Execution Log – 05/14/12-05/20/12: 05/16,Staley,TX; 05/16,Lopex,AZ

This log includes information 2 executions scheduled for next week, 05/14/12-05/20/12.  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.

AZ        Samuel Lopez                  scheduled 05/16/12

You can e-mail Governor Jan Brewer at her website: http://www.azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp

phone: (602) 542-4331

fax: (602) 542-1381

Other Arizona contacts:

The Arizona Republic

web site: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html

phone: (602) 444-6397

University of Arizona Student Media

e-dress: edman@email.arizona.edu

phone: (520) 621-3551

 

I ask you, Governor Brewer, to stop your state’s execution of Samuel Lopez.  Mr. Lopez is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Arizona next Wednesday, 05/16/12, for the 1986 murder of Estefana Holmes.

Arizona must clear up a docket full of legal problems with Samuel Lopez’s case before exacting its pound of flesh from him.  Governor Brewer reconstituted the state’s parole board at the end of April this year, packing it with three new members having obvious prejudgments about the death penalty.  One is a member of a police organization that publicly advocates the death penalty.  Aside from the bias, a suit filed by Mr. Lopez’s attorneys alleges that the Governor violated twenty different state statues in the reorganization of the parole board.  If the legal problems are ever resolved, the issue that factors mitigating Mr. Lopez’s culpability in this crime, like severe childhood abuse and brain damage, were never reviewed during his trial amounts to unconstitutionally inadequate representation.  Samuel Lopez has not received his federally guaranteed fair trial!  Governor Brewer, you cannot let this injustice stand!

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 Brewer, stop this killing of Samuel Lopez.  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.

 

TX                    Steven Staley                 scheduled 05/16/12

You can e-mail Governor Rick Perry at his website: http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

phone: (512) 463 2000

fax:       (512) 463 1849

 

other Texas contacts:

Pardons and Paroles

phone: (512) 406 5852

fax:       (512) 467 0945

 Austin American Statesman

e-dress: letters@statesman.com

phone: (512) 445-3667

fax:       (512) 445-3679

 Houston Chronicle

e-dress: hci@chron.com

phone: (713) 220-7491

I ask you, Governor Perry, to stop your state’s execution of Steven Staley.  Mr. Staley is scheduled to die next Wednesday, 02/16/12, for the 1989 murder of Robert Read.

Mr. Staley’s case exposes your state’s blood lust.  He is a paranoid schizophrenic whose mother, suffering from the same mental defect, tried to kill him repeatedly during his childhood.  His father was an abusive alcoholic and Steven Staley himself attempted suicide at age 16.  Texas is now going to see that he succeeds.  Your state requires that a prisoner ‘comprehend his impending execution’.  The only way that Steven Staley can meet that standard is under the influence of the force-fed anti-psychotic drugs prison officials have force-fed him.  Governor Perry, this is a gruesome spectacle; you must intervene to allow time for justice to be done.

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 Texas, the state which executes the most people. As for vengeance, that is the Lord’s, not the government’s.

Please, Governor Perry, stop this killing of Steven Staley.  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.