Please help with Robert Gattis clemency petition

[Amnesty York PA]

Dear AIUSA Friends,

We need help on the case of Robert Gattis who faces execution in DE.  We have to get the Parole Board to recommend clemency.  The governor can't grant it without them recommending it.  The Parole Board hearing was on Monday and we are expecting a decision soon.  Please circulate widely and do sign the peitition yourself.  We also need help with online comments in response to press coverage.  Just to be clear - clemency doesn't mean release, pardon, or anything else.  If he's granted clemency he will spend the rest of his life in jail.

There are talking points and sample tweets below.  The legal team is counting on us.  The rate at which people are signiing the petition asking for clemency has slowed down to a trickle.  PLEASE help save Robert's life.  We are running out of time!

You may have seen that there was an unfortunate letter to the editor in the News Journal today by a local pastor in opposition to clemency (pasted below). 

Encouraging your members to tweet, post online comments, and sign the petition is more important now than ever. Thanks so much for all you have been doing on these fronts. We see that the petition is up to 3,500 signatures, which is great! All of your outreach is paying off!

Delaware News Journal
January 10, 2012

If a Life is Taken, There Must Be Consequences

I have to disagree with The News Journal's recent editorial assertion that we need to consider that Robert Allen Gattis' lifestyle virtually drove him to murder.

He made a choice based on his feelings, not the fact of how he was raised or the abuse in his life. What we have are excuses being made for doing wrong and not that there have to be consequences for that wrong.

What if everyone who has been abused acted out because of how they were treated? Man, what a crime wave we would have. Many people have suffered abuse but rose above their abuse to be a service to others and not have a payback sort of attitude, but a healing sort of attitude.

I am not saying here that the death penalty is the answer to solve all problems, yet it is needed! Life is a gift and not someone's right to take. When they do so, when they have made the choice to take that gift, they have made the choice, and there have to be consequences to that choice.

I have a right to do many things, but when my rights take away the rights of others am I truly right?

Pastor Randy G. Scott,
Wilmington

 

The appeal has gone out to national abolitionist organizations and supporters and they've sent it out to their members but we need more help.  Please feel free to share with your members:

The Pardons Board will be issuing its clemency recommendation in the Robert Gattis case sometime this week, possibly as soon as the next 24 hours. 

Thank you so much for considering utilizing this important brief window of opportunity to continue showing the public support for clemency for Mr. Gattis. 

There are two activities that we are encouraging advocates to continue to undertake today: 

-- Placing online comments in response to the Delaware news coverage of the clemency hearing. 

The Delaware News Journal article can be found at: http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120110/NEWS01/201100332/Gattis-seeks-reprieve-not-who-am-

Dover Post: http://www.doverpost.com/news/x123110781/Gattis-makes-final-plea-for-life

WHYY-NPR affiliate: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/flexicontent/item/32396-condemned-killer-asks-delaware-board-of-pardons-to-spare-his-life/

Sample online comments include:

1) Robert Gattis experienced ongoing sexual and physical abuse beginning when he was just a small child, but the jury who sentenced him to death never knew this. He should be shown a measure of mercy now – mercy that was never shown to him when he was a defenseless kid. He must be punished, but he should not be executed. 

 

2) Throughout his 21 years on death row, Mr. Gattis has expressed sincere remorse and a heartfelt commitment to rehabilitation. He has been a positive influence on his fellow inmates and family members. A sentence of life imprisonment would give him the second chance he deserves while still ensuring a just - and severe - punishment.

3) Many other people who committed similar crimes in Delaware have not been sentenced to death. Even Robert Gattis' jury did not unanimously support his death sentence. Of course Mr. Gattis must be held accountable, but executing him is an excessive punishment. 

4) Judges, prosecutors, faith leaders, mental health experts, even corrections officers all support clemency for Robert Gattis. I hope the Governor and Pardons Board listens to their calls. He is simply not the worst of the worst who the death penalty is intended for. 

 

5) Mr. Gattis suffered horrific sexual and violent abuse from childhood to adolescence. That’s the kind of crucial information the court should have considered before sentencing him to death. How can our state rightfully execute him at the same time we recognize the need to help other victims of such childhood abuse?

 

-- Posting the online petition on Twitter. Sample tweets include:

Join Prosecutors, judges, faith leaders, mental health experts urge clemency for #RobertGattis. JOIN THE CALL: http://chn.ge/tOs2AG

#RobertGattis facing execution in DE despite suffering horrific child abuse & showing true rehabilitation.SIGN PETITION http://chn.ge/tOs2AG

Thanks so much for all of the support to-date promoting the online petition to your members and blogging about the case.

In Solidarity,

Kathleen

York Group 438
AC Central PA

PS:  If you have questions or need more info, email me or call me at 717-781-4566.  If I can't answer, please leave a message and I promise to get right back to you.  I'll be on some conf calls at various times so I can't always pick up.  You can also text me at the number above.