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Reflection - By
Dion Smallwood
Originally from from The OCADP |
The following is a letter
from Leslie Delk, who is the attorney for Dion Smallwood.
Dion was recently denied
clemency by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.
Dear Folks--
Yes, Dion Smallwood was denied clemency
yesterday and in the process
Assistant AG Bill Hume once again trashed
any support from
Amnesty-Coalition supporters by claiming
"These people have a political
agenda--they are opposed to the Death
Penalty!" Given the fact that the
real political agenda is with Gov.
Keating and AG Edmondson--i.e., Keating
bucking for US Attorney General and
Edmondson bucking for governor or
whatever, I find it hard to believe
he can still whine about any
"political agenda" from AI/Coalition
people. AND as if being opposed to
the death penalty--opposing injustice--opposing
a proven failed ultimate
punishment is somehow "wrong."
But probably what angered me more was
the fact that Hume trivialized
Dion's illness and denigrated Dr. Fleming's
assessment of Dion's frame of
mind and what was probably going on
with him at the time of the crime.
Hume decided that since Dr. Fleming
wasn't actually there she had no way
of knowing what happened. Of
course, Hume (who also wasn't there) then
went on to discuss what happened and
what was going through Dion's mind!
I will tell you all that Dion felt extremely
gratified by the show of
support, not only from his family,
but from all of you who wrote, those
of you who attended and those of you
who kept us in prayer. From Dion,
Steve, myself and all of us on this
end, we send your our thanks.
I also firmly believe that we simply
MUST be making public the complete
lack of understanding by the state
and the board of mental health
issues--Dr. Fleming tried to explain
that many of these people are in the
corrections system when in fact they
should be in the treatment
system--i.e., mental health treatment.
Those of us who have lived with
mental illness either personally or
with family members need to be more
vocal about what has happened in this
country to those who need and even
seek mental health intervention and
how often they are ignored and then
subsequently punished for the resulting
events.
I also personally am extremely offended
that Drew Edmondson can declare
his niece to be ill (which I believe
and sympathize with) but that
because of her family name and money,
we all accept that and allow her
minimal punishment (note: she also
killed someone), while a poor person--one
of our "throw-aways" must be "faking"
or "creating a mental illness because nothing else worked" and therefore
its okay to murder them. How dare we allow such unequal justice in
this country--how dare we have "throw-aways"?
Okay, okay, I'm on my soap box, preaching
to the choir but we are NOT
giving up this fight on Dion and we
still have five weeks to make
something happen. HELP!
Leslie Delk
. . . and a note from Dion -
"Thank you to each and every person
that played a part in this clemency process.
I am extremely grateful and I want
to let you know that I am touched because of everybody's support and prayers.
When I came into the room, I was greeted with love and I don't think I
will ever have words to express my gratitude to all of you. I am
not giving up hope. I will not allow them to steal that from me.
As long as there is life in my then there is hope. Thanks for supporting
me. I love each and everyone of you."
Sincerely, Dion.
Dion Smallwood # 215417
PO Box 97
McAlester Ok. 74502
Today the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-0 against recommending clemency for Dion Smallwood (Oklahoma County). Board members present were Currie Ballard, Stephanie Chappelle, Flint Breckinridge and Susan Bussey. Patrick Morgan, a former Oklahoma County prosecutor, recused himself from the proceedings. Smallwood is scheduled to be executed on January 18. (One of 8 Oklahoma executions scheduled for January.)
This was the 25th time a clemency hearing has been held since the reinstatement of the death penalty. The Board has denied all requests for a recommendation of clemency to the governor.
Dion Athanasius
Smallwood said he just doesn't understand the logic of it all.
"Recently I had
to tell my 10-year-old daughter that daddy may die," he told the Oklahoma
State Pardon and Parole Board Monday. "That was the hardest thing I've
ever had to do. How do I explain the logic that daddy's being killed to
teach others not to kill?"
Smallwood, 31,
is scheduled to be executed for the 1992 murder of Lois Frederick in Oklahoma
City.
The pardon and
parole board denied him clemency despite the efforts of attorneys, activists
and others.
Terri Tellez said
Monday she feels relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted from her
shoulders. Despite efforts of attorneys, activists and others, the man
who murdered her mother is to be executed Jan. 18.
"It's not going
to bring closure," Tellez said, "but it's going to bring justice to my
family and my mother."
Tellez's ex-boyfriend,
Smallwood, 31, killed Tellez's mother, 68-year-old Lois Frederick, on Feb.
5, 1992.
The Oklahoma State
Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for Smallwood after hearing testimony
from Tellez, attorneys, a clinical psychologist, Smallwood's minister and
nine members of his family.
"When Lois discovered
Dion in her house, she demanded he leave," Assistant Attorney General Bill
Humes told members of the Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board during
a Monday clemency hearing at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
"That began a
two and one-half hour reign of terror that culminated in her death."
According to the
attorney general's office, Smallwood beat Frederick with a croquet mallet
in her Oklahoma City home, strangled her and set her on fire. The medical
examiner testified that Frederick's body was so severely burned it was
impossible to determine the extent of the injuries she suffered.
"The evidence
shows Dion hit her with such force the dentures flew from her mouth and
across the room," Humes said, adding Frederick was still alive when Smallwood
put her into her car and drove around looking for a place to dispose of
her body.
At his trial Smallwood
testified he had placed Frederick in the back seat of the car with her
head on the driver's side. Crime scene photographs of the burned car, which
had been doused with gasoline and set ablaze, show a different scene.
"She is crouched
in the passenger side of the vehicle, burned alive," Humes said.
Dr. Patricia Fleming,
a psychologist who spoke on Smallwood's behalf at the clemency hearing,
said the inmate suffers from bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized
by extreme swings of emotion, from deep depression to a euphoric mania.
"When a person is afflicted with this disorder, they are psychotic when
in the upper range of the mania," she
said.
Fleming said she
diagnosed Smallwood with bipolar disorder in 1997, five years after he
committed the murder.
However, Humes
said, psychologists who examined Smallwood at the time of his trial did
not find he had the illness.
Board members
Currie Ballard and Flint Breckinridge questioned Fleming about Smallwood's
mental state and about her experience working with prisoners.
Smallwood, she
said, has not been on any psychotropic medications or in any sort of treatment
while incarcerated on Oklahoma's death row, yet has had no disciplinary
problems. In addition, she said, she has found through her practice that
roughly 16 percent of people incarcerated in state prisons have bipolar
disorder. On death row, however, the number may be as high as 30 percent.
"Honestly," she
said. "It's amazing."
Only one to two
percent of the general population have bipolar disorder, she said.
Smallwood has
not been on any psychotropic medications or in any sort of treatment while
incarcerated on Oklahoma's death row, yet has had no disciplinary problems,
Humes said.
Almost 40 people
attended the clemency hearing to speak on Smallwood's behalf or to offer
moral support to his family. Two attended on behalf of the murder victim.
Robert Peebles - Death
Penalty Institute of Oklahoma
email:
Robert@dpio.org
web: www.dpio.org
Dion Smallwood is scheduled
to be executed in Oklahoma on 18 January 2001. He
was sentenced to death
for the 1992 murder of Lois Frederick. His clemency
hearing before the state
Pardon and Parole Board is due to take place on 4
December.
The body of Lois Frederick
was found in a burned-out car in Oklahoma City on
5 February 1992. She
was the adoptive mother of Smallwood's girlfriend.
Smallwood said he had
struck Lois Frederick on the head with a croquet mallet
during a violent domestic
dispute. Thinking he had killed her, he then put
her body in the car and
after driving around, set fire to the vehicle. It is
not known whether the
victim was ever conscious in the car.
Dion Smallwood, who has
a history of mental illness, was initially found
incompetent to stand
trial on the grounds that he was unable to consult with
his lawyer or rationally
assist in the preparation of his defense. He was
sent to a psychiatric
hospital where he received treatment. After nearly
three months, the hospital
determined that he could stand trial, although it
noted that he remained
a danger to himself and others, the standard in
Oklahoma for commitment
to a psychiatric facility.
At the time, Oklahoma
law presumed that a criminal defendant was competent to
stand trial unless he
or she proved their incompetence by clear and
convincing evidence.
In 1996, the US Supreme Court found that this burden of
proof was unconstitutionally
high, and that the standard must be a
preponderance of the
evidence. However, the appeal courts have rejected the
claim that Dion Smallwood
was found competent to stand trial under an
unconstitutional standard
of proof.
At the 1993 trial, the
defense lawyer called a psychologist as an expert
witness. However, the
prosecution objected on the grounds that the lawyer had
said that he would not
be presenting such testimony at the first stage of the
trial. The lawyer explained
that the psychologist would be unable to appear
at the sentencing phase,
and that his testimony was relevant to whether the
defendant could have
formed the intent to kill. However, the court upheld the
states objection and
the jury never heard any expert mental health testimony
from the defense at either
stage of the trial.
Dion Smallwood had sought
psychiatric help shortly before the murder of Lois
Frederick because his
condition was deteriorating. On 10 January 1992 he went
to a mental health facility,
stating that he was having a crisis. The
relevant counselor was
busy and asked him to come back in two hours.
Although she noted that
he was obviously in relapse, she did not follow up
on his whereabouts when
he did not return.
A clinical psychologist,
who assessed Smallwood after his conviction, found
that he suffered from
bipolar disorder (manic depression): This psychiatric
disturbance when of the
severity of that of Dion, disrupts all areas of
functioning, relationships,
occupational, social, and often requires
hospitalization to prevent
harm to self or others. Dion never had this
necessary treatment.
She said that had he received such treatment, it is
unlikely that his situation
would have created the intense symptoms he
experienced that culminated
in the death of Mrs Fredericks. She also noted
that Smallwood 'clearly
suffers from the additional severe complicating array
of problems of his unfortunate
life circumstances'. His childhood was marked
by poverty, violence,
abuse, deprivation and parental abandonment. His father
(Native American) and
mother (Hispanic) suffered from mental problems, and
his oldest brother has
been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and manic
depression.
Dion Smallwood has said:
"Not a day goes by that I do not think of what I did and the pain
I've caused... I wish
I had never gotten up that day, but I cannot change that. I have asked
God's forgiveness and I have asked Lois to forgive me. I only hope that
she has done that".
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
According to the US National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI): After
accurate diagnosis, most
people with bipolar disorder can be successfully
treated with medication
in 80 percent to 90 percent of all cases. NAMI
opposes the death penalty
against persons with severe mental illnesses. The
widely held belief that
the execution of the mentally impaired flouts basic
standards of decency
is reflected in a resolution adopted in April 2000 by
the UN Commission on
Human Rights urging all retentionist countries not to
impose the death penalty
on a person suffering from any form of mental
disorder or to execute
any such person.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please send faxes/express/airmail letters in
English or your own language,
in your own words, using the following guide:
- expressing sympathy for relatives
and friends of Lois Frederick, and
explaining that you are not seeking
to excuse her murder;
- expressing concern that Dion Smallwood
was condemned by a jury that
never heard any testimony from a mental
health expert, despite suffering
from a serious mental illness at the
time of the crime;
- noting that the National Alliance
for the Mentally Ill opposes the use of
the death penalty against those with
serious mental disorders, a view
reflected in international standards
of justice;
- noting that the power of executive
clemency exists to compensate for the
rigidities of the law, and that this
is a compelling case for compassion;
- noting expert opinion that if Smallwood
had received the psychiatric help
he sought shortly before the crime,
this tragedy might have been avoided;
- (before 4 December) urging the Board
not to compound society's failure,
but to recommend that the governor
grant clemency;
- (after 4 December) appealing to the
governor to do all in his power and
influence to stop this execution.
APPEALS TO:
Before December 4:
Pardon and Parole Board
4040 North Lincoln, Suite
219, Oklahoma City, OK 73105, USA
Fax:
+ 1 405 427 6648
Salutation: Dear Board
Members
Please send copies of
appeals sent to the Board (ie those sent before December 4, but not after)
to Dion Smallwood's appeal
lawyer for use in her
clemency efforts:
K.L. Delk, PO Box 5676,
Norman, Oklahoma 73070, USA.
Fax:
+ 1 405 344 6697
E-mail: kldelk@juno.com
After 4 December:
Governor Frank Keating
Capitol Building, Oklahoma
City, OK 73105, USA
Fax:
+ 1 405 521 3353
E-mail: governor@oklaosf.state.ok.us
Salutation: Dear Governor
COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of USA accredited to your country.
PLEASE
SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY!
What
are your interests?
Building a
relationship with my daughter, and sharing the
knowledge
of experience with family and friends.
What
are some of your hobbies?
I work with
plastic canvas, I make a lot of banners. (NFL, NBA,
college team
logos)
Do
you have a religious preference?
I'm a believer.
(in Christ)
What
language(s) do you speak?
English -
and I know very little Spanish.
What
qualities would you like to find in a pen pal?
Honesty, supportive
(whether morally, financially or spiritually)
and preferably
someone in their 30s to 40s.
Would
you prefer a pen pal who could visit you?
I've no preference.
Are
you already writing to other people? If so, how many?
I do write
one person in England and one person in California.
Other
comments:
I've much
to do before my time runs out, so I hope there is someone
out there
I can confide in.
Dion would appreciate receiving your letters of support...
Please write him directly at:
Dion Smallwood # 215417
PO Box 97
McAlester Ok. 74052-0097
|
Reflection - By
Dion Smallwood
Originally from from The OCADP |
