Chaumtoli Huq
By Crishelle Young
Christopher Young’s 13-year-old daughter has a loving Father Day’s message for her dad, who’s on death row in Texas with an execution date of July 17, 2018.
Editor’s note: Christopher Young is on death row at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, listed in 2013 as one of America’s 10 worst prisons. He has an execution date of July 17, 2018. Young, 34, was sentenced to death in 2006 for the 2004 murder of 55-year-old convenience store owner Hasmukhbhai “Hash” Patel. Young’s lawyers claim religious discrimination occurred during the jury selection process of his trial, and over 500 religious leaders signed a statement saying he deserved a new trial. In January 2018, the United States Supreme Court turned down Young’s latest appeal. He seeks clemency. He wrote about his transformative journey for the Community Based News Room. You can read it here.
Hi. My name is Crishelle Young, and my father is on death row. His name is Christopher Anthony Young, and he has been in jail since 2004.
My dad has been on death row since I was 3 months old. Now, I am 13, and I don’t have a memory of me and my dad outside of the jail. We don’t have the normal father-daughter relationship because of where he is. But we have an awesome relationship.
I love my dad with all my heart, and I know he loves me. My dad is an awesome dad even from in jail. He may have done some bad things, but I love him, and I don’t know the person that did those things.
I know my dad.
My dad inspires me to be all I can be. He inspires me to be the best. We talk about random things when I get to see him. He is funny and smart. I can talk to him about anything. He is the coolest dad alive.
I wish I could see my dad more, but he is outside of Houston, and I am in San Antonio.
Sometimes, I get sad about all of this. To know that my dad has a month to live makes me cry. My birthday is in two weeks, and the only thing that I want is to know that next year, I will be able to go see my daddy and tell him about the ninth grade year, tell him about my prom and all my achievements. It hurts to know that my daddy can’t come to my graduations or any of my banquets, or my games. My dad may not be able to see me finish high school, but I will make him proud, and I hope that I can at least tell him about it.
I would like to thank everyone that is trying to help my dad. I also would like to wish my daddy a happy Father’s Day.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy! Christopher A. Young, I love you with all my heart.
XOXOXOXO,
Your baby girl, Crishelle
Listen to Christopher Young speak about being a father on death row.
Want to take action? Sign the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s petition for Christopher Young.
Write the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to ask for clemency for Christopher Young. You can personalize this one-click letter to advocate for him.
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The death penalty is based upon God’s law: Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. That law must be the basis for anything else. That said, God also is merciful, who’s mercies are renewed every morning. Also, mercy rejoiceth against judgment, and he (God) hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. In this case the victim’s son desires mercy, which is very noteworthy, and should be considered along with Mr Young’s words that the authority’s job is not to “just try to fill the prisons up”.
Everyone diserves a second change.
When being young and maybe with too many flaws.
Life of a farther.
Transform his sentence.
Life of a farther.
Note to Stephen Crouse: the death penalty in the USA is not “based upon God’s Law” (whatever that is): it is based on the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The USA is not a theocracy it is a bourgeois (capitalist) democracy; we live in a secular society, not a society run by priests, mullahs, rabbis or any other theocratic entity.
The death penalty in the USA is a form of terrorism intended to terrorize the people who are forced to suffer the death penalty: poor workers of all races and religions, and disproportionally poor black workers. The death penalth is not imposed by God or the gods but be men and women – fallible human beings capable of error. There have been many innocent people executed by the state in the USA and wherever in the world the death penalty has existed. There is no way we can be 100% certain that the people executed are even actually guilty of the crime for which they were convicted. Innocent people are convicted every day in the USA; the US “National Registry of Exonerations” has recorded 2245 exonerations of innocent people who spent a total of 19,790 years in prison for crimes they never committed. http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx No criminal justice system can be made to be 100% correct 100% of the time; and with this many egregious wrongful convictions having been recorded in the USA there is NO WAY anyone can justify the death penalty. End the Death Penalty in the USA Now!
— Independent Workers Party of Chicago
please release chris young
Gods Laws of justice and love are not to be broken.
Al lives matter everyone makes mistakes!