Last words

Last week, Richard Cartwright was executed in Huntsville, Texas. There were questions about the legitimacy of Cartwright's death sentence (especially in light of claims by his co-defendant that Cartright didn't do it) but that is not the purpose of this blog entry.

Rather, the purpose of this entry is to share a few of Richard's final thoughts in a message he wrote days before his execution. Richard wrote the following:

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, this fight is not about one man. Therefore this fight is not over with one man’s death. It ain’t over with 100 men’s deaths, or 1000 for that matter. This fight is not over until the death penalty is completely abolished in the USA, and the rest of the world. Totally abolished is when the fight is over. When we no longer kill in the name of justice, then the fight is over.

As I take this walk towards my death I do it with a good friend of mine, Bryan Wolfe, who has a date for May 18th, the day before my own date. We are neighbors now and we have had some pretty wild and crazy talks about what is going down, but most on our minds is the pain and suffering our families are going through. And here I thought we were all cold blooded and heartless killers, eh? HA!HAH!HA!

I have to laugh at that, because I’ve met some very loving and caring people behind these walls. It is just like in the free world. There are good and bad everywhere. You cannot possibly write off a group of people as evil and heartless.

To read more, go here.