WE DID IT!!! Gov. Perry commuted Kenneth Foster’s sentence.
6-1 VOTE IN FAVOR OF CLEMENCY FOR KENNETH
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote an editorial today in which they mention the letters by Rep Dutton and other state reps urging clemency for Kenneth Foster.
Thursday, Aug 30, 2007
Posted on Thu, Aug. 30, 2007
No needle
http://www.star-telegram.com/225/v-print/story/218157.html
Although his statement could have been phrased a tad more gently, Gov. Rick Perry was on target when he informed the European Union that Texans aren’t too concerned about what Europeans think when it comes to his state’s use of the death penalty.
Calls from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter to spare the life of Death Row inmate Kenneth Foster Jr. are likely to receive similar dismissals.
But Perry and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles should be listening to what Texans say when it comes to today’s scheduled execution by lethal injection of Foster, who did not fire the gun that ended Michael LaHood’s life that Aug. 15, 1996, night in San Antonio.
Thirteen members of the Texas House petitioned Perry and the board to commute Foster’s sentence to life without parole.
Those voices — those of legislators who, in the words of their Aug. 23 letter, “are responsible for making the laws of the State of Texas” and “also assume responsibility for protecting our system of justice from mistakes” — argued that the execution of Foster “is just wrong.”
No one who has read the case file can argue that Foster is a complete innocent. He was driving the car that carried the triggerman, Mauriceo Brown, who was executed in 2006 for killing LaHood. Foster was present earlier in the evening when Brown and two other men committed two robberies.
Prosecutors in this case used the state’s “law of parties” statutes to hold Foster criminally responsible for the actions of another. Under Section 7.02(b) of the state penal code, if two or more “conspirators” agree to commit a crime and in the process commit another, each conspirator is guilty of the crime committed if the crime was “one that should have been anticipated.”
Foster deserves to spend a long, long time — if not the rest of his life — behind bars for what he did do that night. But he does not deserve to die — not today, not at the hands of a state executioner.
We will be on the road today to Huntsville to protest the execution of Kenneth Foster.
Huntsville Protest, Thursday, August 30, 3:00 – 7:00 PM
Protest the execution of Kenneth Foster Jr. outside the Huntsville Unit. Groups from all over the state will converge to stand against this injustice and demand until the very end that the State of Texas do the right thing and stop this execution. 815 12th St., Huntsville, Texas.
There will also be protests in cities across Texas on Thursday, if the execution is not halted, at the usual protest locations, including in Austin at the governor’s mansion.
Thursday, August 30, 5:00 PM, Governor’s Mansion (Lavaca at 11th)
EXECUTION PROTEST AND VIGIL
Even in the eleventh hour things could turn for Kenneth. If you can’t make it to Huntsville, come out to stand with others at the mansion in Austin against the execution.
Send an email to Governor Perry, which is also being sent to members of the Texas Legislature and the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Use the numbers below to call and leave a voice mail for Governor Perry saying you want him to stop the execution of Kenneth Foster.
Call Governor Perry! If you get a busy signal, just keep trying. Call the main switchboard first (512) 463-2000. They may transfer you to his voice mail, which tends to fill up, so if that is the case, call the main switchboard back and let them know the voice mail is full, and leave your message with an operator.
Call Governor Perry!
Citizen’s Opinion Hotline: (800) 252-9600 [for Texas callers]
Citizen’s Assistance and Opinion Hotline: (512) 463-1782
[for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers]
Office of the Governor Main Switchboard: (512) 463-2000
[office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST]
Legislators can not directly stop an execution, but they can use their influence and access to Governor Perry to influence his decision and they can write a clemency letter to the Governor. So far, 13 Texas legislators have written clemency letters. We would like to get more of them to write Perry. If you live in Texas, go here and look up your state representative and state senator. Call them on the phone, identify yourself as a constituent, say you do not think that Texas should execute Kenneth Foster, who everyone agrees did not kill anyone or intend anyone to be killed.
Ask them to call the governor and express their support for clemency directly to the governor. You could mention that executing people who haven’t actually killed anyone, by using a statute like the “Law of Parties”, is a great miscarriage of justice and casts doubt on the entire Texas death penalty system. Also mention your sympathy for the family of the victim, Michael LaHood, whose actual killer, Mauriceo Brown, has already been executed.
If your representative is Howard Dutton, Jessica Farrar, Elliot Naishtat , Mike Villareal, Terri Hodge, Sylvester Turner, Donna Howard, Alma Allen, Eddie Rodriguez, Helen Giddings, Ruth Jones McClendon, Dora Olivo, or Lon Burnam, you do not need to call them. They already have written clemency letters to the governor.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles did NOT make a decision today on the case of Kenneth Foster, Jr. There was a crowd of about 75 people who had gathered at the governor’s mansion in Austin waiting on the decision, but it never came. Now, we expect a decision tomorrow. We do not know what the reason is for the delay, but it is not really the best way to conduct a decision about an execution when the governor will have much less than 24 hours to consider whatever the board recommends. In fact, the governor should go ahead and issue a 30-day stay because of the BPP’s failure to give him 24 hours to make a decision.
In the meantime, everyone should continue to contact the board of pardons and paroles and the governor tonight and tomorrow by phone, fax or email.
- Texas Moratorium Network (TMN) is a non-profit organization with the primary goal of mobilizing statewide support for a moratorium on executions in Texas. Significant death penalty reform in Texas, including a moratorium on executions, is a viable goal if the public is educated on the death penalty system and is encouraged to contact their elected representatives to urge passage of moratorium legislation.
We hope that you will join us in this fight for fairness and social justice.Please join our email list and become one of the more than 20,000 people receiving information through our network.
