Troy Anthony Davis almost certainly is innocent, but that has not stopped the State of Georgia from giving him a new execution date: September 23, 2008. A hearing on his case is scheduled before the State of Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole on Friday, September 12, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. It is imperative that the board receive notes, emails and calls from people who want to try and stop this injustice.
In Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial, the main character is prosecuted and executed for an unnamed crime. We like to think that this kind of absurd surrealism only happens in literature. But something similarly absurd is occurring in the U.S. death penalty system. Texas planned to execute Jeffery Wood tonight for murder even though he did not kill anyone nor did he intend that anyone be killed. He was not even in the building when the person he was convicted of killing was murdered. The fact that a judge has stayed his execution for last-minute assessment of his mental competency doesn't detract from the absurdity that he's still on death row.
A judge in North Carolina ruled that Guy LeGrande was not competent to be executed. LeGrande has suffered with mental illness for years. His illness was in full view of the jury when he represented himself in his capital trial. During the trial, LeGrande wore a Superman t-shirt and insulted the jury. LeGrande had an execution date scheduled in 2006 but a judge stayed the execution so that he could be examined by psychiatrists.
After a two-week visit to the United States, Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, expressed deep concern (PDF) about the way the country carries out capital punishment. During his visit, Alston met with officials in Austin, Texas; Montgomery, Ala.; New York and D.C., including ACLU national and state affiliate staff.
John Holdridge, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, received the Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award from Lawrence University. John, a 1977 graduate of Lawrence, was honored for his tireless work as a zealous defense attorney in the courtroom for people facing the death penalty and as a staunch abolitionist in the halls of academia and even the Irish Parliament.
Injustice runs rampant in North Carolina's death penalty system.Of the 129 people exonerated from death row, eight are from North Carolina. The most recent exonerees were sent to death row because of prosecutorial misconduct, use of coerced testimony from snitches and junk science. The state has lied to a judge about how executions would be carried out and lied to a corporation that they would not use a machine for executions when, in fact, it is exactly why the state purchased the machine.
When I was a younger man, George H.W. Bush launched many attacks against Michael Dukakis in the Presidential contest of 1988. In addition to the racism of the Willie Horton ad, King George I accused the Massachusetts Governor of being a card-carrying member of the ACLU. That seemed pretty cool to me so the first time I was able to vote in a general election, I voted for Dukakis.
There's that old phrase that youth is wasted on the young.
Someone should have that to the mass of youth that have descended upon D.C.
to "Stand Up for Freedom." The young people attending this conference would pass a civil liberties test with flying colors, and aren't wasting their youth. They are making the most of it by
equipping themselves to fight the civil liberties battles that they
will fight now and into the future.
Capital Punishment Project (CPP) Director John Holdridge was interviewed on May 8, 2008, by Jacque Reid of the Tom Joyner Morning Show (TJMS). The TJMS is one of the most influential programs on urban radio. During the segment called "Inside Story with Jacque Reid," John discussed the inherent problems of racial biases and disparities in the United Stat
