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Abolitionist of the Month: Pope Francis
"The Golden Rule ... reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development. This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty."
It was the first time a reigning Pope has ever addressed the U.S. Congress. And in that historic speech on September 24, Pope Francis's call was clear: Abolish the death penalty.
"Every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes," he said.
He also reaffirmed the stated position of U.S. Catholic Bishops that "the death penalty is unnecessary and unjustified in our time and circumstances."
"Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation," Francis said.
HIs message was unconditional: If you believe that every life is sacred, as Catholicism and many other religions teach, you cannot support the death penalty. That message could be why Catholic U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas did not attend the speech. All three are staunch supporters of the death penalty. In fact, at a Pew Research Center conference on religion and the death penalty in 2002, Scalia said, "The choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty." And he said, "You want to have a fair death penalty? You kill, you die. That's fair."
Whether the Pope's remarks will affect how the Supreme Court, and especially its five conservative Catholic justices, will rule on death penalty appeals remains to be seen. But as U.C. Hastings College of the Law Professor Rory Little points out on scotusblog.com (http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/09/as-the-2015-term-opens-the-courts-unusual-eighth-amendment-focus/), in the term that opened this month, the Supreme Court will review five Eighth Amendment issues, four of them death penalty, meaning "This term may be the biggest Eighth Amendment term in 40 years."
And he believes that the review of these five cases also "signals...the deep cultural (as well as economic and federalism) concerns that Americans in general seem to have regarding capital punishment."
There is no question the Pope's call for abolition was significant. It engendered headlines, and much analysis in the media. Its repercussions remain to be seen. But as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who co-chaired the 2002 Pew Conference at which Justice Scalia spoke, has said, "I think the religious community has played an enormous role in having people question their consciences about where they stand on the death penalty."
Pope Francis is continuing his efforts to play a role in abolishing capital punishment. Just days after returning to Rome from his trip to the United States, he sent a letter to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles asking it to commute the sentence of Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on the state's death row. "While not wishing to minimize the gravity of the crime for which Ms. Gissendaner has been convicted, and while sympathizing with the victims, I nonetheless implore you, in consideration of the reasons that have been expressed to your board, to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy," the Pope wrote.
The Board did not commute Gissendaner's sentence, and in fact, executed her shortly after midnight on September 29th, hours after the board received Pope Francis's letter. She was the first woman in 70 years to be executed in Georgia.
But Pope Francis is not giving up. It was revealed that he had sent another letter on September 14 asking Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin to commute the death sentence of Richard Glossip, who was scheduled to be executed on September 30. Like the letter to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, it was written on behalf of Pope Francis by Archbishop Carlo Vigano, and stated, "Together with Pope Francis, I believe that a commutation of Mr. Glossip's sentence would give clearer witness to the value and dignity of every person's life, and would contribute to a society more cognizant of the mercy that God has bestowed upon us all."
Glossip's execution was delayed, but not because of the Pope's appeal. FIrst, Governor Fallin issued a 37-day stay to give the state time to address "last minute questions ...raised about Oklahoma's execution protocol and the chemicals used for lethal injection." A day after Fallin's order, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a staunch defender of the death penalty, asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to postpone all scheduled executions, including two others slated for October, citing the state's problems in its drug protocols.
So the tide may be turning. In a speech he gave at Rhodes College in Memphis two days before Pope Francis's address to Congress, Scalia told the students he "wouldn't be surprised" if the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in the near future.
Pope Francis calls for Global Abolition
Pope Francis called for global abolition of the death penalty during his address to Congress today, saying human life must be protected and defended at every stage of development.
"Every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes," the Pope said.
"Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.
The call comes at an important time. Arkansas is preparing to resume executions after a 10-year hiatus. And the states of Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Virginia and Texas all have executions set in the next two months.
Read the Pope's full speech here.
Arkansas Sets Execution Dates for Eight Men
After a decade long hiatus, the state of Arkansas plans to resume executions in October and recently set dates for eight inmates to die.
Governor Asa Hutchinson (former director of the DEA) announced execution dates after Attorney General Leslie Rutledge requested it be done as quickly as possible. She said the inmates ran out of appeals and assured the governor the state has the drugs to carry out the executions.
The 10-year delay was largely due to drug shortages and court challenges to execution procedures.
In August, the state of Arkansas approved a new lethal injection protocol. It's a three-drug cocktail that includes midazolam, the drug blamed for botched executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma. Despite concerns about whether the drug is constitutional, the Supreme Court narrowly rejected a challenge and approved its continued use in June.
It is unknown how the Arkansas Department of Corrections got the drugs or what company they were purchased from. A state secrecy law allows the state to shield the name of the supplier. Attorney Jeff Rosenzweig, who represents nine death row inmates, has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of that secrecy law.
The planned resumption of executions in Arkansas comes at a time when states across the nation have stopped executions and public support continues to drop.
There are currently 34 inmates on death row in Arkansas.
Here are the names and execution dates for the eight inmates scheduled to die.
October 21
Bruce Earl Ward
Don William Davis
November 3
Terrick Terrell Nooner
Stacey Eugene Johnson
December 14
Marcel Wayne Williams
Jack Harold Jones
January 14
Jason McGehee
Kenneth Williams
Stay of Execution granted for Richard Glossip
A last minute filing by attorneys for Richard Glossip led to a two-week stay of execution for the Oklahoma man who was hours from being killed Wednesday.
The court said it must give fair consideration to the materials submitted by attorneys. There is mounting evidence that Glossip may not be responsible for the crime which led to his death sentence.
Glossip was convicted of murder in 1997 for the death his boss Barry Van Treese. He wasn't the actual killer. The man who confessed to the killing, Justin Sneed, said Glossip hired him for the murder. The only evidence to support this theory was testimony from Sneed himself.
Both men were charged with murder, and both were convicted. But prosecutors only sought the death penalty in Glossip's case. Sneed, after cooperating with prosecutors by testifying against Glossip, was sentenced to life without parole.
The controversial case has led to strong public outcry, with supporters ranging from actress Susan Sarandon to former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican death penalty proponent, demanding a reexamination of the case. More than 235,000 people signed a petition asking for the stay.
Sister Helen Prejean, Glossip's spiritual adviser, has led the fight to save his life.
A new execution date has been set for Sept. 30.
Read the stay order.
The Fight to Save Richard Glossip
Actress Susan Sarandon and Sister Helen Prejean are on a crusade to save the life of a man scheduled to die on September 16. Richard Glossip, who was twice convicted for murder but maintains his innocence, has an execution date with the state of Oklahoma.
The women, along with hundreds of thousands of others around globe, believe Glossip was wrongfully convicted and should not be executed. The actress and anti-death penalty advocate want a chance to present information that wasn't used at the trials. They have made multiple pleas to the governor and circulated a petition asking her to grant a stay which has more than 226,000 signatures. She, so far, has refused.
It's a known fact that Glossip didn't actually kill anyone. He was convicted in a 1997 murder for hire scheme. His first conviction was later overturned but he was convicted a second time in 2004 and sentenced to die again.
Glossip's co-worker Justin Sneed admitted he killed their boss Barry Van Treese with a baseball bat at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City. Prosecutors argued Glossip, who worked as a manager, made Sneed do this because he thought he was going to be fired. Glossip had no criminal record and there was no forensic evidence linking him to the crime.
A story by The Intercept outlines transcripts that show Sneed was encouraged to implicate Glossip and able to avoid the death penalty by testifying against him. His story became more detailed as time passed. His daughter wrote a letter to the Oaklahoma Pardon and Parole Board asking them to save Glossip. She said her father spoke to her about recanting his testimony. But he was afraid of losing his own deal.
Glossip had a reprieve last January when the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed his challenge to the lethal injection protocol. But once they upheld it, a new date for his death was set by the state.
Sister Helen, who serves as Glossip's spiritual advisor, has created a page with multiple ways people can help.
World Day Against the Death Penalty
Every year on October 10, people around the world rally to the cause of ending capital punishment. This year, the theme of World Day is "The Death Penalty Does Not Stop Drug Crimes."
In spite of a marked global movement away from the death penalty, so far in 2015 we've seen an alarming number of executions for drug-related offenses. Whereas around 75% of the world's countries have abolished the death
penalty in law or in practice, there are 33 that retain the option to
execute people for drug use or trafficking, and 13 have actually done so in
the last 5 years. This particularly the case in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. (Although the US Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Louisiana that executions are unconstitutional for crimes in which a victim was not killed, it did not bar the death penalty for crimes against the state. Theoretically, this means that drug trafficking could be considered a death-penalty offense, but it would be unprecedented.)
Map of countries that retain the death penalty for drug offenses. Courtesy of World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
Perhaps the most notorious incident this year was the execution of 8 of the so-called Bali 9 by the Indonesian government. It led to a worldwide movement to spare their lives, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao, and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson condemning the killings along with hundreds of thousands of other people around the world.
People around the world used #KeepHopeAlive and #IStandForMercy to protest the execution of the Bali 9 earlier this year.
Reflecting on the executions, Branson wrote, "I hope some good will come out of these tragic events, as more and more people realise inhumane death penalty laws must end globally, now. [P]ublic disgust for the death penalty grows and hope increases that an end to the death penalty is in sight."
With these and other drug-related executions this year, it seems fitting that we turn our attention to this disturbing international aberration. Similar to a debunked, yet common, argument heard in the United States, the death penalty is said to be a deterrent to both drug abuse and drug trafficking in retentionist nations. As is the case with other crimes, there is no credible evidence to show that executions yield public safety benefits by decreasing drug abuse and importation. For example, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that drug use remained fairly stable in countries that retain the death penalty for such offenses. Moreover, most of the people killed during this time frame were convicted for using cannabis, a drug that is relatively harmless when compared to others (including tobacco and alcohol), undermining the supposed "public health" interests retentionist governments cite to justify killing their own citizens and residents. The death penalty simply cannot solve the societal problems that lead people down the path toward serious drug abuse.
It is also argued that the death penalty is needed to prevent the illegal importation of drugs. That was, after all, the offense for which the Bali 9 were convicted. Many point to Singapore as an example of how such brutal and draconian polices do not even meet their own objectives, let alone live up to international human rights standards. Despite hanging hundreds of people, imports remain at record levels. Like drug abuse, the problem of drug trafficking will not be solved by executing people.
With all of that in mind, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is advocating for common-sense replacements for killing people in response to drug offenses:
For more information about how to join in this year's global advocacy day against the executions for drug crimes, visit the World Coalition's World Day 2015 page.
Last year, we launched our first annual Death Penalty Focus Week in the days leading up to World Day Against the Death Penalty. We helped to organize events around the state of California to focus on the people and issues involved in the movement to make executions a thing of the past.
We featured events for people whose faith led them to work for the abolition of capital punishment, an event focusing on innocent people sentenced to die, and others to help raise funds for activists who are keeping the movement alive and well.
Innocence Day speakers Nick Yarris, Gloria Killian, Obie Anthony, Kash Register, and Ronnie Sandoval (mother of Arthur Carmona)
The "Innocence Day" event was particularly popular. Thanks to the help of Loyola Law School's Project for the Innocent, we were able to gather 5 people who have personally been effected by wrongful convictions and give them a platform to tell their stories. It even made the news in Los Angeles.
We are looking to have a second annual Death Penalty Focus Week in 2015, from October 4 to World Day on October 10. Stay tuned to deathpenalty.org, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more information about upcoming events. If you have an idea for an event in your area, contact David Crawford, DPF's Director of Community Outreach and Education, at email@example.com.
A Farewell to Julian Bond
The abolitionist community lost a hero when civil rights leader Julian Bond passed away last month. Bond was largely known for his relentless work in the struggle for civil rights. But in addition to fighting racial discrimination, he was a tireless advocate for basic human rights like welfare legislation, a minimum wage provision, anti-poverty programs and an end to capital punishment.
Bond talked about his opposition to the death penalty in his early days when it was still unpopular, way before the country was as divided as it is now.
Bond grew up in Pennsylvania and went to Morehouse College in Atlanta. He helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was a leading voice during protests and marches for voting rights in the 1960s. He co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit fighting for civil rights in Montgomery, Ala., with Morris Dees and served as president.
"With Julian's passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice," wrote Dees. "He advocated not just for African Americans but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all."
Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell met Bond in Atlanta in the early 80s when the two were touring with an anti-war show trying to raise awareness about the Reagan Administration's policies in Central America.
"He was then and continued to be a keenly intelligent, accessible, outspoken leader on the important issues of the day, both domestic and foreign," Farrell said. "He was always available, always open, always willing to lend an ear or a hand or a voice in support of the powerless, always ready to stand against mindless authoritarianism."
Bond became chairman of the NAACP in 1998 and held that position for a decade.
Bond spoke out about all forms of discrimination and advocated for every group including the LGBT community. In an interview with Anderson Cooper in 2013, he urged the civil rights movement to join the fight for gay rights.
"I understand particularly if you're black and you like to think of the civil rights (movement) as something black people do," Bond said. "But this is not something we own. It's something we ought to share with others and say 'Try this, we did this and it worked, try this, don't do this, it didn't work that well.' Other things we ought to say to people, 'Do what we did, we will help you if we can, and remember, we are among you.'"
We join the country in mourning this visionary and tireless champion.
"Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life," said President Obama. "Julian Bond helped change his country for the better. And what better way to be remembered than that."
Below is a speech Bond made at the Skidmore College Commencement in May.
My grandfather was born in Kentucky in 1863, and because of this, freedom didn't come for him until the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1863.
He and his mother were property, like a horse or a chair. As a young girl, she had been given away as a wedding gift to a new bride, and when that bride became pregnant, her husband—that's my great-grandmother's master and owner—exercised his right to take his wife's slave as his mistress. That union produced two children, one of them my grandfather.
Your presence here attests to the value you place on education and your willingness to make sacrifices to obtain it. The same was true for my grandfather. At age 15, barely able to read or write, he hitched his tuition—a steer—to a rope and walked 100 miles across Kentucky to Berea College, and the college took him in. When he graduated from Berea 13 years later, the college asked him to deliver the commencement address.
He said then:
The pessimist from his corner looks out on the world of wickedness and sin and, blinded by all that is good or hopeful in the condition and progress of the human race, bewails the present state of affairs and predicts woeful things for the future. In every cloud he beholds a destructive storm, in every flash of lightning an omen of evil, and in every shadow that falls across his path a lurking foe.
He forgets that the clouds also bring life and hope, that lightning purifies the atmosphere, that shadow and darkness prepare for sunshine and growth, and that hardships and adversity nerve the race, as the individual, for greater efforts and grander victories.
"Greater efforts and grander victories"—that was the promise the generation born in slavery made a century and a half ago. That was the promise made by the generation that won the great world war for democracy seven decades ago. That was the promise made by those who brought democracy to America's darkest corners five decades ago.
And that is the promise you must seek to honor as you leave these ceremonies and enter the world beyond.
When the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in 1954 in the case called Brown v. Board of Education, a vast army of nonviolent protestors rose up to challenge segregation's morality as well. Students like you began embracing jail without bail, when they sat down to stand up for their rights. They attacked segregated ballot boxes across the South as well.
Throughout this period the federal government helped only reluctantly, and then only when white property or people seemed at risk. State and local government worked in active concert with white terrorists, and the movement had few allies.
But from the first it was a people's movement. The cumulative acts of their passive resistance led to the three great civil rights milestones of the 1960s: the 1963 march on Washington, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As we celebrate these milestones, we celebrate the ordinary women and men who made the movement mighty.
We celebrate Robert and Jeannie Graetz. On the Sunday after Rosa Parks's arrest, Martin Luther King Jr. called on his congregation to join the planned one-day boycott. Other black ministers across the city did the same, as did one white minister, Robert Graetz, who pastored a black Lutheran congregation. Weeks after the boycott came to a successful end, the Graetzes' home was virtually destroyed by a bomb while their family, including their four-day-old baby, slept.
We celebrate Dorothy Counts. She was 15 years old when, in September 1957, she enrolled in an all-white high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. As Dorothy walked to school, the wife of the leader of the White Citizens' Council urged the boys to "keep her out" and the girls to spit on her. She kept on walking. Many people threw rocks at her. Many did spit on her—so many that her mother said when Dorothy got home her dress was so wet with spit she could wring it out.
We celebrate Hartman Turnbow, a black farmer in Mississippi, the most brutal state of the old Confederacy. I remember him. Dressed like the farmer in coveralls, boots, and an old hat, Mr. Turnbow carried a briefcase. When he opened the briefcase, there was nothing in it but an automatic. In April 1963, Mr. Turnbow went with a group of other black farmers in Holmes County, Mississippi, to try to register to vote. When the sheriff asked, "Who'll be the first?" No one moved. Then Mr. Turnbow said, "Me, Hartman Turnbow. I came here to die to vote. I'm the first."
Four days later, the Klan firebombed his home and fired multiple shots into the living room. Mr. Turnbow fired back. Then the sheriff charged him with arson, accusing him of setting fire to his own uninsured home.
We celebrate Fannie Lou Hamer. If Mississippi was the most repressive state, Mrs. Hamer was its most heroic freedom fighter. When the movement came to her town of Ruleville in 1962, she was 44 years old and a timekeeper on a plantation. She joined eagerly. She gave us a wonderful slogan when she said, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."
The movement succeeded in spite of cowards planting bombs in the night, in spite of shots fired in the darkness, in spite of lynch mobs and hooded thugs, in spite, as Dr. King said, of the brutality of a dying order shrieking across the land.
In its successes, it has given you graduates much of what has brought you here today. As we honor you for what you have achieved, so should you honor them for what they achieved for you.
They helped you learn how to be free.
They gave you the freedom to enter the larger world protected from its worst abuses.
If you are black or female or gay, their struggles prevent your race or gender or sexual orientation from being the arbitrary handicap today that it was then.
If you belong to an ethnic minority or if you are disabled, your ethnicity or disability cannot now be used to discriminate against you as it was then.
If you are Catholic or Muslim or Jewish, your faith cannot be an impediment to your success.
As you grow older, because of what they did then, you will be able to work as long as you are capable.
Your job—your responsibility—is to make these protections more secure, to expand them for your generation and those who will soon follow you.
Our future as a nation depends on our willingness to continue to reach into the racial cleavage that defines American society and to change the racial contours of our world.
In 1954 the federal government's brief in Brown argued that school desegregation was a Cold War imperative, a necessary weapon to win America's battles overseas. Current events give us the same imperative—to prove to friend and foe alike that our commitment to justice is real.
Wherever you may go from here, if there are hungry minds or hungry bodies nearby, you can feed them. If there are precincts of the powerless poor nearby, you can organize them. If there is racial or ethnic injustice, you can attack and destroy it.
By this ritual today, you are about to be officially enrolled in an elite within our nation: the community of educated women and men. As you go forward from this place, we all hope you will do well. But we hope you will also do good.
You must place interest in principle above interest on principal.
An early attempt at ending illiteracy in the South developed a slogan that was also their method: "Each One Teach One" until all could read.
Perhaps your slogan could be "Each One Reach One."
Each one reach one until all are registered and voting.
Each one reach one until all are productive citizens of our world.
Each one reach one until the weak are strong and the sick are healed.
Each one reach one until your problem is mine, until mine is yours.
Just as it is not enough not to do evil, it is not enough just to do good.
It may be helpful to think of your task in this way:
Two men sitting by a river see, to their great shock, a helpless baby floating by. They rescue the child, and to their horror another baby soon comes floating down the stream. When that child is pulled to safely, another child comes floating by.
"Come back!" yells the man in the water. "We must save this baby!"
"You save it," the other man yells back. "I'm going to find out who is throwing babies in the river and I'm going to make them stop!"
Racial minorities serve society like the canaries that miners used to carry to warn them when the underground air was becoming too toxic to breathe. But too many people want to put gas masks on the canaries instead of eliminating the poison in the air. Too many want to put life preservers on the babies, instead of stopping them from being thrown into a treacherous, dangerous stream.
As you aspire to greater efforts and grander victories, you must be prepared to offer not just love but justice, not gas masks but pure air, not life preservers but an end to throwing babies away.
This is not easy work, but you know what hard work is— that is what brought you here today.
I urge you to continue to do and be your best—and to apply your talents not just to bettering yourselves, not just doing social service, but bringing social justice.
If my grandfather were here, I think he would ask me now, "What did you do with your freedom?" Some day someone will ask you, "What did you do with your education?"
Be sure you have an answer—for your family, your nation, your world. They are counting on you.
The Poetry of Wiley Bridgeman
Fancy Colors
Where in our myriad of color could foundation lie
That kalidascope expressing amour
Those expectant ventures we'd traverse in joy
Those visions we came to adore
They be our height and buoyancy to depth
They were fancy within our minds
So Fancy Colors, psychologically
Gave birth to our infinite finds
They lie at our dawn, rooted in pace;
With the exceleration we learnt should be cheer
Humbled we were to those silent pells
Only in heart could we hear
Let us wake clever our fortitude
We were models in love's living rudder's
T'was the conviction where our foundation lie
A tenacity for Fancy Colors
My Woman
My woman is
sensuous fibers of
untouched silks,
Laughing out loud.
She hides her
behind sunlit blushes,
And never shows weaknesses
through sighs or tears.
Being raised by hero's
under southern skies,
She knows how to sop buttered bread
in mayple syrup.
She's a lover of today. . . . .
Tomorrow's dream love. . . . .
A lover!
The Subject Compared
I am the subject, compared by you subjects, for your pleasure by subject,
This subject compared.
To compare the subject, the subject compared, one must honor as subject,
The first subject bared.
So play as the subject, with subjects in view,
Subjects from old, and subjects made new.
Such cancels subject's issue, doubting subjects for "why",
Enhancing the subjects main subject, you lie.
One above is an absolute, written above to view.
Guess it later or guess it now;
Nothing's old made new.
"God", you say, is subject's issue,
Whether you laugh or cry?
Well it's love I give, in a subject's fashion,
A subject as mine, no lie.
Jones v. Davis: An Update
Last July, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a ruling in Jones v. Davis that found California's death penalty unconstitutional. In his opinion, Judge Cormac Carney wrote that delays in the capital sentencing scheme were so excessive that they resulted in an arbitrary and capricious application of the death penalty - which violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
California's Attorney General, Kamala Harris, appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a three judge panel there heard oral arguments on Aug. 31. The panel will now convene and issue a ruling, though the timing is unclear.
The arguments in the appeal are fairly technical - they turn on whether the convicted man (Jones) exhausted his remedies in state court before presenting them to a federal judge. The legal doctrine of "exhaustion" requires him to present all of his arguments to state courts before entering the federal courts. In the Jones case, the state (represented by the Attorney General) argued that Jones failed to present this argument - that the delays violate the 8th Amendment - to the state court, and therefore the federal district court could not rule on it.
When Mr. Jones presented his appeal to the federal district court, Judge Carney ordered both parties to brief him on whether and why the system of capital punishment in California is constitutional. The judge then ruled on the basis of those briefs. The state argues that because those arguments were not first presented in its courts, they are not exhausted, and cannot be heard on appeal. The state wants the Ninth Circuit to send the case back to the California Supreme Court.
Lawyers for Mr. Jones argue that the state waived exhaustion when it submitted its arguments to the lower federal court. Waiver means that the state agreed to bypass a hearing in its own court, and they cannot now demand to be heard on that issue. Jones also argues that even if waiver did not occur, he is entitled to an exemption from exhaustion, because they state remedy is ineffective. The California Supreme Court takes years to issue decisions in death penalty appeals, and sending the matter back will only compound the delays that, under the lower court ruling, violate the Eighth Amendment.
The panel now retires to make its decision. There are several possible outcomes. The justices could find that Judge Carney's decision was incorrect, and reinstate the sentence for Mr. Jones. Alternatively, the court could order that Mr. Jones present his arguments to the California Supreme Court (exhaust his remedies there), which would bring him back into federal court making these arguments again in four or five years. The most thrilling possibility, but one that is more unlikely, is that the panel would affirm the decision, leaving Judge Carney's ruling to stand. A finding by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has the potential to apply to all of California's death row inmates, and would effectively invalidate the state's death penalty scheme.
If the panel affirms the lower court ruling, the state will most certainly appeal its way up to the United States Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, California's executions will remain on hold. Pending litigation of this magnitude is likely to forestall judges from issuing death warrants.
Abolitionist of the Month: Jimmy Carter
"It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty," former president Jimmy Carter wrote in a 2012 op-ed titled "Show Death Penalty the Door" in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Long considered by historians as one of the greatest ex-presidents in American history for his work in human rights, global health issues and promoting world peace, Carter's opposition to the death penalty might seem unsurprising. Yet, his abolitionist stance has evolved over the past 42 years, transforming him from death penalty advocate into a staunch opponent.
In 1973, while serving as governor of Georgia, Carter played an instrumental role in convincing the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the moratorium on the death penalty it imposed a year earlier. He did this by signing into law guidelines for applying the death penalty that met the court's criteria for constitutional executions in the case Gregg v. Georgia in 1976. And with that case, the national moratorium on executions was lifted.
At a national death penalty symposium sponsored by the Carter Center and the American Bar Association in 2013, Carter said, "In complete honesty, when I was governor I was not nearly as concerned about the unfairness of the application of the death penalty as I am now. I know much more now. I was looking at it from a much more parochial point of view – I didn't see the injustice of it as I do now."
In an interview with the Guardian that same year, Carter said he wanted the Supreme Court to look at the "totality of the death penalty once again" and "rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the U.S. constitution."
Carter's about-face on the constitutionality and morality of the death penalty mirrors a shift in public opinion in the United States. For years, the great majority of Americans supported capital punishment, but the tide has shifted in recent years, with support steadily decreasing. Polls released in April by Pew Research Center and CBS News both reported that 56 percent of Americans support the death penalty -- the lowest ever recorded by CBS, and one of the lowest reported by Pew in the last 40 years.
But Carter, a former president and former governor of a Southern state, as well as the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the most prominent public figures to call for abolition. It's a courageous stance, one not many American politicians are willing to take. But Carter has spent his life taking a stand on what he believes to be right, not what is politically expedient.
"I think any time a person concedes error on a very contentious issue it takes courage. It's easier to stick with what you've said or done than admit you were wrong. I give him a lot of credit for being willing to step up to the plate and admit he was wrong back then," says Stanford Law Professor John J. Donohue III.
In 1980, Donohue wrote what he calls a "very critical" article about Georgia's death penalty law and of the Georgia Supreme Court, which he describes as having been a "rubber stamp for the death penalty" at the time. The article, "Godfrey v. Georgia: Creative Federalism, the Eighth Amendment, and the Evolving Law of Death," appeared in the Catholic University Law Review.
He says of Carter, "He was one of the first through the door in getting a new death penalty statute amended that became the model for other states to meet the requirements set by the U.S. Supreme Court for having a constitutional death penalty."
So Carter's admission, 40 years later, that he was wrong, resonates strongly with Donohue.
"His expression of regret enables others to realize you can look back, revisit and do better," he says. And he believes that Carter's call for abolition will reverberate among an important group of people. "Given his religious background and southern white heritage, he has the ability to change the minds of southern white males and evangelicals," he says.
Carter turns 91 this year, and recently disclosed that he has liver cancer, which has spread to his brain. He announced the diagnosis at a press conference, at which he displayed the same calm and courage that has defined his public life.
"Of cowards no history is written," goes an old English proverb. The written history of Jimmy Carter will be long indeed.
Arkansas Attorney General Eager to Start Killing
While many states have stopped executions and public support for capital punishment continues to decline, the southern state of Arkansas plans to move forward after a 10-year break.
Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has asked Governor Asa Hutchinson (former director of the DEA) to set execution dates for eight death row inmates "as quickly as possible."
The state approved a new lethal injection protocol in August which includes the three drugs midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
Officials then purchased the drugs from an unknown source. A state secrecy law allows the Department of Corrections to shield the name of the drug supplier.
The drug midazolam was used in botched executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma. Despite concerns about whether the drug is constitutional, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge and approved its continued use.
In April, attorney Jeff Rosenzweig filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the drug secrecy law. He says the men should not be executed before it is resolved.
There are currently 34 inmates on death row in Arkansas.
California's Death Penalty Back on Trial
The Ernest Dewayne Jones v. Ron Davis case will return to court on Aug. 31 when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the appeal by Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Jones, an inmate on California's death row, had his sentence vacated last July. US District Judge Cormac Carney ruled the state's death penalty is unconstitutional, saying unpredictable delays caused by the system amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
"The dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution," Carney wrote. "As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary."
Harris appealed that ruling and argued the process provides necessary protection to defendants.
In March, several organizations including Death Penalty Focus submitted amicus briefs rebutting the attorney general's argument. Our brief demonstrates that many death row inmates are denied their right to due process by the delays and their families suffer with them. It is estimated that for every death sentence, eight family members are profoundly affected. They deal with guilt, stigma and social isolation that can lead to depression, hopelessness, even suicide. These hidden victims often aren't able to ever find out if their loved ones are actually innocent.
A brief filed by Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation ("MVFR") and California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty ("CCV") argued that the process complicates grieving, hinders healing and wastes money that could be spent on law enforcement to help solve murders.
A brief by Loyola Law School's Alarcon Advocacy Center argues that delays caused by the state's inability to appoint counsel in capital cases are not by design and do not further prompt and fair review. "Congestion, backlogs, and delays in the administration of California's death penalty have compromised the system to such an extent that the system as a whole has broken down and can no longer satisfy constitutional demands or the "[f]undamental principles of due process and just punishment [which] demand that any punishment, let alone the ultimate one of execution, be timely and rationally carried out," the brief states.
The current average of 30 years will soon reach 40 and 500 more inmates will die naturally before the courts rule on their cases. Executions have been suspended at San Quentin for nearly a decade while the state with the largest death row continues to sentence people.
Watch a live stream of the oral arguments.
Connecticut Abolishes the Death Penalty and Closes Death Row
Connecticut's Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty violates the state constitution. The ruling, on Thursday, August 13, blocks the state from executing the 11 inmates currently on death row there.
Connecticut enacted a law in 2012 that abolished the death penalty for any crimes committed after the date that the law was passed. But abolition did not apply retroactively, meaning that the 11 prisoners already sentenced to die could still have been executed. The Connecticut Supreme Court has now removed the possibility of execution for current death row inmates by ruling that the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose."
"For these reasons, execution of those offenders who committed capital felonies prior to April 25, 2012, would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment," Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority.
Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy issued a statement Thursday saying those who have been on death row will spend the rest of their lives in state prisons without the possibility of parole.
Attorneys for death row inmates ask the Supreme Court to rehear the case.
Not long after the Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma's use of the controversial lethal injection drug midazolam, the state set execution dates for the three plaintiffs in the case.
The June ruling and the scheduled killings could have easily been seen as a setback for the movement to end the death penalty but instead lawyers for the death row inmates responded to a call from Justice Stephen Breyer to order a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty.
In a 40-page dissent to the Glossip v. Gross ruling, Justice Breyer joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited three fundamental defects: serious unreliability, arbitrariness and delays that undermine the penological purpose.
"Rather than try to patch up the death penalty's legal wounds one at a time," Breyer wrote, "I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution."
The three men named in the case, Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole, illustrate many of the concerns cited by Justice Breyer.
Reliability and Innocence: Richard Glossip maintains he is innocent of the crime that landed him on death row. He was 33 with no criminal record when he was charged with the murder of his boss. It is undisputed that a 19-year-old maintenance worker committed the crime. But prosecutors said Glossip paid the teen to do it. The only evidence came from the killer who agreed to testify against Glossip. The entire case hinged on that testimony. Mistakes are possible and that can be proven by the more than 100 people were totally exonerated of the crime they were charged with.
Arbitrariness and Mitigation: John Grant was defended by a lawyer who was new to the bar, self-medicating and married and divorced to her co counsel in Grant's case. She later resigned after being suspended from practice. She lacked the resources experience and judgment to present the relevant mitigating evidence to support a case for a life sentence, according to the filing. Since then, judges who have reviewed the case have said the inexperienced counsel had an effect on the jury's decision.
Delay and Dehumanization: Benjamin Cole's confinement illustrates the dehumanizing effect of a lengthy term of solitary confinement. He has been on death row for over 10 years, underground housing with windowless cells. He has paranoid schizophrenia and his illness has worsened without treatment and been exacerbated by the isolation on death row. Due to his illness, he has never been capable of "meaningful conferring with any of the attorneys who have attempted to represent him," the suit states.
The court has not ruled on the constitutionality of the death penalty since 1976. We hope they take this opportunity to reconsider. Glossip is scheduled to die on September 16.
Breyer's Powerful Death Penalty Dissent
This article originally appeared in the
Daily Journal.
In U.S. Supreme Court history, a few powerful dissenting opinions have eventually won over a majority of the court. In Glossip v. Gross, 2015 DJDAR 7481 (June 29, 2015), Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a powerful dissenting opinion on the death penalty that presented compelling reasons why capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment." Depending on the court's makeup after the 2016 election, Breyer's dissent may well become the law of the land.
In 1976, the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty under state statutes that attempted to set forth safeguards to ensure the penalty would be applied reliably and not arbitrarily. But Breyer found that the "circumstances and the evidence of the death penalty's application have changed radically since then." The court thought that the constitutional infirmities in the death penalty could be healed. But, according to Breyer, almost "40 years of studies, surveys, and experience strongly indicate … this effort has failed." "Today's administration of the death penalty," Breyer said, "involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use."
Cruel: Unreliability. Breyer found "increasing evidence" that the death penalty lacks reliability. Researchers "have found convincing evidence that, in the past three decades, innocent people have been executed." Breyer cites the shameful examples of Carlos DeLuna, Cameron Todd Willingham, Joe Arridy and William Jackson Marion. As of 2002, there was evidence of approximately 60 exonerations in capital cases. Since then, the number of exonerations in capital cases has risen to 115 and may be as high as 154. In 2014, six death row inmates were exonerated based on actual innocence. All had been imprisoned for over 30 years.
Including instances in which courts failed to follow legally required procedures, the numbers soar. Between 1973 and 1995, courts found prejudicial errors in an astounding 68 percent of the capital cases. For Breyer, the research suggests "there are too many instances in which courts sentence defendants to death without complying with the necessary procedures; and they suggest that, in a significant number of cases, the death sentence is imposed on a person who did not commit the crime."
Cruel: Arbitrariness. As Breyer puts it, the "arbitrary imposition of punishment is the antithesis of the rule of law." In 1976, the Supreme Court acknowledged that it is unconstitutional if "inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner." Despite the court's hope for fair administration of the death penalty, Breyer concludes it has become "increasingly clear that the death penalty is imposed arbitrarily, i.e., without the 'reasonable consistency' legally necessary to reconcile its use with the Constitution's commands."
Breyer cites various studies and concludes that "whether one looks at research indicating that irrelevant or improper factors—such as race, gender, local geography, and resources—do significantly determine who receives the death penalty, or whether one looks at research indicating that proper factors—such as 'egregiousness'—do not determine who receives the death penalty, the legal conclusion must be the same: The research strongly suggests that the death penalty is imposed arbitrarily." Breyer concludes that the "imposition and implementation of the death penalty seems capricious, random, indeed, arbitrary."
Cruel: Excessive delays. Breyer found the problems of reliability and unfairness lead to a third independent constitutional problem: excessively long periods of time that individuals typically spend on death row.
In 2014, 35 individuals were executed. Those inmates spent an average of 18 years on death row. At present rates, it would take more than 75 years to carry out the death sentences of the 3,000 inmates on death row; thus, the average person on death row would spend an additional 37.5 years there before being executed.
These lengthy delays create two special constitutional difficulties. First, a lengthy delay in and of itself is especially cruel because it "subjects death row inmates to decades of especially severe, dehumanizing conditions of confinement." Second, lengthy delay undermines the death penalty's penological rationale.
Breyer explained that the death penalty's penological rationale rests almost exclusively upon deterrence and retribution. But Breyer asks: Does it still seem likely that the death penalty has a significant deterrent effect?
He considers what actually happened to the 183 inmates sentenced to death in 1978. As of 2013, 38 (or 21 percent) had been executed; but 132 (or 72 percent) had had their convictions or sentences overturned or commuted; and 7 (or 4 percent) had died of other causes. Six (or 3 percent) remained on death row. Of the 8,466 inmates under a death sentence at some point between 1973 and 2013, 16 percent were executed but 42 percent had their convictions or sentences overturned or commuted, and 6 percent died by other causes; the remainder (35 percent) are still on death row.
To speed up executions, Breyer asks which constitutional protections we should eliminate. He poses the dilemma: "A death penalty system that seeks procedural fairness and reliability brings with it delays that severely aggravate the cruelty of capital punishment and significantly undermine the rationale for imposing a sentence of death in the first place. But a death penalty system that minimizes delays would undermine the legal system's efforts to secure reliability and procedural fairness."
Breyer is clear. "We cannot have both. And that simple fact … strongly supports the claim that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment."
Unusual: Decline in Use. The Eighth Amendment forbids punishments that are cruel and unusual. Breyer points out that between 1986 and 1999, 286 persons on average were sentenced to death each year. But approximately 15 years ago, the numbers began to decline. In 1999, 98 people were executed. Last year, just 73 persons were sentenced to death and 35 were executed.
The number of death penalty states has fallen, too. In 1972, the death penalty was lawful in 41 states. As of today, 19 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. In 11 other states where the death penalty is on the books, no execution has taken place in over eight years. Of the 20 states that have conducted at least one execution in the past eight years, 9 have conducted fewer than five in that time, making an execution in those states a fairly rare event.
That leaves 11 states in which it is fair to say that capital punishment is not "unusual." And just three (Texas, Missouri and Florida) accounted for 80 percent of executions nationwide (28 of the 35) in 2014. Indeed, last year, only seven states conducted an execution. In other words, in 43 States, no one was executed. If we ask how many Americans live in a state that at least occasionally carries out an execution (at least one within the prior three years), the answer two decades ago was 60 to 70 percent. Today, it's 33 percent.
Breyer concludes that the matters he has discussed, "such as lack of reliability, the arbitrary application of a serious and irreversible punishment, individual suffering caused by long delays, and lack of penological purpose are quintessentially judicial matters. They concern the infliction — indeed the unfair, cruel and unusual infliction — of a serious punishment upon an individual."
Consequently, the Supreme Court is "left with a judicial responsibility" and it has made clear that "the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment."
Breyer's authoritative dissent may have set the stage for ending state killing once and for all. And it may have its most immediate impact on Aug. 31, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral argument in Jones v Chappell, in which last year U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney found California's death penalty unconstitutional for many of the very same reasons Breyer has so cogently expressed.
Stephen Rohde, an author and constitutional lawyer, is immediate past chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, vice president of Death Penalty Focus, and national chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice.
Guest Column by Robyn Barbour
At 8:00 when the late bell rings, my class of sixteen numbers a mere nine students. I take roll on my phone, and my students write their journal responses based on a prompt on the board. The students are a mix of white, Latino and black. Almost all are freshmen because this is a freshman English class, but I expect a junior who is redoing ninth-grade English to appear shortly – and he does. He tends to be fashionably late. As soon as they have finished their journal, the girls start shouting at each other across the room. They aren't angry; they're animated. They talk about girl drama and boy drama. They use terms that were unfamiliar to me – left hand, right hand, backbone, BAE -- but they took the time to teach me their language and now I understand. They like that I put in the effort.
Seven minutes into class, two more girls come in carrying Starbucks. One asks me to put her Frappucino in my minifridge, which I do. I've already erased the journal prompt, and we've started working on a grammar assignment. They each get a sheet from me and they fall into the familiar pattern of going over the instructions, doing a few examples, and then working together or as a group on the rest of the sheet. This day the lesson is on apostrophes. Some of them didn't know what the comma-looking things were called, and most of them thought they were used to make words plural.
Five minutes later, two boys come in. They also pick up the grammar from me, and sit next to the girls who usually do their work and who usually pay attention to my instructions. Halfway through the class, we're still missing two kids, and they're almost never there before the last ten minutes. These are not bad kids. They're not lazy or stupid or dangerous. Their parents work or are overwhelmed by the ravages of not working – poverty, homelessness, drug use to dull the shame. These kids have to parent themselves, and I know there are mornings when I myself have a hard time not hitting snooze until it gives up.
When I first started working at this school and heard the stories my kids told or wrote about - mental health issues, undiagnosed learning disabilities, illiteracy into high school, incarcerated parents and/or siblings, abuse, foster care – it gave me a strange sense of déjà vu. This is exactly what I kept hearing when learning about death-row inmates. You see, in my spare time I am on the board of Death Penalty Focus and many of my fellow board members work with people incarcerated at San Quentin. Given the stories, many of the men and women imprisoned at San Quentin face some of the same issues as my students.
Even though I teach sixth through ninth graders, roughly ages 12 through 15, some of my kids have already entered the system. One of my girls has a probation officer because she was with a friend who started a fire in a bathroom. "Arson" is emblazoned on her juvenile record because she was caught on camera leaving the bathroom. Having already gained a reputation as being a wild child, it was easy for people to believe that she would light a fire in a trash can. She said she didn't do it and I believed her. That surprised her. And it made her really happy.
I started teaching at this school two years ago. It isn't easy, but I loved it from the first day. All the influences that contribute to people going down the path to prison are writ large in these lives and they make my kids challenging to teach. But experience tells me that given structure and love and patience they can be as successful as anyone at a more affluent school. I know this because for ten of my twenty-five years in the classroom, I taught at those affluent schools.
Any demographic analysis of prisons, death row in particular, will show you disproportionate numbers of people of color, people who didn't finish high school, people with mental health issues, people who are functionally illiterate. They'll be people who were abused, who were abandoned, who somehow slipped through the cracks and were left with few alternatives to lives of crime and violence. These are my kids, and every one of my colleagues fights like hell to divert them from the destiny their life to this point seems to funnel them toward. We see ourselves as the pipeline to college rather than prison, to better lives rather than continuing the cycle their parents have become trapped in. Every member of the staff at this school has many jobs beyond the one he or she is paid to do, because we don't give up on our kids as they expect us to do, as so many have done.
So my kids show up late. That they show up is what counts. So they sometimes opt not to come to English at eight in the morning. They show up eventually, and they ask for make-up work. Sometimes they come in at lunch, sometimes after school. And they do these things not because they believe in themselves – yet – but because they begin to get the idea that someone cares about them and wants them to have a shot at a life.
Education is expensive, but more money for counselors, for training, for diversion programs and for "mental health" days might obviate the need for as many prison cells. Every one of the kids I work with could end up in "the system," but once they see there are other possibilities out there, they get that it's not inevitable.
As for those who have already been through that pipeline, those for whom no one intervened, those who will live behind bars until the state puts an end to the hope they once represented, we can only ask why something wasn't done to provide other options.
But the future is not set for my kids.
In Memoriam
We are greatly saddened to learn of the passing of Myron Dale "Doc" Miller on June 6th in Davis, California. Mr. Miller was a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and generously supported our work over many years.
Doc pursued a life of service, volunteering for the Army Air Corps as a recent high school graduate in the middle of World War II. He became a pilot, rising to the rank of Colonel, and flew for 30 years in war and peace time. During the Vietnam engagement, he commanded a rescue squadron with four airplanes and 12 pararescue men who parachuted into the sea and combat zones on rescue missions. He also flew around the world several times, piloting jet transports and stopping at airports that served US Embassies in India, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Spain and other countries.
After retiring from the Air Force, Doc completed his undergraduate and law degrees at UC Davis and began a 20 year legal career devoted to representing indigents in criminal appeals. His many contributions to improving the world around him will be long remembered. Doc was loved and admired by his many friends, colleagues and family, and by those of who were encouraged and inspired by his generosity.
We send our deepest sympathy to Doc's daughter, Vicky Sargent and grandsons Austin Sargent and Alden Sargent, and to his longtime companion and best friend, Sarah Taylor.
A memorial service for Doc will be held on Saturday, July 18, 2015, at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. In lieu of flowers, Doc's family asks that donations be made to Death Penalty Focus, c/o Mike Farrell, 5 Third St., Suite 725, San Francisco, CA 94103.
In Memoriam
We are greatly saddened to learn that Pamela Krasney, a former DPF board member and long-time activist against the death penalty, passed away on June 9th at her home in Sausalito.
Pam was a lifelong opponent of the death penalty and made many valuable contributions to DPF and the anti death penalty movement. She was particularly dedicated to San Quentin Death Row inmate Jarvis Masters, whom she visited regularly over the past eighteen years.
As a Tibetan Buddhist and member of the Shambhala Community, she embraced many causes and tirelessly pursued projects to improve the world around her, especially for those unfairly treated by the criminal justice system. Pam was active in Human Rights Watch and served on the board of the Prison Mindfulness Institute. We are forever grateful for her dedication.
We send our deepest sympathies to Pam's husband, Marty Krasney, and to her children and grandchildren.
Abolitionist of the Month Ernie Chambers
Ernie Chambers does not give up.
Nearly 45 years ago, right after he won a seat in the Nebraska State Senate, he first introduced a bill to repeal the death penalty. He didn't hesitate to take on the formidable task of abolishing an almost 150-year-old law in a conservative state in the heart of the country.
"I have an obligation. I have a charge to keep. I don't get tired. I won't sell out. I won't be bought out," Chambers said during a recent phone interview.
For the next 40 years, Chambers introduced a similar bill to repeal Nebraska's capital punishment law at the start of each legislative session, a total of 38 times. In 1979, the bill was passed by the Legislature but was vetoed by then-Governor Charles Thone. Undeterred, Chambers introduced it at the next session, and the next, and the next....
Ask Chambers what propelled him to try, again and again, to repeal the death penalty and he explains it was a determination forged by a lifelong belief that killing another human being, no matter what the circumstances, is just plain wrong.
"Since I was first conscious of the difference between right and wrong, I have been opposed to the death penalty. My argument is simple: Nobody should kill anybody. And killing someone as punishment is the most barbaric act of all," he says.
Chambers, who was born in 1937, has been fighting injustice his entire life. An Omaha native, he was often the only black child in a white classroom. He tells of having to listen to his white teacher read Little Black Sambo,a children's book with descriptions and illustrations of African-Americans so derogatory, it was banned from libraries and schools in the 1970s. He sat in silence while the white kids laughed. It was an experience, he says, that "bothers me to this day."
Chambers earned his undergraduate degree at Creighton University in Omaha in 1959, and a law degree from Creighton University School of Law in 1979, but because he refuses to join the Nebraska State Bar Association, he has never practiced law.
"I refused to join the Bar because I paid my way through law school," he says. "Why should I have to pay the Nebraska State Bar Association dues for the right to practice law when I already earned that right by graduating from law school?"
He was fired from the Omaha Post Office in the early 1960s for insubordination after complaining that managers referred to black employees as "boys." When the Postmaster General gave a speech in Omaha, Chambers picketed it with a sign that read, "I spoke against discrimination in the Omaha Post Office and was fired."
He became a public figure in 1966 after race riots broke out in Omaha. Acting as a spokesperson for the community, Chambers helped defuse the tension, and subsequently led a citizens' group that worked to improve relations between residents of North Omaha and the police.
He was working as a barber in the 1960s when he first ran for public office, once for the Omaha School Board and once for the City Council. He lost both times.
In 1970, he was elected to represent North Omaha's 11th District, and was reelected for the next 34 years, becoming in 2005, Nebraska's longest-serving state senator. Term limits passed by Nebraska voters in 2000 meant he couldn't run again for four years, which he did in 2012, winning by a landslide.
Chambers has also unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate and for governor of Nebraska.
Asked if he still has aspirations for higher office, Chambers is definite. "No, no, no. I'm where I belong."
And where he belongs is in Nebraska, fighting for the causes he believes in.
"I've always felt an obligation to protect those on the outside, the ones who are weak or frightened," he says. And it was that sense of obligation that fueled his successful drive to halt the execution of juveniles and the intellectually disabled in Nebraska in 1982, ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court's nationwide ban.
"Every time I saw an opening, I took it," he says.
In late May, Chambers finally prevailed. First, by a vote of 32 to 15, the unicameral Nebraska Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, replacing it with the option of a life sentence without parole. Republican Governor Pete Ricketts vetoed the bill, and less than a week later, the legislature overrode his veto by a vote of 30 to 19, the minimum number needed. With that vote, Nebraska became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty. The 10 men on Nebraska's Death Row were granted a reprieve, and will serve life sentences without parole.
But the battle may not be over. In the wake of the override, Republican Senator Beau McCoy of Omaha announced he would organize an effort to get an initiative on the state ballot next year giving Nebraska voters the option of reinstating the death penalty.
Ernie Chambers is ready.
"I don't feel the battle is won," he says. "None of that worries me. I've always had the expectation that the battle will go on."
Supreme Court Ruling Sets Clock Ticking
The Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision that the drug midazolam is constitutional for use as the first drug in a three-drug lethal injection formula. The decision is troubling after a botched execution in Oklahoma clearly showed the experimental drug creates an intolerable risk of harm.
In addition, it is dreadful news for California, the state with the nation's largest death row. Earlier this month in a settlement agreement with death penalty advocates, Governor Jerry Brown agreed to unveil a one-drug protocol within 120 days of the decision, meaning killing in California could resume within months.
In California, the death penalty has been on hold since 2006 when a federal judge found the three-drug protocol was unconstitutional. When a new protocol is introduced, there are bound to be legal challenges and additional costs to California taxpayers in addition to the millions we already spend on appeals and housing.
When the process is approved, a minimum of 17 people who have exhausted their appeals will immediately be eligible for execution. Instead of wasting more time and money to try to come up with a new way to kill prisoners, we need to end the death penalty system.


text:
WASHINGTON It started well enough. Tim Lincecums scoreless innings streak reached 13 when he impressively carved through three dangerous hitters from the stretch Tuesday night.But there was no luck for Lincecum after that. Just plenty of mistakes, a career-worst eight runs allowed and enough explosive meetings of bat and ball in the nations capital to make you believe Independence Day arrived 24 hours ahead of time.The Giants and Nationals entered Tuesday night tied for the most victories in the National League. The Nats made easy work of Lincecum to take charge of the Senior Circuit in a rain-delayed, 9-3 victory at Nationals Park.Was it the mid-90s heat and humidity? Thats been the old standby for Lincecum in the past. But the longer his struggles go this season, the more it seems the familiar explanations just dont go deep enough.Lincecum gave up two runs in the second inning, got pounded in the third and retired just one batter in the fourth. He left them loaded for George Kontos, and after all were redeemed at the bettors window, Lincecum ended up matching his career worst with seven earned runs and establishing a new one with eight allowed in all.Lincecum watched the rest of the fourth inning, a forlorn figure leaning against the dugout rail. He was coming off seven scoreless innings against the Dodgers, which snapped his winless streak at 10 starts. Now he is bereft of momentum again, and hes got one more start before the All-Star break the first-half finale Sunday at Pittsburgh to figure out how to reinvent himself in the second half.Starting pitching reportLincecum (3-9) had made 171 starts in his major league career. He had never given up eight runs in a start. Heck, he probably didnt have one of those at the University of Washington, either.It all started with such promise. After Steve Lombardozzis leadoff single put Lincecum in the stretch, where he has struggled to make pitches, he executed very good sequences to get ahead of wunderkind Bryce Harper in a confrontation that ended with a fly out. After pitching backwards to Harper with early-count offspeed stuff, Lincecum ran his fastball in and out to strike out Ryan Zimmerman. Then he threw a changeup to strike out Michael Morse.But he began to show loose threads in the second inning, and the Nationals tugged at them. Danny Espinosa rocked Lincecum for an RBI double that hit near the top of the wall in dead center. Lincecum and catcher Hector Sanchez might have gotten too tricksy-cutesy with a first-pitch curveball to Jordan Zimmermann, a hanging blob that the opposing pitcher shot into right field for a double that scored Espinosa.Meanwhile, with the Giants making quick outs, Lincecum had little rest between innings. That might have contributed to a series of location mistakes in the third, although one small decision by the Nationals made a very big difference.Lincecum induced what would have been a double-play grounder from Morse, but Zimmerman was running with the 2-2 pitch. Shortstop Brandon Crawford had no choice but to throw to first base.That third out proved elusive, as Adam LaRoche doubled over center fielder Angel Pagans head on a high and outside fastball. Lincecum followed with a hanging, 0-1 curve that Ian Desmond attacked and sent into the left field seats for a two-run home run.Just like that, Lincecum and the Giants trailed 5-0.Perhaps Giants manager Bruce Bochy wanted Lincecum to get one more inning to save the bullpen, given the 11:05 a.m. game that awaits both teams on Wednesday. Or perhaps Bochy wanted to give Lincecum a chance to work on his delivery.Either way, the decision to send a stringy-haired, sweaty Lincecum out for the fourth inning turned out to be very bad, indeed. After retiring Zimmermann, Lincecum wrapped two walks around Harpers double and Bochy came to collect the ball with the bases loaded.Lincecum ended the day with a 6.08 ERA. He ranks 89th out of 90 major league pitchers that have made at least 15 starts. If not for Atlantas Mike Minor, Lincecum would rank as the worst pitcher in the major leagues by the stat that is most often used to define their performance.Bullpen reportKontos did Lincecum no favors. Neither did Gregor Blanco, who went to center field on the double-switch with Pagan getting an early exit.Kontos threw a fat 0-2 pitch while allowing a two-run single to Morse and Blanco made a terrible throw to the plate, allow Zimmerman to take third base. LaRoche followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Nats an 8-0 lead.At least Kontos struck out Ian Desmond, ensuring that Lincecums final run would be unearned. A small consolation.Clay Hensley, Brad Penny and others pitched and played baseball and such after that. Their deeds will not be chronicled here, but check the box score if you must.At the plateThe Giants will miss both of Washingtons All-Star starting pitchers in Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez, but Zimmermann (5-6) reminded why he has a lower ERA than either of them.He gave up hits to the leadoff batter in three of his first four innings, including doubles to Pablo Sandoval and Melky Cabrera. But he did what Lincecum could not, executing pitches to keep the Giants off the board.A yippy throw from third baseman Ryan Zimmerman opened the door for a two-run rally in the fifth inning. After Hector Sanchez reached on the error, the Giants received consecutive singles from Crawford and Nate Schierholtz (who entered with Kontos on a double switch). Blanco followed with a broken-bat hit that scored a pair.With no outs, the Giants had thoughts of a comeback. But Ryan Theriot, Melky Cabrera and Buster Posey went down in order.Give Crawford his due, though. He turned in his second three-hit game in a span of six starts.In fieldLets focus on off-the-field stuff. Such as how Giants manager Bruce Bochy pulled most of his starters off the field.Hey, at least the Giants will be a tad better rested for Wednesdays 11:05 a.m. first pitch, which is more appropriate for a college football game. Pablo Sandoval and Cabrera were gone in the fifth inning. Posey, the first baseman, was out in the sixth.By the end, the Giants 3-4-5 hitters were Justin Christian, Joaquin Arias and Emmanuel Burriss.Poor Hector Sanchez had to catch the whole way.AttendanceThe Nationals announced 36,985 paid. For once, the actual attendance seemed even larger. Theyre getting behind this team of theirs here. The lower sections remained well populated even after an 85-minute rain delay in the seventh inning. (The sweet, sulfurous lure of postgame fireworks might have had something to do with that.)Up nextThe Giants will be quaffing many caffeinated beverages as they continue their series in the District with an 11:05 a.m. first pitch on Wednesday. (Thats 8:05 a.m. back in the Bay Area.) Left-hander Madison Bumgarner (10-4, 2.85) gets the Independence Day start against right-hander Edwin Jackson (4-4. 3.57).
Baggs' Instant Replay: Nationals 9, Giants 3

subset: commoncrawl


text:
By A25 Ltd.
Open iTunes to buy and download apps.
How is the weather? Tell us!
Raining allows you to share what is the weather where you are located.
Also you can get to know about weather in other places over the world. Of course, if someone else will report about it.
Reported weather conditions appear on a map like small icons.
What's New in Version 1.1.5
- Tweet about weather in your location (iOS 5 only).
Customers Also Bought
View in iTunes
This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad
- Free
- Category: Weather
- Updated: 16 March 2012
- Version: 1.1.5
- Size: 1.4 MB
- Language: English
- Developer: A25 Ltd.
Compatibility: Requires iOS 4.2 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Top In-App Purchases
- Ad-Free Version฿35.00


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General Discussion / Re: Tire Pressure« on: November 06, 2012, 11:20:02 am »
Here is one expert's take on tire pressure: http://www.bikequarterly.com/images/BQTireDrop.pdfhmmmm, I just re-read that article and realized that front tire pressure and rear tire pressure can/should be different. My linear way of thinking made me miss that. I've always been careful to have equal pressure in both tires. Must experiment.


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Alison LindemannShared publicly -
Great Read on picking the best social channels for your business...
Deciding which social media platform will best serve your company's needs can be tricky. Here's an overview to help you decide.
Alison leads the WSI eBiz team located just outside Los Angeles. She was formerly with Farmers Insurance having extensive experience in consulting, sales, marketing, as well as operations. Alison's focus is on developing effective digital marketing strategies to help businesses reach new customers. Services include Social Media, Google Adwords, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design and Development, eMail Marketing, Video Marketing, Press Releases, and Strategic & Competitor Research.


text:
The quality of the service we provide is number one with no stone unturned delivering quality every step of the way.
Jet Maid Laundrette & Ironing Services Watford
Jet Maid provide a full range of professional ironing services across Hertfordshire. We have just opened a new laundrette in Watford and have recently invested in the very latest equipment. Building on 26 years of experience, Jet Maid pride ourselves on understanding the needs of our customers.
Our Watford laundrette is the perfect option for those who live close by, and you can leave your laundry with us to do for you if you prefer. We offer laundry and ironing services – including dry cleaning – to help save you time in your busy lives.
All of the work is carried out by us on-site rather than being outsourced, and can be completed within 48 hours for quick return to you.
Jet Maid understand the importance of choosing the right ironing company. Our friendly staff are all fully trained to the highest standard and always meet deadlines promptly at a time arranged with you.
At Jet Maid Ltd we are confident we can provide you with a reliable and professional service that is ideal for you as an individual. For more information, visit our laundrette in Watford or call us on 01923 671326.
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Collection & Delivery no longer available
*We will no longer be able to offer this service. We thank you for your custom and apologise for any inconvenience caused.*


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avant garde movement
-military form meaning front line
-in art it means artist who change how we see society
"Nude Descending a Staircase"
-Marcel Duchamp
-looking to cubism but this conveys movement...looks at chronophotographs
-the Avant Garde salon rejects it so he sends it to the Armory show in America
Duchamp's respose to "what is art?" and "what is an artist?"
-"something created by an artist"
-"someone who creates art"
-solidifies him as a Dada leader in NYC
-it's only accepted when the jury knows he submitted it...proves his argument for what art is
-commentary on consumerism and materialsm
Characteristics of Dada
1) Rejected rationality and tradition
2) Anarchist and anti-art (sought to subvert and undermine the current value system, both political and artistic)
3) celebrated chance, nonsense, and the absurd (created art that would offend, scandalize, and shock)
4)No stylistic unity
-readymade assisted
-he's defacing the Mona Lisa like the world has already done by selling copies
-plays w/ works....when sounded on phonetically in French it sounds like "She's got a hot ass"


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Mullah Krekar threatens Norway
Mullah Krekar threatens Norway
Minister of Municipal
Affairs, Erna Solberg, says to Aftenpoasten that if
the department receives support by the courts for
its decision to expel Krekar, then the Norwegian
authorities will not be stopped by threats.
Mullah Krekar came to Norway as a quota refugee in
1991. Thgroughout the 90s Krekar worked to set up an
armed group named Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq.
In 2003 Solberg decided that Krekar should be
expelled on the grounds that he was a threat to
national security.
Krekar has brought the decision to court, with the
aim to have it declared invalid..
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
Copyright © 1998-2016
Kurd Net®
. All rights reserved Ekurd.net
All documents and images on
this website are copyrighted and may not be used without the
permission of the copyright holder.


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Gideon Okeke returned to our screens on Sunday evening with Edwin and Dayo, who still had $6 000 left on the table.
The friends still had five questions to answer and they were very passionate with each passing question. But with the money continuing to drop and Edwin exclaiming: "Ah! I use keyboards every day!", it seemed unlikely the pair would walk away with any money.
But they did! See how the story unfolded on Twitter, where fans of The Money Drop contributed to the story using the official hashtag #MoneyDropNG.
Edwin and Dayo
Akin and Oke, who have been friends forever, joined in on the fun and also won $2 000. Their nerves, not deciding on an answer, using a blindfold to keep from seeing the money drop….these guys entertained us! We're just glad that coin toss helped them win the money.
Akin and Oke
And if you missed out on any of last night's action, here is our video recap.
Catch The Money Drop on Sundays at 20:00 on AfricaMagic Entertainment (DStv channel 151).


text:
What are you looking for?
Founded in 1981 and known as America's leading fashion forward name in eyewear, A.J. Morgan has had its designer reading glasses and sunglasses featured in over 20,000 retail locations worldwide. Their huge selection includes a full range of fashion reading glasses and sunglasses as well as sunglass readers and rhinestone styles composing a truly awesome, hip edgy collection for men and women.


text:
NightSide Weekend Commentary - Question 2
Ballot Question 2: Expanding The Bottle Deposit LawBallot Question 2 raises the question of whether expanding the state's beverage container law would result in less litter and more people recycling.
Keller @ Large: Bottle Battle BillNext month, voters will decide whether to expand the bottle deposit law.
NightSide - Jack Clark and Nicole Giambusso Have A Civil Discussion On Expanding The Bottle Bill In MABottle Bill Debate!
Supermarkets Launch Campaign Against Bottle Bill In Mass.Supermarket chains are launching a television ad to try to persuade voters to reject a ballot question to expand Massachusetts' bottle deposit law.
Question 2 Assisted Suicide Supporters Concede DefeatSupporters of a ballot question that would legalize physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill in Massachusetts have conceded defeat, even though the vote is too close to call.
Out-Of-State Group's Donation Comes Under Fire In 'Right To Die' DebateMoney from across the country is pouring into Massachusetts aimed at influencing the controversial so-called 'right to die' ballot question.
Question 2: Voters Kick Affordable Housing Change To The CurbMassachusetts voters have rejected Question Two, which would have kept the state's main affordable housing law intact.
Question 2: Repeal Affordable Housing Law?Critics of the state's affordable housing law want to completely scrap it with Question 2 on the Nov. 2 ballot.


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I'm very pleased at how the breeding sales went for me
Published 10/10/2012 | 06:00
It has been a busy few weeks with breeding sales and with the AI of the pedigree Bluefaced Leicesters and the shearing of ewe lambs.
The breeding sales are finished for the year. They concluded with the sale of Bluefaced Leicester rams and the Mayo Blackface sale.
All in all I am very pleased on how the breeding sales went for me this year. My mule ewe lambs were up €4/hd on last year. I sold 50 draft Mayo Mountain ewes that have been on the farm for years.
These ewes were not required for this breeding season as I had a surplus of replacements in the flock. I had the champion and reserve champion Bluefaced Leicester Rams at the premier sale in Ballinrobe.
My last outing for 2012 will be to go over to Bluefaced Leicester sale in Carlisle. I have never been in Britain for a ram sale and I hope it will be an event from which I can learn and improve my own stock.
The work is set to continue into the coming month as I must be alert and vigilant as my rams are being let run with the ewes. The Beltex ram has been running with the mule ewes for the past three weeks and at present 48pc of these ewes have been covered.
I used a yellow raddle on the ram at the beginning and this was changed to green two weeks after the ram was let out and will be changed again in another two weeks. It is a critical time of the year for any sheep farmer. The aim this time of year is get all of the flock's ewes in lamb and with a short lambing period and a high litter size. This year I decided to fertility test all my rams, including all the shearling rams I sold. This is important for all farmers because an infertile ram can be very damaging to the flock.
I wanted to fertility test the rams I had for sale as it gave the purchaser peace of mind that the ram was fit to do his job.
All the rams I sold were 5/5 for sperm motility and 5/5 for wave motion. I was delighted with the results as this showed that the semen concentration was dense and that the sperm was very active. I also had an aged ram that scored 3/5 for wave motion, I was disappointed with this but it may be due to a cold he had beforehand.
The ram has since been given selenium to improve reproductive performance. I will reduce the number of ewes I intended to let with this ram from 1:50 to 1:25. If I see that there is no repeats from these I will let some more ewes with him.
I think that fertility testing of rams is essential as it provides customers with some peace of mind and also increases the value of the ram. It should be one of the first things to be looked at in a ram because, even if he is the best looking ram in the world, he is no good unless he is fertile and can produce offspring. The cost of carrying out the tests is well recouped in the sale of the ram.
Last Saturday the artificial inseminating of the pedigree ewes was carried out by vet Ronan Gallagher. It is not a matter of the vet turning up and letting him get on with it. Some help is required getting ewes in and out of crates and aiding in the collection of fresh semen from rams. The sponges of the ewes that were to get frozen semen were taken out 12 hours earlier than the ewes getting fresh semen. The reason for this was that it takes longer for the fresh semen to be ready to fertilise an egg.
Ronan showed me through the scope the importance of fasting the ewes 24 hours before hand. He showed me where the bladder was through the scope and how this would affect the process if it was full.
We had no problem taking semen from any of the rams during the day which was a relief and all of them were in good working order. It is just a matter of time now to see how successful the process will be. Last week I sold a batch of 43 mule wether lambs; these killed out at 20.54kg. I have been feeding these for the past five weeks with concentrates and they have been on a good leafy pasture.
I generally let my mule wether lambs grow on grass and then feed them concentrates for the final five weeks to ensure they have enough cover for sale.
I had grouped the wether lambs according to size before this and the next batch will now get more attention and feeding before selling.
Tom Staunton farms at Shanvallyard, Tourmakeady, Co Mayo. Email: email@example.com
Indo Farming


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Review: Tawdry JFK drama 'Parkland' an exercise in sorely misjudged nostalgia
Such is the level of characterization and emotional profundity throughout: rather a severe shortcoming in a film that purports to tell the story mostly through the eyes of the real, little people. It's understandable that writers and actors often feel hamstrung when required to make a living, breathing character of a celebrity figure as iconic as, say, John F. Kennedy -- whose face here is coyly shielded at every turn. But even in a project of such dubious taste, the regular-folk construct should be an avenue toward portraying textbook history in an empathetically human context, not gawking at the second-degree famousness of someone who once got to touch the President's bloodied corpse. (Landesman's script misses even the small sociological details: how likely is it that a cadre of iron-jawed presidential aides would have addressed the newly widowed First Lady by her abbreviated Christian name?)
The only figure in this waxen ensemble who emerges as something resembling a complex, conflicted human being is Oswald's decent, stoic but tacitly ashamed brother Robert, a man in no doubt as to his sibling's guilt but attempting to muster up enough unconditional love to understand his mindset. In the only performance here that feels porous and palpably damaged, James Badge Dale is given too little to work with to come close to salvaging the whole tawdry affair, but his efforts are appreciated all the same. As his vindictive mother Marguerite, meanwhile, Jacki Weaver goes to the opposite extreme, playing the woman's horn-rimmed glare and hissing conspiracy theories for high camp value. It's the cartoonish approach this material arguably calls for, but a distracting one when none of her blander co-stars apparently received the memo.
Shot by the great Barry Ackroyd in a curious fashion that suggests Landesman was at once after un-anchored, "United 93"-style immediacy and lacquered period warmth, the film cuts urgently from strand to strand without amassing much in the way of momentum -- largely because the human stakes across the ensemble are so uniform. "The Grown-Ups," a wonderful episode from the third season of AMC's "Mad Men" (directed, as it happens, by Oscar nominee Barbet Schroeder) got right pretty much everything that "Parkland" gets wrong in trying to dramatize the repercussions of Kennedy's death as felt by those outside the inner circle, the eerie emptiness of mourning someone you don't know -- all without feeling the need to get within even six degrees of separation from the man himself.
Landesman, by contrast, milks even the most insignificant first-hand minutiae for pathos, bottoming out by showing us several brick-faced servicemen struggling to maneuver Kennedy's coffin through a narrow airplane door. It's an obliviously grotesque scene, made even more obliviously hilarious as James Newton Howard's cloth-eared score swells over their huffing and puffing, vainly attempting to ennoble a process that is the political equivalent of pushing a sofa up a stairwell: "An undignified end for a dignified man," to crib a line from Giamatti's fussy turn. That "Parkland" opens on October 4 -- somehow skipping out on the Golden Anniversary date only seven weeks later -- may be its solitary act of good taste.


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Lee Nelson live chat part 2
Brace yourselves for another proper mad chat with South London geeza Lee 'Nelsy' Nelson tonight after Lee Nelson's Well Good Show. He'll be here on the BBC Three Blog LIVE online at 11pm, so see you later!
See clips from Lee Nelson's Well Good Show.
Missed last week's chat? Click here to read Lee Nelson's live chat part 1.
Terms and Conditions:
All comments are pre-moderated which may delay publication. It is not possible to publish all comments; only questions and/or comments of interest and relevance to the programme and its themes will be chosen. Do not include personal information in your comments (eg email addresses, telephone numbers); comments and questions will not be published if they contain personal information or if they contain material that may offend other users.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites linked from this page.
And if you want to find out more, go to our T&Cs site.
Mars Elkins is producer for the BBC Three website.
Comments Post your comment
Comment number 1.At 22:39 1st Sep 2011, Jordan wrote:
Anyone got ps3
Comment number 2.At 22:47 1st Sep 2011, JoannaGleeBieberGomez wrote:
Luv Lee Nelson & his jokes. He's somethin' that chavvy England can NEVER live without. :D
Comment number 3.At 22:49 1st Sep 2011, chubbyOmlette12 wrote:
I love your show its AMAZING!. cause its Quuuuaallllittty! xxx Love you Lee nelsonxxx
Comment number 4.At 22:58 1st Sep 2011, Claire Louise wrote:
Love the lee nelson show, had to stop writing a blog post as was laughing far too much.
Comment number 5.At 23:02 1st Sep 2011, hayley wrote:
Actually love this show init! Quuuallllittyy!:) never fail to make me laugh or nothin!:D Love youu Lee Nelson!xx
Comment number 6.At 23:03 1st Sep 2011, paul c harrild wrote:
another wicked show!!!!
Comment number 7.At 23:05 1st Sep 2011, LaurenLovesChris wrote:
I Love Your Show Lee :)...Yeh Never Fail To Make Me Laugh Haha Your Jokes Are Amazing :D...&& Omlet Makes Me Crease Up Hahaha!
Comment number 8.At 23:05 1st Sep 2011, Hayley1985 wrote:
that was rele funny, ive never watched it b4, cant beleive i been missin it
Comment number 9.At 23:06 1st Sep 2011, Beeaa19 wrote:
Love your jokes Lee, just wanna know
how do you get tickets to be on your show? :) xx
Comment number 10.At 23:06 1st Sep 2011, sophiemortimore wrote:
lee nelson marry me?xxxxx
Comment number 11.At 23:07 1st Sep 2011, AmandaJane1987 wrote:
Lee Nelson is one of the best up-and-coming comedians I know of... SO funny and original!!!
When you touring?? xx
Comment number 12.At 23:10 1st Sep 2011, bobjimbob wrote:
Comment number 13.At 23:10 1st Sep 2011, sitrucnipsa wrote:
yes bled
Comment number 14.At 23:12 1st Sep 2011, Jamie wrote:
Lee nelson you legend ... Best way to brighten up my Thursday night .. Omlettette the fat legend lol . 400 miles off but still lovin dis show :D
Comment number 15.At 23:17 1st Sep 2011, laura2388 wrote:
why aint my comments goin through to live chat ?
Comment number 16.At 23:17 1st Sep 2011, tim wrote:
great show more please soon
Comment number 17.At 23:19 1st Sep 2011, adam0508 wrote:
your well funny lee and omlet :)
Comment number 18.At 23:22 1st Sep 2011, sheepy wrote:
Let Me Comment ON THE LIVE CHAT DAMMIT
Comment number 19.At 23:27 1st Sep 2011, MARIO wrote:
Comment number 20.At 23:27 1st Sep 2011, stephsxy wrote:
how do u comment on live chat ?
Comment number 21.At 23:37 1st Sep 2011, Sophie-Brown wrote:
dude dunno if live chat works for me?they wont send! can i have a pic pleaseee! it would make my day!
Comment number 22.At 23:54 1st Sep 2011, stephen26norwich wrote:
Hey Lee when are we going to see Chris Young again
Comment number 23.At 21:08 6th Sep 2011, ryan_22 wrote:
LOVE this show lees hot an funny AS hahahahaha!!!
Comment number 24.At 21:57 26th Sep 2011, miss nelson xo wrote:
you iz well fit!xx


text:
Best route map between Mcminnville, TN and Monterey, TN. This route take about 56 Miles.
The distance and estimated time is placed on the right depending on the status of the road.
, 19:17
* You can see Mcminnville, TN and Monterey, TN photos above. We provide this photos from Google Panoramio service.
* Mcminnville, TN weather as celsius: °C
* Monterey, TN weather as celsius: °C
* Weather information on route, provide by Open Weather Map.
All Rights Reserved. © 2010 - 2016 About Feedback


text:
For a pop album, Lady Gaga's new album Born This Way, like her other two albums is FANTASTIC! yo! dont hate. this ish is really good. I give props to any artist that writes their own ish, Michael Jackson style.
Lady Gagas new album
Weird Al is back!
UPDATE from WEIRD AL
Well, this was a strange day.
After putting my Lady Gaga parody on YouTube this morning – and announcing that it wouldn't be on my next album because Gaga didn't approve it – there was a huge outpouring of disappointment from the Internet.
Apparently the fact that she didn't approve it was news to Lady Gaga herself!
Gaga's manager has now admitted that he never forwarded my parody to Gaga – she had no idea at all. Even though we assumed that Gaga herself was the one making the decision (because, well, that's what we were TOLD), he apparently made the decision completely on his own.
He's sorry.
And Gaga loves the song.
I'm thrilled on many levels to hear this, because 1) I truly respect and admire Gaga as an artist and it pained me to think of her as having less than a great sense of humor, and 2) it means I GET TO PUT OUT MY ALBUM!
As promised, all my proceeds from the song (and the MUSIC VIDEO… I can't wait…) will go to the Human Rights Campaign.
Thank you, Gaga. And thanks to everybody who had my back.
Your pal,
Sorta related, but a dope bluegrass cover:


text:
Navan is Top Woodie's Garden Centre
- 12 March 2012
Woodie's DIY Navan was named Garden Centre of the Year for 2011/2012 at the annual Woodie's DIY Garden Centre of the Year Awards.
Pictured after the Garden Centre of the Year Awards were, from left, Paddy Gleeson, horticultural consultant, Woodie's DIY; Ray Colman, chief executive, Woodie's DIY; James Brady, horticulturist, Woodies DIY, Navan; Sean McNeill, store manager, Woodie's DIY, Navan, and Dermot Corcoran, Woodie's DIY, Navan.
Ray Colman, CEO of Woodie's DIY, said: "Gardening is such an important part of our business and the Navan horticultural team impressed the judges throughout the year, achieving top marks across all judging criteria."
Paddy Gleeson, Woodie's DIY horticulturist consultant, further added: "The high standards achieved by the top 20 stores made judging very difficult. James Brady's knowledge, expertise and experience lead the way in the competition, making Woodie's DIY, Navan very worthy winners."
Woodie's DIY is an Irish-owned company and a retail division of Grafton Group plc. Over 95 per cent of their plants are sourced from Irish nurseries throughout the country.
Source: meathchronicle - Navan is Top Woodie's Garden Centre