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 Part 2: DEATH INMATES SPEAK OUT AND READERS RESPOND TO PART 1
                           By Beth Vishnevsky SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
The following article appears in this weeks edition (part two) of the Greenwich Village Gazette :
December 31, 1999   By Beth Vishnevsky
             ***********************************************
Since Part 1 was focused on those who oppose the death penalty, and Part 2 is on what death inmates have to say (readers’ responses to Part 1 are included also), we will give those who support the death penalty an equal chance to air their opinions in the future.  Email us.
    PART 2: DEATH INMATES SPEAK OUT AND READERS RESPOND TO PART 1
Written by Brittany Holberg, Death Row, Texas:    Begin To Fall

Sometimes I wonder
About the day I die
Where will I be
Will anyone cry
I’ve caused so much pain
In so many lives
Will anyone ever know
How deep my sorrow lies
I doubt that it’s possible
For anyone to see
The pain I feel
The sorrow within me
Reasons unexplainable
Truths left aside
Leaving open that painful question
Over and over why
Why the destruction
Caused to us all
The broken hearts
And the dreams that begin to fall.

Written by T. Scott Cothren, Alabama Death Row Inmate:

"I am a 26 year old Alabama death row inmate.  On December 10, 1998, President Bill Clinton signed "Executive Order 13107". The order instructed all states, territories, and people of the U.S. to come into compliance with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, signed into  effect  December 10, 1948, 50 YEARS AGO.   The document was originally signed to promote the recognition of the worth of every human life and the dignity that everyone is entitled to maintain. The U.S., in effect, ignored it entirety, despite when the U.S. signed onto this declaration, they agreed to observe and uphold the articles therein.
Every human being on the face of this earth is redeemable! No matter what horrendous acts he’s accused of, no matter how psychologically damaged, no matter what. With enough time and devotion from a caring
person, all are redeemable.
Maybe it is due to my being on the receiving end of it, but it seems to me that as more and more death row prisoners are able to prove their innocence, more and more bills are passed to speed the appeals process
and block very valuable avenues of relief.
I can sum up the entire mentality of the capital punishment scheme and its supporters with the name of a single town, state, and date. Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. A mob of townspeople slaughtered several women and
girls as suspected witches. The only proof to support this claim – a lone, trusted public official’s claim, that he could prove they were witches. Unfortunately, the "proof" was that they could not survive the test of being set on fire.
To all the abolitionist out there, let me say that I truly appreciate all your efforts, as does everyone directly and indirectly affected.
When Clinton signed the  forementioned Executive Order, he opened the US Justice System to the UN General Assembly scrutiny. This should give the World Court located at The Hague jurisdiction for any claims that the US stands in violation of several human rights issues.
The Justice System doesn’t only violate the rights of death row prisoners, but, by the very aspect of your being opposed to capital punishment, they refuse you the right as a citizen of the International Community, to carry out a dignified existence, by killing your fellow man. If you are a citizen of the U.S., then you are forced to carry the
stigma of a country who so frequently kills its own, even when the rest of the free world has abandoned the practice and is thriving.    If a list can be made of all death row prisoners (and kept updated) and everyone involved in abolition work would sponsor a prisoner, we could conceivably recruit a few volunteers and file a class action lawsuit in the World Court.
The reason action is required of abolitionists is due to communication among various death rows is limited at best, and more often entirely banned.  If you have questions, comments, or even more important, input
on what you’ve just read, feel free to write me. Thank you kindly for your time and attention in this matter. I remain, yours truly, T. Scott Cothren."

Written by Wes Quick, Death Row Inmate, Dedicated to Death Row Inmate Steve Thompson
Executed May 8th, 1998:

Sitting on Death Row, the concept takes my breath,
Our legal system treats injustice with injustice.
A life for a life, a death for a death.
A legal system is supposed to teach us right from wrong.
But in the end, the State shows that it too can kill.
But without any repercussions;
That they can play the Executioner’s Song.
Where is the right in this?
How is this going to teach society that it is wrong to kill?
By the State turning around and saying, "We’re the law, we can kill."
What’s really going on?
What’s the deal?
It is wrong to take another’s life,
But how can you justify making it right by doing the same thing?
I ask these questions to myself
And I ask these same questions of you.
What good is all this killing going to do?
So as I sit on Death Row, I watch the Death guard
Take my buddy to the chair.
I ask myself if any of this is really necessary,
Is it really fair?
So as the State kills my only friend,
I look at life and see, This is how our society will end.
With the killing of each other, there’s oh so much death.
This is what is all around us, this is what we’ll see
When we take our dying breath.
 

Written by Ken Richey, Death Row Inmate

Injustice – A Poem
Imprisoned on Death Row, running out of time
Robbed of my freedom, my life’s no longer mine
I was unjustly accused, tried and convicted
Physically and psychologically, the injustice was inflicted
Now sentenced to die, to an inhuman fate
While outside of the prison, American supporters await
They will gather in groups, in cruel celebration
In vindictive excitement and virulent jubilation
They care not and are unconcerned, that I am an innocent man
To them it’s a sporting event, and they’re just eager sport fans.
Their excitement will mount, at the appointed time of my death
As "Old Sparky" the chair steals my last breath
With stentorian exultation, they will raise their voice in great cheer
Celebrating my execution, like they would celebrate New Year.
 

Written by Pamela Perillo, Death Row Inmate, Texas:

My name is Pamela Perillo, I’m a death row inmate in the State of Texas.   I have been on death row since Sept. 5th, 1980.  There are only 8 of us female on death row in Texas, three of us are non-work capable by choice
and two others were put on an administrative segregation status because the Medical Department said they couldn’t pull cotton (repetitive work) because of carpal tunnel syndrome. We are being treated like animals
right now just because we are death row inmates. We have been placed in a small cell behind a solid door, we get "one" hour recreation per day .     They schedule that so early in the morning that no one wants to go. We
also only get one hour of TV five days a week. The male death row inmates have TV’s outside their cells all down the run, and get it turned on from 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. through the week. On weekends, their TV viewing time is 7:00 a.m. until 1:30 a.m. Not only do the women not get to view TV during the same hours, we don’t even have any.  We are also being strip searched six, some times eight times a day, and most of the time we have never left our cells from one search to another. They go through our property with no care what-so-ever in the way they handle it. Our property is left all over our cells when they are done searching. My lock box was closed on my picture of my daughter who died, she was in her coffin and they put a big hole in her head. The response
was "What do you want me to do about it?"  They have all five of us who don’t work living in a building they
call the Multi-purpose facility, they house crisis management psychiatric patients, seg. inmates, and death row non-work capable inmates all in this building. These women in crisis management are brought in here at all times of the day and night in various stages of hysteria, fear, or anger, a lot of them come in cut up from attempted
suicides. These women are subjected to gassings with pepper spray for different reasons, which instantly affects everyone around the area especially as no windows open in this building.
We have witnessed numerous women who are the most obviously out of their senses have excessive use of force applied, such as slamming them to the floor and against the walls. We have heard officers sit around laughing and making fun of these women which have honest mental diseases. One female inmate died here; there was only one officer on board and no one would clean up this hurt lady. She sat in her cell all weekend with blood and fluids coming out every hole in her body. Two nurses and one doctor were fired as a result.  We are in these little cells all day long just because we are on death row, with no TV. and no room to move around. We don’t even
have a stool and table in here to eat or write on. We have to eat our meals on our bed, floor or toilet. We now only have one outlet in our cells to use for all our electrical appliances.
Death row inmates are to be separated from general population they say to maintain safety, security and order amongst general population offenders and correctional personnel. But we are all death row inmates right here together for years, and they are telling us we can’t talk to each other. They want us to sit here behind a solid door 24 hours a day for years, alone, and not talk to anyone? Death row inmates are not allowed to read newspapers and magazines, but population inmates still can.
 

Written by Martin Wooley, Death Row Inmate, Menard Illinois:

Our laws are written and our penalties and punishments inflicted with the idea in mind that people are always able to do right and that man is always able to control his conduct – to choose freely between right and wrong. I suggest to you that in assessing punishment, you have to take into account the nature of human beings. We all know something about human nature. We all know something of ourselves. Consider the power of temptation, the pressure of peers, the force of habit, the effects of heredity, the limitations of intellect, the domination of want, and the effects of poverty and helplessness.
Until we understand these things, until we know that human beings are capable of always doing right, we should not bind and kill those who do a dreadful act. Our very own ignorance should make us merciful. Until we
understand a person’s thoughts, passions, fears, sorrows and weaknesses, we should not assume that what he did was done was cold deliberation and contemplation.
It’s been over 60 years since the public could watch an execution in the United States. One of the last public hangings occurred at dawn, August 26, 1936, when a man named Raine Bethea was hanged before a raucous
crowd of 1,000 in Owensboro, Kentucky.
In a vivid on the scene account by a Time magazine reporter, we learn that the spectators had spent the night before Bethea’s death drinking and attending hanging parties. Through the early hours of that day "hawkers squeezed through the crowd selling popcorn and hotdogs. Telephone poles were festooned with spectators."
By 5:00 a.m. "the crowd grew impatient and began to yell, let’s go, bring him out. At 5:20 a.m., Bethea, his stomach bulging with chicken, pork chops and watermelon, was pushed to the base of the platform. At 5:28 a.m. there was a swoosh and a snap. Soon the spectators crowded in and eager hands clawed at the black death hood … the lucky ones stuffed the bits of black cloth in their pocket."
As Will Rogers wrote in 1925, "Anybody whose pleasure is watching somebody else die is about as much use to humanity as the person being executed." It’s exactly this sort of spectacle that makes us recognize that an execution doesn’t have a sobering effect on the public or the crime rate. Indeed, one might even make the point that executions lead to the disregard of human life. It’s the classic case of violence begetting violence.
Fundamentally, the only question is whether death is the only solution.
I recall other people in history who thought the only solution was killing. Adolph Hitler thought the only solution was to kill the Jews.  The Romans thought the only solution was to kill the Christians. Every time I think of death in terms of a state authorized killing, it turns my stomach.
Doesn’t it seem a bit hypocritical and insincere that we who value life most should commit homicide ourselves? Let’s be honest, what are you doing when you vote to have someone strapped down to a table with a vein
exposed so that he can be intentionally injected with a needle full of poison? It sounds like the final chapter of a horror story or a tale of Nazi atrocity. Is the destruction of any human being so necessary that we can approve of this type of gore?  Our latest technological refinement in executing people is to poison them with an overdose of drugs. The idea is to be humane. Ask yourself, why is our society trying to kill people in a humane way? Isn’t it
because we are trying to reassure ourselves about something we know is wrong? Would you say Hitler was humane when he sent Poles, Jews and Slavs into the gas chamber, having them believe they were going into
showers?
Some people call giving the death penalty a noble thing. But let’s recognize it for essentially what it is – revenge. Retribution in the form of revenge is what we are talking about here. Capital punishment is vengeance. We don’t rape a rapist. We don’t burn arsonists. We don’t stand drunk drivers in the middle of the road and run them down.
The long struggle of the human race has been filled with violence, war and homicide. It probably will be for many years to come. We are trying to make a non-violent society. The goal is fine. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to use the death penalty – a clear act of violence – as our olution. The easier it becomes to impose the death penalty and kill in the name of the law, then  less valuable human life becomes. When our prisons become nothing but rivers of blood, all life becomes cheap. When our government condones killing a man because he doesn’t deserve to live, it teaches its citizens that they, too, can kill those they don’t like.
There is something more than the physical side of the death penalty. We tend to forget the mental torture that accompanies it. It has been said that we all live under a suspended sentence of death. How many would retain their sanity if we knew that date were fixed by day, hour and minute. How far greater would that torture be if you knew you were being executed for something you didn’t do? Plus, what of the mental tortures being forced upon these guys by prison officials?
These officials are already in charge of everything, your food, water, mail, visits, and recreation. What purpose does it serve to have a guard enforce rules that carry no true peneological interests? Such as allowing a guard to make derogatory remarks. Even allowing sexual comments go unchallenged by guards and directed towards  an inmate waiting to be killed by the state. This is the level of civilized society we have obtained for ourselves. One has to really wonder, is this the direction we’re headed into the new millennium?
 

Written by Freddie Lee Wright, Death Row Inmate:

If we were to read in tomorrow morning’s paper one of our other civilized countries were going to execute thousands of its people for committing crimes, there would be an outcry in this country from all walks of live to save the lives of the ones that were to be executed.  Why must we live in a country with so many double standards? It’s time to stop the body count, and start practicing the things we preach. Maybe we should return to maiming criminals-by cutting of the hands of burglars for an example – on assurance cutting off the hands will deter more potential burglars. Thirty-six states and at least two federal jurisdictions (under the federal criminal code and the military code) have the death penalty, and most of the thirty-six states with the death penalty are carrying out executions big time. The state of Alabama just carried out its last execution less than a week ago. There is no longer a death penalty in any of the advanced western countries, even South Africa no longer puts its citizens to death, but here in the United States, the U.S. claims to be the paragon of all human rights around the globe.
There is ample evidence that innocent people are occasionally executed, however unintentionally, by a fallible legal system. When the innocent is executed, who pays for the crime against them and their families? No
amount of money can make this wrong right, but money is always what is used to try and make right the crimes that are committed against the innocent and their families by the system. The legal system commit crimes against the innocent and their families and it never says it’s sorry for the pain and suffering it causes. Its also widely acknowledged that the financial cost of capital punishment scheme are exceedingly great in comparison to a criminal justice process from which the death penalty has been eliminated.
It can be expressed in many different ways, but never really justified, executions will always be nothing more than another violent homicide. There is evidence that race – ethnic, origin, sex and economic plays a part in decisions to carry out the death penalty. No state or nation can solve its problems by killing its citizens, regardless of the reason. We all must learn to execute justice right, people, our children learn from our lessons, we all must ask ourselves, what are the messages we are sending them, that we must kill to pro e that it’s wrong to kill.
Because of all the killing, the only value our kids have on their lives and the lives of others is to take a life to prove a senseless point.

               READERS RESPOND TO PART 1

The following letter was sent in by Betsy Wolfenden, President & Executive Director of Restitution Incorporated:

    Although I entered law school in the Fall of 1996 with the goal of becoming a tax attorney, I was drawn to a meeting of a legal organization called the Death Penalty Project.  At the meeting, I learned that defense attorneys working on capital cases needed law student volunteers to help out with their defendants’ appeals. Because
of family responsibilities, I was forced to limit my involvement to becoming a pen pal to someone who had been sentenced to death. After reading a number of introductory letters from death row inmates seeking pen pals, I made my choice. The inmate’s name was Michael Fullwood.  Michael and I wrote to each other for a year and then I began visiting him during my second year of law school. I knew from our letters and conversations that Michael was an accomplished artist, and on one visit I asked him what he would like to do with his artwork. Michael paused and responded by saying, "I want to make restitution."  \Michael’s response surprised me. Michael had killed his daughter’s mother when his daughter, Michelle, was just an infant and I was not sure how someone could make restitution for such a horrible crime.  On my next visit to the prison, I proposed to Michael the idea of starting a college fund for Michelle. Michael had seen an ad in an art magazine for a company
that made note cards from original paintings and drawings, so we decided to sell cards made from his artwork and use the proceeds to fund Michelle’s college account. It took us another six months to work out all the details, but in the fall of my third year of law school, we had 1,000 boxes of beautiful note cards ready to sell and a college fund set up at the bank.
I sent one of the first boxes of cards to Michelle’s grandmother who is raising Michelle. She shared them with Michelle. Michelle was thrilled to learn that not only did her dad love her, he wanted to help her attend college as well.  For the first time in fifteen years, Michael and Michelle began communicating.  In 1998, Michael and I co-founded the non-profit, Restitution Incorporated, with the goal of promoting healing between offenders and victims. Our first project is the National Death Row Inmate Restitution Art Show, which is scheduled to open in early 2000.  We are assembling artwork from death row inmates around the country and will be displaying their work on our website. Commemorative prints of some of the original work will be available, and the proceeds from
donations will go to either surviving victims or to charitable organizations. In addition to the art show, we have an "Apologies" section on our website for inmates who would like to apologize to their victims. Many inmates are extremely remorseful,  and we would like thoseinmates to have a place to share their spiritual and emotional growth.  We have also started to work directly with more victims. One inmate who committed murder requested that I ask his victim’s mother if she would accept a letter of apology from him. I was able to find her and she
agreed to receive his letter. She told me that she did not hate her son’s killer. In addition, members of a rape survivor’s group recently visited our site to read the words written by an inmate who is serving two life sentences for kidnapping and rape. The women told us that they found his testimony healing.  I graduated from law school in July of 1999. Somewhere in the middle of my studies, I realized that the sole purpose of living is to serve God. In my case, that means helping those whose lives have been affected by violent crime. Making a whole bunch of money as a tax attorney pales by comparison. The Restitution Inc. website can be accessed at http://www.restitutioninc.org. Inmates who want to make restitution or apologize to their victims may contact us
at: Restitution Inc., 605 Jones Ferry Rd MM-1, Carrboro, NC 27510. Cards and prints can be ordered on-line or by
calling toll-free: 1-888-625-5683.

The letter below was sent in from Debra Rees:

    I have been a lone campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty for many years. Several months ago I came across the CCADP website, and was immediately impressed. My husband and I made contact with one of the
death row prisoners on their site and engaged an experienced Appeals Attorney for him at our expense. The CCADP also inspired us to start an Australian Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. The ACADP
will be launched at the end of January 2000.   (*note :this information was printed in this article, and referred to plans some Australian citizens  had at the time to form a coalition against the death penalty under this name.  Since that time, in June 2000, a group called the ACADP has formed & registered in Australia, that is NOT affiliated with the CCADP, we are unaware of what they may or may not do in the anti death penalty movement, but they are not active in any of the many campaigns or issues that the CCADP works on and is involved with.  The ACADP formed in Australia in June 2000 is not the organization referred to here - the activists who had planned to form that organization continue to be active against the death penalty but don't wish to be affiliated with the ACADP.)

The CCADP stands for the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (they were featured in Part 1 – Dec. 17).

The following letter came in from Fabian Gastellier, International Bannister Foundation, France area manager and Jimmy Dennis French campaign coordinator:

We have many groups working for the abolition of the death penalty. I am French, by the way, but the work from Tracy and Dave is just crazy!  They are doing something unique. Providing real help to prisoners. And I only can agree 100% with what they said. Losing them would mean losing a real treasure of humanity, involvement, and generosity.
 
 

The following letter comes from Melanie Lankford:

    I am sending you a copy of correspondence with Tracy of CCADP. In your article on the death penalty, Tracy mentioned an "episode" in Texas. I thought you may like to hear some of what was said by the victims’ family and friends during this "episode". After all, it is mostimportant to see and hear all sides. After this letter was sent, Tracy did address some of the concerns expressed and made a few changes. If you are interested, you can see the site for the victims (Darren and Denise) in this case at www.murdervictims.com/Voices/CainHayslip.htm.

(Please note: the following letter sent by Melanie to Tracy at CCADP was written before Part 1 of our article was published).
Hello, Tracy:       I am writing you regarding Charles Thompson or "Chuckster killer", as he signed his mail from jail. I have read the e-mails regarding his web site. I do not believe in the death penalty and am a vegetarian of
10 years; maybe that will give you an idea how strongly I believe in the sanctity of life. I hope you realize that by posting false information on your site, it discredits the CCADP. By posting the lies of inmates, you are validating their words. The pages very existence on your site tells the world that you stand behind this person, his case, and his words (regardless of the truth).  There are people on death row who truly were falsely accused or did not
receive a fair trial. If your organization does not review or in any way try to confirm the truth or falsity of inmates’ claims, then their lies invalidate and undermine all the inmates telling the truth. To the public and "unconverted", the CCADP comes across as a fanatical organization with no integrity. The "voice" you are trying to provide
becomes a deafening noise of lies drowning out the truth. You told Denise Hayslip’s son you did a search on "Charles Victor Thomson" and found articles, as well as the web site for Darren and Denise. That would be helpful if Charles’s full name was provided; then the public could do a search as you suggested. However, the page does not give his full name. If CCADP is concerned with truth and justice, why not provide the full names and dates so the public can research both sides and make a truly informed decision of who their hard-earned money goes to. CCADP is irresponsibly providing a forum for inmates to pull the heart strings and manipulate people out of money under false pretenses.You also told Wade Hayslip your site provided a disclaimer. Stating that the information was "PROVIDED BY THE FAMILY" does not constitute a disclaimer. There is nothing telling the public that CCADP has not researched or confirmed any of the claims made by the inmate on their page. This would TRULY be a disclaimer and perhaps afford your organization some integrity. Also, the page does not
inform the public that the slips provided to send money are for commissary only. Someone would think they are sending money to help with the defense fund, but money sent to commissary can only be used to buy things on the inside out of commissary. Again, another falsification and manipulation of truth that would take money out of a sympathetic person’s pocket.  In closing, I would like to address your statement that none of these pages would be necessary if the death penalty did not exist and if it was abolished, they would all be taken off today. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, no matter how any of us feel about the death penalty, the truth is none of the pages would be necessary if people did not MURDER each other. Charles would not need to post a page of lies if he did not MURDER two very beautiful people. All blame lies on his soul.  He received the death penalty instead of life because from behind bars he hired a hit man to kill a witness. So even though he was locked up, he was still trying to reach out and MURDER an innocent person. The jury felt he would be a continued threat to people even if he got life and was locked up. He himself proved that he would continue to kill from behind bars. So again I say to you that truthfully the page would not be necessary if Charles had not MURDERED Darren Cain and Denise Hayslip.Thank you for your time,

A letter from a reader in Florida:

    It occurs to me that people are all wrapped up about Death. I watch the news and there are so many stories about Death. Death draws the headlines. The only thing that is bigger than Death is a resurrection.
If Jesus lived today and was crucified dead and was buried and was resurrected, that would be big news.

Stephanie from Atlanta, Georgia sent in this prayer, by St. Francis of Assisi:

                             Lord, make me a
                            Channel of thy peace
                          That where there is hatred,
                              I may bring love
                       That where there is wrong I may
                         Bring the spirit of forgiveness
                         That where there is discord,
                            I may bring harmony
                          That where there is error,
                            I may bring the truth
                          That where there is doubt,
                              I may bring faith
                         That where there is despair,
                              I may bring hope
                        That where there are shadows,
                              I may bring light
                         That where there is sadness,
                              I may bring joy
                       Lord grant that I may seek rather
                       To comfort, than to be comforted
                    To understand, than to be understood,
                          To love, than to be loved.
                          For it is by self-forgetting
                              That one finds.
                      It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
                       It is by dying that one awakens to
                             Eternal life. Amen.
 
 

Charles from Boston had this to say:

    I am a junior high history teacher, and discussions about the death penalty come up frequently. Many of my students have strong emotions about the death penalty. Here are 11-12 year old kids who are confused about how the government can just give up on a human being, just treat them like dirt until they die. A small majority of my students make gross remarks about ‘killing those bastards’ and try to impress  one another with who has the
most outrageous way of killing them off. But that is the minority.  My female students, and even some male students, have had tears in their eyes during our discussions. It’s so sad that our youngsters are absorbing so much hate, so much intolerance. I can only pray that none of them ever find themselves in a situation where their lives are on the line. A thin line indeed!

Thomas M. from the city wrote:

    I believe juries are not capable of making sound decisions especially when it comes to deciding the fate of someone else. Judges, who get paid an enormous salary and who have the legal background, should hear all the evidence, and make a sound judgment. Are they not judges, after all? If they are hearing testimony but leaving it up to men and women who may feel intimidated by the whole process or not told valuable information, then what actually are they judging? Of course, as we have corrupt officials in all aspects of corporate live, it might be
difficult to access whether a judge could make unbiased decisions in all cases.

Stephanie from Philadelphia wrote:

    It’s easy to feel remorse when you’ve been caught. But true character is, if you knew you wouldn’t get caught, would you still do it?
 

Richard from Clifton, NJ, had this to say:

    Not everyone realizes that it costs far less to imprison someone for life than it is to execute him or her. As far as their threat to society, unless they escape, the only real threat is to other inmates.  As for that, I say let them fight it out. As long as they’re kept behind bars, locked up from the rest of society, who cares? If guards are doing
their jobs right and were screened more on their humanity and less on their "boldness", we wouldn’t hear about so many cases of abuse and hostility.

Cheryl W. wrote:

    I’m disgusted by all this talk about executions. And I don’t want to ever turn on my television and see another human being being made a mockery of in front of millions of viewers. If we as society ever get to that point, we will be headed for disaster. I know because I’m a psychologist who treats many young children and teenagers. If anybody thinks that our young are not being affected by what is taking place all
over, they are wrong. Dead wrong. We should all be ashamed.

Following is a letter that was written by a young patient of mine:

    Blood, guts, anguish, torment – I’ve got my camera ready to capture it all. Some day I want to watch those devils die while I take pictures. I’m only 13, but some day, it could happen. That would really make my
life complete. To see another man die. My dad would be proud.

Randy from the east coast:

    Who are we to judge the fate of another? Are we so perfect and good that we can’t see what is going on here? All the negativity, all the pain. We keep setting up the cycle to continue. We’re so primitive and stuck up – we’re all better than the rest. Well, my mom was brutalized by two guys, and as she lay bruised and hurting in her hospital bed, she pleaded with me to have forgiveness in my heart, and pray to God for peace and forgiveness of our many sins we commit every day by being human. Our family is stronger today, and yes, we have forgiven her two tormentors. To hold such hate in our hearts would destroy us all. The two men are in jail where they belong.

There was a short email from a man named Jack from Canada:

    Don’t like capital punishment? Have you ever written to your representatives? Find out your officials’ standpoint on issues before you elect them. Some are running for government positions now. Do your
research, folks. Don’t vote if their views make you choke!

TORONTO - Pam Perillo, 43, has been on Texas' death row for almost 19 years, and while she isn't as well-known as her one-time best friend and former death row inmate, Karla Faye Tucker, Perillo is hoping the efforts of a Canadian couple might one day end her death row horrors.
 Perillo, one of eight women on death row in Texas, is also one of 500 death row inmates with messages on the Web site of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty www.ccadp.org
 Tracy Lamourie, one of the coalition's founders, said its efforts to abolish the death penalty and improve conditions for death row inmates is a human rights issue.
"The perception of what we do is very different inside the United States than outside. In the U.S., the death penalty is seen as a crime and punishment issue, and our stand against the death penalty is seen as mean to the victims," she said.
 "Outside the U.S., it's really seen as more of a human rights issue. We get a lot of positive response from Europe and Australia. We get a lot of support in Canada, too, but the average man-in-the-street has misconceptions about how it is used," she added.
 People think of the death penalty being applied to "recognizable killers, like Ted Bundy," Lamourie explained. But of the 4,000 men and women on death row in the United States, many have been condemned for "less heinous crimes than those with long prison terms."
 "There's a 17-year-old on death row who was with someone who killed a person during a robbery," Lamourie said. "The U.S. is way ahead (of other nations) in the execution of juveniles. There's been two this year."
 Since inmates do not have access to a computer, let alone the Internet, Lamourie and her partner, Dave Parkinson, spend most of their time transcribing inmates'  letters, opinion pieces and poetry onto the site's Web pages.
 Perillo, whose crime is not detailed on her site, described on the site her routine degradation. The women on death row are "strip-searched six, sometimes eight times a day, and most of the time we have never left our cells from one search toanother," she wrote. Pictures of loved ones are destroyed or damaged during cell searches, Perillo said, adding that she has seen sick prisoners left in a cell until they died.
 Lamourie said the coalition doesn't concern itself with questions of guilt or innocence, only the humane treatment of people.
However, relatives of the victims have been enraged enough at the site to e-mail their condemnations.
 A spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections recently deplored the site as "disgusting, repulsive and offensive to the memory of the victims."

 Copyright © 1999 The Buffalo News

 Visit to U.S. inmates on death row is only a clickaway
Canadian couple's Web site gives cons chance to plead cases
  Bettie Lou Beets is a 62-year-old grandmother on death row in Texas who is counting on a Canadian couple to help prevent her pending execution. "I've lived on women's death row for 14 years," she says in a letter that has just been posted on the Internet. "My time is running out, and the state of Texas will pick up where my husband left off."
In a long, rambling description of her life, which carefully skirts around the fact she was convicted of murdering her spouse, Beets depicts an existence filled with pain and abuse. She lost her hearing as the result of a childhood illness; was raped at the age of five; was constantly beaten and abused by her husband and slowly slid into
 drunken isolation. "While the Texas law enforcement out there did nothing to help me, it is now legal for them to finish the job," she complains. "If witnesses had been called, and none were, or the pictures of me, beaten and bruised, with black eyes, had been shown, but they were not -- even though my attorney had them ..."
 A click of the computer mouse just as easily sends you into Florida's prison system, where Guillermo Arbelaez is waiting to die in the state's electric chair for drowning the five-year-old son of a former lover. The 41-year-old Colombian now paints and is learning to speak English. He's looking for pen pals and "searching
                    for friendship."
Another click opens a Web page devoted to Michael Rivera, convicted in the 1986 slaying of 11-year-old Stacy Lynn Jazvac in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla. He's offering to crochet baby booties, bonnets and afghans in a bid to raise money to hire a lawyer to appeal his death sentence.  The bizarre collection of more than 200 Web pages devoted to the  U.S. death row inmates is haunting, frequently rambling and sometimes confusing, but for the past year, it has offered a unique, ifone-sided, view of condemned convicts.
Maintained by a Toronto couple, Tracy Lamourie and Dave Parkinson, co-founders of the Canadian Committee Against the Death Penalty (CCADP), the Web site allows death row inmates to plead their cases for clemency, to struggle to raise funds for their  appeals, to sell paintings and crafts to pay their lawyers or simply to showcase prison poems and essays.      "It puts a face to the whole issue of capital punishment," explains  Ms. Lamourie, a Toronto publisher and longtime human rights activist. "It adds a human dimension to the issue that wasn't really there before."   The CCADP Web site is a virtual prisoners' scrapbook, filled with bits of poetry, pictures, artwork and essays on life behind bars. There are endless claims of innocence from those who say they are
 victims of incompetent lawyers, biased judges, botched police investigations, mistaken identity or perjured evidence.     "We don't really get into questions of innocence," says Ms. Lamourie. "If the government is trying to kill them, we're against that.
"Our main intention is to be a conduit between the prisoner and the world, to bring activists and concerned citizens together with people who need their help --whether just a letter and an encouraging word, or helping distribute a leaflet or pamphlet regarding a particular case, helping to raise awareness, helping to manage a
defence fund."
By turning the Web site (www.ccadp.org) into the "ultimate online death penalty resource," the couple hope to increase pressure on U.S. governments to abandon capital punishment.  Ms. Lamourie and Mr. Parkinson also provide Internet users with a daily death penalty newswire, samples of prisoners' art, writing and poetry, and pen pal requests from more than 500 death row convicts. Their site offers chat rooms to discuss the death penalty, a
student resource centre on the issue of capital punishment and a list of coming execution dates.
"We searched for a group in Canada fighting against the continued use of the death penalty in the U.S.," Ms. Lamourie says.    "But when we started looking around and educated ourselves in the reality of what is going on, we couldn't find anyone doing that sort of thing here. So, we did it ourselves."
The association was set up to counter calls for the death penalty and  "to shine international light in the dark corners of America's death rows."    Now, the couple receive five to 10 requests a day for personal Web sites or pen pals from the 4,000 prisoners on death row in the U.S. They spend weekends and evenings converting thehandwritten notes and crumpled photographs into Web pages.   "There are about 20 prisoners we are writing to now personally,"   Ms. Lamourie says. "It's hard not to. You start with one or two, but these people are so lonely. They haven't got a letter in 10 or 15 years. They write back saying thank you so much."
But not everyone is thrilled with the project. Victim rights groups in the United States have lashed out at the scheme, denouncing the Web site for glorifying cold-blooded killers and presenting one-sided prisoner propaganda, while ignoring their victims and being insensitive to their surviving relatives.
 On occasion, infuriated relatives of murder victims have e-mailed Ms. Lamourie and Mr. Parkinson to complain.
A spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections recently branded the Canadian project as "disgusting and repulsive and offensive to the memory of the victims."
 Most of the critics come from the United States, where capital punishment is seen strictly as a law-and-order issue rather than as a  human rights question, Ms. Lamourie says. "We've had an incredibly positive response from European countries."
 The Canadian Web site offers mirrored services in French, Danish and Slovenian. 

                   By LISA HOFFMAN Scripps Howard News Service - December 21, 1999
 - One inmate, sent to death row for killing an 11-year-old girl, offers to crochet baby booties to raise money for his legal defense fund.
 Another, condemned for murdering his former girlfriend and her new beau, seeks a pen pal, describing himself as
 handsome, intelligent and a man of character.
 And then there's Richard Allen Davis, the notorious killer of California schoolgirl Polly Klaas, who displays his
 hand-fashioned wood covers for disposable cigarette lighters.
 These are three of about 200 American death row inmates from Texas, Florida, California and elsewhere who have
 their own World Wide Web page, a global electronic forum to spread their pleas for justice, pen pals, even money.
 The emergence of such a cyber-avenue has spurred outrage from some victims' rights groups, who denounce the Internet site that contains the individual Web pages for "glorifying" cold-blooded murderers, presenting one-sided prisoner propaganda, and all but ignoring the victims and their kin.
  "It is a slap in the face of those of us who have buried loved ones at the hands of these murderers," said Connie Stevens, of Vero Beach, Fla., whose 13-year-old cousin was raped and murdered 23 years ago by James Hitchcock, who has his own Web page.
 But the Canadian human-rights group that established the expanding Internet site says it did so to "humanize" those locked on death row in the United States, publicize their grievances and protestations of innocence, and drum up legal and other support for them.  To those ends, the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty has created a site (http://www.ccadp.org) where inmates can display _ or even sell _ their art, crafts and poetry, solicit legal help, and find a new friend or two.
 For replies, the inmates, who generally don't have access to computers or telephones, put their prison mailing addresses on their Web pages, or suggest readers contact their relatives or friends on the outside.
  Eventually, the Toronto-based abolitionist group wants to create a Web page for each of America's 3,560 condemned men and women. Their Internet project is gaining sympathizers, including many from European countries and an Australian lawyer who is paying for one inmate's appeals.
Tracy Lamourie, co-founder of CCADP, said her organization aims not to glorify anyone, but to educate the
 public about the poor legal counsel, bad medical care and other hardships suffered by death row inmates, some of whom are mentally handicapped or barely adults.
 "We're just trying to make people aware of some of the facts," Lamourie said.
The Web page of Texas death row inmate Odell Barnes (http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/ccadp/odellbarnes.htm)
is typical of the tone and treatment of facts of many of the prisoner sites.
 Barnes, 31, insists it wasn't he who bit, stabbed and then shot his "mistress" Helen Bass in the head in her Wichita Falls, Texas home in November 1989.
Arguing as he has in a string of unsuccessful court appeals, Barnes says he was the victim of an incompetent lawyer, a biased judge and prosecutor, and a botched investigation that overlooked several witnesses who would have bolstered Barnes' contention of innocence.
 On his page, he also tries to discount the prosecution's strongest evidence against him that Bass' blood was found on his clothes, his fingerprint on her lamp, and his footprint on a kicked-in door as being less than definitive.
  The one-sided account of Barnes' case, along with those of  the others featured on the Web site, infuriates Diane Clements, co-founder of Justice For All, a criminal justice reform group based in Houston.
 "These are accounts provided by killers, biased information that has nothing to do with the crimes," said Clements, a death-penalty advocate.
 In an attempt to provide balance, Justice For All is establishing its own Internet presence (http://www.jfa.net),
which includes a clearinghouse for information on victims of death row inmates and details of their crimes.
"I would just advise people to learn what (the inmates) did" before they expend any sympathy or cash on the
 condemned, Clements said.
 Among those with their own Web pages is Davis, convicted of the brutal kidnapping and murder of Klaas in California in 1993.
 There, Davis displays the lighter covers along with plastic cups he has decorated with drawings of American Indian warriors and voluptuous fantasy women figures. He says he desires a pen pal, asking, "Could there be anyone who could  take the time to see for themselves just who I really am?"
 Michael Rivera, convicted of the 1986 slaying of Stacy Lynn Jazvac, 11, of Lauderdale Lakes, Fla., wants to raise money for his defense, offering to crochet baby booties and bonnets  that he says could be raffled off at fund-raising dinners and cookouts.
 Charles Victor Thompson, a 29-year-old Houston salesman sent to death row in April for killing former girlfriend
  Dennise Hayslip and her new boyfriend Darren Cain, includes a blank deposit slip on his page, which readers can use to contribute to his prison commissary account.
 Described by his own psychologist as a "narcissistic sociopath," Thompson is also seeking a pen pal, calling himself handsome, intelligent, full of character, fond of jogging and camping, and seeking someone to share his life with.
"It's shameful," said Lance Potter, close friend of the two ictims, who convinced Lamourie to place a partial
disclaimer on Thompson's site, as well as a "link" to a Web page dedicated to the memory of the victims.
(http://www.murdervictims.com/Voices/CainHayslip.htm)
 Lamourie, who with her husband Dave Parkinson runsthe  pro-prisoner Web site on a shoestring, says CCADP does not judge the guilt or innocence of the inmates for whom they create Web pages.
 Their intent is not to "glorify" those awaiting execution.  Instead, they want to call attention to what they consider the  barbarism of putting anyone to death.
 "I want to make very clear that the sites are up purely because these individuals are going to be killed in the name of citizens," Lamourie said. "When the death penalty is removed, the pages are gone."

                      Part 1: THE DEATH PENALTY:  OPPOSING VIEWS
                           By Beth Vishnevsky SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE

READERS:  As we enter the year 2000, join our mission for a better future. Listen to what others have to say. Communicate with people who share your concerns. We’re looking to bring caring people together from all over. If you’re interested, email us now and we will be providing more details real soon. (This is not an organization, just people trying to help people). It’s our idea, and boy, the year 2000 is gonna sizzle with excitement!

Remember: The December 24th issue is dedicated to what you, the reader, have to say.
Write a message to a friend, family member, or acquaintance. Drop us a note to say hello. Tell us what topics interest you, give us some feedback. We’ll print it! Deadline: December 19th.
NOTE: The topic this week, the Death Penalty,  is a very controversial, as well as emotional, issue. We’re aware that this topic might stir up deep emotions. It stirred up some strong emotions writing this. As this column was set up for you to interact and we greatly encourage you to do so, email us anytime. If you want to have your say, we’ll gladly feature YOU!
For those who wish to respond to this article, we will print your responses in Part 2. We respect all opinions.
No where are we implying that victims’ and their families are not important. They are, and should not be forgotten. It’s obvious that violence claims more than just the victims’ lives. It affects many people.
It’s everybody’s business what is happening "out there". People are often shocked when crime hits their community. None of us is immune from tragedy, immune from danger, immune from life.
Life and death are a part of life, but we’re never ready for death, especially when it comes before our "expected" time. Often to understand life, you have to take a glimpse at death (and that is frightful for most everybody!).
For Part 1, we’re going to explore life, death, and get opposing views on the death penalty.

                    Part 1: THE DEATH PENALTY:  OPPOSING VIEWS

    t’s easy to call those on death row "monsters" and then tune back into our own lives. But what if someone you know, or even you, someday find yourself in the position of being accused,  maybe falsely accused. What if your life depended on a jury? What if you were denied basic human rights?
Fact is, we’re all human. Our actions may speak otherwise, but there’s no denying we’re more than just a body with parts.
Only you can decide for yourself what position you take on the subject of the death penalty. As we enter into the year 2000, we have to decide if We, The People, are going to continue to embrace this practice, or if we are going to say ‘enough is enough’.

For Part 2, on December 31st, we will be hearing from some death row inmates’ and messages they want you to know. We will also print any messages that you, the reader, would like to contribute.

This week features the Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty (CCADP).

The co founders and directors of CCADP are Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie.

We asked Dave and Tracy some questions.

How did your organization get started?

We formed the CCADP in May of 1998. After some research we had done into the use of the death penalty in the US; how often it is used, the amount of executions, the types of cases and lack of representation for prisoners sentenced to death, the conditions in some of these prisons, and especially through our involvement in the case of Jimmy Dennis*, a completely innocent man on death row in Pennsylvania.

*We will give you some background info on the Jimmy Dennis case later in this article.

We searched for a group in Canada fighting against the continued use of the death penalty in the USA. We felt that it was shameful that there was no active group in Canada giving a strong voice against the death penalty, and that since Canada and the US have such close relationship, our silence, especially in light of strong European initiatives against the death penalty in the US, was allowing Canada to collude with the US in state murder.
We formed the CCADP with the intention of educating in Canada to counter occasional political calls for the death penalty, and to shine international light in the dark corners of America’s death rows.

How did you become involved?

We are the co founders and directors of the CCADP. We feel this is an extension of previous human rights work we have been involved in – anti racism issues, anti poverty issues, police abuses, the homeless, etc.
We feel that the fight against the death penalty encompasses a lot of these issues, and that if more people in those areas took a good, long look at the death penalty, they too would feel compelled to get involved in stopping it for good.

Do you know someone personally who has been sentenced to death?

Not prior to our forming the CCADP and beginning correspondents with several death row prisoners. However, we are now in regular correspondence with approximately 20 death row prisoners, some of whom have become good friends. We are most involved with Jimmy Dennis; we speak to him weekly by phone, and to his family regularly, as we are the international coordinators for the Justice For Jimmy campaign, which has been garnering international attention, though the interest from mainstream media in the US has been minimal.
In addition, we field mail from 5-10 prisoners a day asking for web pages and pen pals.

What is the general feeling about the death penalty in the U.S. among Canadians?

It differs. There is much, much less support for it than in the U.S, though Canada’s Reform party– far right! often tries to drum up support for a referendum to bring it back. We have discovered though, that even Canadians who initially express support for the death penalty, are often sickened when they hear the reality of how it is carried out.
People are often under the impression that there are maybe 100 or so people on death row in the US, and that they are all high profile serial killers with recognizable names. Canadians are often shocked to find out there are almost 4,000 men and women on death row, most of whom no one has ever heard of, and with the type of legal representation provided, even the fact that DAs and judges are political positions there and people campaign on how many death sentences they get.
People find this repugnant, and usually end up taking several steps backward on their support of the death penalty once they learn some of the realities.

How many people on death row have you spoken to?

We are in communication with dozens of prisoners regularly from across the USA.

How do they feel (inmates) about death row?

In the words of Amos King, Florida death row prisoner, "most people aren’t on death row because they necessarily had the worst crimes – but because they had the worst lawyers.

What is your opinion about justice and the death penalty?

We do not believe the death penalty is a justice issue or a crime and punishment issue. There can be no justice with the death penalty – just revenge.

What are alternatives to the death penalty?

Each case should be looked at on a case by case basis. In the case where there truly is a danger to society, there should be life without parole as there is in every other country – except for a few, like the US, Iran, Iraq, China, the Sudan … (not great company to be in when it comes to human rights issues).
And the US kills more juveniles than all of these. Even East Timor just banned the death penalty,
but the US still embraces it!

What does your organization do to help inmates?

Our number one intention at this time is to be a conduit between the prisoner and the world. To bring activists and concerned citizens together with people who need their help – whether just a letter and an encouraging word, or helping distribute a leaflet or pamphlet regarding a particular case, helping to raise awareness, helping to manage a defense fund.
We also look things up, i.e. legal information, etc. on-line and send it to them. Upon request, we accept, publish on-line and try to raise awareness of abuses going on in the prison system, assist the prisoner and their family to remain in touch when the family does not have ‘collect’ on their phone and thus, the prisoner cannot call them. Supply them with stamps when we can, we try to do a lot of small things to help the prisoners.

Have any inmates been "helped" by your organization? Have any death row inmates been "saved" from execution from your help?

Two prisoners now have proper legal representation for appeals from donations sent – almost all funds donated from outside of the US.

How many members belong to your organization?

Approximately 200. As well, we are affiliated with the ACADP in Australia and the ECADP in Europe.

Do you have rallies or regular meetings?

No, as our membership is spread out, and we are based in the Toronto area.

What are the feelings about the death penalty among members?

It is unacceptable in all cases.

What do you hope to ultimately accomplish?

To raise enough awareness about the realities of the death penalty so that those in the US become just as disgusted by the practice as those of us outside – who look upon the death penalty in the way we look at slavery, at apartheid, at the way the mentally ill were treated a century ago – it is wrong, and it must stop. US politicians must end their reliance on using the fear of the populace as an easy vote getter.

What is your hope as we enter the year 2000?

That the US will join most of the rest of the world in ending this practice so we can attempt to solve the true problems behind crime instead of putting on band aid solutions that solve no problems.

How do you personally feel about the death penalty?

As we feel about slavery, apartheid, torture. If someone is for it – they’re wrong. We do not feel that it is an issue, that it is acceptable to ‘agree to disagree’ on. In fact, we don’t call it an issue, a debate, at all. It’s murder. It’s wrong.

What would you like to say to those who support the death penalty?

I challenge them to research it – really research it. To read the recent state decisions that come right out and say it is ok to execute you -–even if you are innocent – if you cannot prove prosecutorial malicious intent – in other words, several courts have decided that once you’ve been found guilty, even if later evidence clears you, unless you can prove that the DA lied on purpose, hid evidence, convicted you willfully though he knew you were innocent – you can still be executed.
Research why some are on death row and others doing life or a term of years, when the severity of the crime obviously is not what sent one guy to death row and the other to general population.
Research the truth behind the spin about how much it ‘costs taxpayers’ to keep someone in prison– the reality is, prisons are profit making enterprises on a grand scale.

What would you like to say to those who find themselves on death row?

You are not forgotten, the eyes of the world are watching now.

How many other countries do you hear from supporting your efforts?

As a result of our web pages exposing the realities of some of these cases and the evils of the US justice system, in Denmark, Germany, and Australia, organizations have actually been founded as a direct result, to add their voices to the worldwide campaign to abolish capital punishment.
As far as individual supporters, we have had people contact us from as far away as Singapore, Kuwait, Malaysia, South Africa, Slovenia, India … throughout Europe…..

What would you say to someone in the US who said "You’re from Canada. Why don’t you mind your own business?"

The same thing we would have said years ago to someone in South Africa who was defending apartheid, in light of international attempts to ‘dictate to South Africa their internal policy’.
A human rights abuse is a human rights abuse, and America has no more right than any other country to tell the world it’s none of our business. It is.

What would you say if someone told you that some inmates are too dangerous or pose too much of a threat to other inmates to have life without parole?

I would say that this is not a problem elsewhere in the world – if the correctional system does not have adequate protection in place for high risk offenders, then obviously it is the correctional system that needs to be reappraised, not individuals that need to be executed in order to solve the problem.

If an inmate is deemed too dangerous, should he/she be confined to solitary confinement? Some people would say that would be cruel and unusual punishment?

Solitary Confinement the way it is applied in many US prisons is in itself a direct violation of international law. Putting a person in a isolation cell on a long term basis (in some cases, years) in fact contributes to their violent and angry behavior.
In a very extreme case – i.e. a violent individual who has lost their faculties and is constantly attempting to harm others, needs some sort of medical care instead of being subject to the kind of conditions that would make even the sanest of individuals crack and become violent and disconnected with reality.

What do you think about the assumption that death row inmates are "bad" and grew up in a poor environment?

As far as growing up in a poor environment, not always the case – though most death row prisoners do have in common the fact that they are from low income backgrounds. Some come from close families with a lot of support, some can tell the most horrible stories of abuse and circumstance.
Since you oppose the death penalty in all cases, what would you say to the victims’ families who think true justice will only come from taking the suspects’ lives?
The purpose of the criminal justice system is not to provide vengeance for the victims’ families. It is to ensure the safety of society from the offender. This is why it is "state of XXX vs Defendant X", not "Family of Victim X vs. Defendant X."

Do you hear from victims’ families and what kind of messages do they give you?

We have had some emails from victims’ family and friends. In a recent episode, we had several emails from the friends of the victim of a recent Texas murder – the person on death row for it has a page on our site. We got several angry messages from friends of the victim, and then one from the teenage son of the victim. He was initially quite angry, but we emailed him back letting him know that we are a human rights group, and that we would not have a page for him but that he was sentenced to death. We told him that it is a not for profit site and that we are simply providing a forum where information that is not clear from the prosecution or news reports can be told.
The teenager emailed us back that he apologized for any nasty messages any of their friends may have sent, but that they were just upset. We have a lot of respect for this teenager.
In other cases, victims’ family members have not been so understanding. In one initial message after hearing from the media that we have a webpage set up for the killer of his child, a father emailed us that we were ‘cyberwhores’ and ‘death row groupies’ and that he was going to fight this initiative, and that we do not know what we are involved in, that our parents would disown us if they knew what we were doing, that we should be made to spend a night with these killers. etc.
He did not respond to our message back to him in which we made clear our activist/human rights background and that we consider this to be an extension of that work, and also that if these sentences were commuted to life tomorrow, there would be no more need for these pages, etc.
A friend of a victim in Texas emailed us, basically threatening us that she would do anything she could to get the pages removed, that she had already sent them to the DA, etc.

How do you feel when victims’ families insult or degrade your efforts?

Completely understand that they may not be able to initially understand our efforts.
Because in the US this is presented as a crime and punishment issue, and not the human rights issue that it is, they somehow feel that ‘defending’ the perpetrator from the death penalty is somehow advocating what that individual did or taking the killers ‘side’ against the victims.
This is obviously not the case, but it is difficult for someone who is in the emotional position of having lost a loved one to a violent crime, to see this as a human rights issue.

Do you have any victims’ families or friends as members?

We are affiliated with groups like Murder Victims Families For Reconciliation, and Anne Coleman of Amnesty, who lost her daughter to a murder and is now active against the death penalty in Delaware.
We have appeared on local television with a man who lost both parents to separate violent murders and is against the death penalty, to debate capital punishment with the Reform party.

Any personal messages you want to send to families that have lost a loved one to violence?

That all we are trying to do is to intervene and stop another human life from being lost. If we were able to intervene and stop the original crime from being committed, of course we would do so.
We need to end the cycle of violence, hatred, and vengeance, and allow the healing to begin.

Regarding the Jimmy Dennis case, do you have any updates or info you want to add?

We are looking for musicians and activists willing to help us put together some benefit concerts for this fellow musician, innocent on death row in Pennsylvania. British metal band, One Minute Silence (OMS) on V2 / Virgin records, are very active in the fight for Jimmy’s life and have been helping us a lot recently, at this summer’s European leg of the Vans Warped tour, by encouraging Jimmy’s supporters to come out to the shows and pass out leaflets and information.
If anyone else can help, please contact us … funds also desperately needed to help pay for legal representation.

Is there anything Jimmy would like to say to his supporters?

It’s pretty much just thanking people and saying hello to supporters in Europe and the U.S.

How do you feel the death penalty in the US affects school age children who hear and read about it?

It certainly doesn’t increase their understanding that our society has respect for life. It reaffirms the idea that in current instances revenge is not only justified, but encouraged and necessary. They are taught to learn that there is no ‘justice’ without revenge.
In the words of a prisoner who wrote to us, "we don’t steal from the thief, we don’t rape the rapist, or run down the drunk driver." Why only in the case of murder, do we insist ‘the punishment fit the crime’?

Are there any steps we can take to protect our children from taking the "wrong path"?

We need to teach respect for life, respect for each other, tolerance. We need to put money into education, etc. We need to open up the world and its possibilities to everyone.
The bottom line always seems to come down to money – but it’s not about money – it’s about investing in people.

Is there a way for supporters to lend support to inmates through mail?

People can visit our pen-pal pages from our main page at http://www.ccadp.org where they can find over 500 death row prisoner pen-pal requests from across the US. They can send a letter, a few words of support, a Christmas or holiday card.
People can join the CCADP or contribute to our efforts to help us maintain the web page outreach. This is an all volunteer, not for profit, venture and all costs – mailing, internet, telephone, stationary, etc. come out of pocket; so donations to the web page outreach are truly appreciated.
Separate prisoners, such as the International Justice For Jimmy campaign, desperately need donations toward legal expenses as well and that can be done for those who wish to contribute financially.

Has your organization written correspondence to any official in the U.S., and what has been the response?

Wrote George W. Bush many times asking him not to allow the execution of Canadian citizen Joseph Stanley Faulder in Texas in June, against all international law and treaty (the Vienna Convention). Months later, received a form letter back - the same letter many of our members received.

Does your family and friends support your efforts?

Yes. Even the ones who thought they were pro death penalty at the beginning have heard so much now they have turned abolitionist.

Has there ever been a death penalty in Canada?

Yes - the last execution was a double hanging in Toronto’s Don Jail in 1962. The death penalty remained on the books till the mid-seventies.

If you know, what does the Canadian government feel about the death penalty?

The last two governments have said they will not consider a return to the death penalty; however, they do not stand up to the US enough about it. We have an extradition treaty with the US that allows us to demand that someone we return to the US will not face death if convicted, but Canada frequently sends prisoners back to the US without insisting on this clause, in stark contrast to European countries.

The Reform party – the official opposition – often calls for a return to the death penalty."

Who is Jimmy Dennis?

Jimmy is married and the father of two young girls, age 10 and 7.

A week after Jimmy was incarcerated, his wife gave birth to their youngest daughter. One of the worst things about this whole nightmare, for Jimmy, is that he has never spent a whole day with his youngest, and that all the time he has spent with her was in prison. He wishes he was there to take his children to school in the morning, to help support his wife and daughters, as well as his elderly parents, who have both had health problems in recent years.

Family is the most important thing in the world to him.

Jimmy Dennis is an accomplished musician, and at the time of his arrest, his band, Sensation, had won many talent contests, and had the interest of a few record labels. His dream, which he had worked on his whole life and which was finally within dream, was snatched cruelly away when he was wrongly convicted of a murder he had nothing to do with.

Music is very important to Jimmy, and he usually ends his letters with the songs he enjoys. (There are over 150 songs listed at this web page)

A Brief Overview Of How An Innocent Man Came To Be on Death Row
(taken from http://ccadp.org/Jimmyscase.htm)

In 1991 James A. Dennis was charged with the high profile shooting of 17 year old Chedell Williams, outside of Philadelphia’s Fern Rock Subway Station. Due to police and prosecutorial manipulations and misconduct, shoddy investigatory work, and incompetent representation, Jimmy was convicted and sentenced to die for a crime he had nothing to do with.

Two unknown assailants (the state maintains Jimmy was one of them – he was not) attacked Chedell Williams and her friend Zahra Howard as they were buying transit fares at Fern Rock Station. Chedell was shot and her earrings stolen in broad daylight in mid afternoon.

Jimmy was in a completely different area of Philadelphia. He was on a bus in a completely different area of Philadelphia at the time of the crime, his father saw him get on the bus. This bus runs nowhere near the scene of the crime. Many witnesses and avenues were not pursued in order for the police to try and make reality fit their version of the facts. Telephone records that were not investigated would have proven Jimmy elsewhere at the time of the crime.

In trying to identify the shooter, witness Zahra Howard initially told police that she was unable to identify Jimmy as the assailant.

All eyewitness accounts said the shooter was a big guy, between 5’10" and 6’ tall, was a very dark skinned black male, and weighed approximately 200 lbs.

In contrast, Jimmy has a much lighter skin complexion than all witnesses described, weighed only 125 lbs, and he stands only 5’4" tall. (His friends were known to call him ‘Shortly’).

Police coerced and intimidated witnesses into cooperating and signing statements that supported their story of the case. Specifically the statements of Charles Thompson, which were made under duress, while he was in the police station handcuffed to a chair, being interviewed and misled by 5 detectives for hours on end. Police implied charges might be pending against Charles himself in this case if he didn’t cooperate with them. Charles later recanted his statements to legal representatives.

How It Happened

When the murder happened, the tragic circumstances of one so young dying in broad daylight over something as inconsequential as a pair of earrings, the city of Philadelphia cried out in pain. There was a lot of public pressure placed on the police to find the killer. Due to previous accusations of racism and corruption, it was important that the police be able to assure the community that they would not ignore the killing of this young girl.

During the course of the police questioning anyone and everyone in the projects where Jimmy grew up and lived, his name came up. Everyone that mentioned Jimmy’s name to police had extensive police records, unlike Jimmy. (None of them showed up when it came to trial). When he heard rumors that his name had even been mentioned, Jimmy and his father and brothers went to the Homicide Division to see if they wanted to talk to him. They waited almost an hour and were then told that the police didn’t want to talk to him.

A month later Jimmy was arrested for the crime. There were supposed to be two other people involved with the crime, and police were posturing to the media that they were known. To date, no one is in jail for Chedell William’s murder, but Jimmy Dennis who is innocent. The killer walks free. Jimmy was tried and convicted by the media before he ever walked into the courtroom.

Jimmy only saw his lawyer, Lee Mandell, twice. The first time was the day before the trial, the second was at trial. Apparently, Mr. Mandell takes on more death penalty cases than anyone else in Pennsylvania, and does not have the resources and/or ability to represent them all adequately.  Before trial, neither Jimmy nor his family could ever reach or get a return call from Lee Mandell’s office.

At first Jimmy was charged with more crimes – as he says "This is a tactic used by Philadelphia police always to make one look like Jessie James or a cowboy. I was charged with 8 or 9 robberies – guess what? Two years later those cases were dropped, except for one. It all looks good in the paper though."

All these robbery charges were later dropped. No gun was ever found.

There are many important witnesses, and those who could corroborate and support Jimmy’s innocence who were never interviewed by police.

At the trial the prosecutor showed a floral button that came off of Chedell William’s clothes, it had been ripped off by the shooter during the struggle. During trial Jimmy turned to his attorney and asked whose fingerprints were on the button and whether or not it had been tested. His attorney, Lee Mandell, said that they knew the prints weren’t Jimmy’s so, "who cares?". Jimmy, of course, said that he cared, because the prints would be the killers. Mandell didn’t say anything in court, and also didn’t ask for a test. It is procedure to automatically conduct such tests and examinations where such evidence exists in a case of this nature. The tests obviously did not support the conclusions that the police and the district attorney wanted the jury to come to.

So, not only did the police fail to find any forensic evidence linking Jimmy to the crime scene or to victim Chedell Williams, but an essential piece of evidence from the crime scene was never even tested for prints, or more likely it was tested, and never introduced into evidence because it did not fit their version of the story, and so test results were never given to the defense or entered into any court record.

During some points at trial, the jury foreman was falling asleep and nothing was done about it.

Witness David LeRoy, who owned a hot dog stand at the scene of the crime said later that the police had tried to make him pick Jimmy out as the shooter, but he said, "I will not take away anyone’s life with a lie."

David LeRoy also said that after the killer took the earrings from the victim, Chedell, she stood up straight, stood back, and that was when the button came off her jacket, and that the killer was not holding Chedell when the shot was fired. If this is true, then the bullet would have travelled a different route in Chedell’s body. Chedell was 5’10" tall. If a short person (like Jimmy) had shot Chedell the bullet would go another way.

Thomas Bertha, another eyewitness to the killing, said in court that he was eye to eye with the shooter on a straight road, no hill or incline., When asked his own height, Bertha replied that he was 5’10". It was obviously not Jimmy Dennis, 5’4" that Bertha was eye to eye with.

Another witness, who saw Jimmy elsewhere that day, later said that she was basing her testimony of the time on the time her welfare check was cashed, which is listed in military time. She said she does not know how to tell military time and thus was easily convinced by police into believing the "1300" was 3 o’clock. She said police told her what to say.

The recent July 1998 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in which the majority denied Jimmy a new trial was the closest one in years, 4-3. Three Supreme Court judges thought Jimmy should get a new trial, due to prosecutorial misconduct.

If you would like to help Jimmy Dennis with his legal fees, please send check or money order to:
(payable to) Dave Parkinson OR Tracy Lamourie, "Justice For Jimmy Campaign", P.O. Box
38104, 550 Eglinton Ave W., Toronto, Ontario, M5N 3A8 Canada.

If you would like to contact Jimmy, you can write him directly at: Jimmy A. Dennis BY 7796,
1040 E. Roy Furman Hwy, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, 15370-8090 U.S.A., OR you can email Jimmy through
the CCADP at jimmydennis@mailcity.com. They will forward your message to him by regular mail as the inmates don’t have access to computers or the Internet.

Think This Couldn’t Happen to You?

"Look at some of the cases of individuals who have been wrongfully convicted and were lucky enough to finally be heard, prove their innocence, and go home! Read these stories, then come back to the homepage and be a hero! Help us to do the same for JIMMY!"

Click onto Freed After Wrongful Convictions, page 2 at
http://ccadp.org/jimmydennis.html.

Why not an "EYE FOR AN EYE"?

Because the cycle of violence continues. No matter what the circumstances, taking a life sets up the cycle to continue. Can there be justice without execution? Many believe there can, and feel that those who seek execution are really just looking for revenge.
Hate and ignorance will never be solved by more hate and ignorance.
Tolerance and respect need to be taught early in life and incorporated into home life, as well as part of school training. Actions speak louder than words, and if our children hear us say one thing, but we speak or do otherwise, an important message is sent. An important message is lost, too.
Much of society’s problems these days are a result of hate, ignorance, and a narrow-mindedness not to even consider what someone else may be feeling or going through.

It is time TODAY to stop the cycle of hate!

We do that not by forgetting or necessarily forgiving someone who has done us wrong. For some, forgiveness may never come. For others, healing comes only when they eventually "let go" of the hurt. Forgiveness may or may not be part of this healing process. Some victims’ families have reconciled or forgiven the convicted, but in most cases, the pain stays alive for years, eating away and causing unbearable pain at times. Others may find peace through religious or spiritual intervention. They do this for themselves and their families. They don’t owe it to anyone else.
Stopping the cycle of hate is everyone’s responsibility. We become more conscious of our own actions. We don’t sit around complaining about a situation. We take constructive, not destructive, action. We search for solutions, amid our pain, and in the process, we can heal and help ourselves and others.
We become brave enough to confront our own mortality and ask ourselves what is truly important, what we really hope to accomplish before we die. We not only preach kindness, we practice it.
We embrace life and all it encompasses. We look at our differences and stand proud. We put our fears aside and reach out to help someone who is hurting. We don’t close our eyes to the realities that are staring at us. We look for ways to be helpful. We look for ways to make a positive difference.
They say you should love your mate or your child with "unconditional love". But we all know this doesn’t always happen. We need to respect our differences and really listen to what the other person is saying. We really wouldn’t want replicas of ourselves all over. The challenge of life is living in a world with many different people, different traditions, different tastes, and different feelings.
It eventually comes down to respect. If one truly respects themselves, then the thought of harming another becomes absurd and self defeating. That doesn’t mean we excuse inappropriate behavior – with free will comes choices and consequences. We can’t control anyone’s actions except our own. But we can look for ways to turn a bad situation into one of those life’s lessons that eventually make us all stronger on the inside.

Nothing is gained by responding to hate or prejudice with more hate or prejudice. Period.

Justice is defined as "fair treatment in determining guilt". Execution is defined as "kill as punishment". A killer is defined as "anyone who causes some one else to die". An acquaintance asked, "Does this also include executioners, or are they the "exception to the rule?" They’re just performing their duty and responsibility, oh but of course. Right? Wrong?
There is a movie out right now starring Tom Hanks in which he plays an executioner ("The Green Mile"). The movie review I read said that the movie is filled with powerful emotions; some involve the "grisly details of the death chamber, and the process by which the state makes sure that a condemned man will actually die." It’s centered around "a gigantic inmate with mysterious powers that changes the lives of everyone on death row, including the guards."
There’s another movie coming out about inmates who find the "light" even in the most unpleasant circumstances.
Read Part 2 and hear from real inmates. What they have to say might surprise you. You have a message for them? Email us and we’ll include it. Get ready for a lesson in life (and death).
It definitely gives you something to think about. In America, the "home of the free and the home of the brave", we should start being brave enough to take a stand and look for solutions that are not just temporary. What really needs to be done involves more than just building more prisons, more than enacting more laws.
The solutions aren’t easy, and maybe some won’t work for everyone. The solutions require effort and time. It requires you.
What would happen if we all practiced some decent human kindness towards each other? Sounds very simple, yes. Never happen? Probably not. But consider this. Everyone has a human need to feel understood, to be loved, to be accepted.
The person you laughed at today may take their pain out on someone else. That’s a lot of responsibility, huh? Did you make crude remarks to that "fatso"? Did you make fun of the kid who can’t walk or talk right?

FOR EVERY ACTION, THERE IS A REACTION.

How many people have been arrested for crimes and their excuse was they were treated poorly, they were ignored, they were abused, they were shunned by their classmates. Doesn’t excuse their actions, but definitely provides some insight.
Recently, a Pakistan man was accused of killing 100 children. Inexcusable, but his response to why he did it was he was wrongly brought into jail for questioning and brutally beaten by police, and he did it for retaliation. Of course, innocent children didn’t deserve to die, but perhaps if this man were treated with some respect, the awful crime wouldn’t have occurred. Maybe not, but you never know.
In other parts of the world, executions entail hangings, shootings, beheadings, stonings. Those kinds of methods make many people sick to their stomachs and feel it’s very barbaric. The methods may differ, but the end result is the same. Death.
A 17 year old from Saudi Arabia recently won a reprieve for a month. "Under Islamic law enforced in the kingdom, the victim’s family has the right to spare the life of a convicted murderer, demand an execution, or ask for blood money – in exchange for clemency." Supposedly, the teen "accidentally" killed the victim by hitting him on the head with a stick during a traditional dance that took place two years ago. Thousands of people, including children, have been sending in their donations. The family continues to collect money (over $120,000 so far). Under Saudi Arabia’s Islamic law, courts can impose death sentences for rape, drug trafficking, armed robbery, and murder. Executions are usually carried out with a sword in public.
In recent news, according to USA Today, a Texas death row inmate was executed a day after a suicide attempt of anti-depressant pills he "hoarded" in his cell, despite protests that he was not aware of what was happening. He was allegedly wheeled from his hospital bed, tubes in his throat, a ventilator and executed as scheduled, The inmate, David Long, apologized before he was executed. According to this report, Mr. Long said "What happened to me was in California. I was in their reformatory schools and their penitentiary, but they create monsters in there".
In other news, lethal injection is being considered in Florida. In addition to this, lawmakers are attempting to shorten the time between a killer’s death sentence and execution. Gov. Jeb Bush has said that is one of his top priorities.
In Kentucky, a soldier receives a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the brutally killing a fellow soldier to death (it is alleged the killing took place when the killer became enraged over the victim’s homosexuality).
A Supreme Court report recently concluded that "prosecutors, judges, and juries do not discriminate against black defendants in murder cases."
Public defenders and the NAACP "alleged that jurors are biased, especially when the killer’s victim is white."
(If anyone is interested in this report, I will be able to email the article I read about this).
Life. Death. A sad state of affairs. Hostile workers opening fire at businesses; children scared to go to school; being robbed for an "in" jacket, shoes, some possession; being assaulted in broad daylight and being keenly aware that nobody is coming to your rescue; carjackers who killed a teacher, despite her cooperation; children locked in closets and having no way to get out to shout for help.
Don’t like it? Does it make you mad? Sad? Are there real solutions? What is happening not just to our children but to grown-ups? Have we become so desensitized to these things that we just accept them? Think it could never happen to you?
Some have suggested we go the next step with executions and televise the "event". What messages are we sending? What are our children learning? Is this a form of "entertainment" that appeals to you? Will it be listed under "educational" tv? What is the fascination with this? The pictures of an inmate who was electrocuted was posted on the net. One response was "this is great stuff".
A reader wrote in and said, "I’d rather stuff myself with food and throw it all up than to become fascinated with those kind of images". Another reader felt that "those evil monsters deserve what they get".
The message I’m getting is: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, if we don’t speak up, if we don’t get involved and write our officials, guess what? Laws are going to be passed and you just never know how you’re going to be affected, how future generations are going to be affected. Whether you oppose or support any laws, whether you agree with issues or not, whether you turn aside and think it’s not your problem, or that there will "never happen to" ……, your silence speaks volumes. You pay taxes, you pay for services. You have a right to have your voice heard. Don’t throw objects at the t.v. – pick up the phone, send an email, write a letter.
The problems we have … well, we helped create them. How? By not caring enough to do something. By turning away. By being indifferent. The solutions for a better (and safer) tomorrow involve thinking and behaving with a different attitude and state of mind.
What do we have to lose by working together? Isn’t it worth the trouble?
Or maybe it will take tragedy to occur to spur you into action.
Maybe you think getting involved is too risky. Your friends won’t think you’re cool. Someone might accuse you of being "soft". Oh, what a dilemma.
An ‘eye for an eye’. Fight fire with fire. Respond to cruelty with cruelty. Hate with such passion you even scare yourself. Everyone loses.
A successful person isn’t one who has the best job or nicest home. Success comes from the inside. It comes from living.
To be successful means to live in a world, where both good and bad exist, and still strive to become the best we can, despite what is happening all around us. Winners don’t give up ever.
They may try different strategies, but they always try.
It involves a lot of faith. It involves a lot of compassion. It involves thinking with our own minds and not simply going along with the majority way of thinking out of fear of ridicule. Fear holds us back; truth sets us free. It takes maturity.
I’ve never heard anyone who opposes the death penalty say the victim deserved it or imply the convicted shouldn’t go to jail. Some oppose it because they were brought up to respect life, all life, and the death penalty is in direct conflict with that belief. Some oppose it for religious or spiritual reasons. Some oppose it because there’s always a chance the wrong man or woman will be executed. Recent DNA testing has cleared some inmates.
Some victims’ families are fighting to stop the execution of the killer(s) who took the life of their loved one. It might not happen often, but it does occur. Some can forgive, some can’t. Some feel so devastated by their loss that the thought of another life being taken, even the killers, is too much to bear. And, of course, there are others who feel they can’t wait until they watch the killer die.
Life. Death. Deep emotions. Different people. Different attitudes.

There’s a lot of assumption, a lot of media hype and attention. Are you hearing the full story? Are you sure?

And, finally, as we enter a new year, what are you going to do to make this world a better place?
The world has been changed by "small" people with big hearts, big dreams. Never underestimate the power you have to make a difference.

We’d like to thank Tracy and Dave for their contribution to this story. Whether or not it’s given you something to think about, whether or not you support or oppose the views shared here, we thank you for tuning in. And, please feel free to email us with your comments. Have you been on a jury? Have you ever deliberated a murder case? Has the experienced changed how you feel?

By Beth Vishnevsky SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE

Acceso a la Red para los condenados a muerte Internet antes de morir
                        Unos 200 presos norteamericanos que esperan una cita con el verdugo pueden contar sus historias, despedirse de sus seres  queridos, pedir perdón y enfrentarse a la muerte a través de Internet
                     Un grupo de activistas canadienses en contra de la pena de muerte ha  ofrecido a los condenados a muerte una ventana al mundo entero en la  página Web www.ccadp.org. Allí pueden presentar su caso, demostrar sus habilidades con el pincel, con la pluma o simplemente comunicarse con el exterior.
                     El corredor de la muerte donde esperan su ejecución los aísla del mundo exterior: no tienen acceso a computadoras ni máquinas de escribir y sus historias han sido enviadas en pedazos de papel, escritas con dificultad. Allí  incluyen poesías, dibujos y sus deseos de poder intercambiar unas letras de esperanza. La Coalición Canadiense en Contra de la Pena de Muerte ha decidido ofrecer a estos presos una oportunidad para contar sus historias y abrió la página Web para que cuenten sus vidas.
                     Defensa de su inocencia
                     Son relatos de vidas sacudidas desde muy temprano por el abuso sexual, la violencia doméstica que presenciaron o las malas compañías con las que se rodearon. Unos defienden su inocencia, otros lanzan críticas contra el sistema penal, dicen que fueron vendidos por abogados sin escrúpulos, y algunos piden perdón.
                     Michael Rivera, un hombre que espera la cita con la cámara de gas en Florida por matar en 1986 a una niña de 11 años, ha publicado la carta que su madre envió a las autoridades del estado para que revisaran su caso.
                    La mayoría de los presos no pierde demasiado tiempo en explicar por qué  se encuentra en la cárcel a la espera de la última cita con el verdugo. En las notas que acompañan sus fotografías hablan de los planes de futuro, de que van a escribir un libro o que piensan salir alguna vez a la calle. Casi todos sueñan con espacios naturales y añoran mezclarse con la gente.
                     La iniciativa ha tenido un éxito enorme, debido en parte a la revulsión social por la publicación de las fotos de un condenado a muerte tras ser ejecutado en la silla eléctrica. Las imágenes, que dieron la vuelta al mundo gracias a la Red, lograron que el gobernador de Florida suspendiera temporalmente las ejecuciones, a la espera de determinar si el sufrimiento que padecen antes  de morir las personas que se ejecutan de esa manera puede ser considerado inconstitucional.

MIAMI - Guillermo Arbelaez likes to draw. And he's learning English.
       Sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair for drowning an  ex-lover's 5-year-old son, he has plenty of time to hone those skills - and now, a personal Web page to show them off.
       Arbelaez and nearly 200 fellow death-row inmates across the  United States have worldwide exposure at http://www.ccadp.org - courtesy of Canadian human-rights activists who believe more  people would oppose the death penalty if they knew the denizens of  the nation's death rows.
        The online inmates also include some who are nationally known  such as Richard Allen Davis, convicted of the 1993 slaying of  California schoolgirl Polly Klaas, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of a Philadelphia police officer who has become an international cause celebre by supporters who contend he was     railroaded.
         "Our only question is: Is the government trying to kill them?" said  Tracy Lamourie, a co-founder of the Canadian Coalition Against  the Death Penalty. "If the government is trying to kill them, we're against that. We don't get into questions of guilt or innocence."
         The pages resemble electronic scrapbooks, with pictures, poetry, artwork, essays on life behind bars, tales of justice gone wrong, trial transcripts and, in the case of Broward County child-killer Michael         Rivera, a plea from Mom.
         Rivera, who prefers the name Michayl, posted his mother's letter to the parole board proclaiming her son's innocence in the 1986  murder of 11-year-old Staci Lynn Jazvac of Lauderdale Lakes.
         Like the Web pages of many fellow inmates, Rivera's is skimpy when it comes to details about his crime.
         Instead, the page says he plans to write a book, recently became engaged and is looking for donations to hire a lawyer to spring him from death row.
         To that end, he notes that he's a whiz with a crochet needle -  afghans, baby booties and bonnets made to order.
        "We could possibly raffle off some crocheted items at fund-raising dinners, cookouts, etc.," he wrote. "Let's make it fun." Arbelaez, a Colombian national who is learning English and who is billed on the page as an artist, includes samples of his work: clapsed hands holding a rose and a dove. He also makes a plea for a pen pal, noting he's "searching for friendship."
         Florida prison officials were un familiar with the Web pages but found them disturbing.
        "We think it's disgusting and repulsive and offensive to the memory of the victims," Department of Corrections spokesman C.J. Drake said.
        "But, unfortunately, we can't do anything about it. If a private organization chooses to glorify killers, that's their business, as  unsavory as it is. Such is the Internet."
       Pleas for pen pals are the constant of the pages, from men who  have nothing but time to write, Lamourie said.
       Because inmates at most prisons aren't allowed access to  computers or even typewriters, the group painstakingly rewrites handwritten missives onto the Web pages.
       "This is what we do all weekend," said Lamourie, who works for a Toronto publishing company. "We don't have much of a social life.  If someone sends 500 pages of a transcript, we're happy to do that."