Good intentions
By Brandon Astor Jones
"While the [Pardons and Parole] Board cited discrepancies in sentencing of co-defendants in three ... cases ... prisoners Ivon Stanley, Roosevelt Green and Van [Roosevelt] Solomon, were denied clemency despite only being accessories to the murder rather than the actual trigger-men." — Amnesty International document.
I know that Amnesty International is one of the most well-intentioned organisations in the world, yet history is replete with instances in which the old adage, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", rings true.
The words that head this column were taken from the Amnesty International Country Report dated June 10, 1997.
I choose not to speak ill of the dead. Suffice it to say that while on death row, Van Roosevelt Solomon and I were bitter enemies. He and his lawyer sought to scapegoat me by resting his defence upon making me the so-called "trigger-man". The folly in that tactic was demonstrated when he was executed shortly thereafter. I am not the man who killed the victim.
It is my hope that Amnesty International will continue its work and good intentions, but that in the future it backs them up with equally good investigations. Misinformation in capital sentencing, more often than not, is fatal. I will always wonder if one or more of those jurors who sentenced me to death in September of 1997, for a second time in 19 years, had read that report.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA. Brandon and his friends are trying to raise funds to pay for a lawyer for his appeal. If you can help, please make cheques payable to the Brandon Astor Jones Defence Account and post to 41 Neutral St, North Sydney NSW 2060, or any Commonwealth Bank, account No. 2127 1003 7638.]