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EXECUTED -- OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS GO OUT TO THOSE WHO SURVIVE HIM
The full text of the original alert follows.
August 5
6:00 PM CST
The state of Alabama is scheduled to execute James Barney Hubbard, a white man, Aug. 5 for the 1977 death of his girlfriend, Lillian Montgomery in Tuscaloosa County. Mr. Hubbard, now 74 years old and suffering from prostate and colon cancer, will be the oldest American put to death since the reinstatement of executions.
There are approximately 19,000 murders per year in the United States. Approximately 75 people, primarily men, are executed every year. In other words, 0.4% of all murders end in execution. Who decides which of these murders merits death?
Surely strapping an elderly man to a gurney and filling him with poison cannot be justice. Mr. Hubbard has lived on Alabama’s death row for 27 years. After Alabama’s death penalty statutes were found unconstitutional in 1980 he was retried in 1982 and again sentenced to death.
Lillian Montgomery was shot three times in the head, neck and shoulder. There were no eyewitnesses.
During the penalty phase of trial, when the jury must decide between a sentence of life imprisonment and a sentence of death, the defense counsel did not present evidence of Mr. Hubbard’s history of alcoholism, borderline mental retardation, and his difficult life.
The state charged Mr. Hubbard’s pro-bono attorney $567.05 for copies of 1,091 pages of medical records. The sum was $0.50 per page, plus $17.50 for shipping and another $4.05 fee. Mr. Hubbard’s defense, upon receiving the transcript, filed a request for a 30-day extension to respond to the state’s motion to set an execution date.
The request was denied.
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Douglas Johnstone wrote in his dissent that “this is the most consciencelessly regressive tax I have observed in my decades in and around Alabama politics. The least the court could do is grant a 30-day extension to compensate this inmate for the three months that he was deprived of these records.”
Unless Alabama governor Bob Riley grants clemency, an act of mercy that a rarity in an election year, Mr. Hubbard will be one of the 0.4% of persons who commit a murder and are executed. In an unprecedented effort, other death row inmates created a petition to the governor asking for mercy. The petition was intercepted in the prison mailroom and stopped.
Mr. Hubbard will be executed at 6 p.m. CST. Please keep him, his family, and the family of Lillian Montgomery in your thoughts.
Please take a moment to send an e-mail to Gov. Riley urging him to stop this execution. Because Gov. Riley does not have a public e-mail address, please select the fax option.
Thank you.
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