Gary Brown, scheduled April 5th

[soraya]

Governor Don Sieglman at State Capitol
600 Dexter Avenue, Room N-104
Montgomery, AL 36130
Ph: (334) 242-7100
Fax: (334) 242-0937
and / or the
Attorney General Bill Pryor at
Alabama State House
11 South Union Street, Third Floor
Montgomery, AL 36130
Ph: (334) 242-7300
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Replying to:

Please help Gary Brown. Something is very wrong with the picture surrounding his execution. The man has less than 24 hours to live. The state is killing him while allowing the man who actually killed the victim to live. Flood the governors office with emails and calls please.

Court refuses to halt execution
By Garry Mitchell
Associated Press Writer
04-04-2002


MOBILE

Alabama's Supreme Court rejected a challenge to use of the electric chair Wednesday as it refused to halt the scheduled execution of Gary Leon Brown in a grisly 1986 stabbing death.

Brown, 43, is to be electrocuted at 12:01 a.m. Friday for the murder and robbery of a 60-year-old man who was nearly decapitated at his home in suburban Birmingham.

The nine justices were unanimous in rejecting the motion by Brown's attorney, who sought a stay until a final vote is taken on pending legislation to use lethal injection in carrying out death sentences in Alabama.

The defense plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, and Brown and his supporters have written Gov. Don Siegelman requesting clemency.

The victim, Jack David McGraw, was attacked by Brown and two others and stabbed 78 times on Memorial Day 1986, with his throat slashed repeatedly and nearly cut through. He was robbed of $67.

McGraw was described in testimony as a homosexual, and prosecutors said the three attackers had allowed him to pay them for sexual acts in the past. While the charge did not involve sexual aspects, prosecutors said the savageness of the crime indicated the attack may not have been simply a robbery.

Also convicted in the murder were James Lynn Bynum of Trussville, 21 at the time of the slaying, who was paroled in 1997 from a life sentence, and the alleged ringleader Archie Bankhead of Birmingham, now serving life without parole.

Bankhead, then 36, cut McGraw's throat with a butcher knife, according to testimony. Initially sentenced to death, he won an appeal and at retrial avoided the death penalty.

Brown, however, faces execution.

Assistant Attorney General Beth Hughes argued that Brown has exhausted court appeals and has waited too late to raise new issues.

Brown's attorney, Rhonda Brownstein of Montgomery, asked the state Supreme Court for a stay, calling use of the electric chair cruel and unusual punishment. She asked the court to block its use until the Legislature decides on allowing lethal injection as an optional form of execution.

The legislation, if passed and signed, would not take affect until June at the earliest.

Alabama and Nebraska are the only two states still using the electric chair.

"Based on recent developments in other states, it is clear that current standards of decency prohibit death by electrocution," Brownstein said.

In the 15 years since Brown was sentenced, 11 states have passed laws rejecting electrocution as the sole method of execution, the attorney said, with Georgia taking that step last year.

Brownstein also said a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision in an Arizona case could affect the way capital murder defendants are sentenced.

Brownstein said Wednesday the Arizona case will determine whether allowing a judge to impose the death penalty as opposed to the jury making that decision is constitutional. In Alabama, a jury recommends either life without parole or death, but the judge doesn't have to adopt the jury's penalty.

Hughes contends Brown's case has been reviewed by all the appeals courts and that they have ruled he got a fair trial and that his conviction and sentence are legal and constitutional. She said the stay should be denied because Brown waited too late to request it.

Meanwhile, Brown, in a letter to Siegelman, appealed for clemency, saying he had wasted his youth on "an obsession with drugs and alcohol" and has "very little recollection" of McGraw's murder.

"I had hit rock bottom, realizing that I had actually participated in the death of another human being," he wrote. In jail, he said he began praying and eventually got married. He has a 21-year-old son attending the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

On death row, Brown said he has led Bible studies and preached.

"Jack McGraw didn't deserve to die - it was a horrible and despicable act and to say I'm truly sorry is an understatement," he wrote.

A Korean War veteran with virtually no relatives, McGraw's body was left in the mobile home where he lived alone. He was robbed of the $67 and several appliances. The body was found by neighborhood children.

Alabama had four executions scheduled last year and all four were blocked by the courts for various reasons. The state's last execution was June 2, 2000, when Pernell Ford was put to death.

[Pam]

Gary Brown has been granted a stay of execution. Thank the Lord.

[soraya]

Really? Oh that makes me so happy! It's not over yet, but it's at least a step in the right direction!