We ran across a couple of interesting articles about what Christian ethics teach about the importance of visiting people in prison. There are many people in prison who never receive visitors.

In the article, “Prisoners and Other Strangers“, Jack Miles explains why Christian ethics demand we treat prisoners as we would the Lord in an excerpt from “Ethics of the Neighbor,” a talk presented May 16 at The First Natalie Limonick Symposium on Jewish Civilization at UCLA’s Center for Jewish Studies.

Excerpt:

Prisoners have a special place in the Christian imagination. It matters that Jesus himself was a prisoner. To speak the language of American law enforcement, his death was a death in custody. His most influential followers, Peter and Paul, were also prisoners. They too died in custody. John the Baptist, who first acclaimed Jesus as Messiah, was beheaded in a Roman prison. Christianity is a religion founded by men in deep trouble with the law, men familiar with the inside of prisons, whose message was “the last shall be first, and the first last.”

In religious ethics as formulated in our monotheistic traditions, what is owed to the neighbor is simultaneously owed to God himself. The Christian way of imagining this double duty exploits the fact that Christianity’s God has appeared in human form. Thus, when doing good deeds for our fellow human beings, we as Christians seek to imagine that we are simultaneously doing them for Christ in person. Jesus taught his followers to imagine themselves hearing his voice saying, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you came to me,” and finally: “I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36).

Allow me, if I may, at this dark and shameful moment in our history, to linger over the last entry on that list: “I was in prison and you visited me.” Jesus gives every item on his list twice-once in a positive formulation, for praise, and once in a negative formulation, for blame. Thus, “I was in prison and you did not visit me.” Can you imagine what it is like to be in prison waiting for a visit that does not come? But let me ask an easier question: Do you know where the nearest jail is?

Read the entire article here.

We also found the site of a website of a husband and wife, Dale and Susan Recinella, who minister to people on death row and their families in Florida. The site contains many articles and a radio interview with Dale and Susan. Very interesting.

Many people have long advocated for a statewide office in Texas to defend people accused of capital crimes. The Texas Democratic Party has endorsed such an office in its party platform (PDF) since 2004. Now, Texas may soon get a Public Defender for Capital Cases office that would handle cases from 240 of Texas’ 254 counties. Last session, Texas saw the creation of a statewide Office of Capital Writs to handle death penalty appeals at the state level. The proposed Public Defender for Capital Cases office would handle capital cases at the trial level the counties participate in the office.

From the Lubbock Avalance-Journal:

A Lubbock-based capital defense office might soon need a name change.

County commissioners on Monday submitted an application for a $7.65 million grant from the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense to greatly increase the scope of the West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases.

If approved, the office that has already saved member counties in West Texas an estimated $637,000 in its two-year existence would expand drastically and become responsible for indigent capital defense statewide.

“From a nationwide perspective, it really elevates Texas’ standards to show Texas is willing to provide the best possible defense they can for individuals charged with capital murder and willing to take whatever steps that requires to make sure that happens,” said David Slayton, director of court administration for Lubbock County.

Slayton said the expansion would be good for Lubbock County because, as host county, it would be spearheading the state’s indigent capital defense initiative.

The grant for the Public Defender for Capital Cases would fund defense for 240 of Texas’ 254 counties. That’s every county with a population of less than 300,000.

The office would remain headquartered in Lubbock, but would have 10 satellite offices and include a chief public defender, assistant chief public defender, 29 attorneys, 16 investigators, 23 mitigation specialists and 18 legal secretaries.

“One of the benefits I see is we’ll have some consistency from office to office around the state,” said Chief Public Defender Jack Stoffregen.

Stoffregen would be responsible for increasing the staff from 15 to 90 people.

The West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases currently serves 71 counties in an 85-county region.

The current grant for the West Texas office runs through 2012 and would not be affected should the new grant gain approval, Slayton said.

Stoffregen said the office has been successful so far – both in defending clients and giving peace of mind to member counties who are buying what Stoffregen characterizes as an “insurance policy.”

As someone involved in capital defense for years, Stoffregen said, he is proud of what the office has done.

“Something needed to be done in Texas and this is a huge step, in my opinion, in the right direction,” Stoffregen said.

County officials expect to find out in June whether the grant was approved. If so, the expansion is scheduled to begin in October.

Kevin Varga and Billy Galloway (left), who shared a prison cell in South Dakota, are set to be executed in Texas for the 1998 robbery-slaying of a man during a cross-country crime spree.

Varga was scheduled for execution Wednesday evening, while Galloway was set to die 24 hours later. Both were 41 years old. The back-to-back lethal injections would be the eighth and ninth this year in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Robin Norris, Varga’s attorney, said Tuesday the seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected his request that Varga’s sentence be commuted to life. A companion request for a reprieve attracted only one vote, he said. No last-day appeals were planned.

Mick Mickelsen, Galloway’s lawyer, said his legal efforts also were exhausted.

Varga and Galloway and two women — one of them only 17 at the time — left Sioux Falls, S.D., on Sept. 1, 1998. Evidence showed that over the following week, they robbed and fatally beat a man in Wichita, Kan., then robbed and killed David Logie, 37, an Army officer they met at a motel bar in Greenville, east of Dallas. Logie, from Fayetteville, N.C., was in Texas on business.

The four fled in Logie’s car and were arrested days later in San Antonio. The two women were picked up at a Wal-Mart parking lot in the stolen car. The two men were at a strip club.

Their Kansas victim, David McCoy, 48, of Wichita, was found wrapped in sheets in Galloway’s SUV abandoned a few blocks from the hotel where he’d been killed.

Varga and Galloway had been cellmates in prison in South Dakota.

Varga, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., served about half of a 10-year term for grand theft then was paroled in May 1998. Galloway, originally from Onondaga, N.Y., was serving time for theft, parole violation and attempted robbery. He was paroled in June 1998, three months before the spree.

“I have no misconception or doubts about what my future holds,” Galloway told The Associated Press.

“I’m gone.”

Varga declined an interview request from The Associated Press.

“I am fully prepared to argue, consistent with Supreme Court precedents, that the death penalty is constitutional.”

Written Questions for Solicitor General Nominee Elena Kagan from Senator Specter during her confirmation hearing in 2009 (page 303).

The Death Penalty 1. Justice Marshall, the justice for whom you clerked, maintained that the death penalty was always unconstitutional. Do you think that Justice Marshall had it right?

a. Do you support the death penalty?

b. Do you believe it is constitutional as applied in the United States?

c. If your answer is no, are you prepared to argue in favor of the constitutionality of the death penalty before the Supreme Court?

Answer: I am fully prepared to argue, consistent with Supreme Court precedents, that the death penalty is constitutional. As Solicitor General, I would represent the interests of the United States, as expressed in legislation and executive policy. Like other nominees to the Solicitor General position, I have refrained from providing my personal opinions (except where I previously have disclosed them), both because these opinions will play no part in my official decisions and because such statements of opinion might be used to undermine the interests of the United States in litigation. But I can say that nothing about my personal views regarding the death penalty (relating either to policy or law) would make it difficult for me to carry out the Solicitor General’s responsibilities in this area.

2. Last year, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty for the crime of child rape always violates the Eighth Amendment. Writing for a five-justice majority, Justice Kennedy based his opinion partly on the fact that 37 jurisdictions – 36 states and the federal government – did not allow for capital punishment in child rape cases. In reality, however, Congress and the President specifically authorized the use of capital punishment in cases of child rape under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, as reported first by Col. Dwight H. Sullivan in his blog and later by the New York Times.

a. Given the heinousness of the crime, as well as the new information on the federal government’s codification of capital punishment in child rape cases under the UCMJ, do you believe Kennedy v. Louisiana was wrongly decided? If not, why?

b. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, President Obama announced at a press conference: “I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes. I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime.” Do you agree with that statement?

c. Would you, as Solicitor General, encourage the Court to reconsider its decision?

Answer: I do not think it comports with the responsibilities and role of the Solicitor General for me to say whether I view particular decisions as wrongly decided or whether I agree with criticisms of those decisions. The Solicitor General must show respect for the Court’s precedents and for the general principle of stare decisis. If I am confirmed as Solicitor General, I could not frequently or lightly ask the Court to reverse one of its precedents, and I certainly could not do so because I thought the case wrongly decided. There are circumstances, however, in which the Solicitor General properly can petition the Court to reconsider a decision. Relevant to this inquiry are whether a rule of law has been found unworkable, whether subsequent legal developments have left the rule an anachronism, or whether premises of fact are so far different from those initially assumed as to render the rule irrelevant or unjustifiable. The last of these factors would seem the one most potentially relevant to the Kennedy v. Louisiana decision. But I currently do not know enough about this decision or the facts and circumstances surrounding it to say whether I would ask the Court to reconsider it if I were confirmed as Solicitor General; nor would I make this determination without going through the extensive process that the Solicitor General’s office typically uses in such cases.

Click here to join the Texas Moratorium Network Facebook page to stay informed about the Texas death penalty.

Watch ABC’s 20/20 program tonight. They will be airing a segment on the Todd Willingham case and also on another case of a man in prison in Texas for committing arson for which the forensic science evidence has been discredited. We talked to the reporter earlier this week and provided them with a few photographs.

For more information on Todd Willingham, visit www.camerontoddwillingham.com.

From 20/20:

Evidence Under Attack in Two Texas Arson Convictions
Expert Says Two Convictions, One of Which Led to Execution, Based on ‘Junk Science’

By JAY SCHADLER and THOMAS BERMAN
May 4, 2010 —

Arson charges can be difficult to rebut. But getting a conviction overturned can seem almost impossible — even when the stakes are a matter of life and death.

Todd Willingham may be a prime example. In 1992 he was convicted and sentenced to death for killing his three children in an arson fire in Corsicana, Texas.

Watch the full story Friday on “20/20” at 10 p.m. ET

While Willingham awaited his execution day, virtually every piece of physical evidence against him was reviewed and pronounced inadequate by independent fire expert Gerald Hurst. Hurst has spent years arguing that hard science needs to be brought into fire investigations.

“They said they found 20 indicators of arson. There were zero indicators of arson,” said Hurst. “The Willingham case is like a hundred other cases I’ve seen, except that they executed him. The others are rotting away in prison.”

Last year a scathing report by Dr. Craig Beyler for the Texas Forensic Science Commission concluded the Willingham arson investigation was “nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation.”

Nevertheless, one of the original fire investigators in the case, Doug Fogg, remained adamant.

“I have no doubt the fire was deliberately set,” he told ABC News.

Among the evidence Fogg used to support his conclusion was something called “crazed glass” — tiny cracks in glass that sometimes show up in the aftermath of a fire.

Arson expert John Lentini described the phenomenon.

“This used to be evidence of arson,” said Lentini. “It was a myth. They used it on Todd Willingham. They said we know this fire was a rapid fire ’cause we’ve got this crazed glass.”

Turns out such glass breakage has nothing to do with an intentionally-set fire, even one in which an accelerant such as gasoline was used heavily.

“You cannot make crazed glass by heating it rapidly,” said Lentini, “but you can by cooling it rapidly” — as often happens, he said, because of the spray of firefighters’ hoses.

Arson: Governor Does Not Stop Execution

Fogg was not convinced.

“They’re going to take it to these labs and they’re going to ‘blah, blah, blah’ and try to disprove it,” said Fogg. “Well, I’ll take it to the lab and disprove it… but come to the real world sometime, go out and let the beast get a hold of it.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry refused to stop the execution of Todd Willingham. The prisoner died by lethal injection Feb. 17, 2004.

Lentini said he was not guilty.

“No question,” said Lentini. “Everything about that fire that they pointed to as evidence of arson was wrong.”

Arson: The Severns Case

Lentini also says another man serving a sentence for an arson conviction in Texas is not guilty.

His name is Curtis Severns, and his story was first investigated by The Texas Observer. Severns is serving 17 years after being convicted of setting fire to his gun shop in Plano, Texas. No one died in the fire.

Sue Severns only occasionally gets to speak to her husband by phone these days. He and Sue were married just one year.

“He was convicted on junk science,” Sue Severns told ABC News. “Yet we were married at a science museum. The irony is just a little bit much to bear … He would not have set that fire any more than Mother Theresa would have set that fire.”

The government’s key evidence in the case was a pattern of burning that the prosecution argued indicated three separate fires — and arson.

“I think there was an electrical fire,” said Lentini, who was part of Severns’ defense team. A frayed cord on a fan in the gun shop’s cluttered workshop probably ignited the blaze, Lentini thinks. Nearby aerosal cans could have exploded — setting off multiple fires.

Prosecution experts said that was impossible, and the jury convicted Severns.

“I walked into trial, maybe even cocky,” Severns told ABC News in a phone interview from prison. “I don’t know. I thought this is nuts, we’ll be able to tell the story and it’s no big deal. It just didn’t turn out that way… When I heard ‘guilty,’ I shook and my legs gave way.”

But a few months later, Lentini discovered a videotape that he claims the prosecution should have known about.

The video showed a test fire involving aerosol cans. Sure enough, as the cans heat up in the video, they burst and fly around the room. Slowing the tape shows clearly that the flaming cans touch off new fires wherever they land.

“The fact is [the prosecution] misrepresented the science during [Severns’] trial, and they ridiculed me for trying to bring it up,” said Lentini.

Armed with the tape, Severns’ lawyer appealed. But the judge said the video would have made no difference to the jury and denied the appeal.

If the tape had been shown at trial, Sue Severns said, “the outcome would be completely different. The jury would have been able to see a TV show, a video, a movie of how the aerosol cans can create the appearance of multiple origins … It would have been a wonderful testament.”

The federal prosecutor in the case, who declined ABC News’ requests for interview, offered Severns a plea deal prior to his conviction.

Severns said his reason for refusing the deal was simple.

“‘Cause I didn’t do it!” he said.