Membership meeting notice

Dear TCADP Members:

I am inviting you to a meeting this Thursday, at noon,  March 25 in the First Presbyterian Church annex (the white building next to the church, 110 North Adams St). We’ll be meeting in the second room on the right on the first floor.

At this all membership meeting, we’ll be following-up on our workshop of a few weeks ago, including writing letters to legislators, planning a morning to talk to legislators, and planning some activities to continue informing the public about why it’s important to abolish the death penalty. This will include our participation at the upcoming Peace Festival in Railroad Sq. Art Park, and discussing ways we can take advantage of FAMU’s Essential Theater’s  upcoming Oct. production of “The Exonerated” — a play based on the experiences of 6 people who were exonerated from death row .

Please come with your ideas. If you can’t come, please e-mail your suggestions to me.

Best,

Louise Ritchie,
Chair, Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty
LouiseRitchie@aol.com

Some good news about the death penalty

There has been some good news about the death penalty. Please use this as encouragement to write your state legislators to inform them of your concerns about the death penalty. As many of us learned at the recent TCADP workshop, legislators pay attention to letters from constituents and even a few letters on any issue can make a difference.

The execution of David Eugene Johnston that was scheduled for today in was stayed last week by the Florida Supreme Court: Read More

Orlando sentinel reports stay of execution

The Florida Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for David Johnston, a convicted killer who was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday.

The delay announced Thursday will allow a circuit judge in Orlando to hold a hearing on whether “newly discovered evidence” shows Johnston is mentally retarded.

Florida prohibits the execution of mentally retarded people.

To be considered legally retarded, a defendant must have an IQ of 70 or below and can’t perform “adaptive functions,” such as holding a job, cooking a meal and balancing a check book. Both conditions must have existed before the person was 18.

Johnston’s attorney, Todd Doss, told the high court Thursday in Tallahassee that a more recent, “more accurate” IQ test scored Johnston at 61 — lower than a previous test — and qualifies him to be spared the state’s death penalty.

Johnston, 49, was convicted in the 1983 murder of Mary Hammond. The 84-year-old woman was found stabbed to death in her Orlando home.

Johnston had been working at a demolition site near Hammond’s home and had spoken to Hammond before her death.

Read more online ….

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-death-penalty-florida-supreme-court-20100304,0,5367932.story

From The Ledger.com

[ TALLAHASSEE ] Death Row Inmate Files New Appeal With Florida Supreme
Court

A death row inmate set for execution March 9 has filed a new appeal with
the Florida Supreme Court.

David Johnston on Friday asked the justices to review a lower court’s
denial of his sixth post-conviction appeal.

Appeal

College students fill Tallahassee journalism void …

Two articles about the TCADP workshop Sat.

The FAMU and FSU student journalists provided excellent coverage of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty’s Saturday workshop, “Don’t Kill in My Name.”

Please share these articles with others.

From The Famuan
“Floridians fight against death penalty

By Antonio Rosado
Correspondent

Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Outsized by the lectern, Tallahassee resident Agnes Furey smiled as she stepped aside the platform in the Leroy Collins Public Library. Furey, 73, gripped her small hands on a chair back as she recounted circumstances surrounding a double-murder that brought her speak at the “Don’t Kill in My Name” workshop.
Read More