Memorial March for Troy Davis - Edinburgh - Friday 21st Oct

Hello friends. I apologise again for my recent lack of activity. Bear with me. I recently started university and, as you can imagine, it's made a significant impact on my life.

I just got wind that Edinburgh University's Amnesty International Society is holding a memorial march for Troy Davis this Friday (October 21st). They are meeting at West Parliament Square (opposite St. Giles Cathedral) at 4 pm. I plan to be there, and if anyone's in the area, I'm sure you'd be more than welcome to attend.
If I can, I'll get some pictures.

Texas Executes Lawrence Brewer

Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, was executed last night in Texas for the hate crime murder of James Byrd Jr., in 1998.

Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, chained Byrd, a black man, to the back of a pickup truck and pulled him along a bumpy asphalt road to his death. 

When asked if he had any final words, Brewer replied: "No. I have no final statement." He was pronounced dead at 6:21pm. 

Alongside Brewer, John William King was also sent to death row. His conviction and death sentence are still under appeal. Shawn Berry was also convicted for the crime, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Georgia Executes Troy Davis

Last night, Troy Davis, 42, was executed in Georgia by lethal injection for the murder of a Savannah police officer 22 years ago.

Davis' execution was delayed by several hours when the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition for a stay of execution from his lawyers.

Davis, who has always claimed his innocence, was led into the death chamber shortly before 11pm. He was pronounced dead at 11:08. In his final statement, Davis told the family of the victim that they had the wrong man, saying:
"I did not kill your son, father, brother. All I can ask is that you look deeper into this case so you really can finally see the truth."
He also told his supporters and family to "keep the faith" and asked God to bless, and have mercy on, the souls of the prison personnel.

Troy Davis scheduled for execution tonight - take action!

Troy Davis, who is potentially innocent (see earlier posts for details) is scheduled to be executed in Georgia tonight. I wish I'd done more campaigning about this earlier but it's my first week at university and I'm a little overwhelmed. For what it's worth - every little helps, after all - you can sign a petition here asking for the execution to be stopped. You can sign it even if you're outside the US like me (click 'not in USA' in the 'state' section).

Fingers crossed. My prayers are with Davis tonight.

p.s. If you want to comment, please do so respectfully. This is a human life we're talking about, no matter what value you put on that. I'm sick of disrespectful comments. If you have something bad to say, say it somewhere else. 


- SM 

TX: Hank Skinner's Execution Scheduled for the 4th time

A new execution date of November 9th has been set for Texas death row inmate Henry 'Hank' Skinner. This is the 4th time that Skinner has been scheduled for execution, but still some DNA tests (which he claims will prove his innocence) have not been carried out.

Skinner was sentenced to death for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend Twila Busby and her two sons. He maintains that he could not have committed the crimes because he was unconscious during the murders after taking alcohol and drugs (toxicology tests indicated this). For over ten years, prosecutors and state courts have refused to allow blood, fingernail scrapings, and hair found at the crime scene to be tested. However, a new state law that allows increased access to post-conviction DNA testing could help Skinner to have the evidence finally tested. The execution date will make this more difficult. Furthermore, a federal court ruling on whether prosecutors must turn over DNA evidence for testing is still being awaited, and Skinner's lawyers believe that the setting of an execution date is a tactic designed to make it tougher for the court to adequately weigh the matter. 

At Skinner's trial, the prosecution presented DNA evidence showing Skinner's blood at the scene. An ex-girlfriend also told jurors that he confessed to her (she later recanted her testimony by the way). However, other available DNA evidence, including a rape kit, biological material from under Twila Busby's fingernails, sweat from a man's jacket resembling one that another potential suspect often wore, a bloody towel, and knives, have never even been tested. 

I don't know if Skinner is innocent. But to even consider carrying out such an irreversible punishment as execution before all the evidence has been tested is unthinkable. Surely, if the state is so certain that Skinner is guilty, it won't hurt to double-check. All this shying away from untested evidence suggests to me that they're worried what the results might be. So, like in the Todd Willingham case, is this another instance of Texas sweeping the ugly truths about the death penalty under the rug - that capital punishment is so precious that anything which might show death row inmates to be innocent must be ignored?

If Skinner is guilty, the untested DNA evidence should only further prove this. But there is chance that they might prove Skinner to be innocent, and until we know which one it is, executing the man is another example of the death penalty gambling with innocent lives.

TX Gov. Rick Perry to run for President

So.
I'll say before I write this, because people will no doubt point it out, I am not a US citizen. I live in the UK. I don't know everything about US politics. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before I start.

Okay. So Texas's governor, Rick Perry, is running for president. Perry, a republican, said it was 'time to get America working again'. This coming from a man who has allowed the executions of 234 people during his term - a man who, when faced with the very strong possibility of having executed an innocent man (Todd Willingham), did not search for truth and justice, but instead abused his power by impeding the Texas Forensic Science Commission's investigation into the case. Is that the kind of man who should be president?
Maybe before he gets America working, he should get Texas working. Abolishing the death penalty would be a good start. As if he would. In the meantime, he could at least find out the truth about the Willingham case rather than sweeping it under the rug.

Also, if you're interested in the Todd Willingham case, you can sign a petition asking Perry to acknowledge that Willingham was wrongfully executed by clicking here and filling out the bit. I unfortunately can't sign it because I don't live in America.

The Death Penalty and the UK: Why we REALLY don't need to reinstate capital punishment.

As you may know, I live in Scotland in the United Kingdom, and as someone who very recently turned 18 and so must worry about adult-things, I'm aware that things in the UK aren't all that great at the moment, with regards to the economy and such. It seems only natural that, in a time when things aren't going too well, people decide to make it worse. Hence, it's time for the campaign to reinstate the death penalty in the UK to gain steam.

I always say that people are entitled to their opinions on this matter (a privilege death penalty supporters don't often like to allow me...) and so I'm not saying that people are bad for trying to reinstate it. However, in my experience, most arguments in support of the death penalty - especially those held by a lot of people in the UK, where we haven't used the death penalty for so long that people have forgotten why we got rid of it in the first place - are ill-informed and badly thought through. In my experience from classroom debates, I've found it astonishingly easy to win debates on the subject (whether the opposition admits it or not) because their arguments are rooted in vengeance and hate which, in my experience, are never very good reasons for doing anything, much less the taking of another human being's life.

In this post, I will briefly discuss the current campaign for the death penalty's reinstatement in the UK, and will state my reasons for thinking it it a terrible idea.

So, in a nutshell, the UK government, in a bid to win back the public's love and affection, which isn't going to happen (assuming it had it in the first place), has decided to make the public feel like they have more power over their government than they actually do. We are now able to petition parliament over the internet about subjects of our choice. As if they'd actually listen to what grubby little commoners like us have to say, but that's another matter entirely. If the subject of a petition gets over 100,000 supporters then it has to be considered by the House of Commons for debate. So of course, the age-old debate about the death penalty has been dragged out of it's supposedly nailed-down coffin and is back in the public eye.

History lesson: the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in the UK in 1998. The last execution took place in 1964. One of the main reasons for the abolition of the death penalty in the UK was growing concern over the possibility that innocent people could be executed, after a number of miscarriages of justice, including the case of Timothy Evans. Evans was executed in 1950 for the murders of his wife and daughter, which were committed by his neighbour, John Christie, who was later discovered to be a serial killer. Evans was pardoned in 1966, only 15 years too late.

The problem is, people have forgotten why we abolished the death penalty in the first place. They say time heals all wounds - the terrible consequences which can come hand in hand with the death penalty have left people's minds, and now all that remains is a rose-tinted memory of the 'good old days' when murderers ended up dangling from Albert Pierrepoint's rope.

Now, I'm not saying that the current justice system in the UK is perfect (far from it, in fact). But is going back to a system which we rejected for being dangerously flawed really the best way to fix the problem? That's like using a piece of faulty equipment which yesterday sliced your hand off because you haven't got any betters ideas on how to do the job without it. We abolished the death penalty for a reason, a good reason. So while our justice system is in need of a little reform, bringing back a system which clearly didn't work is a huge leap in the entirely wrong direction.

Luckily, as I've already mentioned, I doubt very much that the e-petition will be very successful when presented to the House of Commons (I've no doubt, however, that it will get it's 100,000 signatures). The trouble is, though, that this is just the beginning. When you lop one head off a Hydra, two more grow to replace it. This debate is no more over than the UK's other problems.

In the meantime, if you are a UK resident like me, you can sign an e-petition urging the UK not to reinstate the death penalty at: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1090

Here is what the campaign has to say for itself, and I agree with every word:

A petition to call on the government to retain its position regards the abolition of the Death Penalty for all offences. That the British people note that only 58 nations currently use capital punishment, as opposed to 95 which have abolished it, further notes the un-retractable nature of such a sentence in incidents of miscarriages of Justice, further notes the death penalty does not reduce crime or act as a deterrent and in US states which practice capital punishment incidents of homicide are higher than US states which do not, further notes the higher cost of capital punishment compared to life imprisonment, believes that British Justice should not be in the same league as China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria which do practice capital punishment on a routine basis and that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights and an affront to the values of British Justice.

Apologies for our lack of activity

Hello everyone,

You've probably noticed that we haven't been posting much lately. That's partly due to severe computer difficulties on my end over the past few months, but mostly due to us being extremely busy. Tiffany is in full time education and I am heading for university in September. As such, we feel we are unable to maintain the level of commitment with which we were previously attending to this blog and other aspects of Death Watch; Stardoll.

I hope to be able to continue posting, though not as much as I previously did, and will return full-time when able to. We will both also continue to fight for this cause in our personal lives. Our views towards the death penalty have not changed. Now especially, as arguments for its reinstatement in the UK are gaining momentum, I will be fighting against it.

We're still fighting, but you might not hear as much from us.

-Samantha

UK bans export of lethal drugs; death penalty supporters call for firing squads



Does the firing squad have the eXecution-factor?





  As a British citizen, and one currently studying the death penalty in Higher RMPS, I know that not everyone in my country agrees with me about the death penalty: that we're better off without it in the UK, and that, as a nation which opposes the death penalty, we shouldn't be helping other countries carry out executions by exporting drugs for them to use in lethal injections. Many a debate in class boils down to someone getting angry and shouting that we should just shoot all our criminals and be done with it.

Death penalty supporters in the US apparently have the same opinion.

On Friday, the UK ban on the export of sodium thiopental and other lethal-injection drugs came into force. This, of course, is a set back for supporters of the death penalty in the US: how will they commit legalised murder now? Or is it a set back? Within hours of the ban coming into force, a leading death penalty advocate in California called for the reintroduction of the gas chamber, calling it the "obvious solution". To me, the obvious solution is, just off the top of my head, a nation-wide moratorium on executions, but that's just me.

It's not just one person though; in New York, a prominent law professor called for the widespread use of firing squads, saying that it is a form of capital punishment which "doesn't pretend to be something else." I agree that capital punishment shouldn't pretend to be something it isn't, but I believe that what it is is immoral and dangerous, putting innocent lives at risk without any hope of being able to rectify mistakes. And that applies to the firing squad too.

In the face of serious shortages of drugs used in lethal injections, some states have already adopted a new drug protocol and others are beginning the switch. But there's never going to be a perfect solution, whether we pump our criminals full of drugs, shoot 'em, gas 'em, or simply eliminate the technical stuff and throttle them ourselves on the courtroom floor. Surely this is evident in the century-spanning struggle to find a perfect method: the gas chamber replaced hanging, the electric chair replaced the gas chamber, lethal injection replaced the electric chair, and now we're trying to replace that is well. It just goes on and on and on, and we're never going to find that method which is just right because it's not the method that's the problem, it's the system as a whole. The death penalty is a flawed concept; it's not necessary.

So maybe instead of searching for the next big trend in prisoner-execution, we should be looking for alternatives to the death penalty itself, not the method by which it is carried out.

Texas Executes Carry Kerr; South Carolina Executes Jeffrey Motts

Two executions in the United States last week.

On Tuesday May 3rd, Texas executed Carry Kerr (46). It was the state's first execution using a new three-drug cocktail, using pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental. Kerr was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 34-year old woman in 2001. In his last statement, he proclaimed his innocence before asking his friends to find the person he claimed committed the crime, saying: "Check that DNA. Check Scott."
Kerr is the 3rd inmate to be executed in Texas this year, and the 467th in the state since they resumed executions in 1982.

On Friday May 6th, South Carolina executed Jeffrey Motts (36). Mott's execution also used the sedative pentobarbital in the place of sodium thiopental. He was sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of his cellmate at a state prison in Greenville County, where he was serving a life sentence for killing 2 elderly people during a robbery in 1995. Motts abandoned his appeals and volunteered for the death chamber. In a final statement read by his attorney before he died, Motts apologized to the victims' families, his own families, and anyone he hurt along the way. In his last statement, he also mentioned his drug addiction, saying he wanted to warn kids of the dangers of drugs.
Motts is the 1st inmate to be executed in South Carolina this year.

URGENT APPEAL for Troy Davis

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis is facing the possibility of his fourth execution date in four years after the US Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on 28 March. Doubts persist about his guilt in the crime for which he was sentenced to death two decades ago.


Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. No physical evidence directly links Davis to the murder – no murder weapon was ever found. The case against Davis primarily rested on witness testimony. Since his trial, seven of nine key witnesses have recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.

In 2009, the US Supreme Court ordered a federal evidentiary hearing to review Troy Davis’ innocence claim.

At the hearing in June 2010, US District Court Judge William Moore addressed not whether the state could demonstrate a watertight case against Troy Davis, but whether Davis could show “by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new evidence” that had emerged since his 1991 murder trial. Under this “extraordinarily high” standard, Judge Moore wrote, “Mr Davis is not innocent”. Elsewhere in his ruling, however, he acknowledged that the new evidence presented by Troy Davis cast “some additional, minimal” doubt on his conviction, and that the state’s case was not “ironclad”. In 1991, the jury had found Troy Davis guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” Judge Moore noted, “but not to a mathematical certainty”.

On 28 March, the US Supreme Court refused to take the Davis case, clearing the way for Georgia to set an execution date. Troy Davis was less than 24 hours from execution in 2007 when the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay. The Board said in 2007 that it would not allow an execution to go ahead “unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused”. Since then Troy Davis has faced two more execution dates, both in 2008, which were stayed by the courts.
Since 2007, three states in the USA have legislated to abolish the death penalty. When signing the abolitionist bills into law the three state governors all pointed to the risk of irrevocable error as a reason to support abolition. Since Troy Davis has been on death row, more than 90 prisoners have been released from death rows around the country on grounds of innocence. In each case, at trial the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.


For more information about Troy Davis case, see here and here from Amnesty International.


RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

-Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Troy Davis was sentenced to death;
-Noting that doubts persist in the case even after the federal evidentiary hearing in 2010;
-Pointing out that the Board acts as a failsafe against irreversible error, and recalling its statement in 2007 that it would not allow any execution to proceed where there was any doubt about the guilt of the prisoner;
-Pointing to the substantial evidence of the fallibility of the capital justice system;
-Calling on the Board to grant clemency and to commute the death sentence of Troy Davis.

APPEALS TO:

State Board of Pardons and Paroles
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE
Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower
Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909, USA

Salutation: Dear Board members

You can email us for more information about Troy Davis or advice on what you can do to help.
I also have some statistics about the reliability of witness testimony from studying psychology this year, which we might be able to quote to back up our arguments.

UK Bans Export of 3 More Lethal Injection Drugs To US

The Department for Business in the UK is introducing controls on the export of drugs to the US which are used in lethal injections.

The government will put in measures to prevent the export to the US of three drugs used in executions, following the previous emergency export control of sodium thiopental - the drug used to anaesthetise the condemned inmate in a lethal injection - which prisons in the US were buying from the UK to due to shortages of the drug.

The UK government now intends to control the export to the US of these drugs:
1. Pancuronium bromide - muscle relaxant which is the second drug in the three-drug sequence used by many states, and causes paralysis of the condemned inmate.
2. Potassium chloride - the third drug in the three-drug sequence, which stops the heart of the condemned inmate.
3. Sodium pentobarbital - this drug is often used to put down animals, but has recently been used in a number of executions in the US due to dwindling supplies of sodium thiopental.

The US are now turning to a Danish company, Lundbeck, for the drugs they need to carry out executions.

As a British citizen, I'm personally very glad to hear that my country has decided not to assist the US in committing legal murder. The UK fully abolished the death penalty in 1998, although the last execution was in 1964. The UK does not the support the death penalty, and as such we shouldn't be helping other countries to carry out executions. This is a positive step in the right direction, and will hopefully inspire other countries carrying out exports to the US of lethal drugs to do the same.

Reprimand For Texas Psychologist Who Approved Defendants For Execution

Psychologist Dr. George Denkowski was recently reprimanded and fined by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. The psychologist had examined a number of death row inmates for intellecutal disabilities and found 16 to be suitable for execution, two of whom were subsequently put to death.

"There’s absolutely no scientific basis to his procedure,” said Marc J. Tassé, director of the Ohio State University Nisonger Center and an expert in developmental disabilities.


The unscientific methods used by Denkowski have been criticised by others in the field, and he has agreed not to conduct intellecutal disability evaluations in future criminal cases, on top of a $5,500 fine as part of a settlement.

Sorry for unexplained silence from us + no more death penalty in Illinois!

I want to apologise for my sudden and unexplained silence - my computer got a virus and is away getting fixed, and in the small amounts of computer time I've managed to glean in its absence, I haven't had time to update this blog at all and a LOT has happened in the last couple of weeks. As soon as I get my computer back, I'm sure I'll have to catch up on everything I've missed but for now I'm just going to focus on the thing we've all been waiting for: the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois!

Yes, Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a historic ban on the death penalty in Illinois on March 9th, as well as commuting the sentences of 15 death row inmates to life without parole. 

In his signing statement, Quinn wrote: "For me, this was a difficult decision, quite literally the choice between life and death. This was not a decision to be made lightly, or a decision that I can to without deep personal reflection."

Quinn also wrote that he saw abolition as the right choice due to the irreparably imperfect system.

In 2000, former governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions after it was discovered that 13 men on death row in the state had been wrongly convicted. There has not been an execution since. 

The ban takes effect on July 1st.

URGENT APPEAL FOR JOHNNIE BASTON

Johnnie Baston, a 35-year-old African American man, is scheduled to be executed in Ohio on March 10th. He was sentenced to death for a murder committed during a robbery in 1994.

Baston was arrested after police recieved information that he was involved in the robbery of a retail store in Toledo, Ohio, during the course of which Chong Hoon Mah was fatally shot. Baston told police he had participated in the robbery with an accomplice called 'Ray', a high-ranking gang member, who was the gunman. When the police could not locate 'Ray', they believed Baston must have acted alone. He pled not guilty, and was sentenced to death in 1995 when he was just over 20-years-old, and has been on death row for 16 years.

Baston had a difficult childhood. After being abandoned by his mother soon after his birth, he suffered physical abuse and neglect at the hands of his father, and was adopted by an aunt. At a clemency hearing before the Ohio Adult Parole Authority earlier in the month, she said his parental abandonment had led to severe behavioural problems in his teenage years. She threw him out of the house a week before the crime.

The Mah family are opposed to the execution because of their respect for human life. The family were opposed to the death penalty during the trial as well. Last month, Chong Mah's son signed a statement that "my family and I are opposed to Mr Baston being executed".

You can read more about the case here.


RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Johnnie Baston was sentenced to death;
- Calling on the governor to commute the death sentence and to work to lead Ohio away from the death penalty.

APPEALS TO:
Governor of Ohio
Governor John Kasich
Riffe Center, 30th Floor, 77 South High Street
Columbus, Oh 43215-6117,
USA
Fax: 1 614 466 9354
Email: http://governor.ohio.gov/ShareYourIdeas.aspx
Salutation: Dear Governor


PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

You can email us at deathwatchstardoll@hotmail.co.uk if you want to know more.

Texas Executes Timothy Adams

Timothy Adams was executed in the state of Texas Tuesday night for the 2002 fatal shooting of his 19-month-old son.

The execution took place moments after the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal from his attorneys.

Members of Adams' family and 3 of the 12 jurors who sentenced him to death were appealing for his sentence to be commuted.

Adams' execution is the second carried out in Texas so far this year, and the 8th so far in the US in 2011.

Ohio Executes Frank G. Spisak Jr.

Frank G. Spisak Jr. was executed early on Thursday morning in Ohio.

Spisak, a Hitler devotee, killed 3 men and wounded another during his 1982 murder spree on the Cleveland State University campus. He was pronounced dead at 10:34a.m.

Spisak is the first condemned inmate to be put to death so far this year in Ohio, and the 7th so far in the USA. His execution is the last in which the state will use the drug sodium thiopental, in the midst of  nationwide shortages and the discontinuation of its production in Italy. The state intends to use a single drug - Pentobarbital, also called Nembutal - in future executions, the next of which is scheduled for March 10th.

Texas Executes Michael Wayne Hall

Yesterday, Michael Wayne Hall was executed by lethal injection in Texas, the first execution of the year for America's most active death penalty state.

The 31-year-old was sentenced to death for the 1998 torture and murder of a mentally challenged woman, alongside Robert Neville who was executed 5 years ago.

In his final statement, with relatives of his victim, Amy Robinson, watching him, Hall repeatedly asked for forgiveness.

"I would like to give my sincere apology to Amy's family," he said, his eyes watery. "We caused a lot of heartache, grief, pain and suffering, and I am sorry. I know it won't bring her back."

Hall is the 6th condemned person to be executed in the US this year. He is the first person this year to be executed in Texas, and the 465th overall in the state since it resumed the death penalty in 1982.

Innocent Man Spent 18 Years on Death Row, and Texas Won't Pay Him a Dime

I read this on Facebook not long ago, and wanted to throw something - the injustice is just infuriating.

As you may already know, Anthony Graves spent a shocking 18 years on death row for murders he did not commit and was exonerated in November of 2010, thankfully before his death sentence could be carried out. To read more about his case and exoneration, click here.

He would have been elegible to receive compensation of $1.4 million for his wrongful conviction, had the document ordering his release contained just one little word: innocence.

But the document did not, and so he gets nothing.

Graves is innocent. But because the word wasn't included in the order which dismissed the charges against him, he doesn't get a dime for that great big error which cost him 18 years of his life. His attorney, Nicole Casarez, says the Texas Comptroller's Office should have taken her client's unique circumstances into consideration. I have to agree.

Grave's cannot seek a pardon from Governor Rick Perry because, after all, there's nothing for him to be pardoned for - asking to be pardoned would be admitting guilt for something he hasn't done. Casarez said a civil suit seeking compensation is one of several options which will be discussed with attorneys specialising in that kind of law.

What gets me so riled up about this is the hypocrisy of the whole sordid business. That Texas, a state which frequently forces people to pay the ultimate price for their mistakes, refuses to face up to and pay the price for its own errors. Instead, they sweep things under the rug, and innocent people suffer.

Maybe if the state wasn't wasting millions of dollars on the death penalty every year, they'd have enough cash left over to compensate the man from whom they stole 18 years of his life.

URGENT APPEAL FOR TIMOTHY ADAMS

Timothy Adams is due to be executed in Texas on February 22nd. Three of the jurors who sentenced him to death are now urging that his sentence be commuted. Two mentioned feeling "pressured" into voting for a death sentence by other members of the jury.

Adams killed his 19-month-old son, and has never tried to deny it. His family in this case are also the family of the victim. His family are also appealing for clemency. Adams sister said that his death would be "another huge loss to our family".

To read a more thorough account of Adams case, click here to go to Death Penalty News.

Please help us take immediate action to try and spare Adams from execution. Here are some things you can do:

Write an appeal to:

Clemency Section, Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
8610 Shoal Creek Blvd.
Austin, TX 78757-6814
USA
Fax 512 467 0945
Email: bpp-pio@tdcj.state.tx.us
Salutation: Dear Board members


Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428
USA
Fax: 1 512 463 1849
Salutation: Dear Governor


Here is some advice for what you should write in your appeal:
Acknowledge the seriousness of the crime for which Adams was sentenced to death.
Note that 3 of the jurors from his murder trial are calling for the sentence to be commuted.
Call on the authorities to recognise the suffering that execution causes family members.
If writing to the parole board: urge them to recommend to the Governor that he commute the death sentence.
If writing to Governor Perry: urge him to do all within his power and influence to stop the execution.


If you live in the US, you can also sign an online petition here. Unfortunately, you can't sign it if you don't live in the US.

PLEASE take immediate action to help Timothy Adams. Do as much as you can. Email us if you have any questions: deathwatchstardoll@hotmail.co.uk

Jurors urge clemency for man they sentenced to death

American army veteran Timothy Adams (left) is scheduled to be executed in Texas on February 22nd. He was sent to death row for fatally shooting his 19 month old son after flying into a rage during a fight with his wife in 2002, after which he threatened to commit suicide.

Now 3 of the jurors who sent him to death row are urging his life to be spared two weeks before the sentence they helped to hand down is carried out.

Along with Adams' lawyers and family, the 3 jurors filed a petition on Monday with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and governor Rick Perry. They say they were not given a complete picture of Adam's character and religious background during his murder trial. They are seeking the sentence to be reduced to life without the possibility of parole.

Adams took full responsibility for the killing and pleaded guilty. Admission of guilt is usually enough to avoid a death sentence. Adams was not so lucky.

The 42 year old's family are also appealing for clemency. His parents, grandparents of the victim, say they have forgiven him.

"Our family lost 1 child," Adams' father, Columbus Adams wrote. "We can't bear to lose another. After my grandson's death, we lived through pain worse than anyone could imagine.
"Nothing good will come from executing my son, Tim, and causing us more anguish. We pray that God will fill Governor Perry's heart with compassion. If not for Tim, then at least for our family."


When people argue with me about the death penalty, they usually bring up the argument 'but what if someone you loved was killed? Wouldn't you want to see the killer die?' No, I believe in forgiveness, but that's not my point here - my point is that the family of the victim in this case is losing yet another loved one if the execution goes ahead. Where is the logic in that? I've rarely heard such a case where the application of the death penalty has actually made things so much worse for all involved. Are we, as a society, so desperate for our pound of flesh that we just throw the idea of closure for victim's families out as a justification for our acts, even when the concept doesn't apply?
I sure hope not.

Missouri Executes Martin Link

Martin Link has been executed by lethal injection in Missouri for the 1991 murder of an 11 year old girl.
Governor Jay Nixon denied Link clemency on Monday, and on Tuesday courts refused to halt the execution.
He was pronounced dead at 12:15a.m. this morning at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Nebraska considers first execution since 1997

Nebraska has not carried out an execution since 1997 and has never carried out one by lethal injection. Carey Dean Moore (53) could change that.

Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of two Omaha taxi drivers in botched robberies.

He came within a week of execution in 2007. Six days before his execution was scheduled to be carried out, the state's high court issued a stay because it wanted to consider whether the electric chair should still be used. In 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the use of the electric chair ammounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection is now the state's sole method of execution, and on Friday they recieved the last drug they needed to carry out an execution by lethal injection - sodium thiopentlal - in the midst of a worldwide shortage of the drug. (Seriously, with the drug in such short supply, why are we continuing to waste it on legal murder???)

The last execution in Nebraska was that of Robert Williams, who was executed in the electric chair in 1997.

Attorney General Jon Bruning said a motion  requesting that a date for Moore's execution be set was filed with the Nebraska Supreme Court on Monday. It's not yet clear how soon the Supreme Court might set a date for Moore to die.

It's hoped that legal challenges to Nebraska's new execution method continue to hold off the use of the death penalty in the state for several years. Lawsuits attacking, for example, the vague training requirements of the new lethal injection protocol are expected.

UK: Men charged over leaflets condoning execution of homosexuals

United Kingdom: Two men in Derby who were accused of handing out leaflets proclaiming homosexuals should be executed are the first to be charged under new laws against stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The leaflets, entitled 'The Death Penalty?' were handed out outside a Derby mosque in July 2010, and were reportedly also pushed through letterboxes, by Razwan Javed (30) and Kabir Ahmed (27).

The pair were reportedly arrested after a tip-off from a member of the public, and could face up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine if convicted at crown court.

Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said: "We welcome the Attorney General’s decision to allow this prosecution to go ahead. We lobbied for a number of years for a specific law to protect gay people, matching offences against inciting racial and religious hatred.

“Materials like the leaflets posted to homes in Derby create fear and inflame hatred and violence towards gay people. We uncovered a range of similar materials during our campaign to secure much-needed legal protections in this area.”

Georgia Executes Emmanuel Hammond

Emmanuel Hammond (45) was executed by lethal injection in Georgia on Tuesday, for the 1988 murder of an Atlanta preschool teacher.

The execution was briefly halted by a last minute appeal by Hammond's lawyers which questioned the legality of the state using execution drugs which they said came from a company operating out of the back of a London driving school. In the midst of a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, part of the three-drug lethal cocktail used by most death penalty states, Hammond's lawyers sought more information as to where the state obtained the drug.

However, state and federal courts turned down the appeals and Hammond was pronounced dead in the state prison in Jackon at 11:39pm.

The execution is the first to be carried out in Georgia in 2011, and the 4th so far this year in the United States.

Will Governor Pat Quinn Abolish the Death Penalty in Illinois?

The fate of Illinois's costly, flawed and entirely pointless death penalty now rests solely in the hands of Governor Pat Quinn after the Senate approved legislation to abolish it on Tuesday.

Yesterday the Governor said that he would "follow my conscience" in deciding whether to sign the bill to abolish it. He declined to give a firm answer on what he plans to do - however, he did point out the history of "serious problems" which Illinois has had with the death penalty. Quinn said such problems could have ended in "terrible tragedies" had wrongfully condemned inmates not been exonerated. It's rare for politicians to actually admit mistakes so this looks promising.

In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley is not a happy bunny with the way things are going down. He said certain crimes "should be handled" by the death penalty. Daley believed that Illinois doesn't need to scrap the death penalty - they just need to get rid of all those nasty little "imperfections" in the law which send innocent people to their deaths. This can apparently be done by increasing the use of DNA testing. Yes, that would help, but simple human error will always exist. Jailhouse snitches will always make stuff up under oath to get lighter sentences, police will always use less than ethical tactics to get confessions, eye-witnesses will always be wrong, jilted exes will always lie... and so on. How do we get rid of these "imperfections", huh? We don't. We simply can't.

But the mayor said he was trying not to influence Quinn's decision. Yeah, I'm sure. "It's up to him," Daley said.

Quinn's hesitation to decide is causing disruption to capital murder trials in Illinois.

Take your time Governor... Just make the right choice! And by take your time, I mean soon please!

Illinois Votes to Abolish the Death Penalty - Gov. Now Decides Its Fate

(I haven't had time to write my own article on this so I'm sourcing one. Sorry - it's pretty long)


Source: The Chicago Tribune, Jan 11th 2011

SPRINGFIELD — — Gov. Pat Quinn now has to decide the fate of the death penalty in Illinois, a state whose troubling record of condemning innocent men to death row put it at the center of the national debate over capital punishment.

The Democratic-led Senate on Tuesday approved legislation to end the death penalty in Illinois by a vote of 35-22, with two senators voting present. The House approved the measure a week earlier, and now it's up to Quinn.

Quinn's staff on Tuesday said only that he would review the bill. During the fall campaign, the Democratic governor said he supports "capital punishment when applied carefully and fairly."

But Quinn also backed the moratorium on executions put in place 10 years ago by Republican Gov. George Ryan, who in 2003 cleared the state's death row after a string of men who had sat there were found innocent.

The gravity of the issue played out Tuesday under the bright lights of the ornate Senate Chamber. Looking down from the spectator gallery was Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who spent 17 years in prison, including 12 on death row, after he was wrongfully convicted of a 1986 double-murder.

After the vote, Steidl said he felt senators knew "in their heart and soul" that Illinois should abolish the death penalty because the cost of making a mistake is "irreversible."

"We're all human, and we all make mistakes," Steidl said. "I think the Senate saw it, and I'm pretty sure that Gov. Quinn is aware of it."

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez argued against the measure at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting early Tuesday. Following the vote Alvarez said she was "extremely disappointed" and that the Senate made its decision "without a full, open and public debate."

Alvarez called the death penalty "a deterrent to violent crime in the most heinous of cases" that should be available, particularly "when we have witnessed outrageous crimes such as the senseless murder of five Chicago police officers this past year."

The Senate bill was championed by Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, who pointed to Steidl and urged fellow lawmakers to seize the chance to "join the civilized world" and end the death penalty in Illinois.

Raoul noted that law enforcement had been certain that Jerry Hobbs and Kevin Fox were guilty of killing their own young daughters in high-profile crimes in the Chicago area. Both men were exonerated by DNA evidence.

"I cannot impose my values on you. You have to make your own reconciliation," Raoul said. "But I want you, as you push that button (to vote), to not be so removed from the medically trained man or woman who has to inject the serum in the person of a capital crime."

Patrick Smith, Jerry Hobbs' stepfather, said Tuesday that seeing what his stepson went through changed his position on the death penalty. "Being a lifelong resident of Texas, I'm wondering how many innocent ones we might have killed," Smith said.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty statutes in 40 states, including Illinois, in 1972. Illinois reinstated capital punishment in 1977, and is now among 35 states with the death penalty. New York, New Jersey and New Mexico have done away with the death penalty in the last three years.

The fate of 15 people now on death row in Illinois is uncertain. They would not be affected by the legislation now being considered by Quinn, according to the Department of Corrections. However, the moratorium on executing prisoners could remain in place.

The death penalty also remains a possibility in ongoing cases. On Tuesday, a jury was being chosen in the trial Laurence Lovejoy, who is accused of killing his 16-year-old stepdaughter in 2004.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and when attorneys notified DuPage County Judge Kathryn Creswell of the Senate vote, she directed jury selection to continue and said that the death penalty "is still the law of the land."

Andrea Lyon, a professor at DePaul University College of Law and director of the Center for Justice in Capital Cases, said she expected Quinn to sign the legislation as a cost-saving measure, if for no other reason.

She said Illinois spends about $100 million a year on death penalty cases, and that prosecutors seek it nearly 60 times for every one defendant who receives it.

Both sides of the debate were aired on the Senate floor Tuesday. Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, rejected suggestions by backers of the ban that it is tougher for killers to spend life in prison agonizing over their crimes.

"The Charles Mansons, the Ted Bundys, they are not going to sit in prison and repent," Holmes said. "They are sociopaths."

Sen. Kirk Dillard, R- Hinsdale, said the people of his district believe in executions for mass murderers and killers of police, prison guards and children.

"I think there's still a place for the death penalty for the worst of the worst of our society," Dillard said.

Dillard and Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat and former Madison County state's attorney, called for putting the question of whether to impose a ban before Illinois citizens.

But Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D- Olympia Fields, said lawmakers are elected to make the tough decisions. She said this nation's "system of justice is actually predicated upon the protection of the innocent, and executing one innocent person is too high a price to pay."

After Ryan put the moratorium in place, Illinois followed up with a number of steps to reform the death penalty process, including taping interrogations under a proposal forged by President Barack Obama when he was in the Illinois Senate.

Only days before he left office in January 2003, Ryan granted clemency to 164 death row inmates even though sources on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board said the panel recommended clemency for no more than 10.

Lawrence Marshall, a Stanford University law professor who co-founded Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, said the death penalty moratorium gave people time to judge the legal system without executions taking place.

"People begin to recognize one can have a very tough law enforcement system that doesn't involve execution," Marshall said.

Last Minute Stay of Execution for Cleve Foster

Former Army recruiter Cleve Foster was due to be executed last night for the rape and murder of a 30 year old Sudanese woman in Fort Worth nine years ago, had he not received a last minute stay of execution from the Supreme Court.

Foster has always insisted that his friend and former roommate, Sheldon Ward, who was also condemned for the killing, acting alone in the murder of Nyaneur Pal, who was shot in the head and dumped in a ditch in Tarrant County. Ward died of cancer in prison last May.

Foster's attorneys had asked the Supreme Court to stop the execution on the grounds that trial attorneys failed to get testimony from a blood spatter expert to counter a detective's testimony that Ward couldn't have killed and moved Pal's body by himself.



"The state of Texas is on the verge of executing an innocent man," attorney Clint Broden told the court.

In the court's brief order to halt the execution, two Justices indicated that they would have allowed the punishment to proceed.

More than 60 protesters were gathered at the Texas Capitol last night. They rejoiced when they heard the news of the of the stay of execution by phone call from other protesters gathered outside the prison in Huntsville where Texas does its killing.

Foster would have been the first person to be executed in Texas this year had the stay not been granted.

Oklahoma Executes Jeffrey Matthews

Oklahoma executed Jeffrey Matthews yesterday for the 1994 murder of his great uncle during a robbery. Matthews was pronounced dead at 6:09pm on Tuesday evening, the second death row inmate to be put to death in Oklahoma in 2011.
Oklahoma has executed 96 condemned inmate's since the state resumed executions in 1976. Only Texas and Virginia have carried out more - 456 and 108 respectively. Oklahoma is also responsible for both of the executions carried out so far this year.

Summary of the past seven days of death penalty news

I'm sorry - I haven't posted anything in nearly a week when there has been a LOT going on because I've been rushed off my feet (major exams imminent - the joy of being a teenager). Anyway, because I've been so neglectful, I'm going to try and summarise the past week's worth of death penalty news, and rework my schedule in future to keep on top of things.

Jan 6th - The BBC's Today programme ran a story about Reprieve's investigation into Britain's shameful export of drugs to the US which would be put to use killing people. Originally it was thought that only sodium thiopental was being sourced in the UK, but now it's been discovered that the other two drugs used in executions (pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride) are also been exported by the UK. Not too pleased with my own supposedly-against-the-death-penalty country right now. The drugs have been used to execute at least one person so far. (You can read some really good articles about the whole scandal on the Guardian's website if you're interested)

Jan 6th - Oklahoma executed Billy Don Alverson for the 1995 killing of a convenience store worker in Tulsa. Alverson was pronounced dead at 6:10pm and apologised to the victim's family in his final statement. Alverson becomes the first person to be executed in the US in 2011.

Jan 7th - Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter granted the first posthumous pardon in the state's history to Joe Arridy (pictured, on the right), 72 years after he was executed for a crime he had nothing to do with. Arridy had an IQ of just 46 (nowadays the cut-off line for competency is 70 - a person with an IQ below that cannot be executed in the United States.) His so-called confession was a mumbled one which only the sheriff heard. ) His so-called confession was a mumbled one which only the sheriff heard. ) His so-called confession was a mumbled one which only the sheriff heard. Arridy is burried behind the state prison in the same place as the man who confessed to the crime for which Arridy was executed - and who maintained until his execution that Arridy had nothing to do with it. Despite Arridy's 'confession' being false, despite the fact he was likely not even in the city when the murder took place, and despite the fact another man confessed, Arridy was executed an innocent man in 1939.

Jan 7th - A panel in Texas heard from arson experts who had reviewed the evidence which sent Cameron Todd Willingham (pictured) to the death chamber in 2004 for the deaths of his 3 children in a house fire in 1991. Several experts have challenged the conclusion of arson as a cause for the fire, and Willingham maintained his innocence even in his final statement. The case has stirred up a lot of attention because death penalty opponents are aiming to have the Willingham case become the first one in which a prisoner is formally declared wrongfully put to death. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has so far done his utmost to see the inquiry stifled.

Jan 9th - The Texas Moratorium Network announced they had so far raised $3,573 for Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years on Texas death row for a crime he didn't commit before being recently exonerated. The state has yet to give him any compensation for their inhuman blunder which very nearly took his life.

Jan 10th - Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon commuted the sentence of death row inmate Richard Clay to life without the possibility of parole - just over a day before he was scheduled to be executed. The governor gave no reason for the decision to commute the sentence and in fact stated he was convinced Clay was involved in the 1994 killing he was sentenced for, and that he supported the jury's verdict of first degree murder. It's unclear yet whether the decision was influenced by allegations from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that Missouri cut corners when rehearsing executions due to the national shortage of sodium thiopental, the first drug used in the lethal injection cocktail by most states. The ACLU believe Missouri didn't use the drug in an October rehearsal aimed at determining whether staff understood how to administer the drugs properly, possibly to try and make the dwindling supply last longer so they could carry out more executions. Corrections officials say the state was adequately prepared.

That's all I've got time to write just now, I'll try to update this later.

- SB

The battle of the death penalty in Illinois

The death penalty could be abolished in Illinois if death penalty opponents can pass legislation to make it happen before the middle of next week. After that time, the seating of a new Legislature will make the move more difficult.

Supporters of the death penalty are prepared to try and stop them. No surprises there.

Illinois hasn't had an execution for a long time, due to a suspension on executions in 2000 by the Governor of that time, George Ryan, after it was discovered that 13 men on death row in the state had been wrongly convicted. Death row was later emptied after Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 condemned inmates in Illinois. There has no been an execution since because the ban is still there. Despite this, defendants are still being tried and sentenced to death, with 15 men currently awaiting execution in Illinois who have no idea whether those sentences will be carried out, and when it might happen. That means the state is still paying the extortionate extra costs of capital trials and appeals and such for absolutely no reason at all. Just for the sake of sending men to death row rather than sentencing them to life without parole. Why?

Cost was just one of the arguments made by supporters of abolishing the death penalty, roughly 30 of whom gathered at the state Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday, lobbying lawmakers to complete work on a bill that stalled last month as it awaited a House floor vote. They said that deficit-ridden Illinois cannot afford the additional financial costs of capital trials, and that the death penalty system in place was flawed irreparably.

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, the sponsor of the abolition measure in the Senate, believes there is enough support of the bill to get it passed this week. "It's time," he said.

Supporters of the death penalty - who include prosecutors and the relatives of murder victims - are condemning the movement towards abolition, which they believe to be a rush to judgment on the issue.

Regarding the cost issues surrounding the death penalty, Sheldon Sobol, president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association, said that it "cheapens the value of life" to make fiscal arguements. I personnaly think the death penalty itself cheapens the value of life, since any state which applies it is basically saying it's okay to take a life to stop other people from doing exactly that, but maybe that's just me. Sobol, and others, urged further review of the system before the death penalty is removed from the books. That's what they always say. And then in ten years time nothing will have been done and another fifty, hundred men could be dead and there might just be an innocent one or two or three among them. The system doesn't need reviewed; that's just talk. It needs rebuilt.

Death penalty proponents maintain that it's not clear whether the death penalty creates a financial drain on the state, as those of us who oppose the death penalty believe. They also say that some studies suggest it does deter crime. Yes, but there are plenty which don't. The majority of states which don't have the death penalty have murder rates lower than the national average.

The way it's sitting right now, this is a race against time. I'm genuinely excited and cautiously optimistic right now, despite earlier rantings. The abolition bill has already gone through the committee process in the House and is awaiting a floor vote, and the whole process will have to start over again if it isn't done before the seating of the new General Assembly on January 12th. And when this seating occurs, the Legislature will be more conservative than it currently is, with Democrats still controlling both chambers but by smaller margins. This basically means it will be more difficult to get this close again.

"We've got to get it done this week," said Ryan Keith, a lobbyist for the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Well summarized.

All I have to add is: let's hope it goes through. One more state without the death penalty would be a very welcome thing.

Houston Chronicle - "It's time for capital punishment to become Texas history"

Source: Houston Chronicle, Jan. 1 2011

The death penalty in Texas is fraught with demonstrable error, and the people of the state seem more willing to deal with that fact than their leaders.

Events of the past year have convinced us that defendants have been executed on the basis of invalid evidence. They may or may not have been guilty, but the fact that we have convicted people based on faulty evidence leads inexorably to a horrible likelihood — that we have executed innocent people. The high number of death row prisoners eventually exonerated makes a strong case that other innocent but less fortunate prisoners have been wrongfully put to death.

We don't lose sleep over the execution of guilty murderers. But the possible or probable execution of the innocent should trouble every Texan.

The freeing of Anthony Graves after 18 years in prison, many on death row, for a false murder conviction is only the most recent example of how badly the system is broken. His ordeal underlines how long the victims of wrongful death sentences must suffer in the cases where the errors are discovered before execution.

Two men, Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of murder by arson, and Claude Jones, convicted of murder during a robbery, were executed on the basis of evidence later shown to be questionable or false.

We are heartened by figures showing that Texas and Harris County juries are sending fewer defendants to death row. Once known as the death penalty capital of the United States, Harris County has relinquished that grim title in recent years. If Texas were a nation, it would have been among the top state executioners in the world in past decades, in the company of judicial pariahs like China and Iran.

Since executions resumed in 1976, 464 have been carried out in Huntsville. Texas still led the nation in 2010 with 17 executions, more than twice the number of runner-up Ohio. This past year juries in Texas sentenced only eight people to die, while Harris County has had only two capital punishment sentences handed down.

Legal experts attribute the drop in death judgments to the availability of a life-without-parole statute passed by the Texas Legislature in 2005, and to the escalating costs to counties of the appeals process involving capital sentences. The exoneration of 11 Texas death row residents has undoubtedly made the public - and potential jury pools - more aware of the possibility that a death sentence could be an irreversible mistake.

Still, even as Texas juries show increased restraint in utilizing capital punishment, Texas elected officials - including most jurists - seem equally determined not to examine its flaws. When District Judge Kevin Fine attempted to conduct a hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty as practiced in Texas, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos first ordered her prosecutors to stand mute in court and then successfully appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the hearing. More than 60 people, including former Texas Gov. Mark White, have filed a brief with the high court in support of allowing the death penalty hearing to go forward.

When the state Forensic Science Commission attempted to investigate whether Willingham was executed for the murder of his three children based on faulty arson evidence, Gov. Rick Perry replaced the commission chairman and several board members. A protracted and inconclusive investigation followed. An attempt by an Austin judge to conduct a hearing on the Willingham case has also been stymied by an appeals judge, who ruled that the jurist should have recused himself.

The accumulating evidence indicates that the current application of the death penalty in Texas involves an unacceptably high risk of killing innocent people. Yet even as the evidence of false convictions and wrongful executions piles up, only the participants at the base of the Texas criminal justice system, jury members, seem to be waking up to the reality of this evil.

Some opponents have called for a moratorium on executions in Texas until new, unspecified safeguards are in place to protect the innocent. Yet it's difficult to imagine a fail-safe route to execution.

Besides, we already have the ultimate safeguard on the books: the sentence of life without parole. Spending the rest of one's days in prison is as terrifying a deterrent to most people as quick execution. By ending state-sanctioned killing, in the future when a jury makes a mistake, resurrection won't be required to remedy it.


[The Houston Chronicle joins other Texas newspapers like the Dallas Morning News and Austin American-Statesman in advocating for an end to the death penalty in Texas.]