16 October 2007
Governor Bob Riley
Dear Governor Riley,
This is my second letter to you. I doubt that I will ever get an answer from you but I will keep writing as I do not want to one day face the Creator, mentioned in Section 1 of your Constitution, and explain to Him why I did not do something regarding the injustice meted out to Thomas Arthur.
Why do I term it being an “injustice”, Governor? The word “injustice” is defined as “a violation of another's rights or of what is right; lack of justice, a specific unjust act; a wrong.”
The great Roman Statesman, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, in 5BC, said: “A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.”
What would thus be right in the matter of Thomas Arthur, ensuring that the “Kingdom of Alabama” will last?
The answer is right before our eyes…allow him to have the DNA tested!
Again, what do you have to lose? A few votes?
Conversely, what do you have to gain? For one…respect as one who ensures that the right decisions are made when it comes to the well-being of the citizenry of Alabama. Thomas Arthur is also a voter and a citizen of Alabama, not so? He must also be treated equally to the other citizens, not so?
In looking at what you could gain from this, the possibilities outweigh any negatives that might pose itself! If the DNA proves that he had sex with Judy Wicker, you could wave the results in the air and scream out to the world: “Guilty, guilty, guilty!!!” Then you have a 100% right to drag him off to the gurney!!! However, if the DNA proves that he did NOT have sex with her and that the blood on her garments does not come from him, you could wave the results in the air and scream out to the world: “I made the right decision and prevented an injustice!” Your popularity will most certainly rise to a tangible level.
Likewise, imagine if you could then, through getting a hit on the DNA database, identify another suspect. The accolades would be endless!!! Isn’t this what politics is actually about?
In the same vein, it would give closure to the family of Thomas Arthur AND the family of Troy Wicker, who also wrote to you to demand DNA testing. Did you receive the affidavit of Peggy Wicker Jones in this regard, requesting, for the sake of the truth and closure, that DNA testing be done?
But, this will not happen if DNA testing is never done.
At this moment, Thomas Arthur is in a small room, fretting and fearing. Yes, every death row inmate fears the day or reckoning, Governor, especially him, as there are “unresolved matters” impacting on his situation. I can imagine how he must feel, as I have seen it so many times in the past in our country.
I think you will agree that living on death row is a traumatic experience in itself, whether or not it results in execution.
Amnesty International in 1989 made the following statement:
“The cruelty of the death penalty is not restricted to the actual moment of execution. Its unique horror and one which cannot be relieved by developing more "humane" methods of killing is that, from the moment the sentence is pronounced, the prisoner is forced to contemplate the prospect of being taken away to be put to death at an appointed time.”
As such, deathrow is a place whose sole purpose is to preserve those who live there so that they may be executed. While the condemned live there, they are the “living dead”, not so?
A study done in 1981 found that prisoners under sentence of death are intensely preoccupied with the thought of execution. They are anxious about how they would behave during the walk to the death chamber, whether they would break down, whether the execution would be painful, and how the memory or image of the execution would affect their families. For many prisoners, these and similar thoughts become obsessive. Some prisoners have recurring and vivid nightmares in which they go through the execution process step by step.
Coupled with this, in the case of Arthur, would be the dread of doubt, trying to convince you to have the DNA tested, faced with your words that “Thomas Arthur would be executed after the 45-day stay expires.”
I would like to elaborate on this by quoting from studies and what great Judges in your country said in the past.
Article 4 of the African Charter of Human and People's Rights provides:
“Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right." (emphasis supplied)
Suffolk District v. Watson and Others, 381 Mass. 648, 663 (1980) (Hennessy, CJ.) (plurality decision holding the death penalty unconstitutionally cruel under the Massachusetts State Constitution).
"While this court has the power to correct constitutional or other errors retroactively...it cannot, of course, raise the dead."
Brennan J in Gregg v. Georgia.
“The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats "members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. [It is] thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.”
Furman v. Georgia 408 US 238 (1972) Brennan J observed:
"In determining whether a punishment comports with human dignity, we are aided also by a second principle inherent in the [Cruel and Unusual Punishments] Clause - that the State must not arbitrarily inflict a severe punishment. This principle derives from the notion that the State does not respect human dignity when, without reason, it inflicts upon some people a severe punishment that it does not inflict upon others." (emphasis added)
In this, I want to ask you two questions, Governor Riley:
“For which reason are you denying Thomas Arthur DNA testing, while other states allow mandatory DNA testing? Can you see that your decision to deny DNA testing, without giving a valid reason, could be seen as inflicting the severest of punishment upon Thomas Arthur, which other States would not have done? ”
Furman v. Georgia 408 US 238 (1972) Stewart J observed:
"The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed"
In Callins v. Collins, cert. denied, 114 S.Ct. 1127, 127 L.Ed 435 (1994) Blackmun J filed a dissenting opinion. In it he observed that:
"[a]lthough most of the public seems to desire, and the Constitution appears to permit, the penalty of death, it surely is beyond dispute that if the death penalty cannot be
administered consistently and rationally, it must not be administered at all." (emphasis added)
Blackmun J added, in the Furman aftermath:
"[i]t soon became apparent that discretion could not be eliminated from capital sentencing without threatening the fundamental fairness due a defendant when life is at stake. Just as contemporary society was no longer tolerant of the random or discriminatory infliction of the penalty of death ... evolving standards of decency required due consideration of the uniqueness of each individual defendant when imposing society's ultimate penalty ... [T]he consistency and rationality promised in Furman are inversely related to the fairness owed the individual when considering a sentence of death. A step toward consistency is a step away from fairness".
In my view, Governor, both consistency and fairness would determine that you follow what other States are doing, mandatory DNA testing, otherwise it could be termed, in the bluntest of manners, as “the tail wagging the dog”!!!
I AGAIN thus ask you, for the sake of decency, humanity, mercy and justice, to allow DNA testing to be done in this case. Your Creator, who entrenches the right to life in Section 1 of your Constitution, demands it of you.
Yours Faithfully,
Dr. Thinus Coetzee
justicefortommy@gmail.com
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