Execution Log – 08/06/12-08/12/12: 08/07,Wilson,TX; 08/08,Cook,AZ

This log includes information about the 2 executions scheduled for next week, 08/06/12-08/12/12. 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.

TX       Marvin Wilson            scheduled 08/07/12

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

phone: (512) 463 2000 (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 Marvin Wilson. Mr. Wilson is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Texas next Tuesday, 08/07/12, for the 1992 murder of Jerry Williams, a drug informant.

Marvin Williams is slated to be the next in a long line of our country’s citizens with deep behavioral disturbances that your state has just killed instead of providing the treatment that justice and humanity demand.  In its 2002 decision Atkins v Virginia, the United States Supreme Court outlawed the execution of mentally retarded people as a violation of their fourth amendment right to avoid being subjected to ‘cruel and unusual punishment’.  Marvin Wilson has an IQ of 61, well below the accepted legal standard for mental impairment.  Dr. Donald Trahan, a court-appointed neuropsychiatrist with 22 years of experience in mental retardation, diagnosed Mr. Wilson with that mental disability. Mr. Wilson’s original attorney missed a filing deadline to bring the issue to the attention of the court, but surely Texas will not kill a man otherwise not eligible for the death penalty just because his attorney mishandled his paperwork!  Governor Perry, you must stay this execution to allow time for your state to catch up to the requirements of humanity and the laws of our land!

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 Perry, stop this killing Marvin Wilson. 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.

 

 

AZ       Daniel Cook            scheduled 08/08/12

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 Daniel Cook. Mr. Cook is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Arizona next Wednesday, 08/08/12, for the 1987 murders of friends and co-workers Kevin Swaney and Carlos Cruz-Ramos.

Arizona must clear up a docket full of legal problems with its administration of the death penalty before exacting its pound of flesh from Daniel Cook. You 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.  If the legal problems are ever resolved, then Arizona must deal with Mr. Cook’s trial issues.  Factors mitigating his culpability in this crime were never reviewed during the trial, amounting to unconstitutionally inadequate representation. Also, at the time of the crime Daniel Cook and his co-defendant were in the middle of a night of drug and alcohol induced frenzy during which they were not in control of their own behavior.  In the best traditions of this country we do not exact punishment if no culpability can be established.  Governor Brewer, you cannot let this injustice take place!

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 Daniel Cook. 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.