May 10
TEXAS:
Execution date set in decades-old murder
A man convicted of brutally murdering an elderly woman more than 2 decades ago
has received another execution date.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has set 41-year-old Ruben Gutierrez’s
execution for July 31.
Gutierrez murdered 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison at the Harrison Mobile Home
Park on Morningside Road in 1998.
A Cameron County jury convicted Gutierrez based off evidence that he befriended
Harrison so he could rob her of some $600,000 in cash she had hidden in her
home.
According to police, Harrison had an aversion to banks and hid her money inside
a suitcase within her trailer home.
An autopsy revealed she had been stabbed 13 times with 2 different screwdrivers
and had also been beaten.
According to TDCJ death row information, Gutierrez and co-defendants Rene
Garcia and Pedro Garcia Jr. entered the residence and struck Harrison once in
the head with the intent of knocking her out.
However, Harrison struggled and was repeatedly hit and stabbed multiple times
in the head.
Gutierrez had initially been scheduled to die on Sept. 12 for the murder, but
on Aug. 22 Senior U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle granted a stay of execution.
That August new lawyers were appointed to represent Gutierrez and they argued
that they needed more time to learn about Gutierrez and to examine the massive
case record.
Not only that, Gutierrez’s previous attorney said in court documents that she
didn’t believe she had the expertise to represent the man at this stage of his
death penalty litigation.
(source: themonitor.com)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Timothy Jones Jr. death penalty trial to begin Tuesday
Almost 5 years after investigators say a Lexington County father brutally
murdered his 5 children and dumped their decomposing bodies in Alabama, his
death penalty trial is set to begin Tuesday.
Timothy Jones Jr., 37, is charged with 5 counts of murder in the 2014 slayings,
which investigators say took place at his Red Bank home.
His children, ranging in age from 1 to 8, were found in shallow graves in rural
Alabama more than a week after they were reported missing.
Jones is pleading not guilty in the case, as prosecutors seek the death
penalty.
Jury selection for the highly-publicized case lasted 9 days, with more than 130
potential jurors being questioned by prosecutors and defense attorneys. On
Thursday, the court arrived at a pool of 50 qualified jurors, from which the
final jury will be seated.
Judge Eugene Griffith said the jury will be seated on Monday and if all goes as
planned, opening statements in the trial will begin Tuesday afternoon. The
first witnesses could be called to the stand as early as Wednesday.
The jury selection process took much longer than anticipated, as attorneys
dealt with pre-trial publicity, including a newspaper stand outside of the
Lexington County Courthouse that was removed on Wednesday. Defense attorneys
argued potential jurors entering the courthouse would be subjected to the
headline, which was related to the trial.
Over the course of the 9-day selection process, Jones’ defense team asked for a
change of venue 3 times; each attempt was denied by the judge.
(source: WIS TV news)
FLORIDA----impending execution
Tampa serial killer Bobby Joe Long petitions Florida Supreme Court to stop his
execution----Long scheduled to die on May 23
Weeks before execution, a notorious serial killer is appealing to the Florida
Supreme Court to stop it.
Bobby Joe Long is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 23 at 6 p.m. That
is unless his attorney can convince the Florida Supreme Court to stop it.
The 81-page petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus lists nine grounds for why the
court should act in their favor.
Long's attorney Robert A. Norgard states that Long is mentally ill and
executing him would be unconstitutional.
Norgard also said imposing the death penalty on Long is a violation of Long's
Fifth Amendment right "to be free from multiple punishments for the same crime
which exceed the limits prescribed by the legislative branch of government."
Long was sentenced to death in 1985 after admitting to killing at least 10
women in the Tampa area.
On Monday, a Hillsborough County judge has denied Long's motion to vacate the
judgment of conviction and sentence of death Monday afternoon.
His attorneys argued that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment
because of his medical condition.
One of Long's survivors, who is now a master deputy with the Hillsborough
County Sheriff's Office, told ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska in a May
1 interview that she knows Long is now scared for his life, and he should be.
"If he's executed great, justice for me, but mainly for the families who can't
be with their loved ones because they were taken too soon and peace," Deputy
Lisa Noland said earlier in the month. "And, if he's not executed I'll continue
to fight for it. An eye for an eye tooth for a tooth. Yeah, there's
forgiveness, OK, but there's also a price to pay for that forgiveness and his
time is coming he knows it and ironically he is very scared, and it's about
time. If it doesn't happen till 2020 I'm right there beside my victims'
families I'm going to hold their hand and walk them through it."
(source: abcactionnews.com)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Tennessee death row inmate Donnie Johnson hasn't chosen execution method
Death row inmate Donnie Edward Johnson is scheduled to be executed on May 16.
But with days to go, he still hasn't decided how he wants the state to kill
him.
Because Johnson, 68, was convicted of a murder that took place before 1999, he
can choose between two methods: lethal injection, Tennessee's primary method,
or the electric chair, the back-up option.
Eligible inmates typically make their choice a month before their execution
date. If they don't choose, the state plans for a lethal injection.
Johnson is on death row for the 1984 murder of his wife Connie Johnson. He has
filed a clemency application asking Republican Gov. Bill Lee to grant him mercy
and stop the execution.
Prison officials will continue preparations for the execution until a decision
is announced. Johnson's lawyers say he has intentionally withheld his execution
method decision — for now.
That is because the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to
Tennessee's lethal injection drugs. Johnson doesn't plan on making a choice
until the nation's high court has spoken.
Supreme Court to weigh in on lethal injection challenge
The challenge, brought by Johnson and 22 other death row inmates, argues that
the state's 3-drug protocol does not keep inmates from feeling excruciating
pain as they die. The pain is so severe, they say, that it is unconstitutional.
Tennessee courts rejected the inmates' lethal injection challenge in 2018, but
the inmates are asking the Supreme Court to revive the challenge based on state
law that they said hamstrung their constitutional right to challenge "cruel and
unusual punishment."
The justices were slated to debate the case Thursday. Johnson's attorneys
expect a ruling Monday, three days before the scheduled execution. Federal
public defender Kelley Henry said they would discuss a choice with Johnson
then.
A wave of executions began in Tennessee last year, including one lethal
injection. But the same argument has derailed executions in Ohio.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, delayed lethal injections earlier this
year after a federal judge fiercely criticized the trio of lethal injection
drugs used in Ohio, which are the same ones that are used in Tennessee.
Experts say the first of the three drugs, the sedative midazolam, does not dull
the pain caused by the following 2.
Inmates say Tennessee law violates constitutional rights
Tennessee courts said that, regardless of the pain, the inmates had failed to
prove other execution drugs were readily available.
In their challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, the inmates' lawyers argue
Tennessee law shielding details about lethal injection drug procurement made it
impossible to say what alternative drugs might be available to the state.
The inmates argued the law doomed their efforts and violated their due process.
"Tennessee law ensured that petitioners’ claim would fail," the inmates
attorneys argued in their petition to the high court. "Tennessee’s execution
secrecy statute barred discovery into the state’s communications with 10
concededly willing suppliers. It also barred petitioners from exploring the
details of the suppliers’ offers by deposing those suppliers or even the state
officials with whom they interacted."
State lawyers are opposing the effort to revive the lethal injection challenge,
saying the inmates never raised this issue before and that other rulings have
maintained the constitutionality of state shield laws for executions.
Last year, 2 death row inmates in Tennessee chose the electric chair over
lethal injection amid fears that the injection led to several minutes of
torturous pain before death.
(source: Commercial Appeal)
************
Spiritual adviser hopes for clemency for Tennessee death row inmate
Speaking at a news conference, John Dysinger said he was part of a group that
attended a clemency meeting with Gov. Bill Lee's staff on behalf of Don
Johnson. He said the meeting was scheduled to last an hour but stretched to 3.
"I felt like the governor's staff heard us out very well. They were engaged.
They asked deep and probing questions. And I think they're taking it very
seriously," Dysinger said. "I have every hope they're praying about it, and
they're going to make the decision that Jesus would make."
Lee had never held elected office before winning the governorship with a
campaign last year that centered on his religious faith.
Johnson, who was convicted of murdering his wife Connie Johnson in 1984, has
centered his plea for clemency on his religious conversion in prison. The
68-year-old's story of redemption includes the forgiveness of his stepdaughter,
Cynthia Vaughn, the daughter of Connie Johnson, who has joined the clemency
request.
Dysinger said he first met Johnson years ago when he made the unusual decision
to include his wife and young children in his prison ministry. His youngest was
1 year old at the time and now is 16.
"He's definitely part of the family," Dysinger said of Johnson. "He's Uncle Don
to the kids. They are very invested in his life, and he's had a very positive
impact on their lives."
At the Thursday news conference with Dysinger were 5 other men who know Johnson
through their work as religious volunteers in the Riverbend Maximum Security
Institution. All spoke of Johnson's strong religious faith and ministry,
calling him a light in a dark place.
The news conference was held at Riverside Seventh Day Adventist Church, where
Johnson is an elder assigned to minister to his fellow inmates. Two banners in
the lobby outside the sanctuary refer to the upcoming execution of "our Donnie
Johnson" and ask churchgoers to "Join the Journey: Forgiveness for Don."
Pastor Furman Fordham explained that he ordained Johnson after church
volunteers had worked with him for years in their prison ministry.
Fordham said that unlike the others at the Thursday news conference, he was not
a regular prison visitor. But he was able to see that Johnson's ministry was
bearing fruit when a former prisoner walked into Riverside saying he had
learned about the church while studying the Bible with Johnson.
"Don Johnson's ministry is living," Fordham said. "He is doing behind those
walls what I aspire to do outside the walls."
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 for May 16, is the 1st of 4 planned in
2019.
(source: (source: Associated Press)
***********
Connie Johnson 'wanted to live.' Her husband is on death row for her murder
Her relatives say Connie Johnson loved to dance.
She enjoyed dance-offs in the living room as a child growing up with a large
family in Tunica. As an adult, she’d dance when the family got together.
She met her 2nd husband, Donnie Edward Johnson, at a Memphis disco. After they
married, the couple still found time to dance.
They were approaching their 7th wedding anniversary when Donnie shoved a
30-gallon plastic bag down her throat and suffocated Connie Johnson.
‘Connie wanted to live too’
Donnie Johnson, now 68 and goes by Don, is on death row, scheduled to die May
16 for killing his wife just 2 weeks before Christmas in 1984.
His legal team has asked for reprieve, saying he has transformed 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."
Don’s stepdaughter Cynthia Vaughn, Connie Johnson's daughter from an earlier
marriage, has asked that Gov. Bill Lee give him clemency. His son with Connie,
Jason Johnson, thinks he should have been put to death long ago.
But Wanda Clark, one of Connie Johnson's sisters, said that as the execution
date approaches, she’s thinking of all the years that Connie lost.
“He took such a good person and a good mother and a good daughter and a good
sister. I don’t understand why,” Clark said. “Connie wanted to live too. She
loved her home, she loved her family and she loved her kids. For somebody to
come and take all this away, it don’t make no sense. Not a bit.”
'That man destroyed my family'
Connie Johnson wasn’t quite the baby in the family: 1 of around 10 siblings was
younger.
Their father was a farmer, so they helped milk the cow, care for the pigs and
chickens, “all of the things a country life brings,” Clark said.
There was a lot of fighting with so many kids, Clark said, “but there was a lot
of love, too.”
Connie Johnson didn’t just like dancing at a young age. She also loved sports
and was in track and basketball, said another sister, Margaret Davis. She
enjoyed having fun with the family, whether it was hiking, camping or riding
the four wheelers.
Jackie Duvall, one of Connie Johnson's brothers, said they were happy while
growing up. Connie Johnson was especially close to her sisters, he said.
“I’ve never seen so many goofy girls in my life,” he said.
Their daddy was a preacher, their momma a “God-fearing woman” who was “so
sweet,” Duvall said.
“They raised us up right, they taught us right from wrong,” Duvall said.
They’re not as close anymore, Connie Johnson's siblings said.
“Since this happened to Connie, everything has fallen apart,” Clark said.
“Nobody’s been the same. Everything has changed. That man destroyed my family.”
'She went beyond her duties'
After high school, Connie Johnson married. Her 1st husband left her when she
was pregnant with Cynthia. Then she studied medical terminology at a community
college in Desoto County, juggling work, her studies and being a mother, Davis
said.
Later she worked for a doctor in Memphis — and met Donnie Johnson, Clark said.
They married and had Jason.
“Connie was a good woman. She was good with her kids,” Duvall said. “She went
beyond her duties. She went without to make sure the kids had theirs.”
Davis, who lived in Tunica with their mother at the time, remembered that
Connie Johnson would often bring the kids to visit. They would have cookouts
with hamburgers and hot dogs, sometimes barbecue.
Jason Johnson, who was 4 when his mother was killed, doesn’t remember her much:
Just that he would go with her to aerobics class and play with a little race
track while she practiced.
He’s heard, though, that she was a great mother who loved joking around, who
could dress up and go out on the town or “throw down with the boys and beat the
hell out of somebody if it came to it.”
Donnie Johnson, who answered written questions from death row via his lawyers,
said Connie Johnson “was very happy.”
“She was a concerned and loving mother,” he said. “She was an exceptional cook
and housekeeper. She enjoyed life and loved children.”
'At the time, she loved Donnie'
More than a year and a half before her death, Connie Johnson had purchased a
life insurance policy with Donnie Johnson as primary beneficiary, according to
legal documents. After Connie Johnson's death, both Donnie Johnson and a sister
made claims for $50,000.
In 1984, Donnie Johnson was working at Force Camping Center in Memphis. Connie
Johnson had worked there too until about 18 months before her death, according
to a newspaper article, when she decided to stop because her daughter was
entering school.
It was there that Donnie Johnson killed his wife, suffocating her by shoving a
plastic bag down her throat. A Shelby County medical examiner said during the
trial that she had cuts and bruises on her head, that she bled internally and
had fought back.
“There was testimony that she would have been conscious during the terrifying
ordeal and that from one to four minutes would have elapsed before she
expired,” wrote Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William Harbison in an opinion
affirming the judgement of the trial court. “The homicide was inhuman and
brutal to an almost indescribable degree.”
Donnie Johnson's coworker, a work release inmate, helped him move her body to
her van, which they left in the parking lot at the Mall of Memphis.
Prior to Connie Johnson's murder, Donnie Johnson had spoken about divorcing
her, witnesses testified in the trial. He also said that he’d had previous
divorces and couldn’t afford another.
Police who investigated the murder also saw indications that maybe Connie
Johnson was planning to leave her husband, several said.
But earlier on the day of her death, Connie Johnson was Christmas shopping with
her sister, Davis, and their mother. Connie Johnson bought a jacket, a
Christmas present for her husband.
“She was a friend. She made friends easily,” Davis said. “That’s the kind of
person she was. She would talk to you. She was nice to her family. Her family
loved her. At the time, she loved Donnie.”
(source: commercialappeal.com)
**************************
Why a Seventh-day Adventist church in Nashville made a Donnie Johnson, a death
row inmate, an elder
Members of Riverside Chapel Seventh-day Adventist Church do not want the state
of Tennessee to execute Donnie Johnson.
Several who sit in the pews and preach in the pulpit are urging Gov. Bill Lee
to grant Johnson clemency before his May 16 execution date and allow him to
spend the rest of his life in prison.
The church has hosted a news conference, the pastor has met with Lee's legal
team, members have joined a letter-writing campaign and on Saturday they are
organizing a prayer march all in the hopes of swaying the governor to spare
Johnson's life.
Johnson, who has spent the last 33 years on Tennessee's death row for the 1984
murder of his wife, is one of their own.
Not only is he a Seventh-day Adventist, but about a decade ago the congregation
decided to ordain Johnson as an elder of their church because of the ministry
work he was doing behind bars.
"He has been leading and serving in such a way that what he's doing in there is
the exact kind of ministry that we would definitely ordain someone for out
here," said Pastor Furman F. Fordham II, who leads Riverside Chapel in
Nashville.
Johnson, 68, guides Bible studies inside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution
in Nashville, started a radio program called "What the Bible Says" and supports
his fellow inmates living on Unit 2, which is where men on Tennessee's death
row are housed.
"I was accustomed to being at different churches where you’d have a prison
ministry, but I had never seen one of the prisoners leading it," said Fordham,
who met Johnson about a dozen years ago after he became senior pastor of the
church.
"We were his assistants."
In 2008, Johnson became an ordained elder of Riverside Chapel — a church he has
never stepped foot inside of — because the congregation believed he was using
the special abilities that God had gifted him with to further the gospel.
The history of Riverside Chapel
Riverbend Maximum Security Institution is an 18-minute drive from Riverside
Chapel, which is located just north of a bend in the Cumberland River that runs
through the city.
The church started in 1945 to give the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff
who worked at Riverside Sanitarium next door a nearby place to worship. The now
defunct hospital was the 1st black Seventh-day Adventist medical facility.
Today, the multi-generational church with a mostly black congregation draws
about 400 people to its Saturday worship service. It has two church plants,
including New Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church in Chapmansboro.
Like Adventist-run hospitals and schools, prison ministry is often associated
with the denomination, and for decades it has been a part of Riverside Chapel's
outreach, Fordham said.
"It's just coming from Jesus' words in Mathew chapter 25; he tells a parable
where he says, 'I was in prison and you visited me,'" Fordham said. "We take it
very seriously to minister to the incarcerated."
About a dozen people make up the church’s prison ministry team, Fordham said.
They organize worship services at Riverbend, correspond regularly with inmates
and mail Bible studies to those willing to receive them.
Prison ministry forges relationship between church and death row inmate
Members of Riverside Chapel met Johnson through their work. The late Jimmy
Pitt, who led the ministry for years, helped forge the relationship.
"Don is one of those people that is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and he will share that with any and everybody that gives him an opportunity,"
said Rosalyn Pitt, who was married to Jimmy Pitt for 43 years before he died in
2017.
"It was very easy for my husband and Don to make that connection."
Rosalyn Pitt, who helped start New Hope with her husband, is a mentor to
Johnson. She visits him in prison and he calls her about every week. Pitt said
Johnson does not want to die, but he is ready if his execution is carried out
because of his deep faith in God and the afterlife.
But Pitt, who has changed her position on the death penalty after getting to
know Johnson, does not think his work at Riverbend is finished.
"I used to be fairly set on if you did the crime, you pay the price," Pitt
said. "I really would love for him to get clemency of some sort because there's
always forgiveness."
Johnson's religious transformation behind bars
Johnson found religion in February 1985 in the Shelby County Jail, he said in
written answers responding to questions from the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee.
He was raised Christian, but Johnson said he had no interest in it until he
heard an inmate preach.
5 years later, 2 incarcerated Seventh-day Adventists introduced him to their
Christian tradition.
"They introduced me to the scriptures in a way I could understand," Johnson
said. "They opened up the Bible to me in ways I had never thought possible."
Johnson's transformation behind bars is central to his clemency petition as is
his stepdaughter's forgiveness for killing her mother.
He 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. With help from an inmate on work
release, Donnie Johnson moved his wife's body and belongings into her van and
left it at the Mall of Memphis.
Johnson no longer contests his guilt.
Fordham said he does not want to minimize what Johnson did. He thinks it was
barbaric, but Fordham also thinks the methods of execution in Tennessee, lethal
injection and the electric chair, are barbaric, too.
The Seventh-day Adventist denomination does not have an official position on
the death penalty, but Fordham thinks Jesus' teachings are moving believers
away from support for the death penalty.
Fordham believes there still needs to be consequences, which is why the church
is not advocating that the governor release Johnson. But Fordham questions what
would be gained by executing him.
"Transformation is real," Fordham said. "This is a new gentlemen. He just is.
And I think that there should be room for that caveat to be considered and I
think that is why in our state constitution the governor can press pause."
Thomas Lawrence, who met Johnson 15 years ago while volunteering at Riverbend,
said the Johnson he knows today is not the same man that killed his wife more
than 30 years ago, and his heart broke when he found out that Johnson's
execution date had been set for May 16.
"It is like putting a candle out in a cave where there's no light," Johnson
said. "Without that light, you go back to this dark, horrible place with no
hope."
Jimmy Pitt introduced Lawrence to Johnson. Lawrence was attending Riverside at
the time and did so for years, but now is a part of small, Seventh-day
Adventist group called The Way that meets in a house.
During their first meeting, Johnson did something that amazed Lawrence. Johnson
prayed for him.
"That just blew my mind," Lawrence said. "He was someone who was incarcerated,
recognized that I needed God in my life to be able to be whatever God needed me
to be for the men who were incarcerated."
(source: The Tennessean)
*******************************
Will grace prevail as Tennessee execution looms?
It's the 1st time I’ve counted down the days to a friend’s execution. Unless
there is a miracle from God or compassion from the state’s governor, Tennessee
will kill Don Johnson by lethal injection on May 16.
I have a model of a lighthouse in my office that Don made for me, a sign of the
friendship we’ve built in my visits over the past five years to Unit 2 at
Riverbend Correctional Facility, Tennessee’s death row.
Over the years we’ve laughed together. We’ve prayed together. Told each other
jokes. We’ve sung songs like “Amazing Grace” and he’s taught me the true
meaning of the words, “How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
Don had one of the most horrific childhoods of anyone I’ve ever met. He was
abused, bullied, abandoned, institutionalized. The abuse he endured, he
transmitted, culminating in the death of his wife. Unlike many on death row who
I believe are innocent of the crimes for which they face execution, Don’s guilt
was never in question for me. But neither was his redemption.
What’s most remarkable about Don is not what he did that landed him on death
row; it’s what God has done with him since. His story is a grace story, a
redemption story. It’s a Jesus story.
That story began in the Shelby County, Tenn., jail, while Don was awaiting
trial. He heard another inmate talking about the healing power of Jesus. As Don
was convicted and taken to death row, he heard more redemption stories. Soon he
dedicated his life to Jesus. He was baptized on death row.
Years later, he is an ordained elder of his church. Of his 25 million-member
denomination, he’s the only elder on death row. Riverbend’s Unit 2 is his
parish, and many inside the prison and out can testify of how his faith has
shaped them, including correctional officers and staff.
But the most stunning, and credible, witness of all is his daughter, Cynthia
Vaughn.
After losing her mom at the age of 7, she became a champion for the death
penalty, especially when it came to the execution of her dad. She wanted him
dead. She hated him. The death penalty seemed like justice, at first.
Cynthia eventually found that her hatred was not hurting him, but it was
killing her. She found herself in a prison of her own anger and resentment,
confined, in her words, “to my own internal house of hell.” The justice she
sought turned out to be revenge.
I first met Cynthia when we both spoke at an event in Nashville. It was the
first time she would talk about her change of heart, how she found a way out of
her internal hell. I had recently released a book titled “Executing Grace,” on
the death penalty, restorative justice and the power of forgiveness. Cynthia
had come to embody everything I wrote about – the power of grace to heal the
wounds of both the offended and the offenders.
I got into Nashville early that day so I could visit Don. I hesitated to tell
him about the event because I wasn’t sure about the dynamics of their new
relationship. All I knew was that after 30 years of not speaking, they were
working hard to heal the wounds of their shared past. I didn’t want to further
complicate any of that.
I simply told Don I was in town for an event that night. I could see in his
eyes and his proud, ear-to-ear smile that he already knew. He said, “You’ll be
with my daughter,” and went on to tell me all about what a bright light in the
world she is, what a gift it is to have her in his life again.
That evening, I heard Cynthia tell of being set free from the prison of her own
hatred, about the power of forgiveness to heal both the victims and the
victimizers. She talked about being able to giggle again, and being able to
hear birds sing after so many years in a solitary confinement of its own sort.
She forgave her dad, not so he could sleep at night but so that she could sleep
at night. Now she is fighting to save his life.
Cynthia is fighting for alternatives to the death penalty – for her dad, and
for everyone else. Despite its promises of closure and justice, the death
penalty extends trauma, exacerbates wounds and creates a whole new set of
victims, something Cynthia knows all too well.
The electric chair used in 2 of Tennessee’s 3 executions last year is a mirror
of the evil it promises to heal. The “cure” is as bad as the disease.
Violence is the problem, not the solution.
Despite the voices of folks like Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and so many
others, the death penalty has survived in America largely because of the
support of Christians. Nearly 90% of all executions in the past 40 years have
occurred in the Bible Belt. As one death row chaplain says, “The Bible Belt is
the death belt in America.”
Grace is at the heart of the Christian faith – this belief that God gave us
grace when we didn’t deserve it. The United Methodist Church’s 50-year-old
statement puts it well: “We believe the death penalty denies the power of
Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings.”
We undermine the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross and rob our fellow
sinners of the possibilities of redemption every time we take the life of a
child of God by state execution.
When we kill those who kill to show that killing is wrong, we legitimize the
very evil we hope to rid the world of, the evil that sent Jesus to the cross.
The Bible is filled with murderers who were given a second chance, including
Moses, David and Saul of Tarsus. The Bible would be much shorter without grace.
Martin Luther King Jr. called execution “society’s final assertion that we will
not forgive.” In 2017, Pope Francis declared that the death penalty is
“contrary to the gospel.”
Many Americans, including many young evangelical Christians, see the disconnect
between following Jesus and our capital punishment. In a nationwide survey,
only 5% of Americans said that Jesus would support the death penalty.
After all, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown
mercy.” In the Gospels, Jesus interrupted an execution of a woman guilty of a
capital crime, saying, “Let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
No one is above reproach. And no one is beyond redemption.
This week grace has a chance to be amazing in Tennessee. We just need
Christians, and Christian lawmakers in particular, to ask the question: What
would Jesus do? And then do it.
With just a few months in office, Gov. Bill Lee is facing his first death
penalty decision. He needs all of our prayers.
It is my prayer that the leaders of my home state will declare that execution
is not the best version of justice we can come up with.
I pray Lee will celebrate the power of God to redeem a broken sinner like Don –
like Moses, like David, like Saul, like me. I also pray he will be moved by the
power of mercy and forgiveness embodied so beautifully by Cynthia. And I pray
that he will honor the wounds they are actively working to heal … by not
creating more wounds.
(source: Opinion; Shane Claiborne is the author of “Executing Grace: How the
Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us.”----Religion News Service)
CALIFORNIA:
Why the Golden State Killer May Keep California’s Death Penalty Alive
In Courtroom 106 in downtown Los Angeles, a jury has begun hearing testimony in
the long-awaited trial of a man accused of stabbing to death two women in their
homes at night.
The killer stalked his victims, ingratiating himself as a repairman, and then
killed them in a spasm of violence. One victim was nearly decapitated;
another’s breasts were slashed off. One of the women, a former girlfriend of
the actor Ashton Kutcher, was found in a pool of blood on the stairs. The
gruesomeness of the killings and the celebrity connection have earned the
suspect the tabloid-style moniker of The Hollywood Ripper. Prosecutors are
asking jurors to deliver a death sentence.
Nearly 400 miles to the north, in Sacramento, prosecutors have come together to
seek a death sentence for Joseph James DeAngelo, the man accused of being the
so-called Golden State Killer, who terrorized communities up and down the state
in the 1970s and ’80s before an arrest was made last year with the help of a
genealogy website.
And several other capital cases are underway in California, including the trial
of a man accused of killing an officer in Sacramento and a suspect described as
a serial killer in Los Angeles County. A prosecutor may also seek a death
sentence for the man charged in the recent synagogue shooting near San Diego.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, issued a moratorium in March on executions in
the state, which has more death row inmates than anywhere else in the Western
Hemisphere. But that decision has not stopped local prosecutors from seeking
new death sentences, underscoring the divide in the state between conservative
prosecutors and liberal reformers like the governor.
And as liberal as California voters are generally, as recently as 2016 they
rejected a ballot measure that would have abolished capital punishment, and
approved another one to fast-track executions.
These divisions, experts say, are setting the backdrop for what could be a
contentious fight as Mr. Newsom takes new steps beyond the moratorium to
abolish capital punishment.
For now, the moratorium amounts to temporary reprieves for each of the 737 men
and women on California’s death row, which will last for the duration of his
time as governor.
“It’s got to be really confusing for the average citizen who sees both things
going on and doesn’t understand how all of the above can be occurring,” said
Michele Hanisee, the president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys
in Los Angeles County. She is seeking a death sentence in one of her cases: the
man accused of being a serial killer, Alexander Hernandez, who is charged with
killing 5 people in a shooting rampage in the San Fernando Valley in 2014.
“The simple answer is this: The district attorneys of the state of California
took an oath to uphold and follow the law,” Ms. Hanisee said. “I think the
governor probably did too, but he doesn’t care.” The governor, she added, does
“not have the legal authority to tell them not to seek death or not to follow
the law.”
New death sentences in California have declined in recent years; 2018 was a
record low, with 5 new sentences. The drop aligns with a national trend, as
public support for capital punishment has waned and juries have been reluctant
to impose death sentences in the face of evidence of racial disparities and
high-profile exonerations. Before Mr. Newsom’s moratorium, 20 other states,
including most recently Washington and Delaware, had abolished the practice.
Public support for capital punishment across the country has dropped
substantially since the 1990s, according to polling data from Gallup.
California, while maintaining a large death row, has not executed anyone since
2006. There were longstanding legal challenges to the state’s lethal injection
protocol that had halted executions even before Mr. Newsom’s moratorium.
Many supporters of capital punishment say that while the system can be reformed
to reduce racial disparities, and thus produce fewer death sentences, the
penalty should remain an option for prosecutors and juries in the most heinous
of crimes, including some of the cases underway in California.
“The case for the death penalty is the moral part of it,” said Kent
Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an
organization in Sacramento that favors the death penalty and supported a ballot
initiative in 2016 in which voters approved fast-tracking executions. “For the
very worst murderers, nothing short of execution is adequate.”
Research that shows racial disparities in the capital punishment system — that
black and Latino men are disproportionately sent to death row — has led to an
acknowledgment that the system is flawed, and is at the heart of calls for
abolition. But in California, supporters of the death penalty argue that white
men are charged with committing some of the most egregious crimes, including
Michael Gargiulo, the Hollywood Ripper suspect, or Mr. DeAngelo, who was once a
police officer.
“Gargiulo is a white dude,” Ms. Hanisee said. “Golden State Killer, he’s a
white guy who was a cop.” She also noted that many of the 24 death row inmates
who have exhausted all of their appeals — and would be next in line for
executions if they were proceeding — were white men.
“Of the 24 or so who are presently eligible for execution, 1/2 of them are
white men,” she said. “So let’s execute them.”
In an interview, Mr. Newsom said that his administration was considering
several new steps to dismantle the state’s capital punishment system and that
his moratorium was a first step on what he hoped was a path that ended with
abolition. He said his advisers were studying how he could commute the
sentences of current death row inmates to life without parole. Mr. Newsom has
the power to commute sentences in which the inmate has only one felony, but
more than half of the death row population has at least two felonies; to
commute those sentences would require approval from the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Newsom’s advisers are focusing on the Supreme Court’s decision to block
several pardons or commutations — though not for death row inmates — issued by
Gov. Jerry Brown before he left office in January. Those rejections were the
1st time in decades the court had blocked a governor’s commutations, and Mr.
Newsom has asked the court for an explanation.
He hopes the explanation will offer some guidance “that will allow us to form
better judgment on next steps if we want to look to commutations on the capital
punishment side.”
“Life without the possibility of parole. We are not releasing anybody. We are
by no means pursuing that,” Mr. Newsom said.
Mr. Newsom also said he was discussing with the attorney general’s office what
role the state could play in blocking prosecutions of new death sentences. But
legal experts say this power is limited: The state could decline to defend
capital cases on appeal, but it does not have the power to order district
attorneys, who are elected at the county level, to not seek death.
“He does not have the authority to tell prosecutors or even the attorney
general what the policy is going to be with respect to individual
prosecutions,” said Shilpi Agarwal, a staff attorney with the American Civil
Liberties Union in San Francisco. “As long as the death penalty is on the
books, they are free to seek it in any individual prosecution.”
One possibility is that the attorney general could take cases away from local
prosecutors. But experts say that is unlikely and would be unprecedented.
“I have not seen any indication from our attorney general that they want to
impose the governor’s view and take cases away from us so that we cannot seek
capital punishment,” said Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento County district
attorney, who is part of the prosecution in the Golden State Killer case.
Ms. Schubert added that “capital punishment is the law in California, and just
because Gavin Newsom has a personal opposition to it doesn’t mean that we as
prosecutors abandon our obligation to enforce the law in the appropriate cases.
I’m not this zealot about the death penalty, but it is the law.”
Those who oppose capital punishment, like Mr. Newsom and Ms. Agarwal, say that
no matter how gruesome a particular case is, it does not justify perpetrating a
system they see as biased, with the possibility of wrongful convictions. Almost
immediately, Mr. Newsom’s moratorium had an impact nationally, with candidates
running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 coming out against
capital punishment.
“When you are putting a moratorium on the largest death row in the Western
Hemisphere, it’s going to have an impact, we believe, on the national debate,”
Mr. Newsom said. “This was not just about California. It’s not just about the
situational nature of prosecutions in this state. It’s about a deeper question
about our values and who we are.”
All of this appears to be heading to a new ballot initiative in California,
perhaps as soon as 2020, about whether or not to keep capital punishment.
“The deeper question is, when is this ripe for reconsideration at the ballot?”
Mr. Newsom said.
If there were to be another fight at the ballot over capital punishment,
Californians would most likely hear a lot about the Golden State Killer and
other terrible crimes.
“We will talk about the facts of these cases and what these people did,” Ms.
Hanisee said. “And if the California voters vote to get rid of the death
penalty, so be it. But it needs to be an honest debate.”
(source: New York Times)
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