Earl Wesley Berry will die on May 21

What are you doing next Wednesday? Earl Wesley Berry will die. Almost certainly. He is scheduled to be executed in Mississippi on May 21 for the murder of Mary Bounds.  So Brian, over at the ever-improving Amnesty USA blogs, tells us.

My awareness of the many injustices involved in the use of the death penalty within the US crimninal justice system was heightened recently by our film screening and panel discussion for In Prison My Whole Life as part of the Belfast Film Festival in mid-April.

Just a couple of days later the US Supreme Court ruled in the Baze case that State killing by lethal injection could indeed be constitutional and the de facto moratorium on executions in the US ended. This decision – a major set-back to the anti-death penalty movement – paved the way for Mississippi to schedule a new date for the killing of Earl Wesley Berry. Next Wednesday to be precise.

The case illustrates just a few of the injustices inherent in the American practice of the death penalty: defendant with very low IQ, poor legal representation, politicking. Read more on Brian's Amnesty USA blog and then take action to stop the execution.