The StandDown Texas Project

Final Words Project Noted in the NYT Lens Blog

"Selfies Against the Death Penalty," is Rena Silverman's post at the New York Times' Lens blog.  There are images at the post.

Marc Asnin’s latest project follows in the tradition of documentary photographers crusading for social justice. He just happens to employ selfies in his mission.

Through crowdfunding and social media, he has initiated a campaign in conjunction with the VII association against the death penalty in which he asks photographers to upload self-portraits to a website with a caption of 140 characters or fewer describing why they oppose capital punishment.

“The selfie is a modern-day way of showing a story,” Mr. Asnin said. “It’s not my generation, it’s not how I was trained to confront social injustice. But I’m not going to be a 51-year-old photographer who says I’m not going embrace that. That’s like burying your head in the sand.”

The campaign, “Photographers Selfie Against the Death Penalty,” is part of a larger project, a book called “Final Words,” which compiles 517 final statements of Texas’ death row prisoners. Their final words are combined with mug shots, summaries of the crime for which they were convicted and other details about the prisoners. Mr. Asnin hopes to get the book into classrooms in the 32 states that still have the death penalty on the books. He also intends to mount a traveling exhibition by the fall of 2015 that will include a multimedia projection.

Earlier news of Final Words is at the link.  Related posts are in the books and culture category indexes.

TV Drama 'The Divide' Premieres Tonight

"Teetering on the Line Between Good and Evil," is the review by Alessandra Stanley in today's New York Times.

“The Divide,” a legal drama that begins on Wednesday, is surprisingly good. But what’s most surprising is that it’s on WE, a cable channel best known for shows like “L.A. Hair” and “Marriage Boot Camp.”

Not that there is anything wrong with escapist reality shows aimed at women. But if HBO is the Stanford of cable networks, WE is closer to Mary Baldwin College in Virginia.

“The Divide” isn’t frilly or fun: It is a smart, intense thriller inspired by the Innocence Project, the nonprofit organization that uses DNA testing to fight to reverse wrongful convictions — including many in death penalty cases.

It's scheduled to air on the WE cable channel at 9:00 pm ET/8:00 pm CT, tonight.  Check your local listings.

"'The Divide' review: Strong drama explores justice system," is by David Wiegand for the San Francisco Chronicle.

If you're wary of shows with a political or sociological ax to grind, you should be, for the most part. That's because more often than not, credible characters and plots are pushed to the background in favor of advocacy.

I admit that's what I expected with WE's new series "The Divide," created by Richard LaGravenese ("Behind the Candelabra") and Tony Goldwyn ("Scandal"), premiering Wednesday night. Instead, what I found was an intelligently nuanced, character-driven legal thriller first, and an all-sides-represented discussion of possible defects in the justice system second.

Christine Rosa (Marin Ireland, "Revolutionary Road") works for an organization called the Innocence Initiative, a fictionalization of the very real Innocence Project. No one would want to see an innocent person executed, but it's personal for Christine because her own father is on death row for something she knows he didn't do and his appeals are all but exhausted.

"'The Divide' on WE tv smartly smudges race, class stereotypes,"by Mary McNamara at the Los Angeles Times.

In what is becoming something of a monthly ritual, yet another niche network is venturing in from the old film/documentary/reality fringe with a character-driven drama that executives hope will do what "Mad Men" did for AMC.

At least with "The Divide," which premieres Wednesday night on WE tv, there is no pretense. WE, which stands for Women's Entertainment, is owned by AMC Networks and it produced "The Divide."

"‘The Divide’ aims high with death-row drama," is the Boston Globe review by Matthew Gilbert.

One positive development on TV in the past 30 or so years has been the way shows zero in on the flaws of our justice system. Rather than telling blindly affirming stories to make us feel that justice is always served, Perry Mason-style, TV writers have really dug into the loopholes, courtroom slip-ups, and, most of all, the human error and manipulation.

Contemporary TV writers, if you haven’t guessed it after “The Wire,” “The Sopranos,” and “Breaking Bad,” don’t really want you to sleep at night.

WE tv’s “The Divide” is yet another series hoping to remind us that sometimes the guilty get off scot-free, while the wrong people wind up behind bars. And the stakes are even higher in miscarriages of justice when the death sentence is in play.

 The Philadelphia Daily News posts, "'Scandal' star bridges 'The Divide'," by Ellen Gray.

Tony Goldwyn is probably used to being taken seriously.

The 54-year-old grandson of Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn isn't only an actor: He's long been a mover and shaker behind the scenes.

"'The Divide': TV Review," by Allison Keene at the Hollywood Reporter.

WE tv's first scripted series is an engrossing eight-episode legal drama that explores issues of race, politics, greed and justice.

The Divide, a legal drama created by Richard LaGravenese (Behind the Candelabra) and Tony Goldwyn (Scandal), was originally developed by AMC in 2012. But when AMC held off on giving the green light to the series, it seemed like the perfect vehicle for sister network WE tv to get into the scripted arena. It was the right choice. In the wake of marquee series like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, the nuanced legal drama The Divide might have not have gotten a chance to prove itself. On WE tv, it has the opportunity to develop as that network's own marquee series, as WE tv re-brands from just offering content geared toward women.

Mother Jones features an extended interview with Goldwyn, ""Scandal" Star Tony Goldwyn's Latest Project: a Death Penalty Drama," by Patrick Caldwell.

Tony Goldwyn, whose family is a Hollywood institution, is probably best known for his portrayal of President (and adulterer-in-chief) Fitzgerald Grant, Kerry Washington's love interest on ABC's Scandal. Goldwyn's film career kicked off back in 1990, with his role as the villain in Ghost, and he's worked steadily ever since. (Notably, he was the lead voice in Disney's Tarzan.) He has also taken several turns behind the camera, directing on a handful of films and TV shows, including Grey's Anatomy, Dexter, and Justified. Now he's taken the helm of his first TV show, creating, along with his screenwriter friend Richard LaGravenese, The Divide, a new death penalty drama premiering on WE tv July 16. Set in Philly, the show centers on a contested capital case and the conflict between "Innocence Initiative" lawyer Christine Rosa (Marin Ireland) and District Attorney Adam Page (Damon Gupton). After the trailer, we'll chat with Goldwyn about race, moral hazard, and nailing the zeitgeist.

Related posts are in the culture and television category indexes.

Final Words

That's the title of a new book and accompanying projects from Neverland Publications.  Here's the news release:

ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL PROJECT FROM NEVERLAND PUBLICATIONS

The mission of Neverland Publications is to provide a catalyst for propelling unheard voices, compelling images, and effective design to the forefront of society. Our conscious approach to publishing is to showcase culturally significant narratives that are capable of resonating at the edge of a constantly expanding audience. Currently we operate under the auspices of VII Association, a non-profit 501c3 corporation – www.viiphoto.com

The first publication, Final Words, examines the final statements of the 515 Texas Death Row inmates executed between 1982 and now. Death row inmates within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are allowed to issue a final statement before they are executed. These final statements are archived by the State of Texas and kept as part of their public records.

Documentary photographer and co-founder of Neverland Publications, Marc Asnin has compiled the final words of these executed men and women in order to share these visceral last moments with the public. He looks to both resuscitate a critical voice in the debate on Capital Punishment, and to create an infrastructure for those final words so they may speak to diverse communities across the nation.

The final reflections of these men and women exist as proof of their humanity. Their final statements provoke us to transcend our preconceptions and challenge accepted institutions. The practice of the death penalty in the U.S. is both complicated and contradictory. It is a web of inextricably linked problems—state institutionalized racism, an entrenched marginality, and the overwhelming subjectivity of our sentencing system.

The team at Neverland Publications has joined together to offer the public an expansive menu of participating programs: We have invited proof.org a non-profit media organization for social justice who has an expert group of educators and activists, to design a comprehensive and dynamic engagement campaign utilizing the Final Words as a tool for discussion and action to create a democratic and innovative grassroots engagement with the Death Penalty. To that end, we will disseminate copies of the book at no charge to public high school students in the 32 states that still deem the death penalty legal. In addition there will be a traveling exhibition that will be multidimensional including the written word, photographic material, and audio recordings that pertain to final words. And lastly there will be a symposia held at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts in association with the Institute for Global Leadership, in the autumn of 2014 with participants from the legal community; various religious communities; the media; and otherwise committed and established citizens who can speak eloquently provoking a new way of looking at this subject.

On October 6th we will start a month long crowd funding program through Indigogo to help raise the funds to bring all of the components of this project to fruition. We ask that anyone that has interest in this issue help us spread the word to raise the necessary funds and become part of the complex conversation. This is a call to action, to help raise awareness, and to help those at Neverland Publications to tell these culturally vital stories.

We invite you to go to our website which will give you an early view of the book’s layout with quotes from the book; more detail about the traveling exhibition and the distribution campaign surrounding Final Words. To date we are proud and grateful to the people that are endorsing this project.

We would be happy to take your questions and or to work with you and your colleagues if you’d like to help spread the word from October 6th through November 6th please watch the website for updates.

Related posts are in the books category index.

Shifting American Attitudes on Capital Punishment

Here are two must-read articles.

"U.S. Edges Closer to Europe in Attitude Toward Capital Punishment, Experts Say," is by Brian Knowlton in the New York Times International edition.

Ambivalence about legally administered death, sponsored by the state with bureaucratic detachment but not always precisely carried out, has long run much deeper among Europeans than among Americans, and has led to its abolition or suspension over the past century in nearly all democracies and every European or Central Asian country but Belarus.

Their divergent attitudes toward capital punishment are among the most striking differences between Europe and the United States, where nearly two-thirds of the states still allow the death penalty.

A series of developments have now created new pressure to scale back or eliminate the death penalty in the United States, including problems carrying out executions through lethal injection, convictions that have proved improper, and court fights over whether inmates with limited intellectual capacity should be subject to capital punishment. Last Thursday, a federal judge stayed an execution set for this week in Missouri. Three other executions are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in different states.

The question now is whether the United States is at the beginning of a process that will lead it closer to Europe and most other democracies in ending the practice or is just sorting out how to deal with temporary impediments to execution.

At Slate, William Saletan writes, "Are Americans Turning Against the Death Penalty?"  There are infographphics at the link.

For 40 years American politicians have assumed that favoring the death penalty is a winning political position. Is that era coming to an end? Is support for capital punishment, like opposition to gay marriage, evaporating?

We can’t be sure. But we’re seeing the first signs that it could happen.

And:

We got used to high levels of public support for capital punishment in the 1980s and 1990s. But it wasn’t always so: The death penalty was far less favored in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes lacking majority or even plurality support. The lows we’re seeing today don’t guarantee a further slide—this century’s numbers could bounce around as much as last century’s. But when you look at the array of surveys descending into unfamiliar territory, and when you study the factors behind this descent, it’s reasonable to think it could keep right on going.

You may want to look at recent polling in the public opinion polling category index.

Satire From Andy Borowitz

"Rick Perry Lures Washington State Residents to Texas with Thriving Death Penalty," is by Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker.  Here's the beginning:

Responding to the news that Washington Governor Jay Inslee had suspended the death penalty in his state, Texas Governor Rick Perry seized on the opportunity to urge Washington residents to “vote with your feet and move to Texas, where the death penalty is thriving.”

At a hastily called press conference this afternoon, the Texas Governor made an emotional appeal to Washingtonians who might be disappointed by the sudden suspension of executions in their state: “Come to Texas. The death penalty is alive and well here.”

Earlier coverage from Washington State begins in the preceding post.

A New Book From David Dow

The University of Houston Law Center professor is one of the best writers on death penalty issues.  David Dow's latest book is, Things I've Learned From Dying: A Book About Life, published by 12 Books.

"Lawyer looks for lessons in death," is by Tim Bross for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

His new book, “Things I’ve Learned From Dying,” is more personal. It deals with the deaths of his father-in-law, a death-row inmate and a family dog.

Some might think it odd to compare a Doberman’s last days to those of two humans. It’s not, particularly in Dow’s hands. He is a gifted storyteller. And regardless of your opinion on the death penalty, he sounds like good company.

Dow’s father-in-law, identified only as Peter, is a scientist of some repute. About the time of his retirement at age 58, he learns that what he thought was a persistent mosquito bite is in fact melanoma. It will kill him.

The Dallas Morning News posts, "Book review: ‘Things I’ve Learned From Dying,’ by David Dow."  It's written by Steve Weinberg.

David Dow is a lawyer who writes like an angel about men society has judged to be devils — convicted murderers awaiting execution by the state of Texas.

Dow proved himself to be a superb author four years ago with The Autobiography of an Execution. In that book, he explained, in page after page of sterling prose, why he labors to halt the death penalty being carried out, and how the executions of his clients that do occur eat away at him and his family and his law partners and his law students at the University of Houston.

And:

Dow felt certain he had experienced every emotion possible as a death-row litigator. But he learns through his father-in-law’s situation that there is a great deal more to learn about facing mortality. That is especially true because his father-in-law, born in 1938, had seemed so vitally alive before the medical diagnosis.

There are author events coming up in Houston and Austin.  Wednesday, August 8th, Brazos Books hosts a book signing in Houston.  Next week, on Tuesday, January 14th, Book People in Austin holds a book signing, also.  Both of the independent booksellers will be glad to take your advance order for a signed copy and mail it to you.

Coverage of David Dow's earlier book begins at the link.  Related posts are in the books index.

New York Times Obituary of Delbert Tibbs

"Delbert Tibbs, Who Left Death Row and Fought Against It, Dies at 74," is by Bruce Weber.  Here's the beginning:

It is not easy:

you stand waiting for a train

or a bus that may never come

no friend drives by to catch a ride

cold, tired:

call yourself a poet

but work all day mopping floors and looking out for thieves.

Those lines, describing the experience of an innocent man on death row, are from a poem by Delbert Tibbs, who in 1974 was convicted in Florida of a rape and a murder that he had nothing to do with, it was later found. He spent nearly three years in prison before the State Supreme Court reversed his convictions, vacated his death sentence and freed him.

Mr. Tibbs then campaigned for the abolishment of capital punishment and became one of six people whose stories of wrongful conviction and near execution were told in “The Exonerated,” a play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, who assembled their script from court documents, testimony, depositions and letters.

First presented in 2002 in Los Angeles and New York with celebrity-studded casts, the play went on to help reshape the national debate about the death penalty, reaching audiences in productions across the country and then on television in a filmed adaptation starring Susan Sarandon, Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn, Danny Glover and, as Mr. Tibbs, Delroy Lindo.

“People who once argued about the morality of executing the guilty now discuss whether the capital justice system can be trusted to separate those deserving death from the wholly innocent,” Adam Liptak wrote in The New York Times in 2005 in assessing the play’s impact.

Mr. Tibbs, whose poetic bent led Ms. Blank and Mr. Jensen to use his character as a kind of Greek chorus, introducing and closing the play and appearing intermittently throughout as a sagelike figure, died on Nov. 23 at his home in Chicago. He was 74.

Earlier coverage of Delbert Tibbs begins at the link.

Andrew Cohen on Delbert Tibbs

"The Uncommon Life and Natural Death of Delbert Tibbs," is Andrew Cohen's post this morning at the Atlantic.  There is must-see video in the article.

Pete Seeger once sang about him. Studs Terkel once wrote about him. He counted Joan Baez among his advocates. He was the subject of a wonderful play, "The Exonerated," which was turned into a made-for-television movie. But when Delbert Tibbs, one of America's most famous and beloved death row exonerees, died in Chicago on November 23, the nation took little note of his passing. Not a single national news organization produced an obituary for him. Not a single politician called out his name.

That's a shame, for Tibbs personified the tragedy of so many capital cases in the United States in the last quarter of the last century. He was 74 when he died, in his bed, in his home. But in 1974, nearly 40 years ago, he was wrongfully arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Florida. He spent two years on death row before the case against him fell apart. In that respect, he was lucky. Most exonerees spend far more time on death row before justice comes to them.

And:

He had been a man of spirit and substance before his conviction—just read what he told Terkel about the arc of his life—and was so again after his release. Some people are just irrepressible that way. I have covered a great many capital cases, and many exonerations over the past 15 years, and yet I have never seen the advocates who dedicate their lives to these cases and these causes be so universally moved by one man's tireless advocacy as they have been by Tibbs. Clearly, to so many, he was more than just a man who had endured the great challenge of his life.

Earlier coverage of Delbert Tibbs life and work begins at the link.  You can also see more of Andrew Cohen's work at the Atlantic.

David Love on the Peacemaker, Delbert Tibbs

"Delbert Tibbs, Death Row Survivor, May You Rest In Peace," is David A. Love's Huffington Post essay today.  He's the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, where Delbert Tibbs was active.

A peacemaker is how people described Delbert Tibbs.

On November 23, 2013, the death penalty abolition movement lost a beloved family member and friend when Delbert, 74, passed away in his home in Chicago.

Delbert Tibbs was many things. He was a sage, a poet, a leader and the nicest person you could ever meet, with an intellect, a spirit and a commitment that inspired all of us. It was an honor to know this peacemaker, and to learn from him.

And:

What struck me about Delbert is that he was not one to complain, even when he was visibly weak and in pain. After speaking with him, as I did two days before he left us, I always learned something. And his Zen-like calm never failed to inspire me to do better, to be better. Few people have a depth of knowledge, of spiritual maturity, or commitment to racial justice as this survivor. He wrote in his poetry about Shaka Sankofa (Gary Lee Graham), Trayvon Martin and Troy Davis, all innocent black men who were killed, taken from us before their time.

In October, Witness to Innocence held a 10th anniversary celebration.  For the event program StandDown reprinted, with Delbert Tibbs' permission, the following.  It is from Selected Poems and Other Word/Works by Delbert L. Tibbs, copyright 2007:

For Gary Graham, A.K.A
Shaka Sankofia

Gary, this is written some hours before your scheduled execution; you
say murder and you know best; well, brother, I say these words to your
spirit which obviously is not on lockdown; a locked spirit could not have
touched these thousands of hearts as you have and we have fought
for you, I too have been near to where you are but our kinship is
greater than what the Death machine can make and those who know
not the sacred thing called life may break and destroy the physical
body but your warrior spirit will never Die; you are part of the One
who made the Sun and the Stars and the laughter of children and
love – I don’t tell you to be strong.  Because I know you are – nor do I
say don’t cry or fret because at times even strong me do that; but I do
believe that what is, is and what ain’t is not; likewise I believe that the
Judge will be Judged; the Governor will be governed; the executioner
will be executed and I believe that One who is totally righteous will
Come and judge and restore all things and I believe you, Gary will be
a witness

Peace and Love – Peace and Love
6.22.00

 Earlier coverage of the passing of Delbert Tibbs begins at the link.

A More Benevolent Nation?

That's the title of syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne's latest, via the Washington Post, his home paper.

Over the last three decades, we have made great strides in battling lawlessness. Because of this, we are less inclined to insist on retributive justice. We are more open to reforming prisons, criminal sentencing and policing itself. And many more of us are opposed to the death penalty.

In quieter political circumstances, a report from the Gallup organization last month might have drawn attention. The firm found that support for the death penalty had dropped to its lowest point in more than four decades. At its peak, endorsement of capital punishment stood at 80 percent in 1994. Now, only 60 percent of Americans favor it.

Not since 1972, when Gallup found 57 percent support, has backing for the death penalty been this low. The last time a plurality of Americans opposed it, according to Gallup, was 1966 when 42 percent favored capital punishment and 47 percent opposed it.

And:

As it is, falling crime rates mean that prison and sentencing reforms are among the few matters on which there is a real prospect for cooperation across partisan and ideological lines. Attorney General Eric Holder has made them central goals.

But so have a significant number of conservatives and libertarians. Ponder this sentiment: “The United States now has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet 25 percent of its prisoners. Nearly one in every 33 American adults is in some form of correctional control.”

This is a common complaint of liberals, but those words are from Richard Viguerie, the veteran conservative activist who is a leader of Right on Crime. The conservative group, Viguerie wrote last spring, is devoted to a variety of forward-looking measures, including “community-based programs rather than excessive mandatory minimum sentencing policies and prison expansion.”

Earlie coverage of last month's Gallup polling is at the link.  You can also jump directly to the Gallup Poll link.  Related posts are in the public opinion polling category index.

Former President Jimmy Carter Renews Dialogue on Capital Punishment

The Guardian posts, "Jimmy Carter calls for fresh moratorium on death penalty," by Ed Pilkington.

Former US president Jimmy Carter has called for a new nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, arguing that it is applied so unfairly across the 32 states that still have the death sentence that it amounts to a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the US constitution.

In an interview with the Guardian, Carter calls on the US supreme court to reintroduce the ban on capital punishment that it imposed between 1972 and 1976. The death penalty today, he said, was every bit as arbitrary as it was when the nine justices suspended it on grounds of inconsistency in the case of Furman v Georgia 41 years ago.

“It’s time for the supreme court to look at the totality of the death penalty once again,” Carter said. “My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution.”

Carter’s appeal for a new moratorium falls at a time of mounting unease about the huge disparities in the use of capital punishment in America.

Pilkington will be one of the moderators at tomorrow's ABA National Symposium on the Modern Death Penalty in America, being held tomorrow at the the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Earlier news of the symposium begins at the link.

Death Row Last Meals

"The 'last meal': Part of death-row lore," is by Susan Jacobson of the Orlando Sentinel.

Last meals are a way to provide humane treatment in a dignified death-penalty procedure, said Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jessica Cary.

They also distinguish executions from the criminal slayings the condemned committed, said Daniel LaChance, an assistant professor of history at Emory University who studies capital punishment.

"The last meal is part of the process to demonstrate there is no malice on the part of the people who carry out the execution," said Bob Dekle, who teaches at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law and was the chief prosecutor in the Ted Bundy murder case.

The definitive origins have been lost over time, but the tradition is thought to go back to ancient Greece and Rome. The biblical verse from Isaiah 22:13, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die," also may have been an influence, some scholars say.

Acceptance of the meal originally symbolized forgiveness to the executioner and justice system, said Katheryn Zambrana, who teaches a course at the University of Florida on the death penalty.

In Florida, last meals must cost no more than $40, be purchased locally and prepared at the prison. No fast food allowed, Cary said.

And:

News reports of executions almost always include information about the last meal, which experts say feeds the public's curiosity and offers a voyeuristic look into a world most people will never experience.

So do books, blogs and websites. Among them are The Last Meals Project, Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals from Death Row and Meals to Die For, which includes recipes from a former Texas death-row cook.

"We always think of food as being a very social thing, a very nice thing," said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York, N.Y. "A humane, warm gesture before we execute them — I see it as just another ambivalence we have about the death penalty."

The article also notes the last meal requested by Texas death row inmate Lawrence Brewer, which led to changes in TDCJ policy on last meals.

You may also be interested in a cookbook by a former TDCJ inmate/cook and Julie Green's 'Last Supper' art project.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley on Pursuing the Dream

Today's Washington Post reports, "Md. governor says his state is realizing MLK’s dream," by John Wagner.

Legalizing same-sex marriage, abolishing the death penalty and raising the minimum wage are part of today’s “work of justice,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said Wednesday at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington.

O’Malley, who appeared early in a long program of speakers praising the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., used his remarks to make the case for a modern “calling of conscience to action.”

“The responsibility we consecrate today is not rooted in nostalgia or memory, it is rooted in something far deeper,” the governor said from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in remarks aides said he largely crafted himself.

"O'Malley: Abolishing death penalty, legalizing gay marriage part of pushing King's vision forward," is Justin Sink's post at the Hill.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said that laws abolishing the death penalty, legalizing gay marriage and raising the minimum wage represented the modern "calling of conscious to action" while speaking Wednesday at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

O'Malley, who has strongly hinted that he plans to pursue the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said there was an "urgent" need to attend to the "work of justice."

And:

O'Malley added that "action that abolishes the death penalty and improves public safety in every neighborhood regardless of income or color" and "actions that create jobs and raises the minimum wage" would strengthen the country.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link; also available, jump directly to coverage of Maryland's repeal of the death penalty.

Excellent Infographic on Capital Punishment From National Post

Canada's National Post provides excellent infographics on capital punishment in "A Short History of U.S. Capital Punishment," by Richard Johnson and Jonathon Rivait.

More than 15,000 people have been executed in the United States going back to colonial times. Witches, slaves, pirates and murderers have all been executed by a variety of methods, including gibbeting and being pressed to death. Of late, it is murderers being executed, most commonly by lethal injection. Texas is the state that has used capital punishment the most since 1976. 

The National Post takes a look at the history and demographics of the United States’ death penalty.

Related posts are in the abolition and capital punishment category indexes.

We Used to Care About Killing People

That's the title of Mugambi Jouet's must-read commentary at Salon.  It's subtitled, "Democrats once were anti-death penalty. Then Michael Dukakis's misfortune began a downward spiral toward immorality."

Warren Hill, one of more than 3,000 people on death row in America, was recently granted a stay of execution in Georgia after a judge rightly found the state’s new Lethal Injection Secrecy Law unconstitutional. As is now the norm in capital cases, much of the coverage of Hill’s potential execution has focused on the death penalty process – i.e., the drug used to lethally inject him — but not on whether executing someone is inherently problematic.

However, there was a time when concerns about the inhumane nature of the death penalty played a more prominent role in the public debate. Back in 1972, the Democratic Party’s platform notably vowed to “abolish capital punishment,” depicting it as “an ineffective deterrent to crime, unequally applied and cruel and excessive.”

Now the nation’s two major parties tend to unquestioningly embrace the death penalty in principle. How did we get there?

There will be more about Warren Hill in the next post.

President Obama on Race and the Death Penalty

This excerpt is from President Obama's remarks on Trayvon Martin, Friday, July 19, 2013, in the White House press briefing room.  Click the link for the complete text.  You can also watch the President deliver his remarks on YouTube.

"The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case."

Here's an extended excerpt:

"There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator . There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often. And I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. ... The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

"Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It's not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history. And so the fact that sometimes that's unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given: Well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent. Using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain. I think the African American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else.

"So folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys. But they get frustrated ... if they feel that there's no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different. ... I think it's understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do. ... [L]et me just give a couple of specifics that I'm still bouncing around with my staff. So we're not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

"Number one, ... I think it would be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists. ...
"[Second,] I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see ... if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations. ... And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these 'stand your ground' laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

"Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them? I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program. I'm not sure that that's what we're talking about here. But I do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

"And then, finally , I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about: Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? ...

"And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. It doesn't mean we're in a post-racial society. It doesn't mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them interact, they're better than we are -- they're better than we were -- on these issues. And that's true in every community that I've visited all across the country. ... [K]ids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we're becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. Thank you, guys."

Related posts are in the race category index.

Thanks to Ron Tabak for distributing.

The Turning Tide

Canada's National Post examines the state of capital punishment in, "Tide may be turning for U.S. capital punishment as recent votes reveal states divided on life and death issue."  It's by Joseph Brean. Canada, as is the case with every Western democracy other than the United States, does not have capital punishment.  It also contains some excellent infographics.

Public support for capital punishment remains strong, solidly 60% in both the U.S. and Canada, which abolished it in 1976, and came within two dozen House of Commons votes of reinstating it in 1987.

But there are signs this modern period of American justice might not last. In March, Maryland became the most recent of five states in six years to abolish capital punishment.

What these votes have revealed is a country formally divided, state against state, on a life and death issue.

Virginia, Ohio and national leader Texas are lined up against New York, New Mexico and Michigan, with California unsure where to stand, as it curiously registers death sentences but does not carry them out. Only nine states used it in 2012. It was 13 the year before. The national tally is 32 with, 18 without, and closing.

“I think what’s taking place is a gradual movement away from the death penalty that now has, by almost any measure, made it into an institution used by a minority of the population in a minority of the counties,” said James Liebman, professor of law at Columbia Law School in New York.

“But the counties that are using it are sticking to it, and the question really is how long the majority in the U.S. will continue to be prepared to subsidize the use of the penalty by the minority.”

About half of Americans live in a jurisdiction that does not execute. Just one county in 10 returned even a single death sentence over a given year, and only 1% did so at a rate of more than one a year, according to research by Robert Smith, assistant professor of law at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

What this reflects is the geographical pattern of the American death penalty, a lens through which its legal vulnerabilities are being targeted.

Related posts are in the abolition and capital punishment category indexes.

Movement on the Death Penalty

That's the title of an editorial in today's New York Times.

On Thursday, Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland signed a law making life without parole the state’s maximum sentence, repealing the death penalty after more than 300 years. Maryland is the sixth state in six years, and the 18th in the country, to abolish capital punishment.

States have been rejecting capital punishment for good and powerful reasons. The death penalty is expensive to pursue, unnecessary as a means of retribution and has no benefit in deterring violent crime. Moreover, states have sentenced to death people who were proved innocent. And the penalty has been imposed by both the federal and state governments in arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory manners — in a word, unconstitutionally.

And:

But, in too many states, support for capital punishment continues to overwhelm good sense. The Florida Legislature this week passed a bill that requires the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a review of a capital conviction by the State Supreme Court, and the state to execute the defendant within 180 days of the warrant. This rush-to-execute bill irresponsibly ignores the fact that since 1973, when the state reinstituted the death penalty, one death row inmate has been exonerated for every three executed. .

Meanwhile, Arkansas announced plans to use phenobarbital in executions, even though that barbiturate has not been used for a lethal injection in the United States and its efficacy has yet to be demonstrated. And the Georgia Legislature passed a bill making secret much of the information involved in the state’s lethal injections, which would stymie legal challenges. Over all, however, a consensus is building that the death penalty should go, a trend that should be encouraged. Execution is an indefensible, archaic tool of vengeance.

 Related posts are in the editorial category index.

From AlterNet and Salon

"5 things you may not know about death penalty," is by Stephen Hartnett.  It's posted at AlterNet and Salon.  Here's the beginning:

On March 15, 2013 Maryland became the sixth state in the U.S. to either abolish the death penalty or to impose a moratorium upon its use, joining Illinois (2001), New York (2007), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), and Connecticut (2012). Bills to abolish the death penalty have either been introduced or will be introduced this year in a number of states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Colorado, and others.

The tide is clearly turning against state-sanctioned killing in the name of the law. What many Americans do not know is that debates about the death penalty are as old as the nation itself. What follows are five facts that every American should know about capital punishment and its history in the U.S.

1. The history of capital punishment is the history of slavery’s attempts to destroy free speech.

It was widely understood by late 18th, and then 19th century Americans that the death penalty was a crucial component of the violence needed both to control the plantation-driven South and to intimidate anti-slavery advocates in the North. In a popular lithograph of the time, a typical “Lord of the Lash” is seen sitting atop bales of cotton and tobacco, his ears those of a jackass, his left hand casually dangling a whip, his right foot resting atop the Constitution, portrayed here no longer as a noble document but as the slave-master’s footrest.

Related posts are in the race category index.

The Last Supper Plates

You can view Julie Green's "Last Supper" plates at her website.

Oregon Public Broadcasting posts, "OSU Professor Draws Attention To Death Penalty Through 'Last Supper' Plates.

When Julie Green was living in Oklahoma in the late 90s, she would open her morning paper and find an intriguing, if somewhat morbid, detail. If the state executed someone, the paper printed the contents of their last meal.

"They actually humanized death row for me," she says. "It hit home to me that those meals were so personal and so specific."

She was drawn to these last meals, and eventually came up with the idea of painting representations of them on ceramic plates.

The Associate Professor of Art at Oregon State University has a new exhibit of her plates opening this week in Corvallis.

Some of the plates are paintings of plates full of fried chicken, ravioli and other comfort food. One is a pack of cigarettes. Another simply says, "None."

All of the plates are cobalt blue on white porcelain, reminiscent of fine china. It’s very much like the traditional plates Green grew up with.

Green says, "I think it's helpful that there’s some beauty in the piece ... to balance the inherent sadness of the subject matter.”

Green has been creating these plates for 13 years, and has painted over 500 meals in this way. You can see many of them at a new exhibit opening this week at The Arts Center in Corvallis. It’s called The Last Supper: 500 Plates.

Last year, Terra Magazine published, "Plates of Honor: Julie Green memorializes final meal choices by death-row prisoners."  It was written by Angela Yeager.  Here's a small excerpt; follow the link if you want to learn more about Ms. Green and her work.

When she accepted a position in the Oregon State University Department of Art in 2000, she began The Last Supper, a project that would translate her feelings into a public statement. Her first piece was a portrayal of those tacos and doughnuts that had caught her attention in Norman. Expressed through blue mineral paint fired on white porcelain plates, the series now has more than 500 pieces depicting last-supper choices by death-row inmates.

The work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, most recently at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The Corvallis Arts Center plans a show in early 2013. National news media including Ceramics Monthly, Gastronomica and National Public Radio have featured The Last Supper, as has Dark Rye, an online magazine produced by Whole Foods Market. OSU-Cascades artist Henry Sayre has included text and images, as well as Green’s narrative tempera paintings, in the 2012 edition of his textbook A World of Art, published by Prentice-Hall.

At Oregon State, Green teaches painting, drawing and contemporary issues in art. In 2011, she received grant support from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Its prestigious award is given to only 25 contemporary artists a year to acknowledge painters and sculptors nationwide who create work of exceptional quality.

Green paints The Last Supper plates in her studio in a cozy historic bungalow in Corvallis, which she shares with her husband, artist Clay Lohmann. Every month or two, she loads newly painted plates into a dish rack and drives a slow half-mile to the home of artist and collaborator Antonia “Toni” Acock, who fires them in her ceramics kiln.

Oregon State University issued a news release on the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, "OSU faculty member wins prestigious art grant."

"Justice, Justice, You Shall Pursue"

"Pursuing justice is harder than it sounds," is Pennsylvania Rabbi James A. Gibson commentary on the weekly Torah reading (Shofetim, Deuteronomy 16:18-21:19) for the Jewish Chronicle.

If we had a top 10 list of popular teachings from Torah, the line from this week’s Torah portion would certainly qualify. It might even make the top five.

In setting out the mechanism for the administration of courts and legal decision-making, we read the soul-stirring words from Deuteronomy 16:20, “Tzedek tzedek tirdof” (Justice, justice, shall you pursue). We like to think of this verse as offering the best of who we are and what we stand for.  The justice we seek is so essential to how we live that we repeat it often for effect.

The famous verse comes, not after the setting up of the courts, but after a stern warning over how easy it is to obscure justice:  “Do not incline justice, do not recognize persons or take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and overturn the words of the righteous.”  (Deuteronomy 16.19)

Justice, we are told, must be the same for rich and poor, highborn and low.  It is a concept that we honor, but frankly, in our country, the rich get far better justice.  I am not sure that America is that different from other countries in this regard, but that does not make the injustice inflicted on the poor any more palatable.

Last year I was asked to serve on jury duty, as so many of us are.  I don’t mind this one bit — you can’t have citizen juries if citizens are not willing to step up and do their part.

And:

By 2 p.m., we were bored stiff.  But that was when I was called into a jury room for a preliminary examination.  And they told us we were prospective jurors for a trial involving a heinous crime.  It might involve the death penalty, they said.  Could we, in good conscience, vote to apply the death penalty if the accused were found guilty?

I took a deep breath.  In my heart of hearts, I believe in a universal justice, such as the Torah commands.  I believe that murder upsets the moral calculus of the world in which we live.  So, in theory, I am in favor of it.

But then, Deuteronomy comes back to mind.  Not, “Justice, justice you shall pursue.”  Rather, “You shall not recognize persons or take bribes, because bribes blind the eyes of the wise and overturn the words of the righteous.”

And I thought to myself, when was the last time a really rich person was put to death in the state of Pennsylvania?  The death penalty, the ultimate sanction of the state, must be applied without regard to wealth, race or background.

So, with another big breath, I answered, “No.  I cannot in good conscience vote for the death penalty for the accused if found guilty.  Our judicial system does not apply the death penalty with equity.”  I felt very brave for stating my principle so clearly without flinching.

The lawyer in front of me did not even bother to look up.  “Next,” he said.

Related posts are in the religion category index.

Philadelphia Event

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "An effort to fund art instead of death row," by A.D. Amorosi.

The Philadelphia poet, painter, musician, and activist Aja Beech spent the Memorial Day weekend — whose official observance commemorates those who died serving their country — finalizing the annual "Execute Art Not People" event, which seeks to redirect state funds from prison death rows to arts and education programs.

 "With everyone volunteering time and space, we had to work around some very busy schedules — quite a round-the-clock labor of love," says Beech, noting this year’s participation by Rittenhouse Square’s Ethical Society, host of Friday’s exhibition, and the Mural Arts Program, which will hold a related interactive painting session.

Interactive involvement from across Philadelphia’s arts scene has been key to expanding the event, which was started in Harrisburg five years ago by Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP). Beech has been the regional face of the operation since 2010.

"The interactive-art thing has always been an important aspect of the event, so that people experience the art and its relationship to the death penalty," says Beech, author of a 2011 book of poetry titled Beccaria, after 18th-century Milanese philosopher and jurist Cesare Beccaria, who opposed the death penalty.

To that end, on Friday evening "Execute Art" will screen Concrete, Steel and Paint, a 2009 documentary about the Mural Arts Program’s work inside Graterford Prison. It also will display artwork by prisoners. Among them is Charles Lawson, who is serving a life term at Graterford, works with Mural Arts’ Healing Walls program there, and is a cofounder of Art for Justice, which encourages prison artists.

And:

Screening/Exhibition  Execute Art Not People Free. 6-9 p.m. Friday at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia, 1906 Rittenhouse Square. For information, e-mail [email protected], or call 267-639-6169

Sen. Gayle Slossberg: What Kind of Society Do We Want

Thanks to Sen. Gayle Slossberg for permission to post her complete remarks on capital punishment during the Connecticut Senate's debate on SB 280 to repeal the state's death penalty.  It's a must-read:

A few years ago, I was waiting for the train to New York and I sat down on a bench next to an elderly man.  We started to chat. Elections were coming up, so our conversation naturally turned to politics and the state of our country.  We ran through the usual topics and then he turned to me and said something I have thought about over and over again ever since:  He said that between the tough economy, the rise of hate crimes, the vilification of this group or that by otherwise good, moral people and the seemingly chronic need to blame someone for society’s problems, he said he was afraid – not for himself, but for our children. It is only a short step from here to there, he said – to think of some people as less than human.  And once we think of people as less than human, it becomes okay to kill them and then what kind of society do we have?

For me, that is really the question of today’s debate: What kind of society do we have and what kind of society do we want for our children?

Like many of the people in this circle, I have agonized over the issue of the death penalty.  I have thought about it, debated it, researched it, talked to friends, family and strangers about it.  I have listened to the debate here today.  I appreciate and respect all of the different points of view that have been expressed.  I have spent a lot of time soul searching and lying awake at night thinking about all the facets of this issue.  Like Sen. Prague, it plagues me to think we could put an innocent person to death?  Does a moral society execute people?  As I have confronted this issue, and advanced my understanding and thinking, I have come to the conclusion that both the realities of the death penalty as it is applied and the moral issues it raises dictate that it be abolished.

Benjamin Franklin said “… it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.”  The good news is that by eliminating the death penalty, we are not letting any guilty person go free, but we are making sure that we do not execute someone who is innocent.  We know the criminal justice system makes mistakes.  We need only look to James Tillman right here in Connecticut to remember that innocent people are wrongly convicted.  We know that hundreds of people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.  While we would like to believe that the criminal justice system is fair, that all the appeals will prevent an error, we know that is not the truth.  In Florida, where there is a death penalty, Former Florida Chief Justice Gerald Kogan stated after 45 years of working in the system, “There is no question in my mind…that convinces me that we certainly have…executed those not guilty of the crime for which they have been executed.”  Is that the society we want? Where we execute innocent people?  And if our society executes an innocent person, there is no possibility of fixing that error.   We can’t go back.  Haven’t  we then become the evil we are trying to eliminate?

The death penalty is not a deterrent. With all the studies that have been done, I am not convinced that criminals consider the death penalty when they are committing crimes.  In fact, states without a death penalty statute have significantly lower murder rates than their counterparts with the death penalty.   If you look at regions, the disparity becomes quite pronounced.  The South implements 80% of all executions in the country and has the highest murder rate, whereas, the Northeast implements less than 1% of all the executions and has the lowest murder rate in the nation.

In order to have a just society, we must have laws that apply equally to everyone yet the death penalty is meted out arbitrarily.  And if you don’t think that is the case in Connecticut, think again.  Last month, a few of us from the circle visited death row and the maximum security prison that houses the criminals who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.  On our way there, we were handed a list of criminals and the crimes they had committed.  They were heinous, horrible, unspeakable acts – and I thought surely each of them deserved to die- and then I looked at the heading on the paper—these were the criminals who had gotten life without the possibility of parole!  The people on death row had also committed heinous, horrible crimes but there was virtually no way to predict who would have gotten death and who would have gotten life without the possibility of parole.  It was completely arbitrary, based on the luck of the draw; race, economic status, geography, ethnicity, a good lawyer…some unknown factor that made the jury more or less sympathetic.  Is that justice?

The death penalty isn’t necessary for public safety.  The criminal has already been caught and tried.  He is removed from society and no longer a threat to anyone’s safety. The death penalty doesn’t bring back the victims of their crimes.   We certainly can punish criminals and protect the public safety without a death penalty.  And please don’t get me wrong, these people have committed horrible crimes and they deserve to be punished.  With the amendment offered at the beginning of this debate, we will have a harsh, severe punishment, so horrible atleast one person chose to die instead.

While these arguments alone call for repeal of the death penalty, for me, the most compelling issue is the one people don’t like to talk about – the moral question – the question the old man on the train asked – What kind of society to do we have and what kind of society do we want to be? 

Last September, I watched the Republican presidential primary debates.  The moderator asked Governor Rick Perry how he felt about the 234 executions that he had presided over in Texas, more executions than any other Governor in modern times and before the Governor had even had a chance to respond, the crowd cheered.  The      crowd       cheered.  What kind of society cheers death?  I understand people who believe that the death penalty is justice – but to cheer?  And then to add insult to injury, Governor Perry was asked — do you ever struggle to sleep at night?  to which Perry responded – No struggle.  I do not struggle to sleep at night because the system is fair.  Again the crowd cheered.  Even if the criminal justice system was without error which we know it is not, what kind of society allows the systematic execution of people without even a second thought?

I believe that the death penalty calls to our basest instincts.  You only need to think about the crowd cheering at the debate about executions to know that the death penalty degrades our society.  Imposing the death penalty is really not about the criminal.  It is about how it makes us feel.  Like Sen. Musto, I can imagine that if someone harmed my family, I would want to harm them, too, but I want my public policy to be better than that.  Like the old man at the train, I fear for our society when we people can cheer at an execution or we feel nothing or we feel like it just doesn’t matter if society kills , even when that person is no longer a threat to our safety.  When we go down that path, we lose something as a society.

Last month, I received an angry letter from a man suffering from a fatal disease.  He wrote that he had never done anything wrong, yet because of his illness, he was sentenced to death and no one could commute his sentence.  Then he wrote, it isn’t fair that he, an innocent man, should get a death sentence and the legislature would consider eliminating the death penalty for murderers.  I could understand his anger and his belief that repealing the death penalty meant that we were showing compassion for murderers whereas no one could really show the same compassion for him.  I thought a long time about that letter until I realized that repealing the death penalty has nothing do with compassion or the criminal.   It has everything to do with what the act of killing does to US, the law abiding members of society.  Killers kill and they don’t feel bad about it.  What separates the good from evil is when most good, moral people do something bad, it makes them feel bad.  Most people are good, moral people, trying our best to abide by the laws and rules of our society.  We teach our children to be kind, to be honest, to reject violence.  So when we also say it is okay for us to kill when there is no longer any threat to our safety, we erode the very morals to which we aspire. It is a small step from here to there, said the old man.  It is like a smoldering ember that slowly burns a hole in all that is good in our society.

So what kind of society do we want for our children?

We know our criminal justice system is broken.  We know all the arguments that logically support repeal.  But for me, the most compelling reason to reject the death penalty is to set ourselves on the path to the kind of society we want for our future.

I never saw the old man from the train again, but if I did, I would like to tell him this:   I want something better for our families.   I want to know that in the face of terrible evil, we will hold on tighter to our humanity; that when our faith in each other is challenged, we will work harder to fulfill our obligations to one another as human beings; that we will stand for justice for all; that we will raise each other up, and not descend to the level of criminals.  We cannot confront darkness with darkness and expect to have light.

 I hope that one day, when my children look back on this vote, they will view it with pride and know that today we took a step towards being a more civilized and just society for all.  I am proud to support the repeal of the death penalty.

Earlier coverage of her speech and the Connecticut repeal vote begins at the link.

News Coverage of the Delaware Clemency Recommendation

"Board of Pardons votes to spare convicted killer," is Sean O'Sullivan for the Wilmington News Journal.

In an unprecedented 4-1 decision announced Sunday, the Delaware Board of Pardons is recommending that the death sentence for convicted killer Robert A. Gattis be commuted to life in prison.

It will now be up to Gov. Jack Markell to decide if he will accept the board's recommendation to spare Gattis' life or if he will allow the execution of the 49-year-old by lethal injection to go forward as planned early Friday.

The Board of Pardons explained its decision in a press statement, saying that the jury recommendation that Gattis die for the May 1990 murder of Shirley Slay was not unanimous. The vote was 10-2. Board members wrote that they were troubled by the disparity in sentences that have been handed down for essentially the same crime, with some others receiving less than life sentences.

The AP filing is, "Delaware pardons board recommends commutation for killer facing Jan. 20 execution," by Randall Chase.  It's via the Republic.

"The governor will consider the board's written decision and carefully review the case," Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi said in a prepared statement. Rossi gave no timetable for when Markell will make his decision.

And:

Joe Rogalsky, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, issued a statement saying his agency respects the time and careful deliberation that went into the board's decision, but that it would not be appropriate to comment further until the decision has been reviewed in its entirety and with Slay's family.

"Del. Pardons Board recommends clemency for Robert A. Gattis," is by Jennifer Hayes for the Dover Post.

"Del. board urges life for death row inmate," is the UPI report.

"Delaware Board of Pardons votes 4-1 in favor of condemned killer's clemency request," by Mark Fowser for WHYY-FM Newsworks.

"Delaware pardons board show clemency to death row prisoner," by Ed Pilkington in the Guardian.

Today's Wilmington News Journal carries the lengthy report, "Doubts increase about death penalty," written by Sean O'Sullivan.  Here's the beginning:

Robert A. Gattis and Jermaine Marlow Wright were both sentenced to death in October 1992, the year many say Delaware made it easier to put criminals to death.

And by an odd coincidence, both men may be spared owing to decisions, one by a judge and one by a pardons board, made this month.

Legal observers and death penalty critics say the sudden turnabout -- for men who have spent almost 20 years on death row -- reflects an increasing skepticism among both the public and the court system about capital punishment.

Gattis, 49, who was convicted for the May 1990 murder of his girlfriend Shirley Slay, is set to die by lethal injection early Friday. But on Sunday, the Delaware Board of Pardons recommended by a 4-1 vote that Gattis' sentence be commuted to life in prison without possibility of parole. Gov. Jack Markell is now considering whether to accept that recommendation and spare Gattis' life or allow the execution to proceed.

Wright, 39, who was convicted of the January 1991 slaying of liquor store clerk Phillip Seifert, had his conviction and death sentence tossed out on Jan. 3 by Superior Court Judge John A. Parkins Jr., a ruling prosecutors appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court last week.

Since Gattis and Wright were sentenced, the use and popularity of the death penalty have waned.

Earlier coverage of Robert Gattis' case and Jermaine Wright's case begins at the links.

Commentary on the Mississippi Pardons

Let's start with the editorials and commentary in this post; news coverage, in the next.

Today's Jackson Clarion-Ledger carries the editorial, "Pardons: 'Divine' right trumps victims?"

In his way out the door of the Governor's Mansion, Haley Barbour caused a firestorm of citizen anger by pardoning more than 200 convicted felons.

Barbour seems to have underestimated the amount of citizen ire this decision would cause. It's puzzling on several fronts. For example, as Attorney General Jim Hood noted in temporarily blocking the pardons in court, the Mississippi Constitution may have been ignored by failing to publish 30-days notice about the pardons.

Also, some of these pardons were poorly vetted, for crimes that are still fresh and even premeditated crimes that cannot be simply dismissed as crimes of "passion."

They appear not well researched, which runs against Barbour's history as governor. He has never been so sloppy. Nor in two full terms has he been so insensitive to the politics of a situation.

The Mobile Press-Register editorial is, "Barbour's action was hasty, imprudent and offensive."

Whatever a state's constitution allows, though, usually gives critics little recourse.

That being said, it's going to be up to Mississippi voters to decide whether they are willing to continue to trust their governors with this power. Some politicians are already talking about pushing for a constitutional amendment to change the system, which would need a vote of the people.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was right to press for a halt to further releases, which a judge granted Thursday. All 200-plus pardons demand a thorough airing. If some warrants were pushed through hurriedly and did not provide sufficient notice, they need to be addressed.

But in the long run, Mississippi's going to have to live with what the law allows -- or act to change it.

Former White House speechwriter Mary Kate Cary writes, "Haley Barbour Was Right to Issue Those Pardons."

Back in the 1990s, I wrote many speeches for Gov. Haley Barbour when he was the head of the Republican National Committee. Now he's finishing his second term as governor of Mississippi and had a lot of people urging him to run for president this year. When you write a lot of speeches for someone, you get to know that person pretty well. Haley Barbour is an honorable, decent man. He's compassionate and treats the people who work for him well. He's also a lawyer, and is one of the smartest people I know in politics.

And:

While I don't know the facts of these cases, nor am I a lawyer, I suspect there's a lot more to the story when it comes to these pardons. As Barbour's office pointed out, the vast majority of those whom he pardoned had already served their full sentences, and his pardons were based on the recommendations of the parole board. I'd bet that at least a few of them were convicted under questionable circumstances, and may or may not have had the benefit of DNA evidence when they were originally tried. I'm sure the governor has seen, as the rest of us have, the increasingly unjust nature of our court system these days. Is there anyone who thinks our criminal justice system isn't tough enough? 

Haley Barbour is a smart, humane man. He understands the need for mercy and compassion in our criminal justice system. He's done nothing wrong.

At ABC News, Huma Khan posts, "Pardon Me: Is Southern Custom Behind Haley Barbour’s Clemencies?"

Four prisoners pardoned by Barbour last Friday worked at the mansion he resided in for eight years. All are convicted murderers.

Mississippi is one of the few states where the “trusty” system is still thriving. Under that system, well-behaved prisoners are allowed to clean, work in the kitchen, wait tables and wash cars at the governor’s mansion, no matter what their crime was.

Proponents say the system helps cut state costs and allows prisoners to put their time to use. North Carolina has a similar program that uses inmates for upkeep of a part of the governor’s residence. South Carolina did the same, but ended its program in 2001 after inmates were found to be having sex in the governor’s residence.

Barbour told The Associated Press in 2008 that it was customary for Mississippi governors to cut short the sentences of inmates who served at the mansion, a tradition that dates back generations. At the time, he faced similar backlash for releasing trusty Michael David Graham, who served 19 years of his life sentence for killing his ex-wife. Graham walked free after working eight years in the governor’s mansion.

The tradition of having inmates work at the governor’s resident is unique to the South, observers say, and is partially inspired by the states’ religious history. Even nationally, the pardoning system, from the state to the federal level, is rooted in some ways in the Judeo-Christian tradition, said P.S. Ruckman, Jr., a professor of political science at Rock Valley College in Illinois, who is writing a book on pardons.

Pardon Power is Ruckman's blog that focuses on clemency issues.  Additional news coverage in the next post.

Earlier coverage of the Mississippi pardons begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency index.

Last Meals

Today's New York Times Asked and Answered feature is, "Ex-Inmate Shares Stories of Stint as a Death Row Chef."  The interview with Brian Price is conducted by Timothy Williams.  Here's an excerpt:

Last month, Texas prison officials decided to end the tradition of special meals for inmates facing execution after Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, requested a large dinner before his Sept. 21 lethal injection. Mr. Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, had been convicted of chaining James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old black man, to a pickup truck and dragging him along a road until he died. As his final meal, Mr. Brewer had requested a pound of barbecue with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas “with fixings”; a cheese omelet with “ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos”; two chicken fried steaks “smothered in gravy with sliced onions”; a “triple meat” bacon cheeseburger with “fixings on the side”; a “large bowl” of fried okra; a “meat lovers” pizza; a pint of vanilla ice cream; a “slab” of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers. He was given some of the items, in smaller portions, but ate nothing. After the state’s decision, Brian D. Price, 60, a former inmate who as jailhouse chef cooked last meals for 218 prisoners on death row in Huntsville, Tex., offered to prepare meals for the condemned for free. Texas said thanks but no thanks. Mr. Price discusses:

QUESTION How did you get started cooking last meals for death row inmates?

ANSWER In 1989, I was sent to prison for assaulting my ex-wife and kidnapping my brother-in-law. I was sentenced to 15 years, and when I first arrived at the prison at the Walls Unit, they asked what I was doing in the free world as a profession. I was a professional bass player in rock bands and a professional photographer. When I relayed that to them, they just laughed. They said, “Well, there’s nothing like that here, boy.” So the warden looked over at the head of the steward’s department and said, “Put him in the kitchen.” And that’s how I got in the kitchen. On the dinner shift, or supper — which is what we call it down this way — we’re the ones who prepared the last meals because executions took place there at the Walls Unit. My friend, a four-star chef who was doing last meals at the time, didn’t want to do them any more. He wanted me to take over. I didn’t have any desire to do so at that point in time. But about a year later, my friend, Terry, the four-star chef, he wasn’t around, so I told the sarge that I’d do it, so I went ahead and did it to the best of my ability at what we had at our means. And so, the next day sarge called me into his office and said, “Hey Price, that guy they killed last night sent a word of thanks to the chaplain over here and said he appreciated what you did. He really liked it.” That blew me away. I went back to my cell that night, and I really reflected upon it and that was probably the last thanks that guy gave anyone before he left this world. And so the next day I went back in and told Terry, “I’ll do the last meals if you want to go ahead and back out.”

Q. Do prisoners actually get what they request?

A. The Texas Department of Corrections has a policy that no matter what the request, it has to be prepared from items that’s in the prison kitchen commissary. And, like if they requested lobster, they’d get a piece of frozen pollock. Just like they would normally get on a Friday, but what I’d do is wash the breading off, cut it diagonally and dip it in a batter so that it looked something like at Long John Silver’s — something from the free world, something they thought they were getting, but it wasn’t. They quit serving steaks in 1994, so whenever anyone would request a steak, I would do a hamburger steak with brown gravy and grilled onions, you know, stuff like that. The press would get it as they requested it, but I would get their handwritten last meal request about three days ahead of time and I’d take it to my captain and say, “Well, what do you want me to do?” And she’d lay it out for me. I tried to do the best I could with what I had. Amazingly, we did pretty well with what we did have. They are served two hours before they are executed and it is no longer a burger and fries or a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich or whatever they requested. All it is, two hours later, is stomach content on an autopsy report.

Q. What do you think about the decision to do away with special last meal requests?

A. It’s politically motivated. They waited for a heinous crime — the most heinous one in years here in Texas, first off — and then someone who ordered a lot of food, which they do that quite often anyhow. And they decided to stop the last meal request and give them what was on the line for that day. What raised the fur on my back was — how can one person do this? The State of Texas sends these people to the death chamber. It’s up to the folks of Texas if they want to stop a tradition, an age-old tradition. One or two men shouldn’t have the stroke of power to do that. What I’m trying to get across is to take this to the Legislature and put it to a vote. If the taxpayers want to stop last meal requests and show a calloused heart — but I truly believe it’s going to be turned around and they’ll reinstate the last meal request. No, these people don’t deserve a last meal request, but we as a society have to show that softer side, that compassion. It’s bad enough that we have the death penalty, it’s so archaic, but then to turn around and say, “No, we’re not going to feed you,” just out of pure meanness or something. I don’t know. We have to show that we are not distorting that justice with revenge.

Earlier coverage of the new TDCJ policy on last meals begins at the link.  Price is author of the prison cookbook Meals to Die For.

Televising Executions

Allison Gamble offers this Guest Post, "Why It's Not a Good Idea to Televise Executions."

Public executions have been around about as long as there has been a legal system. In the past, these punishments have been designed to be as degrading as possible, not only taking away the life but also the dignity of a criminal in front of crowds of people. Hanging was perhaps the most popular method, but there were several other even more horribly degrading punishments that could be enacted upon a criminal in public. As we have moved into the modern era, we have done away with these cruel and unusual punishments, and they are even outlawed in the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. Yet while our capital punishments are less graphic than in the past, there is still a pronounced interest in watching them, and with the advent of television and the Internet these executions can be watched by millions of people miles away from the event itself.

Why show punishments publicly? In the past, one explanation has been that publicizing executions discourages crime. In the modern day, when execution is typically much less violent, it is said to be a good political move, showing that the state is more humane than the murderers they are killing. Another argument is that of political transparency, that people should have a right to see what is being done in their name and with their tax dollars. Furthermore it is argued that people should be allowed to see for themselves whether or not lethal injections are humane, rather than rely on media reports to form the bases of their opinions.

To continue reading the Guest Post, click the link.

Fordham Law prof Deborah Denno posts, "Should Executions Be Televised?" at Encylopedia Britannica.

Whether executions should be televised is an intriguing question but any answer must be based partly on conjecture. No U.S. execution has ever been televised even though the issue has been raised a number of times over the years. Because I’m not a psychologist or a media expert, my speculation on the visual value of televising executions would be no more insightful than someone else’s.  What I would like to discuss, however, are some of the legal issues involved in videotaping executions and how they might come to bear on a decision to televise them.

Only two U.S. executions have  been  videotaped—the first was the 1992 gas chamber execution of Robert Alton Harris in California and the second was the 2011 lethal injection execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung in Georgia. Regardless of the small number, I think mandatory videotaping of executions in the U.S. for limited viewing by relevant parties (judges, lawyers, etc.) is a good idea because it helps provide objective evidence of whether or not the execution violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

To continue reading Deborah Denno's post, click the link.

More From Carol & Jordan Steiker

They post, "Why Death Penalty Opponents Are Closer to Their Goal Than They Realize," today at the New Republic.  Carol S. Steiker teaches at Harvard Law; Jordan M. Steiker at the University of Texas School of Law.  It's a must-read.

Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis last week was a poignant reminder of the continued presence of capital punishment in the United States. The Davis execution generated extraordinary interest because of troubling doubts about his guilt. Some observers have already speculated that the Davis case might serve as the spark that could reignite the movement to abolish the death penalty. But lost in some of the attention that the execution has generated is the death penalty’s unmistakable and precipitous decline over the past decade. If the battle has not been won by death penalty opponents, they are much closer to their goal than they realize. 

Death sentencing has dropped remarkably over the past fifteen years, making what was already a marginal practice (in terms of the frequency with which murder is actually punished with death) an exceptionally rare one. Whereas over 300 defendants were condemned to die per year in the mid-1990s, the most recent figures show a nationwide average closer to 115 per year—a more than 60 percent decline. Executions, too, have fallen significantly—by about 33 percent if one compares 1997-2003 (about 75 executions nationwide per year) and 2004-2010 (about 50 executions nationwide per year).

As a matter of politics, the momentum is clearly on the side of restriction rather than expansion. The past four years have seen the legislative abolition of capital punishment in New Jersey, New Mexico, and Illinois. Numerous other states have come close to abolition or have adopted new limitations on the death penalty (such as Maryland’s requirement that death sentences rest on biological evidence or on a videotaped recording of either the offense or a confession by the offender). As a matter of law, the death penalty appears more fragile jurisprudentially than at any other time in American history, save the brief period of judicial invalidation in the early 1970s.

And:

Thus, although American history is replete with (over)confident predictions of the death penalty’s impending demise, the present moment brings the genuine possibility of permanent abolition via judicial decision. The high drama of particular executions makes the American death penalty appear more entrenched and routine than it truly is, and obscures the broader trends and transformations. Such executions can also accelerate the movement toward abolition. And the execution of Troy Davis captures many of the vices—doubt, unfairness, expense—that could well cost the death penalty its life.

An earlier TNR post by the Steikers is noted at the link.

TDCJ Ends Practice of Special Last Meals Before Execution

"Texas Death Row Kitchen Cooks Its Last ‘Last Meal’," is Manny Fernandez' New York Times report.

For decades, Texas inmates scheduled to be executed had at least one thing to look forward to: a last meal. Earl Carl Heiselbetz Jr. ordered two breaded pork chops and three scrambled eggs in 2000. Frank Basil McFarland asked for a heaping portion of lettuce and four celery stalks in 1998. Doyle Skillern ate a sirloin steak in 1985. 

But state prison officials decided on Thursday to end the practice of giving last meals to inmates about to be executed, their decision coming the day after they honored an elaborate meal request from Lawrence Russell Brewer, one of the men convicted in the 1998 racially motivated dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper.

Before Mr. Brewer was executed by lethal injection in the Huntsville Unit on Wednesday, he was given the last meal of his request: two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas; a meat-lover’s pizza; one pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers.

The meal outraged State Senator John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. In a phone call and letter to the executive director of the state prison agency, Mr. Whitmire asked that the agency end the practice of last meals or he would get the State Legislature to pass a bill doing so.

And:

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington, said the decision to do away with last meals seemed petty. “If the last meal process has been abused, then maybe it warrants changing, but there are a lot more serious abuses that have gone on in terms of lack of due process in Texas,” Mr. Dieter said. “Inmates would much prefer a last lawyer to a last meal.”

The AP filing is, "Texas prisons end special last meals in executions," by Michael Graczyk.  It's via the Austin American-Statesman.

It was not immediately clear whether other states have made similar moves. Some limit the final meal cost — Florida's ceiling is $40, according to the Department of Corrections website, with food to be purchased locally. Others, like Texas, which never had a designated dollar limit, mandate meals be prison-made. Some states don't acknowledge final meals, and others will disclose the information only if the inmate agrees, said K. William Hayes, a Florida-based death penalty historian.

Some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple "final" meals, restrict it to one or impose "a vast number of conditions," he said.

Historical references to a condemned person's last meal go as far back as ancient Greece, China and Rome, Hayes said. Some of it is apparently rooted in superstition about meals warding off possible haunting by condemned people once they are put to death.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based anti-capital punishment organization that collects execution statistics, said it had no data on final meals.

Since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982, the state correction agency's practice has been to fill a condemned inmate's request as long as the items, or food similar to what was requested, were readily available from the prison kitchen supplies.

"Prison system ends special last meals," by Mike Ward, for the Austin American-Statesman.

On Thursday morning, after an influential state senator blasted the menu as "ridiculous" and promised to end the practice of special last meals for execution-bound convicts, prison officials canceled the long-standing program.

"They will receive the same meal served to other offenders" in the prison, said Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He said the change takes effect immediately.

Livingston's decision came just hours after Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, whose committee oversees the prison system, fired off an angry missive citing Brewer's requested "buffet" and demanding the special meals be stopped.

"Enough is enough," the Houston Democrat said in a letter to Livingston. "It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege one which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim."

He closed the letter by saying if prison officials did not end the practice, he would so in the next legislative session with a new state law barring special last meals.

Whitmire has opposed the practice for years.

Allan Turner writes, "Last-meal requests come to an end on Texas death row," for the Houston Chronicle.

Crockett restaurant owner and former death row "chef" Brian Price suggested the senator's complaints were grossly inflated because inmates rarely get extravagant meals they order.

"They only get items in the commissary kitchen," he said. "If they order lobster, they get a piece of frozen pollack. They quit serving steaks in 1994. If they order 100 tacos, they get two or three. … Whitmire's just getting on a political soapbox."

Price said he has prepared more than 200 last meals for condemned killers. He is author of the prison cookbook Meals to Die For.

Jim Willett, former Walls Unit warden and now director of the Texas Prison Museum, said allowing condemned inmates to order special last meals dates to at least 1924, when the state assumed responsibility for executions from counties.

The final meal has roots in pre-modern Europe, where executioners thought a fancy spread might quell the soon-to-be departed's ghost.

"We were just following that tradition," Willett said. "We were showing a little mercy."

A number of death-penalty states, including Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Virginia, follow the practice, usually setting guidelines for elaborateness of the meals and the costs.

In Louisiana, prisons spokeswoman Pam Laborde said, the warden at Angola traditionally joins the soon-to-be executed inmate in his last meal. On one occasion, the warden paid for an inmate's lobster dinner out of his own pocket.

"TDCJ Will End Final Feasts Before Executions," by Brandi Grissom at the Texas Tribune.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said most states and countries that still use the death penalty have some sort of procedure for the inmate's last meal. On that final day, inmates are usually also allowed more time with familyand other arrangements are made, he said, in an effort to keep the condemned calm as they approach the death chamber.

"I think it actually serves the institution’s purpose more than it is a great benefit for the inmate," Dieter said. "I assure you few people are looking forward to that last meal."

 

An Update on the Troy Davis Case

"Should Davis be executed? No: Questions about his guilt continue to plague his conviction," is the title of William S. Sessions' OpEd in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 2007, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay of execution for Davis and took the admirable position that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.”

Because this case continues to be permeated by doubt, the Board of Pardons and Paroles’ stance continues to be the right one. In reality, there will always be cases, including capital cases, in which doubts about guilt cannot be erased to an acceptable level of certainty. The Davis case is one of these, and it is for cases like this that executive clemency exists.

Those responsible for clemency play a vital role in ensuring our legal system includes a measure of compassion and humanity. The death penalty should not be carried out, and Davis’ sentence should be commuted to life.

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman's latest syndicated column is, "Troy Davis, victim of judicial lynching; Troy Davis faces execution on 21 September, despite seven of nine non-police witnesses recanting. Where is the justice in that?"  It's via the Guardian.

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 seven 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."

Today, supporters of Troy Davis submitted well over 600,000 petition signature calling for clemency.

USA Today reports, "Ga. death-row case shows power of social media."  It's written by Melanie Eversley.

A social media campaign to stop an execution in Georgia next week is drawing support from hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Celebrities, Nobel laureates and national leaders have joined the NAACP, Amnesty International and the grassroots group Change.org to urge Georgia authorities to grant clemency to Troy Davis, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday. They are flooding Twitter with several tweets a minute, signing online petitions and, starting today, planning to rally around the country.

And:

The latest effort, triggered when a new execution date was set last week, includes celebrities John Legend, Mia Farrow and the Indigo Girls. All are tweeting under #TooMuchDoubt, a search term devised by Amnesty International and the NAACP. Davis supporters also have created Facebook pages.

"In the moment, when our nation stumbles toward complete failure of its justice system, we have to give every citizen the opportunity to express their outrage and their intention that the state not do this in their name," NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous says. "When the state executes an innocent person, every citizen is implicated in that act."

The tweets ask the public to contact the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles — the group with the authority to halt Davis' death — and to urge the panel to grant clemency. They also ask people to sign one of three petitions the groups are circulating online.

"I think the key thing we are trying to express to the Georgia authorities is there are just so many doubts," says Laura Moye, death penalty abolition campaign director for Amnesty International USA.

The board is scheduled to meet Monday to consider the case. If it does not grant clemency, there is no official next legal step, but "we are not going to stand by quietly if that is what happens," Moye says. The NAACP also is calling on Chatham County, Ga., District Attorney Larry Chisolm to move to withdraw the death warrant, Jealous says.

Representatives from Amnesty International and the NAACP presented four petitions with more than 600,000 signatures to the state parole board Thursday. An online petition sponsored by Davis' sister, Kimberly Davis, and Change.org has collected more than 233,000 signatures.

This is what more than 650,000 petition signatures look like.

Troy Davis' case has caught the attention of people around the world.  Alice Kim, Director of the Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, is no stranger to the issue of capital punishment.  She's worked tirelessly to keep Illinois exonerees connected and to provide forums for them to bear witness.  At her Dancing the Dialectic blog, she's posted, "'I need a poem' for Troy Davis."  Here's a brief excerpt:

"I need a poem, need a poem, a master poem, once and for all, I need a poem to destroy poetry and break these iron bars." I fall in love with these words every time I read them, words written by exonerated death row prisoner and poet Delbert Tibbs. Today, I repeat these words for Troy Davis.

I want there to be a poem so powerful, so magical, so momentous that it can save Troy's life. He is scheduled to be executed thirteen days from today on Wednesday, September 21 at 7pm in Georgia. It is possible that these next thirteen days will be his last. If business as usual is not interrupted then a legal lynching will take place. But Troy has survived three previous execution dates because of doubts about his guilt, and I want to hope that Troy will be spared from execution a fourth time, that the power of the people will be the poetry that can save his life.

It seems that her post is, at least partially, inspired by Delbert Tibbs' "I Need a Poem."  Delbert Tibbs' story is told in the play, "The Exonerated;" he's the anchor of the play.  He was exonerated from death row in Florida and lives in Chicago.  He's a national treasure.  Everyone should get to hear Delbert speak his poetry.

Earlier coverage of Troy Davis' case begins at the link.