My thoughts have taken a morbid turn, as I contemplate the incredible pain being experienced by my client's children, family, and friends as we approach Edward Bell's execution date -- tomorrow February 19.
One small comfort is the incredible messages people have left on the Online Petition. I pray that these messages have the power to persuade Governor Kaine to spare Eddie. I know that the messages are a comfort to Eddie, his family, and friends.
One of the most frustrating things about working on one of these cases is that no one seems to be listening. The Virginia courts ignore valid claim after valid claim; then the federal courts ignore still more, their initial reluctance magnified by the constraints of the AEDPA. Finally you come to this moment, when you have to convince a governor who has already presided over 8 executions since taking office, to see what everyone before him has refused to see.
But the messages on the Online Petition help us all realize that someone is listening.
Help stop the execution -- sign this Online Petition. Leave a comment, and share your favorite ones with us.
I have been working for the last 5 years on the death penalty appeal of Edward Bell with several other lawyers, and we have reached the end of the line. He is scheduled for execution on February 19, 2009 and our only hope is for Governor Kaine to grant clemency. Eddie, a Black Jamaican national, was convicted by an all-white small-town Virginia jury in 2001 in the shooting death of a popular police officer, Ricky Timbrook.
I've started an online petition and tried my hand at creating a web site. If that link does not work, the address is www.clemency4eddie.net. (My apologies, the web site is very rough. It is clear that this is a deficiency in my education that I need to rectify.)
The purpose of this diary is to ask you to please consider signing the petition. We have a goal of 5000 signatures, and we need your help to get there today. We were at 2928 when I started this diary. We've gained almost 1000 since then and are at 3908 at 1:30am. This is so close to 5000, please help us close the gap.
We will deliver a preliminary copy of the petition to Gov. Kaine in the morning, and will continue to provide him with updates as signatures continue to roll in.
There are several reasons that Gov. Kaine should grant clemency -- if you want the long version of the story, please read our Clemency Brief. Those words outlined in blue used to be links to documents and video, but we had to omit them from the online version of the brief.
- The short version of the story is that Eddie is likely retarded, and thus ineligible for execution. The Commonwealth of Virginia denied Eddie a hearing on this issue because he had not proven he was retarded. Eddie's lawyers at the time funded a psychologist out of their own pockets, and based on the limited tests that had been done during trial, Dr. Ruth opined that Eddie was likely retarded and that further testing was warranted. (The prison would not allow us to bring a psychologist to test Eddie without a court order.) A doctor who had had contact with Eddie and a mitigation specialist also opined that Eddie was retarded, and that further testing was warranted. Virginia refused to allow further testing, refused to allow a hearing on the matter, and "found" that Eddie was not retarded because he could operate a cell phone and said he read the bible daily. A slightly longer version of the story can be found in my Daily Kos diary on MR or in the Clemency Brief.
- Eddie's trial counsel did an abysmal job representing him during the penalty phase of the trial. They presented no mitigation evidence, giving the jury no reason to not execute him. They did a very cursory investigation, that fell far short of that required by the American Bar Association guidelines. They did not even interview the prosecution's witnesses, so they were unable to effectively cross examine them because they did not know what they were going to say. One of these witnesses, Dawn, is the mother to one of Eddie's kids. She was on the stand, and wanted to tell the jury about the good side of Eddie, of how much her daughter loved Eddie, and how devastated she would be if Eddie were executed. But Dawn was unable to testify for Eddie because Eddie's lawyers did not ask her any questions that could be answered in this way. Eddie has 5 children and a step-daughter who love him very much. There was a lot of mitigation evidence that could have been presented, but was not. The federal district court held that Eddie's counsel we deficient, but concluded that it would not have made a difference. We don't believe that's true. We think that with competent representation and presentation of Eddie's case to a jury, Eddie's life would have been spared. I've written a Daily Kos diary on Ineffective Assistance of Counsel that gives a bit more detail about this issue, and you can find the longer version in our Clemency Brief.
- The case against Eddie has many holes, and Eddie could very well be innocent. The most serious problem with it is that there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime, the case is largely circumstantial. The last witness called by the prosecutor was Terry Lee Johnson, an inmate. In that grand tradition of all jail house snitches, Johnson testified that Eddie confessed to him in jail. (We found this pretty funny -- Eddie did not confess to the police, and he's certainly never even come close to confessing to us, to the contrary, he steadfastly maintains his innocence. He's not a confessing kind of guy.) Johnson has since admitted to our investigators that he made it up. Eddie did not confess to him, and he knew nothing about the case. Johnson swears in an affidavit that he was pressured by police to testify to a confession, and that he received many benefits from doing so. Virginia refused to give us a hearing on the matter, and rejected the claim for lack of evidence. The federal courts, constrained by the AEDPA, have been forced to let that ruling stand.
For a longer version of Eddie's innocence claims, you can read my Daily Kos Diary on Perjured Testimony and the Reid Method of Interrogation. For the rest of Eddie's story on his innocence, please read our Clemency Brief.
- Eddie's case was used as the basis of an attack ad against Governor Kaine during the 2005 election by his opponent Gerry Kilgore. The ad contained many lies, but the political pressure created by that ad is making it difficult for us to get clemency. As you may expect, as part of publicizing this I wrote a Daily Kos diary on the subject, that includes an embedded version of the ad in question.
We need a lot of help convincing the governor to stop the execution. To that end, please sign my online petition. Please also consider getting some friends to sign, we need all the signatures we can get. You may also join Amnesty International's letter writing campaign on Eddie's behalf.
Want to be more direct about contacting Governor Kaine? I know I'm not the only one who worked to get him elected. If you live in Virginia, be sure to start by stating your name and where you live.
Phone: (804) 786-2211
Fax: (804) 371-6351
Or you can email the Governor via his website.
Salutation: Dear Governor
I know that not everyone here agrees with me on the death penalty. Regardless of our ultimate decision on whether it should be abolished, I hope you agree with me that it should be administered justly. The process has not been just to Eddie. When it is not justly administered, it should not be allowed.
If you have any ideas on how to gain a wider audience in the next few hours, I am all ears.
If you are the praying type, please include Eddie and his family in your prayers. Please also pray for the Timbrook family.
Thanks for reading this far.
ACTION UPDATE:
PROTEST:
Virginia's for Alternatives to the Death Penalty have planned a protest for Thursday. Attend the execution protest in Richmond on Thursday February 19th from 4-6 p.m. at the intersection of Broad and 11th (outside the Governor’s office). Details on how to contact organizers are available here.
VADP also invites those in NoVa to pass out flyers on the street and at metro stations.
Candlelight Vigils are scheduled for Thursday from 8:30-9:30pm throughout Virginia.
UPDATE II
The rescue list! Thanks for giving us another chance to gather signatures. This really means a lot to Eddie and his family. Thanks folks!