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Death penalty foes hold vigils for inmate

Sabine Schlunk holds a sign during a vigil against the execution of Philip Workman outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday. Workman was convicted of killing Memphis police Lieutenant Ronald Oliver in 1981 and was sentenced to die in the prison by lethal injection at 1am yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Opponents of the death penalty gathered at vigils to pray for death row inmate Philip Workman, who was convicted of killing a Memphis police officer in 1981, and an end to the death penalty in Tennessee.

Workman was scheduled to die at 1am yesterday. It would be Tennessee's third execution in nearly 47 years. Several last-minute motions to spare him were denied by federal courts on Tuesday.

At a tearful vigil at Holy Name Catholic Church, Victor Singletary, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Capitol Hill, encouraged the audience not to give up hope.

"We will come to appreciate that it is not worth the time, money and error to put to death innocent persons," he said.

Several speakers said there was enough contradictory evidence in Workman's case to merit a review.

Over years of appeals, he has claimed that he did not fire the bullet that killed a Memphis police officer during a shootout at a fast-food restaurant in 1981 and that the state used perjured testimony and withheld evidence to convict him.

"Tonight we're going to execute a man though he has not been given an evidentiary hearing," Singletary said. "And some of us in this state are under the notion that they are going to sleep better tonight."

Death penalty opponents said they were disappointed to have an execution so soon after the state had ended a 90-day moratorium to revise its protocol for executions by lethal injection.

Executions have been halted in 10 other states so that procedures could be re-evaluated: Florida, California, Missouri, New Jersey, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, South Dakota, North Carolina and Ohio.

Brad MacLean, a Nashville attorney representing another condemned Tennessee inmate, said the three-chemical injection sometimes fails to work and can cause the paralyzed inmates to feel pain.

At least 30 states use the three-drug injection, which consists of thiopental, an anesthetic; pancuronium bromide, a nerve blocker and muscle paralyzer; and potassium chloride, a drug to stop the heart.

"The fact that they're continuing to use a protocol, a three-chemical cocktail that has been criticized throughout the county, illustrates the state is not willing to take a serious look at the problems," he said.

"We hoped the governor would extend the moratorium because he knows as we know how broken the death penalty system is," said Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing.

"This case alone should give us reason to do a full case study of the death penalty system," said Alex Wiesendanger, associate director of the coalition.
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