As our supporters will already know the State of Alabama has set 7.28.22 as the execution date for Joe N. James Jr. You will find the Talking Points for Mr. James on our website http://www.phadp.org/?q=alerts as well as the contact for Governor Ivey who stated “that all life is sacred”. Many thanks to those of you who have already contacted the Governor and to those who have shared the Talking Points! We would like to bring to attention that Mr. James is representing himself and that while he was away in court the State threw out his legal documents making filing an appeal extremely difficult. We have added this information to the Talking Points up on our website. We are grateful for your help in getting the word out and could not do it without you!

We discussed the recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center and wished that we could say that we were surprised but of course we were not: “An analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center has discovered rampant prosecutorial misconduct in death penalty prosecutions. DPIC’s ongoing review of death sentences imposed and overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty statutes in 1972 has identified more than 550 prosecutorial misconduct reversals and exonerations in capital cases (click to enlarge image). That amounts to more than 5.6% of all death sentences imposed in the United States in the past half-century.

“The data on wrongful convictions has long shown that prosecutorial misconduct is a significant source of injustice in the criminal legal system,” DPIC executive director Robert Dunham said. “But this research documents that what some judges have described as an ‘epidemic’ of misconduct is even more pervasive than we had imagined.”

We also discussed and felt grateful to the NAACP for its staunch support of abolition while studying one of its draft resolutions which has been proposed addressing the death penalty and which will be voted on at the National Convention along with other resolutions.

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!

                                                                                                       Esther