What a brutal way to kill someone.
Obama: “If I had a hammer ....”
declared that he was bound for Hell and asked the court to do what Gentry’s family wanted to do: kill him. The judge said, “Mr. Bishop, I’m going to grant your wish.”
human rights organization Reprieve notes:
Reprieve volunteers assisting on the case gathered documents and witness statements which proved that Bishop suffered from a chronic mental illness (bipolar depressive disorder, formerly known as manic depression) and had undergone horrific trauma when he was young,
Dale Bishops father was an abusive alcoholic who beat his wife and children including Dale Bishop on a weekly basis. The family was incredibly poor. When Dale was an infant, the family had no running water, no indoor bathroom, and no money.
But, the KILLER COULD BUY ALCHOL & DRUGS!
the murder took place after a two-week drug binge and that they had been smoking marijuana, and injecting crystal meth and cocaine prior to the crime,”
human rights organization, Reprieve notes:
the chance that Barbour, a long-time right-wing political hack and backroom fixer, will actually commute Bishop’s sentence or even delay his killing are slim. For one thing, Bishop is white — or “white trash” as he’d be called amongst Barbour’s neo-plantation set — and his death could help redress the statistical imbalance between the executions of black and white prisoners
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Reprieve was founded by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith in 1999. Reprieve has nine full-time staff working in its London office, and supports eight full-time Fellows working in the field in the Deep Southern United States.
Paul Hamann, Chair and Trustee
Paul is one of the founders of Reprieve. He runs his own independent production company, Wild Pictures, and was previously the BBC’s Head of Documentaries and History.
Martha Lane Fox, Trustee
Martha co-founded lastminute.com in 1998,
Martha acted as Group Managing Director
Martha is a non-executive Director of Channel 4 Television, Patron of CAMFED www.camfed.org. and the Prisons Video Trust, and co-founder of Lucky Voice Private Karaoke.
Jo Martin, Trustee
Jo studied law at King’s College London, graduating in 2000. Between January and May 2002 she worked as a Reprieve Volunteer at the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in New Orleans, assisting with the cases of defendants facing the death penalty. She joined the Reprieve Board in the summer of 2002, becoming a Trustee in May 2007. She works as a solicitor specialising in employment and discrimination law at Soho-based firm Simons Muirhead & Burton.
Sultana Noon, Reprieve Fellow, Pakistan
Sultana studied social psychology and political science at Bennington College where she did extensive research on capital punishment in Islam.
Patrick Mulvaney, Reprieve Fellow 2008-9
Patrick Mulvaney studied journalism at New York University before attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also worked for a year at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty tracking executions and organizing opposition to capital punishment, and for a year at The Nation magazine
Patrick has interned at the Southern Center for Human Rights, assisting with death penalty litigation, and at Reprieve in London, working on Guantánamo Bay and death penalty issues.
Christine DeMaso, Reprieve Fellow 2007-8
Christine DeMaso graduated from Columbia Law School in 2007. While in law school she interned at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and with the Southern Center for Human Rights. She also served as an Articles Editor on the Columbia Law Review.
Terrica Redfield, Reprieve Fellow 2006 - 2007
Terrica Redfield is a 2002 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. While a law student, Terrica interned with the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center where she was confronted by the injustice inherent in the U.S system of capital punishment. As an African-American and native of Mississippi, she was particularly struck by the ways racism affected such life and death decisions, especially in the Southern US.
Alma Lagarda, Reprieve Fellow 2006 - 7
Alma Lagarda graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, where she was a member of Boalt Hall’s Death Penalty Clinic and served as co-editor in chief of the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal
Eleni Antonopoulos, Reprieve Fellow 2006 - 8
Eleni Antonopoulos used her fellowship at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (LCAC)
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Eleni took over as lead investigator at LCAC. Eleni was also a key member of the team of lawyers and investigators who worked day and night to secure the release of the seven thousand prisoners who were in Orleans Parish prison when the hurricane hit New Orleans
Caroline Meyer, Reprieve Fellow 2005 - 6
Caroline Meyer graduated from law school in Toronto, Canada, and worked for one year as a Reprieve fellow in Harris County Texas, at the Gulf Region Advocacy Center (GRACE).
Caroline also worked to build a partnership between GRACE and the historically black Thurgood Marshall School of Law, as well as other local schools, to bring students from racial minorities into the capital defence community.
Barry Gerharz, Reprieve Fellow 2004 - 5
Barry Gerharz attended Brooklyn and Tulane Law Schools, and volunteered at Innocence Project New Orleans before joining the staff as a Reprieve Fellow upon graduation. Barry used his Reprieve Fellowship to initiate a project to help wrongfully convicted prisoners upon release as an ‘Exoneree Advocate.’
Richard Bourke, Senior Fellow
Richard Bourke graduated in law from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He worked as a youth worker, solicitor and then as highly successful criminal defence barrister in Australia before he came to Louisiana
Jonny Kerr, Reprieve Investigator
Jonny is from Northern Ireland and studied law at Queens University in Belfast. An interest in human rights led Jonny to a volunteer placement in Houston with the Texas Defender Service where he saw first hand the injustice of the death penalty. Jonny returned to Houston to work as a Reprieve investigator on the case of Linda Carty. Linda holds British citizenship and is originally from the Caribbean.
Shauneen Lambe, Reprieve Investigator
Shauneen graduated from the University of Edinburgh and is qualified as a barrister in the UK and as an attorney in Louisiana. She is a founding member of Reprieve and served on the Board as a Trustee and advisor. Shauneen worked as an investigator and attorney at the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in New Orleans on the case of Ryan Matthews.
Amanda Telfer, Reprieve Investigator
Amanda Telfer studied Mathematics and Philosophy at Manchester University, then worked in the entertainment/music field for several years. Amanda next undertook a law conversion course and worked for 10 years in civil litigation in intellectual property. Inspired by the documentary ‘Fourteen Days in May,’ Amanda volunteered at Reprieve, working first on managing performances of the theatre production Lorilei in London and Edinburgh, and then as an investigator for the case of Neil Revill, a British National awaiting trial for double murder in California
Clemmie Harrison, Reprieve Investigator
Clemmie Harrison is a graduate of Nottingham University, with a BA in politics. She spent several months as a Reprieve Volunteer at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (LCAC) focusing on investigation and the co-ordination of a client welfare programme. As a Reprieve investigator, Clemmie spent the initial part of 2007 in Texas working on the case of Linda Carty, a British National on death row.
Reprieve USA
Reprieve USA is based in New Orleans and co-ordinates the US-based volunteer programme
Reprieve lawyers represent people facing the death penalty, particularly in the USA, or when those facing execution are British nationals. And we represent prisoners denied justice in the name of the ‘War on Terror’, including those held without charge or trial in Guantánamo Bay and the countless secret prisons beyond.