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As Executions Roll, Governor's Mansion Gates A Place For Singalong, Chitchat, Twitter

Death penalty opponents and members of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty didn't put down their signs, their candles or their smart phones even to sing Amazing Grace.
Bobby Ampezzan
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Arkansas Public Media
Death penalty opponents and members of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty didn't put down their signs, their candles or their smart phones even to sing Amazing Grace.

Without any official program, anti-death penalty protesters busied themselves Monday evening at the gates of the Governor's Mansion with song and prayer. And Twitter.

"'The court reinstituted Marcell Williams' death sentence for procedural reason no more.' What? Hold on, let's figure out what's happening."

Laura Hardy said the thing that’s most irritated her the last couple of weeks of Arkansas executions has been the seemingly gleeful, baiting comments made on Twitter and elsewhere by Arkansas politicians. 

Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty director Furonda Brasfield and Freddie Nixon (foreground) with Sharon Sweeney, Cas Rifkin and Karen Delavan (in back).
Credit Bobby Ampezzan / Arkansas Public Media
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Arkansas Public Media
Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty director Furonda Brasfield and Freddie Nixon (foreground) with Sharon Sweeney, Cas Rifkin and Karen Delavan (in back).

"What lifts me up? There's a lot of people who, all over the world, who're as upset as we are."

Jihad Muhammad stopped by but didn't stay all evening. He himself has served time on a murder charge.

"So I am absolutely against the death penalty. I believe that just like I was redeemed and reformed and restored and I’m out here being successful and helping people, I believe that those men have in them the same potential to be better. And when you're saying you're going to kill a man, you're saying that that person does not have the potential to be better. I don't believe that. So that's why I'm here."

The vigil keepers, perhaps three dozen in all, lit and re-lit votive candles with paper doily skirts handed out from a Little Caesars pizza box.

Madeleine Young, Cheryl Woodard and Stephanie Matlock
Credit Bobby Ampezzan / Arkansas Public Media
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Arkansas Public Media
Madeleine Young, Cheryl Woodard and Stephanie Matlock

Stephanie Matlock says her reading of the New Testament commands her to abjure retribution. She doesn’t see a distinction between a street killing and one that takes place inside a prison by appointed staff.

"And I don’t know of but two sins that God said he won’t forgive you for. That’s blasphemy and self-murder. Other than that, you’re just to be forgiven. Ok?"

God, she said, picks "the worst of the worst" to use, and besides, who has any better testimony?

But Madeleine Young said not every vigil keeper is a Christian. She’s not a Christian.

Vicki Hatter of Little Rock introduces herself to Jihad Muhammad of Pine Bluff.
Credit Bobby Ampezzan / Arkansas Public Media
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Arkansas Public Media
Vicki Hatter of Little Rock introduces herself to Jihad Muhammad of Pine Bluff.

"We're not all doing this just because of what we think God has said about it," she said. "I'm here as someone who values human life, you know, not because of the Bible but because of people and what I know that they're worth."

The vigil keepers' next date together over pizza and candlelight is Thursday.

Will they be stood up by the courts?

They certainly hope so. 

This story is produced by Arkansas Public Media. What's that? APM is a nonprofit journalism project for all of Arkansas and a collaboration among public media in the state. We're funded in part through a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with the support of partner stations KUAR, KUAF, KASU and KTXK. And, we hope, from you! You can learn more and support Arkansas Public Media's reporting at arkansaspublicmedia.org. Arkansas Public Media is Natural State news with context.

Copyright 2017 Arkansas Public Media

Bobby Ampezzan is a native of Detroit who holds degrees from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). He's written for The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine and was a longtime staff writer fortheArkansas Democrat-Gazette. The best dimestore nugget he's lately discovered comes from James Altucher's Choose Yourself(actually, the Times' profile on Altucher, which quotes the book): "I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful." Meanwhile, his faith in public radio and television stems from the unifying philosophy that not everything be serious, but curiosity should follow every thing, and that we be serious about curiosity.
Bobby Ampezzan
Bobby Ampezzan is a native of Detroit who holds degrees from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). He's written for The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine and was a longtime staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The best dimestore nugget he's lately discovered comes from James Altucher's Choose Yourself (actually, the Times' profile on Altucher, which quotes the book): "I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful." Meanwhile, his faith in public radio and television stems from the unifying philosophy that not everything be serious, but curiosity should follow every thing, and that we be serious about curiosity.