The Alabama Supreme Court set September 22nd as the execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, a severely mentally disturbed man. Talking Points are posted on our website http://www.phadp.org/?q=alerts. Please do all you can!
We are grateful to all involved with Joe James’ second autopsy which confirmed to the world what we already knew about his execution. It was horribly botched! An article in the Atlantic states “The details of the torture inflicted on Joe James are tragic, but unfortunately no surprise to anyone who has had a client executed in Alabama with lethal injection,” John Palombi, an assistant federal defender, told me in an email. “Adding to the torture is the refusal of the Alabama Department of Corrections to admit or accurately discuss the issues with Mr. James’ execution … There should be an immediate moratorium on all executions in the state of Alabama until a thorough investigation of Alabama’s execution process, done by people outside the Department of Corrections, is complete.”
And this from the Death Penalty Information Center:” Unfortunately, one of the most important things the results tell us is that the ADOC execution team was not competent to properly carry out this execution and that ADOC prison officials cannot be trusted to tell the truth.”
Ten days ago the world lost a great man and we lost a dear friend, Leon E. Chief Frazier of Tuskegee. Chief called his friends “a mighty fine human being” but that was who he was. We will always be in his debt for many years of support. Chief was the first law enforcement officer to sign our letter of support for a moratorium on executions and he did it in style, on the steps of the Capitol in Montgomery! But his support did not end there and one only has to type the word “Chief” into the search engine of our website to see how present he was to us. You will also find Chief immortalized in the Alabama Death Penalty Archives of N,A.U. More recently he featured some of our Weekly Reports in his erudite monthly Revealer newsletter. Chief contributed so much to this world including true justice! We treasure his booklet “NO JUSTICE…NO PEACE WITHOUT REFORM!” We quote Chief when we say “Love, Trust and Respect” and add gratitude always!
And yes, no justice…no peace without reform is what several of the men at Holman are experiencing who are in the unbelievable situation of finding themselves without representation at a time when filings are due! Only in Alabama do death row inmates have no automatic right to legal representation after the initial post conviction appeal! Pro-bono attorneys, often out of state are not that easy to find.
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!
