Governor Gray Davis
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Governor Davis:

We are writing on behalf of the 3,500 professional writers who are members of PEN American Center and PEN USA West to express our grave concern over the imminent execution of Stephen Wayne Anderson.

PEN first learned of Mr. Anderson when he submitted several pieces of creative writing to PEN American Center's Prison Writing Program. This program was launched in 1973 in the belief that writing is inherently rehabilitative, and since then thousands of inmates in U.S. prisons have entered PEN's annual literary competition for prisoners. Mr. Anderson was a co-recipient of the 1990 Prison Writing Award for Poetry, and in 1999 his poem "Conversations With the Dead" was anthologized in Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, a copy of which we have enclosed. When PEN's Prison Writing Program was founded, program chair Kathrin Perutz wrote, "To be able to say what you mean, to put in words what you perceive as truth, to impose form on the formless - this is a way to reconstruct a life, to restore one's sense of meaning, of responsibility to oneself and to others." In our experience, Mr. Anderson's work bears out Ms. Perutz's words, and we understand that those who have come to know Mr. Anderson personally in prison report that he has lived peacefully and productively for two decades on death row.

We do not deny the gravity of the crime for which Mr. Anderson was convicted. Indeed, as a rule, we do not usually take up cases of persons held for criminal offenses. However, decades of dialogue among writers from around the world have led to a strong organizational consensus that the taking of one life in retribution for another is not compatible with the humanitarian principles as guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of which specifically protects the right to life.

This organizational opposition to the death penalty, which is consistent with that of every major human rights organization around the world as well as with the doctrines of many religious orders, has only been bolstered by disturbing studies published recently that challenge the fairness of the judicial process in capital cases in the U.S. As you must know, the strong dissenting opinion signed by six judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals following the Court's refusal to rehear Mr. Anderson's emergency motions en banc cites serious concerns over whether Mr. Anderson was afforded a full and energetic defense, particularly during the sentencing phase of his trial. As the two American centers of International PEN, we find our ability to advocate on behalf of colleagues overseas who face persecution under arbitrary or authoritarian regimes is increasingly compromised by such questions over inequities in the application of the death penalty in our own country, and by growing international abhorrence of executions overall.

Therefore, as writers and members of an organization dedicated to the encouragement of literary achievement and opposed to the death penalty on the grounds that it constitutes a cruel and degrading form of punishment, we respectfully appeal to you to show clemency and commute Mr. Anderson's death sentence to a life term on humanitarian grounds.

Sincerely yours,

Frances FitzGerald President, PEN American Center

Aimee Liu President, PEN Center USA West

On behalf of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN,

Eugene Schoulgin
Director, Writers in Prison Committee