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.

Video of Kenneth Foster’s Supporters Blocking Street at Protest at Governor’s Mansion

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Last night about 150 people protested Kenneth Foster’s pending execution on August 30. Some of the protesters risked arrest by sitting in front of the gate to the governor’s mansion and refusing to move, while others stood in a line across Lavaca Street blocking traffic for about 45 minutes. The police came early on in the protest, then they left for about thirty minutes. They came back after protesters blocked the street and the police then blocked off Lavaca at the intersection before the governor’s mansion. After about an hour of blocking off the street, the protesters decided to end the action and to return on another day. Below is a story by News 8 Austin and here is some amateur video that someone posted on YouTube. The protest had begun at the Capitol and ended at the mansion. It included speeches by Kenneth Foster’s grandfather and 11-year-old daughter.

Death penalty opponents rally outside Governor’s Mansion
8/22/2007 1:56 PM
By: News 8 Austin Staff

Death penalty protesters were out in force near the Governor’s Mansion on Tuesday evening. DPS troopers shut down Lavaca Street and detoured traffic around the block as a precaution.

Several dozen people stood on Lavaca to oppose the execution of Kenneth Foster, who’s been on death row for 10 years for driving a car used in a deadly shooting. His execution date is scheduled for Aug. 30.

Foster did not shoot the gun that killed Michael LaHood in San Antonio in 1996. He was convicted and sentenced to death under the Law of Parties, which allows the state to seek convictions for those present at the scene of a crime as if they committed it.

Texas is the only state that uses the Law of Parties in capital cases.

His supporters say since the original trial, the other men in the car that night testified that Foster had no idea LaHood would be shot.

Mauriceo Brown was found guilty of capital murder for shooting LaHood. He was executed last July. Two others, including one who testified against Brown, received long prison terms.

Prosecutors said the attack on LaHood Jr. capped a crime spree by the four alleged gang members in which at least four other people were robbed.

Foster’s supporters are petitioning the governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency.

Letter from Kenneth Foster Jr and John Amador

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August 22, 2007

Stand With Us for Human Rights

How We Will Protest Our Executions

By KENNETH E. FOSTER and JOHN JOE AMADOR, CounterPunch

In the name of Human Rights; all religious doctrines of Peace, Love and
Forgiveness; and in the vision of reform and atonement, on the above said
date myself (Kenneth E. Foster Jr.) and John Joe Amador have committed to a
protest of passive non-participation in our executions. Together we have
decided to go on a spiritual missin to oppose our systematic executions in
the hopes to open the eyes of people that think this horrific process is ok.

Starting on the 22nd we will engage in passive non-participation in this
process in the same fashion that civil rights fighters stood down the cruel
and inhumane treatments of their time. We are here to say that we do not
condone violence and will not promote it. We recognize that violence will
not solve our problems, just like executions do not help our society. We are
committed to peace and grassroots activism. We are not doing this for
ourselves, but for YOU, the people, to demonstrate to you that we do not
agree with this process. We do this for YOU, the people, to show that we are
new men today and that we must stand down the death penalty. We seek to harm
no person and we will not. We pray to compel this society to look at the
death penalty in a new light.

Starting on the 23rd we will begin refusing all food. We will not eat any
more meals served to us. Our only nourishment will be liquids.

Bexar County had lined up two San Antonio executions in a row – John
Amador’s for the 29th and mine for the 30th. While my case is known, Mr.
Amador’s is not. I will give Mr. Amador the opportunity to write his own
words regarding the injustices that he has faced at the hands of Bexar
County. Since I have a visual plight I am here to say that the State is
wrong in its desire to kill me. If I was as equally guilty as the 2 other
men in the car, and these 2 men are not on death row, then I should not be
either. This is an obvious injustice and railroad.

As we enter into being 7 days away from our execution we will be placed in
cells that have video cameras where we can be observed 24-7. We cannot
condone this invasion. We cannot participate in the way our humanity is
being stripped. While we are NOT indifferent to the victims, we are also not
indifferent to the fact that we are still human beings. But for a country
that professes it wants a good society it’s hard to acknowledge that when
the prison population is 2 million and rising and the conditions are left
horrific. So what is really the purpose of the Penal system? We also ask you
to think about this – in any other country when people are lined up and
slaughtered it’s called genocide. They said Sadaam Hussein committed mass
Genocide. It has happened in Darfur and Rwanda and Presidents of Cuba and
North Korea have been accused of it. But when America does it it is called
justice? Texas will surpass 400 murders this year. It we are to be unjustly
taken then we do not want to go silently. We will not walk to our executions
and we will not eat last meals. We will not give this process a humane face.

We ask all of you to stand for human rights. We are men that are dedicated
to change and betterment. We are dedicated to give atonement to the system
and society. Who of us will be left to guide the lost? We sacrifice this for
society, not for us, because death row is a cancer in the body of this
country. Our actions are antibodies to oppose this atrocious disease.

I, as a DRIVE representer, stand in the name of a better day. We will be on
a DRIVE and we do it with prayers, love and understand – even for those that
hate us. We don’t have them and we don’t hate the TDC officers that will
usher us to our murders. Reports have said that Governor Perry is doing the
will of the people. So, we come to you, the people, to relook at this
process.

For those that have read about my case you now see how arbitrary capital
punishment can be. AS long as it exists these things WILL continue to
happen. Why? Because human beings are fallible. Many people want us to be
the men we was 10 years ago. But we’re not. We could point fingers and talk
about scams and corruption going on. We can talk about the ENRON’s and the
Scooter Libby’s, the Guantanamo Bay’s and Abu Ghraib’s. But we won’t because
we know you know that these things exist. We will only point our fingers
up…..up…..and say that WE MUST GET UP. We must get up the way the CEDP
has gotten up and made a movement. We must get up like these medias,
politicians and even friends to the victims have gotten up. Some of us see a
new way. It is possible.

And so, on August 22nd we commit ourselves to something that is beyond us.
Perhaps we are just tools for a greater purpose.

We will not lift a finger to another person. We will only lift our voices
and spirits. We will allow YOU, the people, to be the force that must be
reckoned with.

We close this Directive in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Through violence you
may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may
murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may
murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness,
only light can do that.”

Let’s shine to the world.

In struggle,

Kenneth E. Foster Jr. & John Joe Amador

—

Source : CounterPunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/foster08222007.html

Write Governor Perry to Protest Today’s 400th Texas Execution: Johnny Conner

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Urge Governor Perry to stop the execution of Johnny Conner on August 22, 2007.

The Houston Chronicle has an article in today’s paper that casts doubt on whether Texas should carry out the execution of Johnny Conner on August 22. Conner’s execution would be the 400th since Texas resumed using the death penalty in 1982 after an 18 year moratorium. It would be emblematic of the many problems in the Texas death penalty system if the 400th execution is carried out despite the issues in the case that the Chronicle article brings up, including ineffective assistance of counsel during Conner’s trial that could have resulted in a conviction based on faulty witness identification of Conner as the perpetrator.

From the Chronicle:

Three people identified Johnny Ray Conner as the man they saw running from a north Houston grocery store after 49-year-old Kathyanna Nguyen was fatally shot in May 1998. During Conner’s trial, none of the witnesses mentioned the gunman had a limp.

But, then again, none of them was asked.

A federal judge in 2005 ruled that Conner deserved another trial because his defense attorneys failed to investigate Conner’s medical record. His trial attorneys said they never noticed Conner limp and he only mentioned the issue in passing and never to dispute the witnesses’ testimony. The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the federal judge’s decision without addressing the attorneys’ performance. Now the issue rests with the Supreme Court.

If the high court lets the ruling stand, Conner on Wednesday will become the 101st Harris County inmate to be put to death since 1982. He declined to be interviewed.

Customer saw robbery
During the May 19, 1998, robbery, the gunman stuffed a revolver into the small opening of the store’s counter, surrounded by bulletproof glass, and demanded money from Nguyen. There was no escape for Nguyen, who owned the business. She died from three gunshot wounds to the head. A customer, Julian Gutierrez, who interrupted the robbery was also shot, but he survived.

“I heard somebody say, ‘Give me all your money!’ ” Gutierrez testified at Conner’s trial. “He was pointing a gun at Kathyanna Nguyen and had his hand all the way inside the booth. She was shaking.”

Gutierrez was shot in the shoulder when he turned to run.

The gunman was seen by six witnesses, three of whom identified Conner as Nguyen’s killer.

Conflicting testimony
Conner said he told his attorneys before the trial about a broken leg he suffered a year before the shootings that led to a condition known as “foot drop.” Weakened muscles around his right shin made him shuffle his right foot forward to walk.

No medical testimony about the injury was presented at this trial.

But other evidence may have been too much to overcome.

Conner’s fingerprint was lifted from a plastic orange juice bottle police found near the store’s cash register. The bottle does not appear in police photos of the crime scene — a point hammered by the defense during the trial. Conner told his attorneys he was at the store hours before the holdup.

Although three witnesses, including Gutierrez, picked Conner’s mugshot from a photo spread, all of them gave inconsistent descriptions. None of them mentioned seeing the teardrop tattoo on his face.

Gutierrez told police the gunman was wearing white tennis shoes, brown shorts, a white T-shirt and a red cap. Another witness, who saw the gunman running down the street, said he wore dark shorts and no hat. A third witness, who saw the gunman as she drove along Fulton, said he wore jeans, tennis shoes and no hat.

Conner’s appellate attorneys persuaded U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore to conduct a hearing about Conner’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

“The state had him videotaped walking in the prison, unbeknownst to him that he was being videotaped, and it shows he has a limp,” said Robert Rosenberg, who argued Conner’s case during the hearing.

Ricardo Rodriguez and his co-counsel Jonathan Munier never noticed Conner with a limp during his trial. Rodriguez testified during the hearing that Conner told him “I broke my leg, but I’m fine now. I went for therapy.”

“The defense attorneys failed to conduct a reasonable investigation that would permit them to make a reasonable choice among trial strategies,” said Jim Marcus, a University of Texas School of Law professor who filed a petition with the Supreme Court about Conner’s case. “That’s no way to make an informed decision.”

Urge Governor Perry to stop the execution of Johnny Conner on August 22, 2007.

400th Execution Protest in Houston

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For Immediate Release

August 21, 2007

On August 22 Texas Will Execute the 400th Person Since Executions Resumed in 1982;

A Houston Protest to Condemn This Milestone will be at Houston’s Old Hanging Tree

Johnny Conner is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, August 22, in Huntsville at 6:00 PM. Conner’s execution, if carried out, will be the 400th in the state of Texas since executions resumed on Dec. 7, 1982.

The United States has executed 1,090 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and executions resumed on January 17, 1977, when the state of Utah’s firing squad killed Gary Gilmore.

Houstonians will protest the 400th execution at 5:30 at Houston’s Hanging Tree on the corner of Capital and Bagby. Protests will also take place around the state on Wednesday, including at the governor’s mansion in Austin.

“We will protest at the 200-year-old oak tree where Black people were illegally lynched many, many years ago. Today lynching in Texas is legal and it is done by the government in Huntsville. But Texas does not have the moral authority to execute anyone. The death penalty is used only against the poor and is a racist attack on the African American and Latino communities,” stated Njeri Shakur, a spokesperson for the Texas March Against Executions Committee, which is organizing Wednesday’s protest in Houston.

The death penalty is losing favor around the world. Even in the US there are fewer people being sentenced to death and fewer executions are being carried out. Because over 120 people have been released from death row for reasons of innocence, people sitting on juries are more reluctant to condemn a defendant to death. Only in Texas are executions continuing at a fast pace.

On Tuesday, the European Union issued a statement directed at Texas, saying, “The European Union notes with great regret the upcoming execution in the State of Texas and strongly urges Governor Rick Perry to exercise all powers vested in his office to halt all upcoming executions and to consider the introduction of a moratorium in the State of Texas.”

Texas has 3 more executions scheduled for the next week, including one of an innocent man, Kenneth Foster. Foster’s family will be in Houston to speak on Saturday at 2:00 PM at St. Saviour Baptist Church at 5202 Tronewood in N. E. Houston. ( www.freekenneth.com )

-30-

Perry favors death penalty over jobs and investments

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Would Governor Perry really choose the death penalty over investments, jobs and economic growth? Judging from his smart-aleck response to a request from the European Union for Texas to institute a moratorium on executions, the answer is yes.

Perry’s response: “230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”

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