Nyt - fra Death Row ! - Personal Care - http://maxpages.com/bannister/Nyheder

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A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell
into
a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw
how
deep the pit was, they told the unfortunate frogs they would never get
out.The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the
pit.
The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as
dead.
Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying
and
simply gave up. He fell down and died.The other frog continued to jump
as
hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop
the
pain and suffering and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made
it
out. When he got out, the other frogs asked him, "Why did you continue
jumping? Didn't you hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was
deaf. He
thought they were encouraging him the entire time.
This story proves once again that no matter what problems may be facing
us,
what we believe about our ability to overcome those problems is what
determines the outcome of our situation. Like the frog in the story,
we can
become so deaf to negativity that what originally seemed to be
impossible
becomes doable.

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Flgd. fik vi tilsendt i dag:

This newspaper article was passed on to me about Carswell the prison
hospital for women.

Women's Prison lowers cruelty bar

This is a story about the Federal Medical Center Carswell, a women'sprison
hospital on the outskirts of Froth Worth. It should not be read with
breakfast.

Kathleen Rumpf of Syracuse, NY is part of the Catholic Workers movement,
probably the most formidable people of conscience in this country. She has
been arrested more than 100 times during a lifetime of activism for peace
and justice.

Rumpf also ran a prison ministry in Syracuse, where she exposed a hideous
local practice: "the Jesus Christ" - stretching out naked prisoners and
shackling them to the bars, a la Christ on the cross. "60 Minutes" did a
piece about it, and a lawsuit ended the practice. Suffice it to say the
Rumpf knows about prisons.

"I am used to abuse," she said last week. "I am used to roaches and rats;
I've seen guards who are buffoons and guards who are man. I have never seen
anything like the corruption and cruelty at Carswell Women's Prison
Hospital.

"I couldn't believe it as I lived it. The mind control is amazing - they
keep repeating, 'You're getting the best medical care available in any
community.'"

Rumpf wound up in Carswell after receiving a two-year sentence protesting
the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. The school has been a
target for pacifists (and everyone with a vestige of conscience) for years.

Rumpf, in her good Catholic Worker way, fasted, prayed and rallied against
the school. In 1997, she went with a terribly dangerous group - a
71-year-old priest, a nun and a potter - to protest the school.

They planted crosses outside Fort Benning and carried banners and pictures
of murdered Jesuit priests. On the sign reading "Welcome to Fort Benning"
the painted : "School of the Americas [equal] Torture" and "School of
Shame."

Pretty rough stuff, and you know how terrified our government is of
pacifists. Rumpf got two years, and after four months of being moved around
the system, she was transferred to Carswell because of bad knees.

"At first I bought right into it," she said. "I thought I had never seen
such a nice prison, like a movie set - the floors were all shiny and they
had six computers in the library. I found later the computers were never
hooked up."

Female federal prisoners all over the country are sent to Carswell; it is
the only medical facility for them. Of the 1,195 women at Carswell, only
642 are there for medical and psychiatric reasons, according to the Bureau
of Prisons, though Rumpf believe that the number is much higher.

She details case after case in which the phase "not medically necessary" is
the response to requests for medical help.

In one noted case, Valerie Virgil, an unarmed bank robber doing six years,
cane in after a car crash that left her with burns over half her body and
one leg amputated.

The special hygienic soap, detergent, lotion and dye-free clothing that
she
needed to keep her fragile skin grafts from becoming infected were all
deemed "not medically necessary."

The federal judge who had sentenced her finally wrote Janet Reno the
Virgil's treatment was "cruel and unusual punishment."

Rumpf believes that part of the consistent pattern of denial of treatment at
Carswell is the assumption by some prison staff that women are
"hysterical."

Rumpf reports that a 32-year-old mother of two named Shirley begged a
counselor for help in a hallway in the hearing of several prisoners.

The counselor said: "You better not be faking it. If you're faking it,
your going to the hole." Shirley died the nest day. There was an eerie
scene at her memorial service, when one of Shirley's friends raised her face
to heaven and screamed, "Are you faking it now, Shirley?!"

(Source: Molly Ivins - Columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

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TEXAS HELL-HOLE:
WHY TEXAS 7 PRISONERS RISKED THEIR LIVES TO ESCAPE

By Gloria Rubac
Houston

It's probably fair to say that a majority of the 700,000 women and men in Texas
prisons or under the supervision of the state understood why the Texas Seven
escaped from the state prison system in December.

While the national media reported on every detail of this dramatic prison escape,
they virtually ignored the prisoners' stinging criticism of the state's criminal justice
system when they finally surrendered.

The seven men sneaked out of a maximum-security prison on Dec. 13 and
remained at large for 42 days. Before the last two would surrender to authorities
in Colorado, they demanded a live television interview in which they criticized the
Texas criminal justice system.

"The judicial system in Texas has really gone to the pits," said Donald Newberry,
one of the Texas Seven. "We're receiving 99 years for a robbery of $68 and
nobody was injured. They're giving kids so much time that they will never see the
light again. Their life is gone.

"Now all they are is a roach in a cage. Things have to be changed; there has to be
more rehabilitation in the system down there. You know, I couldn't even go to college.
Where's the rehabilitation when you can't even help yourself?"

Partrick Murphy told a television reporter he wanted people to be more aware that
there is definite wrong within the penal system of Texas.

One of the Texas Seven killed himself rather than go back to prison.

WHAT GOES ON IN TEXAS?

Texas prisons are hell to do time in, or to await execution in.

As death-row prisoner Michael Sharp said before his execution, many of the guards
"think it is their patriotic duty to torture and brutalize prisoners."

At this moment, 13 death-row prisoners have issued an urgent appeal for help. They
have been put on an indefinite lockdown with no visits, no commissary/hygiene
purchases, no stamps, no hot food, no recreation time--and no word when this will end.

Guards are reportedly gassing prisoners. And in retaliation prisoners are throwing
feces and urine on the guards and are flooding the runs with raw sewage.

Prisoners are being thrown down on concrete floors while handcuffed. Gerald Tigner's
head was busted open and Rick Rhoades was punched in the back of his head, the
men reported.

In a desperate letter to the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement in Houston, one of
those on lockdown says: "HELP! HELP! HELP! I beg you to contact the media and attorneys
and those concerned with cruel and unusual conditions at the Terrell Death Camp.

"There is a fast-worsening and volatile situation here which, absent prompt outside
investigation and intervention, will likely get some prisoners or guards or both seriously
injured or killed."

The Abolition Movement has begun a campaign of calling prison officials, politicians and
the media in an attempt to force scrutiny on these abuses by guards and officials.

LONGSTANDING INHUMANE CONDITIONS

Last year on Feb. 21, prisoners Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson and Howard Guidry took a
guard hostage on death row at the Terrell Unit for two days. They wanted to protest the
horrific living conditions for all death-row prisoners, who are housed in 6-x-10-foot cells
with no human contact unless they are allowed a visit.

In November 1998, Wilkerson and seven others on death row attempted to escape. Six
were captured in a hail of gunfire. Martin Gurule managed to escape but his body was
found floating in a river near the prison a week later.

Ever since a ruling in 1981, Texas prison officials have been trying to get out from under
the supervision of the federal court. That decision resulted from a historic lawsuit filed by
prison activist David Ruiz and six other prisoners that in 1979-1980.

During the last 20 years, even though many changes have been forced on the system,
racism, abuse and violence by guards still run rampant.

Even though most aspects of prison life are no longer under federal supervision, Texas'
super-max prisons are still "the worst in the country," according to prisoners' attorney
Donna Brorby.

Texas conditions are worse than the notorious Pelican Bay Special Housing Unit in California,
Brorby stated.

Texas prisons are run by a state that has no uniform indigent public defender system; a state
that has upheld convictions for capital murder even when a defendant's lawyer slept through
the trial, was using drugs or kept leaving the court room to put money in a parking meter.

Texas is one of only four states that provide no state funding for indigent defense. Last
legislative session, both houses passed a bill providing for indigent defense, but
then-Gov. George W. Bush vetoed it.

Fugitive Newbury told a television anchorperson: "I had to threaten to beat up my own
attorney so I could get another attorney because my first attorney spent three months and
hadn't even come to talk to me. What kind of judicial system gives you a defense that
won't even show up?"

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March 19, 2001

TEXAS:

2 former Texas death-row inmates, with trembling hands and emotionally
choked voices, told a House committee Monday the state has executed
innocent people.

Randall Dale Adams and Kerry Max Cook urged the House State Affairs
Committee to approve a 2-year moratorium on executions in Texas to allow
for a thorough study of the state's criminal-justice system.

"I understand victims," Adams said. "I understand the hurt and the pain
and the hits that they've taken, but we are killing innocent people."

Adams and Cook were among 24 witnesses scheduled to appear before the
committee in favor of a bill by state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston,
that would establish an execution moratorium while a special commission
studied the death penalty for ways to make certain the innocent are not
executed.

"Our system is broken. We shouldn't execute people while we study the
problem," Dutton said.

Adams spent more than a dozen years in prison after being wrongly
convicted for the murder of a Dallas police officer. He said he was given
a 1-month desk calendar to count down the days to his execution -- a fate
he was separated from by a mere 12 hours.

"We have to stop this madness. Give it 6 months. Give it a year. Just
cease this railroad train we've got rolling down the tracks," Adams said.
"The death penalty in Texas has grown out of control."

Cook, who lived on death row for 22 years before his release from prison,
said he watched innocent inmates such as Adams and Clarence Brandley walk
out of prison. Proclaiming his own innocence, Cook often wondered at that
time whether he would obtain his freedom.

"I wondered if that would ever happen to me. Sure, it would. We don't
execute the innocent in Texas," Cook said, his voice dropping to a somber
tone. "But we do."

The Texas death penalty got national attention last year because of
then-Gov. George W. Bush's successful run for president. Bush maintained
no innocent person had been executed in the state.

The issue was highlighted when Gov. James Ryan of Illinois put a
moratorium on executions in his state because of a fear that innocent men
were being put to death.

Crime-victims advocate William Rusty Hubbarth of Justice for All argued
against Dutton's moratorium proposal.

"You would be denying closure and solace to the victims. You would be
denying the belief in due process. And you would be denying the
application of a mandated justice," Hubbarth said.

Under questioning from committee members, Hubbarth said an innocent
person who was executed could be considered a crime victim. But he said
the legal process prevents that from happening.

"I defy anyone in this room to give me the name and TDC number of an
executed innocent person in the state of Texas," Hubbarth said.

"I can give you some," Cook said, standing up in the audience.

"Give us one. Give us the name," Hubbarth fired back.

Cook said James Lee Beathard ended up on death row because of the
testimony of his "fall partner." But he said Beathard and his
co-defendant, Gene Hathorn Jr., convinced him Beathard was not guilty of
the crime.

"Mr. Beathard, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, was innocent," Cook
said.

Beathard was executed in December 1999.

Beathard had been convicted on Hathorn's testimony that he participated
in the murder of Hathorn's family.

Beathard admitted being at the trailer the night of the murder but said
he was outside when the killings happened and thought it was a drug deal
gone bad. Hathorn later recanted his testimony and said Beathard was
innocent.

In Cook's case, he was tried 3 times for the 1977 killing of a Tyler
woman and sentenced to death twice.

After he won a new trial in 1999, he pleaded no contest to be released
from prison for time served. Several months later, DNA evidence proved
that semen found on the dead woman belonged to her married lover, not
Cook.

Adams did not give the committee any names of innocent people who had
been executed. But he provided a list of 95 inmates nationally who have
been released from death row since 1971 after being exonerated of their
crimes. 7, including Adams, were from Texas.

"There are people on death row I don't want to see walking the streets
with my family. Hell, I used to live next to them," Adams said. "But I've
also lived next door to people I thought were innocent who are no longer
there. They're in the (Capt.) Joe Byrd Cemetery without a name."

The House committee also heard from Jeanette Popp, the mother of a
20-year-old woman killed at an Austin Pizza Hut in 1988.

Police used the threat of the death penalty to get Christopher Ochoa to
confess to the crime even though he was innocent. Ochoa was freed through
DNA evidence in January.

Popp said Achim Joseph Marino, a Texas inmate who confessed to the crime
in 1996, may now face execution in her daughter's death. Popp said she
opposes the death penalty.

"I beg you, please, in the loving memory of my daughter, stop the
killing," she said.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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Reiner Stensgaard Goldau
Ydbyvej 184
DK	7760	Hurup Thy
Denmark
+45-97-407628
goldau@adslhome.dk

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