiff wishes to see reconciliation with Mark Stroman, and to pursue fill mediation with him. Plaintiff feels this way because his parents raised him with the religious principle that he is best who can forgive easily. He believes, as a Muslim, that human life is precious and that no one has the right to take another's life.
Plaintiff also seeks solace for the widows and children of murder victgims Vasudev Patel and Waqar Hasan, who are also victims in this tragedy, and who support Plaintiff in his efforts to seek reconciliation.
Plaintiffs is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is a long standing mechanism within many faiths, Islam being one of them, toward the healing of the soul. As a Muslim, Plaintiff is of the belief that when he forgives or promotes mercy for his attacker, the government should no longer have a duty or a right to exact the ultimate punishment upon Mr. Stroman.
We couldn't reach Bhuiyan this morning, but he and his attorney have sent a statement explaining the motivations behind the suit -- and offering a defense of Stroman's actions that resulted in two men dead and another blinded in one eye.
Bhuiyan's lawyer, Khurrum Wahid, said in a statement, "It is ironic that Rais Bhuiyan was shot by someone thinking it was a blow against Muslims, yet Islamic law would respect Rais' desire for forgiveness. The state of Texas has failed him as a victim. After suffering such a traumatic experience, surely we should respect Mr. Bhuiyan, rather than traumatize him again. We often hear, 'What about the rights of the victim!' The victim has rights even when his voice is not one of vengeance but one of forgiveness."
A press release sent last night lays out in more detail what Bhuiyan's camp says were the circumstances surrounding Stroman's state of mind before his shooting spree, which left two other men dead and Bhuiyan blinded in one eye and disfigured. Says the release:
"Fueled by his addiction to methamphetamine, which he used to medicate his post-traumatic stress disorder, Mark Stroman was close to the edge when he caught his girlfriend having an affair. Then came 9/11, and Mark Stroman responded to the fact that his half sister was killed in the World Trade Center by setting out take revenge on 'Arabs." He killed two innocent men and tried to kill Mr. Bhuiyan."
It remains unclear if Stroman's claim to have lost his half-sister on September 11 was ever verified.
Bhuiyan and his lawyer contend that the the Dallas County District Attorney's Office "pushed forward with the death penalty" without consulting him or the families of the other victims, who he says support his campaign. They also charge that Stroman's lawyer put up a "desultory" defense.
In recent weeks, Bhuiyan has taken his campaign to save Stroman's life internationally, with profiles appearing in both The Guardian and The Independent. The last time he spoke to Unfair Park, Bhuiyan said he was moved by the support he's received in his quest. "This cause is truly a human cause," he said. In the statement he released yesterday, Bhuiyan added that "along with the families of the other victims in the case, I have been ignored and sidelined, year after year. My parents taught me to believe passionately in compassion and respect. If Governor Perry really means it when he says victims' rights are a priority, we need action rather than hollow words.
END article
See Bhuiyan Vs. Perry here
COMMENTS are running over 50 last I looked. GO here
published: Thu., Jul. 14 2011 @ 9:31AM
At 10 this morning on the steps of the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse, Rais Bhuiyan, who was shot in the face by white supremacist Mark Stroman as part of a post-September 11, 2001 shooting spree, will announce that he's filing suit today against Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials. The suit is a last-ditch effort to prevent Stroman's execution, which is scheduled for July 20 in Huntsville.
Bhuiyan, who was working behind the counter of a Pleasant Grove convenience store when he was attacked, says in the pleading that Perry has violated his rights as a victim of a violent crime by ignoring his requests to meet with Stroman for mediation, something he's entitled to by law. "Victim restoration," improving the quality of care for victims of violent crime, is something Perry has long said is part of his platform as governor. An excerpt from the suit:
Plaintiff wishes to see reconciliation with Mark Stroman, and to pursue fill mediation with him. Plaintiff feels this way because his parents raised him with the religious principle that he is best who can forgive easily. He believes, as a Muslim, that human life is precious and that no one has the right to take another's life.
Plaintiff also seeks solace for the widows and children of murder victgims Vasudev Patel and Waqar Hasan, who are also victims in this tragedy, and who support Plaintiff in his efforts to seek reconciliation.
Plaintiffs is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is strongly motivated by his religious beliefs. Forgiveness is a long standing mechanism within many faiths, Islam being one of them, toward the healing of the soul. As a Muslim, Plaintiff is of the belief that when he forgives or promotes mercy for his attacker, the government should no longer have a duty or a right to exact the ultimate punishment upon Mr. Stroman.
We couldn't reach Bhuiyan this morning, but he and his attorney have sent a statement explaining the motivations behind the suit -- and offering a defense of Stroman's actions that resulted in two men dead and another blinded in one eye.
Bhuiyan's lawyer, Khurrum Wahid, said in a statement, "It is ironic that Rais Bhuiyan was shot by someone thinking it was a blow against Muslims, yet Islamic law would respect Rais' desire for forgiveness. The state of Texas has failed him as a victim. After suffering such a traumatic experience, surely we should respect Mr. Bhuiyan, rather than traumatize him again. We often hear, 'What about the rights of the victim!' The victim has rights even when his voice is not one of vengeance but one of forgiveness."
A press release sent last night lays out in more detail what Bhuiyan's camp says were the circumstances surrounding Stroman's state of mind before his shooting spree, which left two other men dead and Bhuiyan blinded in one eye and disfigured. Says the release:
"Fueled by his addiction to methamphetamine, which he used to medicate his post-traumatic stress disorder, Mark Stroman was close to the edge when he caught his girlfriend having an affair. Then came 9/11, and Mark Stroman responded to the fact that his half sister was killed in the World Trade Center by setting out take revenge on 'Arabs." He killed two innocent men and tried to kill Mr. Bhuiyan."
It remains unclear if Stroman's claim to have lost his half-sister on September 11 was ever verified.
Bhuiyan and his lawyer contend that the the Dallas County District Attorney's Office "pushed forward with the death penalty" without consulting him or the families of the other victims, who he says support his campaign. They also charge that Stroman's lawyer put up a "desultory" defense.
In recent weeks, Bhuiyan has taken his campaign to save Stroman's life internationally, with profiles appearing in both The Guardian and The Independent. The last time he spoke to Unfair Park, Bhuiyan said he was moved by the support he's received in his quest. "This cause is truly a human cause," he said. In the statement he released yesterday, Bhuiyan added that "along with the families of the other victims in the case, I have been ignored and sidelined, year after year. My parents taught me to believe passionately in compassion and respect. If Governor Perry really means it when he says victims' rights are a priority, we need action rather than hollow words.
END article
See Bhuiyan Vs. Perry here
COMMENTS are running over 50 last I looked. GO here
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Struck By Lightning: Commentary of New DPIC report
Original post:
Tue, July 12, 2011 1:22:08 Capital Punishment In The U.S. Found in The U.S. Public Record GO here
Struck By Lightning: Capital Punishment In The U.S.
By William Fisher
The Public Record
Jul 12th, 2011
It couldn’t have taken more than a two-minute visit to the web site of The Innocence Project to persuade most rational adults that the death penalty is not only cruel and unusual, but a costly and ineffective way to deter murder.
That’s the gist of a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). It’s entitled “Struck by Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Re-instatement in 1976.” Richard Dieter, DPIC’s executive director, is the report’s author.
For those whose memories may be a bit hazy on this subject, the U.S. did have a moratorium on executions from 1972 to 1976, when the United States Supreme Court approved the reinstatement of the death penalty.
The moratorium came about in a 1972 court case, Furman v. Georgia, in which the United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States,
The moratorium came to an end when Gregg v. Georgia was decided in 1976. The Supreme Court consolidated Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, and thus also invalidated the death penalty for rape.
Gregg v. Georgia, et al reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court’s acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. Referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg, the Supreme Court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comport with the Eighth Amendment bar on “cruel and unusual punishments.” The decision essentially overturned the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
The report notes that by the end of the 1960s, all but 10 states had laws authorizing capital punishment, but strong pressure by forces opposed to the death penalty resulted in an unofficial moratorium on executions for several years, with the last execution during this period taking place in 1967. Prior to this, an average of 130 executions per year occurred.
From 1930, the first year for which statistics are readily available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to 1967, 3,859 persons were executed under civil (that is, nonmilitary) jurisdiction in the United States. During this period of nearly half a century, over half (54%) of those executed were black, 45 percent were white, and the remaining one percent were members of other racial groups — American Indians (a total of 19 executed from 1930-1967), Filipino (13), Chinese (8), and Japanese (2), the report says, adding:
The vast majority of those executed were men; 32 women were executed from 1930 to 1967. Three out of five executions during that period took place in the southern U.S. The state of Georgia had the highest number of executions during the period, totaling 366 — more than nine percent of the national total. Texas followed with 297 executions; New York with 329; California with 292; and North Caroline with 263. Most executions — 3,334 of 3,859 — were for the crime of murder; 455 prisoners (12%) — ninety percent of them black — were executed for rape; 70 prisoners were executed for other offenses.
Athough the death penalty had earlier been held unconstitutional because of its arbitrary and unpredictable application, the Court was willing to sanction new systems that states had proposed to make capital punishment less like “being struck by lightning” and more like retribution for only the “worst of the worst” offenders.
The Court also deferred to the states’ judgment that the death penalty served the goals of retribution and deterrence.
After three and a half decades of experience under these revised statutes, the randomness of the system continues. Many of the country’s constitutional experts and prominent legal organizations have concluded that effective reform is impossible and the practice should be ended. In polls, jury verdicts and state legislative action, there is evidence of the American people’s growing frustration with the death penalty. A majority of the nine Justices who served on the Supreme Court in 1976 when the death penalty was approved eventually concluded the experiment had failed.
Nonetheless, in 1976, the newly reformed death penalty was allowed to resume. However, it has proved unworkable in practice. Keeping it in place, or attempting still more reform, would be enormously expensive, with little chance of improvement. The constitution requires fairness not just in lofty words, but also in daily practice. On that score, the death penalty has missed the mark.
Four states have abolished the death penalty in the past four years, and nationwide executions and death sentences have been cut in half since 2000. A review of state death penalty practices exposes a system in which an unpredictable few cases result in executions from among thousands of eligible cases. Race, geography and the size of a county’s budget play a major role in who receives the ultimate punishment.Many cases thought to embody the worst crimes and defendants are overturned on appeal and then assessed very differently the second time around at retrial. Even these reversals depend significantly on the quality of the lawyers assigned and on who appointed the appellate judges reviewing the cases.
In such a haphazard process, the rationales of deterrence and retribution make little sense.
In 1976, the newly reformed death penalty was allowed to resume. However, it has proved unworkable in practice. Keeping it in place, or attempting still more reform, would be enormously expensive, with little chance of improvement. The constitution requires fairness not just in lofty words, but also in daily practice. On that score, the death penalty has missed the mark.
The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s “Death Row USA” shows that the number of people on death row in the United States is continuing to slowly decline, falling to 3,242 as of October 1, 2010. In 2000, there were 3,682 inmates on death row. Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 44% white, 42% black, and 12% Latino/Latina. California continues to have the largest death row population (714), followed by Florida (394) and Texas (322). Pennsylvania (220) and Alabama (204) complete the list of the states with the five largest death rows in the country. California and Pennsylvania have not carried out an executiion in over five years. Death Row USA is published quarterly by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The report contains the latest death row population figures, execution statistics, and an overview of recent legal developments related to capital punishment.
Four states in the past four years have abolished the death penalty, bringing the total of states without capital punishment to sixteen. As growing costs and stark unfairness become harder to justify, more states are likely to follow that path.
The post-Gregg death penalty in the United States has proven to be a failed experiment.
The theory that with proper guidance to juries the death penalty could be administered fairly has not worked in practice. Thirty-five years of experience have taught the futility of trying to fix this stem. Many of those who favored the death penalty in the abstract have come to view its practice very differently. They have reached the conclusion that if societyʼs ultimate punishment cannot be applied fairly, it should not be applied at all.
There have been 272 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.
The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 34 states; since 2000, there have been 205 exonerations.
17 of the 272 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.
The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years. The total number of years served is approximately 3,521.
The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 27.
Races of the 272 exonerees:
161 African Americans
80 Caucasians
21 Latinos
2 Asian American
4 whose race is unknown
The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 122 of the DNA exoneration cases.
Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursued—until DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused.
In more than 25 percent of cases in a National Institute of Justice study, suspects were excluded once DNA testing was conducted during the criminal investigation (the study, conducted in 1995, included 10,060 cases where testing was performed by FBI labs).
About half of the people exonerated through DNA testing have been financially compensated. 27 states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have passed laws to compensate people who were wrongfully incarcerated. Awards under these statutes vary from state to state.
22 percent of cases closed by the Innocence Project since 2004 were closed because of lost or missing evidence.
Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. They were convicted in 11 states and served a combined 209 years in prison – including 187 years on death row – for crimes they didn’t commit.
Kirk Bloodsworth served eight years in Maryland prison – including two years on death row – for a murder and rape he didn’t commit, before he was exonerated in 1993.
Rolando Cruz, and his co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, served more than 10 years on Illinois death row for a murder they didn’t commit before DNA testing proved both men innocent in 1995.
Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were sentenced to death in the infamous Ford Heights Four case in Illinois for a pair of 1978 murders they didn’t commit. Jimerson was cleared in 1995 after a decade on death row and Williams served more than 17 years on death row before he was freed in 1996.
Robert Miller spent nine years on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before he was cleared by DNA testing in 1998.
Ron Williamson spent a decade on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA testing secured by the Innocence Project proved him innocent in 1999. His co-defendant, Dennis Fritz, was sentenced to life and spent 11 years in prison before DNA cleared him as well.
Ronald Jones, an Innocence Project client, served a decade on Illinois death row for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his release in 1999.
Earl Washington, a Virginia man with limited mental capacity, was sentenced to death after he allegedly confessed to committing a 1982 murder he didn’t commit. He served a decade on death row, once coming within nine days of execution before receiving a stay. He would serve a total of 17 years behind bars before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project cleared him in 2000.
Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on Florida’s death row after serving 14 years for a murder and rape he didn’t commit. He was cleared by DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project 11 months after his death.
Charles Irvin Fain served more than 17 years on death row in Idaho for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence in 2001.
Ray Krone served a decade in Arizona prison – including four years on death row – for a murder and rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence in 2002.
Nicholas Yarris served more than 21 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his release in 2003.
Ryan Matthews served five years on Louisiana’s death row for a murder he didn’t commit before he was exonerated by DNA testing in 2004. His co-defendant, Travis Hayes, was sentenced to life in prison and served eight years before he was cleared in 2007.
Curtis McCarty served 21 years in Oklahoma prison – including nearly 18 years on death row – for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA tests secured by the Innocence Project led to his exoneration in 2007. He was convicted twice and sentenced to death three times based on forensic misconduct.
Kennedy Brewer, an Innocence Project client, served 15 years behind bars – including seven years on death row – for a murder and sexual assault he didn’t commit before DNA testing from 2001 finally led to his exoneration in 2008.
Michael Blair served 13 years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit before DNA testing obtained by his lawyers at the Innocence Project proved his innocence and led to his exoneration in 2008.
These DNA exoneration cases have provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events, but arise from systemic defects that can be precisely identified and addressed. For more than 15 years, the Innocence Project has worked to pinpoint these trends.
Eyewitness Misidentification Testimony was a factor in 75 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the leading cause of these wrongful convictions. At least 40 percent of these eyewitness identifications involved a cross racial identification (race data is currently only available on the victim, not for non-victim eyewitnesses). Studies have shown that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. These suggested reforms are embraced by leading criminal justice organizations and have been adopted in the states of New Jersey and North Carolina, large cities like Minneapolis and Seattle, and many smaller jurisdictions. Read more.
Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science played a role in approximately 50 percent of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing. While DNA testing was developed through extensive scientific research at top academic centers, many other forensic techniques – such as hair microscopy, bite mark comparisons, firearm tool mark analysis and shoe print comparisons – have never been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation. Meanwhile, forensics techniques that have been properly validated – such as serology, commonly known as blood typing – are sometimes improperly conducted or inaccurately conveyed in trial testimony. In other wrongful conviction cases, forensic scientists have engaged in misconduct.
False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions in approximately 25 percent of cases. In 35 percent of false confession or admission cases, the defendant was 18 years old or younger and/or developmentally disabled. Twenty-two of the first 265 DNA exonerees pled guilty to crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project encourages police departments to electronically record all custodial interrogations in their entirety in order to prevent coercion and to provide an accurate record of the proceedings. More than 500 jurisdictions have voluntarily adopted policies to record interrogations. State supreme courts have taken action in Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia require the taping of interrogations in homicide cases. Read more.
Snitches contributed to wrongful convictions in 19 percent of cases. Whenever snitch testimony is used, the Innocence Project recommends that the judge instruct the jury that most snitch testimony is unreliable as it may be offered in return for deals, special treatment, or the dropping of charges. Prosecutors should also reveal any incentive the snitch might receive, and all communication between prosecutors and snitches should be recorded. Fifteen percent of wrongful convictions that were later overturned by DNA testing were caused in part by snitch testimony.
When the death penalty was permitted to go forward in 1976, many distinguished legal scholars warned that the task of creating an objectively fair system for deciding which criminals deserved to die and which should be allowed to live was impossible. A majority of those on the Supreme Court that approved the experiment ultimately concluded the attempt to fix the death penalty had failed.
Thirty-five years later a strong body of empirical evidence confirms that race, geography, money, politics, and other arbitrary factors exert a powerful influence on determining who is sentenced to death. This is the conclusion not only of experts, but increasingly that of the general public as well. Unfairness ranks near the top of the American publicʼs concerns about the death penalty.
As the use of the death penalty has declined, the rationale for its continuation has disappeared. With defendants already facing life without parole, no one is likely to be deterred by an added punishment that is rarely imposed and even more rarely carried out many years later, and that is dependent on so many unpredictable factors. Nor does the wish for retribution justify a death penalty that is applied so sporadically. The reality is that those in society generally, and those families of murder victims in particular, who look to an execution to counter a terrible homicide will very likely be disappointed.”
Thus, the report concludes, receiving the death penalty is still like being struck by lightning.
William Fisher, a regular contributor to The Public Record, has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He reports on a wide-range of issues for numerous domestic and international newspapers and online journals. He blogs at The World According to Bill Fisher.
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Saturday, July 09, 2011
Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary - NYTimes
Photo of David Dow by Katya Glockner Over the past two decades, Dow has represented more than 100 death row inmates as an appellate lawyer.
July 8, 2011
Death Penalty, Still Racist and Arbitrary By DAVID R. DOW
Houston
LAST week was the 35th anniversary of the return of the American death penalty. It remains as racist and as random as ever.
Several years after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, a University of Iowa law professor, David C. Baldus (who died last month), along with two colleagues, published a study examining more than 2,000 homicides that took place in Georgia beginning in 1972. They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks.
What became known as the Baldus study was the centerpiece of the Supreme Court’s 1987 decision in McCleskey v. Kemp. That case involved a black man, Warren McCleskey, who was sentenced to die for murdering a white Atlanta police officer. Mr. McCleskey argued that the Baldus study established that his death sentence was tainted by racial bias. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that general patterns of discrimination do not prove that racial discrimination operated in particular cases.
Of course, the court had to say that, or America’s capital justice system would have screeched to a halt. Georgia is not special. Nationwide, blacks and whites are victims of homicide in roughly equal numbers, yet 80 percent of those executed had murdered white people. Over the past three decades, the Baldus study has been replicated in about a dozen other jurisdictions, and they all reflect the same basic racial bias. By insisting on direct evidence of racial discrimination, the court in McCleskey essentially made the fact of pervasive racism legally irrelevant, because prosecutors rarely write e-mails announcing they are seeking death in a given case because the murderer was black (or because the victim was white).
In Texas, though, they do come close. In 2008, the district attorney of Harris County, Chuck Rosenthal, resigned after news emerged that he had sent and received racist e-mails. His office had sought the death penalty in 25 cases; his successor has sought it in 7. Of the total 32 cases, 29 involve a nonwhite defendant.
Since 1976, Texas has carried out 470 executions (well more than a third of the national total of 1,257). You can count on one hand the number of those executions that involved a white murderer and a black victim and you do not need to use your thumb, ring finger, index finger or pinkie.
Well, you might need the pinkie. On June 16, Texas executed Lee Taylor, who at age 16 beat an elderly couple while robbing their home. The 79-year-old husband died of his injuries. Mr. Taylor was sentenced to life in prison; there he joined the Aryan Brotherhood, a white gang, and, four years into his sentence, murdered a black inmate and was sentenced to death. When Mr. Taylor was executed, it was reported that he was the second white person in Texas executed for killing a black person. Actually, he should be counted as the first. The other inmate, Larry Hayes, executed in 2003, killed two people, one of whom was white.
The facts surrounding Lee Taylor’s execution are cause for further shame. John Balentine, a black inmate, was scheduled to die in Texas the day before Lee Taylor’s execution. Mr. Balentine’s lawyers argued that his court-appointed appellate lawyer had botched his case, and that he should have an opportunity to raise issues the lawyer had neglected. Less than an hour before Mr. Balentine was to die, the Supreme Court issued a stay.
Lee Taylor’s lawyers watched the Balentine case closely; their client too had received scandalously bad representation, and, they filed a petition virtually identical to the one in the Balentine case. But by a vote of 5-to-4, the justices permitted the Taylor execution to proceed. If there were differences between the Balentine and Taylor cases, they were far too minor to form the boundary between life and death. But trivial distinctions are commonplace in death penalty cases. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., one of the five justices in the McCleskey majority, retired from the court in 1991. Following his retirement he said he had voted the wrong way. If Justice Powell had changed his mind a year sooner, Warren McCleskey, who was executed in Georgia in 1991, would still be alive.
And because of a vote from a single Supreme Court justice, John Balentine lives while Lee Taylor died. When capital punishment was briefly struck down, in 1972, Justice Potter Stewart said the death penalty was arbitrary, like being struck by lightning.
It still is, and it’s the justices themselves who keep throwing the bolts.
David R. Dow, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, is the author, most recently, of a memoir, “The Autobiography of an Execution.”
For information on the memoir GO here and for more BIO GO here
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Monday, July 04, 2011
CELEBRATE JOURNEY OF HOPE
POST to be updated soon...
photo is from abolition.org Fast and Vigil page
Meantime, there's a lot of activity currently on the JOH facebook page Please GO Journey of Hope...From Violence to Healing here
And here's the newest RIGHT link THANX largely to Gilles Denizot here
Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing is an organization led by murder victim family members joined by death row family members, family members of the executed, the exonerated, and others with stories to tell, that conducts public education speaking tours and addresses alternatives to the death penalty.
Journey Storytellers come from all walks of life and represent the full spectrum and diversity of faith, color and economic situation. They are Real People who know first hand the aftermath of the insanity and horror of murder. They have Real Stories that recount their tragedies, and their struggles to heal as a way of opening dialogue on the death penalty in schools, colleges, churches and other venues.
The Journey spotlights Real People with Real Stories. Some choose not to seek revenge, and instead select the path of love and compassion for all of humanity. Some see forgiveness as strength and as a way of healing. Others come by different paths. Listen to the Voices of Experience because all reject the Death Penalty as Bad Public Policy and believe...
YES, there's a better way and PEOPLE of all sorts including Victims Family Members, former Death Row prisoners and many other "types" are a part of the healing and change together.
photo is from abolition.org Fast and Vigil pageMeantime, there's a lot of activity currently on the JOH facebook page Please GO Journey of Hope...From Violence to Healing here
And here's the newest RIGHT link THANX largely to Gilles Denizot here
Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing is an organization led by murder victim family members joined by death row family members, family members of the executed, the exonerated, and others with stories to tell, that conducts public education speaking tours and addresses alternatives to the death penalty.
Journey Storytellers come from all walks of life and represent the full spectrum and diversity of faith, color and economic situation. They are Real People who know first hand the aftermath of the insanity and horror of murder. They have Real Stories that recount their tragedies, and their struggles to heal as a way of opening dialogue on the death penalty in schools, colleges, churches and other venues.
The Journey spotlights Real People with Real Stories. Some choose not to seek revenge, and instead select the path of love and compassion for all of humanity. Some see forgiveness as strength and as a way of healing. Others come by different paths. Listen to the Voices of Experience because all reject the Death Penalty as Bad Public Policy and believe...
YES, there's a better way and PEOPLE of all sorts including Victims Family Members, former Death Row prisoners and many other "types" are a part of the healing and change together.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Great News: NC RJA delayed until next year!
June 17, 2011
We have great news to report to you this morning.
NC Senate leadership has indicated that they will not be voting on repeal of the Racial Justice Act this year and will likely wait until May 2012 to take it up.
As long as we continue to work together, the Racial Justice Act will continue to be the law of the land.
Thank you!
PFADP
We have great news to report to you this morning.
NC Senate leadership has indicated that they will not be voting on repeal of the Racial Justice Act this year and will likely wait until May 2012 to take it up.
As long as we continue to work together, the Racial Justice Act will continue to be the law of the land.
Thank you!
PFADP
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