July Headlines:

• Officials Leave Joe Amrine in Limbo

• Help Support Danny Wolfe

• Pen Pals Needed for Capital Punishment Prisoners

• Thoughts from the Potosi Prison: Life Facing Death

• Reflections on Ending U.S. Wars and Occupations

• Concerned Military Families Urging an End to U.S. Occupation of Iraq

• Agitation and Variety Show Aug. 2

• Signature Ad: Remembers Nuclear War and Urges No New Nuclear Attacks

Since 1985, Joe Amrine has endured a torturous brand of hell, having been convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he most likely did not commit. Then came the uplifting news from the Missouri Supreme Court on April 29, that his conviction was overturned. Either release him or retry him, the court ordered. State and county officials have chosen to go to trial—or at least, it appears, to perpetuate the torture of Amrine.

Early in the morning of 12 June, law enforcement officers took him from the Potosi prison to the dilapidated Cole County Jail in Jefferson City. He appeared before Judge Byron Kinder who tried to assign him an overworked public defender—even though (or perhaps because) he has been represented by Sean O’Brien, one of the top capital defense attorneys in the state who adroitly pleaded his case before the Missouri high court. Amrine wisely refused to sign papers to change lawyers. He was scheduled to go to trial 12 August in the Cole County courthouse, but inquiries by the FOR on 23 July, found there is currently no trial scheduled.

• Contact Prosecutor Bill Tackett (573-634-9180). Urge him to follow the mandate of the Missouri Supreme Court—set Joe Amrine free or to request the county court to set a date for a new trial;
• Contact Marty Robinson, director of the Public Defender Commission (231 E. Capitol Ave., Jefferson City MO 65101, 573-526-5210) Urge him to quit playing politics with peoples’ lives. Ask him to appoint Sean O’Brien and Kent Gipson to represent Amrine since they are the attorneys most knowledgeable of Amrine’s case, and as both were appointed by the federal court system to represent him as well;
• Write letters of support to: Joe Amrine; Cole County Jail; P.O. Box 426; Jefferson City MO 65102, to help bolster his spirits;
• Arrange for a showing of "Unreasonable Doubt: the Joe Amrine Case" in community. Contact FOR (573-449-4585) to borrow a copy of the documentary videotape.

"I thought the day of my ruling in April," Amrine told the FOR, "that this all would come to an end, yet I’m still sitting here. I’m lost for words. The Supreme Court clearly said from the evidence they had seen that the state didn’t come close to proving I committed the murder," much less building a case warranting a death sentence. "I had gotten my hopes up so high…I was thinking I’d be on the streets by now." Instead Amrine has coped for six weeks with being held in an isolated cell of the nearly century-old jail. Once a week for two hours, he has access to law books (more than four decades old), the barren recreation room and to visitors.

Cole County prosecutor Bill Tackett contended DNA testing needed to be done on clothing Amrine wore the day of the murder, claiming they had found a possible blood stain in his pants pocket--although past testing had yielded no such findings. Tackett recently withdrew their motion to have Barber’s body exhumed. It appears that Tackett may be responding to pressure from Attorney General Jay Nixon an/or other officials strongly supportive of the death penalty.

Amrine says that in 1985, "All they (former county prosecutor, now Judge Tom Brown and other officials) were concerned with, was getting their conviction. If they had taken the time.. they could have realized Terry Russell pulled the wool over their eyes." Guard John Noble identified Russell, another prisoner, as running from Barber, just after he was stabbed. Russell and Barber had also earlier in the day been released from a stint of solitary confinement for fighting each other. Amrine was initially convicted based on the "eyewitness" accounts of three prisoners (including Russell) who said they saw him stab Barber. All three have since recanted.

These 18 years later, Amrine thinks he knows why some state officials are reluctant to set him free. "Who wants to be known as a man who helped nearly get executed an innocent man? They’ve been trying ever since to cover up their mistake." Perhaps the hesitancy comes as well with realizing each case of wrongful capital convictions further shakes public support for the death penalty, demonstrating that mistakes can and are made in meting out this irreversible (and amoral) punishment.

A date for a new trial may likely be a year away for Danny Wolfe, whose convcition was overturned in February by the Missouri Supreme Court. He was convicted of murdering Leonard and Lena Walters. The Court had noted no physical evidence linked Wolfe to the killings, yet his attorneys failed to adequately pursue evidence placing the prosecution’s chief witness, Jessica Cox at the murder scene. His attorney Tom Jacquinot notes, Judge Mary Dickerson has not yet announced whether she will accept their request to disqualify herself from once more presiding during Wolfe’s trial.

Please consider writing a letter of support to: Danny Wolfe; Camden County Jail, #1 Court Circle Suite 13, Camdenton, Mo 65020

If you’d like to correspond with an individual living under a death sentence in Missouri, get in touch with Susie Roling, project coordinator with the Western Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Her e-mail address is 18ROLING@cua.edu.

Capital punishment is no new concept. It has been around for thousands of years. It remains in essence the same as it’s always been – a method for a so-called civilized society to vent its hostility and anger without the least bit of remorse. Ironic, isn’t it? That very character description is used by prosecutors to justify a sentence of death.

Here in Missouri, a typical day on death row can be unpredictable in many ways. Every day, it’s not about if you’ll face death, it’s only about who will be the next to die. There is a correlation between those facing death by the state and someone who has a terminal illness. Men who are in different stages of the dying process may be depressed, angry, in denial, or bargaining for a better understanding. They may have an acceptance.

They work around it (the death penalty) every day. With 60 executions, regular training exercises (i.e.: mock executions), and daily contact with those waiting to die, you would think the daily life would become the norm. But the act of killing another human being will never become the norm. Or at least, let us hope not.

No matter how you dress it up, regardless of how you try to sanitize what you’re doing, it will always be an unnatural act to take another life. Practice will never make perfect when it comes to cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder. Calling it justifiable homicide only adds to the way the state demeans human life.

The day before an execution, everyone here thinks of the man in the cage, a place they put you several days prior to your death. There, you are observed 24 hours a day as if you are a lab rat in some sort of twisted experiment.

Some of us think about what we will feel when our time comes. Others think about what we can to do aid the man about to die. Can we help him with legal advice, or maybe do some last minute research that may spare his life? The spiritual community spends much time in prayer, asking that the will of God put a stop to such things once and for all, and that all involved, both offenders and victims, find some peace in the midst of so much madness. Many may lose hope because they have seen so many men die. Some begin to speak of the man in the past tense, as if he were already dead. Even the staff have reflections and fond memories of the intended murder victim.

Staff put on their suits as if to appear more civilized as they deal with the all-too-familiar administrative bureaucracy that goes along with state-sanctioned murder. As midnight approaches, some wonder if a last minute stay will arrive in time. We ask questions about the apparent and obvious issues in the man’s case. We ask ourselves…. how can a system that is supposed to be fair and impartial kill men and women who have legitimate actual innocence claims? I suppose we should not wonder about a legal system that takes the position that it is not unconstitutional to execute an innocent man. This is obviously a system that is more worried about its own legal liabilities than protecting the interest of the people it is sworn to protect.

The morning after an execution, the prison comes to life as if nothing ever happened. No one wants to talk about the victim, maybe because it’s like confronting our own fears. The sadness we feel inside remains inside, and we all deal with our sense of loss in our own way. We try to develop a shell to protect us, but there is no real method for dealing with the loss of someone whom you have laughed with and cried with. Somebody you have worked around, lived around and eaten beside in close proximity for years. Someone you have come to care for.

The mixture of grief and sentiment we face every day grows out of proportion with little or no opportunity to deal with the grieving process in a normal, healthy way. Society may feel if they continue to turn their backs on this issue, it will eventually take care of itself. At this moment, it may not seem like an issue that will make a difference. But every cancer, left to itself, will ultimately destroy whatever it touches.

It’s time to leave living in the past and press on in the future, (one) that will place the correct value on human life. If we truly want to be innovative and move forward, we must develop a different definition of what the sanctity of life truly is.

--Dennis Skillicorn

Skillicorn is currently, sadly living under a death sentence at the Potosi prison. He works with the prison’s geriatrics unit and is editor of "Compassion," a national newsletter featuring writings of prisoners and others. Half of all subscriptions and donations go toward college scholarships to family members of murder victims. For more info about the project, e-mail seekcompassion@hotmail.com

It is indeed reprehensible that the Bush-Cheney administration seems to have lied to the U.S. public about the threat Iraq posed to the United States and the world. Many leaders, Democrats and others, are reasonably calling for independent hearings to consider whether the president committed an impeachable offense in his apparent mistruths and exaggerations.

An undeniable, higher truth routinely gets overlooked though by most mainstream so-called "leaders." The United States immorally invaded another nation (and has routinely invaded other nations for the past several decades). U.S. military troops have so far killed at least 6000 Iraqi civilians and perhaps tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers. While these individuals usually wore uniforms, they were more principally also members of our human family.

One of the more candid pronouncements during this administration came from Pentagon Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz during a May interview in Vanity Fair. He admitted that war planners had focused on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) as the convenient public pretext for waging war, one which could be bought by the U.S. public much more easily, he noted, than their prime reason for intervention: control of the oil.

Much attention has been drawn to the President’s comment with regards to Iraq purportedly seeking uranium in Africa. This was, however, far from the solitary misstatement or outright lies officials told to build the hollow "case" for war. In the State of the Union alone, Bush told many other lies. What about, for instance, the "500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" or the "30,000 munitions capable of delievering chemical agents?" To date no such discoveries have been made.

Do urge your representatives to support HR 307 and HR 2625 (via the House switchboard at 202-224-3121), measures which would open independent and public investigations into the conduct of the government in leading the nation to war.

Again though, more critical than the verbage and paper trails, let us recall the human cost of war itself. Indeed recall that as of 22 July, 153 U.S. troops have been killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than the number killed in the 1991 war.

The people of Iraq continue to suffer, as do millions of other peoples around the planet under the domination of our nation. More than 370,000 U.S. troops are deployed in 120 countries, protecting not the interests of the common people, but corporate profit and resource control. Let us join with others sisters and brothers globally in striving to support peace with justice and to nonviolently join hands in ending U.S. empire. -- Jeff Stack, Mid-MO FOR coordinator

Please sign the petition at Moveon.org, telling our legislators you want a bipartisan investigation as to why Mr. Bush and his cabinet thought it was a good idea to send our troops to war with Iraq. (Please be aware that Move On is an organization closely tied to the Democratic Party. The FOR does not align itself any particular party, but with individuals and groups pursuing truth and the creation of a more just and peaceable world—Editor).

Also contact your legislators and the White House, letting them know we want our troops home now. We do not accept the excuses, "The Brits, or the French gave us forged information." We also do not accept Ms. (Condoleezza) Rice playing the blame game. She is in the position to know, and if none of them knew the information was a forgery, it should be obvious to every one the wrong folk are in the White House. If they don't know, and they are in charge of running the country, then we need people there who can keep up. We need to bring our troops out of Iraq, provide humanitarian services, and let the Iraqi people run their government. We need to get our young people out of harm’s way, both American and Iraqi.

--Ester Holzendorf (Holzendorf is a mother, minister and community activist living in Grandview Mo., near Kansas City)

For those who have a loved one in the U.S. military involved in the occupation of Iraq, you may want to join a support group which is urging officials to bring all military personnel be brought back to the United States. Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) is a nationwide group of family members "about to launch a new campaign to "Bring Them Home Now!," according to a recent mass appeal sent out to military families. The effort is being undertaken in conjunction with Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other groups.

"Many of you have written," the note to families states, "asking for MFSO to take action in response to the ongoing deployment of our troops in Iraq, the horrible conditions that our troops are facing, the lies that were used to justify the invasion and George Bush’s outrageous taunt to those shooting at our family members—‘Bring ‘em On’." MFSO encourages family members to indeed speak out to their congresspeople, in letters to the editors and at public events.

In mid-Missouri and no doubt throughout much of the country, yard signs declaring "We Support Our Troops" stand in hundreds of yards. The FOR supports the troops (as we do all human beings), but like MFSO, we believe the best means to show that support would be to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq. For more information write to mfso@mfso.org in care of Nancy Lessin, Jeffrey McKenzie and/or Charley Richardson,

An Anarchist Agitation and Variety Show will take place, Saturday, August 2nd,in Columbia, beginning at 11:00 p.m., in the Ragtag Filmcafe, 23 N. 10^th St. Poetry, puppetry, suppressed history and folk music will be featured with sculpture making to follow. Earlier in the day, join Skillshares workshops, starting at 1:00 p.m., Village Square Park, 9^th St. and Walnut for improvisational dance and 10 steps to direct action in your community among other activities. You’re also welcome to come to the park at noon to join Food Not Bombs for their free vegan community lunch. For more info: yeehawgrrl@yahoo.com

The statement below will be run as a signature ad in the Columbia Daily Tribune &/or the Columbia Missourian on August 6. Below the statement and the names we will list contact info for the sponsors, event info and Web resources. We invite you to add your name. Suggested donations of $2-$25 to help defray the cost are not required but are needed and encouraged.

Please return signatures by July 31 to the Peace Nook, 804-C E. Broadway, Columbia MO 65201. This sig-nature ad is a project of Mid-MO FOR, Peaceworks and other members of the Columbia Peace Coali-tion. Make contributions (tax-deductible) to Mid-Missouri Peaceworks. For more info call 573-875-0539.