[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., S.C., GA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 27



TEXAS----Michigan female may face death penalty

Muskegon woman could face death penalty if convicted of 2 Texas murders



A Muskegon woman faces the death penalty if convicted of 2 murders in Texas for 
which her boyfriend, a mixed-martial arts fighter, also is charged.

Maya Renee Maxwell, 26, has been indicted by a grand jury in Bell County, 
Texas, for capital murder of multiple persons and tampering with physical 
evidence, which was the car belonging to 1 of the victims.

She is charged in connection with the murders of Jenna Scott and Michael 
Swearingin, who investigators believe were killed in Killeen, Texas, and buried 
in Oklahoma, according to arrest warrant affidavits.

Cedric Joseph Marks, 44, also has been indicted for capital murder of multiple 
persons in the deaths of Scott, 28, and Swearingen, 32. It’s alleged that the 2 
were killed Jan. 3, 2019, and were reported missing Jan. 4, 2019, according to 
arrest affidavits obtained by MLive/Muskegon Chronicle.

Marks’ wife, Ginell McDonough of Muskegon, has been charged in Muskegon County 
District Court with harboring fugitives – Marks and Maxwell -- and lying to 
investigators.

Women charged with destroying evidence, harboring Texas burglary suspect

2 women appeared in Muskegon County district court Wednesday on charges of 
obstructing justice, tampering with evidence and harboring a fugitive who is 
believed to be the ex-boyfriend of a missing Texas woman.

Indictments against Maxwell and Marks say they caused Swearingin’s death by 
“strangulation” and “asphyxiation” and also killed Scott by “homicidal 
violence” at about the same time. Scott and Marks reportedly were in a prior 
dating relationship.

An affidavit for Marks’ arrest indicates that Maxwell told detectives that 
Scott and Swearingin were killed by Marks at a home in Killeen to which they 
had been taken, on Jan. 3. Maxwell told police she heard sounds of struggles 
after Marks entered separate rooms where Swearingin and Scott were “located,” 
the affidavit states. When he left each of the rooms, the victims were 
deceased, the affidavit states.

Maxwell told detectives that the bodies of Scott and Swearingin were buried in 
Oklahoma, and police later located them at the spot she had described, the 
affidavit says.

“Maxwell also admitted that she was present before and after the deaths of 
Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin and was present at the transport and burial 
of the bodies,” the affidavit states.

Maxwell’s arrest affidavit states that Swearingen and Scott were reported 
missing Jan. 4 and were last seen at Swearingin’s home. The next day, 
Swearingin’s car was found in Austin, Texas, and the investigation led to 
Maxwell who admitted she was involved with the transport of the vehicle to 
conceal it from law enforcement, according to her arrest affidavit.

Maxwell told police Marks also was involved in moving Swearingin’s car, and he 
too is charged with tampering with physical evidence, affidavits and grand jury 
indictments show.

Marks escaped on Feb. 3 from a private prisoner transport van that was taking 
him from Kent County to face double-murder charges in Texas. He escaped when 
the van stopped at a McDonald’s restaurant in Conroe, Texas, and was found nine 
hours later hiding in a trash can.

Cedric Joseph Marks, a suspect in 3 murders, was found 9 hours after he escaped 
a private transport van.

It’s alleged that McDonough, 37, allowed Marks and Maxwell to stay with her 
from Jan. 5-8 after they returned from Texas. Marks also was at McDonough’s 
home before he left with Maxwell on Jan. 1 for Texas, Muskegon County 
Prosecutor’s Chief Trial Attorney Matt Roberts said earlier.

Investigators found a suitcase with Marks’ papers and an assault rifle 
“concealed” at McDonough’s U.S. Army Reserve Office in Muskegon, Roberts said. 
McDonough is a sergeant with the U.S. Army, according to her attorney.

Marks and Maxwell were arrested Jan. 8 in Grandville.

A mixed martial arts fighter who used the nickname “Spiderman,” Marks 
reportedly trained at a Muskegon area gym and also taught self-defense classes 
to women.

(source: mlive.com)

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

James Byrd’s Killer Didn’t Deserve the Death Penalty



Killing is wrong. Killing Black people because they are Black is even more 
wrong. Lynching Black people is exponentially wrong. So why was I opposed to 
the state-imposed killing of John William King, the despicable murderer of 
James Byrd, Jr.? I happen to think that there are worse things that can happen 
to you than death. The now 44-year old King could have gotten a sentence of 
life in prison and lived miserably there for the rest of his life. In some 
ways, death is salvation for him. Imagine being relatively healthy with nothing 
to look forward to? Just sitting there, in jail, surrounded by the Black people 
your White supremacist self purports to hate. That might be torture worse than 
death.

James Byrd, Jr. was dragged for almost three miles near Jasper, Texas in 1998. 
John William King and two other men (one whose death penalty sentence was 
carried out in 2011, another who was sentenced to life in prison) were found 
guilty one of the most horrific hate crimes in modern US history (Black men 
were also burned alive in the heyday of lynching). Mr. Byrd’s family was 
present at the execution in Huntsville, Texas. Byrd’s sister, Clara Taylor, 
noted that the murderer, who maintained his innocence, showed no remorse when 
he was convicted, and showed none when he was executed. He never acknowledged, 
and never looked at James Byrd, Jr.’s family.

Does a man whose body sported disgusting tattoos, including, according to one 
news source, “one of a Black man with a noose around his neck hanging from a 
tree” deserve the death penalty? I say no. Keep that filth alive and keep him 
miserable. His execution creates a martyr for White supremacists. Had he lived 
he would have evolved into nothing more than pitiful irrelevance. The death 
penalty has been abolished in 20 states, with moratoriums on executions in 
other states, most recently in California, thanks to Governor Gavin Newsome. It 
ought to be abolished nationally.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center 
(https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf), nearly 1500 people had 
their death sentences carried out between 1976 and now. Despite the fact that 
African Americans are just 13 percent of the nation’s population, we were more 
than a third of those executed after receiving a death sentence. People who 
killed White people were far more likely to get the death penalty than people 
who kill Black people. There are racial biases replete in the application of 
the death penalty, with numerous studies supporting the many ways the death 
penalty is unfairly awarded. According to the Death Penalty Information, as an 
example, Washington state jurors were “three times as likely to recommend a 
death sentence for a Black defendant than a White one.” In Louisiana, someone 
who killed a White person was nearly twice as likely to get the death penalty 
as one who killed a Black person. The death penalty is applied through a racial 
lens – based on the race of the criminal and the race of the victim.

>From that perspective, the man who murdered James Byrd, Jr. committed a crime 
so egregious that jurors acted contrary to the statistics, voting to apply the 
death penalty to an avowed racist White man who participated in the brutal 
murder of a Black man. But I am frequently reminded of the 1920 Tulsa, Oklahoma 
lynching of Ray Belton, an 18-year old White man who shot a taxi driver. Though 
Belton confessed to his crime and said it was “an accident,” he was denied the 
due process of a trial and conviction. After his lynching, a Black newspaper 
editor opined that if a White person could be lynched, so could a Black person. 
A year later, the attempted lynching of the Black shoeshine “boy” Dick Rowland 
because of the false accusation that he assaulted the White elevator operator 
Sarah Page, was the spark that led economically envious Whites to destroy the 
Greenwood (Black Wall Street) section of Tulsa.

This walk down history lane is extremely relevant to the present. If we could 
execute the White murderer of James Byrd, Jr. (I try not to mention the names 
of devils more than is necessary), we can execute a Black person accused of 
something, whether they did it or not. Applying the death penalty erodes our 
humanity, whether the accused is guilty or not.

I think it is far more appropriate to let a reprobate like James Byrd Jr.’s 
killer simmer in his repugnance. If he had lived his life in prison, with no 
hope, no help, no possibilities, that would have been a greater punishment than 
death. While I respect the Byrd family and ache with them at the gruesome 
murder of James Byrd Jr, I would prefer a punishment for racist murderers that 
is both humane and inhumane. We don’t execute them because we don’t stoop, as a 
society, to the level of committing a crime we abhor. We ignore them and 
exacerbate their misery be reminding them that they have no hope of release.

The death penalty is inhumane. It should be abolished.

(source: Commentary; Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist----afro.com)

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

‘Cold Justice’ prosecutor Kelly Siegler faces possible contempt in Harris 
County death penalty case, federal judge warns



A federal judge is threatening to hold high-profile attorney and former Harris 
County prosecutor Kelly Siegler in contempt of court for successfully evading a 
subpoena to testify in a death row inmate’s appeal of his conviction.

Officials tried 8 times over 2 weeks in late March and early April to deliver 
paperwork ordering Siegler to appear, according to court documents. U.S. 
District Judge Keith P. Ellison in Houston said Thursday he might sanction her 
if she fails to accept his court order mandating her presence at a court 
hearing next week for Ronald Jeffrey Prible, a death row inmate convicted of 
killing a family of 5.

(source: Gabrielle Banks covers federal court for the Houston Chronicle. She 
has been a criminal justice and legal affairs reporter for nearly 2 decades)








PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

Man gets death for teen's rape, murder, dismemberment



A jury outside Philadelphia has sentenced a man to die for raping, strangling 
and dismembering his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter.

46-year-old Jacob Sullivan had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other 
offenses for killing Grace Packer in 2016 as part of a rape-murder fantasy he 
shared with the teen's mother.

Jurors decided Thursday that Sullivan should get the death penalty. The jury 
deliberated over parts of 3 days before making its decision.

Prosecutors had asked the panel to send Sullivan to death row, saying his 
victim's life "ended in a house of horrors."

Pennsylvania has a moratorium on the death penalty, but juries can still impose 
the sentence.

Grace Packer's mother, Sara Packer, is due to plead guilty for her role in the 
gruesome plot. In a plea deal with prosecutors, she'll be sentenced to life 
without parole.

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

Death sentence upheld in Pennsylvania troopers' ambush



Pennsylvania's highest court upheld the death sentence and conviction on Friday 
of a sniper who killed a state trooper and wounded another in a nighttime 
ambush outside their barracks in a heavily wooded area.

The state Supreme Court's decision upholds lower court decisions in the case of 
Eric Frein, who was convicted in the 2014 murder of Cpl. Bryon Dickson II 
outside the Blooming Grove barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania. Another 
trooper, Alex Douglass, was badly wounded.

In a 45-page opinion supported by 5 of the court's 7 justices, Justice Debra 
Todd wrote that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support a 
first-degree murder conviction and death penalty.

The court also rejected several challenges by Frein's lawyers, including one in 
which they contended that the trial judge violated Frein's right to remain 
silent and right to a lawyer by allowing the jury to see his post-arrest 
videotaped interview with police.

After the ambush, Frein led authorities on a 48-day manhunt through the rugged 
Pocono Mountains before U.S. marshals caught him at an abandoned airplane 
hangar. The area was briefly transformed, with heavily armed federal agents and 
police from several states patrolling streets, combing forests and cordoning 
off neighborhoods

Frein was convicted in 2017. He is on death row, but the most recent execution 
in Pennsylvania was nearly 2 decades ago. The state's current Democratic 
governor has said he will grant a reprieve each time an execution is scheduled 
until the Legislature addresses problems identified in a report last year. Gov. 
Tom Wolf has called the system "ineffective, unjust and expensive."

(source for both: Associated Press)








NORTH CAROLINA:

NC man convicted of killing, cutting woman into pieces gets sentenced to death



David Godwin, convicted in the murder of Wendy Tamagne, was sentenced to death 
on Tuesday in the Carteret County Superior Court.

District Attorney Scott Thomas announced the death penalty sentence of Godwin, 
28, of Newport, following a 4-week trial.

On April 12, a jury found Godwin guilty of first-degree murder by premeditation 
and deliberation, by lying in wait, and by way of felony murder during the 
commission of an armed robbery, common law robbery, and felony dismembering of 
human remains in the July 4, 2016 death of Tamagne, 38, of Morehead City.

On Tuesday, the same jury issued a recommendation that Godwin be sentenced to 
death, which presiding Resident Superior Court Judge Joshua W. Willey, Jr. then 
imposed.

District Attorney Thomas also extended his condolences again to the Tamagne 
family and added his thoughts: “We committed to the family of Wendy that we 
would seek justice in her murder. In this case, we decided to seek the death 
penalty due to the aggravating factors present. Every murder is cruel by its 
very nature, but the death, in this case, was especially heinous, atrocious, 
and cruel. Our prayers continue to be with Wendy’s family and friends as they 
move forward after this first-degree murder conviction and sentence.”

The trial began on March 25, 2019, with a week-long jury selection process to 
seat the 12 jurors and three alternate jurors who heard the evidence in the 
case.

On April 1, the State called 21 witnesses over the course of more than four 
days to present evidence in the case which showed that on the evening of July 
5, 2016, Tamagne’s mother went to her daughter’s apartment off Bridges Street 
in Morehead City after sending numerous text messages to which her daughter 
never responded.

After knocking on the door of the apartment and not receiving a response, she 
called the police to report her missing.

When Morehead City Police Officers Kenny Mannon and Lori Pittman responded, 
they were let into the apartment by a maintenance worker where they found a 
bloody knife on the coffee table in the living room and Tamagne’s cat dead 
inside of a trash can in the kitchen downstairs and sheets covered in blood 
inside the upstairs master bedroom.

Morehead City Police Detectives Lyle Evans and Nat Festerman responded and 
Detective Evans located Tamagne’s body, which had been cut into pieces and 
concealed inside of trash bags inside an extra bedroom that was being used for 
storage.

An investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation revealed 
that Godwin was the last person known to have been with Tamagne when the two of 
them left a bar together on July 3, 2016, after 11:00 p.m. and went back to 
Tamagne’s apartment.

Phone records showed the last activity from Tamagne’s phone occurred at 3:47 
a.m. before the phone was disabled sometime prior to 8:38 a.m. on July 4, 2016.

SBI Agents Ransom Jones and Dean Saunders testified that a hacksaw found in the 
apartment was traced back to Lowe’s Home Improvement in Morehead City, where 
Godwin was seen making the purchase on surveillance video at 10:55 a.m.

Further investigation revealed that Godwin drove Tamagne’s pickup truck back to 
her apartment after purchasing the hacksaw and left again to purchase the trash 
bags used to conceal the body from CVS Pharmacy in Morehead City at 
approximately 12:17 p.m.

Godwin left Tamagne’s apartment for the final time in the early afternoon of 
July 4, making brief stops at his home in Newport and at a grocery store before 
driving Tamagne’s truck to Clayton before setting off on foot to a bus station 
in Raleigh where he used a false name to purchase one-way ticket to Warrenton, 
Oregon.

Investigators found Tamagne’s truck in the parking lot of a gas station in 
Clayton with its door unlocked, a window rolled down, and the keys on top of 
the driver’s seat.

The receipt for the hacksaw purchased from Lowe’s was located in the cupholder.

On July 9, 2016, Godwin turned himself in to the Warrenton Police Department in 
Oregon.

SBI ASAC Patrick Raynor, SA Jones, and Detective Festerman traveled to Oregon 
to return Godwin to North Carolina.

An autopsy of Tamagne’s body revealed the cause of death to be asphyxiation, a 
stab wound near the left ear, and a cutting wound across the trachea.

There were no defensive wounds on her body.

The jury deliberated for approximately 80 minutes and returned its guilty 
verdicts.

The sentencing phase of the trial began on April 16.

The State alleged that the aggravating factors necessary for a finding of the 
death penalty were that:

The murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of 
an armed robbery

The murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of 
dismemberment of human remains

The murder was committed for pecuniary gain

The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.

The defense presented evidence in mitigation of the sentence, all of which the 
jury considered.

(source: WNCT news)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

SC may use firing squad as alternative death penalty method



South Carolina lawmakers are considering legislation that would add firing 
squads as an additional method of execution to state law for murders sentenced 
to death.

The House Criminal Laws subcommittee Thursday approved a Senate proposal that 
also changes the default execution method in the state to the electric chair.

South Carolina prison officials say they currently don't have the drugs for 
lethal injection and don't know when they will be able to obtain them.

Don Zelenka, who handles death penalty appeals for South Carolina, says there 
are currently 29 men on South Carolina death row.

The bill has passed the Senate and if the House Judiciary Committee approves 
the proposal, it could pass the House before the Legislature adjourns May 9.

South Carolina's last execution was May 2011.

(source: Associated Press)








GEORGIA:

Death penalty still sought after Marietta man’s reindictment on murder, rape 
charges



The case involving a Cobb County man accused of raping and killing his 
stepdaughter and burning down their house afterward to cover up the crime will 
remain a death penalty case following the reindictment of the defendant.

Dafareya Hunter, 39, was arrested Aug. 26, 2016, in Florida in connection to 
the July 23, 2016, fire at a home on Shadowridge Drive, located southwest of 
Marietta near the intersection of Powder Springs and Hurt roads.

The body of a 14-year-old girl was found in one of the bedrooms of the house 
after the fire had been extinguished, later identified by police as Ana Then, 
Hunter’s stepdaughter. Her death was quickly ruled a homicide.

Hunter was indicted on Nov. 3, 2016, on charges of malice murder, 4 counts of 
felony murder, aggravated assault, rape, 1st degree cruelty to children, 
aggravated child molestation, f1st degree arson and criminal attempt to commit 
a felony, according to his indictment.

His case was reindicted last week to limit the number of issues on appeal, said 
Kim Isaza, spokesperson for the Cobb District Attorney’s office. All charges 
remain the same.

In December 2016, it was announced that the case was to be the first time Vic 
Reynolds, then Cobb County’s district attorney, planned to seek the death 
penalty since assuming the position in 2012. But Isaza said the death penalty 
will still be sought following the reindictment and Reynolds’ recent departure 
from the county.

Reynolds in February became director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. 
Acting Cobb District Attorney John Melvin, formerly an assistant district 
attorney, will serve as Reynolds' chief of staff once Gov. Brian Kemp appoints 
a new Cobb County district attorney. Melvin officially became acting Cobb 
district attorney after Reynolds took over at the GBI.

Reynolds in 2016 said he hoped to have the case resolved in the 2018 calendar 
year, but cautioned that it may take longer. And it has, due to a number of 
pretrial motions.

One effort from Hunter’s attorneys sought to close pre-trial hearings to news 
cameras and photographers. Following a July 2017 hearing on the matter, 
Superior Court Judge Lark Ingram that September ruled that the media would be 
allowed to cover the proceedings.

Reynolds previously said that for a DA to seek the death penalty, state law 
requires a case to have at least one “aggravating factor,” an aspect of the 
case that raises it to a level where capital punishment could be considered. 
Reynolds said his policy was to require at least 2 such aggravating factors — 
his notice of intent to seek the death penalty listed eight.

One of the circumstances listed in the notice that contributed to the decision 
is that “the offenses of murder and rape were outrageously, wantonly, vile, 
horrible and inhuman in that they involved torture and depravity of mind and an 
aggravated battery to the victim.”

According to court documents, Hunter allegedly raped Then, stabbed her multiple 
times with a knife and poured gasoline on her body before starting the fire. 
Hunter’s stepson was sleeping in the house, which the family was renting, when 
it caught fire but escaped through a window with minor injuries.

Hunter remained in custody Friday in the Cobb Adult Detention Center, jail 
records show.

The most recent Cobb case in which the death penalty was handed down involved 
the 2004 drug-related killings of 2 people by Joshua Drucker. Drucker was 
sentenced in 2011.

Following several years of effort to receive a new trial, Drucker was granted 
one in November of last year in exchange for his agreement to voluntarily enter 
a guilty plea and accept the imposition of 2 life sentences without the 
possibility of parole, according to court documents. Drucker also agreed to not 
appeal the convictions nor any form of pardon or clemency.

Drucker is incarcerated at Hays State Prison in Chattooga County, according to 
Georgia Department of Corrections records.

(source: Marietta Daiy Journal)

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

Attorneys try to intervene as woman in capital trial mounts no defense



After seeing their former client remain silent throughout her death penalty 
trial, doing nothing to defend herself as she acts as her own lawyer, 2 capital 
public defenders are trying to intervene.

In a motion filed Thursday, defenders Brad Gardner and Emily Gilbert 
acknowledged that the right to self-representation is permitted during the 
guilt-innocence phase of a trial. But it doesn’t necessarily extend to the 
sentencing phase of a death penalty trial, they said.

They are asking Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge George Hutchinson to 
reappoint them as Tiffany Moss’ attorneys if the jury finds her guilty of 
murder and finds the case eligible for a death sentence. That way, they could 
represent her during the penalty phase, expected sometime next week.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Consitution)








ALABAMA:

7 things I learned from former death row inmate Anthony Hinton----Anthony Ray 
Hinton spent nearly 30 years on death row for 2 Birmingham murders he didn't 
commit.



Yesterday, Anthony Ray Hinton spoke to a crowded house at the North Avondale 
Library. Everyone came to hear the man whose memoir Oprah chose—not only for 
her Summer 2018 book club, but for her next movie. Who is Anthony Ray Hinton 
and what is his story?

Anthony Ray Hinton is man who seems like a neighbor, an uncle, a friend: 
middle-aged African-American, graying beard, warm smile, and a gentle voice. If 
you saw him walking down the street wearing his “The Sun Does Shine” t-shirt, 
you’d have no idea he spent almost 30 years on death row for two Birmingham 
murders he didn’t commit.

In 1985, while he was out cutting the grass for his Mom, he was arrested and 
charged with two counts of capital murder. Investigators said an old Smith and 
Wesson at his mother’s home—that hadn’t been fired for years—matched the 
bullets used in the crimes.

Hinton had a long and winding road during the years he lived in a 5×7 
windowless cell, awaiting execution which could have arrived any day. Finally, 
after years of litigation, the US Supreme Court—in a unanimous 
decision—reversed the conviction.

Though a new trial would have been possible after this, it never happened. 
Instead, the State of Alabama dismissed charges against Hinton after firearms 
experts tested evidence and confirmed that bullets from the crime scene didn’t 
match the weapon from Hinton’s mother’s home.

Now, Hinton works with the Montgomery, Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative 
and travels the world to share his story and educate people about prison reform 
and the importance of education and voting.

Top takeaways from Anthony Ray Hinton’s talk

While I’d heard of Hinton from a friend who lives in London, I wasn’t sure what 
to expect. After listening to his deeply moving story, I came away with these 
key takeaways for things we can all do to move toward a world where other 
people don’t suffer the same fate Mr. Hinton did.

1. Support education for everyone

Anthony Ray Hinton had a strong message for a group of young men from Hayes K-8 
who came to hear his talk.

According to Hinton, 5 of the 200 men on death row had graduated high school. 
The others had dropped out when they were in 7th or 8th grade because “nobody 
cared.” Here are some ways to make a difference in a young person’s life:

Birmingham Education Foundation.

Desert Island Supply Company.

Be a mentor. You can do this through organizations like Big Brothers Big 
Sisters or many other programs throughout Birmingham. Many religious 
organizations sponsor mentoring programs.

2. Vote. Get other people out to vote.

According to Anthony Ray Hinton, the only way the State of Alabama, or 
anywhere, will get new judges, attorney generals, or other public officials, is 
through voting.

Changing laws and systems requires legislators, judges, district attorneys, and 
other elected officials who care—about all types of people, and about justice. 
Find out when elections are happening. Learn about who’s running and what they 
stand for. Vote. Then help others get out to vote.

While people tend to pay the most attention to Presidential elections, these 
smaller, local elections have a much bigger impact on people’s lives than most 
people realize.

3. Read Anthony Ray Hinton’s memoir “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and 
Freedom on Death Row”

Everyone I’ve talked to who’s read this book said they loved it. Oprah loved it 
so much she’s making a movie about it.

The Birmingham Public Library has several copies available in different 
formats. Of course Amazon has it, as do many other bookstores.

4. Learn more about prisons in Alabama

Julia Tutwiler is a maximum security women's prison in Wetumpka, Alabama. 
Anthony Ray Hinton said it's important for people to learn about the reality of 
Alabama's prisons.

At one point, Mr. Hinton had the opportunity to speak to a group of students 
from Hayes K-8. He suggested that every young person should spend a month at 
Holman. Then they would know to focus on their education, making a plan for 
their life, and staying on the right path. He made it clear that prison is 
nothing like the glamorized accounts you see on tv or in the movies.

If you want to learn more about Atmore, Alabama’s notorious Holman Correctional 
Facility—without spending a month there—you can watch clips from an MSNBC 
series called “Lockup.”

5. Support programs that help former prisoners transition into everyday life

Although many such programs exist in the Birmingham area, Mr. Hinton felt lost 
after his release from prison. He is grateful to his good friend Lester and his 
wife. They let him live with them in their home until he was ready to be out on 
their own.

Hinton said there programs need that reach out to people who are being released 
from prison: “would you like some clothes? Would you like a meal? Would you 
like to see a psychologist?”

People also need practical help with adjusting to civilian life—finding 
housing, employment, transportation, medical and dental help, and so on.

If you’d like to get involved in a local “ex-offender programs” (which may be 
working with innocent people as well), here are a few:

Lovelady is not just a thrift store. The Lovelady Center supports women who are 
leaving Tutwiler Prison.

The Offender Alumni Association works to to create a network of former 
offenders who inspire each other to reduce recidivism, to establish healthy 
relationships in their communities, and to provide opportunities for economic, 
social, and civic empowerment. There are many more of these types of re-entry 
programs and services, and all of them need people to get involved.

6. Learn more about the Equal Justice Initiative, where Anthony Ray Hinton now 
works

Bryan Stevenson moved to Alabama to start the Equal Justice Initiative. He was 
Anthony Ray Hinton's attorney. Now they work together.

If you’ve heard of the National Lynching Museum, which opened a year ago in 
Montgomery, you’ve heard of the Equal Justice Initiative.

Founded by Hinton’s former attorney and current employer Bryan Stevenson, the 
Equal Justice Initiative is advocating for “a statewide indigent defender 
system and adequate compensation for appointed attorneys … in Alabama. Until 
poor defendants and inmates have quality legal representation at all stages of 
the capital process, the crisis of counsel in the state will hinder the ability 
of the criminal justice system to yield fair and just results [in death penalty 
cases].”

If you’d like to be part of helping to make sure others don’t suffer the same 
fate as Mr. Hinton, visit Equal Justice Initiative to learn more about concrete 
steps they recommend.

7. Read MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made the argument from a Birmingham jail that 
"injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an 
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever 
affects one directly, affects all indirectly.----Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 
Letter from Birmingham City Jail

Floyd Council, Executive Director of the Birmingham Public Library concluded 
the event by encouraging everyone to read Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham 
City Jail, also known as “The Negro is Your Brother.”

If you missed yesterday’s event and would like to watch, CBS42 livestreamed it.

There’s a reason audiences around the world are coming out to hear Anthony Ray 
Hinton’s story. He’s a powerful storyteller with a strong message. There’s a 
lot for all of us to learn from what happened to him, how he handled it, and 
what he learned along the way. And, there are many ways any of us can get 
involved in creating a more just world for everyone, starting right here in 
Birmingham.

(source: bhamnow.com)