[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., DEL., VA., N.C., GA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 17




TEXAS:

Willingham case begs for justice


What Cameron Todd Willingham lost - his life, taken by the state - can never be 
restored. But, thankfully, there is some effort to make sure his case is 
accorded some measure of justice.

Given the evidence brought to light by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit group 
that focuses on the U.S. criminal justice system, and efforts by the Innocence 
Project, the State Bar of Texas was correct in filing a formal accusation of 
misconduct against the prosecutor in that case, John H. Jackson, on March 5.

This case begs for official examination by officials. This formal accusation, 
in fact, is likely not enough examination.

Since Willingham's execution by Texas in 2004, for the arson murders of his 3 
daughters, re-analysis of that evidence - using more reliable tools - points to 
no arson at all. And other developments cast serious doubt on the significant 
other piece of evidence against him - testimony by a jailhouse informant.

The informant, Johnny E. Webb, has recanted testimony that Willingham told him 
he committed the crime. He told the Marshall Project that his testimony came in 
return for favors - reducing his sentence on an aggravated robbery charge. 
Later, a local wealthy rancher gave money to Webb, which the former informant 
said was also payment for his testimony.

Jackson has denied misconduct, saying he acted to protect a witness threatened 
by other prisoners.

The State Bar, filing with the court in Navarro County, accuses Jackson of 
obstruction of justice, making false statements and concealing evidence 
favorable to Willingham's defense.

The disciplinary petition says that "Jackson failed to make timely disclosure 
to the defense details for favorable treatment for Webb, an inmate, in exchange 
for Webb's testimony at trial for the State."

The petition alleges that Jackson told the court that he had no evidence 
favorable to Willingham. "That statement was false," it says.

This is a civil proceeding that could result in disbarment. But if a court 
finds the allegations about Jackson to be true and disciplines him, perhaps 
that shouldn't be the end of the matter.

We note that Ken Anderson, the prosecutor who won a conviction that sent 
Michael Morton to prison for 25 years in 1987 for a murder he didn't commit, 
was subject to criminal prosecution in Williamson County for withholding 
evidence.

Morton was accused of bludgeoning his wife to death. Another man was later 
convicted after a bandanna that the DA long refused to test was finally tested, 
exonerating Morton. Unfortunately, that evidence implicated a man in another 
murder 2 years after Christine Morton's murder - while Michael Morton sat in 
jail.

Another prosecutor, Charles Sebesta of Burleson County, accused of misconduct 
in the conviction that sent Anthony Graves to prison for 18 years for a crime 
he didn't commit, lost his appeal of his disbarment in February. Graves spent 
12 of those years on death row. He was accused of killing 6 in 1992.

In the Morton case, Anderson agreed to 10 days in jail, disbarment and a $500 
fine in 2013 - for contempt of court.

Yes, we know. That penalty doesn't quite stack up against 25 years in prison. 
And, in the Graves case, disbarment doesn't quite match those prison and death 
row years. But it's something.

Simply, prosecutors who knowingly and willfully withhold evidence and otherwise 
commit misconduct to win convictions should be held as accountable as the 
people they prosecute.

As in the Morton case, there was enough faulty, nonexistent or withheld 
evidence in the Willingham case to have at least won him a new trial. Instead, 
then Gov. Rick Perry refused to grant him a stay of execution, though he was 
presented an independent arson expert's conclusion that there was no evidence 
of a fire intentionally set.

Since the execution of Willingham - who maintained his innocence to the end - 
the evidence that he was telling the truth has continued to mount. This was 
strong enough that we called on Perry, who once called Willingham a "monster," 
to consider a posthumous pardon.

We now urge the same of Gov. Greg Abbott no matter how Jackson's discipline 
case turns out. The evidence that Willingham didn't get a fair trial is just 
too compelling - thanks largely to the Marshall and Innocence projects.

(source: Editorial, San Antonio Express-News)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Reading Eagle reporter Nicole C. Brambila wins national writing award


Reading Eagle reporter Nicole C. Brambila has won - for the 2nd consecutive 
year - a national writing award for her Dec. 15 story about a clergyman who 
ministered a soon-to-be-executed inmate.

"Ministry of the condemned" was part of a 5-part series on the death penalty. 
The series explored the death penalty issue from a variety of perspectives.

The Amy Writing Awards Program selected the story for "its thought-provoking, 
skillful presentation of biblical truth, reinforced with scripture in a 
mainstream, non-religious publication." Brambila's story was selected from 
nearly 350 entries.

Brambila received the 2014 award for a story about a Montgomery County church 
struggling to find healing after murders were committed there on Palm Sunday in 
1985.

Brambila, an award-winning reporter with 15 years experience at newspapers in 
Texas, California and Pennsylvania, also won 1st place in the Amy Writing 
Awards in 2004 for a perspective piece on abortion.

Founded in 1976, The Amy Foundation makes the awards annually in its Amy 
Writing Awards competition for articles in nonreligious publications that 
present a biblical truth.

(source: Reading Eagle)






DELAWARE:

Life, while awaiting death, for convicted killer Ploof


Gary Ploof doesn't want to die. But he doesn't want to spend decades locked up 
in prison either.

Given the choice between execution and life behind bars, Ploof says he would 
take death.

For most people, this choice is a theoretical debate. Not for Gary Ploof. He's 
facing it.

At the time a member of the U.S. Air Force stationed in Dover, Ploof was 
convicted of murdering his wife, Heidi, in 2001. He shot her in the head in the 
parking lot of the former north Dover Walmart and attempted to frame the 
homicide as a suicide, the court found.

The jury and judge ruled Ploof killed his wife for life insurance money, and 
because of prior crimes and the premeditated nature of the crime, he was 
sentenced to death.

"While there are mitigating circumstances which have been proved, they are 
insubstantial when compared to the nature of the crime and the true character 
of the defendant as revealed by his crime and by his conduct," Superior Court 
Judge Henry duPont Ridgely wrote in his judgment.

That was in 2003.

13 years and numerous appeals later, and with the constitutionality of the 
state's death penalty in question, Ploof remains at James T. Vaughn 
Correctional Center near Smyrna.

The time spent in a cell has changed his attitude, and he says he's not overly 
worried about death.

"If the only way out of here is in a box, then that's the way I go," he said.

Delaware's death penalty

After executing 8 people from 1992 to 1996, the state has carried out capital 
punishment less in recent years - just twice in the past decade.

Efforts to overturn Delaware's death penalty through the Legislature have 
failed the past 2 sessions, but lawmakers remain determined.

Meanwhile, a Delaware judge has ordered a temporary stay of the death penalty 
while the state Supreme Court weighs questions about the law, which could lead 
to it being declared unconstitutional.

It may seem counterintuitive that someone at risk of being executed would 
support the law that could lead to his death, but Ploof said his mind is set.

Wednesday, he answered questions about life on the inside during an hourlong 
interview in a prison meeting room. Unshackled and wearing an orange prison 
jumpsuit, Ploof provided a glimpse at death row.

Technically, death row no longer exists. In January, the Correction Department 
opted to begin re-integrating death row inmates into the main cell blocks, 
although they remain in maximum security.

13 men currently are awaiting execution in Delaware. The majority have been 
moved to the Medium-High Housing Unit from the Security Housing Unit, meaning 
they have greater freedoms and more contact with other inmates.

Death row was very repetitive but "wasn't a bad place," Ploof said, adding "I 
was in the military for 20 years so I was used to repetition."

Life behind bars

He is currently in a single cell but could be moved to a double, which would 
mean he would have, for the 1st time, a cellmate.

Inmates in his unit get 2 recreation periods per day - an hour in the morning 
and 90 minutes in the afternoon or evening - during which they are allowed to 
interact with other prisoners, play cards and take part in outdoor activities 
like basketball.

Before death row was eliminated, those on it received 1 recreation period every 
3 days.

Even inmates in the highest-security setting are able to use books and 
magazines, and Ploof said he enjoys crime novels, aircraft magazines and the 
Bible.

Prisoners also are allowed to purchase amenities from the commissary, such as 
TVs, fans and food seasoning. Those items are bought through money earned from 
prison jobs, such as sweeping the floors, a job Ploof has held, or sent by 
family members.

3 times a day prisoners are led in small groups into the area used as a 
cafeteria, where they are served food, which Ploof said varies in quality.

Prisons, especially the high-security facilities, generally are seen as rough 
places, but Ploof said disagreements, let alone fights, were uncommon on death 
row.

Arguments do sometimes pop up over sports or between men who knew each other on 
the outside.

"I'm very thankful that on the 8th day God made headphones," Ploof said of how 
he ignores loud arguments.

Inmates are not allowed Internet access or cigarettes. The Clean Indoor Air Act 
of 2002 banned smoking in the prisons.

"If I get out tomorrow the 1st thing I'm doing is buying a pack of cigarettes," 
Ploof said, laughing.

For inmates, there are 4 levels of privileges based on behavior.

Those at the highest level are able to receive more phone calls and visits, 
although calls are limited to 10 minutes. Ploof said he is allowed 4 calls per 
month and uses them to speak to his parents and children.

After spending more than a decade alone in a cell, he has grown accustomed to 
having relatively little contact with others and still is acclimating to having 
more freedom, he said.

That time thinking and waiting has caused him to view death as preferable to 
life in prison.

Limbo

His government-appointed lawyers still are appealing the case, but Ploof said 
he initially pushed his counsel not to do so.

In 2013, the state Supreme Court rejected his claims of ineffective counsel 
during the initial trial. The appeals continue at the federal level, after 
Ploof exhausted his options in the state courts.

However, should the state resume executions, he said he would order his 
attorneys to drop the appeal.

"I wish it was tomorrow," he said of a potential execution.

Ploof supports the death penalty not only for his situation but as the 
"ultimate punishment" for anyone who commits the "ultimate crime" of 1st-degree 
murder. He, though, maintains his innocence, despite repeated judgments from 
the courts.

He speculated the Supreme Court will uphold the death penalty, which would 
leave the door open for death by lethal injection.

However, in recent years, states have struggled to obtain the drugs used for 
executions. Some drugs are no longer made by companies, while others are not 
exported from Europe to the United States, according to the Council of State 
Governments.

Delaware currently does not have any of the needed drugs, calling into question 
if executions could even be performed if the death penalty is upheld by the 
courts.

Delaware holds the perhaps-dubious distinction of committing the last legal 
hanging in the United States. Billy Bailey, who had been sentenced to death 
before legislation made lethal injection the method of choice, was allowed to 
choose to be hanged in 1996.

There's a common sentiment among many that convicted murderers - sometimes 
referred to as "the worst of the worst" - deserve nothing more than being 
locked up in a cell and given the bare minimums.

Ploof's response to that argument is that there is no benefit to it, nothing to 
be gained.

"No matter what anybody may have done, it's a human being," he said.

He originally harbored hopes of being released but has come to terms with only 
getting out posthumously, be it by "drugs or a golf club."


(source: delawarestatenews.net)






VIRGINIA:

Lost in all the death-penalty drug talk is that there are only 7 men on death 
row in Virginia


Thanks to last-minute tinkering by Terry McAuliffe, Virginia's death penalty is 
back in the news.

Great. Only abortion ignites a more emotional debate.

McAuliffe has amended a death penalty bill that passed the General Assembly 
during the last session. And he's threatened to veto the original if lawmakers 
refuse his changes.

There are no half measures with this governor.

Either the lawmakers agree to buy lethal injection drugs from compounding 
pharmacies - and keep the names of these companies secret - or Virginia's death 
penalty evaporates.

A little background: Seems the drugs used during lethal-injection executions 
are in short supply.

Last winter, state legislators came up with a solution: They said that if drugs 
are unavailable, the commonwealth should fire up Old Sparky.

Predictably, this sparked a heated debate among politicians. Some argued that 
the electric chair is cruel.

Others shrugged, saying painless deaths are not the goal of the state.

"I hear, 'Oh my Lord, he might have to suffer,'" said the Senate's Democratic 
leader, Richard Saslaw in March. "... If we don't have the necessary drugs, 
then we need this bill. When you commit acts like that, you give up your right, 
as far as I'm concerned, to say, 'Well, I want to die humanely.'"

The governor seems to disagree.

"We take human beings, we strap them into a chair, and then we flood their 
bodies with 1,800 volts of electricity, subjecting them to unspeakable pain 
until they die," McAuliffe said last week, according to news reports. "Virginia 
citizens do not want their commonwealth to revert back to a past when 
excessively inhumane punishments were committed in their name."

McAuliffe's language calls for the state to buy the drugs needed to put 
prisoners to sleep from special pharmacies. The names of those companies would 
be cloaked in secrecy, as they are in some other states.

"All I'm doing today is providing a humane way to carry out capital punishment 
here in Virginia so we have options," McAuliffe said. "If they do not take it 
up, I want to be clear, they will be ending capital punishment here in 
Virginia."

Now the question becomes, should the people's business be conducted covertly?

I can answer that: No, it shouldn't.

Lost in all this talk about how to kill the last men on Virginia's death row is 
the happy fact that there are just 7 men living there.

7.

According to an NBC news report, Virginia's death row was at its most crowded 
in 1995 when it housed 57 condemned prisoners.

Both executions and death sentences have dropped sharply since then.

The ultimate penalty is imposed on those who commit the most heinous crimes. 
Last year, for instance, Virginia executed 1 man: The loathsome Alfredo Prieto. 
He killed a young couple in Fairfax in 1988, raping 1 of the victims as she 
died. The Washington Post reported that he had killed as many as 7 others. 1 of 
those murders was of a 15-year-old in California while he was on the run after 
the double homicide in Fairfax.

I couldn't gin up any sympathy for this predator. Neither could the governor, 
who refused to block his execution in October.

Yet Prieto was the 1st man executed in the Old Dominion in more than 2 years.

Why all the empty cells on death row?

Many reasons. But one component is certainly 1995's "truth-in-sentencing" law 
pushed by then-Gov. George Allen.

The measure abolished parole and closed the revolving doors on Virginia's 
prisons. Suddenly a 10-year sentence meant the convict would spend most of a 
decade in prison. And a life sentence? It actually meant life in prison.

Given this ironclad alternative to execution, it's become rare for a Virginia 
jury - or judge - to send a convict to death row.

Before we get back to arguing about the death penalty, can't we all agree 
that's a good thing?

(source: Kerry Dougherty, The Virginian-Pilot)

**************************

Lethal drugs and back rooms


Drug companies are increasingly leery these days about providing the drug 
mixtures that states need to put people to death.

The reason: They don't want to be associated with this practice in any way. 
Many of these firms are from Europe, where capital punishment is frowned upon 
and there's pressure from governments and the people not to provide such drugs.

That's a big problem for the death penalty in Virginia.

Under current law, those about to be executed can choose between 2 methods of 
death. They have the option to die by either lethal injection or the electric 
chair.

Nearly everyone picks lethal injection. And if an inmate refuses to decide, the 
law provides that lethal injection will be used as the default method. But the 
law has no provision for what happens if there's no way to get the needed 
chemicals.

That's beginning to have real consequences.

Under the state's current protocols, the Department of Corrections doesn't have 
enough of the needed chemicals to put any more inmates to death, the governor's 
office says. The state now has seven people on death row, two of whom had been 
expected to be executed this year.

To get around this problem, lawmakers recently passed a bill allowing the 
electric chair to be used if the chemical mixtures needed for lethal injections 
are "not available."

We have previously said on these pages that we don't have a problem with this 
legislation per se. So long as capital punishment is the law of the land in 
Virginia, it only makes sense for the state to have another means at its 
disposal.

We further suggested that perhaps the problem isn't so much the method, but the 
idea of the state putting people to death at all. And we opined that it's time 
to at least consider abolishing capital punishment in Virginia.

9 days ago, Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced he would not sign the bill allowing 
the electric chair to be used as the alternative default method.

The electric chair, McAuliffe maintains, is backward and barbaric, and should 
not be forced upon anyone. If the state moved to that, he said, he could not in 
good conscience proceed with any more executions under his watch and would 
institute a "functional moratorium" on capital punishment for the rest of his 
term.

Instead, McAuliffe proposed an amendment that he says would save the death 
penalty in Virginia.

He proposes that the Department of Corrections mix its own lethal injection 
chemicals and hire a "pharmacy or outsourcing facility" to assist.

He wants to create a new exemption under the state's open records law to allow 
the state to keep secret the name of that outside pharmacy and its employees, 
as well as the names of the firms that provide the necessary chemicals.

In other words, because drug companies don't want to look bad for providing the 
drugs used in executions, let's make it a state secret.

Moreover, McAuliffe's substitute says that compounding drugs for executions 
"shall not constitute the practice of pharmacy" under state law. That would 
mean that the mixing would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the Board of 
Pharmacy, Board of Medicine, the Department of Health Professions or the Drug 
Control Act.

In other words, since this isn't "pharmacy," we don't need regulation. Let's 
just mix them in a cauldron in some back room at the prison.

That clearly flies in the face of the state's strong interest in ensuring that 
someone tied to a state gurney for execution should be injected with a properly 
concocted mixture.

According to a McAuliffe aide, the governor's proposed amendment is a noble act 
of leadership. It's a way forward for the death penalty that's "reasonable and 
responsible" and doesn't take Virginia back to a more gruesome time. At least 3 
other states similarly mix their own drug concoctions, the aide said.

Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas - who sponsored the original bill allowing 
electrocution to be used instead of lethal injections - has essentially signed 
on to McAuliffe's substitute. The amendment will be voted on Wednesday by both 
chambers of the General Assembly.

But lawmakers should reject the governor's ill-advised gambit.

The citizens of the commonwealth cannot abide any secrecy in the process by 
which the state executes its own citizens - including secrecy over where the 
chemicals come from. There's nothing graver than state-sanctioned death, and if 
the government can't be open about this, why bother to be open about anything?

We also clearly need full regulatory oversight over the creation of these 
lethal chemical cocktails. The chances of a botched execution as a result of 
incompetence or a bad mixture is simply too great to be cavalier here.

It's true that if McAuliffe's amendment doesn't pass on Wednesday, the state 
could be forced to put the death penalty on hold for now.

But that's a consequence worth paying to maintain openness and proper protocols 
in this very serious undertaking.

(source: Editorial, The Daily Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Rule targets prosecutors who don't reveal innocence evidence


As 4 men sat in prison for a murder they didn't commit, records show that state 
investigators sent proof of their innocence to a North Carolina prosecutor, but 
he never revealed it to the convicted men.

He didn't have to. Nothing in North Carolina's legal standards requires a 
prosecutor to turn over evidence of innocence after a conviction.

The 4, along with a 5th who also was convicted, were eventually cleared through 
the work of a commission that investigates innocence - but not until they'd 
served years in prison, including several years when a judge says the 
prosecutor and sheriff "did nothing to follow up on" another man's confession.

Some people now are calling for change.

"If prosecutors have an ethical duty to avoid wrongful convictions, then they 
should have some sort of ethical duty to remedy wrongful convictions," said 
attorney Brad Bannon, of the North Carolina Bar's ethics committee.

He wants North Carolina to adopt a rule recommended by the American Bar 
Association, requiring prosecutors to come forward if they find "new, credible 
and material evidence" that an innocent person is serving time. 13 states have 
adopted the post-conviction rule. North Carolina isn't among them.

The State Bar rejected the rule several years ago but recently appointed a 
committee to reconsider.

Advocates call the Buncombe County case a prime example of why North Carolina 
needs the rule. The innocent men say the district attorney at the time, Ron 
Moore, could have helped but didn't. Some of them had pleaded guilty to avoid 
the threat of the death penalty in a home invasion murder in 2000.

"There were so many things he could have done to make this right, and he 
continued not to do that," one of the men, Larry Williams Jr., 32, said in an 
Associated Press interview.

Another man confessed in 2003 and implicated an accomplice whose DNA was 
eventually found on masks and bandanas near the scene. A judge last year wrote 
that the sheriff's office and district attorney "did nothing to follow up on" 
the confession.

2 of the men were exonerated in 2011 through the work of the state's Innocence 
Inquiry Commission. A judge, citing the commission's work, declared 2 others 
innocent last year - along with a 5th co-defendant, sentenced in 2003, who 
served less time than the others - and the county agreed to pay the 5 a total 
of nearly $8 million.

The co-defendant sentenced in 2003 had been informed about the confession 
before he pleaded guilty but the others, already convicted, were left out in 
the cold.

"There is no evidence in the file that any action was taken in regards to this 
confession other than providing it in discovery" to the one man, the commission 
wrote in its brief.

"It's about as egregious a situation in post-conviction as I can imagine," said 
attorney David Rudolf, who represented one of the men in a lawsuit. "I can't 
imagine anything worse."

Moore, who lost a primary bid for re-election in 2014, didn't return messages 
from the AP.

But in a December 2014 deposition, Moore said he didn't believe the 2003 
confession.

" ... I felt like the right people had pled guilty or been charged at that 
point," he said.

He said he didn't learn of the DNA match - obtained in 2007 - until an 
Innocence Inquiry Commission investigator told him about it in 2011. However, 
the commission report states the SBI issued the report Oct. 1, 2007, and copied 
it to Moore.

"There is no indication in the SBI files, the sheriff's office files or the 
DA's files that any further action was taken" on the DNA match, the report 
says.

Robert Wilcoxson, who got a 15-year sentence in the case, said a prosecutor 
should turn over such evidence, even if it's not required.

"It's your professional duty to correct a wrong when you've got the power to do 
it," he said. "Your standard has got to be higher than the average person."

When the Conference of District Attorneys in North Carolina opposed the rule in 
2009, its members said it was too broad and burdensome.

People who think the rule makes common sense may be imagining cases with 
clear-cut evidence such as DNA, said Orange County District Attorney Jim 
Woodall. More typical are phone calls from people saying they heard from a 
friend that a witness says he or she lied on the stand, Woodall said.

"It can be very hard for a prosecutor, even the person who handled the case, to 
filter through," he said.

In addition to North Carolina, Michigan has rejected the model post-conviction 
rule, the ABA said. 2 states approved it; 11 approved a modified version.

An ex-federal prosecutor who drafted the rule, Bruce Green, said that in some 
states "prosecutors argue the world will come to an end if we have these 
provisions."

But there's no evidence it's caused harm, he said. "I think over time other 
states will do the same thing," he said.

While no one knows how often post-conviction evidence of innocence remains 
buried, advocates say any preventable cases are too many.

(source: Associated Press)






GEORGIA:

Condemned man's obit a rare glimpse of humanity on Georgia's death row


The man is dead now, but he looks like a boy in the prison photograph. He has 
on inmate garb -- a short-sleeved white shirt with a stark navy collar -- the 
uniform of death row.

The picture is from about 1999. Joshua Daniel Bishop was a young man back then 
-- 24 or so -- with cropped, brownish hair and a round face. A hint of a 
closed-mouth smile makes him look younger. He'd already been on Georgia's death 
row since February 1996, the month after he turned 21.

Bishop was there because in June 1994, after a night of drinking at the Hill 
Top Grill in Baldwin County, he and another man used a wooden closet rod to 
beat to death a 43-year-old carpenter named Leverette Morrison.

The slaying happened at a mobile home east of Milledgeville. Bishop's 
accomplice, sentenced to life in prison with a chance for parole, was 36 at the 
time. Bishop was 19. In February 1996, 5 months before the Atlanta Olympics, 
Bishop was sentenced to die.

Last month, on the last night of March, after 20 years and 48 days in prison, 
Bishop apologized to Morrison's kin and was executed at 9:27 p.m. He was 41.

As with most executions, news alerts from media outlets spread word that a 
convicted killer had been put to death. After that, the dead prisoner would 
typically be laid to rest with little if any ceremony. It is then, if they 
hadn't already, that they disappear for good.

'DICKENSIAN CHILDHOOD'

Bishop's story didn't end there.

It emerged again, on a regional level at least, 10 days later in the form of a 
full newspaper obituary. The obit was accompanied by that boyish photo of him 
with a half smile.

An obituary is an all-but-unheard-of rarity for any prisoner, much less one 
who'd faced lethal injection.

But Bishop's, an 8-paragraph recap of his life, was printed in the local 
section of last Sunday's Telegraph -- next to obits for an Army veteran who 
died at 81 and a Baptist church secretary who lived to 94.

It was written by 1 of his lawyers, who as fate would have it had been a 
6th-grade classmate of his at Tinsley Elementary School in Macon in the late 
1980s.

The obituary notes Bishop's "Dickensian childhood." It mentions how as a boy he 
scrounged for food, for green tomatoes to fry -- ones that had been "left out 
for trash by families who had more than they needed."

The write-up also tells of Bishop's drug use and drinking and the "horrible 
mistakes" they spawned: "His addiction, and what came of it, cost him his life, 
and he wanted youth growing up in similar circumstances to learn from his 
story."

It goes on to mention how he "grew up under bridges in Milledgeville" and how 
in prison he was baptized as a Catholic and learned "no one is beyond the reach 
of forgiveness."

It further notes how Bishop had become an accomplished artist and, perhaps most 
poignantly, it recalls his final moments:

"In his last hours, Josh comforted his friends, prayed with us, reminded us to 
take care of one another, and sang 'Amazing Grace.' He hoped that his death 
would 'take away from the pain and add to the peace' of those he had hurt. His 
continued concern for the suffering of others while he faced the ultimate 
penalty showed that the evil the State wanted to stamp out was not there, and 
all that was lost was the potential of a redeemed soul to do good. If there is 
justice in heaven, if not on earth, he is painting with Rembrandt and humming 
along with Merle Haggard."

'A LOT OF HOPE'

Attorney Sarah Gerwig-Moore, the obit's author, said, "I wrote it while I was 
crying as a way to process my grief."

It was, she added, the least she could do to for a man who was not just a 
client, but someone who'd long been a friend.

"That's what we do for people we love. We share remembrances of them," 
Gerwig-Moore said. "I think people just thought I was just some liberal tilting 
at a windmill, and I am. But this is the most important work I've ever done."

Gerwig-Moore had never seen an obituary for an executed killer. While she and 
Bishop discussed at length the plans for his funeral arrangements, he did not 
know she would pen an obituary for him.

"He did give me permission to tell his story in ways that would be helpful," 
Gerwig-Moore said, "especially to kids who were in trouble."

When one of Bishop's lawyers moved to Arizona four years ago, Gerwig-Moore, a 
professor at Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law, joined 
Bishop's legal team and took up the fight to save his life.

She had visited Bishop on death row while she was in law school in the late 
1990s. They kept in touch.

"I had a lot of hope," she said the other day. "I really let myself hope."

'HE WASN'T FAKE'

On his last day, Bishop asked that people, in his name, contribute to "help the 
kids at the Methodist home" in Macon, where he had lived for a while as a boy.

On occasion as a child, his mother's boyfriend forced him to sleep beneath 
their trailer.

For a time, Bishop lived with his mother under a bridge at the Oconee River in 
Milledgeville.

"It was kind of like camping," Bishop once told Gerwig-Moore. "I could go 
fishing with my brother."

The cruelties of his childhood had, in later life, become fond memories -- 
among them the thrown-out green tomatoes he'd hunted.

"They really did go wander around and see what was left out at the trash," 
Gerwig-Moore said. "But he didn't like to talk about the bad things that had 
happened to him, because he didn't ever want to be seen as whining about it."

Bishop once told Gerwig-Moore, "I'd give anything to push a lawn mower again."

Another time he mentioned with pride that he had earned what he considered a 
plum prison job: cleaning death row showers.

When the prison cut back on art supplies, he made paints out of floor wax and 
ink from writing pens. He also took up reading.

"'Anne Frank' blowed my mind," Bishop once told some of Gerwig-Moore's law 
students who'd gone to visit.

"He wasn't fake about it," she said, "and he's not a saint. I'm sure he had 
dark times too, but he was so grateful and positive despite what he was living 
in."

3 times a year, prisoners are allowed to receive care packages. A friend sent 
Bishop one in March and in it included something that, for whatever reason, 
Bishop hung on to. Before his execution, he willed the item to another friend's 
daughter: a chocolate candy bar.

"He wanted to be prepared," Gerwig-Moore said. "And he was -- much more 
prepared than the rest of us were."

Bishop was buried Tuesday near an oak tree beside a stream at a monastery 
outside Conyers. He had visited the place on a grade-school field trip years 
ago.

"It was one of the best days of his life," Gerwig-Moore said, "because 30 years 
later he could still remember what the bread tasted like and the fresh honey."

(source: macon.com)