David Lee Powell Petition
Williams's website featured a petition by Amnesty International to stop the execution of David Lee Powell in Texas. Powell was convicted in 1978 for the shooting death of 26-year-old Austin police officer Ralph Ablanedo during a traffic stop. He was tried twice since the death penalty came in to effect and was sentenced to death both times, in 1991 and 1999. Powell was executed by lethal injection on June 15, 2010. Williams's website stated it was cruel and unusual punishment for Powell to serve a life sentence and be executed afterwards. She wrote a song in honor of Ablanedo and stated that the proceeds would be donated to Ablanedo's family.
Read more about this topic: Lucinda Williams
Famous quotes containing the words david, lee, powell and/or petition:
“It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)
“Growing old’s like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Maybe we were the blind mechanics of disaster, but you don’t pin the guilt on the scientists that easily. You might as well pin it on M motherhood.... Every man who ever worked on this thing told you what would happen. The scientists signed petition after petition, but nobody listened. There was a choice. It was build the bombs and use them, or risk that the United States and the Soviet Union and the rest of us would find some way to go on living.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)