Upcoming Executions
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Innocence
The death penalty puts innocent people at risk of execution.
Todd Willingham
Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed under Governor Rick Perry on February 17, 2004.

The Austin American-Statesman is recommending clemency instead of the death penalty for David Powell. Specifically, they recommend that “life without parole would be fair punishment for David Lee Powell“. Clemency means to moderate the severity of punishment, which is exactly what the Statesman is recommending.

The decision on clemency will be made soon from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which can be contacted using the email address: bpp-pio@tdcj.state.tx.us

The contact information for Governor Perry is: (512) 463-1782 or through his email form on his website.

From the Statesman:

Once again, we all must ponder the most serious power the state grants itself, the authority to take a life.

Barring unanticipated intervention by the courts or state officials, David Lee Powell will be executed June 15 for gunning down Austin police officer Ralph Ablanedo in 1978.

The crime was an unconscionable, unforgiveable act by a UT dropout whose promising young life was sidetracked when he got into using and dealing drugs. Now, 32 years and three trials later, Austinites again should remember and mourn the death of Ablanedo, the father of two young sons when Powell killed him.

And, also because 32 years have passed, Texans again should weigh the death penalty to see if it is equitably meted out. We do not believe it is. And we believe this case — as heinous as they come — shows why life without parole is a fairer option as the ultimate punishment.

In order to recommend a death sentence, jurors must decide “there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society” inside or outside of prison.

The law requires jurors to predict the future. Prosecutors often help by bringing in expert psychiatric testimony. It can be from experts who never examined the defendant.

The Powell case — because of the lag between crime and punishment — shows us how jurors can ultimately be proven wrong. As the American-Statesman’s Chuck Lindell and Tony Plohetski reported Sunday, Powell supporters note he has led something of an exemplary life during his many years behind bars, picking up only minor rules infractions while also aiding other inmates. At his 1999 retrial, four guards and a supervisor testified that Powell was no problem in prison. Veteran guard Mark Morrow said Powell was “very quiet, always well-mannered. Not a troublemaker, by any means.”

Psychiatrist Seth Silverman of Houston, who treated Powell in recent years and said the inmate responded well to psychotherapy, reported in an affidavit that Powell poses “virtually no risk” of future violence. Silverman also included stats showing how the passage of time decreases the probability of problems with the law: Arrest rates fall 90 percent from age 20 to age 60. Powell is 59.

The passage of time is what makes the Powell case so instructive. There’s never been a Texas case with a longer lag between offense and execution. And it is that passage of time that raises important questions about the death penalty.

Whatever it was that caused the initial conclusion that Powell would be a continuing threat has turned out to be wrong. This leads to questions of equal justice. What then of Death Row inmates whose cases do not drag on long enough to prove they are not a continuing threat? Is it fair that the potential vagaries of the judicial process give somebody like Powell three decades to show he is not a continuing threat while other death row inmates don’t get that opportunity to prove jurors wrong?

We do not believe Powell should ever draw a breath outside of prison bars. But we do believe his case highlights problems with the death penalty.

It also is a case in which we agree with much of what has been said on all sides.

“Thirty-two years ago, I was responsible for an enormously evil act,” Powell told the Statesman, ” … and no apology I could give would be powerful enough to express my regret for that. But every person is more than the worst thing they have ever done, and I am no exception.”

Judy Mills, Ablanedo’s widow, said this is “one of those things where nobody wins.”

“He will be put to death, and Ralph will still be gone. It’s not about feeling better. There is nothing to feel good about,” she said.

Bruce Mills, now married to his ex-partner’s widow, said. “I don’t think it is about deterrent. It is about retribution.”

At Powell’s 1991 trial, prosecutor Terry Keel told jurors “the death penalty is society’s self-defense.”

Properly administered, life without parole can serve the same function.

The Austin Police Association is chartering a bus to take its members and friends to the execution of David Powell on June 15, 2010.  The Police Association is out of step with the community that its members serve.  As police officers, the members of the Association serve with dignity and honor and provide a critical and much appreciated service to the community.  As people who celebrate the death of another person, out of some sense of getting even, they bring dishonor to themselves and Austin.  Though they will not string David Powell up in a tree, the revelry they plan conjures up those haunting images.

The Austin Police Association (APA) continues to support David Powell’s execution. On 18 May 2008, the 30th anniversary of Officer Ablanedo’s death, the APA took out a full page advertisement in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper announcing that Powell’s federal appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court would be heard in New Orleans on 3 June 2008. After the hearing, attended by about 25 Austin police officers, the APA president was quoted in the newspaper as saying “hopefully this last appeal will be done and we can move on with setting an execution date so we can move on and the family of Ralph Ablanedo can finally get closure”. Today, the APA website carries the news of David Powell’s execution date and that the APA has chartered a bus for “friends and fellow police officers wishing to travel to Huntsville” on the day of the execution.11 Not all Austin police officers are in agreement, it would seem, however.12 In an email forwarded to David Powell’s lawyer and included in the clemency petition, an Austin police officer, who says he generally supports the death penalty, states:

“I think David should have paid for his decisions and his crime with his life 25 years ago. I do not think that putting him to death today will serve any good purpose. The death penalty should be a deterrent to horrific crime, a message that such crimes will not be tolerated, and a means to ensure that someone who is capable of such crimes cannot repeat that behaviour ever again. That message loses its potency when 30 years pass before the sentence is carried out.13 If David Powell was the type of man who had been blaming society, or spewing forth anger at the injustice of it all, or had been violent while in prison, then I would have a different opinion, I suppose. The fact is, though,… the man who will be put to death for the killing of Ralph Ablanedo is not the man who committed the crime. This David Powell is an elderly man who has shown what I believe to be true understanding and remorse for his crime. This is a man who, in my feeble view, would not be any type of menace to society today and is not, in even any small way, the guy who killed that cop 32 years ago. Texas missed its opportunity to put that man to death and, in my view, accomplishes absolutely nothing in carrying out that man’s sentence on this man now…”14

From the website of the Austin Police Association:

UPDATED 05-15-10 Ralph Ablanedo Family Support Project – Journey to Justice: June 15, 2010  TOP
**** APA MEMBERS: CLICK HERE to SIGN UP to ride the chartered bus provided by the Austin Police Association for the Journey to Justice. ****

A date has finally been set for the execution of David Lee Powell who was convicted and sentenced to die by three separate juries in the fatal shooting of Austin Police Officer Ralph Ablanedo.

Powell, who is one of the state’s longest-serving death row inmates, is scheduled to be executed June 15, 2010 after the hour of 6:00 p.m.
Friends and fellow police officers wishing to travel to Huntsville to show support for the Ablanedo family can either be part of the support team traveling by charter bus on June 15th or travel on their own and stay at the host hotel where the Austin Police Association is accommodating the Ablanedo family.

Hotel Information

Holiday Inn Express
148 South I-45
Huntsville, Texas  77340
APA Room Rate: $85.00 per night + 13% sales tax
This special rate is for Monday, June 14th and Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Deadline to book at this special rate is June 1, 2010
Reservations can be made by directly calling the hotel 1-936-295-4300
Group Code: Austin Police Association

Chartered Bus Information

A bus has been chartered by the Austin Police Association to assist in carrying family, police officers and friends to Huntsville, TX the day of the execution. There will be no cost for this service but attendees will have to provide for their own food & beverages during the bus ride.
The pickup and parking location is at the old Home Depot parking lot at
7211 North I-35 Road Northbound service road in Austin, TX 78752 (IH-35 at the St. John’s exit).
The bus will depart Austin June 15th at 10:00 a.m. and arrive in Huntsville, TX at 1:00 p.m.  
All attendees traveling by bus MUST CLICK HERE to fill out the registration form
online & submit.
For more information please contact Val Escobar at the APA Office 512-474-6993 or e-mail her at val@austinpolice.com
Updated at 7PM on June 2, 2010.

Tuesday, June 2, Texas executed George Jones (TDCJ info). He had an 11th grade education. More than 80 percent of all people in Texas prisons are high school dropouts.

Alba was the 459th person executed in Texas since 1982 and the 220th person since Rick Perry became governor. He was the 12th person executed in Texas in 2010. 
Use the Governor’s email form to contact Perry to express your opposition to this execution. Or call Perry and leave a voice mail at 512 463 1782. If you live in Texas, call your state legislators and let them know that you support a moratorium on executions. Find out who your legislators are here
Authorities linked George Jones to numerous crimes in the Dallas area, mostly carjackings, and Jones admits he dealt drugs around the city.
But the 36-year-old Dallas man says he “accidentally” shot Forest Hall once in self-defense and isn’t responsible for the fatal shooting and carjacking that put Jones on death row. He’s scheduled to be executed this evening in Huntsville.
“I wasn’t there when the dude got shot,” Jones said of the April 13, 1993, slaying of the 22-year-old Hall, whose body was found beside a rural road near Lancaster . The Parkland Memorial Hospital worker had been shot twice in the head.
“I wasn’t involved. I didn’t do it – period,” Jones said from a small visiting cage outside death row at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit.
Greg Davis, who prosecuted him for capital murder, called Jones’ innocence claims “absolute falsity.”
Jones’ appeals were exhausted and no last-minute attempts to stop the punishment were planned, his lawyer said. The lethal injection would be the 12th this year in Texas, the nation’s most active capital punishment state.

Here is a link to a new video Forensic psychiatrist Seth Silverman, who has treated David Powell on Texas Death Row. He talks about why David is no threat, what his worth is, and what would be lost by executing him. David Powell’s execution is scheduled for June 15, 2010. He has been on death row in Texas for 32 years. For more information, visit letdavidlive.org.

Click here to send an email to Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg urging her to ask the judge to withdraw the June 15 execution date for David Powell.

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