[WCADP-list] Killings Resume Monday, Georgia Man Set to Die

Thu May 1 12:12:23 PDT 2008

Dear Friends, 

It is with a heavy heart that we once again turn to you to ask your help.
Following the US Supreme's Court ruling upholding lethal injection the
States are once again on the move, ready to restart their machinery of
death.  Please, if it is at all possible, take the time to contact the
Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles on behalf of William Lynd.
(Their contact information is at the end of this message.)  It is extremely
important that our voices be heard!  It is time this madness com to an end.

  _____  

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.  
The Board of Pardons & Paroles vote on clemency for William Lynd next
Monday, May 5th.

Background:  William Earl Lynd

William Earl Lynd is scheduled to be executed in Georgia at 7pm on 6 May. He
was sentenced to death in 1990 for the murder of his friend Virginia
("Ginger") Moore on 23 December 1988. He has a clemency hearing at 9am on 5
May before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. 

William Lynd and Virginia Moore lived together at her home in Georgia's
Berrien County. On the day of the murder, both were allegedly intoxicated on
valium, marijuana and alcohol. They argued; Lynd shot Moore and buried her
body in a shallow grave in a neighboring county. He went to Ohio, but later
returned to Georgia and turned himself in to the Berrien County authorities.
Virginia Moore's body was found using information he provided. William Lynd
was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and to death for murder.

In his recent announcement that a week-long "execution window" had been set
by the Berrien County Superior Court (the Department of Corrections has
since set the precise execution time), the Georgia Attorney General
emphasized the prosecution's evidence at the 1990 trial that William Lynd
had shot Virginia Moore three times in the face and head. According to this
evidence, after the couple had argued, "Lynd got his pistol and shot the
victim in the face. The unconscious victim fell across the waterbed. Lynd
went outside, sat on the front porch, and smoked a cigarette. The victim
eventually regained consciousness and staggered outside toward Lynd. Lynd
turned and shot the victim a second time and the victim collapsed onto the
porch." Lynd then put Moore into the boot of her car and drove away from the
house. When he heard her "thumping around" in the boot, Lynd opened it "and
shot the victim a third and final time." 

The Attorney General's statement recalled that at the trial, "forensic
pathologist Warren Tillman testified that the victim died as a result of
gunshot wounds to the head and face. Dr Tillman explained that the first
shot fired into the victim's face would not have been fatal. After the
second gunshot wound, which was fired into the victim's brain, the victim
would have been able to regain consciousness and could have moved her arms
and legs. Even after all three shots were fired, the victim may have been
able to achieve consciousness for a period of time prior to her death."

William Lynd's appeal lawyers have challenged the reliability of Warren
Tillman's testimony and his qualification to provide it. They have also
pointed to legislation passed shortly after Lynd's trial requiring that
autopsies be performed by medical examiners who are licensed doctors, which
they say Warren Tillman was not. Dr Brian Frist, a medical doctor and
pathologist who has since reviewed the materials relating to the shooting,
concluded that "contrary to Mr Tillman's testimony about these injuries, it
is medically impossible that Ms Moore may have regained consciousness from
either of [the wounds caused by the second two shots.]" According to Dr
Frist, the state's version of the murder "has no basis in medical science
and Mr Tillman's testimony as to the possibility of a lingering death from
either of these wounds is patently erroneous." In Dr Frist's opinion, the
second gunshot wound "immediately resulted in brain death and caused a
cessation of all life processes most likely within a matter of seconds, but
certainly no longer than within a minute and a half."

The defense lawyers have also raised the conclusions of Robert Tressel, a
former homicide detective with nearly 30 years of experience in crime scene
analysis, who has reviewed the state's investigative files of the Moore
murder. He believes "the totality of the evidence supports the scenario that
Mr Lynd fired two shots in rapid succession causing wounds No. 2 and No. 3
to the left side of Ms Moore's head." These wounds were "forensically
consistent with Mr Lynd's statement, i.e. he shot Ms Moore over his left
shoulder after she attacked him from behind on the front porch," where he
was apparently contemplating suicide after the first shot. Like Dr Frist,
Robert Tressel believes Virginia Moore was dead when she was put in the
trunk of the car. 

If Virginia Moore was indeed dead at this point, not only would it call into
question the charge of kidnapping, it would also diminish the aggravating
circumstances of the crime that were presented to the jury as a part of the
prosecution's pursuit of conviction for capital murder and which the state
is still using to justify William Lynd's execution. His lawyers are seeking
judicial review of their claim that false evidence was presented at the
trial in the form of the testimony of the state's expert witness. However,
his ordinary appeals have been exhausted. The appeal courts have rejected
claims that Lynd's trial lawyers failed to conduct a reasonable
investigation into his background, mental health and substance abuse
problems. 

The last execution in the USA was on 25 September 2007. Executions were put
on hold pending the US Supreme Court's review of the constitutionality of
lethal injection. On 16 April, in Baze v. Rees, the Court upheld the
constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection procedures, and Chief
Justice John Roberts indicated that in future cases a stay of execution on
the lethal injection issue would probably only be granted if "the condemned
prisoner establishes that the State's lethal injection protocol creates a
demonstrated risk of severe pain. He must show that the risk is substantial
when compared to the known and available alternatives." A state with a
lethal injection protocol "substantially similar" to Kentucky's "would not
create a risk that meets this standard." Justice John Paul Stevens
nevertheless suggested that litigation on the lethal injection issue would
continue. William Lynd's lawyers have filed such a challenge. 

Since the USA resumed executions in 1977, 1,099 prisoners have been put to
death. In the Baze ruling, Justice Stevens, who has been on the Supreme
Court since 1975, revealed that his experience had led him to the conclusion
that "the imposition of the death penalty represents the pointless and
needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any
discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible
returns to the State is patently excessive and cruel and unusual
punishment." 

In late 2007, the UN General Assembly passed a landmark resolution calling
for a worldwide moratorium on executions. Amnesty International opposes the
death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen
to kill the condemned prisoner. There is no such thing as a humane, fair,
reliable or useful death penalty system (see 'The pointless and needless
extinction of life': USA should now look beyond lethal injection issue to
wider death penalty questions,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/031/2008/en). 

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in
English or your own language, in your own words:

*	

	expressing sympathy for any family of Virginia Moore, and explaining
that you are not seeking to excuse the manner of her death or to downplay
the suffering it will have caused;
*	

	opposing the execution of William Earl Lynd, and noting the global
abolitionist trend;
*	

	noting that the trial testimony of the prosecution's expert witness
has been called into question, with post-conviction defense experts casting
serious doubts on the reliability of this testimony and on the aggravating
circumstances of the crime which the state continues to emphasize in its
pursuit of this execution; 
*	

	urging the Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency to William
Earl Lynd.

APPEALS TO:

State Board of Pardons and Paroles 
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE 
Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower 
Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909, USA

Fax:                 (404) 651-8502
Email:              Webmaster at pap.state.ga.us. 

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It's easy to support the death penalty when you don't have all the facts.
P.O. Box 3045
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