On Monday evening, TCASK Chattanooga, as well as the TCASK staff, got a special treat, a visit from Equal Justice USA’s Southern Field Organizer, Catilla Everette! Everette was hired by EJ to work in four Southern states including Tennessee and we are certainly lucky to have him. On Monday night we got a taste of exactly why that is.

One of the tasks that Everette has taken on since arriving is to be the point person developing the chapter in Chattanooga (while Randy works in Knoxville and I tackle Memphis – poor Memphis got the short end of the stick). Monday night was Everette’s first chance to meet the Chattanooga chapter, and I think it’s safe to say that a great impression was made. Everette took over facilitation of the meeting and within an hour had pulled a full vigil plan, with outreach to important communities included, from all the different thoughts and ideas that people at the meeting had.

For me, it was nice to be at a meeting where I wasn’t facilitating, so I could just sit back and observe the master in action and it really was a pleasure. Everette has a great organizer’s persona, that is to say that he can be persuasive while empowering others to bring their views forward and then distilling, sometimes rambling, thoughts into concise and coherent visions, while at the same time keeping a meeting on track. Chattanooga is going to be flying high.

So even though we’re still staring down an execution date for Sedley Alley in less than a week, there is some good news on the TCASK front. Shout out to Everette, who knows how to git ‘er done!

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if you’re in middle tennessee tonight catch the 9:00 pm fox 17 news broadcast as tcask associate director alex “buttercup” wiesendanger shares the issue of withheld evidence with reporter john dunn…

“evidence supporting the theory that the victim had not been killed until 1:30 a.m., at the earliest, precludes alley (who was accounted for from 12:10 a.m. on) from being the killer…”

so why is the state of tennessee still trying so hard to execute sedley alley next wednesday morning? because this evidence was never disclosed to alley or his lawyers at trial…

that’s right, withholding exculpatory evidence from defense counsel … or, prosecutorial misconduct …

according to the columbia school of law study, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, the second most common reason for death sentences being overturned on appeal is police or prosecutors who did discover that kind of evidence (missed important evidence that the defendant was innocent or did not deserve to die) but suppressed it, again keeping it from the jury…

and as tcask notes, this describes exactly the situation with sedley alley and the tragic death of suzanne marie collins…

On the night of July 11, 1985, Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins was abducted while jogging on the naval base in Millington, Tennessee. At 6:30 a.m. the following morning, her body was found at Edmund Orgill Park in Millington. Ms. Collins had been beaten and sexually assaulted with a stick. Eyewitnesses to the abduction described the attacker as 5’8″ with short, dark hair and a dark complexion, wearing black shorts and driving a wood-paneled station wagon. Shortly after the abduction, at 12:10 a.m. on July 12, Sedley Alley, whose wife worked on the naval base, was pulled over by the police because he was driving a car that fit the eyewitness description. The police located his wife and brought them both in for questioning. The police determined that the eyewitnesses had simply observed a domestic dispute, and at approximately 1:00 a.m. Alley and his wife were allowed to leave. Radio logs in evidence establish that Alley and his wife were seen talking on the front porch of their house at 1:27 a.m.. There is no evidence to suggest that Alley ever left the house after that time.

The Shelby County Medical Examiner examined Ms. Collins’ body at 9:30 a.m., and concluded that Ms. Collins had been dead for approximately 6 to 8 hours. Thus, the time of death was between 1:30 and 3:30 a.m.. The Medical Examiner later modified his assessment, telling a law enforcement officer that Ms. Collins had been dead for closer to six hours, making the time of death 3:30 a.m.. The State’s theory had always been that Alley killed Ms. Collins prior to being picked up by the police at 12:10 a.m.. Evidence supporting the theory that the victim had not been killed until 1:30 a.m., at the earliest, precludes Alley (who was accounted for from 12:10 a.m. on) from being the killer. Yet this evidence was never disclosed to Alley or his lawyers at trial…

as you may well know there is untested dna evidence that is crucial to unraveling the truth of suzanne collins murder…

the withheld evidence and untested dna evidence reminds us that alley’s case bears the hallmarks of many dna exonerations throughout the country…

tennessee’s death penalty system, like so many others, is deeply flawed and broken and sedley alleys’ case bears more proof as to why we need a moratorium on excecutions and a thorough study study revealing all of the ways in which the system fails all of us, murder victims’ included, in tennessee…

peace out – <3

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile malfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying heartiness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

On Sunday, the Tennessean published a piece on the challenges to lethal injection around the country but particularly here in Tennessee in the cases of both Sedley Alley (scheduled to die on May 17th) and Abu-Ali Abdur Rahman.

You can read the entire piece here: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060507/NEWS03/605070353/1017/NEWS

The good news is that the Tennessee media is paying attention both to the issues of lethal injection and to the Sedley Alley case specifically (we’re only about 8 days out now). The not so good news is that we continue to see the debate framed as being abolitionists vs. victims, as the quotes from Verna Wyatt in the article show. Of course we know that all victims do not want or support the death penalty. Just in the case of Moussaoui in the past weeks, we saw victims come down on both sides of the question as to whether or not they wanted the death penalty. You can read a good article about this group at the NCADP’s blog here: http://deathpenaltyusa.blogspot.com/

We have a number of family members of murder victims right here in Tennessee who speak out against the death penalty, and hopefully in the coming days we will see more of those viewpoints presented as well. We aren’t against family members. Far from it, we want to create a system focused more on healing for the victim than on vengeful punishment for the offender meted out over many years by an unfair judicial process!

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual claim among men is the erectile malfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be so dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Those of us in the abolition movement know that the system is far from perfect. We know that the risk of executing an innocent person is extremely high. We’ve had 124 exonerations of death row prisoners in the modern era of executions. Right here in Tennessee we’re waiting for a decision from the U. S. Supreme Court on the case of Paul House, an innocent man by any rational judgment who has been on our death row for 21 years.

Across the country, we’ve started to see evidence that we have actually executed some innocent people, and this week a new story has come to light. Two years ago, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas for arson killing his three children in 1992. Yet recent reviews of the evidence, when examined with our currently improved understanding of arson, reveals that, in all likelihood, the fire was in fact just what Willingham said it was, an accident.

You can read a good summary of this case on the widely read blog Daily Kos here http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/3/4756/87275

And a good collection of all the national news coverage of these cases at http://www.standdown.org/blog/index.php?p=597

It is high time that everyone, on both sides (and the middle) of this debate, acknowledge the truth. Our current death penalty system is extremely fraught with error and will sentence and execute innocent people.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very much dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

“Since maximum security prisons are such horrible places, wouldn’t it be better to just execute an innocent person, instead of sending them there for life to face all of that abuse?”

Now, I’ve been traveling around the state speaking to different groups for a while now, so I thought I’d heard ’em all, but this question, at a Disciples of Christ church out in Clarksville last night, kind of took me aback. I mean, really, there’s a question that I’d never had raised before. I mean I’d heard the argument that life in prison may be a worse punishment than death for some (and I can see the point there) but it’s better to execute innocent people than to put them in jail? Wow.

So my response was that, if I was that innocent person, I’d want every chance I could get to prove my innocence and that, instead of thinking about what punishment would be best for innocent people, we should aim for a system that doesn’t target the innocent! Just a thought.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be highly dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Minutes ago, a sentence in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial was announced and it is . . . life in prison. Jurors rejected the death penalty even for someone involved in the most horrendous crime in American history. Someone completely unrepentant, in fact gloating over the pain that he had caused on the stand in court., was not given the ultimate punishment. Maybe our country truly is moving away from an inexpensive and inefficient public policy.

Doubtless, in the coming hours and days pundits from across the spectrum and across the country will offer their take on the sentence, what the prosecution did wrong, what the defense did right, what testimony was the most convincing, etc., but let TCASK be the first to offer this straight-forward and simple explanation: Moussaoui had good lawyers.

How’s that for simple. Across the country, the people on death row are not those who, like Moussaoui, are accused of the most heinous and horrible crimes. They’re not universally those, again like Moussaoui, who are unrepentent of their crimes. They are the poor. Nationwide, 98% of the nearly 3500 death row inmates couldn’t afford their own attorneys at trial, and here in Tennessee, we do even better than that. In fact we’re perfect. Not a single one of the 103 people on Tennessee’s death row could afford their own attorney at trial. So the average defendant has under-trained and underpaid attorneys. Moussaoui had the best the legal profession has to offer.

So, yes, some pundits will point out that the presentation of the FBI incompetance was the key. Some will say that presenting Moussaoui as a delusional schizophrenic convinced the jury to spare him. But I guarantee that what they won’t mention is why so many others, without counsel that knows or is prepared and funded enough to make these motions, do receive a death sentence. So you heard it here first.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

One of the legal issues being presented by the lawyers who are trying to keep Sedley Alley alive is an objection to the method of execution (lethal injection) used by the state of Tennessee. Across the country, lethal injection is being challenged as unnecessarily cruel and unusual. Since the second drug administered immobilizes the victim’s muscles, incredible pain may be experienced while the victims is unable to move or express that discomfort. One of the killing drugs has been banned for putting dogs to sleep, since it was deemed unnecessarily painful. The Supreme court will be hearing just such a case in the coming months, and the outcome will certainly affect executions across the country. But, just in case we needed more proof that slowly poisoning someone was cruel and inhumane, consider this report of an execution that just occurred this week in Ohio:

Clark executed after vein collapse causes lengthy delay
By Alan Johnson
The Columbus Dispatch
Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:50 PM
LUCASVILLE, Ohio – “It don’t work. It don’t work,” Joseph Clark said repeatedly in what he thought were his last moments alive as he lay on the lethal injection table.But he didn’t die — not right away.

For the first time since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999, problems with lethal injection delayed the execution of the Toledo murderer by an hour. Clark’s vein collapsed or “blew out” after the process had started this morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.

Clark, 57, was eventually executed at 11:26 a.m., but only after medical technicians struggled behind a closed curtain for about a half hour to find suitable veins to inject the deadly drugs.

Terry Collins, who took over Monday as director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said he ordered the curtain closed to shield victim family witnesses and his staff from being watched while they tried to get the IV lines going.

“I absolutely believe I made the right call closing the curtain and I would do it again,” Collins said later. However, he said the whole process will be reviewed.

Media witnesses heard what they described as “moaning, crying out and guttural noises” while technicians worked on Clark behind the closed curtain.

However, prison officials said he was not in any pain and eventually went to sleep just before the execution resumed.

Collins said he was in touch with Gov. Bob Taft’s office several times during the delay. He also summoned Greg Trout, the department’s chief legal counsel, to the Death House to confer with George Pappas, Clark’s attorney.

The trio of drugs — sodium pentothal, an anesthetic, pancuronium bromide, a muscle paralyzer, and potassium chloride, which stops respiration and the heart — has been used in Ohio and 35 other states for several years.

However, legal challenges to the lethal injection process are pending in several states, as well as at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Opponents argue the drugs can leave a prisoner paralyzed, but suffering great pain as they are executed. They say that violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Court records show Clark shot and killed David A. Manning on Jan. 13, 1984, during a robbery at the service station where Manning worked. Clark confessed to the crime after being arrested a few days later in connection with a bank robbery. He was also convicted for murder, without a death penalty specification, for the shooting death of Donald Harris, a convenience store clerk.
Mary Ellen Manning Gordon, the widow of the slain man who witnessed the execution, said she was glad to see Clark die.

“I didn’t shed a single tear for Joseph Clark. He lived 22 years too long.”

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

If you’ve been following our TCASK blog, then you know that Sedley Alley is due to be executed two weeks from tomorrow, despite serious questions as to the accuracy of his conviction and DNA evidence that the state refuses to release for testing. So what are we going to do about it?

Tonight, the Nashville chapter of TCASK will be discussing just that from 5:30 to 7 at the Nashville Peace and Justice Center, so everyone interested in working to stop an unjust and immoral killing, please come on out (even if it is raining) and let your voice be heard!

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile malfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

For eight months now, we at TCASK have been traveling around Tennessee to all kinds of places that we, as an organization, haven’t been active before. Pulaski, Carroll County, the Cumberland Plateau, Jackson, Memphis, Clarksville. Frankly it’s been a little tiring.

But now consider, in each of these places, we’ve made some good contacts, in churches, local NAACP chapters, interested citizens. Now, these people have been added to our mailing list, some of them have even held write-a-thons or passed moratorium resolutions in their churches. And when a bill to expand the use of the death penalty appeared, we called on these folks and they responded in flying colors. But what’s next for these areas?

Well, it’s time for us to get pro-active. People have done a great job raising the issue’s profile in their local communities, but we need to move forward now to affect representatives in the state legislature and pass moratorium resolutions in local businesses and even their city council. So we, as organizers, need to start bringing people together to work toward broader goals. We’re finding the people in each group we’ve contacted that are ready to be more active and bringing them together to gain skills (through TCASK trainings) and work to affect public policy right there in their own home town.

So ideally, when we have a sudden issue come up and need, say the representative from Jackson, to hear from his constituents in a hurry, we’ll have one or two point contact people who can activate a local network (instead of yours truly calling 20 people that I may have met). And then that same group is ready to visit city council people and educate their friends and neighbors, and all of a sudden we’ve moved a giant step closer to abolition. So this summer will be the summer of consolidation at TCASK as we gear up for the NWFA in the fall and the start of the legislative session in the new year.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be so dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile malfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.