Matthew Puckett: The last hour or two, or Reprieve!

It now appears down to the US Supreme court to decide the fate of Matthew Puckett. His lawyers last week filed a petition with the supreme court for a reprieve. In the next couple of hours -that is, if the supreme court hasn’t already decided the petition for stay of execution, one way or the other; the State of Mississippi will either carry out the execution of Matthew Puckett, or grant him reprieve. Read views by Matthew Puckett himself and his supporters in The Republichttp://www.therepublic.com/view/story/c1713c9ba2024f66b35f204c243658d8/MS–Mississippi-Executions/

But there seems to be grave concerns from responsible quarters, that the trial leading to the conviction ‘may’ have been flawed in some way and therefore unsafe. There are procedural concerns; the quality of legal advice and representation that was available to him; circumstantial evidence which points in other possible directions.  Matthew Puckett continue to deny he is guilty. Hear him – ‘Like a lot of people, I thought if someone was convicted of a crime, they were probably guilty. But if this can happen to us, it can happen to anyone’.

The real concern here is the possibility of a wrongfully convicted person being executed; where that decision has been aided and abetted by the justice system. Jim Craig of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (a non profit law office) thinks the appeal was ‘fake’. He said further ‘We are here to, among other things, expose a fraud at the center of the Mississippi system of justice’.

We all hope there is still enough time left!