A black prisoner on death row in the US has welcomed the vote to remove the death penalty from the Irish Constitution.
Roger Collins, from Georgia, has spent 24 years in prison for a murder he claims he did not commit. A campaign for an appeal to his sentence is being led by Mr Billy Colbert from Portlaoise, Co Laois.
Through Mr Colbert, Collins said he wanted to express his sincere gratitude to the people of Ireland for holding the referendum.
"I do hope you realise that your vote to choose life over death sends out a strong message and a testimony to the standards we should all live by," he wrote. "Some day I have no doubt that every country will come to terms with this issue.
"Let the guilty be punished but not at the expense of our very humanity."
Roger Collins was 18 when he and two older men were charged with the murder of Dolores Lester (18). Ms Lester, who was Roger Collins's girlfriend, was lured into a car and brutally murdered with a car jack.
Roger Collins was the only defendant to get a death sentence for the crime. He accepted that he was guilty of not trying to prevent Ms Lester's death, but denied having any part in killing her.
Mr Colbert is trying to raise £80,000 to mount a legal appeal against his execution. He first made contact with Roger Collins when he read a letter seeking pen-pals in Ireland's Own over three years ago. He regularly writes to the prisoner and has visited him five times.
"I have no doubt that he is innocent. There is no biological evidence to link Roger Collins with the murder," Mr Colbert said.
In his letter to the people of Ireland, Collins said Ireland's referendum had given hope to him and to his mother that the death penalty may eventually be removed in the US.
"In spite of how the justice system feels about me, the question is - what has my mother done to deserve such punishment?
"The death penalty, nor any form of taking a human life, can ever be done without creating other victims in its wake," he wrote.
