Governor John Kasich: Grant clemency to Shawn Hawkins & reconsider his LWOP Sentence

Why my son should be given clemency:
In 1989, my son was accused of the brutal murders of Diamand Marteen and Terrance Richards in a supposed drug deal that went wrong. At the time of these murders, my son was home with me and he has myself and 6 other people who can testify to his whereabouts during the timeframe in which the crime took place.
The main prosecution witness to this double murder was Henry Brown, a 17 year old juvenile at the time, who was given full immunity from prosecution for his evidence and who 6 months later was convicted of an armed robbery using the exact same kind of weapon that he testified he saw my son using that fateful night. The weapon used to kill Marteen and Richards has never been recovered.

In 1989, the main prosecution witness testimony changed several times during questioning and during the trial and has never remained consistent, whereas Shawn has always professed his innocence and has clear recollection of his whereabouts that night and also who he did and didn’t speak to. The police and prosecutors had an unreliable, untrustworthy, so called eye witness and they chose to still use him, just to win a conviction, in an effort just to rush to close this horrible case, without even arresting two other men the witness had named.

The only evidence connecting my son to this crime other than Brown’s faulty evidence is a disputed partial fingerprint in the vehicle in which the men were killed. Shawn has always admitted speaking to the two men earlier in the day but didn’t see them after 9pm. The partial fingerprint is contested for many reasons, not least of which because it was identified by a man who had no previous experience of working on blood prints and the fact that an independent Crime Lab declared that it could not identify the print using all of their resources.

My son volunteered to speak to police when news of the murders got out, as he knew that he had been one of the people to speak to the victims on June 11th. He went to assist the police and as a result of his co-operation he found himself arrested and charged with murder and robbery and is still fighting to clear his name, 24 years later.

His death sentence was commuted because of the on going problems and inconsistencies that surround this case, but it is not enough that my son must still be forced to die in prison for something that he did not do.

Therefore, as family members, friends, concerned citizens and supporters of Shawn Hawkins, we implore you to demonstrate your respect for justice by recommending clemency for Shawn. He has spent 24 years wrongfully incarcerated for this crime – 21 of those years on death row, not to mention that he came within six days of losing his life – and we now ask that you correct this wrong once and for all so that he can enjoy the remainder of his life a free man, as he deserves. We pray that you show compassion in your decision and would also like to thank you for your time and attention in this very serious matter.

www.shawnhawkins.wordpress.com