"It really makes me believe the Great Spirit laid this trip on me so that I could bear witness of this terrible thing we call the deathpenalty in the U.S." - Delbert Tibbs
I Just found out that death-row survivor Delbert Tibbs passed away last night. I first met Delbert at the Fast and Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty in front of the SCOTUS about 8 years ago. He was one of the few exonerees that had kept in touch with me after I left Witness to Innocence. Sometimes he would send messages of encouragement and support, and sometimes poetry. He always refereed to me as "hoo" or "cowboy" in private, and never capitalized a single word in his messages. I always assumed that he was taking a poetic license. He was a poet, with several published pieces in magazines and books. Pete Seeger put a few lines of his poems into a song titled "Delbert Tibbs." At that time he was dedicating the song to a young black man serving a death sentence for the 1994 murder of a white woman at the Raiford State Prison in Starke, Florida. After finding out that I speak Persian, he would recite from memory verses of poetry from not just Rumi and Hafiz (whom he always refereed to as "Sheikh Hafiz"), but also from Farid ud-Din Attar's "Conference of the Birds."
In his letter to Gary Graham (executed in 2000 by George Bush), who Delbert believed to be innocent, he wrote: "...those who know not the sacred thing called life may break and destroy the physical body but your warrior spirit Will never die; you are part of the One who made the Sun and the Stars and the laughter of children and love." R.I.P. delbert l. tibbs. Your warrior spirit lives on among those of us fighting the death penalty.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Execution Watch: Jamie McCoskey, Nov. 12
Jamie McCoskey
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Texas plans to execute a man Tuesday whose sentencing hearing included a presentation by a prosecution psychologist whose testing methods for developmental disability have since been debunked as unscientific.
Execution Watch will air coverage of the state killing, plus a taped interview with the condemned, Jamie McCoskey.
RADIO SHOW PREVIEW
EXECUTION WATCH
Unless a stay is issued, we'll broadcast live:
Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time
KPFT FM Houston 90.1 and Online...
Updates and discussion on Facebook: Execution Watch
TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE:
JAMIE McCOSKEY,
a Houston bartender convicted in the 1991 kidnapping and stabbing death
of a 20-year-old man. McCoskey was one of 16 defendants sentenced to
death in separate cases after the now-disgraced psychologist George
Denkowski used his own, non-standard methods to conclude that none was
developmentally disabled. His determination sank the defendants' chances
of having their death sentences declared unconstitutional. Denkowski's
punishment included being barred from performing such evaluations in
future.
SHOW LINEUP
Host: RAY HILL, an ex-convict and activist who founded -- and hosted for 30 years -- The Prison Show on KPFT. His internet radio show airs each Wednesday at 2 PM CT.: hmsnetradio.org.
Legal Analyst: JIM SKELTON,
a legal educator, retired attorney and native Texan who has seen
capital trials from both the prosecution and defense tables. Joining him
will be Houston criminal defense attorneys SUSAN ASHLEY, LARRY DOUGLAS, MICHAEL GILLESPIE & JACK LEE.
Featured Interview: JAMIE McCOSKEY, who accepted Execution Watch’s
invitation to tape an interview on death row, with the understanding
that the recording would air unedited, in its entirety, and only in the
event of his execution.
Reporter, Outside the Death House, Huntsville: GLORIA RUBAC, member, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, www.abolitionmovement.org.
Reporter, Vigil, Houston: DAVE ATWOOD, founder and former board member, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, www.tcadp.org.
NEXT SCHEDULED EXECUTION
On Dec. 3, Texas plans to kill JERRY MARTIN. If it does, Execution Watch will air coverage.
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Otis Maclay.
THEME: By Victoria Panetti, SheMonster International, myspace.com/shemonster.
Monday, November 04, 2013
WCADP: Iran: The indiscriminate executions continue
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
4 November 2013
Iran: The indiscriminate executions continue –
The
UN, EU and the International community must put the situation of the
death penalty at the top of the agenda in their dialogue with Iran
While
the political climate between Iran and the international community has
been improving since the election of President Rouhani, and the P5+1
Group is preparing their second round of nuclear negotiations with Iran,
executions continue at a higher rate than before inside the country.
Forty-five
executions in Iran have been confirmed since Saturday, October 26. We
condemn this wave of lawlessness in the strongest possible terms.
Six
executions took place this morning, November 4, according to reports
from Iran: Shirkoo Moarefi, a Kurdish political prisoner, was hanged in
the prison of Saghez (west of Iran), and five prisoners charged with
murder were executed in the prison of Kermanshah.
Following
the execution of 18 prisoners on Saturday, October 26, among them two
Kurdish political prisoners and 16 Baluchi prisoners executed in
retaliation for an armed attack by insurgents the day before, another
Baluchi prisoner was hanged on Monday, October 28, convicted of
membership in a Baluchi militant group, and one prisoner was executed on
Tuesday, October 29, convicted of drug-related charges.
Referring
to the retaliatory execution of the 16 Baluchi prisoners, Florence
Bellivier, President of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, stated, “The
death penalty in Iran is often carried out in violation of
international law; in this case none of the safeguards provided not only
by international law but also by internal regulations were respected”.
Reports
from Iran had indicated that at least 12 Kurdish prisoners might be in
imminent danger of execution. Iran Human Rights (IHR) warned about the
imminent danger of execution for four Sunni Kurd prisoners sentenced to
death, convicted of the assassination of a Sunni Cleric. Those prisoners
were in detention when the assassination took place. Amnesty
International has also warned of the danger of execution for the two
Kurdish political prisoners Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, reportedly
tortured into “confessing” to the 2009 murder of the son of a senior
cleric in Marivan, Kurdistan Province, and participating in armed
activities with a Kurdish opposition group. Additionally, four Ahwazi Arab death row prisoners have been transferred to an unknown location and could be executed at any time.
Since
the election of the new Iranian President Hasan Rouhani in June, at
least 278 prisoners have been executed in Iran. Of those, 166 including
one juvenile offender convicted of a murder committed at 14 years of
age, have been announced by official sources. This is a higher monthly
average number of executions than in recent years. In the same period,
the diplomatic ties between Iran and the international community have
improved and EU and the P5+1 Group have resumed their dialogue with
Iran.
“It
is a paradox that the relations between Iran and the international
community improve at the same time as the number of the executions in
Iran increases. Notably, many of the death row prisoners are subjected
to torture, forced confessions and unfair trials,” said Mahmood
Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights. “Demanding a
halt to the executions and due process of law must be on top of the
agenda in the dialogue between the international community and Iran”.
The
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, an alliance of more than 150
NGOs, bar associations, local authorities and unions, was created in
Rome on 13 May 2002. The aim of the World Coalition is to strengthen the
international dimension of the fight against the death penalty. Its
ultimate objective is to obtain the universal abolition of the death
penalty.
For further information on the death penalty in Iran, see Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, 2012, http://iranhr.net/IMG/pdf/
Press Contact:
Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan
Executive Director ECPM & Vice-President WCADP
Tel: +33 1 80 87 70 53
Email: ecpm@abolition.fr
Maria Donatelli
Director WCADP
Tel: +33 1 80 89 45 06
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