NO to the Death Penalty The "Moratorium 2000" - International Campaign

Johnny Paul Penry

Johnny Paul Penry, 42 years old, has an estimated intelligence quotient of between 53 and 60 points, the mental age of a six years old child. His mental retardation, due to a cerebral damage suffered at birth, was worsened by the extremely difficult conditions in which he grew up. Abandoned by his mother when he was a child, he was sexually abused several times by adults in the homes for abandoned children where he lived. In 1979, at the age of 22, he was accused of rape and homicide. After 11 hours of interrogation, he signed a confession written by a policeman, that he could not even read. (Johnny has learned to sign his name and to read only since his stay on death row). In 1981 he was sentenced to death and sent to Death Row in Huntsville, Texas. In 1988 he obtained a temporary stay of execution from the Supreme Court, on the grounds that executing mentally retarded people could constitute "cruel and unusual punishment", as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Court recommended that in re-examining the case, the Texas-Court consider Johnny Paul Penry's mental condition. This recommendation came at a time when the Court and the Government of Texas were carrying out many executions, so the Texas judges considered Johnny's case unworthy of clemency. In 1990 he had another trial at the end of which he was again sentenced to death, despite the recommendations of the Supreme Court.
Johnny Paul Penry has been on death row for more than 19 years now. He has nobody. He doesn’t have a family. He never really had a home. Death row has become his home, and he even feels affection toward his cell. He begs that his death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment so that he can stay where he is used to living. During the rare opportunities he has to meet someone, it is evident how happy he is to have friends and he says he feels blessed by the Lord for this. He speaks about many of his prison companions who were "put to sleep" and he is afraid the same thing will happen to him. He doesn’t understand why, now that he can read and write a few words, now that he is able to do small tasks in the prison-shop, he has to be killed. Every week he attends religious services in the prison-chapel, and he told us, he hopes that when the angels of Paradise come with their trumpets, the doors of the prison will open for him. Last June, talking with a member of the St. Egidio Community, who was visiting him, Johnny expressed the wish to write to the Pope to thank him for pleading for his life with the Governor of Texas, George W. Bush Jr.. - Johnny's execution, scheduled on May 13^th, had been stayed, following the personal intervention of Pope John Paul II. Johnny dictated the letter to a cellmate and, through his friend from the St. Egidio Community, sent it to the Pope on June 24 1998, together with his drawings. In August 1999 the Criminal Court of Texas turned down Johnny's latest appeal, sending him to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and scheduling the date of execution for January 13, 2000. Johnny, in the last letter he sent, implores people to write to the Governor asking him to spare his life.

A mobilization of many people is necessary to stop the execution of this man who is not able to defend himself. We do not want the new Millennium to begin with the execution of a weak and defenceless man.

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