Death Penalty

Just a day after the state of Texas carried out its 400^th execution, two death row inmates are to begin a hunger strike on August 23 in an apparent protest to their upcoming executions. Kenneth Foster Jr., and John Joe Amador are to be executed by lethal injection one day apart from each other.

Amador is to be executed on August 29 for the murder of 32 year old Reza Ayari, a cab driver from San Antonio. Amador has been on death row since 1995 and was 18 years old at the time of his offense.

Foster is to be executed on August 30 for driving the car during a robbery in 1996 when Michael LaHood Jr. 25, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery.The man who shot and killed him, Mauriceo Brown has already been executed on July 19, 2006 for this crime. Brown confessed to the shooting and claimed he acted solely alone, and that the other defendants had no knowledge of the shooting.

Although Foster never left the car, and never touched the gun, he was sentenced under "The Law of Parties", where a defendant can be sentenced to die for being at the scene of the crime. Two other defendants in this crime Julius Steen and Dewayne Dillard, however were sentenced to long prison terms.

The hunger strike is the lastest disruption at the ‘capital' of capital punishment where 400 inmates have already been put to death since the state resumed the use of capital punishment in 1982. In this year alone 21 inmates have already been put to death by lethal injection and there are ten death row inmates awaiting execution at the Texas death machine.

However, this  is not the first time that death row inmates in Texas have gone on hunger strike for in October 2006 and January 2007, death row inmates began a hunger strike calling for humane living conditions.

We can not stand idly by while executions are carried out at an alarming rate in Texas and need to do something. You can fuel the resistance against the death penalty, so take some time and write a letter to Governor Perry protesting the executions.

Here are two things that you can include in the letter:

- Express sympathy for the family of the victims and explain that you are not seeking to excuse the manner of their deaths or to downplay the suffering it will have caused;

- Call for Kenneth Foster, John Amador and other death row inmates to be granted clemency.

Address of the Governor

Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Fax:         1 512 463 1849
Salutation: Dear Governor

Remember Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.'

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