Philip Workman Scheduled to Die Tomorrow! ACT NOW

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Philip Workman Scheduled to Die Tomorrow! ACT NOW

Today the United State 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a temporary restraining order, put in place by U.S. District Court Judge Todd Campbell, to allow for a hearing on Tennessee's new lethal injection procedures.

Even as you read this, Philip Workman has been moved, for a tortuous fourth time, to death watch, to prepare for his execution at 1:00am Wednesday morning.

All of this despite overwhelming new evidence pointing to Philip Workman's factual innocence in the shooting of Memphis Police Lieutenant Ronal Oliver.

Consider:

* The only eyewitness who testified that he saw Workman shoot Lt. Oliver, Harold Davis, has recanted his testimony and admitted that we was not on the scene. He has even passed a lie detector test confirming this new admission.

* Ballistics experts have testified that to a degree of medical
certainty the bullet that killed Lt. Oliver did not come from Phillip Workmann's gun.

* Five of the original jurors have signed affidavits stating that they would not have voted for death had this information been available to them at the time of trial.

* The prosecuting D.A. and Lt. Oliver's daughter have called for the Governor to grant clemency to Philip Workman.

Now is the critical time to act and call on Governor Bredesen to save Philip Workman's life!!!

Call the Governor at [phone] or email _phil.bredesen@ state.tn. us_

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Workman executed-Flurry of legal maneuvers fails to derail death sentence

TENNESSEAN By SHEILA BURKE, BRAD SCHRADE and SHEILA WISSNER
Staff Writers
05/09/07

The state executed condemned cop killer Philip Workman in a West Nashville prison early today in the third death sentence carried out in Tennessee in 47 years. Workman, 53, was pronounced dead at 1:38 a.m. after a lethal cocktail of drugs was injected into his body as he lay strapped to a prison gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

Workman’s final words were brief.

“I've prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ not to lay charge of my death to any man,” Workman said.

About two minutes later, with his eyes closed as he gulped, somewhat nervously, Workman uttered his final words: “I commend my spirit into your hands Lord Jesus Christ.”

He then turned his head slightly to the left and lay motionless, as an ashen color overtook his face.

Workman's arms, legs and midsection were strapped to the gourney. He wore white prison pants and a cream prison top. An intraveneous line was attached to his right arm.

The drugs were administered by a person in another room and pumped through a tube that appeared be fed through a prison wall.

Warden Ricky Bell, dressed in a black suit, stood at the head of the gurney, his hands clasped, throughout most of the 17-minute process.

Minutes after Workman's last words, prison officials drew shut the brown blinds over the window separating witnesses from the execution chamber. Bell then spoke through a microphone and pronounced Workman dead.

Workman was executed nearly 25 years to the day of his conviction in the 1981 shooting death of Memphis police Lt. Ronald Oliver.

Authorities say Workman fired the fatal shot during a botched robbery at a Wendy’s hamburger restaurant. But the condemned and his supporters maintained until the end that it was not his bullet that killed Oliver, instead suggesting that another police officer inadvertently shot Oliver during the chaos of the moment.

Oliver’s family members, including his widow, were just feet away from Workman, watching the through a glass window as the deadly drugs were fed into his arm.

The Oliver family declined to comment, but a victim’s rights advocate with the group You Have the Power addressed reporters after the execution.

“Though a sentence has finally been carried out nothing will happen that will ever provide them closure,” said Valerie Craig, who spoke for the family.

Workman's family was not present during the execution. His brother had planned to attend but backed out Tuesday evening.
Two hours before his death sentence was to be carried out, Workman asked the state's highest court to delay his execution but the Tennessee Supreme Court denied the last-ditch appeal to derail the execution.

In the last ditch filing, Workman's lawyers argued that the inmate's execution date, coming just over a week after the state issued new death penalty protocols, denied the convicted cop killer sufficient time to challenge the process.

"There is a growing body of medical, scientific, and other evidence which clearly shows that lethal injection using (the proscribed combination of drugs) without monitoring of anesthetic depth risks torture," his lawyers wrote.

But in an unsigned ruling issued just after 12:30 a.m., the state Supreme Court found that "Workman’s challenge to the revised protocol has no likelihood of success on the merits."

"At some point, the State has a right to impose a sentence not just because the State’s interests in finality are compelling, but also because there is a "powerful and legitimate interest in punishing the guilty...," the ruling states. "After twenty-five years and countless court proceedings, that time has come."

Workman's lawyers worked furiously to stop the execution.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant Workman a stay. His lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court after requests for a delay were rejected by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell issued a temporary restraining order until he could hear testimony on the new lethal injection protocol the state planned to use in Workman’s execution. But the circuit court overturned that ruling Monday saying the method is used successfully in other states.

As the day wore on yesterday, Workman asked the U.S. District Court in Nashville to release his body to his brother immediately after his death and not allow an autopsy to be performed.

Judge Campbell later issued a temporary injunction ordering the state not to autopsy Workman’s body at least until a hearing can be held on May 14.

Workman met with family, friends and a spiritual advisor yesterday, said Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction.

At one point, he asked that a vegetarian pizza be purchased and donated for his last meal, but prison officials refused.

“He instructed that it be given to a homeless person but we’re not able to do that," Carter said. Instead, Workman decided to skip dinner on the eve of his execution. "He could have had food from the cafeteria that the other inmates were having tonight," she said.

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Executed man's last request honored -- pizza for homeless

POSTED: 0616 GMT (1416 HKT), May 10, 2007

Story Highlights

Hundreds of pizzas were delivered to Nashville homeless shelters Wednesday
Death row prisoner asked that his last meal be pizza for a homeless person
Prison refused to honor his request, saying it doesn't donate to charity
One woman and her friends paid $1,200 to fulfill Philip Workman's last wish

By Ashley Fantz
CNN


(CNN) -- Hundreds of homeless people in Nashville, Tennessee, ate well Wednesday evening -- all in the name of a man who the state put to death just hours earlier.

Philip Workman, 53, requested that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person located near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

He was executed there at 2 a.m. ET Wednesday.

But prison officials refused to honor his request, saying that they do not donate to charities.

That apparently upset a few people willing to pay for and deliver a lot of pies themselves.

Homeless shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas all Wednesday.

"I was like, 'Wow, Jesus!' " said Marvin Champion, an employee of Nashville's Rescue Mission, which provides overnight shelter, food and assistance to more than 800 homeless people a night.

"I used to be homeless, so I know how rough it gets. I seen some bad times -- not having enough food, the cupboards are bare. But we got pizza to feed enough people for awhile," Champion said.

"This really shows the people here that someone out there thought of them."


$1,200 worth of pies

Donna Spangler heard about Workman's request and immediately called her friends. They all pitched in for the $1,200 bill to buy 150 pizzas, which they sent to the Rescue Mission.

"Philip Workman was trying to do a good deed and no one would help him," said the 55-year-old who recruited a co-worker to help her make the massive delivery Wednesday evening.

"I knew my husband would have a heart attack -- I put some of it on the credit card. But I thought we'll find a way to pay for them later," she said. "I just felt like I had to do something positive."

Spangler wasn't the only person to place an order in Workman's name.

The president of the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals read a news story about the prison denying the inmate's last request and ordered 15 veggie pizzas sent to the Rescue Mission Wednesday morning.

"Workman's act was selfless, and kindness to all living beings is a virtue," said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.

Not far away, 17 pizzas arrived at Nashville's Oasis Center, a shelter that helps about 260 teenagers in crisis. By 9 p.m. ET, more pizzas had arrived, said executive director Hal Cato.

"We talked to the kids and they understand what this is tied to and they know that this man [Workman] wanted to do something to point out the problems of homelessness."

When Workman robbed a Wendy's in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1981, he was a strung-out cocaine addict looking for a way to pay for his next high, he has said.

He was homeless at the time. Workman was convicted of shooting and killing Memphis Police Lt. Ronald Oliver during the robbery.

Many of the pizzas ordered in Workman's name were delivered anonymously, but the first 17 at Oasis Center came from a Minneapolis, Minnesota, radio station that devoted much of its morning show time talking about Workman's request.

"They were upset about it," said Cato.

He plans to call other homeless shelters in Nashville Thursday and share the pies. "They should be able to benefit from this, too," he said.

Cliff Tredway, the director of public relations for the Rescue Mission, said it's more than pizzas that helped that shelter.

"It's the story of a guy whose execution translated into a generous act," he said. "It's people donating to other people they don't know.

"It's about a group of people who society often writes off getting a pizza party today."

edition.cnn.com/2007/US/05/09/execution.pizza/index.html