We plan to keep 1.27.22,, the execution date for Matthew Reeves as the heading of our Weekly Report. Mr. Reeves has an IQ in the 60s and is intellectually disabled. Mr. Reeves was 18 years old at the time of the crime. You can find the Talking Points on our website http://www.phadp.org/?q=alerts and the petition at: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-matthew-reeves-in-alabama?fbclid=IwAR36piPfuSAwcNU9CmBKO1io7FKugiOr7eVKpqzt_Do-2z1AdI84E7_39hM

As we are coming to the end of the year we thought it appropriate to share some highlights from the Death Penalty Information Year End Report which we discussed. It will come as no surprise that Alabama compared negatively to most other states. To quote DPIC’s Robert Dunham, “The handful of states that continue to push for capital punishment are outliers that often disregard due process, botch executions, and dwell in the shadows of long histories of racism and a biased criminal legal system.” just three states — Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama — accounted for the majority of death sentences in the past year, as well as the most actual executions. And yes, racism as can be seen by the fact that 6 of the 11 inmates executed in 2021 were Black. Black and Hispanic defendants made up more than 60% of the death sentences imposed this year.”

A motion filed in Mobile which alleges that the discretion Alabama District Attorneys have to decide which defendants they seek the death penalty against is arbitrary caught our attention. The reasons given were that “each elected prosecutor has her own views on capital punishment and her own implicit and explicit biases, each prosecutor enforces the death penalty using different criteria, resulting in impermissibly arbitrary application of the death penalty”.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial for Brett Yeiter, who was convicted and sentenced to death in Escambia County in 2019 in the shooting death of his father-in-law.

Once more we were honored to have one of our Weekly Reports included in the Revealer Newsletter Vol. 10 Issue 12. Thank you Leon E, ”Chief” Frazier! Always in your debt!

In closing and as always, we continue to thank all our generous donors who either gave by going to our website and using the “donate” button or who gave directly. Thank you also to all who took the time to read our notes, commented, liked and shared them on Facebook. You encourage us and make all the difference. Stay safe and wear a mask!

Esther