GREETINGS AND WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE!!!
I thank you so much for coming to this site. Some of you may have sought it out or some of you may have stumbled upon it, but for whatever reason that brought you here I hope that you will enter my world with an open heart and mind. Ultimately, I hope that you leave this site with a different out look on the death penalty and how it is applied. I hope that those who might have believed in the death penalty discover that a vengeful society, a society without forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation and love is not the answer. Hopefully you will see and realize that the death penalty only creates an endless cycle of pain and suffering. Death should never be the final and only solution. This is not a fan or site to ask you for financial support for legal or any personal means. The things I want from this life are not of material value. I do not have personal access to a computer on death row, so this site is managed by a wonderful friend, whose own humanity and compassion is what I strive for in my own life. I'm not crying out for you to save my life, but instead to save all the lives on death row. I'm calling for an end to the Death Penalty. My story is one of many and I wish to share it with you. I've opened up through poems, memoirs, photographs and my own personal journal that documents my daily life on death row. My life is ever evolving and I strive to be the best person that I can possibly be. I'm not a saint and I don't pretend to be, however I have asked those whom I've hurt in my past for forgiveness. I strive daily to live as compassionately as possible. I believe that openness and sometimes brutal honesty is the only way I can tell my story and share my life with you. I have to warn viewers that some of the writings and material posted are not intended for those under the age of eighteen. Many entries contain foul language and sexual situations. I hope this isn't viewed out of bad taste or as gratuitous, it is my life and my life isn't always rosy. Death Row isn't an amusement park. Some days can be light hearted, as we try to make what's left of our lives as best as we can, but most days are a struggle. We feel pain, loss, remorse, regrets, anger and resentment. It can be a very negative environment. Even if some of us try to bloom and grow like a flower along the side of desolate highway. Compassion and love can and does exist on Death Row. We are capable or redemption. I hope you will go through this site with that at the front of your mind. We are capable of redemption and for that reason alone, the Death Penalty should be abolished. I leave the rest up to you. Only you. If you choose not to listen to my story, that is fine. I only ask that maybe you will listen to someone else's. I'm not the only man on death row and until things change, I surely and sadly won't be the last.. Peace and Love, Randy

***RE-EVALUATING THE DEATH PENALTY***
1. Executions cost more than life in prison. $2 million per person vs. $500,000 (4x as much!). Free counsel for defense, for appeals, maximum security on a separate death row wing.
2. The innocent may be wrongly executed. Since the DP was reinstated in 1976, 82 inmates have been freed from Death Row. That's 1 Death Row inmate found to be wrongfully convicted for every 7 executed.
3. Is not a deterrent; crime rates have not gone down. In fact, the murder rate in the US is 6 times that of Britain and 5 times that of Australia. Neither country has the DP. Texas has twice the murder rate of Wisconsin, a state that doesn't have the DP. Texas and Oklahoma have historically executed the most number of DR inmates, yet in 2003 their state murder rates increased, and both have murder rates higher than the national average.
4. Life in prison also guarantees no future crimes.
5. Some religions forbid death penalty: Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Amish, Mennonite.
6. Killing is wrong.
7. Many Death Row inmates were convicted while being defended by court-appointed lawyers who are often the worst-paid and most-inexperienced and least-skillful lawyers. The American Bar Association published guidelines for a good defense in a death penalty case: (a) attorneys with prior experience working a capital case, (b) 2 attorneys, 1 investigator, 1 mitigation specialist, and (c) fully funded to pay for travel, private eyes, evidence testing and other things needed to investigate the case. Yet no state meets these standards. And few states pay their state-appointed lawyers well enough to retain competent, effective lawyers.
8. Violates international human rights laws.
9. No longer practiced in most sophisticated societies.
10. Promotes killing as an OK solution to a difficult problem.
11. Death sentences are handed down arbitrarily, not in a fair manner. Serial killers such as the infamous Gary Ridgway in Seattle who admitted killing 48 prostitutes and runaways got life in prison. An "angel of death" nurse in NJ who admitted killing 17 people got life. Meanwhile, mentally ill and impoverished murderers who could not afford good lawyers and did not warrant much media attention were given the death penalty. In Alabama, David Hocker was executed after a one-day trial. His mental illness was not sufficiently described to the jury. Alabama also executed a 74-year-old man (James Hubbard) who had been on DR for 27 years and was beset by medical problems which would have probably soon caused his death by natural means: cancer, high blood pressure and the early stages of Alzheimers. In Texas, a man with schizophrenia was executed (Kelsey Patterson) even after the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended clemency after learning of his time spent in mental hospitals and his unintelligible rambling.
12. Abolished in 1972, because the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional and inhumane. It was reinstated in 1976, after execution methods were "up-dated" and it was ruled that it was no longer inhumane.
13. 68% of all Texans vote death, while 57% of U.S. citizens vote death. 94% of U.S. Citizens believe, wrongly convicted individuals are executed.
14. Ex D.A. Gary Weiser once said, "To put a wrongly convicted man on death row with illegally produced evidence is wrong…; it is not justice."
15. Texas is 49th amongst states in education, poverty, and health care. But it is first in executions.
16. There are over 2 million Woman, Men and Children in prisons across the U.S. There are 400,000 more prisons in the U.S. than there are in China. China's population exceeds 1.5 billion people.
17. A 2002 Scripps Howard poll of Texans found that 66% polled believed that Texas has executed an innocent person. (Since 2000 alone, the press and various university pro-grams have found at least three executed men were indeed innocent…)
***Texas death penalty cases cost more than non-capital cases. That is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992)***