If the U.S. Supreme Court does not intervene on his behalf in the next two days, Sean Sellers will become the first person in 40 years to be executed in the United States for a crime committed when he was 16 years old. Sellers, who is now 29 years old, has been on death row since 1985, when he was sentenced to die for killing three people–Robert Bower, a store owner, his mother and his stepfather. He has said that he shot all three to death as part of a satanic ritual.

Sellers’ case has attracted national attention as much for his age as for the work he has done from his cell in the past few years, counseling disturbed youth and helping parents to see the first signs of trouble in their teenaged children. According to Sellers and to doctors who have examined him, the brutal abuse he suffered as a child may have led to a multiple personality disorder, and they also say that it was during one of his several psychotic episodes that he killed all three victims.

Guest:

• Sean Sellers, 29, who has been on Oklahoma’s death row since 1985, when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Robert Bower, a store owner, as well as his mother and his stepfather. He is speaking from his cell at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma.

Related links:

• Pacifica’s Direct Action Page
• Child Offender to be Executed —Amnesty International Article
• Governor Frank Keaton–fax: (405)-521-3353, call: (405)-521 2342