The following statements were shared with the media in Oklahoma City a few hours before Mike's death:
Johnnie Cabrera, Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation Johnnie Cabrera, Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation I am a member of MVFR: Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation. Today is a tragic anniversary. Exactly eight years ago today, on February 19, 1990, a teenager murdered my little 7-and-a-half year old granddaughter. I deplore what he did. And yet, I have forgiven him, the human being, long ago. Like Mike Long, he is now on Oklahoma’s death row. I do not want him to be executed, and I do not want Mike Long to be executed tonight. Fellow citizens of Oklahoma, we are about to kill in the name of justice. I am one of many family members of murder victims who say to you, "Don’t kill for us." Justice is not served by killing, and killing does not deter more killing. We need to stop these tragedies and abolish the death penalty. Only God has the right to take a life. He’s God--we aren’t. To our father in heaven, I ask your forgiveness for what we are about to do tonight in McAlester. Kevin Acers, Amnesty International What good can come out of an execution? The only thing tonight’s execution will accomplish is rescuing Mike Long from the deplorable conditions on H-Unit, Oklahoma’s death row--conditions that have been found to be cruel, inhuman and degrading, in violation of international standards. I know the death penalty is popular in our state, but that doesn’t make it right. We are setting a bad example for our children when we tell them that it is wrong to hurt others, but it is justice to kill a prisoner. When we as a society condone the killing of a man who committed a brutal crime, we are saying that violence is the solution to violence. Execution is not the solution, especially when, like in Mike Long’s case, there is evidence of genuine remorse and rehabilitation. We need to invest in more effective and more creative approaches to preventing violent crimes, and I want to issue a direct challenge tonight to Governor Keating and our state lawmakers. Oklahoma needs to become a leader in the identification and treatment of mental illness,especially among our young people so that out of desperation, a person with a chemical or emotional imbalance will not resort to dangerous self-medication with alcohol and illegal drugs, which in turn can lead to acts of violence. This is what happened to Mike Long and to so many others on Oklahoma’s death row. Also, we need to attack the root causes of poverty in our state. One out of every four children in Oklahoma lives in poverty. This helps set the stage for crime in our communities. Finally, in the case of Mike Long, and like Karla Faye Tucker who was executed in Texas recently, the rehabilitation of prisoners must not be ignored. It is pointless and absurd to execute a person who has already turned his or her life around. Without these kinds of shifts in how we look at crime, we in Oklahoma will simply continue to perpetuate the cycle of violence and injustice that the death penalty represents. The killing of Mike Long tonight is a case in point. All of us have blood on our hands as the state executes Michael Edward Long in our names. Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has been forced to deal with a situation which required some self-examination on our part. Death row inmate Michael Long is very sincere with his decision to have his appeals ended--as well as his very life. When balancing the rights and desires of Mr. Long against the state of Oklahoma's legal right to kill one of its own citizens, we must speak out against the very act of legal homicide by the state. While the ACLU respects Mike's decision, we respectfully disagree with it. The state of Oklahoma and its citizen should be asking themselves why a healthy 35-year-old man, who has made great improvements with his life even under the worst possible conditions, would choose to end his life. I am sure, with Mike Long's death, we may find some answers. For Mike Long, as with the case of Karla Faye Tucker, the person being executed is definitely not the same person who committed the crimes years ago. The Department of Corrections should be just that: Department of CORRECTIONS, not department of death. Both Mike Long and Karla Faye were "corrected" but still, by Oklahoma and Texas laws, must die. In Oklahoma, the very truth of the matter is that in our state, the sentence is "death" for those who commit crimes as Mike Long did. However, the state has no right to sentence inmates to "constant death" until the final breath. The conditions on Oklahoma's H-unit death row are just that. Living death. With no chance ever to see natural light, feel natural air, hug a relative, see a tree, inmates are buried alive, encased in a cement tomb until the time comes for the plunger to be put in their arm. For this reason, we understand Mike Long's decision to have the state end his life. An execution by the government is still a state-sanctioned homicide, even if the inmate, out of desperation from being confined and buried alive on H-unit, chooses to let the state commit this act. I this day and age when one often hears, especially here in Oklahoma, the quote of "WWJD," meaning, "What Would Jesus Do?" one would have to think that Jesus, someone who wouldn't throw the first stone at the woman at the well, would probably most certainly not be down at H-Unit tonight, inserting the poison into Mike Longs veins. The death penalty is wrong. It's about vengeance. It's about votes. We hope, in the days to come, citizens will join together in an effort to end this barbaric practice. Rev. Jeremy Basset, Church of the Servant Tonight is not about defending positions on capital punishment, nor scoring points for or against the supporters of such positions. Tonight is about people in pain. There are people who grieve the loss of their loved ones and the grueling process they have been through since that loss. There are people who are a part of the life of the person found guilty of the crime who suffer, too; and there is the one who committed the crime and has come to a deep realization of the pain he has caused and bears in his own spirit. Tonight is about the mystery of dealing with that pain - and it forces us to ask again what is the most appropriate way to deal with it. Those who reduce all of this to a political platform, to finger-pointing, to sound bites to fit a busy news schedule, or to a tailgate party for the morbidly curious have simply added to the pain of everyone. What I want to say in the face of all of this is that I am firmly convinced that taking another life, even the life of an acknowledged murderer, neither honors the depth of the pain nor brings about its resolution. In a society used to dividing itself into groups, into "for" and "against" just about any issue, it becomes harder to listen, and to find our common ground. Those who oppose the death penalty are accused of being soft on crime or idealistic about criminals. I don't believe this is true. Those who support the death penalty are accused of being vengeful or blinded by their pain. I don't believe this is true either. I do believe we serve our society badly if we fail to listen to each other and to find a redemptive way to dispense justice. I was born and raised in South Africa, living all of my life until recently under the evil of apartheid, a system that cost over 20,000 people their lives. Some were killed by an assassin's bullet, some in bombs exploding in restaurants or their own homes, some were poisoned, others tortured. As we awoke from the nightmare of this violence, my country was faced with a choice of what to do to restore the moral order and heal the nation. I, a white South African, and thus one of the privileged minority in those horrible years, stand amazed at what my fellow black South Africans chose to do. Now having the political power, and having been on the receiving end of most of the violence and death, they chose to do two significant things. Firstly, the death penalty was abolished constitutionally. Secondly, they offered the country a chance to overcome its hurts through a unique process of truth-telling and reconciliation. A clause in
the Interim Constitution of my country reads, in part: I am stunned and excited by the graciousness of those, so deeply offended, that they can turn towards those who have been responsible for so much pain and seek their own and the perpetrator's healing. This spirit was evident when the parents of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar who was murdered in South Africa by a mob, who went recently to South Africa to support an application for amnesty of Amy's killers. More than that, they were able to embrace and minister to the parents of those responsible for their daughter's death. Two sets of hurting people found mutual support in an amazing act of grace. Mike Long is not seeking amnesty nor to be excused from punishment. Indeed, he is not even asking for his execution to be halted. Mike Long is not asking for anything. Our society is! It is asking for us to face our pain together and not on different sides of the fence. It demands, I believe, that we find a better way to deal with our criminals - a way that keeps society safe but seeks the redemption of all people. I am now proud to be a South African, proud of the example our leaders are seeking to set before us, humbled by the grace, and excited by the unique opportunity that has been created because the option of vengeance has been surrendered. I pray that tonight's events force us to open our hearts; that we be drawn back to each other and to our common bond as God's creation - and that, by God's grace, we can achieve soon what now seems only a distant dream. [This is an excerpt from Mike Long’s letter to the family of Sheryl and Andrew Graber, his victims. He sent them this letter a few weeks ago, intending it to be a very private message. Much to his dismay, a local newspaper published it on the front page. While it was written as a personal message to the victims' family, as the state of Oklahoma is about to make victims of his own family, his message speaks to us all:] I realize
you probably hate me and would want to kill me with your bare hands. Only
you know the depth of the pain I have caused you and I am truly sorry for
all that I have done. I know you see me as a monster and you want me to die
but I am just a human being who went down a terrible path. I am fully responsible
for what I did and I can’t express the sincerity of my sorrow. Because
of Christ’s love in my heart, I care about you and I love you and I
want what is best for you. Please invite God to help you to forgive me and
to remove any bitterness you have towards me and replace it with His love.
God bless you. Michael Long. |
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