The 250th execution carried out under Texas Governor Rick Perry is scheduled to take place on Halloween, October 31, 2012. Donnie Lee Roberts Jr is scheduled to lie down on the gurney and become the 250th person executed since Rick Perry became governor in 2000. No other governor in U.S. history has seen more executions carried out while in office than Rick Perry. Todd Willingham, an innocent person, was wrongfully executed in 2004 after Perry refused to stop the execution to allow new scientific evidence to be fully investigated that a fire that killed Willingham’s three daughters was not an arson fire.
Texas Moratorium Network is calling on people in cities across Texas and elsewhere to organize protests on the date of the 250th execution to call attention to Rick Perry’s appalling record on the death penalty. If there are any stays of execution for the people currently scheduled for execution before the 250th, then the date of the 250th execution will change.
We also urge everyone to attend the 13th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty in Austin at the Texas Capitol on November 3, 2012.
In 2009, TMN spearheaded protests in Texas as well as in Canada, France, Germany and Belgium of the 200th execution under Perry.
Dr. Jerry Williams, a Stephen F. Austin sociology professor was a speaker at the Walls Unit protest in 2009. His sister was brutally murdered and her killer only spent 15 years in prison. He explained at the protest on the day of the 200th execution why he doesn’t believe in execution. “I hated him. I wanted to see him die. I wanted to see him suffer in prison. And I thought justice would be done only in the way, but what I realized over time was that my hate really diminished me. It damaged me and did nothing for him”.
If you plan to hold a protest of the 250th execution under Rick Perry, contact us at admin@texasmoratorium.org and let us know about it, so we can help spread the word for people to attend your protest.
Next year, Texas could reach 500 executions in the modern era after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Texas carried out its first execution after the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1982. We plan to encourage and help organize worldwide protests when Texas reaches 500 executions. Right now, there have been 484 executions in Texas since 1982.
