Gov. Kasich: “Amazing Grace” starts with you

Ronald Phillips

Recently, at the Community Church in Woodland Hills, California, a woman sang “Amazing Grace.” She sang slow with sweet, lilting sorrow, letting each dolorous, weighty note saturate the space with sound. She sang right in front of the same pulpit where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once preached, on his birthday, on January 15, 1961.

Invited by Rev. Frank Doty, a progressive and persistent white pastor who refused to take “no” for an answer, Dr. King told the assembled congregation over a half-century ago: “Love yourself, if that means rational and healthy interest. You are commanded to do that. That is the length of life. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That is the breadth of life.”

From that hallowed ground, before she sang, the woman told the story of John Newton, the slave trafficker and improbable author of “Amazing Grace”; she explained, with care, how, because of Newton’s salvation, the song’s lyrics are a powerful testimony that forgiveness and redemption are always possible. Even for the worst sinners. Even for a slave trader – a man who by his own admission was responsible for murder, torture, and the subjugation of many innocent souls.

“Amazing Grace” is not just as a song, she explained, it’s a philosophy for life; together with the Golden Rule and other aphorisms, it’s a gold standard for how we should treat ourselves and others. It affirms, as Sister Helen Prejean is credited with saying, that “every human being is worth more than the worst thing they’ve ever done.” As a moral code or credo, “amazing grace” asserts that no matter a person’s sin, crime, or wrongdoing, that there is goodness inside each one of us – a goodness that should never be killed.

Elucidating the concept of amazing grace in relation to the nation’s next looming execution — the lethal injection of Ronald Phillips, scheduled for July 26 in Ohio — writer Lisa Murtha convincingly argues, “[t]his killer turned prison chaplain shows what’s wrong with the death penalty.” Conceding that Phillips’ crime, the rape and beating death of his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter, Sheila Marie Evans, was “horrendous,” Murtha nonetheless argues that Phillips should be spared.

Among the good reasons Murtha advances for mercy are: the offense occurred “24 years ago when Mr. Phillips was 19 years old”; “Ron Phillips at 43 years old is a very different man from the disturbed young adult who killed Sheila Marie in 1993”; “Killing Ron Phillips will achieve a measure of vengeance, but it will not undo any of the terrible things he did”; “killing him releases him from the burden of thinking every single day about the horrendous crimes”; and, “Today, Ron Phillips is an unofficial chaplain at Ohio’s Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He attends multiple church services each week and has spent time with other inmates discussing the Bible readings and life’s challenges.”

Rhetorically, Murtha asks: “How many more people like Ron Phillips – searching for salvation, open to change – fill our country’s prisons? How many inmates could Mr. Phillips serve and bring closer to God if only he could live among them?” Ultimately, unless Phillips wins an unlikely reprieve in court, it’ll be Ohio Governor, John Kasich — and not a higher power, as it should be in a free and just country — who’ll be the final arbiter of Murtha’s latter question.

Governor Kasich can, and he should, use his unnatural, godly power of clemency to exercise “amazing grace” — as Murtha and a growing cacophony of diverse voices have called for — and spare Phillips. He should exercise “amazing grace” like the dad in Philadelphia who recently forgave his daughter’s killer, inscribing a book of poetry to him. It’s the same “amazing grace” called for by author and activist Shane Claiborne in his book, Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us. And, it’s the same “amazing grace” former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson advocates for in a civilized and modern world (“I carried out the death penalty as governor. I hope others put it to rest.”). Put most simply, and at its base, Governor Kasich should show “amazing grace” like that which the once “lost” former slave trafficker John Newton “found” in God.

Or, alternatively, Kasich can let Phillips’ execution go forward, just like Kelly Gissendaner’s in September of 2015; Gissendaner was the first woman executed in Georgia in seventy years. Like Phillips is set to be, Gissendaner was executed long after her crime, she sought salvation during her incarceration and, she did good works, ministering to other inmates behind bars; emotionally and tearfully, Gissendaner sang “Amazing Grace” as she was being executed — just as others have before her — in the dastardly annals of death penalty history. According to Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church in Springfield, Ohio, if Kasich allows this to happen to Phillips, he will have “turn[ed] his back on Christ.”

Time will soon tell if Governor Kasich will make the right decision, and grant clemency. What’s certain is, without “amazing grace,” Ronald Phillips’ time will almost surely run out.

Source: Los Angeles Post-Examiner, Stephen Cooper, July 20, 2017. Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. His twitter is: @SteveCooperEsq.

RESUMPTION OF EXECUTIONS LOOMS IN OHIO

Ronald Phillips is scheduled to be executed in Ohio on 26 July. He was sentenced to death in 1993 for a murder committed earlier that year when he was 19 years old. He is now 43. This would be the first execution in Ohio in 3 1/2 years.

Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:

Calling on the governor to stop the execution of Ronald Phillips and to commute his death sentence;
In your own words, urging the governor not to allow executions to resume in Ohio;
Explaining that you are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of violent crime or its consequences.

Friendly reminder: If you send an email, please create your own instead of forwarding this one!

Contact this official by 26 July 2017:

Governor John Kasich
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6117
USA

Fax: +1 614 466 9354
Email (via website): http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Contact/ContacttheGovernor.aspx
Twitter: @JohnKasich

Salutation: Dear Governor

Source: Amnesty International USA, July 2017

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

Comments

Florida | Jury recommends death sentence for Jeffrey Crum in killing of 12-year-old girl

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week. Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

Hanging of Osaka Arsonist is Japan’s First Execution Under Takaichi Government

As a majority of the international community has abolished capital punishment. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that put people to death. The execution of Takami Sunao—an arsonist whose 2009 attack in Osaka killed five—on August 21, 2026, was Japan’s first use of capital punishment in just over a year. Over a Decade from Sentencing to Execution Takami Sunao was executed on August 21, 2026 , for a 2009 arson attack at an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people. In July 2009, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor in Osaka and set it alight, killing 5 customers and staff members and injuring 10 more. While the defense argued that he was in a state of diminished capacity, the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February 2016. The execution took place 17 years after the initial crime and 10 and a half years after the death sentence was finalized.

Cartoons about Capital Punishment

More cartoons about capital punishment HERE

Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101 after 76 years behind bars

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

Israel builds execution chamber for Palestinians convicted of murder

In March, the Knesset approved legislation that calls for the execution of Palestinians convicted by a military court of killing Israelis Israeli authorities are preparing a prison wing—replete with an execution chamber—designated specifically for Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder, Israel’s i24NEWS channel reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approved legislation in March that calls for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted by a military court of murdering Israelis.

Japan executes man convicted of killing five in 2009 Osaka pachinko parlor arson

Japan on Friday announced the execution of a man convicted of killing five people after setting fire to an Osaka pachinko parlor in 2009, the first execution by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 's government as the country faces growing calls for more transparency and the abolition of capital punishment. The Justice Ministry said Sunao Takami, 58, was hanged to death earlier Friday. Takami in 2009 set fire to the crowded pachinko parlor in Osaka by spreading gasoline and throwing a lit match, engulfing the building, killing five and injuring 10 others, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said.

Florida executes William Frances Silvia

Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening amid the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and injuring his mother-in-law in 2006, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving the lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution while a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Alabama is trying a death penalty bait-and-switch

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

Texas | A Dangerous Man. At 18, Billy Joe Wardlow took a man’s life. Nearly 30 years later, the state still wants his.

Like any place humans gather, death row has a culture. Billy Wardlow says it's different in many ways from general population. One is in how new inmates are treated. "In [general population], the guys around you would try to find some way to exploit you," Wardlow said. "Death row, with a few exceptions, will often extend a hand of friendship to the 'new boot' so they can get on their feet ... Most of us get together and let each other know what we can send to the new guy." One of the cherished myths of those who support the death penalty is that it is reserved for the “worst of the worst,” those beyond redemption. Wardlow typically sends writing materials, food, clothes, and hygiene products. Recently, after receiving some of these items, a new inmate asked Wardlow what he owed him. "I told him to remember how guys helped him when he saw someone else new," Wardlow said. "Pay it forward, as the saying goes." Sending gift...

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog