ABOLITION
NOW!
Kentucky Coalition to .
Abolish the Death Penalty Tuesday. Apéil 20, 2010
401 S. 4th St., Ste. 2500
Louisville, KY 40202
502 © 636 ¢ 1330
kcadp@earthlink.net
www.kcadp.org
The Honorable Steve Beshear
ces «89 COVernor of Kentucky
700 Capitol Avenue
Rev. Patrick Delahanty rankfort, KY 40601
State Chairperson
e-mail: Dear Governor Beshear:
delahantyp@bellsouth.net
Greetings and good wishes.
iis
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a lifelong supporter of the
Kaye Gallagher death penalty. Last May he signed an abolition bill. Why?
Campaign Coordinator
The governor’s reasons were not case specific. He simply lost
= confidence in the system. In signing the abolition bill, Governor Richardson
expressed his view that a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of
Donald Vish ; parole is adequate retributive punishment for the worst of the worst and
Advocacy & Education Director protects the public from dangerous offenders.
The April 14, 2010 sentencing of Kentucky serial killer Michael
Andrew Abner, 47, by the Pulaski County Court raises serious questions about
the death penalty system in Kentucky.
Abner is a serial killer who preyed on the elderly, killing with his bare
hands. The prosecutor told the sentencing judge: His acts are brutal and
heinous, speaking to a complete lack of respect for human life. Over a twenty
five year period Abner strangled or stabbed three people to death during
separate acts of robbery and arson. He confessed to all of the crimes and the
police had independent corroboration of his guilt.
Needless to say, Abner was eligible for the death penalty. With the
consent of the victims’ families, however, Abner will spend the rest of his life
in prison without possibility of parole.
Abner’s case raises questions about how and when and why capital
punishment is applied in Kentucky and whether the death penalty has become
an arbitrary punishment removed from any sense of proportionality. If life
without possibility of parole is adequate retributive punishment for a serial
killer guilty beyond any doubt then who should be executed under Kentucky
law?
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Page 2 Governor Steve Beshear
An honest and impartial examination of aggravated murders in
Kentucky—brutal and heinous murders—would lead one to conclude that it is
impossible to discern the legal criteria by which some are sentenced to death
while others are not. The gravity of the crime does not appear to be the
determining factor as the Abner case dramatically demonstrates. Or consider
the April 2010 case of Raymond Cutter of Warsaw, Kentucky.
Cutter, 63, was accused of raping, killing and dismembering Peggy
Casey, 37, in Covington, Kentucky. Her body parts were found in three
different counties in Ohio. The Commonwealth sought the death penalty as the
trial opened on April 19, 2010. The prosecutor, an assistant Commonwealth
Attorney, made a fatal mistake in the opening statement to the jury (which took
five days to select due to the death penalty possibility of the case): he quoted
inadmissible hearsay evidence by telling the jury that Raymond Cutter’s son,
now deceased, said his father had in fact committed the murder. The judge
immediately declared a mistrial.
Boone Commonwealth Attorney Linda Talley Smith, after the mistrial,
announced that the Commonwealth would retry the case without seeking the
death penalty.
Can we be sure that the thirty four death sentences awaiting execution
on Kentucky’s death row are the result of a uniform system of justice equitably
and proportionally applied to all offenders throughout Kentucky? The rarity of
executions in Kentucky, four over the last fifty three years, along with cases
like Abner’s and Cutter’s suggests we cannot.
This letter requests that you decline to sign any death warrants in light
of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a
minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment. This is not a
request for a pardon or a commutation or clemency in any particular case.
Like Governor Richardson, you may continue to support the death penalty
while at the same time expressing reservations about its application.
Sincerel TS, Juez
As Sire, Cog?
Donald Vish
Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
DHV:lks
