The 500th execution in Texas is now on the schedule. The 500th execution under the current schedule will happen on June 26, 2013 when Kimberly McCarthy is scheduled for execution. There may be stays or additions in the schedule that change the date of the 500th. Right now 497 people have been executed in Texas in the modern era.
We urge everyone in Texas and our friends worldwide to take action leading up to the 500th execution to let Texas know that it should stop executions with a moratorium and begin the process of repealing the death penalty.
Let us know if you plan any actions to protest 500 executions in Texas.
We originally posted this information on December 12, 2012, but because there have been more execution dates set, we updated the post on February 4 and again on May 9 to reflect the new date for the 500th execution.
Texas is nearing 500 executions in the modern era since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty was constitutional. Texas conducted its first execution after the ruling in 1982.
To express your opposition to any execution, you can contact Governor Rick Perry’s office at 512 463 2000. If you call after business hours, you can leave a voice mail message. During business hours, someone should answer the phone. You can also send a message using a form on Perry’s official website.
498) Jefferey Williams, May 15, 2013
499) Elroy Chester III, June 12, 2013
500) Kimberly McCarthy, June 26, 2013
501) Rigoberto Avila Jr July 10, 2013
502) John Quintanilla Jr. July 16, 2103
503) Vaughn Ross, July 18, 2013
504) Douglas Feldman, July 31, 2013
505) Robert Garza, September 19, 2013
506) Arturo Diaz September 26, 2013
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2 Comments
[…] The 500th Execution in Texas is Currently Set for July 31, 2013 […]
Try to stop the execution of Mr. Elroy Chester. Find enclosed an email to the Clemency Board.
Regards
Heinz Leitner
Dear Chair person, dear members of the Board,
I am an Austrian citizen, retired official of the Federal Ministry of Labour as well as former representative of this organization in the Austrian Board of Paroles. I live in a country where thousands upon thousands disabled children, women, and men were murdered in the concentration camps in the times of Nazi-fascism – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T4_Program
Mentally retarded Elroy Chester, originally scheduled for execution on April 24, 2013, has been rescheduled to be executed in Texas on June 12, 2013
Find enclosed an article on mentally retarded Afro-American man Elroy Chester
“Smart Enough to Die. In 2002, the Supreme Court banned the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants. Still, Texas finds a way”:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2013-04-19/smart-enough-to-die/
Find more information on the African American man at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGipgSzLrI
http://standdown.typepad.com/weblog/2013/04/continued-controversy-over-texas-mental-retardation-evaluations.html
Find also a link to a recent article concerning new standards from the country’s leading psychiatric association to diagnose mental retardation that could allow courts to execute convicted criminals with IQ scores below 70 more easily, say death penalty lawyers.
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/05_-_May/Lawyers_worry_new_measure_of_mental_retardation_could_prompt_more_executions/
… Lawyer Susan Orlansky of Feldman Orlansky & Sanders said Texas’s individualized statutes are the reason her client, Elroy Chester, will be executed even though he meets the lower-then-70-IQ standard. Chester was convicted in 1998 of fatally shooting a firefighter and confessed to killing four other people in the south Texas town of Port Arthur. He is scheduled to be executed June 12. Orlansky does not think changes in the reliance on IQ scores would impact the decision in Elroy’s case…
I do not want to join the debate on the mental retardation of Chester with Texan death penalty lawyers nor with psychiatrists or psychologists on the appropriate methods to classify mental retardation, as the death penalty for the mentally ill is no subject for a methodological debate in jurisprudence or psychiatry/clinical psychology, but a societal and political subject. I want to draw your attention to 2 links in this context for instance:
ttp://www.concordmonitor.com/article/245163/lawmaker-advocates-eugenics
http://www.businessinsider.com/mentally-ill-patients-in-us-prisons-2012-5?op=1#ixzz2OXE3Wdw9
According to „Business Insider. Law & Order“ there are 1.25 million mentally ill inmates in the U.S. justice system, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. That’s compared to only 40,000 in mental hospitals. “This is a huge problem with an unequipped system serving everyone from the mildly ill to the psychotic,” Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch, told us. “The justice system today is functioning as a mental health facility …. “
The penal system is unable to accomplish the functions of the mental health care that are outside its field. The penal system has to point out the mistake, and should reject the assignment of tasks and duties that it is unable to comply. It should not allow being instrumentalized as a willing tool to a misguided healthcare policy, and as an executioner of the mentally ill instead of entering into a debate on the pros and cons of methodological standards of psychiatry/psychology.
1999, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution calling on nations “not to impose the death penalty on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder.” The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions also has called for a halt on the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally retarded. The Special Rapporteur stated that such executions were in contravention of international standards. While U.S. law prohibits the execution of the insane, this is a very high standard that rarely is met. In actuality, the United States continue to execute offenders clearly exhibiting mental illness. Because of the Supreme Court’s failure to clearly articulate a definition of mental retardation, Texas continues to allow the execution of people who are mentally retarded. These executions are particularly repugnant to the national and international community. Stop this insanity!
I am urging you to recommend to the Governor of Texas to stop the execution of Mr Elroy Chester and commute his death sentence to life without parole.
Please stop Texas’s route to “Siberia”* in murdering the disabled on death row!
Sincerely,
Heinz Leitner
Austria, Europe
* Barrington Republican Martin Harty: “I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population.” http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/03/11/nh-gop-senator-says-the-disabled-and-mentally-ill-are-%E2%80%98defective-people%E2%80%99-that-should-be-shipped-off-to-siberia/