Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am writing to you today on behalf of death row prisoner Miguel Angel Paredes, # 999400, and kindly ask for a moment of your time to read this.

Miguel has recently been given an execution date for October 28th, 2014. The news of his execution make me concerned of the fate of Miguel.

With this letter, I would like to ask you to recommend clemency or a commutation of Miguel’s death sentence.

First, I want to express my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of Adrian Torres, Nelly Bravo and Shawn Cain who lost their lives as a result of Miguel’s choices and actions. I feel deep sympathy for them because losing a close person is always difficult and even more so when this happened in a violent way.

Yet, Miguel and his co-defendants were convicted of the murders of Mr Torres, Ms Bravo and Mr Cain because they were bragging about the crime to friends and relatives. Miguel was 18 at the time of the offense, and bragging about something as serious as the murder of three people clearly shows how immature Miguel was back then.

Today, Miguel has grown – both in his actions as well as in his spirits. Today, he would take responsibility, he would do everything in his power to prevent the crime. Today, Miguel understands that conflicts can only be solved by words and arguments rather than by guns and violence and he deeply regrets the  deaths of Mr Torres, Ms Bravo and Mr Cain.

When considering clemency for Miguel, I explicitly ask you to think of Miguel’s son Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo is a teenage child who has always been close to Miguel. Thus, Michaelangelo is just old enough to understand that Miguel will be taken from this world, yet he is still too young to understand the reason why. Michaelangelo loves his father, regularly visits with him and Miguel’s execution would tear him apart in pain and sorrow. Moreover, I am sure that with Miguel’s execution Michaelangelo would be stigmatized by society as the son of an evil killer who deserved to be executed for his actions and therefore, Michaelangelo would always have to fight harder to achieve anything in life than others. Please do not destroy the future of this young and innocent man by putting Miguel to death, please consider the impacts of Miguel’s execution on his young son in both the emotional as well as the practical aspect.

Although I do not deny that in the end Miguel’s own choices and actions led to the tragic outcome on September 17th, 2000, I ask you to consider that Miguel’s childhood and his teenage years were far harder than those of ordinary children. Miguel grew up as one of twenty siblings, his mother tried her best to be a good mom, yet it is not hard to imagine that a mother of twenty can hardly give due attention and guidance to every child. Growing up in extreme poverty, at an early age Miguel was already introduced to the local gang and drug scene and was far more shaped by this environment than by moral and social values that are usually passed on by a functioning family. If Miguel had received proper and diligent parental supervision, the crime would never have been committed.

Furthermore, the fact that Miguel became a father himself at the young age of fourteen again shows that Miguel had a very different childhood from other children at his age which perverted his reality and which influenced his behavior, his choices and his actions.

Miguel is a changed person today. He cares about his son, his family whom he tries not to ever worry and his friends. Miguel is also a talented artist and craftsman who could work in prison  industries if his sentence was commuted. Society could benefit from his work, he could at least partly earn credit for his accommodation in prison and his story could help to educate young people about choosing the right way in life.

I would also like to point out to you that Miguel had been granted a Certificate of Appealability in 2009 because of faulty jury instructions that allowed the jury to convict him for the murder of Mr Torres and Ms Bravo or Mr Torres and Mr Cain or Ms Bravo and Mr Cain. Those jury instructions did not ensure the jury was unanimous as to precisely whom Miguel murdered. “This leads to the arguably perverse result that Paredes could have been found not guilty of each of the three murders had they been charged individually… but guilty with the 3 charged together,” a 3-judge panel of a federal court wrote.

I do not think that this point has yet been addressed adequately by the courts. It is still not clear which two of the three victims died by the hands of Miguel – a fact that makes it even more difficult to explain to Michaelangelo why his father has to be put to death by the State of Texas.

As I said initially, my deepest sympathies go out to the families of the three victims. I understand that they have probably been seeking closure ever since they’ve lost their loved ones. However, I do not think that Miguel’s execution would bring this closure to them because Miguel’s death would not bring Mr Torres, Ms Bravo and Mr Cain back. Instead, the families would have to relive their tragic loss once again and on the side of Miguel, more victims – among them his son– would be created who would suffer hard from his death.

Therefore I kindly ask you to recommend clemency for my friend Miguel Angel Paredes.

Thank you for your time to read this.

Sincerely,