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May 6, 2002
Fran Schor
Invasion
of Iraq:
Coming Soon
Dave Marsh
Love Hurts
John Chuckman
The
Paradoxes of Israel
Rep. Ron Paul
End Corporate Welfare, Pull
the Plug on the Ex-Im Bank
Hussein
Ibish
Devastation
Only Feeds Resistance to Israeli Rule
May 5, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
High and Dry in the Mojave
May 4, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Sharon
the Merciless
and Arafat the Corrupt
Sam Bahour
New United States of Israel
Alexander
Cockburn
Extreme
Solutions:
Priests and Palestinians
May 3, 2002
Arundhati Roy
Democracy and
Religious Fascism
Wayne
Madsen
Dispatch
from Paris:
Le Pen's Strange Coalition
Yigal Bronner
A Journey to Beit Jalla
CounterPunch
Wire
Otto
Reich Named to Board of School of the Americas
John Troyer
Hatemongers Try to Cleanse History:
Gays and 9/11
John Stauber
Big
Food/Tobacco/Booze
Attacks "Mad Cow" Authors
Kathleen Christison
Before There Was Terrorism
May 2, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Rep.
Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
Rami Kaplan
Israeli Soldiers Resisting
the Occupation:
Why We Refuse to Fight
Carol
Norris
Subterranean
Mini-Nuke Blues
Bernard Weiner
A Peek Inside Colin Powell's Personal
Diary
May 1, 2002
Badiou,
Michel, Lazarus
French
Elections:
What is to be Done?
Baruch Kimmerling
The Battle of Jenin as
an Inter-Ethnic War
Edward
Hammond
Hiding
History:
NAS Suppresses Chem/Bio War Documents
Kristen Schurr
Inside Gaza
Sam Bahour
Corporate
America and
the Israeli Occupation
Jacques Ranciere
Prisoners of the Infinite
April 30, 2002
Mike Leon
Chomsky,
Letters to the Writer and the Peace Movement
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Music
Industry: Paying the Cost to Feed the Boss
Steen
Sohn
Something
Rotten in Denmark:
New Danish Government's Alliance with Far Right
Desmond Tutu
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Christopher
Reilly
Kissinger:
the Wanted Man
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Five
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
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The
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Al Gore:
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May
6, 2002
The Murder-by-State
of Ricky Johnson
A Travesty of Justice
By Tom Turnipseed
Governor Jim Hodges of South Carolina turned "thumbs
down"and allowed the State of South Carolina to kill an
innocent man. In doing so he lied about crucial facts to make
himself look good to the public as a tough-on-crime candidate
for reelection in November. (Let's
Stop the Killing of An Innocent Man) Hodges denied Richard
Charles "Ricky" Johnson's application for clemency
and he was killed by the State of South Carolina on Friday, May
3, 2002. Despite requests to grant clemency from retired S.C.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest Finney, 13 past presidents
of the S.C. State Bar, 25 former state and federal prosecutors,
many state legislators and civil rights leaders, and an estimated
7,000 concerned citizens, Hodges rejected Johnson's clemency
appeal.
Former Solicitor Capers Barr of Charleston,
who successfully prosecuted several death penalty cases in his
career, said he believes a jury should have been given the chance
to consider the 1999 confession of Connie Sue Hess to being the
killer herself rather than Johnson. Her testimony and that of
Curtis Harbert, her compatriot at the crime scene in 1985, were
used to convict Johnson in the trials he had in 1986 and 1988.
Barr said the case "scares him."
To "cover" his disgraceful
decision to execute an innocent person, Mr. Hodges issued an
inaccurate and misleading statement that was laden with lies
and misrepresentations. John Blume, the leader of Johnson's clemency
application team, is a nationally renowned capital defense attorney
and Professor at Cornell University Law School. Mr. Blume said
he had "grave doubts about the integrity of a man who relies
on demonstrably false information, and ignores other information,
to justify taking a potentially innocent man's life."
Among the many false and misleading assertions
in Governor Hodges' statement and attachments that denied clemency
was that Johnson had the gun used to kill Trooper Smalls in his
possession when he was apprehended in a drunken stupor just after
the shooting. That is absolutely untrue! This outright lie about
critical physical evidence in the case was included in a letter
attached to the denial of clemency from Randolph Murdaugh, III,
the Solicitor of the 14th Judicial Circuit, who prosecuted the
case in the 1986 and 1988 jury trials.
Murdaugh also included a quote from a
statement made by Mr. Johnson to the jury in the sentencing phase
of the trial after he had been convicted on the testimony of
Hess and Harbert. Mr. Johnson's court appointed, local lawyer
probably advised Mr. Johnson to apologize to the jury for anything
he had done to have a chance to avoid the death penalty. Since
Mr. Johnson had no memory of what happened due to memory blackouts
from his alcoholism and drug abuse, he told the jury he was sorry
for anything he had done. This was highlighted by Hodges as an
admission of guilt in denying clemency for Mr. Johnson. Murdaugh
and his dad, "Buster," have held the powerful Solicitor's
job for several decades in that judicial district. The Murdaugh's
and their law firm are known across South Carolina to wield unparalleled
power over the judicial system and politics in that area of the
state.
Another astounding lie and misrepresentation
in Governor Hodges' denial of clemency was that he (Hodges) was
not aware of any member of "the Smalls family that has expressed
support for clemency." The clemency application itself contains
an affidavit from Trooper Small's mother, Mrs. Thelma Blue, that
she was not in favor of Ricky Johnson receiving the death penalty
and that it would "dishonor her son's memory" if Ricky
Johnson's death sentence was carried out. State Senator Clementa
Pinckney also informed Mr. Hodges that he had talked to the family
and the family was not in favor of Ricky Johnson's execution.
Governor Hodges' conduct in misleading and lying to the people
is disgraceful.
Mr. Hodges was a lawyer for the wealthy
before becoming Governor and has raised over five million dollars
for his reelection, mainly from corporate and wealthy elites.
About 15 minutes after her son, Ricky was killed by the State
of South Carolina last Friday evening I talked Mrs. Nelda Johnson.
Mrs. Johnson came down with her family from Morehead City, North
Carolina to say goodbye to Ricky. Through her tears, she told
me she was a poor, working class person who knew that if she
had had the money to hire a good lawyer to get her son a fair
trial back in the 80's, Ricky would be alive and free. Mrs. Johnson
then said that she was glad that Ricky never found out about
her losing her job six weeks ago as a home health-care giver
due to cutbacks in Medicaid.
Along with more than a hundred people
gathered to protest the Governor's deplorable denial of clemency,
I was standing in front of the Governor's Mansion complex grieving
with Mrs. Johnson, Ricky's sister, Lori Crawford and his brothers,
Craig and John. As tears streamed down our faces, they all agreed,
more than anything else, that they - and Ricky - wanted the world
to know that he was innocent. As we cried together at the injustice
of the death of their beloved son and brother, we looked beyond
the high fences and security guards at the group of elegant mansions.
John, who had just held the hand and looked into the eyes of
his dying brother asked, "Is this the Governor's Mansion?"
I replied that yes, this is where Ricky might have become a waiter
for the rich and well connected, if his death sentence had been
commuted to life in prison. Mrs. Johnson said, "poor people
don't have a chance for justice. All I ever wanted was a fair
trial for Ricky."
Tom Turnipseed
is an attorney, writer and civil rights activist in Columbia,
South Carolina. http://www.turnipseed.net
See Also:
Help
Save the Life of an Innocent Man: Ask for Clemency for Ricky
Johnson by CounterPunch contributor Kevin Alexander Gray.
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