Weekly Report from the Board Meeting at Holman Prison 12.6.23
The State of Alabama has set 1.25.24 as the execution date for Kenneth Smith. The Talking Points are at https://www.phadp.org/execution-alert-kenneth-eugene-smith/ on our website. Please: Take action to spare Kenneth’s life at bit.ly/KennethSmithAL or at athttps://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-kenneth-smith and write to the Governor as well!
Robert Grass, an attorney for Smith, stated that his defense team is disappointed in the decision and will continue to fight in court.“We remain hopeful that those who review this case will see that a second attempt to execute Mr. Smith — this time with an experimental, never-before-used method and with a protocol that has never been fully disclosed to him or his counsel — is unwarranted and unjust,”. Attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith filed an amended lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the proposed new execution method.
We are pleased to report that former Board member before he was exonerated and now Advisory Board member, Gary Drinkard represented us in Rome at Sant’Egidio’s Two days to say NO to the death penalty: the "Cities for Life" event on November 29th and 30th. Gary has had a very busy time in Rome and emailed us: “We were at the coliseum tonight and earlier today with students, bringing Kenny's name up high!!! These people really want to get to the government and Governor Ivey and get Kenny's case commuted.” We know from Kenny that the Catholic Free Press and Amnesty have reached out to his attorney for a press release. In the Vatican News the interview with Gary Drinkard is featured under the title Sant’Egidio: ‘Save the life of Kenneth Smith' https://youtu.be/XU7A43mNmOc?si=uWzU5yKqNVmNVEGF
From the article Only 4 states besides Alabama have carried out executions in 2023 - al.com “Alabama executed James Barber in July and and executed Casey McWhorter two weeks ago, both by the lethal injection. Alabama’s next execution is scheduled for January, when it is set to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen hypoxia, a method never used by any state.”
We recommend Why Former Alabama AG Believes Innocent Man on State's Death Row in the Birmingham Times and Supreme Court's Hands-Off Attitude Contributes to Growing Public Doubts about the Death Penalty by Austin Sarat in Justia’s Verdict.
And here is our Christmas card list: https://www.phadp.org/christmas-card-list-2023/ . Thank you to all who were so kind as to respond. And speaking of Christmas cards, at our meeting today we spent some time writing ours!
We thank all who are working so hard and diligently to stop all killing in Alabama! And as always in closing, we 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. And if you would like to order our book “Ghosts Over the Boiler” you can do so at Amazon.com. Stay well and be kind to each other!
Esther
