confinement, he asked for a Bible. The Bible was the only book
prisoners in solitary were allowed to read. A guard–possibly thinking
this would be a nice joke– tossed him a copy of the Dhammapada
instead. Frankie found Buddhism.
A friend maintains a web site about Frankie Parker. According to this site,
Frankie came to live a simple religious life in a harsh prison
environment. He worked daily toward leading a more positive life. From
this, Frankie became a peaceful leader on death row. He was sought out
by other prisoners for help with spiritual issues. He was an example
to all (inside and outside of prison) that life is what you make out
of it. By giving Frankie a commutation of life without parole,
Frankie, through his example, could have given the death row inmates a
glimmer of hope for themselves. Positive change can lead to a quality
life even within the prison walls.
In 1993 Frankie saw an article in the local newspaper about the
Ecumenical Buddhist Society in Little Rock. He wrote a letter and Anna
Cox, the society's president, began corresponding with Frankie. Soon
others were writing him. Frankie kept in close contact by mail with
several sangha members for the last few years. His letters were warm,
upbeat, encouraging and always contained some teaching relevant to the
reader's life. As an artist, he generously shared his calligraphy and
origami flowers, birds, animals, mobiles, etc. with the sangha
members. He designed the EBS sweatshirts and T-shirts that were sold
by the society. In addition he organized a much larger donation of
original works by other prison artists to sell at the EBS auction fund
raiser in the fall of 1994.
A Zen priest gave Parker jukai, which is something like confirmation
as a Buddhist. Several prominent Tibetan masters visited him.
Prominent American Zen teachers, including Philip Kapleau and Robert
Aitken, wrote letters on behalf of Parker. According to the New York
Times, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa both wrote to
Governor Huckabee urging him to commute Parker's death sentence and
let him serve life in prison.
And do you know what the Rev. Mr. Huckabee did? He moved Parker's
execution date from September 17 to August 8 so he would be executed
six weeks sooner. And he was.
According to the Venerable Kobutsu Malone, the Zen priest who attended
Parker in his last hours,
The greatest blow to our efforts came on July 22nd when we learned
that the new Governor, Rev. Huckabee, in a totally unprecedented
action, issued a proclamation, his first in office, moving Jusan's
execution date to August 8th! In effect, with his signature, he cut
six weeks of Jusan's life. We were stunned. It was reported that the
Governor had met with the family of Frankie's victims. Jim Harris, a
spokesperson from the governor's office said, "This [date change] was
out of consideration for the victim's family. They've waited years and
we could determine no reason to delay it more." [emphasis added]
In other words, Huckabee's very first proclamation as governor was to
execute the Buddhist as soon as possible. Nice. But the serial rapist
Dumond (I mean, he was only violating women, right?) could be paroled
entirely.
