Monday, August 23, 2004

One Horrible Week

Four men are scheduled to be killed this week. Among them is James Allridge who I've written a great deal about. Many sources have written about James because his is a truly amazing story. However, there are three other men scheduled for execution this week. Each of them is also valuable.

Wednesday, the State of Texas is expected to kill Jasen Busby. I've been unable to find any news articles on Jasen that consist of anything other than a description of the crimes for which he was convicted. Nevertheless, Jasen is a human being who will die at the hands of the government at around 6:00 pm tomorrow night. If anyone finds an objective news article on Jasen please let me know. Then, on Thursday, the State of Texas is expected to execute James Allridge. Allridge is guilty of capital murder, he has admitted that. However, ALL available evidence shows that Allridge has changed. If anyone is deserving of mercy and clemency it is James. (Of course, I don't think anyone should be killed, but I certainly cannot see how killing James serves society in any fashion. To me, there is not even a credible argument.) Around the same time that night (6:00CDT), the State of Oklahoma is scheduled to kill Windel Workman. NCADP has a write up on Windel you can link to here. I was not able to find any other news writings on Windel. The last scheduled execution of the week is the Nevada execution of Robert Ybarra, Jr. on Friday. While we do expect a stay for Ybarra, it is always possible that this stay will not come. If it does not, Ybarra will be executed on Friday night around 9:00PDT.

Please keep all of these men, their families, and the families of the victims of these crimes in your thoughts this week. I will post more information as I get it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

has james allridge exhausted all his appeals? this is unthinkable.

CarrieJ said...

To be honest, I'm not clear if he has any available legal appeals before the courts. My understanding is that those are all exhausted. Its possible he has an emergency stay opportunity before the US Supreme Court, but I would have to look into that more to safely say that (David can you help us out?). As I understand it, the greatest hope (and perhaps only hope) for James is a recommendation of clemency by the paroles board in Texas and then having the governor agree with and grant that clemency. Most of those familiar with the case, however, seem to think that such a grant of clemency is unlikely. This brings back memories of Karla Fay Tucker... (whose execution, by the way, is one of the myriad of reasons I have a hard time respecting President Bush).

If I could afford to fly down there tomorrow I would...but I can't. I will be saying my prayers and holding my vigil from my home instead.