Last night in Austin, Reginald Blanton’s mother and members of her church from San Antonio joined more than 60 supporters at the Texas Capitol to stand protest as the execution of her son was taking place in Huntsville Texas. Also in attendance to protest the execution were two innocent, exonerated former death row prisoners, Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty. Shujaa spent 3 years on death row in California and Curtis spent 19 years on death row in Oklahoma.

Reginald’s last words:

Yes I do. I know ya’lls pain, believe me I shed plenty of tears behind Carlos. Carlos was my friend. I didn’t murder him. This what is happening right now is an injustice. This doesn’t solve anything. This will not bring back Carlos. Ya’ll fought real hard here to prove my innocence. This is only the beginning. I love each and everyone dearly. Dre My queen. I love you. Yaws, Junie I love yall. Stay strong, continue to fight. They are fixing to pump my veins with a lethal drug the American Veterinary Association won’t even allow to be used on dogs. I say I am worse off than a dog. They want to kill me for this; I am not the man that did this. Fight on. I will see ya’ll again. That’s all I can say.

Reginald became the 442nd person executed in Texas since 1982 and the 203rd person executed since Rick Perry took office. Rick Perry himself was in New York last night, so he does not very care much about his responsibilities as governor when it comes to capital punishment.

Watch video of last night’s protest on YouTube. The video was taken by Hooman Hedayati.

Anna Terrell also delivered a powerful speech at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty Saturday calling for Rick Perry to stop the execution of her son and calling for an end to capital punishment (video on YouTube).

Criminal Justice blogger Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast has submitted a Public Information Request to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to try to obtain information regarding the last visit between Todd Willingham and his ex-wife Stacy Kuykendall before his execution in 2004. He writes about his PIR in his post “Did Todd Willingham confess or did Stacy Kuykendall lie?”
Excerpt:

I don’t know which time Kuykendall was telling the truth or what was her motive when she didn’t, but I know for sure it can’t all be accurate. That fact can’t be overcome just from sympathy for her unfortunate and painful history. It’s regrettable that she put herself in that position in such a high-profile case, but that’s where we are.

It did strike me that there might be a way to find out for sure whether Todd Willingham really confessed. TDCJ is set up to electronically record non-attorney visitations with death row inmates. Their online policies say they “may” record visits, but I’ve been told in the past they record all of them on death row except those with the inmates’ attorneys. To find out for sure, I spoke this morning with TDCJ’s lead PR person, Michelle Lyons, but she could not confirm whether all conversations are recorded or only selected ones. No one had ever asked her that question, she said, though I’m willing to bet in light of recent events I won’t be the last one who wants to know. So to get more information, I filed an open records request today asking for the following information:

• Any TDCJ policies regarding recording of conversations during death-row inmates’ non-attorney visitations, including any policy describing how often recording occurs, under what circumstances, whether every call is recorded, what is done with the recordings, who has access to them, how long they’re kept, what documentation must be maintained, etc..
• Any log or record of recordings from visitations for now-deceased death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham.
• Any log or record of who has accessed or listened to recordings from visitations for now-deceased death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham.
• The tape or audio file (in whatever format it’s maintained in) of any recorded visitations with Cameron Todd Willingham during the month before his execution.

Maybe we can get to the bottom of this confession question once and for all.

Walter Reaves was the appellate attorney for Todd Willingham. He fought for Todd through his wrongful execution and continues to fight to prove that Todd was innocent. Click here to watch the video on YouTube of Walter Reaves speaking at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24, 2009 at the Texas Capitol in Austin.

Walter Reaves’ entire practice is dedicated to providing quality representation to those who have been convicted of criminal offenses. He specialize in post-trial matters in both state and federal Courts anywhere in the state of Texas. One of his proudest accomplishments was obtaining the release of Calvin Washington who was wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years. He was also were able to obtain the release of Washingtons co-defendant, Joe Sydney Williams following his direct appeal, and recently was able to obtain compensation for both of them.

Texas Monthly’s Michael Hall has a video interview with Ernest Willis, an innocent man who was sentenced to death in Texas for setting an arson fire that was later determined to have been an accidental fire. Ernest was released in 2004, just eight months after Todd Willingham was executed. A couple of weeks after Ernest was released Texas Moratorium Network sent him $1,000 donated by our members who wanted to help him a little with some cash after his release, because the State of Texas on the day of his release gave him just $100 and 10 days of medication.

The transcript of the Texas Monthly interview is below:

You’re one of the only people to know what it’s like to be an innocent man on death row, but everybody else thinks you’re guilty. What did that feel like to you? When you had those two days left—we’re trying to put ourselves in the mind of [Cameron Todd Willingham] and what he was going through. What did that feel like?

Like I said, you know, I had prepared myself for it because I know on Texas death row very few people get off of Texas death row alive. And I had myself prepared pretty well for if that time come, I would just lay down and go to sleep and that would be it. I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I wouldn’t be hollering and screaming. I don’t really know what my last words would be. I don’t know whether I would have said, “Well, you’re killing an innocent man” or what. But I can only imagine what Todd Willingham was going through because I come within two days of execution myself. But to be strapped down on that gurney it’s hard to say what a person would say. I know that I wouldn’t be rambunctious and yelling and all that because I prepared myself for that. But at the same time it would be really, really tough because you spend all these years knowing that you’re innocent. And that’s the hard part of being in there. If I would have been guilty of this crime, I could have took it real easy. It wouldn’t have bothered me like it did. And Todd’s case was so similar to mine—I didn’t know Todd really well, but I had talked to him several times out on the rec [recreation] yard. We discussed a little bit about our cases and found out they was nearly identical. I believe in my heart and soul that he was an innocent man. I believe Texas killed an innocent man.

The thing of it is I could have been in the same position he was in but I had the New York attorneys and had the capital to do all that. All he had was these appointed attorneys and they don’t get enough money to bring forth what it takes. If he could have hung on just three or four or five more months he would have been in the same shape I was—he would have walked out of there a free man. Because he had the same evidence I had. There was very little—you know, of course, the prosecutors make us look like animals and all this stuff. I’ve been out five years now and I’ve had no problems. I’ve started my own business. I retired about two years ago. I think I’ve been a productive person ever since I got out. I’ve helped a lot of people. With the money I got I was able to help my kids and [ex-wife] Verilyn’s kids and do a lot of things I wanted to do.

I know Governor Perry is trying to sweep this under the carpet, like hey, he was guilty as sin. Well all of us does things. They called him a monster and everything; they called me a monster. That’s the way district attorneys do. They’re exempt from prosecution. The only way the death penalty can ever be fair is to hold these district attorneys liable for the things they do. They drugged me during my trial, and I’m sure that the district attorney had something to do with that. I’m sure he ordered the medication, and I was like a zombie the whole way through my trial. But unless you have the capital and they do something about these district attorneys, it will never be that way. I mean, they can say and do whatever they want to do and they don’t have to worry about lawsuits and prosecution or anything. It needs to start there. It needs to follow up with enough money for representation. I mean, these lawyers—there are a lot of good lawyers out there. They get $20,000 or $30,000 per case. I mean, hell, you can’t ever hire an expert witness for that. It’s not a fair situation. If you have money—that’s the difference between me and Todd. I had money backing me up. Just think, if I hadn’t had no more time than Todd Willingham had they would have killed me before I could prove my innocence. It takes a long time. Even after you get the representation and money to fight this thing and dig up whatever it takes to prove your innocence. I would have been in the same shape he was. I wouldn’t be here today.

What should Governor Perry do?

I really think Governor Perry should own up to it and say, “Hey, we made a mistake.” What Governor Perry is worried about, they killed an innocent man on his watch and he’s afraid he might not get reelected. He needs to own up to it. They know that if they own up to it there’s a big lawsuit there. They’re worried about that. And he’s worried about his own hide because governors are elected. It’s like Ori White, the prosecutor that testified at my expunction hearing and he said, “Hey, the man’s innocent.” How many district attorneys or governors do you know that are going to get up there and say that? Perry needs to just own up to it and say, “Hey, we did. We killed an innocent man. And I think we need to put a moratorium on this right now, study this thing, and see what we need to do to fix this.”

To start with, just like I said: Start with the district attorney. After you finish with the district attorney, try to get more money for representation. The attorneys that handled my case worked on my case for 12 years; they spent $5 million. I know the state of Texas can’t produce like that but give them enough money where they can hire experts and do a little digging and find out the facts on the case. You know, I’m sure that most people on death row are guilty. But when I left death row I could say in my heart I thought there were at least five people that were innocent. And, you know, I haven’t named no names because I don’t know how these people would feel about me bringing their situation up.

But I think Governor Perry needs to do that right thing. We have these seven experts. My case was identical to his. He’s just trying to let it go by. And it’s not going to hush up. I’m not going to hush up. People that care about the death penalty and the people that don’t know about the death penalty need to be informed. Most people—they believe in the death penalty; they don’t know anything about it. But once in a while it strikes close to home. And then they realize this is really a dirty deal. Anyone can be walking down the street and be in the wrong place at the right time. And they can put—just like on mine—everything was circumstantial evidence. The district attorney gets up there and says, “This is the way we think it happened.” And that’s not the way it happened. How can a civilized country like America sentence men to death on circumstantial evidence like that? It’s not right.

Governor Perry, he needs to step up to the plate and admit we made a mistake. And this thing is not going to go away. It’s not going to go away. He thinks, you know, eventually it will last a little while and then it will go away but we’re not going to let it go away. It’s not going to die down—step up to the plate and do your job.

There are many similarities between these two alledged arson cases from Texas. The main difference is that one resulted in an execution, the other in the inmate being freed.

Some similarities in the cases: