COLUMBIA, S.C. - A
family member and people against the death penalty pleaded Wednesday
for clemency for an Upstate man who is scheduled to be executed on
Friday for killing a store clerk on New Year's Day 1994.
The protest of Shawn Humphries' execution on the Statehouse steps
just outside of Gov. Mark Sanford's office came one day after Virginia
Gov. Mark Warner granted clemency to an inmate who had been scheduled
to be the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since capital punishment
was reinstated.
An inmate in North Carolina is scheduled to die at 2 a.m. Friday, and Humphries' execution is scheduled 16 hours later.
Sanford's spokesman Joel Sawyer said a decision on Humphries clemency request would be made no later than Friday morning.
But "based upon the fact that this case has already been through an
exhaustive legal process, the governor's legal team is not inclined to
recommend that the governor grant clemency," Sawyer said.
The Rev. Brenda Kneece of the South Carolina Christian Action
Council said Humphries' death sentence is not fair punishment. "Only as
we extend (mercy) to others can we claim to be walking with God," she
said.
Humphries' aunt, Terri Piotrowski, said her nephew's "death has no meaning, and I sure don't think this is justice."
Piotrowski, who previously supported the death penalty, said she
changed her mind after becoming a devout Christian. "Oh Jesus, I want
to make a difference," she said, tears streaming down her face.
Abe Bonowitz of Citizens United Against the Death Penalty said
Piotrowski's grief is evidence that capital punishment only creates
more victims.
Humphries, now 34, was convicted of murder in 1994 for the shooting
death of store clerk Mendal Alton "Dickie" Smith. Prosecutors said
Humphries and a friend decided to rob the store after drinking beer all
day.
Surveillance tape at his trial showed Humphries going into the store
and flashing a gun at Smith. When Smith reached under the counter, the
tape showed Humphries fire a shot and run away. Smith was struck once
in the head.
The friend, Edward Gerald Blackwell, stayed in the store and told
police what happened, according to testimony. He is serving a life
sentence for his own murder conviction.
Humphries is "very sorry, very remorseful, for what he did, but at
the same time, is sort of mindboggled. Nobody ... has been executed for
basically an attempted robbery that went bad," said Teresa Norris of
the Capital Center for Litigation, who has requested the U.S. Supreme
Court stop the execution.
Several others touched by capital cases also spoke Wednesday.
SueZann Bosler of Florida said she devoted more than 10 years of her
life to gain clemency for the man sentenced to death for killing her
father, the Rev. Billy Bosler, in 1986. James Bernard Campbell, who
also stabbed SueZann Bosler several times, is now serving life without
parole.
A former jury forewoman in New Orleans said her "hands were on a
wrongful conviction" when she helped sentence Daniel Bright III to
death in 1996. Norman fought to overturn the sentence, and Bright was
exonerated in 2004.
Then there was the story of a former death row inmate in California.
Shujaa Graham said he sat on California's death row for six years
before his sentence was overturned. He referenced Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."
"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly," Graham quoted.
As part of a speaking tour around the state, Bosler, Norman and Graham were scheduled to travel to Greenville later Wednesday.
