Weekly Report from the Board Meeting at Holman Prison 5.17.23

An execution warrant has been issued for Alabama Death Row inmate James Barber.

It’s the first execution set since the state botched and therefore failed to carry out two planned executions last fall and the first with new rules in place allowing the Governor to choose the execution date which shall not begin less than 30 days after the May 3rd order but which could be set any time thereafter. You can find the Talking Points at: https://www.phadp.org/execution-alert-james-barber/

We thank the individuals, including Cantor Mike Zoosman of L’chaim, Jews Against the Death Penalty for their daily weekday calls to the Governor’s office protesting the upcoming execution. Might you join them?

Call Governor Ivey today: 1.334.242.7100

Also, we ask that you please sign the Death Penalty Action petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-james-barber-in-alabama/. Our thanks to Death Penalty Action as well for including us in their zoom call yesterday!

The U.S. Supreme Court in an unusual ruling when it comes to the death penalty ruled in favor of Kenneth Smith allowing him to revive his pre-botched execution lawsuit seeking to block the state from putting him to death through lethal injection as that would violate constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

We are very encouraged by the following message from Sam Heath, manager of the Evangelical Network of EJUSA: “Nearly 90% of Alabamians are religious. For people of faith concerned about the death penalty in Alabama some national, state and local organizations are partnering to have a regular zoom call for anyone of any faith interested in engaging in specific death penalty cases and working and organizing toward death penalty repeal." For anyone interested please reach out to Sam Heath ([email protected]).

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 like to order our book Ghosts Over the Boiler you can do so at Amazon.com.

                                             Esther