Tracy Housel was born in Bermuda to a 14 year-old mum and 43-year-old violently abusive dad, both alcoholics. Forty-three years on, Tracy has been on death row for 16 years and his mother is trying to save him from execution next Tuesday (12 March).

I'm not entirely against the death penalty and I have respect for the American judicial system, which is some ways is far ahead of what we have here in the UK. But this guy had lousy legal representation; his human rights were severely abused between arrest and sentencing; and unadjudicated crimes counted against him in deciding his sentence. Moreover, none of these concerns is disputed.

I am pasting in below a briefing from Amnesty International, in the hope that one or two mudcatters will feel inclined to put pen to paper in support of Tracy and his mother.

One or two will think I'm abusing Mudcat again, but others may think it's in a worthwhile cause, and it's only the third time I've done it in about as many years.

It's also worth saying that I don't deliberately target the US from the dozens of cases that come my way. It is just that in most countries such petitioning is utterly useless. We are fortunate to live (most of us) in countries that tolerate and even heed legitimate petitioning, and exercising that right should not reflect badly on any country that allows it. A judicial system is strengthened where if it can say once in a while that someone got an unfair crack of the whip, as I believe this guy did..

If you don't want to support Tracy and his mother, that's fine by me. I'm not looking for a debate. But if you do feel inclined to flag up any concerns, the people to write to are:

Walter S. Ray, Chair, The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, Floyd Veterans Memorial Building, Balcony Level, East Tower, 2 Martin Luther King Jr Drive, S.E., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, USA Fax: 00 1 404 651 8502

Also: The Honourable Roy E. Barnes, Governor of Georgia, 203 State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334 (USA).

In the UK, please also copy any letters to: His Excellency Mr William S Farish, Embassy of United States of America, Grosvenor Square, London W1A 1AE.

Also in the UK, bearing in mind Tracy Housel is a British national, it is worth writing to the prime minister, Tony Blair MP, 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA.

Obviously if you do write, this in no way condones the way Jeanne Drew died. You may wish to make this point and express sympathy for Jeanne Drew's family and friends.

The rest of this post (in italics) is courtesy of Amnesty.

Tracy Housel is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on 12 March 2002, having been sentenced to death in February 1986 for the murder of Jeanne Drew in April 1985.

Because he pleaded guilty to the crime, his trial went straight to the sentencing stage, with the state arguing for the death penalty and the defence giving evidence for a lesser sentence.

Tracy Housel was represented by a lawyer who had never defended a capital case or been lead counsel on any murder case. He has admitted that he failed to investigate or present substantial available mitigating evidence.

Tracy Housel was born in Bermuda (hence his UK nationality) shortly after the marriage of his parents - a 14-year-old girl and a 43-year-old man. Both parents were alcoholic, and his father subjected him and his siblings to severe physical violence. Tracy Housel sustained numerous serious childhood head injuries through accidents and beatings.

The jury heard no expert evidence, and was left unaware of Tracy Housel's mental/medical problems. He suffers from hypoglycemia, a condition of severe blood sugar imbalance. Since the trial, an expert in this area has concluded that Tracy Housel had undergone "an acute state of hypoglycemia, exacerbated by alcohol, at the time of the crime", and that he would not have been able to distinguish right from wrong, to control his behaviour, or to form the intent necessary for first- degree murder.

In addition, two mental health experts have concluded that Tracy Housel suffers from brain damage and psychological impairment, which combined with his drug and alcohol abuse, "substantially impaired" Housel's ability to recognize the criminality of his conduct. The state has introduced no expert testimony to rebut this evidence, which could have been used to present a defence of temporary insanity. Instead, his lawyer allowed Housel to plead guilty to capital murder.

The centrepiece of the argument for execution was evidence that Tracy Housel had allegedly committed three other crimes in other states, including a murder in Texas, during a six-week period before Jeanne Drew's murder. The state was allowed to present the evidence of these crimes, for which Housel had neither been charged nor convicted, without having to prove that Housel had committed them.

In the US courts, Tracy Housel's appeal lawyers have argued that the constitutional requirement of reliability in death sentencing must prohibit the jury from weighing such evidence in its sentencing decision until it has found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed them. The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected this claim in 2001, despite writing that "perhaps [the US] jurisprudence has evolved to recognize the right that Housel espouses".

Concern over the introduction of this evidence in Tracy Housel's case is heightened by the fact that the evidence of his involvement in the crimes was questionable. For example, in the case of the Texas murder, the primary evidence was a statement made by Tracy Housel while he was held in coercive conditions during pre-trial detention in the local jail. He was not allowed to take a shower in the first three months of his incarceration, and was held in solitary confinement throughout this time. On several occasions, he was subjected to electro-shocks from a stun gun, including when standing in a pool of water. He also displayed serious mental health problems during this period.