From: Lynn Gazis-Sax <lgsax@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:53 PST
Subject: Capital Punishment
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1744600032:000:10159
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!lgsax    Nov 16 18:53:00 1992


From: Lynn Gazis-Sax <lgsax>
Subject: Capital Punishment

Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 15:05:00 EST
From: PBROAD@IUP.BITNET
Subject:      Capital Punishment

The following two documents--a message from a Friend who is a
prisoner on Death Row in Virginia and a statement on his behalf--
were passed out in Meeting here in Indiana, PA this Sunday by
Mike Conner, a member of our Meeting who has visited with Tim
Bunch regularly for the last several years.  I share them with
Friends on Quaker-L at his request and in the fervent hope that
they may have some effect.

LIFE ON DEATH ROW, by Tim Bunch  (recently accepted as a member
of Charlottesville, VA Monthly Meeting)

    How do I put into mere words the emotion and sheer horror of
repeatedly seeing people that I've known and lived with for years
taken away from my home and methodically and ritualistically
killed?  I truly wanted to somehow write a ten-year retrospective
of my life on death row, but I find it impossible to discuss the
87,000 plus hours in the brief time I have lift to live should
the state have its way.
    What I am experiencing is probably life on death row at its
bleakest.  Although I do continue to reflect on the Light, it is
still a daily battle (I do like to consider myself a Peaceful
Warrior) for to be human and a Friend on death row is much like
the life of an alcoholic:  one day at a time.  Actually I should
say to be a Friend in prison is more akin to waging a fierce
battle.  For instance, generally speaking, in prison (although
death row is an exception) kindness is construed as a sign of
weakness or as trickery.  To understand this we must take into
consideration that the vast majority of people in prison were
severely damaged prior to entering elementary school.  Eliminate
this terrible phenomenon and we wouldn't need prisons - period.
Instead, the prison population is expected to double before the
year 2000.
    For the most part I suppose I'm still quite the mystery to
most of the guys here.  I should point out that the majority are
fundamentalist "Christians" who just can't quite grasp the con-
cept of nonviolence.  I did get an interesting response form one
of the guys when I suggested that whenever he found himself in a
situation in which his anger seemed to prevail over reason, he
should stop and try to ponder how Jesus would handle it.  His
response was "But I'm not God."
    All I can do is set an example as a Friend and do my best to
bathe my buddies in the Light.  Although my closest buddies over
the years have been killed, paradoxically my light has only
become that much brighter.  So I try to continue to set the exam-
ple with the friends I have left now and somehow convey that bec-
oming a Friend has had a wonderful impact on my spirituality..  I
have come to see that violence truly ends where love begins.
    So my path has taken me to this point less than 90 days
before my scheduled death.  I am forever seeking moral enlighten-
ment.  But hopefully now I am mature enough to know the dif-
ference between knowledge and wisdom.  My purpose in life now is
to seek to use this wisdom for the betterment of us all and
myself after December 10.
    May your Inner Light burn evermore brightly!


                  FRIENDS OF TIMOTHY DALE BUNCH
                        AND OPPONENTS TO
                        THE DEATH PENALTY

    December 10, 1992 is International Human Rights Day.  It is
also the day Virginia has scheduled to kill Timothy Dale Bunch in
the electric chair--the same chair which recently "malfunctioned"
by failing to kill another death row inmate on the first try and
requiring a second lethal jolt of electricity to be administered.
It is particularly outrageous that Virginia chose to kill Timothy








on Internatio
   nal Human Rights Day--a day set aside to denounce
precisely the sort of inhumane and unjust treatment that Timothy
is scheduled to endure.
    Tim Bunch does not claim that he is innocent; only that there
are compelling reasons why he should not be killed and instead
should be permitted to serve a life sentence in prison.  On
January 31, 1982, Tim Bunch made a tragic mistake by taking the
life so Su Cha Thomas, a mistake which he will never forget and
for which he is deeply remorseful.
    There is only one reason why Tim Bunch is on death row today
rather than serving a term of life imprisonment:  Tim Bunch's
conviction and death sentence rested exclusively on a confession
that was obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination.  The facts are as follows:  As a
suspect of the crime, Tim was taken into police custody in
Iwakuni, Japan, where he was stationed as a United States Marine.
Tim asked to speak to a lawyer but was not provided with one.
Although Tim subsequently made incriminating statements while in
Japan, these were eventually thrown out of court because the
government obtained them by violating Tim's constitutional right
to remain silent.  Tim was then transported from Iwakuni to Vir-
ginia.  In the 36-hour trip from Japan to Virginia, during most
of which Tim was awake, the police continued to question him
about the killing and TIM AGAIN REQUESTED A LAWYER.  Despite
Tim's request, the police continued to interrogate him, until he
finally broke down and confessed to the murder.
    The prosecution does not argue that the continued interroga-
tion of Tim Bunch after he asked to speak to a lawyer was con-
stitutional.  In fact, the prosecution admits that if Tim Bunch
were being tried today, his confession would be LEGALLY
INADMISSIBLE in court.  The sole reason that Tim now faces the
death penalty instead of life imprisonment is that his Fifth
Amendment right to remain silent was violated TOO SOON.  The Vir-
ginia courts which decided Tim's case said that although TODAY,
the United States Constitution would require Tim Bunch's confes-
sion to be thrown out of court, at the time Tim was tried, the
Constitution was "unclear."  In other words, Tim Bunch's death
sentence is based on a legal technicality rather than any princi-
ple of fairness or constitutionality.
    In addition to the patent unfairness of Tim Bunch's death
sentence based on current law, it is important to note that Tim,
like every other inmate on death row, could not afford to hire
his own lawyer at the time of his trial.  Because he could not
afford counsel, when the government finally got around to
responding to Tim's request for a lawyer, his case was assigned
by the court to appointed counsel with virtually no experience.
The more experienced of Tim's two trial lawyers had never even
tried a murder case; the junior attorney on the case had no
criminal law experience whatsoever.  As a result of the virtual
inexperience of his trial lawyers, the twelve-person jury which
ultimately sentenced Tim to die in the electric chair included at
least one member who, before even hearing the facts of the case,
told the judge that he believed that regardless of the facts and
circumstances involved, in every case of murder, the person com-
mitting the murder should "beyond any doubt" always receive the
death penalty.  This patent violation of his right to an unbiased
jury foreclosed Tim's hope for a fair trial even before his trial
had begun.
    Another result was that the jury never heard crucial
testimony about the personal history of Timothy Dale Bunch, who
was a United States Marine with no criminal record, or about the
root causes of his completely aberrant behavior on the night of
the crime.  For instance, the jury never heard about:

    Tim's reputation for non-violence among his friends and
teachers;









    The fact that Tim's father viciously abused his mother
throughout Tim's                        childhood (and that Tim's
mother sought protection from her only son, a     mere child who
should have instead been protected);

    The fact that, although Tim and his wife, Teresa, had marital
problems,                       Tim never once struck Teresa, and
she was never fearful of him;

    The fact that Tim's father, an Indiana State Policeman,
brandished                                         weapons in
their house and also threatened his children, including one
occasion on which he forced the entire family at gunpoint to lie
down in                 their backyard and threatened to kill
them all;

    The extreme emotional and mental disturbance which Tim suf-
fered as a                                       result of being
abused as a child; or

    The pain Tim suffered from the final disintegration of his
marriage to                             his high school
sweetheart, Teresa, only weeks before the crime.

    The only witness who testified on Tim's behalf at his
sentencing was his mother, who unbeknownst to Tim's attorneys,
was under the influence of prescription drugs at the time.
    Because no one else was called to provide mitigating evidence
which would have enabled the jury to impose a life sentence--even
though there were MANY people available to do so--the jury was
left with the impression that no one except Tim's mother, an
obviously biased party, had anything positive to say about him as
a human being.
    Because these facts have fallen on deaf ears throughout Tim's
journey in the court system, his last hope for life remains with
the Governor of Virginia, Doug Wilder.  In an effort to persuade
Governor Wilder to grand clemency on Tim's behalf, we are asking
all concerned persons to write to the Governor and ask that Tim
be granted mercy.  The Governor's address is:
        The Honorable Lawrence Douglas Wilder
        Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia
        State Capitol Building
        Third Floor
        Richmond, VA 23219
    We urge you to tell the Governor that the ends never justify
the means; that although Tim committed a crime, his life is too
great a price to pay faced with the patent unfairness of his
trial and the violation of his constitutional rights.
    We are available to answer questions you may have about Tim
or his case.
        Maria Harris Tildon
        Nancy A. Voisin
        (202) 962-4800