The Armband Protest Against the Death Penalty

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Here are copies of the e-mails I sent to people in states with scheduled executions asking them to intervene. Please e-mail, phone or fax appeals of your own. You are welcome to cut & paste.

GA                    Kelly Gissendaner                 scheduled 09/29/15

You can send an e-mail to Governor Nathan Deal at his website: http://gov.georgia.gov/webform/contact-governor-domestic-form

phone: 404-656-1776

fax:     404-657-7332

other Georgia contacts:

Pardons and Parole Board

E-mail:  Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us
Phone:   404-656-5651
Fax:        404-651-6723

 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

e-mail: letters@ajc.com
Phone:   404-526-5151

fax:       404-526-5746
 

The Augusta Chronicle

 E-dress: letters@augustachronicle.com

 phone:   706-823-3366
fax:        706-722-7403

I ask you, Governor Deal, to use your influence in our state to help stop the execution of Kelly Gissendaner. Ms. Gissendaner is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Georgia next Monday, 09/29/15, for the 1997 murder of her husband Douglas Gissendaner.

The most important thing to know about this case is that Kelly Gissendaner did not kill her husband, which is accepted by all sides in the case.  She conspired with and assisted her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, in her husband’s murder.  However, the actual killer, Mr. Owen, is serving life in prison for committing this crime.  The Gissendaner children had this to say about the upcoming execution of their mother for killing their father: “My brothers and I lost one parent. I don’t know that I can handle another one,” daughter Kayla Gissendaner said in an emotional videotaped statement, which includes similar sentiments from her brother Dakota. “It’s the most awful feeling to know that they could both be gone. I haven’t done anything wrong, but I feel like I’m the one being punished…”.  Further, Ms. Gissendaner became a model prisoner, giving aid and support to many of her fellow inmates.  How can justice be served by killing an accomplice with no direct role in the murder, whose children will be deprived of their only living parent by this execution and who has turned her life around after this horrible act?

Former Attorney General of the United States Janet Reno, as well as myriads of scholars, can find no evidence that the death penalty deters capital crimes. In fact, the warden of the famous Sing Sing prison believes that the death penalty exacerbates the violence in his facility by setting an example of cold-blooded killing. Recent studies show that the largest increase in capital crimes is in the state of Texas, the state which executes the most people. As for vengeance, that is the Lord’s, not the government’s.

Please, Governor Deal, please use your moral and political power in Georgia to help stop this killing of Kelly Gissendaner. If this execution goes forward, look around this country for the black armbands worn, and the church bells tolled, in protest of this injustice.

Thank you.

OK       Richard Glossip                     scheduled 09/30/2015

You can e-mail Governor Mary Fallin at her contact website

phone:    405-521-2342
fax:         405-521-3353

 
other Oklahoma contacts:

Pardons and Paroles
fax:         405-427-6648

The Daily Oklahoman
e-dress: The Daily Oklahoman
phone:    (405) 475-3311
fax:         (405) 475-3183

Tulsa World
e-dress: Tulsa World
phone:    (918) 581-8300
fax:         (918) 581-8353

I ask you, Governor Fallin, along with celebrities, common folk and religious leaders from all over the world, to stop your state’s execution of Richard Glossip.  Mr. Glossip is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Oklahoma next Wednesday, 09/30/2015, for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, owner of the motel Mr. Glossip was managing.

Only at the risk of impeachment did your state Supreme Court lift their stay of Mr. Glossip’s execution earlier this month.  Notwithstanding the stay being lifted, your state’s refusal to reveal the provisioning details of the poisons you administer for lethal injections is not lawful.  Your new combination of lethal drugs, midazolam, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, has never been used before and none of you know whether it can avoid the ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ that is forbidden by our federal constitution.  Further, there is no FDA review of your poisons because they come from a non-regulated compounding pharmacy.

A two-week update:  New evidence has surfaced showing that Mr. Glossip’s chief accuser (and the self-confessed actual murderer), made no mention of Mr. Glossip in contemporaneous interviews, nor did he implicate him until after a detective suggested the possibility as a way to avoid the death penalty himself.  Former Oklahoma DA Andy Coats has said: “It’s a case where, personally, if I’d been DA at the time, I wouldn’t have filed the death penalty on it, because I don’t think it’s solid enough”.

As the chief executive of Oklahoma you must immediately halt all executions in your state, including Mr. Richard Glossip’s, until these issues are resolved.

Former Attorney General of the United States of America Janet Reno, as well as many other scholars, can find no evidence that the death penalty deters capital crimes. In fact, the warden of the famous Sing Sing prison believes that the death penalty exacerbates the violence in his facility by setting an example of cold-blooded killing. Recent studies show that the largest increase in capital crimes is in Texas, the state which executes the most people. As for vengeance, that is the Lord’s, not the government’s.

Please, Governor Fallin, stop this killing of Richard Glossip. He is an innocent man!  If this execution goes forward, look around this country for the black bands worn and the church bells tolled in protest of this injustice.

Thank you.