Dear Members of the Board,

 I am an Austrian citizen, a retired official of the Federal Ministry of Labour in Vienna as well as former representative of this organization in the Austrian Board of Paroles. I learned that Mr Marcus Wellons is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on June 17^th.

 In accordance with the Council of Europe and the European Union I oppose the death penalty in all cases, in particular with regard to the case of Mr Wellons. Wellons’ case received national and international attention when it was disclosed after his trial that his jurors gave erotic chocolate “gag gifts” to the judge and bailiff. In September 2012, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the gifts “tasteless and inappropriate” but incomprehensibly said they played no part in the judge’s or jury’s consideration. For this reason, the court denied Wellons’ request for a new trial. The justices found disturbing a penis-shaped chocolate that was given to Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley and chocolate breasts sent to the court bailiff after the 1993 trial.

 Mr. Wellons did not deny the murder or the rape of India at his trial. Rather, he claimed he was not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty but mentally ill, but failed to present any testimony by mental health experts during the guilt/innocence phase of the trial.

According to news Georgia Supreme Court upholds right to keep execution drugs secret in Georgia. The dissenting justices said they worried the secrecy could lead to similar botched executions as in Oklahoma. The inmate in that case, convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett, died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the state administered the execution drug on April 29th. „I fear this state is on a path that, at the very least, denies Hill and other death row inmates their rights to due process and, at the very worst, leads to the macabre results that occurred in Oklahoma,“ Justice Robert Benham wrote in the dissenting opinion.

The ruling effectively affords the state of Georgia carte blanche to alter their lethal injection protocol in any way it sees fit, and to conceal from the public and even the courts the identity and provenance of the chemicals it intends to use to carry out executions. To promote the secrecy of pharmaceutical “death profiteers” Georgia is en route to violate the spirit of an open society and the constitutional human rights of its citizens.

I do not downplay the crime of Mr Wellons, but want to draw your attention to the fact that Mr Wellons obviously has not received a fair trial. The mitigating circumstances of his mental illness have not been taken into fair consideration by a court and a jury that has proven and demonstrated its “tasteless and inappropriate” settled mode of thinking while on duty to rule on the life or death of a human being. Such outrageous manners must not be justified by the execution of Mr. Wellons.

Please commute the death sentence of African-American Mr. Wellons to life without parole.

Sincerely,