Executing the mentally impaired...
Is this moral? Johnny has the mind of a 5-6 year old child..He had spent many years in institutions growing up. He was badly abused by a mentally ill mother. Locked up and beaten. Still carries the scars. Has the system failed this man (child). Yes, I think so. Johnny was a child trapped in a mans body. I recently started writing Johnny and he is one of the finest human beings I have ever ran across.
It was easy learning to love Johnny and he calls me Mom.
Johnny was shunned by his mother, abandoned by his father and now abused by the system. Letters to Senator Ellis may help us save Johnny. We have to let the people know that executing the mentally impaired is wrong. Please write him and express your concern on this.
The Honorable Rodney G. Ellis
P.O. Box 12068
Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711
(512) 463-0113 We Need to email Governor Rick Perry and beg him to put a death penalty Moratorium in Texas. Please if you agree, go to this site and email him. A Poem for Johnny
by bonnie caraway
What is wrong, my death row friend,
Are you wanting your pain to end?
No, my child, you must fight,
And keep your faith completely in site.
Regardless of what people may say,
You are God's child, that makes you A-OK.
You are special Johnny Paul,
So throw back your shoulders and DO stand tall.
I know there is pain in your heart,
I felt it right from the start.
But please, dear Johnny, know of the love,
That God holds just for you, from up above.
He is with you in all things that you do,
While crying,sleeping, even just tying your shoes.
He is there with every bad meal,
Open your heart - so that you may feel.
He will be there for you, just as I will be,
For now we are God's little Family.
Together we'll stand up and fight,
Let's just keep Our Father in Sight. 
It has been 21 years since Johnny has had human contact other than strip searches and handcuffs put on. Johnny should be in an institution. Not in solitary in a 6'8' cell.
It is wrong to kill Johnny. I've talked to Johnny through mail and he really doesn't understand what is going on. It would be a great sin to execute him. He needs our help.
I pray for Johnny every day. Please remember him in your prayers.And God Bless You.  Even on death row, Johnny is an outcast, shunned by other inmates becausse of his retardation. Johnny's IQ has been tested by state authorities at 56. He spends his days coloring with crayons and looking at comic books. Johnny cannot read.
Johnny, who rode to the crime scene on his bicycle, was the son of an absent father who taunted him as retarded and a mother who wo tormented him because he was illegitimate. When he was a child, family members tell of his mother burning him in a scalding bath, locking him for long periods of time in a room without food and water and forced to eat his own feces and drink his own urine.
Johnny's mother was 18 when he was born and she was placed in a mental institution in Oklahoma for nearly a year after Johnny was born. A sister two years younger tells of horrible abuse to Johnny. The mother would threaten him telling him she was going to cut off his privates with a kitchen knife. At one time she burned him badly by throwing him up against a hot water heater. The sister tells of times Johnny cried for something to drink and the mother would make him drink his own urine out of the toilet.
When Johnny was 9, his IQ was 56. One psycholigist said in his report that " John seems so seriously impaired that he is incapable of functioning".
At 12, Johnny was institutionalized at the Mexia State School for the Mentally Retarded. When the staff gave him a haircut they found many scars on Johnny's scalp. When asked, he said they were from a big belt buckle his mother used to whip him with.
At 22, Johnny was convicted of rape. A state psychiatrist found that Johnny was still a bed-wetter. The reason Johnny gave for the rape was " I had never had a woman before and I wanted to see what it was like".
Johnny has noticed that other inmates do not want to have anything to do with him. He says because he can't carry on a good conversation.Like most people.
Johnny spends 21 hours in lockdown. When asked how many he said"oh I guess about 6 ". Ask how high he could count he counted to ten on his fingers and then closed his eyes and clenched his fists and concentrated real hard. then replied " To 40, I think". 
 Please scroll to the bottom of the page. There is more. Johnny with his family. Johnny standing behind the glass.
This one really breaks my heart. 
A Drawing Johnny sent to my daughter for her birthday.
|
