Execution Log – 06/25/12-07/01/12: 06/27; 06/27,Lopex,AZ

This log includes information about the 1 execution scheduled for next week, 06/27/12-07/01/12. 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) 444-8000

 University of Arizona Student Media

e-dress: edman@email.arizona.edu

phone: (520) 621-3195

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, 06/27/12, 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 even 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, then Arizona must deal with trial issues.  Factors mitigating Mr. Lopez’s culpability in this crime, like severe childhood abuse and brain damage, were never reviewed during his trial, amounting 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.