April 4
ALABAMA----new death sentence
Convicted murderer given death penalty in Tuscaloosa court
A judge has sentenced convicted killer Michael Belcher to death for his role in
the torture and beating death of Samantha Payne.
Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Brad Almond followed a jury’s
recommendation by choosing death by lethal injection over life with no
possibility of parole.
Belcher spoke briefly to the judge before he was sentenced at the hearing
Wednesday morning, saying “Words can’t express my sorrow and grief.”
Payne endured hours of beatings from a group of friends who were all using
methamphetamine at Belcher’s father’s motorcycle repair shop in Centreville the
night of Nov. 2, 2015. Her throat had been cut while she was tied to an
ironwood tree and she was left to die in a remote area of the Talladega
National Forest. Prosecutors said Belcher was the ringleader who encouraged the
beatings from the others, saying they believe he is the one who cut her throat
after she was tied, naked, to the tree.
A 12-member jury found Belcher, 34, guilty of capital murder during a
kidnapping after a trial last month, deliberating just two hours to reach the
unanimous verdict on March 13. They took even less time to recommend the death
penalty after a hearing held the following week, with all agreeing the crime
was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel compared to other capital
offenses.”
(source: Tuscaloosa News)
*************************
These Men are Fighting to Abolish the Death Penalty—From Death Row----Project
Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty is the nation’s only anti–death penalty
organization run by death-row prisoners.
It was early on a September morning in 1993 when police in Morgan County,
Alabama, dragged Gary Drinkard through his car window and threw him to the
ground. Minutes before, he’d been sitting in his kitchen with his half-sister,
discussing a newspaper article about the murder of a local junkyard dealer
named Dalton Pace. A wire taped between her legs recorded the conversation,
feeding it to the officers stationed outside.
The police told Drinkard, who had served time for robbery but was working hard
to turn his life around, that he was being charged with Pace’s murder. Two
weeks earlier, the 62-year-old had been found shot dead, with $2,000 missing
from his pants pocket. As Drinkard sat in the Morgan County jail, one of his
attorneys assured him that there was no evidence tying him to the crime, and
that he would be out in no time.
Neither of Drinkard’s court-appointed attorneys was a criminal lawyer, and
neither had tried a capital-murder case. Each received a scant $1,000 from the
state to mount Drinkard’s defense.
Drinkard said he’d been at home at the time of the murder—and that a painful
back injury would have made committing the crime impossible. His lawyers,
however, failed to prepare a key witness and to call in a physician to testify
about the back injury. When Drinkard’s case went to trial, he was sentenced to
death. That was in 1995.
“I lose everything,” Drinkard, now 63, said 25 years later, still speaking of
the verdict in the present tense. “I lose the dream home, lose the family—I
mean, it was a bitch.”
Drinkard told his wife to find another man. She thought he didn’t love her, but
that wasn’t true; he wanted her to find someone to help take care of their 3
children.
A couple of months after he arrived on death row at the William C. Holman
Correctional Facility, Drinkard met Darrell Grayson, who offered him coffee,
cigarettes, and an invitation. Each Wednesday, Grayson and a group of other
death-row inmates would meet in the prison’s law library and work on a plan to
raise awareness about inequity in the criminal-justice system. Dubbed Project
Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, it was—and remains—the nation’s only
anti-death-penalty organization run by death-row prisoners.
When Drinkard arrived at Holman, the organization was just 6 years old. It had
been formed in 1989, after Cornelius Singleton, an intellectually disabled man
who had been convicted of killing a nun—but who many believe was
innocent—begged two death-row inmates for help. Over the next few months, they
put together a five-man committee that outlined the group’s purpose: They would
educate the public—the people responsible for deciding their fates—on the
realities of the death penalty in Alabama. In a “death belt” state infamous for
its dedication to capital punishment, this was a crucial mission.
In the 30 years since, Project Hope’s members have come and gone. Singleton was
executed in 1992, Grayson in 2007, and Drinkard won his freedom in 2001. But
Project Hope continues, its mission now expanded to include providing legal
guidance and emotional support as well as advocacy. The nonprofit is currently
composed of 15 men, as well as an advisory board of outside supporters; its
mighty executive director, Esther Brown, now 85, is a former psychiatric social
worker whom one member referred to as “the most loyal person I’ve ever known.”
Project Hope meets at Holman but says that it represents all 176 people on
Alabama’s three death rows, sending its newsletter to the men—and a handful of
women—held at the two other prisons that house people awaiting execution.
Hidden from the rest of the world, these men and women have reached the end
point of a system that seems to have been designed to snare people who are
poor, of color, or intellectually disabled. Adequate legal representation is
rare; prosecutorial misconduct is rampant. In 2016, Alabama had the highest
number of death-row inmates per capita in the United States. Today, half of
those men are black, despite making up just a quarter of Alabama’s population.
And in the 6th-poorest state in the country, all of Project Hope’s members are
impoverished. This fundamental inequity is the axis around which so much of the
group’s work spins.
“There are no rich people on death row,” wrote Anthony Tyson, the
organization’s chairman, in a letter. (The Alabama Department of Corrections
refused to allow in-person interviews with Project Hope’s members, citing a
state law prohibiting the press from meeting face-to-face with death-row
prisoners.) “If you fit the bill they’re looking for and you are broke, then
you receive the death penalty.”
Since the organization’s inception, Holman’s wardens have allowed Project Hope
to exist, so long as its members abide by one clear rule: They may not discuss
prison conditions. Instead, during the weekly Wednesday meetings, members talk
about current death-penalty news, which they learn from articles sent in by one
of the advisory-board members. Lately, that news has been focused on
legislative efforts to abolish the death penalty in states like New Hampshire,
Nevada, and Colorado. The men are hopeful that, with each new state that
abandons the practice, the moral tide will shift, drawing the states that still
have capital punishment—some 30 in all (though four have recently instituted
moratoriums)—into the anti-death-penalty column. They’ve also been working on a
long-term project that aims to show the racial disparities of the death penalty
in states across the country.
At 10 am on these Wednesdays, the group’s six board members phone Brown, who
has been the face of Project Hope for the past 19 years, with duties that
include representing it at speaking events and conferences, writing grant
proposals, maintaining the website, and keeping the books. (The organization
raises roughly $3,000 annually.) Brown pays for the weekly meeting calls (and
the yearly Christmas party) out of her pocket. During the calls, the men speak
with her on topics that, in addition to death-penalty news, can vary from
family and friends to the day’s lunch.
Sitting in a floral-patterned armchair in her home in southeast Alabama last
July, Brown listened as the organization’s sergeant at arms, Anthony Boyd, or
“Ant,” led a conversation about the ways that spending money on education
instead of the death penalty could transform a broken system. “If you pay
teachers what they’re worth, there will be less crime and more scholars, but
they want to spend money taking lives,” he said.
Tyson, the group’s chairman, knows the state’s priorities are elsewhere.
“There’s 2 things never going out of business in Alabama,” he said:
“corrections and funeral homes.”
When vice chairman Bart Johnson took the phone, Brown chastised him for calling
her “ma’am.” “I’m Esther—I don’t want this ‘ma’am’ thing,” she joked. Each
15-minute phone conversation ends with “I love you.”
The rest of the meeting takes place among the men and runs until 1:30 pm. Some
of them stick around for Tyson’s law class or “enlightenment group,” which
educates the men on how to navigate the state and federal appellate processes.
For most of them, a key component is learning how to advocate for themselves,
including with their attorneys. “Our lawyers need us to remind them of things,”
Tyson says. “We are not their top case or their only case. So we have to be our
case.”
Over the past 11 years, 2 of Tyson’s students, Montez Spradley and William
Ziegler, have been freed, and several have gotten their sentences reduced to
life. Tyson doesn’t attribute the victories to his class, but instead to the
teamwork between his newly legal-savvy students and their attorneys. At the end
of the year, Tyson administers an exam to his students. Anyone who gets a
perfect score can choose any item they want from the commissary. Since taking
over the group in 2007, he has paid up twice.
While anyone on death row can join Project Hope, there are rules: Members must
act respectfully, and they are required to contribute to the quarterly
newsletter On Wings of Hope, which is written by the men on typewriters at
Holman and then sent to Brown, who adds her own content and takes it to the
printer. The newsletter is distributed to about 1,300 subscribers.
In its most recent issue, Brown—who was diagnosed with a brain tumor late last
year—announced that she would be stepping down from her duties. “I would like
to be remembered as someone who was incredibly fortunate,” she wrote in a piece
titled “Thank You!” “I always received what I gave many times over. I was never
a victim, but did whatever I did because it expressed me and rewarded me.”
When he was asked by Darrell Grayson to join Project Hope, Drinkard—who had
once been a supporter of the death penalty—wasn’t sure that the group would
achieve much. Still, he decided to join. He devoured the law class and quickly
earned a reputation as something of a legal scholar. He penned letters to
politicians and local leaders, urging them to support a moratorium on the death
penalty in Alabama. And, over time, he drew closer to the men in Project Hope.
“You met people from everywhere, from every different form, and you were all
brothers. You were all there for the same reason: to be killed by the state,”
he said.
Despite the kinship, Drinkard sometimes thought of suicide. He was overwhelmed
by the hopelessness of facing death for a crime he didn’t commit. And when it
came time for his friends to die, as inevitably happened, the scent of their
flesh burning in the electric chair haunted him. After Alabama executed his
best friend, Brian Baldwin, in 1999, Drinkard nearly jumped on a guard he’d
heard laughing about packing cotton up Baldwin’s rectum, a standard practice in
executions back then.
It was at times like these that Drinkard would write poems for the Project Hope
newsletter, like the one titled “Living Tomb,” which begins: “When oh when,
will our nation see / They are likely to be next, sitting beside me?”
Still, death row was a lot less violent than the rest of the prison, Drinkard
said. During the nearly six years he was there, he never witnessed a fight. But
in the general population, there was a fight or a stabbing once a week.
Drinkard attributed this relative calm to Project Hope. Timothy Stidham, a
former Holman corrections officer who oversaw death row from 2015 to 2016,
agreed: “They’re a great support group for each other. They do a lot of good
things for ‘em, I will say that.”
For Tyson, who has spent 20 of his 46 years at Holman, the group’s legacy runs
deeper still. “I really feel that this was one of the greatest things that
could have been offered for a person in this situation,” he wrote. “A lot of us
really didn’t start living until we got here. So, we don’t call it death row…
we call it life row.”
One of the ways that Project Hope has managed this shift is by helping keep
people alive, quite literally. It’s a feat the group accomplishes not only by
providing emotional support for its members, but also by offering legal
resources and guidance.
Shortly after they arrive at Holman, Project Hope’s members advise new
prisoners to contact the Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit legal
organization run by Bryan Stevenson, to ask for help obtaining an appellate
attorney. It’s a critical task, as Alabama was the only state in the country
that didn’t provide counsel for post-conviction proceedings until 2017—and,
even now, the quality of the representation remains uncertain. The group also
serves a broader advocacy role. When, in June 2018, the state announced that
prisoners had three days to decide whether they’d like to die by lethal
injection or nitrogen gas—an experimental method that kills through
asphyxiation and was cooked up by the state as an alternative to lethal
injection—Project Hope spread the word for everyone to contact their attorneys.
These are vital interventions into a system designed to hasten people toward
their deaths. In Alabama, the list of circumstances that qualify someone for
the death penalty is long; there is no statewide public defender’s office
outfitted with the necessary resources to successfully try a capital-murder
case (instead, individual attorneys must rely on elected judges to approve
funds for experts and investigators); and in 2017, the state made it even more
difficult for death-row inmates to fight their convictions by passing the
so-called Fair Justice Act, which requires death-row prisoners to file
post-conviction claims on issues like ineffective assistance of counsel or new
evidence within a year of their direct appeal. While its supporters championed
the legislation as a way to speed up “frivolous appeals,” critics say the
likelihood of wrongful executions will increase without the opportunity for
attorneys to take their time reviewing their clients’ cases.
But perhaps the most egregious feature of Alabama’s death-penalty regime is the
anemic trial representation it provides for poor defendants. This remains as
appalling as it was throughout much of the South back in the 1970s and ’80s,
says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
“I think Alabama represents much of what is wrong with the death penalty
throughout the United States,” Dunham adds. There are few standards in place to
assure the quality of the attorneys assigned to cases, and the pay is paltry.
Until 1999, attorneys received $1,000 to build their case ($20 an hour for
out-of-court work and $40 for in-court work). Today, they are paid $70 an hour
for out-of-court work, while there is no longer a cap for the trial; direct
appeals are now capped at $2,500.
Data shows that hiring an attorney, as opposed to going with the state’s
court-appointed representative, is the difference between those who receive the
death penalty and those who don’t. Yet paying for an experienced lawyer is not
an option in most cases. A 2009 study by criminologist Scott Phillips assessed
the outcomes of trials in which defendants were charged with capital murder in
Harris County, Texas, between 1992 and 1999. Harris County is known as the
“capital of capital punishment,” yet the standards for appointment to represent
capital cases far exceed those in Alabama: Attorneys must be approved by their
peers and pass a capital certification exam, and the lead counsel must have
tried at least two capital cases before being assigned. Phillips found that
people who hired attorneys were never sentenced to death, despite being charged
with crimes just as heinous as the indigent defendants’.
Since 1973, 165 people—or one out of every 10 people executed—have been
exonerated. These exonerations, coupled with the growing concerns around lethal
injection, have helped shift support away from the death penalty, with an
increasing number of states opting to put executions on hold. But despite this
evolving consensus, for most men in Project Hope, the story still ends in a
sterile room, lashed to a gurney, awaiting an injection. (The state has used
lethal injection as its primary method of execution since 2002, prior to which
it used an electric chair, ghoulishly known as “Yellow Mama.”)
In the week leading up to an execution, Project Hope members say they make
themselves available to listen to the condemned. They promise the man they will
make calls to friends, family, or an attorney if anything goes wrong—and, as
they all know, much can go wrong. Just last year, Doyle Lee Hamm, who was
suffering from advanced lymphatic cancer, bled profusely as executioners spent
two and a half hours trying unsuccessfully to find a vein.
On the day before and day of the execution, the group’s members protest in the
yard, asking all inmates to wear their visiting whites and abstain from sports.
A vigil is held, during which the men share memories of the man scheduled to be
executed. When a board member is executed, the group holds an election. The
higher someone advances in the organization, the closer they are to death.
“Executions are never easy,” wrote Anthony Boyd, Project Hope’s sergeant at
arms, in a letter after the execution of Domineque Ray this past February. Ray
was left to die alone after the Supreme Court determined that it was
constitutional for Alabama to ban his imam from the death chamber. “You worry
for the person going through it all,” Boyd continued; “you worry about losing
one of your own, and it makes you think about how it could be for you
personally, if something doesn’t get done on your behalf.”
For Drinkard, it was luck and persistence that ultimately led to his
exoneration. While in prison, he wrote to attorneys asking them to represent
him on his appeals. His letters caught the eye of the well-known Alabama
death-penalty attorney Richard Jaffe, who told him it would cost $250,000 to
represent him—money that Drinkard did not have. In a stroke of luck, Jaffe
convinced the local judge to appoint him to the case. Drinkard says his work
with Project Hope prepared him to advocate for himself and work more closely
with his new lawyers: “I knew what the lawyers should do the second time, where
I actually didn’t know the first time.”
The Alabama Supreme Court ordered a new trial on the basis that his first trial
had been tainted by prosecutorial misconduct. Drinkard was exonerated in 2001
after his defense team presented evidence proving that he had never confessed
to the murder on that static-ridden tape recorded in 1993 and called witnesses
to prove he was indeed at home. After nearly 6 years on death row, Drinkard was
freed.
Still, almost 18 years later, he remembers death row vividly: the hot air
suffocating his cell, the sound of his friends beating against the bars during
executions, and the times he felt overpowered by hate. “I hated the system
because they lied, and there was nobody out there willing to prove the lies,
nobody would listen, and that’s the worst feeling you can have—when nobody will
listen.”
Like those who were exonerated before him, Drinkard never received compensation
from Alabama for his time on death row, and he survives on Social Security
disability insurance, having been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress
disorder. He studied respiratory therapy after getting out of prison, but no
one would hire him because of his murder conviction, which he could not get
expunged.
And so, though free, Drinkard says that his living room in the north Alabama
backcountry, furnished with a pair of brown recliners, a leather couch, and a
flat-screen television, is his new version of death row. In this version, it’s
easier to get people to listen. He travels the world, trying to change minds
about the death penalty. In October, he went to Paris to talk to high-school
students, and in February, he traveled to Wyoming to speak in support of a bill
to repeal the death penalty. As always, he mentioned Project Hope. It was only
natural—they were family, he said.
“Most of them admitted what they did wrong, [but] there were a couple of
innocents that actually died,” he continued. “But the public don’t care. The
public’s mentality in the South is, ‘Kill ‘em all and God will sort ‘em out.’“
(asource: Lauren Gill is a journalist covering criminal justice. Her work has
appeared in Rolling Stone, The Appeal, and ProPublica, among other
publications----The Nation)
LOUISIANA:
Landry introduces bill to end death penalty
For the third year, a local state representative has pre-filed a bill to
eliminate the death penalty in Louisiana.
HB 215 was pre-filed by State Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Ibeira, March 27. If
passed, the bill would “eliminate the death penalty as punishment for the
crimes of 1st degree murder, 1st degree rape, and treason; to provide for the
penalty of life imprisonment without benefit of parole, probation, or
suspension of sentence for the crime of treason and to provide for prospective
application.
“My initial reason for filing it was to have a real conversation about whether
it was making us safer and whether it was morally correct,” Landry said. “I
disagree that it is.”
Landry argues the death penalty is expensive beause it costs 3 times as much to
house a person on death row as a regular inmate.
“Morally, I just don’t believe it’s within our power to take a life,” Landry
said. “Spiritually I have a really strong belief that it’s not for man to take
a life. At the end we’re no safer, we have one of the highest violent crime
rates in the country.”
A Louisiana survey from the LSU Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs
found in 2018 found that a majority of Louisiana resident support the death
penalty. 58 % residents favored it while 34 % opposed it.
Currently there are 20 states that do not have the death penalty in Louisiana.
Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, has also pre-filed a bill to abolish the death
penalty for this year’s upcoming legislative regular session. Claitor’s bill
would create a constitutional amendment abolishing the penalty.
If passed, Landry’s bill would eliminate the death penalty for all offenses
committed on or after Aug. 1 of this year.
(source: Daily Iberian)
OHIO:
House passes bill to help pay bills for Pike County death penalty cases
A bill aimed at helping Pike County deal with the staggering costs of
prosecuting 4 death-penalty cases resulting from the April 2016 murder of 8
people passed the Ohio House on Wednesday with overwhelming support.
“Ohio is simply not prepared to financially assist counties and the public
defender’s office with capital cases of this magnitude,” said Rep. Shane
Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, a lead sponsor. “It’s simply not financially feasible for
Pike County to absorb costs of this magnitude. If we do not act as a
legislature and provide a quick solution, the financial hardship could cripple
basic services and responsibilities of the county.”
House Bill 85, which passed 93-2, is backed by county prosecutors,
commissioners, the Ohio public defender, and Attorney General Dave Yost. While
it is directed at Pike County and the aftermath of the Rhoden family murders,
which left 8 people dead ranging in age from 16 to 44, the bill is designed to
help any county that finds itself with multiple capital cases expected to cost
more than 5 % of a county’s general fund.
Pike County Commissioner Tony Montgomery told lawmakers that the county spent
$600,000 on the investigation, and the state has reimbursed $130,000. The total
county budget is about $10 million per year; the prosecution of the death
penalty cases, including defense for the accused, is likely to run more than $4
million.
“Our circumstances have unfortunately demonstrated that Ohio lacks the ability
to provide adequate financial assistance for prosecution or indigent defense in
capital cases like ours,” Montgomery said.
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Death Row Inmate's Clemency Appeal Stresses Christian Faith
Supporters of a Tennessee death row inmate appealed to Gov. Bill Lee's strong
Christian faith on Wednesday in requesting clemency for a prisoner they say was
redeemed by Jesus.
Don Johnson's clemency petition includes a plea from Cynthia Vaughn, the
daughter of the woman Johnson was convicted of killing. Vaughn is also
Johnson's stepdaughter.
The petition quotes from Vaughn's own letter to the governor in which she
describes visiting Johnson in prison in 2012 after not seeing him since she was
a little girl.
Vaughn said she vented 3 decades of anger and pain on Johnson, telling him how
it felt not to have her mother around when she graduated from high school, got
married, had a baby.
"The next thing that came out of my mouth changed my life forever," she wrote.
"I looked at him, told him I couldn't keep hating him because it was doing
nothing but killing me instead of him, and then I said, 'I forgive you.'"
Vaughn wrote that before she forgave Johnson, "I cried every night that I was
alone." Afterward, she became a happier person, able to laugh and snuggle with
her children. She joined a church where she made close friends.
In the petition, Vaughn asks to meet with Lee and share her story in person.
The petition also emphasizes Johnson's conversion from "a liar, a cheat, a con
man and a murderer" to a Seventh Day Adventist Church elder who ministers to
other prisoners.
Johnson, 68, was convicted of murdering his wife Connie Johnson in 1984 by
suffocating her in a Memphis camping center that he managed. He initially
blamed the murder on a work-release inmate who confessed to helping dispose of
the body and was granted immunity for testifying against Johnson, according to
court documents.
But the petition makes no claim of innocence, instead saying Johnson was
"justly convicted of the murder of his wife."
And while the petition details the abuse Johnson suffered as a child at the
hands of his own stepfather and later in juvenile detention centers, it makes
clear that Johnson "does not place blame for his failure of character on anyone
but himself."
The petition includes excerpts from many other letters sent to the governor by
people who have come to know Johnson through their prison ministry, volunteer
work, mentoring and correspondence.
"These friends and supporters are adamant that Don's faith is strong, and his
reformation is real," it reads. Many of the excerpts mention Johnson's ministry
to other prisoners. He also has a ministry outside of prison through a radio
and internet show that plays recordings he has made on Sunday mornings on
WNAH-1360 AM, according to the petition.
Tennessee executed 3 inmates in 2018 after a 9-year hiatus during which legal
challenges to the state's lethal injection protocols put all executions on
hold. Johnson's execution, scheduled May 16, is 1 of 4 planned in 2019.
Lee, who took office in January, made his Christian faith a central component
of his campaign. Previously asked about the four pending executions, Lee said
they would be difficult decisions.
"The death penalty is the law in Tennessee, and I believe that it's an
appropriate law in the most egregious of cases," he said. "But I think we have
to look at each case individually, and we'll do so when it's the right time."
In 2010, another Tennessee death row inmate with a similar story of redemption
and forgiveness had her sentence commuted by then-Gov. Phil Bredesen. Gaile
Owens was convicted of hiring a hit man to murder her husband. She later
reconciled with their son Stephen Owens, who publicly pleaded with the governor
for mercy.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Victim's daughter seeks mercy from Gov. Bill Lee for death row inmate Donnie
Edward Johnson----Donnie Edward Johnson, on death row for the 1984 murder of
his wife in Memphis, has his execution scheduled for May 16. On Wednesday, his
attorneys filed for clemency with the governor.
Cynthia Vaughn once condemned death row inmate Donnie Edward Johnson for
killing her mother, but now she wants to meet with Gov. Bill Lee to make a case
for mercy ahead of Johnson's scheduled execution.
Johnson, 68, is scheduled to die May 16 for killing his wife and Vaughn's
mother, Connie Johnson, in Memphis in 1984.
His legal team said Johnson deserves a reprieve because of his transformation
behind bars — from "a liar, a cheat, a con man and a murderer" to an ordained
elder in the Seventh-day Adventist Church "with a flock in prison."
They laid out the case for mercy in a 21-page clemency petition submitted to
Lee's office on Wednesday. Vaughn's forgiveness was the centerpiece of their
argument.
"Cynthia asks for the privilege of meeting you in person, so she can share her
experience of Christian forgiveness," the application read. "Cynthia's plea for
mercy is exceptional. We know of only one other case in the history of the
state of Tennessee in which the child of the ultimate victim has begged the
governor for mercy for the murderer."
In that case, the lawyers said, clemency was granted for Gaile Owens. Owens had
been sentenced to death for hiring a hit man to kill her husband in 1984, but
former Gov. Phil Bredesen commuted her sentence after her son joined her appeal
for mercy.
Now Johnson's legal team wants Lee to make a similar choice.
"This is a story with three chapters," the Rev. Charles Fels, one of Johnson's
attorneys, said during a Wednesday news conference discussing the case.
"Redemption. That's Don. Forgiveness. That's Cynthia," Fels said. "The 3rd and
final chapter is mercy, and that is for the governor of the state of
Tennessee."
Johnson is the fourth person scheduled to die since Tennessee resumed
executions in August. His request for clemency differs from the other three
filed since 2018 in that it focuses on religious themes and redemption, not
legal arguments or details of the crime.
The difference in approach suits Johnson, who has become a religious leader at
Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
It is the 1st clemency petition to reach Lee, whose Christian faith was
prominent during his successful campaign for office.
"I don't know that we would say that we tailor-made our clemency application to
Gov. Lee," federal public defender Kelley Henry said during the news
conference. "It just so happens that Don's story of faith, forgiveness and
redemption coincides with many of the same themes that Gov. Lee himself has
spoken about."
Henry said Johnson's legal team did not plan to file any additional legal
challenges attempting to block the execution.
In their direct appeal to Lee, Johnson's lawyers said his was "an extraordinary
case, where mercy, forgiveness, redemption and the miracle of rebirth in Christ
all come together to warrant an exercise of your constitutional powers."
A spokeswoman for Lee's office said the governor would review the petition.
About the crime in Memphis
Donnie Johnson, who now goes by Don, killed his wife Connie Johnson in the
office of the camping equipment center where he worked. He stuffed a large
plastic bag in her mouth and suffocated her, according to court documents.
He initially told police he was not involved but no longer contests his guilt.
Donnie Johnson and Ronnie McCoy, an inmate on work release who also worked at
the camping center, moved Connie Johnson’s body and belongings, including her
broken glasses, into her van and then left the van at the Mall of Memphis.
Johnson's lawyers said his commitment to Christianity began in the Shelby
County jail while he awaited trial. After hearing about the religion from
fellow inmates, he decided to get baptized while he was on death row.
Lawyers describe a 'transformation' in prison
Behind bars, Johnson became a church elder at Riverside Chapel Seventh-day
Adventist Church in Nashville and began preaching — to fellow inmates and
others who listen to his radio program "What the Bible Says."
“He started becoming one of the leaders of our prison ministry,” said Pastor
Furman F. Fordham II, senior pastor at the Riverside church, who ordained
Johnson in 2008. “These young men were leaving Riverbend (prison) as changed
individuals.”
Church members quoted in the clemency petition said Johnson's preaching had led
other inmates to join the Seventh-day Adventist Church after they were released
from prison.
Johnson's lawyers said his current stature as a devoted Christian stands in
contrast to his earlier life, when he responded to abuse at home and in state
custody by becoming "a terror."
Johnson was "routinely and mercilessly beaten" by his stepfather, his lawyers
said. Subsequent time in state custody as a juvenile led to more abuse,
according to the clemency petition.
"What is most remarkable about Don Johnson's life story is not that he ended up
on death row following a loveless and hate filled childhood, it is that he
overcame that childhood to become the man of God he is today," the petition
reads.
A 2012 meeting led to forgiveness
Johnson was first scheduled to die by electric chair in 2006. Vaughn, his
stepdaughter, initially approved of the execution, saying, "I want the freak to
burn."
After that execution date was delayed, Johnson began reaching out to Vaughn. In
2012, she visited him.
Vaughn describes her visit as revelatory.
"After I was finished telling him about all the years of pain and agony he had
caused, I sat down and heard a voice. The voice told me, 'That's it, let it
go,' " Vaughn said in a passage of the clemency petition. "The next thing that
came out of my mouth changed my life forever.
"I looked at him, told him I couldn't keep hating him because it was doing
nothing but killing me instead of him, and then I said, 'I forgive you.' "
(source: The Tennessean)
ARKANSAS:
Arkansas House Committee Approves Execution Drug Secrecy Bill
A bill that exempts documents disclosing the source of drugs used in lethal
injections from open records laws and criminalizes disclosure of such documents
passed the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
Senate Bill 464's House co-sponsor, Rep. John Maddox, R-Mena, said the bill was
necessary to shield drug companies from negative publicity.
"Death penalty opponents are harassing and putting intense public pressure on
manufacturers who supply the drugs that are necessary to carry out the death
penalty in Arkansas," Maddox said. "And, to be frank, unfortunately, these
pressure tactics are working."
Though Maddox said the majority of Arkansans support the death penalty,
Democratic Rep. Andrew Collins of Little Rock said drug manufacturers and
distributors would not supply the state with drugs to be used specifically for
executions, regardless of secrecy laws.
"It seems to me... that this is about drug manufacturers who don't want to sell
live-giving drugs to the state for the purpose of killing," Collins said. "They
clearly do not support this measure despite what was said to the contrary, and
we saw 2 of the drug makers send us letters expressing grave concerns about
this bill."
The bill comes 2 years after the state was sued by drug distributor McKesson
Medical-Surgical, Inc. for allegedly obtaining an execution drug under false
pretenses. That lawsuit came about after a package insert for the drug was
disclosed while the state was attempting to execute eight men in an 11-day
span.
Furonda Brasfield, executive director of Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty, spoke against the bill, saying drug companies have contracts
that specifically prohibit their products' use in executions.
"Today, every single FDA-approved supplier of any drug sought for use in...
executions has imposed binding contracts blocking the medicine's sale for this
purpose," Brasfield said. "These companies are not serving the interests of
activists, but of their customers, their shareholders and the wider healthcare
industry."
Criminal Defense Attorney Jeff Rosenzweig also spoke against the bill, saying
that no matter the bill's intention it violates the First Amendment of the
United States Constitution.
The bill passed the committee by a voice vote and now goes to the full House
for approval. The state currently has no executions scheduled, and all three of
the drugs in its supply have expired.
State Correction Department officials have said no more executions would be
scheduled until a law addressing execution drug secrecy was passed by the
legislature.
(source: ualrpublicradio.org)
********************
Arkansas seeks death penalty in 2017 triple slaying
Prosecutors in Arkansas plan to pursue the death penalty for 1 of 2 brothers
accused in the killing of a Little Rock mother and her 2 young children in
2017. Pulaski County Chief Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson told Circuit Judge
Herb Wright on Tuesday that prosecutors would seek the lethal injection for
26-year-old Michael Collins of Colorado, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
reported. The county last sought the death penalty in 2009.
Collins and his brother, 22-year-old William Alexander of Little Rock, have
been charged with capital murder and aggravated robbery in the deaths of
24-year-old Mariah Cunningham, 5-year-old A'Layliah Fisher and 4-year-old
Elijah Fisher. The family was found stabbed to death in their Little Rock home
in December 2017.
The brothers will stand trial separately. Collins' trial date will be scheduled
at his next hearing on May 28. The death penalty won't be sought for Alexander,
prosecutors said.
Collins and Alexander were also charged in July with capital murder and
aggravated robbery in the death of Billie Thornton, 64. Thornton was found dead
in his Little Rock apartment in July 2017.
Arkansas hasn't performed any executions since 2017, when 4 inmates were
executed in 8 days.
The last of the state's lethal injection drugs expired in January. Arkansas
doesn't have any executions scheduled, and state prison officials last year
said they wouldn't search for any new lethal injection drugs until a law
keeping the source of drugs secret is expanded to cover manufacturers.
(source: Associated Press)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
