BY FAX: 512-463-1849

April 29, 2002

The Honorable Rick Perry
Governor of the State of Texas
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428 

Dear  Governor Perry:

Curtis Moore is scheduled to be executed on May 1, 2002.  On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, we urge you to commute Mr. Moore's sentence of death to life imprisonment.

Mr. Moore is borderline retarded and has had a history of bizarre anti-social behavior since early age.  He was neglected and abused as a child in a home that produced another several children with a variety of mental and psychological disorders.  One of Mr. Moore's brothers was diagnosed as schizophrenic and mentally retarded, while one of his sisters was diagnosed as suffering from the multiple personality disorder and mental retardation.  There is evidence that Mr. Moore also suffers from a dissociative personality disorder.  

None of the abundant evidence of Mr. Moore's psychiatric and psychological disorders were presented to the jury during the sentencing stage of the trial, notwithstanding the fact that courts have consistently found such facts as important mitigating factors.

The ACLU opposes capital punishment in all cases as a barbarous anachronism and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.  In Mr. Moore's case, the extraordinary relief of clemency is particularly warranted as an act of mercy consistent with the growing trend against execution of the mentally retarded. 

Sincerely,

Diann Rust-Tierney
ACLU Capital Punishment Project

William Harrel
ACLU of Texas

Vladimir Kouznetsov
Pro Bono Counsel
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P.
1201 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004