Exonerees Leading March to Abolish the Death Penalty

Death row exonerees Gary Drinkard, Ron Keine and Shujaa Graham leading the 2010 March to Abolish the Death Penalty. marchforabolition.org
Upcoming Executions

Upcoming Executions

Click for a list of upcoming scheduled executions in Texas.
Innocence

Innocence

The death penalty puts innocent people at risk of execution.
Todd Willingham

Todd Willingham

Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed under Governor Rick Perry on February 17, 2004.

Photos by Statesman of yesterday’s Kenneth Foster protest at governor’s mansion

By On · Add Comment · In kenneth foster

The Austin American-Statesman ran a photo in today’s paper of the protest yesterday of Kenneth Foster’s scheduled execution on August 30. The Statesman also put more photos online, which you can see here.

Several protesters came out in support of the Save Kenneth Foster campaign as they gather at the Governor’s Mansion along Lavaca Street, complete with petitions and clemency letters. Foster, whom some say is innocent, is scheduled to be executed August 30. Department of Public Safety troopers left them alone as long as they did not block the driveway.

Governor Perry Greeted By Kenneth Foster Execution Protestors At Church Today

By On · Add Comment · In kenneth foster

8/26/2007

KLBJ Newsroom

A group hoping to change Governor Rick Perry’s mind about an execution, met him at his Tarrytown church today. Ariel Kay with ‘We The People’ says Kenneth Foster should not be executed for driving a car during a botched robbery in 1997. Kay says Foster was sentenced to death under the Law of Parties – because he was present during a crime, he was just as guilty as the person who actually committed the crime. Fosters’ family is participating in today’s protest. He is scheduled for execution by lethal injection August 30th.

last modified: 8/26/2007 10:40:56 AM

Does DaRoyce Mosley Deserve to Die on Aug 28?

By On · 2 Comments · In Uncategorized

You don’t run into too many magazine articles where the “N” word is used as much as in the Texas Monthly article below. Kilgore sounds like a town that never got over the Civil War. Still, there are some people in Kilgore that don’t believe that Daroyce Mosley should die on August 28. He claims he did not kill anyone and that his uncle was the real killer.

“Goddam, I hate to sound liberal, I really do. But, there are too many questions about this case for it to end with the death penalty. This kid participated in a robbery in which four people were killed-and that should definitely involve a jail term. But putting this kid to death? Oh, man, no.”


Raised in Kilgore’s poorest black neighborhood, he was an honors graduate with a bright future until he was convicted of killing four whites. But the case is still hotly disputed, and the question remains…,

by Skip Hollandsworth

Texas Monthly

February 1996

PDF Version of full article

IN THE EAST TEXAS TOWN OF KILGORE, KATIE’S WAS JUST ANOTHER beer joint perched next to Texas Highway 135. Inside, there were a few tables the size of hubcaps, a small pool table, a jukebox, and some Dallas Cowboys posters tacked to the plywood walls. The customers were white working-class people. Most of the men who stopped in for the 81 bottled beer were oil-field workers still trying to make a living from the dregs of what was once the
largest oil field in the world. They arrived in unwashed pickup trucks. They wore shirts that had their first names sewn above their pockets. Their wives or girlfriends often came along, sitting at separate tables, smoking cigarettes and calling each other “honey.” The owner, a rusty-voiced woman named Katie Moore who had been operating East Texas honky-tonks for more than thirtv vears. liked to call Katie’s a “quiet little family place.”

But on the night of July 21. 1994. Sandra Cash, the 32-year-old barmaid who was paid S30 a night to serve the beer, crawled to the phone and made a 911 call. “Please help me.” she rasped. “I am choking.”

A young Kilgore police officer, one of the first to arrive at Katie’s was young horrified by what he saw that for months afterward he needed counseling. Behind the bar. Cash was barely alive. her spinal cord severed by as many as six shots that had been fired into her. The four customers who had been at Katie’s that night were crumpled on the floor, each one shot in the head. Patricia Colter, a 54-year-old Wal-Mart employee, and her 44-year-old husband. Duane, who worked at a Kilgore company that built ceramic toilet fixtures, were closest to the front door; face down, blood from their heads seeping into the carpet. Alvin “Buddy” Waller, a 54 year-old oil-well worker; was lying a few feet away with a pool cue in his hand. He had been shot once in the leg, once in the back of the head. and once through the left eye. Because of the gunpowder on his face, investigators knew that the killer had stuck the gun right up to Waller’s eye and pulled the trigger. Luva Congleton, a 68-year-old retiree, had crawled under the pool table to lude. The killer had walked to the pool table, leaned down, and shot her. The only item missing from Katie’s was a gray fishing tackle box that Cash used to keep the bar receipts. It held $308.

Continue to read the full article. (PDF)

Dallas Morning News Says Don’t Execute Kenneth Foster

By On · Add Comment · In kenneth foster

Not a Killer

Kenneth Foster does not deserve execution
Link to article

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, August 26, 2007

Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

Kenneth Foster was a robber. He was a drug user. He was a teenager making very bad decisions.

He is not an innocent man.

But Mr. Foster is not a killer.

Still, the State of Texas plans to put him to death Thursday.

Ours is the only state in the country to apply the “law of parties” to capital cases, allowing accomplices to pay the ultimate penalty for a murder committed by another. Mr. Foster was driving his grandfather’s rental car when one of his partners in crime killed Michael LaHood.

That night in 1996, Mr. Foster and three of his buddies appeared to be looking for trouble. They robbed a few folks, chugged some beers and smoked marijuana. But, as all four have testified, murder was never part of the plan. Mr. Foster and two others sat in the car nearly 90 feet away when the fatal shot was fired.

They had followed an attractive woman into an unfamiliar neighborhood, where they encountered her boyfriend, Mr. LaHood. The other passengers have testified that they had no designs on robbing – let alone shooting – him. And the admitted triggerman said that his friends did not know what he was doing when he approached the victim.

But using the law of parties, prosecutors argued that Mr. Foster, who was 19 at the time, either intended to kill or “should have anticipated” a murder. For this lack of foresight, he has been sentenced to death.

The death penalty, proponents argue, is the appropriate punishment for the worst of the worst criminals. They express confidence that death row inmates are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the case against Mr. Foster falls far short on both counts.

A 19-year-old robber/getaway driver cannot be classified as one of Texas’ most dangerous, murderous criminals. On this point, even prosecutors agree: Mr. Foster did not kill anyone.

By applying the law of parties to this capital case, prosecutors are asking jurors to speculate on whether he should have anticipated the murder. Conjecture isn’t nearly good enough when a defendant’s life is on the line.

And relying on a mind-reading jury leaves plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

Several other states have imposed or are considering a moratorium on executions, relying instead on life without parole as a tough alternative. Even though Texas juries now have the option of life without parole, our state continues to broadly impose capital punishment.

The unfair application of the death penalty and the possibility that an innocent man could be executed compelled this newspaper to voice opposition to capital punishment. This case only reinforces our belief that state-sanctioned death is often arbitrary.

While Mr. Foster’s execution date approaches, the two passengers from his car sit in prison with life sentences. His only hope for a reprieve lies with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the governor.

This case raises serious questions about whether state leaders are comfortable with this degree of ambiguity in death cases. We aren’t.

Mr. Foster is a criminal. But he should not be put to death for a murder committed by someone else.WHAT YOU CAN DO

Texas is the only state that applies the “law of parties” to capital cases, allowing accomplices who “should have anticipated” a murder to receive the death penalty. Kenneth Foster is scheduled to die Thursday under this provision. You can urge the governor to stop the execution.

Write the governor:

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428

E-mail the governor through his Web site:

www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

Call the governor’s opinion hotline:

1-800-252-9600

Rick Perry’s Pastor on Justice and the Death Penalty

By On · Add Comment · In kenneth foster

Hooman Hedayati found this sermon given at Governor Rick Perry’s church on July 15 just about a month ago in which Pastor Hellen Almanza talks about the death penalty. Was Rick Perry present that day in church!? If he was, then he might want to apply this sermon’s lessons to the case of Kenneth Foster.

http://www.tarrytownumc.org/sermons/sr20070715.html

Our justice system
How many people were there who were awaiting execution in Illinois when the group of law students investigated their cases and found enough evidence that they were exonerated and given pardons? Last I heard it was 26. They were going to be executed. They were poor people who could not afford a lawyer. And they were innocent.

We just need to face it. Certainly we have many guilty people in our prisons, but we obviously have innocent ones too if the Illinois situation is any indication. Our system requires good lawyers who have to be paid to earn a living. That is only fair. But what do you do is you don’t have the money?

Page 273 of 358« First...102030...271272273274275...280290300...Last »
%d bloggers like this: