Arkansas Executions This Evening

This evening Arkansas plans to kill two men by lethal injection. Jack Jones, Jr., convicted of rape and murder 22 years ago, is scheduled to die at 7 pm; Marcel Williams, convicted of murder 23 years ago, at 8:15 pm. Litigation concerning both men is pending; no stays have been issued. Governor Asa Hutchinson has repeatedly argued that it was proper for him to schedule a mass of executions before the end of April, because one of the drugs used to kill prisoners will expire then. The state’s inability to get fresh drugs, or find out of if out-of-date ones would work, resulted in the unseemly rush to execute prisoners who have been incarcerated for decades. The Courts have stopped some of the planned executions. But tonight’s might go ahead. Hutchinson also argues that somehow Arkansas owes it to the victims’ families to carry out these executions. It doesn’t. In fact, the decision to kill or not isn’t up to victims. If it were, states would allow honor killings and vigilantism. They don’t because punishment is a state, justice function. Medicalizing state killing with gurneys and medical apparatus doesn’t make it less barbaric. It just hides the violence. But state killing remains violent at its core. It remains unreliable, error prone, racist, and regionalized. It continues not to be a deterrent, but instead to represent the ugliness of vengeance. The suffering in all of this is horrible and ever expanding. The victims, the prisoners, their families, those who prosecuted and defended them, the police officers who arrested them, their jailers, other prisoners, the waves of suffering grow as time passes. There is no closure. Only suffering. May those facing execution be spared.May all beings be well and safe. May all be free from suffering.

Not Good Bye Cruel World

Maybe there are Bloggers who announce that they have come to the end and are retiring from posting, that the Blog is over. Maybe they write a last post summing everything up and saying farewell, but that seems rare. It seems that most just run out of steam, post more and more infrequently, and one day the post is their last. Most often, it probably doesn’t seem that a final post is one, when it goes up; it’s just that it turns into one. Something lets the air out of the tires. The battery dies. Things fall apart. The blog becomes a corpse. The blogger walks away.

There are by now probably millions of corpse blogs. Some might have a single brave entry announcing what is expected to come next, but didn’t. Others have thousands of entries, series of essays about various topics. The posting stops. The end. Corpse blogs are like ship wrecks on the bottom of the ocean: you can find them if you search, but nobody works on them any more. They’re visited only infrequently and then only by divers who like wrecks.

Is this blog about to join the under sea wreckage? Your Bloguero fears it’s so. He didn’t post for two months and didn’t miss it. He didn’t feel compelled to announce any of his opinions to his readership. What a surprise. Instead, he wrote many haikus and posted them on Facebook. That is fun. It will continue. But writing a blog post? Your Bloguero cannot give assurances. Sad. He wishes he could.

Your Bloguero notices a potential pattern here. In the old days, he wrote a listserv denouncing the death penalty. There was no last post. Eventually the listserv had no new original content written expressly for it, and was used only to transmit links your Bloguero’s blog posts on the topic on this blog. Then there was nothing. The last post there was in September, 2011. Your Bloguero posted frequently from March, 2002 until June, 2006, and only sporadically thereafter. Then he just stopped. It wasn’t because he stopped fighting state killing. No. It was something else.

This blog, The Dream Antilles, began in August, 2005 and has now had 1460 posts. But it’s been silent for 2 months. Your Bloguero hopes this isn’t the last post. But he can’t say it won’t be. Just in case, thanks for reading The Dream Antilles. Thanks for your comments. And thanks for being there.

The Banality of Death: Manuel Valle

You may not have noticed this. There were no big demonstrations. There was no widespread Internet campaign. The traditional media didn’t react. In fact, as in most cases, the state killed its prisoner without much notice. And so it was that on Wednesday, after the Supreme Court denied a last minute stay, Florida executed 61-year old Manuel Valle. Valle was killed for the 1978 murder of a police officer, Louis Pena. That is not a typographical error. Valle was facing death for more than thirty years. He was not nearly the oldest person ever executed in the US, nor did he set a record for the time between the crime and the execution. Valle was just another execution. There was nothing remarkable about his execution. He was the fourth inmate killed in the United States in a week, and he was the first killed in Florida with just sodium pentobarbital

Predictably, relatives of the victim, according to a Florida Corrections press release, expressed “great relief that after 33 years, justice has finally been served for Louis and his family.” What else could they possibly be expected say? Put another way, the usual, well developed Kabuki accompanied the execution. The seemingly medical procedure used to kill. The press release stating the time of death. The dubious expressions by prosecutors and law enforcement that “justice was done.” A drama observers are entirely too used to.

The execution was opposed by the Danish drugmaker Lundbeck, the producer of Nembutal, the brand name of pentobarbital. Nembutal is intended for treatment of epilepsy. In July Lundbeck restricted distribution of the drug after learning that it was being used in executions. And on Monday a neurologist submitted a petition to the Florida Supreme Court requesting a halt to Valle’s execution, claiming that use of the drug in executions is illegal because the controlled substances act prohibits using it for non-medical purposes. An execution, no matter how it is made to appear to be a medical procedure, is not one. The court dismissed that suit on Tuesday.

The execution was also opposed internationally. Spain intervened at the last minute, asking the United States to stop the execution on humanitarian grounds and suggesting that Valle might be eligible for Spanish nationality. The US and Cuba do not have full diplomatic ties.
“We took up this case because under our constitution we are a country that opposes the death penalty,” Spain’s Consul General in Miami, Cristina Barrios said. But all that was to no avail. Nothing could stop the execution.

The death penalty is like that. Sometimes there is something special that galvanizes public opinion about state killing. Maybe it’s possible innocence or age or mental condition or racism or sexism or some other factor. But in general, state killing is banal. It’s ordinary. It continues unchecked. It fades into the background. It persists. It remains generally unnoticed. Until the next “special” execution.

State killing is carried out with such frequency that it is utterly exhausting to try to chronicle each and every execution and to explore the many facets of each that civilized people find shocking. The death penalty is like that. As it kills, it desensitizes. It exhausts. It’s like mercury, it is absolutely lethal and it runs away from our grasp.

Please Sign This Petition And Spread It Widely!!

Amazing. Please go to the Official White House web site (that's right, the one in Washington, DC) and sign the death penalty abolition petition. Right here

Please spread this widely

America Understands Justice

In last night’s GOP debate in California, a horrifying event. The audience loudly applauded Texas Governor Rick Perry when it was stated that during his tenure as Governor of Texas 234 prisoners met their death in that state’s lethal injection chamber. The record for state killing. You need to see and hear this:



The Telegraph summarized the exchanges that followed the applause:

Brian Williams, who was hosting the debate between candidates for next year's Republican nomination, asked Mr Perry whether he felt guilty about possibly sending an innocent person to their death.

The Texas governor said: "No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which, when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing."

He also added: "In the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed."

Mr Williams followed-up with a question about the enthusiastic reaction from the audience over Mr Perry's execution record and whether he was surprised by the rapturous applause.

Mr Perry said: "I think Americans understand justice."

That’s not much of an explanation. Even if state killing were just, which is it is not, that would not be a reason to applaud. No. Something else was at work. And that is that this audience was already inflamed by the overheated rhetoric of extremist candidates and was doing its very best to goad them on. The audience had become a surly, defiant mob. It was essentially saying, “We’re enraged, so enraged that our anger cannot be staunched, and we will applaud the shedding blood to show how very angry we are.” How barbaric.

If only we hadn’t seen this before. Bill Clinton went to Arkansas during his campaign to preside of the execution of retarded Ricky Ray Rector in 1992. Not to be outdone, George Bush had his Karla Faye Tucker. And now this. More applause for death. More incitement to rage. More provocation to kill. What a pathetic, barbarous display.

Ohio Kills Benge For 1993 Murder

Ohio today killed its eighth prisoner this year, setting a state record. Michael Benge was executed for the brutal January, 1993 murder of his lover, Judith Gabbard, at 10:38 am.

The routine of state killing remains so pervasive that it's unlikely you even noticed this execution, even though it was carried out in your name. Such is desensitization. In fact, there's very little that was unusual about this execution. The execution ended 17 years of Benge's confinement on death row. And yet again, it managed to dehumanized each of us.

The Columbus Dispatch provides details about the crime for which Benge was killed by the state:

Binge was convicted and sentenced to death for beating his girlfriend, Judith Gabbard, 38, with a tire iron, then weighting down her body with concrete and dumping it in the Miami River. The murder happened Jan. 31, 1993....

According to records of his clemency hearing, the relationship between Benge and Gabbard soured when he began smoking crack cocaine. He stole Gabbard's jewelry and other things to pawn to get money to feed his drug habit.

He became violent, with the aftermath of the beatings so obvious that she skipped family gatherings at the holidays in 1992 to avoid embarrassment.

They fought the night of the murder after drinking in a bar for several hours; Benge smoked crack. Eventually, he stole her ATM card and beat her to death. After disposing of the body, he swam across the river and hooked up with friends. They used the card to drain $400 from Gabbard's bank account, records show.

The theft of the ATM card was apparently the aggravating factor that made brutal murder a death penalty offense. All of Benge's appeals were fruitless. It took the state almost 18 years finally to end his life. One wonders what his death accomplished that his continuing confinement in prison would not.

While he was strapped to the gurney, Benge offered an apology to Gabbard's family, several of whom were present to observe the execution:

His last words, as family members of his victim looked on: "I can never apologize enough. ... I hope my death gives you closure. That's all I can ask. Praise God and thanks."

Asked about Benge's apology, the victim's sister made it clear that the reason for the killing was revenge for the death of her sister:

After the execution Kathy Johnson, sister of the victim, said, "It makes us feel there was justice for my sister. That's what this was all about."

When asked about Benge's last words, she said, "I don't feel like Mike Binge was remorseful. He has blamed everyone else but himself."

Is there any other way to read this comment, is there any way to perceive it that does not encompass revenge, an eye for an eye, a life for a life? I don't see it. And I don't agree that this is justice. This is not justice. This is barbarianism. This degrades us to the level of the killer. It has us adopt the killer's lack of regard for the sanctity of human life.

I mention this hear so that the ritual of state killing and as important, the ritual of our silence and our failing to notice when the state kills in our names may be abolished.

Howling At The Moon

Can you hear that? That's me, howling. It's not complicated why. Last night I started to write a blog post, in fact, this blog post. I had maybe 500 words typed into the box and then I moved the mouse and the next thing I knew, poof, there was nada, zilch, nothing. All gone. Totally vaporized. That's when I started howling. I continue even now.

The blog post, well, this blog post is/was about state killing. There have been two horrendous, macabre executions in the last weeks. Let me briefly recall them for you before I move on to what I think might be my point.

First, Virginia killed Therese Lewis. Lewis, you will recall, has an IQ of 72. She didn't pull the trigger in the double murder for which she was executed. The two men who were triggermen got life. They, as far as I can tell, were not developmentally disabled. Therese Lewis's crack trial lawyers had her plead guilty to a capital murder (the DA never committed to taking the death penalty off the table). Then, believing that a judge would give her life and not order her to be killed (again I don't know what they thought that), they gave up her right to a jury on the punishment phase. And guess what? The judge decided that even though she had an IQ of 72 (it's not clear that the judge knew this) she should die by lethal injection. Governor McDonnell, harking back to Bill Clinton's execution of Ricky Lee Rexford 18 years ago, denied her clemency. Virginia killed her. This, I said, wasn't justice. If it was, the law is an ass.

Then, George killed Brandon Rhode. Talk about setting new levels of macabre. Rhode decided to kill himself, using a razor, on the eve of his scheduled lethal injection. He cut his throat and his arms. He almost killed himself, but alas, Georgia would have none of that. Only the state, in Georgia's view, could kill him. So they sewed him up, and restrained him, and added security, and then, last night, they killed him. Let's review. Rhode had no regard for the lives of the three victims, two of whom were children. He had no regard for his own life, which he tried to take. And Georgia had no regard for his life, and by killing him our names, they reduced us to his level, the level of people who don't think life is important.

These two executions right next to each other raise all of the usual reasons why state killing is barbaric. And should be abolished. There's nothing new in them. Not really. The state kills its most marginalized members out of proportion to their population numbers: the poor, people of color, immigrants, the developmentally disabled (who can test of 70 IQ), the mentally ill, GLBT people. The state claims that the killings deter other killings. The statistics don't bear this out. But that means that the state thinks that somebody with an IQ of 72 is able to figure out whether what she's doing amounts to capital murder. Or doesn't. And, of course, there's the age old revenge reason for killing killers. An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but the logic of that doesn't eclipse the state's determination to kill.

No, there's nothing new. But I've been haunted by two ideas this week that for some reason hadn't occurred to me before. First, maybe we should be conceptualizing state killing as if it were a vestige of pre-Colombian human sacrifice. It's a lot like what Montezuma, for example, did. You capture people, you confine them, you feed them and take care of them. And then, after time goes by, when the need arises to pacify the gods, to make supplication for rain, or a crop, or prosperity, or fertility, you take the appropriate number of prisoners, and you ritually kill them.

The Aztecs had temples and furniture and plates and altars designed for this killing. Cortez was horrified when he arrived and saw the racks of skulls. Now we don't have anything quite as grizzly. Now we do it with medical trappings: a gurney, an injection, the person tied down to the table. It's all very neat and quite bloodless. But it's still killing. And it has a late 20th century sterility to it. Maybe state killing should be seen as a last vestige of human sacrifice.

Don't like that idea? Don't want to be associated with that kind of barbarism? That kind of lack of regard for the value of human life? Don't want own the savagery of state killing?

Then there's the other idea that's bothering me. The Thirteenth Amendment ended chattel slavery in the United States, except as punishment for a crime. The Constitution has the very 18th Century conception in it that convicts are the slaves of the state. Now remember that when this lingo was written down, there was in fact slavery in the US. The people who wrote this understood precisely what was involved in slavery. And when slaves rebelled, or refused to do what their owners demanded, what happened to them? They were imprisoned and beaten. Were they also killed? Of course. Is being killed by the slave holder for something you did a "badge of slavery"? So is it possible then to see state killing as the transfer of the power of life and death from private slaveholders (who could no longer hold slaves) to the state, the only ones permitted in the US to hold slaves? And is this revenge killing, now with lethal injections, just a continuation of slavery? Yes, I know. It's all dressed up now, with medical instruments, and special rooms, and nice courthouses with walnut paneling, and judges wearing robes. But in essence, how close is it to the continuation of the prerogatives of the slave holder?

What's the difference between state killing and lynching? The difference, if it is one, is that state killing is supposedly based on a fair trial. Lynching doesn't have any process other than violence. If a persons trial is grotesquely inadequate and she is convicted of capital murder and executed, the distinction between lynching and state killing is illusory. Put another way, what are the real differences in Georgia's killing Brandon Rhode and Georgia's lynching Leo Frank?

I remain mortified by state killing. This week has been a pinnacle of ugliness. The only saving grace is that California's moratorium continued this week because of judicial ruling. And because they ran out of a chemical they need to kill. They won't have the chemical again in sufficient quantity for about 18 months.

State Killing: Georgia Saves A Prisoner's Life So It Can Kill Him

As long as there is a death penalty in the United States, as long as the government persists in the barbaric practice of having the state kill those convicted of the most egregious murders, as long as the government continues to kill by lethal injection, there will continue to be egregious, shameful, disgraceful, inhuman, unfathomable executions.

Last week it was the Virginia execution of Teresa Lewis, a woman with a 72 IQ who was not the shooter in the double murder that led to her execution on Thursday. The two male gunmen each received life in prison. Little, whose guilt was never in doubt, pleaded guilty, waived her right to a jury trial on punishment, and to her then attorney's surprise, was sentenced to death by a judge without a jury. The judge said she was the "head of the serpent." I wrote that if this execution was justice, justice was an ass.

And now Georgia plans on executing Brandon Rhode on Monday.

Rhode, too, committed a horrendous, brutal multiple murder. Rhode killed two children and their father in the course of a burglary. The Atlanta Journal Constitution described the crime:

Rhode... and a partner, did not set out to commit murder when they broke into the Jones County house of Steven and Gerri Ann Moss on April 23, 1998, according to trial testimony.

Their plan was to commit a burglary.

But 11-year-old Bryan was murdered when he came home from school, then his 15-year-old sister, Kristin, and then their 37-year-old father, Steven Moss....

Bryan Moss was the first to come home.

The boy could see the two men through a front window as they were ransacking the house. The boy, armed with a baseball bat, came in through the back, but he was subdued by Rhode and Lucas, who were armed.

They put him in a chair as they discussed what to do with him. They were still talking about their options when Lucas shot the boy in the shoulder.

Moments later, Kristin Moss was seen coming up to the house, so Lucas took Bryan to a back bedroom while Rhode waited for the boy’s sister.

Rhode put her in the same chair and shot the teenager twice.

Simultaneously, Lucas, in the back with Bryan, shot the boy again.

Rhode shot and killed their father when he got to the house.

Then the partners shot the Moss siblings several more times to be certain they were dead.

There was never a serious dispute that Rhode was guilty of the crime, and Georgia was scheduled to kill Rhode was scheduled by lethal injection. According to a CBS report, Rhode tried to kill himself on Friday before the State of Georgia could kill him:

A federal judge has refused to block tonight's scheduled execution of a Georgia death row inmate who attempted to commit suicide on Tuesday, the day he was originally to be put to death.

According to court filings, 31-year-old Brandon Joseph Rhode used a razor to slash his elbows and his neck, which caused him to go into traumatic shock. Authorities say Rhodes may have also suffered brain damage as a result of immense blood loss.

Rhode was stabilized after his attempt and he's since been put in a restraining chair to prevent him from pulling out the sutures on his neck or doing any other harm to himself, a state attorney said.

Rhode's execution had already been rescheduled to 9:00 a.m. Friday after his suicide attempt, but the state moved his execution back 10 hours to 7:00 p.m. Friday, to allow for several appeals to work their way through the system, says corrections spokeswoman Sharmelle Brooks.

The execution has now been scheduled for Monday. And Georgia has reportedly put two additional guards on Rhode, so that nothing further will disrupt the state's killing him as scheduled. So in Rhode's case, the state finds itself saving Rhode's life so that it can strap him on a gurney and kill him by lethal injection.

There's a grim irony to this. Some prisoners condemned to death "volunteer" to be executed. They withdraw all of their appeals, they tell their lawyers not to seek a stay, they tell prison officials to schedule their execution. They give up. And they are killed. There are many reasons that this happens, and it happens frequently. Chief among the reasons for "volunteering" are the dehumanizing conditions on death row and the knowledge that eventually the state will succeed in killing by lethal injection. Prisoners just give up. That kind of suicide is acceptable on death rows across the country. It is a common occurrence. In fact, the list of those scheduled for execution released by various abolition organizations puts an asterisk next to these "volunteers" names, or states they are volunteers. That kind of suicide is permissible.

But Rhode's suicide evidently is not acceptable. He didn't create a legal framework for the state to kill him, he tried to do it without the state's participation. He tried to do it himself. And this, of course, could not be permitted. So now we have the spectacle of Georgia having saved his life, having stitched him up, having strapped him to a chair, having assigned additional guards, for what? So that Georgia can kill him in our names on Monday.

Put another way, Rhode had no regard for the lives of his victims. He has no regard for his own life. And now, because of the intervention of Georgia prison authorities, we are about to reduce ourselves to his level: we too have no regard for his life.

Yet again, the death penalty reduces all of us to the lowest common denominator of barbarism.

State Killing: Almost Disabled Enough To Live

Virginia plans to execute Teresa Lewis on Thursday evening at 9 pm. There's no question she was deeply involved in two murders, that of her husband and of her son. But you have to ask why she's being killed when the two men who actually fired the weapons received life sentences. And you have to wonder what the point of killing someone with an IQ of 72 might be, even if you're not appalled at the prospect of lethally injecting this woman.

The crime in this case is horrendous. There's no question that it merits at the very least long term imprisonment. The New York Times provides the following about the crime:

Ms. Lewis’s guilt is not at issue. By her own admission, she plotted with the men to shoot her husband, Julian C. Lewis Jr., 51, and his son, Charles J. Lewis, 25, a reservist about to be deployed abroad.

Ms. Lewis, then 33, met her co-defendants, Matthew J. Shallenberger, who was 21, and his trailer-mate, Rodney L. Fuller, 20, in a line at Wal-Mart and, according to court records, they quickly started meeting and hatching murder plans. She became particularly attached to Mr. Shallenberger, showering him with gifts, but she had sex with both men and also encouraged her 16-year-old daughter to have sex with Mr. Fuller, the records say.

Ms. Lewis withdrew $1,200 and gave it to the two men to buy two shotguns and another weapon. The night of the murders, she admitted, she left a trailer door unlocked. Later, she stood by as the intruders blasted the victims with repeated shotgun blasts. As her husband lay dying, court records say, she took out his wallet and split the $300 she found with Mr. Shallenberger. She waited at least 45 minutes to call 911.

Her husband was moaning “baby, baby, baby” when a sheriff’s deputy arrived and he said, “My wife knows who done this to me,” before he died, the records indicate.

After initially claiming innocence, Ms. Lewis confessed and led police to the gunmen. In 2003, she was sentenced by Judge Charles J. Strauss of Pittsylvania Circuit Court, who concluded that Ms. Lewis had directed the scheme, enticing the killers with sex and promises of money and showing the “depravity of mind” that would justify a death sentence. In separate proceedings, the same judge gave life sentences to the gunmen.

The judge who imposed the death sentence said of Lewis, "She is clearly the head of this serpent.” But there are questions about that. According to the Times,

Ms. Lewis’s lawyers later unearthed what they called compelling evidence that it was Mr. Shallenberger who did the enticing, including his own statements that he devised the murder plan and a prison letter to a girlfriend in which he said he “got her to fall in love with me so she would give me the insurance money.” Mr. Shallenberger killed himself in prison in 2006.

But prosecutors, in fighting subsequent appeals, said that before and after the crimes, Ms. Lewis had engaged in concerted actions to obtain money from her husband’s account and then from insurance, showing that she was far more capable than her lawyers now assert.

No evidence about Shallenberger’s role has been presented in court, but it was given to Governor McDonnell in a plea for clemency, along with details of her limited intellect, her diagnosis of “dependent personality disorder” and her addiction to pain pills. He rejected her request for clemency stating that the appeals courts had upheld her sentence and that “no medical professional has concluded that Teresa Lewis meets the medical or statutory definition of mentally retarded.” Nice.

If Lewis's IQ were 70 instead of 72, she would be unable to be executed under the Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Atkins v. Virginia. She would be too developmentally disabled to perceive why she was being executed.

How seriously can one take the argument that the "mastermind" of a crime, "the head of this serpent" has an IQ of 72 and that's why she should be executed even when the gunmen aren't?

I consider the death penalty an exercise in barbarousness. Virginia's planned killing of Lewis exemplifies this. There is no reason why she cannot be incarcerated for a long time. And there is nothing to be gained from killing her that will not be accomplished by imprisonment: her execution for a 2002 crime will not deter others, particularly those with developmental disabilities, from committing murders. Once again the state will kill in our name. And the reason for the killing will elude us.

BREAKING: Today's Planned Texecution STAYED

UPDATED: 6:20 pm EDT, 3/24/10: The Innocence Project reports that the US Supreme Court has issued a stay that prevents the execution of Hank Skinner.


Hank Skinner

Texas plans to kill death row prisoner Hank Skinner by lethal injection today. Even though DNA from the crime scene has never been tested, and even though Skinner has insisted for more than sixteen years that he is innocent, Texas plans today to have its inexorable revenge against Skinner for a triple homicide. Stopping the execution now so that DNA testing can be conducted depends on long shots: Texas Governor Rick Perry and last minute appeals to the Supreme Court.

The New York Times reports:

Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner doesn't deny he was in the house where his girlfriend was fatally bludgeoned and her two adult sons stabbed to death in 1993, but he insists that DNA testing could exonerate him.

Skinner, scheduled to die Wednesday in Huntsville for the New Year's Eve triple slaying more than 16 years ago, visited with his French-born wife as he waited for the U.S. Supreme Court or Texas Gov. Rick Perry to decide whether to stop his execution.

He and his attorneys contend his lethal injection should be halted for DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa. Results of those tests could support his innocence claims, they said.

''It's real scary,'' Skinner, 47, said recently from death row. ''I've had dreams about being injected. I didn't commit this crime and I should be exonerated.''

Prosecutors and the Texas Courts have insisted that Skinner isn't entitled to DNA testing of evidence that was not tested before his 1995 trial. His appointed lawyer inexplicably didn't demand it before trial. The remaining evidence in question will probably reveal whether Skinner or another man committed the murders for which Skinner was convicted.

Testing this evidence is important if Texas wants to be sure that it is not (again) killing an innocent person. The amount of evidence is not large; a DNA testing lab has agreed to conduct the testing for free. If testing does not show that Skinner is innocent, there would be slight reason to disturb his conviction. On the other hand, if the testing exonerates Skinner, he should clearly be spared and released from confinement.

What is the role of this physical evidence in this case? Dave Lindorff explains:

The thing about Skinner’s case is it would be relatively easy to prove whether or not he was really the killer of the three. There are two bloody knives that have never been tested for Skinner’s DNA--or for the DNA of Twila’s uncle, the man who had reportedly made several unwanted sexual advances at her earlier that evening, leading her to leave a party early, and who Skinner claims is the real killer. Nor was semen that was found on Twila Busby, who was raped, or skin found under her fingernails, ever DNA tested to see who they belonged to.

There were, to be sure, plenty of circumstantial reasons at the time of the trial to suspect Skinner. It is undisputed that he had been drunk and passed out on the couch in Busby’s house shortly before the murders, which occurred in the same room he was in. The drunken Skinner also staggered from the home in Pampa, TX, his hands bloodied, following the killings. But Skinner maintains that he had cut his hand, falling off the couch, and that the blood was his own. He says he had woken up to find Busby and her sons already dead.

Incredibly, police investigators at the crime scene never took fingernail clippings from Busby, nor did they take a vaginal swab at the scene, though she had clearly struggled and had apparently been raped.

This physical evidence should be tested. The execution, which has waited for more than sixteen years, can be delayed an additional few months so that testing can be completed. If the physical evidence does not exonerate Skinner, claims that Texas is executing an innocent man should be diminished.

The important questions for Texas today are these: what is the rush? Isn't it more important after all of this time, to know the truth about Hank Skinner?

Please sign this Innocence Project petition to Governor Perry.

Law And Disorder: Ending State Killing

It's not every day that I get a welcoming forum to discuss the death penalty and why state killing should be abolished. So I was particularly delighted to appear today on WBAI's "Law and Disorder". Want to hear what I had to say? Click this to play the interview.



A special thanks to Michael Smith, Michael Ratner and Heidi Bogosian for inviting me and to WBAI in New York for broadcasting this show both on the radio and the Internet.

h/t to Edger for embed

Death Penalty: The Times Speaks Up

It's a reason for optimism in the long battle to end State Killing. The New York Times editorial today called for the abolition of the death penalty. I applaud. The abolition of state killing should be a mainstream, American idea.

The Times is angry and points out the obvious about the change in Ohio from 3-drug state killing to 1-drug state killing:

This is what passes for progress in the application of the death penalty: Kenneth Biros, a convicted murderer, was put to death in Ohio last week with one drug, instead of the more common three-drug cocktail. It took executioners 30 minutes to find a vein for the needle, compared with the two hours spent hunting for a vein on the last prisoner Ohio tried to kill, Romell Broom. Technicians tried about 18 times to get the needle into Mr. Broom’s arms and legs before they gave up trying to kill him. Mr. Biros was jabbed only a few times in each arm.

The Times gets quickly from the barbarism of the Biro and Broom executions to the main point:

The larger problem, however, is that changing a lethal-injection method is simply an attempt, as Justice Harry Blackmun put it, to “tinker with the machinery of death.” No matter how it is done, for the state to put someone to death is inherently barbaric.

It has also become clear — particularly since DNA evidence has become more common — how unreliable the system is. Since 1973, 139 people have been released from death row because of evidence that they were innocent, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

An untold number of innocent people have also, quite likely, been put to death. Earlier this year, a fire expert hired by the state of Texas issued a report that cast tremendous doubt on whether a fatal fire — for which Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 — was arson at all. Until his execution, Mr. Willingham protested his innocence.

Most states still have capital punishment, and the Obama administration has so far shown a troubling commitment to it, pursuing federal capital cases even in states that do not themselves have the death penalty.

The Times conclusion:

Earlier this year, New Mexico repealed its death penalty, joining 14 other states — and the District of Columbia — that do not allow it. That is the way to eliminate the inevitable problems with executions.

Put another way, abolition is the answer to the lingering horror of state killing. Abolition just cannot happen soon enough.

State Killing: Scalia Doesn't Care Whether You're Innocent, You Get Executed Anyway

In the middle of Justice Scalia's dissent in Troy Davis's case, a dissent that Clarence Thomas joined in, we have this remarkable, astonishing, shocking sentence:

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

I cannot believe that they wrote this in a Supeme Court opinion. And I'm not alone in thinking I would never, never, never see something like this in a published opinion.

Let's begin with the trial. The State of Georgia tried Troy Davis for murder and it got a conviction. And that conviction was upheld on appeal. In fact, there was nothing the matter with the trial, nothing wrong at all according to the appeals courts except one small thing. The jury convicted an innocent man.

Troy Davis was convicted of the capital murder of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer who as then working as a security guard. You might think that convicting an innocent person was a serious problem with the trial. Unfortunately, Davis's persistent claims that he was innocent of the crime weren't enough to convince anyone. It was only later on, after the trial, after the appeals, that the ugly circumstances in the case emerged.

There were nine witnesses to the crime in which MacPhail was killed. Anthony Davis was apparently in a pool hall with a lot of other people. A man named Sylvester Coles was beating a homeless man outside; people including Davis emerged from the pool hall to see what was happening. MacPhail came to the aid of the person being beaten and was shot and killed. At trial Sylvester Coles was the prosecution's star witness. Seven other people said Anthony Davis committed the crime. The gun was never found. There was no physical evidence of any kind. That was the trial testimony, and it lead to a conviction and the death penalty. And to several affirmances on appeal.

And then, and then, and then, ut oh. Seven of the eight witnesses who claimed under oath and at trial to see Davis shoot MacPhail gave affidavits that their testimony at trial was false and they recanted their testimony. And some said that Coles was the actual killer and not Davis and that police coercion forced them to testify against Troy Davis instead of the real killer.

So Anthony Davis sits on death row. And he's facing execution. And the case goes to the Supreme Court. The majority, thank goodness, sent the case back to federal court for a hearing. Good. But Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented. And it's their dissent that makes me cringe.

Why? Evidently, in Scalia/Thomas World, if the state tries and convicts the wrong man, one who is actually innocent, and there's no Constitutional error committed in the trial according to the state courts, there's no constitutional problem with the state's killing him. Even if he's innocent. In other words, it's 100% legal, 100% ok to kill an innocent person. Law Professor Paul Campos explains:

Scalia takes the position that, from a legal perspective, it no longer makes the slightest difference whether Davis is innocent of the murder he was convicted of committing, and for which, in all likelihood, he will be executed. If a defendant got a fair trial in state court, there’s nothing the federal court can do, Scalia argues, to reverse that verdict—even if new evidence comes to light that convinces the court to a moral certainty that the defendant is innocent.

Scalia represents an extreme example of a certain kind of judge that positively revels in coming to conclusions that are morally revolting but “legally” sound. Judges of this type like these sorts of cases because they demonstrate that law is a supposedly nonpolitical and intellectually rigorous practice, rather than a touchy-feely exercise in doing what strikes the judge as the right thing.

What, after all, could be more nonpolitical and intellectually rigorous than executing an innocent man, simply because “the law” requires that result? In a perverse way, such bloody logic is a kind of advertisement for the supposed objectivity of the legal system, since we can assume that no sane decision maker would reach such a decision voluntarily. (The great legal historian Douglas Hay explained the 18th-century English practice of sometimes acquitting obviously guilty men on absurd procedural technicalities, such as incorrectly calling the defendant a “farmer” instead of a “yeoman,” in similar terms: “When the ruling class acquitted men on such technicalities they helped embody a belief in the disembodied justice of the law in the minds of all who watched. In short the law’s absurd formalism was part of its strength as ideology.”)

For more details on this case, and the recantations, see this.

I have written extensively about the barbarism that lies behind state killing. But I have never before seen anything quite like this statement from Justices Scalia and Thomas. It used to be a fundamental part of the law that it was better to let 99 guilty people go free than to convict 1 innocent person. In fact, the system of criminal justice in this Country was built on this very platform. But now, we have two Supreme Court justices writing that the death penalty can be upheld even when the person executed is innocent, that innocence just doesn't matter. Forget about the fact that if you're killing an innocent person, the person who actually did the crime hasn't been convicted.

That is chilling and simply disgraceful.

And it's another strong reason for ending state killing entirely. The machinery of death is an embarrassment to a civilized nation. Arguments like Scalia's and Thomas's reduce us to barbarians. And we're going to have evil, immoral arguments like these as long as there's a death penalty. That and we're going to continue to make it possible to kill innocent people.

State Killing: Travesties Of Justice Just Keep On Coming

Today's New York Times tells the story of yet another travesty of justice from Alabama in a death penalty case. This is the kind of thing that unfortunately is no longer a revelation. It's what you might expect. And it's happened over and over again. The Times reports:

Kenneth B. Trotter had been practicing law for less than a year when an Alabama judge appointed him to assist two more seasoned lawyers in defending a man facing the death penalty.

After the man, Holly Wood, was convicted in 1994 of murdering his former girlfriend, Mr. Trotter led the effort to persuade the jury to spare his life. The young lawyer came up just short: the jury recommended death by a vote of 10-to-2, the minimum allowed under Alabama law.

Mr. Trotter failed to pursue or present evidence that his client was mentally retarded, though he had a competency report in hand that said as much. In September, a divided three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled that he had made a strategic decision, not a grave error.

Judge Rosemary Barkett, the dissenting judge, saw it differently.

“An inexperienced and overwhelmed attorney,” Judge Barkett wrote of Mr. Trotter, “realized too late what any reasonably prepared attorney would have known: that evidence of Wood’s mental impairments could have served as mitigating evidence and deserved investigation so that it could properly be presented before sentencing.”

What is this saying? Maybe Mr. Wood wouldn't have been sentenced to death if the lawyer at his penalty phase had a couple years more seasoning. Or had introduced in evidence the document he apparently had in his hand showing that Wood was retarded. Or maybe Wood wouldn't have faced lethal injection if the Alabama courts literally followed Supreme Court decisions like Ring (forbidding the execution of people with an IQ less than 70) and didn't invent more "death friendly" interpretations of them. Or maybe Wood wouldn't have been sentenced to death if Alabama required a unanimous rather than a 10-2 verdict for death. And maybe Mr. Wood's death penalty wouldn't have been upheld if 2/3's of the Eleventh Circuit panel understood that leaving out mitigation evidence isn't ever a strategy for saving the accused, it's a lapse that can almost certainly kill him. Put another way, look how very close Wood came to a sentence of life without parole and not a state killing.

Is it tolerable to rational humans that all of these small, somewhat technical points are the differences between living and dying, between whom the state kills and whom it spares? I think not. These points only underscore the capriciousness of state killing.

Look at the admission of ineffectiveness Trotter made back in 1994 when he wrote to a colleague:

Mr. Trotter said he was anxious and lost. “I have been stressed out over this case and don’t have anyone with whom to discuss the case, including the two other attorneys,” Mr. Trotter wrote.

Clearly, the appointed defense lawyer was in over his head in the task of saving Wood from execution. He had one year of practice. He had no experience. He had two lawyers with him whom he couldn't talk. He had Wood's life in his hands. And he was being paid up to a maximum of $1,000 for the sentencing. It's a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe for the state's killing people who shouldn't be killed. But it's not unusual. And it's not just an Alabama problem. Not by a long shot.

Fortunately, the story doesn't end in the Eleventh Circuit. The Times informs us that the Supreme Court has now granted certiorari:

Last month, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr. Wood’s case. It will give the court a glimpse of Alabama’s capital justice system, which is among the most troubled in the nation. The state lacks a public defender’s office, elects judges for whom death sentences are a campaign promise, pays appointed lawyers a pittance and sometimes leaves death row inmates to navigate the intricacies of post-conviction challenges with no lawyers at all.

The root problem is money, said Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama, a nonprofit law firm that represents poor people and prisoners. The lawyers appointed to represent Mr. Wood in 1994 were entitled to a maximum of $1,000 to prepare for the penalty phase of the trial.

“It ought not be a shock to anyone that you get this kind of defense with that kind of funding,” Mr. Stevenson said. “The poor quality of indigent defense is still the ugliest scar on capital punishment in America.”

Bryan Stevenson is a brave and talented and resourceful lawyer. He's right that a root of the problem is money, but it's not "the" root. There's another, deeper root, one that is far more entrenched, and that is the insatiable desire of Alabama and the other states in the death belt for retribution in certain cases. An eye for an eye might leave the whole world blind, but that's not the culture in Alabama, and it's not something that deters revenge. Especially when the accused is not white, especially when the victim is white, especially when the accused is poor, or developmentally disabled. Providing inadequate, ineffective counsel is just a part of the revenge.

There's no question why revenge against Wood for his crime led to seeking the death penalty. Wood committed a horrendous brutal crime:

In September 1993, three weeks before Mr. Trotter was admitted to the bar, Mr. Wood broke into the home of a former girlfriend, Ruby Gosha, and killed her while she was sleeping with a shotgun blast to her head. Soon afterward, according to testimony from a cousin, Mr. Wood admitted to shooting Ms. Gosha, saying he had “blowed her brains out and all she did was wiggle.” Mr. Wood was the father of one of Ms. Gosha’s children.

You can easily understand why revenge called out for an execution. Given the culture, it made sense to prosecutors to seek the death penalty. So they did. And given the culture it made sense to appoint lawyers who were clearly not up to the task of saving Wood's life. That's not something that the state intends to "fix" by appointing better lawyers, by creating a statewide, capital public defender program. The inadequacy of the defense is just another part of the state killing machinery.

Sadly, we're going keep seeing these state killing stories from the death belt as long as there is a death penalty. Yes, it's barbarianism. Yes, it's disgraceful. And it won't be ended until voters across America are ready to say it's enough, we cannot have any more state killing, we cannot afford the extremely high expense of state killing, life without parole is more than enough punishment, and it adequately protects us.

Governor Rell Vows To Preserve State Killing

What a disgrace. On Friday, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill abolishing the death penalty. I asked readers of my essay to call or email Governor Rell to ask her please to sign the bill. There was, I pointed out, a strong chance that the Republican Governor, a long time death penalty supporter, would veto the bill.

Today's Hartford Courant says that Governor Rell vows to veto the measure when it gets to her desk. It might take a few weeks to get there:

Just hours after the state Senate gave final legislative approval Friday to a historic measure abolishing the death penalty in Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell came out with an expected announcement:

She said she was going to veto the measure as soon as it hits her desk.

"I appreciate the passionate beliefs of people on both sides of the death penalty debate. I fully understand the concerns and deeply held convictions of those who would like to see the death penalty abolished in Connecticut," she said in a statement.

"However, I also fully understand the anguish and outrage of the families of victims who believe, as I do, that there are certain crimes so heinous — so fundamentally revolting to our humanity — that the death penalty is warranted."

What nonsense. The families of victims are far from unanimous that the death penalty is warranted. In fact, as the Courant pointed out in its photo caption, Friday "[f]amilies of victims of murder [spoke] at a press conference in support of a bill passed by the legislature Thursday that would abolish the death penalty. Pictured are Gail Canzano, at podium, Elizabeth Brancato of Torrington, State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield of New Haven, Rev. Walter Everett , Cindy Siclari of Monroe and Anne Stone of Farmington." So the Governor's invocation of wishes of the families of victims rings hollow.

We can all easily understand how appealing revenge on killers might be, but the overwhelming majority of civilized societies in the world have now abandoned that barbarian argument. Rell chooses, however, to dress up the old canard in victims' rights clothing. The fact is that she's not doing anything for victims' families by permitting the state to kill killers. And she's certainly not doing anything for the rest of us, in whose names these state killings will be carried out. State killing doesn't deter killing, and it doesn't bring "closure" to the families of victims.

Governor Rell's vowing the veto because she allegedly "believes" in the death penalty. And when Republicans enact policies just because they believe in them-- surely the memory of George W. Bush has not been forgotten-- you know that irrationality has prevailed.

You might want to tell Governor Rell that the death penalty is a bad idea, that we can live without it, and that she's making a mistake if she vetoes this bill.

Please telephone Governor Rell (860.566.4840) or email her (Governor.Rell@ct.gov) and let he know that it's time for Connecticut to step into the 21st Century. It's time for her to sign the death penalty abolition bill.

Please Ask Connecticut Governor Rell To Sign The Death Penalty Abolition Bill

Early this morning the Connecticut Senate voted to abolish Connecticut's death penalty. The vote was 19-17. The bill now goes to Governor Jodi Rell (R). She sounds like she will veto the bill. So, if you care about the value of human life and making Connecticut and America more just and ending the barbarism that is the death penalty, this is an important time to spend a few moments to call or email Governor Rell to ask her to sign the bill. The phone is 860.566.4840. The email: Governor.Rell@ct.gov.

Connecticut is not in the "death belt." Never has been. Connecticut has had one execution in the past 48 years. Michael Ross was executed in 2005 only after he withdrew his appeals and "volunteered" for execution, and that decision was fought as far as it could go in the Courts. Regardless, there seems to be strong support for retaining the death penalty in the Connecticut Senate among its Republican members, some Democrats in the Senate crossed over to vote against the abolition measure, and and Governor Rell has repeatedly said that she supports retention of the death penalty.

The Day reports:

The Connecticut Senate voted to abolish the death penalty early Friday morning after a marathon debate, narrowly approving a bill that would make life imprisonment without possibility of release the state’s highest criminal punishment.

The Senate approved the death penalty bill, 19-17, shortly after 4 a.m., after nearly 11 hours of debate. The same measure had previously passed in the House of Representatives, and proceeds to Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who has appeared likely to veto the bill.

If signed into law, the bill would make Connecticut the 16th American state without an active death penalty statute.

The bill almost died in the Senate. "Partisan acrimony virtually derailed the workings of the chamber, as the death penalty bill ran head-on into a deliberate slow-down effort by the Senate’s 12-member Republican minority, prompted by the minority party’s anger at the management of business in the Senate." Put another way, Republicans, even Connecticut Republicans, and some Democrats, even Connecticut Democrats, cling to the barbarism and caprice that is the death penalty. "Republicans filed 26 amendments on the bill, eventually calling five, and finally withdrew their remaining amendments from consideration after securing an agreement from Williams not to force a debate on reform of the state probate courts even later into Friday morning." The final vote was 17 against abolition. That means that 5 Democrats voted against abolition. You might ask what probate reform has to do with state killing.

You'll recall that just recently New Mexico abolished its death penalty when the bill was signed by Governor Richardson. Richardson took the matter seriously, requested input, and ultimately made the correct decision. What about Governor Rell?

Well, yesterday, Governor Rell had this to say:

Meanwhile, Rell reiterated her support for the death penalty Thursday, increasing the likelihood of a veto, which supporters do not have the votes to override.

“You know how I feel about the death penalty,” the governor said. “I’ve always believed there are some crimes that are so heinous it deserves the death penalty.”

And before that she repeatedly supported of state killing. In other words, this doesn't sound good.

Please lend a hand. Please take a moment to email Governor Rell at Governor.Rell@ct.gov or call her office at 860.566.4840 and ask her please to sign the death penalty abolition bill. Do it because it's the right thing to do. Do it because we need to join virtually all of the rest of the world and stop state killing.

A Surprise Reason To Vote For Scott Murphy In NY-20

There is a report in the Albany Times Union that Scott Murphy, democratic candidate for my district, NY-20, has stated that he's opposed to the death penalty for all crimes:

Speaking on Talk 1300-AM, WGDJ, Murphy tells host Fred Dicker he opposes the death penalty in all cases, including for the Sept. 11 terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and Washington, D.C.
Murphy says the evidence may not be conclusive in many cases and guilt can’t be guaranteed. He says the cost of making a mistake in a death penalty case is too high.

Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate in the March 31 special election in the 20th Congressional District, supports the death penalty.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which has been flooding the area with extremely negative TV ads, responded with shop warn outrage:

“Scott Murphy’s comments are both dangerously naïve and appalling. Murphy’s opposition to the death penalty even for those terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center is shocking. As someone who is not native to the state of New York, it is abundantly clear that he is unable or unwilling to empathize with the loss so many families faced on that tragic day.”

So the NRCC, never a fount of reason, would have us believe that empathy with victims mandates state killing. Evidently not believing in this specious equivalence is "dangrously naive and appalling." And so the NRCC response suffers from the same ailment as its TV ads: it's too shocked, too angry, too put off to respond on the merits. This kind of ad, I think, actually turns off voters.

Murphy's statement in opposition to state killing is another reason to support him.

Thank you!

Yesterday was a wonderful day for me and for everyone else who hopes that state killing will eventually be abolished in the US:

Gov. Bill Richardson, who has supported capital punishment, signed legislation to repeal New Mexico's death penalty, calling it the "most difficult decision in my political life."

The new law replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The repeal takes effect on July 1, and applies only to crimes committed after that date.

"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime," Richardson said.

Europe's human rights watchdog on Thursday hailed the decision as "a victory for civilization." The American Civil Liberties Union called it "a historic step and a clear sign that the United States continues to make significant progress toward eradicating capital punishment once and for all."

AP.

I wrote about this on several occasions, and I requested repeatedly in those essays that you call the Governor and urge him to sign the bill. It is especially for all of those phone calls to the Governor and your emails to him that I want to thank you. This is a great victory. And, truthfully, it would not have happened without your support. I applaud you!

I know that one abolitionist friend today is joyfully wearing a t-shirt that says, "Someday happens."

For the record: New Mexico became the second state, after New Jersey, to repeal the death penalty legislatively since 1965, when both Iowa and West Virginia repealed their death penalty laws. New York’s death penalty was struck down as unconstitutional, and it has not been re-enacted. Twelve other states never had the death penalty: they either outlawed it before 1965, or after 1972 after Furman v. Georgia struck down all death penalty laws, they never enacted a new one. Fifteen states, including New Mexico, now do not have the death penalty. Thirty-five states, the military and the U.S. federal government retain it.

Thanks! Let's do this again soon!!

h/t Abe Bonowitz

Last Chance To Ask Bill Richardson To Sign For Death Penalty Abolition

Today, Monday, is the last chance to call Governor Richardson at (505)476-2225 and ask him to sign the NM Death Penalty Abolition Bill that passed the legislature this past Friday.

Details about all of this is here.

No time for details? The shortest version: please call Governor Richardson at (505) 476-2225 and ask him please to sign the Death Penalty Abolition Bill. This will take only seconds, and it's terribly important to the cause of abolishing state killing.

Thanks for making the call.

Please Ask Gov. Richardson To Sign The Death Penalty Abolition Bill

This morning, I re-wrote my dailyKos diary from yesterday, put it up, and again asked people please to call New Mexico Governor Richardson and to ask him to sign the Death Penalty Abolition Bill. Here's what I wrote:

I posted this diary yesterday. I'm posting it again today because Governor Richardson is taking comments on the New Mexico Death Penalty Abolition Bill until Monday evening.

Friday, I wrote that the New Mexico legislature passed a bill calling for the abolition of that state's death penalty. The bill (pdf) has been sent to Governor Richardson for his signature. That's where you, my fellow Kossacks, come in. We all need to call the Governor and ask him to sign the bill.

Governor Richardson has formerly supported the death penalty, but he says he has not made up his mind about this bill:

Richardson, a second-term Democrat, has opposed repeal in the past but now says he would consider signing it.

"I haven't made a final decision," the governor said this week.

I want you, fellow Kossacks, to help him make his final decision, a decision to sign the abolition bill.

You can make a lasting contribution to the abolition of the death penalty in New Mexico and ultimately in the entire US, by making a single telephone call to New Mexico Governor Richardson and asking him courteously to sign the death penalty abolition bill. Just ask that he sign the bill. Here's the number: (505) 476-2225. The number will record your request. There is no human being on the phone, just a recorder.

Please spend 30 seconds making this call and make this request.

The logic for this is clear. The more calls the Governor receives, the more he understands that there is enormous support for him and for abolition and for his signing the bill. Huge support for signing makes it more likely that the Governor will sign the bill.

It's unbelievably simple what is needed. But it requires you, dear Kossacks, to take action, to make the call, to spend 30 seconds.

Please make this call. Please bring abolition of the death penalty to New Mexico.

Despite their directness, neither diary/essay generated a large response. Today's had about 20 recommendations; yesterday's, about 40. I have no idea how many people actually called Governor Richardson's number (505) 476-2225 and left a recorded message asking the Governor to sign the bill. I know that I did, and I trust that those who said they called in the comments actually called. Of course, I have no idea how many people just made the call after they saw the essay and didn't bother to click anything on dailyKos.

I also sent the first request for calls essay to a number of well known, large, leftwing blogs to ask them to help out with this, to ask them to ask their readership to call the Governor. This morning I awoke to see that none had responded to the request.

I don't really claim to understand how something that seems to me to be so important and so easy to carry out can have so lame a response. I'm not whining about this. I'm just saying that I don't understand it. I have no intention of spending additional time or energy trying to figure this out. I need to devote myself to trying to bring about results and not shunt myself onto some abandoned siding to analyze the meta.

So, dear readers, I am asking you to call Gov. Richardson and ask him to do the right thing, sign the bill, end the death penalty in New Mexico. It's easy. And it's the right thing to do.