TN DEATH PENALTY BLOG
We are traveling through Tennessee's heartland and highways, meeting folks and starting conversations about our death penalty.
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- The Money Pit
- Remembrance
- One Click Online Activism
- An Observation
- Study Bill Passes the Senate
- Botched Executions
- No Time Like the Present
- It Doesn't Make Cents (or Dollars)!
- He Won't Let Paul House Be Forgotten
- One Last Trial for Philip Workman's Family
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- Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
- Amnesty International Death Penalty Blog
- Asia Death Penalty Blog
- For Victims, Against the Death Penalty
- The Real Cost of Prisons Blog
- Uncommon Sense on the Death Penalty
- National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
- Death Penalty Information Center
- Citizens United Against the Death Penalty
- Murder Victims Families for Human Rights
- Google News: TN death penalty
Contributors
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
An Incredible and Tragic Story
No, I'm not talking about the Paul House case right here in Tennessee (although that's certainly an incredible and tragic story). Instead, this past Saturday, a tombstone was placed on the grave of Joe Arridy, a man with the mental capacity of a 5 year old who was executed for a crime that he did not commit in Colorado in 1939. Here's part of this heartbreaking story:
As strange as it may seem for a prison official, Warden Roy Best developed a warm friendship with Joe Arridy. He gave him toys to play with in his cell. The tough warden took Joe home on Christmas Eve of 1939 and presented him with a toy train. The toy train ran an express lane down the corridor of Death Row. A death row inmate would reach through the bars and poke the train over, and Joe would joyfully yell out: “Train wreck! Fix the wreck!” To make Joe happy, the hardened death row inmates would send the toy train back down the corridor to Joe.
The NCADP blog has the entire story here.
As strange as it may seem for a prison official, Warden Roy Best developed a warm friendship with Joe Arridy. He gave him toys to play with in his cell. The tough warden took Joe home on Christmas Eve of 1939 and presented him with a toy train. The toy train ran an express lane down the corridor of Death Row. A death row inmate would reach through the bars and poke the train over, and Joe would joyfully yell out: “Train wreck! Fix the wreck!” To make Joe happy, the hardened death row inmates would send the toy train back down the corridor to Joe.
The NCADP blog has the entire story here.
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They sacrificed this man. Sick, repulsive and contemptible. What gave them the right?
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007 6:35:00 PM
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007 6:35:00 PM
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