Convicted killer of opera singers set to die
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Condemned prisoner Derrick Jackson was headed to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for the slayings of two opera singers nearly 22 years ago.
Jackson, 42, contends shaky and manufactured evidence persuaded a Harris County jury to convict him of the fatal beatings and slashings of Forrest Henderson and Richard Wrotenbery, two 31-year-old singers in the Houston Grand Opera chorus.
The September 1988 slayings inside Henderson's apartment went unsolved for years until a bloody fingerprint from the murder scene was matched to Jackson. By then, in 1995, Jackson already was in prison serving 12 years for aggravated robbery.
No last-day appeals were in the courts Tuesday to try to block the 15th execution this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal Monday, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down a clemency request.
"It's not scary, as in fear," Jackson told The Associated Press in a recent interview from death row. "It's more a reluctance that it had to come to this. I don't want to die. but it's not like I'm scared to die.
"It's like you have terminal disease for a number of years and finally they say you're not going to be able to live with it any longer so you're going to have to get your affairs together with your family and within yourself."
Jackson was arrested in 1992 for three robberies and took a plea bargain that sent him to prison. He was there when detectives working cold cases and using new computer databases matched his fingerprint to one at the scene of the murders.
Jackson said "bad decisions" led to burglaries and robberies and ultimately the prison term, but he denies involvement in the killings.
Fingerprints on a beer can, a glass and a door knob were linked to Jackson. Stains on bathroom towels matched his DNA.
"Technology caught up with him," said Bill Hawkins, a Harris County district attorney who prosecuted the case.
Hawkins said the odds against the DNA match actually belonging to someone other than Jackson were "off the charts."
Wrotenbery also taught music at an elementary school in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. He'd been house-sitting at Henderson's apartment following a divorce until he could find a place of his own. Henderson had just returned to Houston after performing with the opera in Scotland.
The day of the slayings, Sept. 10, 1988, Wrotenbery and Henderson, both tenors, had been rehearsing for an opera production of Bizet's Carmen. Wrotenbery went to the apartment after rehearsals. Jackson hit some bars, may have met Jackson there and took him home.
Evidence showed Henderson was stabbed in the chest. Wrotenbery's throat was slashed. Both were bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar that could have been part of a weight set. Wrotenbery may have been asleep when he was killed.
"It's not something I look forward to," Carl Wrotenbery, 80, who's only son was murdered, said of the execution he planned to witness. "I feel a personal obligation. I feel this is something I need to see through.
"As father of a 31-year-old, a man expects in his old age for his children to take care of him. This was just a total shock to lose someone at that age... It was all for nothing. There was nothing accomplished by a crime like this."
Jackson said from prison he realized "two people lost their lives and I feel for their families."
"I saw the pictures. It was a savage scene," he said, adding that he understood jurors had to "do something when two guys were killed like that."
But when they found him guilty, "It kind of blew me away," he said. "I didn't do it."
The men's wallets were taken along with Henderson's car. A Houston traffic officer tried to pull over the car for speeding, but the driver fled, leading police on a chase until the car crashed. The driver managed to run off and escape.
An administrator from the school district where Wrotenbery taught called the apartment manager when the teacher didn't show up for work. The manager found the bloody scene.
At least three other condemned killers in Texas have execution dates in the coming months.
Execution set in Houston
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Condemned prisoner Derrick Jackson was headed to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for the slayings of two opera singers nearly 22 years ago.
Jackson, 42, contends shaky and manufactured evidence persuaded a Harris County jury to convict him of the fatal beatings and slashings of Forrest Henderson and Richard Wrotenbery, two 31-year-old singers in the Houston Grand Opera chorus.
The September 1988 slayings inside Henderson's apartment went unsolved for years until a bloody fingerprint from the murder scene was matched to Jackson. By then, in 1995, Jackson already was in prison serving 12 years for aggravated robbery.
No last-day appeals were in the courts Tuesday to try to block the 15th execution this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal Monday, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down a clemency request.
"It's not scary, as in fear," Jackson told The Associated Press in a recent interview from death row. "It's more a reluctance that it had to come to this. I don't want to die. but it's not like I'm scared to die.
"It's like you have terminal disease for a number of years and finally they say you're not going to be able to live with it any longer so you're going to have to get your affairs together with your family and within yourself."
Jackson was arrested in 1992 for three robberies and took a plea bargain that sent him to prison. He was there when detectives working cold cases and using new computer databases matched his fingerprint to one at the scene of the murders.
Jackson said "bad decisions" led to burglaries and robberies and ultimately the prison term, but he denies involvement in the killings.
Fingerprints on a beer can, a glass and a door knob were linked to Jackson. Stains on bathroom towels matched his DNA.
"Technology caught up with him," said Bill Hawkins, a Harris County district attorney who prosecuted the case.
Hawkins said the odds against the DNA match actually belonging to someone other than Jackson were "off the charts."
Wrotenbery also taught music at an elementary school in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. He'd been house-sitting at Henderson's apartment following a divorce until he could find a place of his own. Henderson had just returned to Houston after performing with the opera in Scotland.
The day of the slayings, Sept. 10, 1988, Wrotenbery and Henderson, both tenors, had been rehearsing for an opera production of Bizet's Carmen. Wrotenbery went to the apartment after rehearsals. Jackson hit some bars, may have met Jackson there and took him home.
Evidence showed Henderson was stabbed in the chest. Wrotenbery's throat was slashed. Both were bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar that could have been part of a weight set. Wrotenbery may have been asleep when he was killed.
"It's not something I look forward to," Carl Wrotenbery, 80, who's only son was murdered, said of the execution he planned to witness. "I feel a personal obligation. I feel this is something I need to see through.
"As father of a 31-year-old, a man expects in his old age for his children to take care of him. This was just a total shock to lose someone at that age... It was all for nothing. There was nothing accomplished by a crime like this."
Jackson said from prison he realized "two people lost their lives and I feel for their families."
"I saw the pictures. It was a savage scene," he said, adding that he understood jurors had to "do something when two guys were killed like that."
But when they found him guilty, "It kind of blew me away," he said. "I didn't do it."
The men's wallets were taken along with Henderson's car. A Houston traffic officer tried to pull over the car for speeding, but the driver fled, leading police on a chase until the car crashed. The driver managed to run off and escape.
An administrator from the school district where Wrotenbery taught called the apartment manager when the teacher didn't show up for work. The manager found the bloody scene.
At least three other condemned killers in Texas have execution dates in the coming months.
Execution set in Houston
The scene that greeted police when they entered Forrest Henderson's Greenway Plaza-area apartment on Sept. 11, 1988, was grisly. Blood smeared bedroom walls, doors and curtains. The bodies of Henderson and his house guest, Richard Alan Wrotenbery, had been slashed, stabbed and bludgeoned with an iron pipe. The killer left a bloody handprint on the doorknob.
The killings rocked the genteel worlds of Houston Grand Opera, where both men performed as tenors, and Deer Park Elementary School, where Wrotenbery, the recently divorced father of a 1-year-old daughter, taught music.
A day after the murders, police spotted Henderson's stolen car traveling more than 90 mph on a Houston freeway and gave chase. When the vehicle crashed, the driver dashed into a nearby apartment complex to make good his escape.
For seven years the investigation stagnated. Then, in 1995, sheriff's deputies using sophisticated new fingerprint technology linked a bloody print from Henderson's apartment to Derrick Jackson, a Houston man serving 12 years for aggravated robbery. Jackson denied any involvement but was convicted of the double-murder in 1998.
'I'm getting framed'
Jackson is to be executed Tuesday, becoming the 15th killer put to death in Texas this year. Houston lawyers last week were reviewing the case but were uncertain if they would find grounds for further appeals.
"It's obvious I'm getting framed," Jackson said in a recent death row interview. "I'm not your bad guy. People who know me know I'm a good guy."
Police described Jackson as a predator who preyed on patrons of Montrose gay bars.
The tenors' friends said Wrotenbery lived in his friend's apartment while Henderson was on an overseas tour with the opera. When Henderson returned, the recently divorced Wrotenbery continued to occupy the residence until he could find a home of his own.
Before their murders, the men, both 31, attended a practice session for a performance of Bizet's Carmen at the opera's downtown headquarters.
Afterward, Wrotenbery returned to the apartment while Henderson visited local bars.
While there, Henderson met Jackson. "He just picked up the wrong person and brought him back to the house," Houston homicide Sgt. D.D. Shirley said after Jackson's arrest.
Henderson's next-door neighbor told police he heard loud music coming from the apartment late on Sept. 10. Then, about 4:45 a.m. the next day, a man in the apartment screamed, "Oh my God. No. No."
Henderson's nude body later was found face-down on his bed. He repeatedly had been stabbed and suffered a 6-inch skull fracture. Wrotenbery was found on the floor of a second bedroom with his throat slashed.
Wrotenbery's father, Carl Wrotenbery of Fort Worth, said the impact of his son's death will "go with me to my grave."
The elder Wrotenbery, a retired library director at Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he is ambivalent about capital punishment. "When you come to the personal aspect of it, pure logic says for someone to do a crime of this nature, unprovoked — Alan was in the wrong place at the wrong time - it's hard for me to think the death penalty is unjustified."
Wrotenbery said he plans to witness the execution. "I've made my reservation," he said. "I feel like it's my duty as a father and head of the clan. I feel a responsibility to be there and see this done for other family members who, though they may have strong feelings, won't be able. I have no real desire to be there. I don't expect to feel anything different. It's just an unpleasant duty."
Crime-lab problems
Wrotenbery said the case, marked by false investigative starts and long delays, was hard on his family.
Years after Jackson's conviction, the way police handled the case was criticized by Michael Bromwich, the independent investigator hired to review operations of the department's troubled crime lab.
In his 2007 report, Brom-wich found that a technician apparently manipulated lab findings to bolster the case against detectives' prime suspect of the moment.
When an early suspect had Type O blood, Bromwich wrote, the employee neglected to report that Type B blood was found on an apartment door. Only when a charge was lodged against Jackson, who has Type B blood, was the fact added to the report.
In his death row interview, Jackson challenged those fingerprint findings and blasted a series of defense lawyers who, he said, "helped me get down to the execution chamber."
"I don't stay up at night and have nightmares," Jackson said. "I pray for myself. I hate the fact that I'm being blamed and will be killed, but it's more sadness than hate."
Derrick Jackson is scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday, July 20 for fatally slashing, stabbing and bludgeoning two Houston opera singers in 1988.
Jackson was a predator who preyed on patrons of gay bars in the Montrose area, and one of the victims, Forrest Henderson, had picked him up at one.
“He just picked up the wrong person and brought him back to the house,” Houston homicide Sgt. D.D. Shirley said after Jackson’s arrest.
On the night of the murder Henderson and the other victim, Richard Alan Wrotenbery, attended a rehearsal of Bizet’s Carmen. Wrontenbury, a first-grade music teacher who’d just been through a divorce, was staying with Henderson until he could find another place to live. After the rehearsal, Wrotenbury returned to the apartment while Henderson went to the bars.
Henderson was found naked and face down in his bed. He had been stabbed repeatedly. Wrotenbury was found in another bedroom with his throat slashed. Both had been bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar.
A day later Police spotted someone driving Henderson’s stolen car, and a chase ensued. The driver got away, and it wasn’t until seven years later that investigators used new fingerprint technology to identify Jackson, who was already in prison for aggravated robbery.
Jackson, who maintains his innocence, would become the 15th person executed to death in Texas this year.
Nearly 22 years after two Houston opera singers were fatally battered and slashed inside their apartment, the man convicted of killing them is set to die Tuesday by lethal injection.
Derrick Jackson, 42, would be the 15th Texas prisoner put to death this year in Huntsville in the nation's most active death penalty state. The execution is scheduled for after 6 p.m.
A Harris County jury convicted Jackson and sentenced him to die in 1998 for the September 1988 murders of Forrest Henderson and Richard Wrotenbery, both 31 and chorus members at the Houston Grand Opera.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Monday rejected an appeal from Jackson's lawyers. They had argued prosecutors improperly withheld some evidence from Jackson's trial attorneys and raised questions about whether Jackson could be mentally impaired and therefore ineligible for execution.
Jackson was arrested in 1992 for three robberies and took a plea bargain that put him in prison for 12 years. He was in prison on those convictions when authorities began looking at him as a suspect in the 1988 slayings.
"I made some bad decisions," Jackson told The Associated Press recently from a tiny visiting cage outside death row.
He acknowledged burglaries and robberies but denied involvement in the singers' slayings, blaming his indictment on "aggressive interrogation" by police eager to solve a nearly decade-old double homicide case.
"You know where you were 10 years ago?" he asked. "It's impossible unless you have records. I didn't do it."
He said when detectives asked him about the killings and requested DNA samples from him, he agreed.
"'Y'all can have whatever you want,'" he said he told them. "I want to clear my name."
Houston police detectives working cold cases and using new computer technology were drawn to Jackson in 1995 when a bloody print from a door knob at the murder scene was matched to him. Subsequent DNA testing also pointed to Jackson, confirming the fingerprint evidence.
"If I was in the system with a fair trial, I'd feel a little better," Jackson said from death row.
Bill Hawkins, a Harris County district attorney who prosecuted Jackson, said technology caught up with him.
"The scientific evidence was extremely strong," Hawkins said. "And subsequent defense testing of DNA had his numbers."
Jackson insisted the scientific evidence was manufactured and shaky.
The day of the slayings, Sept. 10, 1988, Wrotenbery and Henderson, both tenors, had been rehearsing for an opera production of Bizet's Carmen.
Wrotenbery, who also was an elementary school music teacher in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, went to Henderson's apartment where he'd been staying following a divorce until he could find a place of his own. Police determined Henderson, who recently returned to Houston after performing with the opera company in Scotland, went to some bars in the city's Montrose area, may have met Jackson there and took him home.
Evidence showed Henderson was stabbed in the chest. Wrotenbery's throat was slashed. Both were bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar that could have been part of a weight set. Wrotenbery may have been asleep when he was killed.
"Killing two guys like that and nothing happened to me? It just don't add up," Jackson said from prison.
The men's wallets were taken along with Henderson's car. A Houston traffic officer tried to pull over the car for speeding but the driver fled, leading police on a chase until the car crashed. The driver managed to run off and escape.
An administrator from the school district where Wrotenbery taught called the apartment manager when the teacher didn't show up for work. The manager found the bodies.
"I remember the deaths were extremely brutal," Hawkins said. "I don't recall handling a case where the scene had as much blood as was there."
Jackson, who was among at least four condemned killers with execution dates in Texas in the coming months, said growing up on Houston's south side put him in the middle of a "crime culture" where many of his friends stole cars and committed burglaries.
"That's what you do," he said. "I could have been a dead a long time ago breaking into people's houses. I count waking up as a blessing. I know a lot of people don't."
Killer set to die Tuesday
Derrick Jackson, 42, would be the 15th Texas prisoner put to death this year in Huntsville in the nation's most active death penalty state. The execution is scheduled for after 6 p.m.
A Harris County jury convicted Jackson and sentenced him to die in 1998 for the September 1988 murders of Forrest Henderson and Richard Wrotenbery, both 31 and chorus members at the Houston Grand Opera.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Monday rejected an appeal from Jackson's lawyers. They had argued prosecutors improperly withheld some evidence from Jackson's trial attorneys and raised questions about whether Jackson could be mentally impaired and therefore ineligible for execution.
Jackson was arrested in 1992 for three robberies and took a plea bargain that put him in prison for 12 years. He was in prison on those convictions when authorities began looking at him as a suspect in the 1988 slayings.
"I made some bad decisions," Jackson told The Associated Press recently from a tiny visiting cage outside death row.
He acknowledged burglaries and robberies but denied involvement in the singers' slayings, blaming his indictment on "aggressive interrogation" by police eager to solve a nearly decade-old double homicide case.
"You know where you were 10 years ago?" he asked. "It's impossible unless you have records. I didn't do it."
He said when detectives asked him about the killings and requested DNA samples from him, he agreed.
"'Y'all can have whatever you want,'" he said he told them. "I want to clear my name."
Houston police detectives working cold cases and using new computer technology were drawn to Jackson in 1995 when a bloody print from a door knob at the murder scene was matched to him. Subsequent DNA testing also pointed to Jackson, confirming the fingerprint evidence.
"If I was in the system with a fair trial, I'd feel a little better," Jackson said from death row.
Bill Hawkins, a Harris County district attorney who prosecuted Jackson, said technology caught up with him.
"The scientific evidence was extremely strong," Hawkins said. "And subsequent defense testing of DNA had his numbers."
Jackson insisted the scientific evidence was manufactured and shaky.
The day of the slayings, Sept. 10, 1988, Wrotenbery and Henderson, both tenors, had been rehearsing for an opera production of Bizet's Carmen.
Wrotenbery, who also was an elementary school music teacher in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, went to Henderson's apartment where he'd been staying following a divorce until he could find a place of his own. Police determined Henderson, who recently returned to Houston after performing with the opera company in Scotland, went to some bars in the city's Montrose area, may have met Jackson there and took him home.
Evidence showed Henderson was stabbed in the chest. Wrotenbery's throat was slashed. Both were bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar that could have been part of a weight set. Wrotenbery may have been asleep when he was killed.
"Killing two guys like that and nothing happened to me? It just don't add up," Jackson said from prison.
The men's wallets were taken along with Henderson's car. A Houston traffic officer tried to pull over the car for speeding but the driver fled, leading police on a chase until the car crashed. The driver managed to run off and escape.
An administrator from the school district where Wrotenbery taught called the apartment manager when the teacher didn't show up for work. The manager found the bodies.
"I remember the deaths were extremely brutal," Hawkins said. "I don't recall handling a case where the scene had as much blood as was there."
Jackson, who was among at least four condemned killers with execution dates in Texas in the coming months, said growing up on Houston's south side put him in the middle of a "crime culture" where many of his friends stole cars and committed burglaries.
"That's what you do," he said. "I could have been a dead a long time ago breaking into people's houses. I count waking up as a blessing. I know a lot of people don't."
Killer set to die Tuesday
The scene that greeted police when they entered Forrest Henderson's Greenway Plaza-area apartment on Sept. 11, 1988, was grisly. Blood smeared bedroom walls, doors and curtains. The bodies of Henderson and his house guest, Richard Alan Wrotenbery, had been slashed, stabbed and bludgeoned with an iron pipe. The killer left a bloody handprint on the doorknob.
The killings rocked the genteel worlds of Houston Grand Opera, where both men performed as tenors, and Deer Park Elementary School, where Wrotenbery, the recently divorced father of a 1-year-old daughter, taught music.
A day after the murders, police spotted Henderson's stolen car traveling more than 90 mph on a Houston freeway and gave chase. When the vehicle crashed, the driver dashed into a nearby apartment complex to make good his escape.
For seven years the investigation stagnated. Then, in 1995, sheriff's deputies using sophisticated new fingerprint technology linked a bloody print from Henderson's apartment to Derrick Jackson, a Houston man serving 12 years for aggravated robbery. Jackson denied any involvement but was convicted of the double-murder in 1998.
'I'm getting framed'
Jackson is to be executed Tuesday, becoming the 15th killer put to death in Texas this year. Houston lawyers last week were reviewing the case but were uncertain if they would find grounds for further appeals.
"It's obvious I'm getting framed," Jackson said in a recent death row interview. "I'm not your bad guy. People who know me know I'm a good guy."
Police described Jackson as a predator who preyed on patrons of Montrose gay bars.
The tenors' friends said Wrotenbery lived in his friend's apartment while Henderson was on an overseas tour with the opera. When Henderson returned, the recently divorced Wrotenbery continued to occupy the residence until he could find a home of his own.
Before their murders, the men, both 31, attended a practice session for a performance of Bizet's Carmen at the opera's downtown headquarters.
Afterward, Wrotenbery returned to the apartment while Henderson visited local bars.
While there, Henderson met Jackson. "He just picked up the wrong person and brought him back to the house," Houston homicide Sgt. D.D. Shirley said after Jackson's arrest.
Henderson's next-door neighbor told police he heard loud music coming from the apartment late on Sept. 10. Then, about 4:45 a.m. the next day, a man in the apartment screamed, "Oh my God. No. No."
Henderson's nude body later was found face-down on his bed. He repeatedly had been stabbed and suffered a 6-inch skull fracture. Wrotenbery was found on the floor of a second bedroom with his throat slashed.
Wrotenbery's father, Carl Wrotenbery of Fort Worth, said the impact of his son's death will "go with me to my grave."
The elder Wrotenbery, retired library director at Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he is ambivalent about capital punishment. "When you come to the personal aspect of it, pure logic says for someone to do a crime of this nature, unprovoked — Alan was in the wrong place at the wrong time — it's hard for me to think the death penalty is unjustified."
Wrotenbery said he plans to witness the execution. "I've made my reservation," he said. "I feel like it's my duty as a father and head of the clan. I feel a responsibility to be there and see this done for other family members who, though they may have strong feelings, won't be able. I have no real desire to be there. I don't expect to feel anything different. It's just an unpleasant duty."
Crime-lab problems
Wrotenbery said the case, marked by false investigative starts and long delays, was hard on his family.
Years after Jackson's conviction, the way police handled the case was criticized by Michael Bromwich, the independent investigator hired to review operations of the department's troubled crime lab. In his 2007 report, Bromwich found that a technician apparently manipulated lab findings to bolster the case against detectives' prime suspect of the moment.
When an early suspect had Type O blood, Bromwich wrote, the employee neglected to report that Type B blood was found on an apartment door. Only when a charge was lodged against Jackson, who has Type B blood, was the fact added to the report.
In his death row interview, Jackson challenged those fingerprint findings and blasted a series of defense lawyers who, he said, "helped me get down to the execution chamber."
"I don't stay up at night and have nightmares," Jackson said. "I pray for myself. I hate the fact that I'm being blamed and will be killed, but it's more sadness than hate. Oh, life's a bitch."
HOUSTON TENORS MURDER TIMELINE
• Sept. 10, 1988: Forrest Henderson and his housemate, Richard Alan Wrotenbery, attend a Houston Grand Opera rehearsal. Henderson later returns to his Greenway Plaza-area apartment with a man he met that night at a bar.
• Sept. 11, 1988: Authorities find the beaten and stabbed bodies of Henderson and Wrotenbery inside the apartment after neighbors reported hearing screams.
• Sept. 12, 1988: An HPD officer spots someone driving Henderson's car and gives chase at speeds reaching 90 mph. The driver crashes the car and gets away on foot.
• May 1992: Derrick Leon Jackson is arrested on a robbery charge that later nets him a 12-year prison sentence.
• April 1995: Investigators match Jackson's fingerprint, collected during the robbery investigation, to the murder scene.
• March 1998: A Harris County jury sentences Jackson to death for the murders.
• July 20, 2010: Jackson's scheduled execution date
USA Executions
In July 2010, 5 human beings are scheduled to be executed in the USA. A total of 31 have already been executed in 2010 (see below).
Please help STOP THESE EXECUTIONS and ACT to Abolish the Death Penalty in the USA.
Thank you! GD
URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW!
(Please note that these dates are only tentative. Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals)
July 1 – Texas – Michael PERRY
See information below, TX section
EXECUTED
July 13 – Ohio – William L. GARNER
Contact the Governor
Ohioans to Stop Executions
EXECUTED
July 20 – Texas – Derrick JACKSON
See information below, TX section
July 20 – Oklahoma – Jeffrey David MATTHEWS
NEW EXECUTION DATE AUGUST 17
Contact the Governor
Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
July 22 – Pennsylvania – Jermont COX
STAY LIKELY
Contact the Governor
For ALL executions in Texas:
What to tell Governors and Boards of Pardons and Parole?
Already 31 human beings executed in the USA in 2010
(Date – Number since 1977 – US State – Name)
I am a Canadian citizen who is concerned that executions still continue to take place in the USA, despite the research indicating its inherent flaws and failures. No society should ever take the risk of executing an innocent individual, no matter what the crime is. Life imprisonment accomplishes the same as the death penalty, in a non-violet manner. The death penalty is vengeful and it blatantly violates universal human rights (the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment/treatment). I am outraged that the USA has executed more than 1200 individuals since its reinstatement. We will never know how many of those humans were innocent. I urge you to please stop the scheduled execution of Derrick Jackson, in your state. Please do the right thing.
USA Executions
In July 2010, 5 human beings are scheduled to be executed in the USA. A total of 31 have already been executed in 2010 (see below).
Please help STOP THESE EXECUTIONS and ACT to Abolish the Death Penalty in the USA.
Thank you! GD
URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW!
(Please note that these dates are only tentative. Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals)
July 1 – Texas – Michael PERRY
See information below, TX section
EXECUTED
July 13 – Ohio – William L. GARNER
Contact the Governor
Ohioans to Stop Executions
EXECUTED
July 20 – Texas – Derrick JACKSON
See information below, TX section
July 20 – Oklahoma – Jeffrey David MATTHEWS
NEW EXECUTION DATE AUGUST 17
Contact the Governor
Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
July 22 – Pennsylvania – Jermont COX
STAY LIKELY
Contact the Governor
For ALL executions in Texas:
- WRITE a letter to the TX Parole Board Clemency Section, Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles8610 Shoal Creek Blvd., Austin, TX 78757-6814
- FAX the TX Parole Board +1-512-467-0945
- PHONE the TX Parole Board +1-512-406-5852
- CONTACT the Governor
- FAX the Governor +1-512-463-1849
- PHONE the Governor 1-800-252-9600 if in TX, or +1-512-463-1782 if outside TX or USA
What to tell Governors and Boards of Pardons and Parole?
- Write. Phone. Fax. Tell them you oppose the death penalty. Tell why you request clemency. Ask to be merciful. Remember that a simple “I oppose the execution” is enough to show that the execution is noticed and not supported.
- State your concern that executions continue to take place despite increasing public recognition of the inherent flaws and failures of the death penalty system.
- Express outrage and alarm at the high number of executions taking place in the USA.
- Urge the Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend clemency. Urge the Governor to stop the execution.
Already 31 human beings executed in the USA in 2010
(Date – Number since 1977 – US State – Name)
- Jan.7 – #1,193 – Ohio – Abdullah Sharif Kaazim MAHDI (f/k/a Vernon Lamont SMITH)
- Jan.7 – #1,194 – Louisiana – Gerald BORDELON
- Jan.7 – #1,195 – Texas – Kenneth MOSLEY
- Jan.12 – #1,196 – Texas – Gary JOHNSON
- Jan.14 – #1,197 – Oklahoma – Julius YOUNG
- Feb.4 – #1,198 – Ohio – Mark BROWN
- Feb.16 – #1,199 – Florida – Martin GROSSMAN
- Mar.2 – #1,200 – Texas – Michael SIGALA
- Mar.11 – #1,201 – Texas – Joshua MAXWELL
- Mar.16 – #1,202 – Ohio – Lawrence REYNOLDS
- Mar.18 – #1,203 – Virginia – Paul Warner POWELL
- Mar.30 – #1,204 – Texas – Franklin Dewayne ALIX
- Apr.20 – #1,205 – Ohio – Darryl DURR
- Apr.22 – #1,206 – Texas – William Josef BERKLEY
- Apr.27 – #1,207 – Texas – Samuel BUSTAMANTE
- May 12 – #1,208 – Texas – Kevin VARGA
- May 13 – #1,209 – Ohio – Michael BEUKE
- May 13 – #1,210 – Texas – Billy GALLOWAY
- May 19 – #1,211 – Mississippi – Paul Everette WOODWARD
- May 19 – #1,212 – Texas – Rogelio CANNADY
- May 20 – #1,213 – Mississippi – Gerald James HOLLAND
- May 20 – #1,214 – Virginia – Darick WALKER
- May 25 – #1,215 – Texas – John ALBA
- May 27 – #1,216 – Alabama – Thomas WHISENHANT
- June 2 – #1,217 – Texas – George JONES
- June 9 – #1,218 – Georgia – Melbert FORD
- June 10 – #1,219 – Alabama – John Forrest PARKER
- June 15 – #1,220 – Texas – David Lee POWELL
- June 18 – #1,221 – Utah – Ronnie Lee GARDNER
- July 1 – #1,222 – Texas – Michael PERRY
- July 13 – #1,223 – Ohio – William L. GARNER
I am a Canadian citizen who is concerned that executions still continue to take place in the USA, despite the research indicating its inherent flaws and failures. No society should ever take the risk of executing an innocent individual, no matter what the crime is. Life imprisonment accomplishes the same as the death penalty, in a non-violet manner. The death penalty is vengeful and it blatantly violates universal human rights (the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment/treatment). I am outraged that the USA has executed more than 1200 individuals since its reinstatement. We will never know how many of those humans were innocent. I urge you to please stop the scheduled execution of Derrick Jackson, in your state. Please do the right thing.
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