PLEASE HELP SAVE MICHAEL PERRY!

[Anonymous]

http://www.savemichaelperry.info/index.html

This poor kid is on death row in Texas for a crime he may very well have NOT committed ... not to mention, he did not get a fair trial.

Please take a moment to check out the website created for him by a really decent human being.

Michael would love to get letters from people and he is also a very talented artist.  His story is heartbreaking, long long list of treatment facilities and forced drug therapy (psychotropics) begun at a young age. His adoptive parents appear to be very supportive but it's troubling how they kept sending him to programs that obviously did more harm than good.
Wonder how they heard about WWASPS?

ALSO, If you can help with an affadavit of your experience with WWASPS, especially CBTS, please contact the webmaster through Michael's website.
I believe his attorney is trying to get a new trial for Michael.  

Thanks for reading!

 :smokin:

[Anonymous]

Here is what Michael has to say about Casa By The Sea.  Damn!  Why did his parents send him there? I would give anything to know how they heard of CBTS/WWASPS and whether some other parent made some money from referring Michael there so they could keep their own kid incarerated in a WWASPS program.  Doesn't get much sicker than that, does it? IMO.  

http://www.savemichaelperry.info/casabythesea.html

[BuzzKill]

Not to be misunderstood - my sympathies lie with Michael - but there is pretty solid evidence he committed the crime.

You know how he claims to have been in jail on a traffic violation during the commission of the crime? Well he was pulled over driving the dead woman's car.

This means she was dead when he was pulled over. No way around this. If the ME places the time of death during his incarceration - the ME is just plain wrong.

This might be understandable - as the body was pulled from the cold waters of a local lake. The ME goofed. Thats all there is to it.

Because - Mike was driving the dead woman's car. AND - he used one of the dead boys ID when arrested. AND - it was Mike that took the police to the spot where the boys were left dead. AND he described the killing accurately in his confession. What he described matched the wounds on the victim - SO, this strongly indicate the confession was not false. He knew what happen b/c he was there.

The beating he got that he says caused him to falsely confess? Well, I don't doubt the cops slapped him around. But what he leaves out is this: During the attempted arrest - he and the driver of the truck they were in flead - tried to run down a cop (maybe did hit him - I'd have to go back and read the articles) Shot at the cops - then ran the truck into a plate glass window. Ran from there to the apartment were the arrest took place. Its not like they were sitting quietly and the cops burst in and started beating them. Yes, maybe the cops were ruff - but Some of the photo evidence of police brutality might actually depict injuries sustained during the fleeing episode and crash into the window. Consequently - I don't feel its an argument that would hold up in court.

All this being said - there are a lot of problems with how this case was handled and the great inequality of punishment given the parties involved.

There are good arguments to be made, that the death penalty is not justified in this case.

My fear for Michael is that he is trying to win an appeal based on extremely weak arguments - such as "I was in jail when the ME says the victim died"

This just won't hold up to scrutiny.

But as to things that might - what about the girl and her bloody shirt? She got off scott free - but it was her shirt found wadded up and bloody, in the back of the truck. Maybe She pulled the trigger? Maybe Mike was a witness? Or, maybe he was wearing her shit? Or maybe none of the woman's blood is involved and it was the blood from the two murdered boys?  Maybe DNA testing would settle the question?  

But one things for sure - the girl was involved and never suffered the slightest meaningful consequence.

Another ironic twist - the co-defendant got life in prison instead of death based on his sad life history. Very poor childhood. Where as Mike was viewed as a privileged spoiled brat - b/c his family had money - and had sent him to all these expensive private schools!

Also - I think his very youth played a part in the jury condemning him to death. TX has no life in prison - not really. Life in Prison is 40 years. I think the jury looked at this young kid and did some math and asked themselves if they wanted him free in 40 years? Considering what they think he did - I think they said to themselves NO - we don't want him loose among our grand children. I feel if Life meant life in TX - thats what he would have gotten.

IMO - Its true he received ineffective counsel. He does deserve a new trial. I hope and pray he gets a new trial. I hope he will then receive a prison term and not the death penalty. I have nightmares about him being killed. I am very afraid for him.

[BuzzKill]

To clarify - Mike wasn't driving - he was the passenger. Also the police have stated it was the driver taking shots at them - not Mike. But he was in the truck - and it did crash into a plate glass window.

But I know what you mean. Around here both boys would've been shot if they even looked like they were thinking of pulling a gun, or running down a cop.

[BuzzKill]

The other young man was implacated by both Mike's statment and the girl's - as well as physical evidence. He got life in prison. The girl got nothing, in exchange for her testimony (she is a sheriff's daughter) and Mike got the death penilty.

OOOps sorry - you meant how was Mike implicated - well he confessed. He gave a full confession. He recanted it on the stand. I thought at the time he might well have given a false confession as he had been in WWASPS' Casa By the Sea; and the result might have been a tendency to confess when asked to, weather or not there was actually anything to confess to.

I have since changed my mind - but I still feel there are good reasons to commute his sentence to life.[ This Message was edited by: BuzzKill on 2006-03-29 21:01 ]

[Anonymous]

I definitely agree that he was likely abused at a WWASP program, but that aside, he did admit to a crime and will not have much of a life staying in prison forever.  I personally would not want to spend 60-75 more years in a high-security prison.  This is truly a tragedy and I am not sure if Michael is not better off sticking with his original punishment.

[Antigen]

I agree. I was treated pretty badly in a number of ways for most of my childhood, including the Program followed by an early version of the 'exit plan'. Never killed no one. Never even robbed anybody or anything like that. As tragic as it is, we have to draw a line somewhere. I also definitely don't approve of the death penalty. I just don't think there is any way mere humans can ever be that sure of our conclusions about the way things happened.

I do believe the guy's confession could be false. Anyone's confession under police interrogation can be false, even without the obvious, physical 'interrogation' methods. And I think Karen's right; LGA does leaves people extremely suggestible. Add to that the 'scorched earth' nature of the exit plan after an extended time isolated from one's life... Yeah, I think there's good cause to suspect valid mitigating circumstances.

We don't put people to death in this country for just any old homocide.

But I can't make the call from where I sit. That's what our stringent, adversarial judicial system and trial by jury is all about.

But here's the thing. This is not the only guy sitting on death row or damned to other horrific circumstances after having received the "benefit" of coercive behavior mod type treatment. It's actually sort of common.

Anyone who thinks there is, or ever can be such a thing as a solution to life's problems as these programs represent themselves to be ought to know this. There's probably not much any of us can do for those poor sobs who have already met with bad ends. But I'd like to think we can, eventually, dispel the dangerous myth that thought reform is therapeutic!

It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was
made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to
govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be
masters.

--Daniel Webster

[Anonymous]

On either 20/20 or Primetime last night, there were a bunch of kids giving false confessions after enduring hours of yelling and uncomfortable circumstances in an interrogation.  They did an experiment with Stanford students in which they accused them of pressing a wrong button while typing, and they also falsely confessed.  It was very interesting to hear them discuss the interrogation methods, keeping the room uncomfortably warm, etc. as techniques to get people to "confess".

[Anonymous]

After reading his story it seems reasonable to me he is innocent. Just saying.

[BuzzKill]

Sure, To hear Mike tell it, you can easily believe he is as innocent as a mid Summer day is long. And none of what he says is a lie. Its just that he is a master of data Drop-out.

As for false confessions - I know it happens and I believe time in a programs like Casa by the Sea would indeed predispose a person to making a false confession. Thats really how I got interested in Mike's case. I felt it was highly likely he had given a false confession. I now feel that is not the case - but I did find it plausible when I first read about his situation.

There is a lot about the use of the death penalty that troubles me greatly. In brief - I do feel there are cases where it is justified. I can not oppose it absolutely. Even so, I feel it is used to freely, and for less than adequate reason, and with no regard for mitigating circumstance in some states - and TX is one of them.