Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Kudos, Nebraska: No More DP

Nebraska abolitionists are to be congratulated, as are all people who place high value on humane solutions to crime and who advocate an end to America's barbarism. Nebraska became America's first conservative state to end capital punishment. We appreciate Nebraska's legislature for doing that. The Atlantic was one of many media companies that published the victory. A brief excerpt from The Atlantic is below:

Nebraska on Wednesday [May 27, 2015] became the first conservative state in more than four decades to repeal the death penalty. Its legislature, officially non-partisan but dominated by Republicans, voted by the narrowest of possible margins to override a veto by Governor Pete Ricketts, and enact a law scrapping a punishment that the state has struggled to carry out.

Read more at this link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/how-nebraska-banned-the-death-penalty/394271/

Below is a modified excerpt from an article titled "MaryLovesJustice Advocacy Fundraiser":
The Davis-MacPhail Truth Committee believes we can hasten the day when capital punishment ends nationwide if abolitionists change tactics. Most anti-dp organizations try to appeal to hardhearted people's sense of compassion. Newsflash: Elite white supremacists have no compassion; their god is money. It costs up to $90,000 more per year to warehouse each inmate on death row than to house him/her in the general prison population, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Our Davis-MacPhail Truth Committee usually addresses the financial burden that executioners make taxpayers bear because they are money-hungry and bloodthirsty. If executioners were not so mercenary, death row inmates would be executed long before they are, 10 years to 30 years after sentencing. But prison investors keep condemned people alive on death row for decades, not out of compassion but to make more money. That is good news, because most people who were finally exonerated were imprisoned for a very long time. If condemned people were executed sooner, America would execute many more innocent people.

The Davis-MacPhail Truth Committee believes that abolitionists must make executions more expensive.  We advocate for LAWSUITS after each execution if any reason at all can be found to sue. Executions would get more media exposure by suing. Anti-DP organizations should sue after mentally ill people are executed. Sue after potentially innocent people are executed, especially if DNA tests were denied. Sue after guilty people are executed if the executions were torturous. Sue, sue, sue. Lawsuits mean significantly more to killers than candlelight vigils do. I believe the key to ending executions to to make them more expensive through lawsuits, just as speeders are deterred by traffic fines. Access the entire article at
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2015/07/mayrlovesjustice-advocacy-fundraiser.html

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"Continue to fight this fight" ~Troy Anthony Davis
Anti-DP article by Mary Neal, director of
~Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
~Human Rights for Prisoners March
~Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")
Choose to "view my complete profile" for more MaryLovesJustice blogs

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

May 2015 Death Penalty News

ELIMINATING BLACK JURORS IN A GEORGIA MURDER TRIAL ~ "The rare grant of certiorari means the high court will examine in its next term a 1987 Floyd County murder trial. Timothy Tyrone Foster, a black man who was 18 years old when he was charged, was convicted of the murder of Queen White, an elderly, white, retired schoolteacher . . . The prosecution used its peremptory strikes against all four of the qualified prospective jurors who were black ..."
http://www.dailyreportonline.com/id=1202727421866/US-Supreme-Court-Agrees-to-Take-Up-Ga-Death-Penalty-Case#ixzz3bH7z0O1R

JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS SPEAKS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY ~ In a discussion at the George Washington University School of Law, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said the death penalty creates a higher risk of error than other criminal cases and is unfair, unnecessary, and a "terrible waste" of resources. Using the Boston marathon bomber trial as an example, Justice Stevens said jury selection procedures in capital cases produce juries who are "not representative of the community." He said that, under these procedures, "most of the 75%" of Bostonians who opposed the death penalty "could be challenged for cause and do not make it" onto the jury.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/6150

EXECUTING THE MENTALLY ILL
LONG BEFORE HE COMMITTED a vicious triple murder in Houston at the age of 19, Derrick Charles had shown signs of serious mental problems. Raised amid crippling poverty, domestic abuse, alcoholism and neglect, he watched his schizophrenic mother stab his abusive stepfather. He suffered from tactile and auditory hallucinations, and by the time he was 13, had been hospitalized twice for mental illness. While in juvenile prison for nonviolent offenses, he said he was hearing voices and asked for medication. The request was denied.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/20/mentally-ill-executed/

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Excerpts from recent news articles were published in the Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee blog for our anti-dp organization. Please share anti-DP news with your online networks. 

"Continue to fight this fight" ~Troy Anthony Davis
Anti-DP message by Mary Neal, director of
~Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
~Human Rights for Prisoners March
~Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com phone (678)531.0262 or (571)335-1741

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Nebraska May Repeal DP

 
Dear Mary,
Nebraska just moved one step closer to repealing the death penalty. Yesterday we asked for your help in contacting legislators in Nebraska to ask them to vote "YES" to LB 268 which would repeal the state's death penalty. I'm happy to report that you put the pressure on, and the Nebraska policymakers listened. They voted 32-15 to end the death penalty in Nebraska. We thank you!
We're not done yet though. Governor Pete Ricketts has vowed that he will veto this bill. We need all 32 legislators who voted to repeal the death penalty to hold their votes in order to override a governor veto.
Thank you for being part of the success. Thanks to your help, Nebraska could be the 19th state to abolish the death penalty.  
Congratulations!
Diann Rust-Tierney
Executive Director
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
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This article was published in the Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee blog for our anti-dp organization. Please share it with your online networks. 

"Continue to fight this fight" ~Troy Anthony Davis
Anti-DP message by Mary Neal, director of
~Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
~Human Rights for Prisoners March
~Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com phone (678)531.0262 or (571)335-1741

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Death Warrant for Warren Hill, Mentally Ill on GA Death Row

Warren Hill was originally sentenced to life imprisonment for shooting his girlfriend, Myra Wright, in 1986. He was subsequently sentenced to death for killing his cellmate, Joseph Handspike.

Georgia is preparing to EXECUTE the mentally ill man who "somehow" got a board of wood with long nails driven through it and beat his cellmate to death while he slept. Did the prison know how dangerous Hill was? Absolutely. He was already imprisoned for murder. And how on earth did Hill get a board and nails to make a Midieval club like the one pictured below? Hill's murder by the State on January 27, 2015, and his victim's murder, will be included in our "AIMI vs. USA" legal action before the International Court in 2015. 
If inmates can be endangered and killed by locking them in cells with murderous mentally ill people, which has happened in Georgia correctional facilities more than once, then every prisoner is at risk. Correctional officers and prison administrators who apply this lack of care are intended to escape accountability by executing the mentally ill inmates who kill their cellmates. The inmates who kill will bare the blame, not the prison which should be a "controlled environment." 

"AIMI vs. USA" will take the USA before the International Court for dereliction of its duty to protect the rights of institutionalized persons, such as Hill and his victim, Handspike. Hill should have had no opportunity to ascertain a board and nails, and his victim should not have been in the cell with a homicidal mentally ill man like Hill. 

Read about The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) of 1980, a United States federal law intended to protect the rights of people in state or local correctional facilities, nursing homes, mental health facilities and institutions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Wikipedia). The U.S. Justice Department totally ignores its responsibility to uphold that Act; an "act" is all it is (see the links to information about CRIPA below).

As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said over 50 years ago, "All we say to America is, 'Be true to what you said on paper.'" That is still a huge problem, and no group of people anywhere on planet earth is as oppressed as Americans with mental disabilities in custody. They are regularly tortured and killed without any accountability being demanded. Some are tortured for sport and killed in grotesque Medieval ways, including death by scalding, death by roasting, death by hanging, and forcing mentally ill inmates to entertain correctional officers by engaging in gladiator fights (to the finish, in some cases). 

It is likely that Hill's mental illness was untreated before he killed Myra Wright, his first victim. Neglect likely caused both murders.


Happy Martin Luther King's Day 2015. Let us stand up together and demand that Americans with mental disabilities like Warren Hill be protected, moved into mental hospitals instead of jails and prisons, and that mental illness be decriminalized in the United States of America. Nobody deserves to be misused as prison commodities because of a common, treatable health condition. If the renowned human rights leader, Dr. King, were alive, we at Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI) believe decriminalizing mental illness would be one of his main objectives. Please make it one of yours. Read more about "AIMI vs. USA" at 

http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com

USDOJ: Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA)
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/cripastat.php

CRIPA at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_of_Institutionalized_Persons_Act

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Thank you for giving Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill.

How can you help? Follow this blog, share this article, and listen to the George Mallinckrodt Blogtalkradio presentations taped January 11 and January 15, 2015 (links are below). Mallinckrodt exposed brutality and a murder against mentally ill inmates in his book, "Getting Away with Murder" and was fired from his position as a psychotherapist in Florida prisons as a consequence of his objections to torture. Human and civil rights of persons with mental disabilities in the United States are treated as nonexistent.

"Getting Away with Murder," by George Mallinckrodt
January 15, 9pm EST
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2015/01/16/getting-away-with-murder-a-george-millenckrodt-interview-part-2
January 11, 3pm EST
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2015/01/11/getting-away-with-murder-a-george-mallinckrodt-interview


It would be illegal to keep a dog in a tight space 23 hours a day and gas or Taser him for barking. It would be illegal to put a dog in deadly restraint for control. That happens to mentally ill people routinely in the nation's correctional facilities. What happened to Larry Neal? Why are we still asking that question after eleven years? Cover-ups regarding the wrongful deaths of mentally ill inmates are common and vile.
Mentally Ill Americans Need Dog Justice. Treat mental illness medically, not legally. Support the H.R. 3717 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." The U.S. congressional bill provides for crisis intervention team (CIT) training for police and corrections officers, assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs to stop recidivism, and other needed changes.
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This article was published in the Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee blog for our anti-dp organization. Eight(8) links are in this article. Please share it with your online networks. The article also appears in "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog at 
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2015/01/warren-hill-death-warrant-issued.html

"Continue to fight this fight" ~Troy Anthony Davis
Anti-DP message by Mary Neal, director of
~Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
~Human Rights for Prisoners March
~Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")
phone (678)531.0262 or (571)335-1741

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Rodney Reed, Innocent Death Row Inmate in TX

Georgetown, Texas – Rodney Reed is sitting on death row in Texas for a 1996 murder that he probably did not commit, and if nothing is done to stop the execution, he be killed on March 5, 2015.

FreeThoughtProject reports that even the family of the victim is now coming forward in Reed's defense, saying instead that Stacey Stites' fiance, a former cop, was likely responsible for the murder. The 19-year-old victim was engaged to Officer Jimmy Fennell when she was murdered in 1996. During that time, Fennell was under various disciplinary investigations at the department, because he was stalking and harassing women while on the job. Over the years, mountains of evidence surfaced implicating Fennell as the person who killed Stacy. Fennell is presently in prison, having been convicted of rape in 2007.


Please sign the Change.org petition to save Rodney Reed
http://chn.ge/1wPTXyL?recruiter=802110


Reed was recently denied DNA tests to prove his innocence, while the likely killer, a former police officer, is jailed for rape. Read more about the case at FreeThoughtProject.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/rapist-cop-killed-wife-death-row-crime/


Reed is innocent until proved guilty. For some reason, the system wants to kill him without definitive proof. We applaud the Campaign to End the Death Penalty for launching the petition for Reed, which presently has over 14,000 signatures. Please share it with your social networks to encourage others to help Reed. 

"Test every item handled and we can determined who did this crime, but for whatever reason, the State of Texas has decided they want to execute a man without finding out those answers," said Bryce Benjet, an attorney with The Innocence Project.
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/27481959/update-judge-denies-death-row-inmates-request-for-more-dna-testing

Stacy Stites and her survivors deserve to have the right person prosecuted and sentenced, not a convenient black man who might be innocent.

Racism lives in the USA's corrupt justice system. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hears cases out of Texas. That court was made famous by Judge Edith Jones, who was subjected to a judicial review after numerous groups filed an ethics complaint for her reportedly racist comments. Jones reportedly believes that denying condemned people a stay of execution forces them to repent and "save their souls." 

RH Reality Check reports: Some of those comments included claims that certain “racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime” and are “prone to commit acts of violence” including more violent and “heinous” crimes and that Mexicans would prefer to be on death row in the United States than serving prison terms in their native country, according to the complaint [filed by numerous human and civil rights groups]. Jones allegedly accused defendants who raise claims of “mental retardation” of abusing the system. Jones called claims that the death penalty is racist or arbitrary a “red herring.” 

See more information about Judge Jones in the article, "Judge Edith Jones: Kill Inmates to Save Their Souls"
http://dmtruth.blogspot.com/2013/06/judge-edith-jones-kill-inmates-to-save.html

Paragraph space goes here. Leave it alone, stalkers.

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is a national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment. It has active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. To win abolition, we need to build a grassroots struggle. We believe that those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of our movement. Their experiences help to shape our strategies. - See more at: 
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/

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This article was initially published in the Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee blog for our anti-dp organization. Seven(7) links are in this article. Please share it with your online networks. Copy and paste this link.
http://dmtruth.blogspot.com/2015/01/rodney-reed-innocent-death-row-inmate.html

"Continue to fight this fight" ~Troy Anthony Davis
Anti-DP message by Mary Neal, director of
~Davis/MacPhail Truth Committee
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
~Human Rights for Prisoners March
~Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI")