John Byrd

On March 14, 1994, John Byrd Jr. came within hours of execution before a federal court issued a stay. Byrd had been on Death Row in Ohio for eighteen years.
John Byrd was executed on 19 February in Ohio for the 1983 murder of Monte
Tewksbury. He was convicted on the basis of the disputed testimony of a
jailhouse informant. His co-defendant, who is serving a life prison sentence,
repeatedly stated that it was he, not Byrd, who had killed Monte Tewksbury.

In his final statement, John Byrd said: ''What you are witnessing, for
who so ever is here for this state-sanctioned murder, a cowardice way of hiding
behind the state seal, you don't know what you're doing. I'd like to tell my
family that I love them and stay strong, and to tell my immediate family that I
love them. My brother, that I love him and my sister, that we fought hard.''
"The corruption of the state will fall, Gov. Taft, you will not be re-elected. The rest of you, you know where you can go."

In her statement, Ohio's Attorney General said: ''My thoughts and prayers go
out to the Tewksbury family. Their long wait is finally over. My thoughts and
prayers also go out to the family and supporters of John Byrd. The judicial
process has worked, however slowly. Monte Tewksbury has now received some
measure of justice.''

Byrd chose the electric chair as his method of execution, first scheduled for the previous September, to demonstrate the brutality of the method, which has not been used in Ohio since 1963. But Ohio banned the chair in November
2001, leaving lethal injection as the sole means of execution.

He said, 'I'm innocent in this case, and I'm not going to make it easy for them to put me down like some farm animal,'" says David Bodiker, Byrd's lawyer and the director of Ohio's public defender office. "His means of defiance is to say that society is going to have to do this in the most unpleasant manner possible."

Byrd went to his death after a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last-minute appeals.

His fight to avoid execution exposed an unusual amount of rancor among judges in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who accused each other of holding secret meetings and engaging in questionable tactics to spare Byrd.

Journalist, author and private investigator Martin Yant worked literally to the end of Byrd's life to save him.

Martin said, "Ohio in all probability just executed an innocent man. Equally important, Ohio just needlessly killed a good man.

John W. Byrd Jr. may have been a troubled—and troublesome—young man. But he grew into a self-educated man of great strength, wisdom and insight. We will continue to fight to prove his innocence even though he is now gone."

To the Byrd Family "Please accept my sincere condolences over John's murder.

God bless you all". Kenny Richey.

AN INNOCENT MAN!!

by Kenny Richey written 19th February 2002

Today they killed a friend of mine
for a crime he didn't do
John Byrd was an innocent man
and THAT they certainly knew!

The Ohio courts and Governor Taft
didn't give a bloody damn
They gleefully sent John to his death
and killed an innocent man.

Why did they ignore the facts
and send John to his death?
Why did they ignore the truth
and steal my friends last breath?

Where was this so called justice
that American's boastfully claim to possess?
Obviously it's just another fallacy
American hypocrisy at it's best!

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