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Oklahoma Faith Leaders Against HB3903

24 Comments

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Sonja Tobey
4 years ago Featured

Ignoring the possibility of innocence is a crime with two victims-the initial victim of the crime and the accused innocent. The perpetrator got away with the initial crime and the state perpetuates the other. It’s time we quit looking for what is easy rather than what is right Reject this bill.

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Rev Stephen Bird
4 years ago Featured

As a pastor, I believe we need to use every means possible to protect all human life, including those in prison.

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Malika Cox Cox
4 years ago

This is unconstitutional and entirely immoral.

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Kenneth Patton
4 years ago

We should do the right thing

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Wesley Veitch
4 years ago

Why make it so the oppressed can never go free?

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Jeffrey Logan Kruck
4 years ago

I heard about this bill the day it passed out of committee. It strips the rights of persons to seek justice in the face of wrongful convictions. The state does not get every prosecution correct. This is seen in mistakes in lab work, ignored rape kits, disregard for witnesses and alibis, etc. When the state’s job is to prosecute for guilty verdicts, they will accidentally or intentionally send innocent people to prison or death. We are a country that maintains innocence until proven guilty. But if there is further proof, then guilty isn’t proven fully, and they may be innocent. Further, we believe in the sacredness of the individual - individual free markets, individual rights preserved on the amendments, an individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property/happiness, etc. The people who are in prison are still individuals whose humanity and sanctity we should uphold. Liberal, conservative, and libertarian should all recognize the sanctity of the individual - especially in the justice system. To deprive a person of life (death row or life-in-prison-without-parole), by denying their rights to clemency hearings and the executive power of clemency/pardon is to wash away the personhood and define someone as a non-person. This is not right, by either our state and National values or by the Judeo-Christian ethics (of which I am a minister). Please, deny the hearing of this bill. Show respect to all people. Love God, love neighbor, and love the enemy. We are commanded by Christ to love all, including our enemies.

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Stephen Ivey
4 years ago

I stand with the writers of this petition and agree that that this bill is opposed to everything that America’s forefathers put on paper. If those who are innocent cannot fight for their innocence or their appeals be heard then we are the land of the enslaved.

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Malcoma Brown-Ekeogu
4 years ago

There must be an avenue for the innocent to be heard.

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Philip Troutman
4 years ago Featured

The justice system sometimes makes a mistake and convict an innocent person. These persons must be allowed to request pardons from the Pardon and Parole Board. It is inhumane to deny this right, and it is arrogant for anyone to think that the legislature could know now whether someone in the future should or should not be allowed to request a pardon without the legislature's even having heard their case. Hearing such cases is the purview of the Pardon and Parole Board, and the Board must be allowed to do its job.

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Athena Sidiropoulou
4 years ago

The point of this atrocious bill is cruelty

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Cecil Williams
4 years ago

I am against this bill!

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Kelly Cooper
4 years ago Featured

How can we be so arrogant as to think humans will never get it wrong when it has already happened 38 times!

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Rev Diana Davies
4 years ago

Minister, First Unitarian Church of OKC

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Rev Kelli Driscoll Crews
4 years ago

We need every avenue possible for wrongful convictions to be made right.

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Jill S
4 years ago

NO on HB3903!

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Tim Atkins
4 years ago

Director of Religious Exploration, First Unitarian OKC

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James M Branum
4 years ago

Interfaith minister - Oklahoma Objector Community Member - Temple B'nai Israel, Oklahoam City

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Todd Littleton
4 years ago

Unless human judgement is 100% correct all the time and in every instance this Bill needs defeated.

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Israel Hogue
4 years ago

I am against this bill!

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Lee Roland
4 years ago

My heart goes out to anyone victimized by crime. However, I’m petitioning for the process to play out. We can’t work too hard to make certain that we get it right.