Everytime someone is executed a whole new set of victims is created, members of the family of the person executed. Parents lose children, children lose a parent. Tuesday in Texas, Lamont Reese was executed. The Huntsville Item reported on his mother’s reaction:

As soon as Lamont Reese received the lethal dose Tuesday night, he spoke.

“This is some nasty,” he said, referring to the taste many condemned prisoners say they notice in the seconds before death.

With that, Reese, 28, drew his last breath, and his mother broke down. Brenda Reese, Lamont’s mother, had been talking calmly through the glass separating she and her son until he drew his final breath.

“No, Jesus,” she screamed and began beating on the window. “God, he felt that. They killed my baby.

“Please Jesus,” she cried and pleaded. “Don’t do it. Oh, God, Jesus, please don’t.”

Family members surrounded Reese in the witness room at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit, trying to comfort her in the moments after her son’s death. “Oh God, Jesus,” she began to chant. “Oh God, Jesus. My baby’s gone.”

With that, Reese began to kick the wall separating her side of the witness room and the victim’s witnesses, kicking 2 small holes in the wall.

After her outburst, Reese was asked to leave the room by TDCJ personnel.
Her family physically helped her out of the room. As they walked out of
the death chamber, a family member began to sing softly, “He’s got the
whole world, in His hands. He’s got the whole, wide world in His hands.”

Read the rest of the article.

Good thing The Chicago Tribune does such great investigative work on the Texas Death Penalty. They are the ones who first broke the Cameron Willingham story, suggesting he was an innocent person executed. It sounds like they are on to something big again.

BREAKING STORY

Major news event involving Carroll Pickett (former Texas death house chaplain):

The dates below when the story may air are tentative and subject to changes.

ABC Nightline-Thursday, June 22, 10:30 p.m. central time

ABC Saturday Evening News-June 24, 5:30 p.m. central time

These stories lead in to a very big story from the Chicago Tribune breaking on Sunday, June 25, Monday June 26 and Tuesday June 27. This will be found on the Web at chicagotribune.com.

All the programs and newspaper deal with a young man who was executed wrongly. Pickett was with him all day from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. There is a partial account in his book, Within These Walls.

You can watch a video of Rev. Pickett’s talk to this year’s anti-death penalty alternative spring breakers.

Rev. Pickett’s talk starts around the 11th minute and goes for about 30 minutes.

90 years after the a young, black man was hanged and burned alive in their city square in front of a crowd of 15,000 people, the Waco City Council approved a resolution, Tuesday, June 20, 2006 condemning lynchings that occurred in the city’s past. Waco was the scene of one of the most brutal lynchings in U.S. history, an event that became known as the “Waco Horror“.

The Handbook of Texas Online says,

“Of the 492 lynchings that occurred in Texas between 1882 and 1930, the incident that perhaps received the greatest notoriety, both statewide and nationally, was the mutilation and burning of an illiterate seventeen-year-old black farmhand named Jesse Washington by a white mob in Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916 – an event sometimes dubbed the “Waco Horror.”

“We are appalled and grieved by heinous lynchings and other forms of violence that created a culture of fear and injustice,” the council said in the resolution. “We recognize that past mob actions hurt our city in ways far beyond the brutal murders, as they deprived our community of broad citizen participation and created a stigma that we strive to overcome.”

The resolution did not mention specifically the 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black man who was killed after an all-white jury convicted him in the death of a white woman.

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The 2006 Texas Republican Party Platform endorses the death penalty for people convicted of rape.

In 1977, the Supreme Court declared in the 7-2 Coker v. Georgia decision that applying the death penalty in rape cases was forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as cruel and unusual punishment because the sentence was disproportionate to the crime. Coker resulted in the removal of twenty inmates — three whites and 17 blacks — awaiting execution on rape convictions from death rows around the country.

From the 2006 Texas GOP Platform:

“Capital Punishment – We believe that properly applied capital punishment is legitimate, is an effective deterrent, and should be swift and unencumbered. When applied to the crime of murder, it raises the value of human life.

Sexual Assault – We believe that rape is a heinous crime for which punishment options should include death.”

It was a short five years ago today; I walked into the Walls Unit in Huntsville with my mother, sister, and two aunts. We watched as the State of Texas executed my brother, John Wheat. We were informed ahead of time the exact steps that were to occur. We would be searched, and then led across the street to the Walls Unit. We would be in a room separated from my brother by wire reinforced glass and bars. There would be a microphone so we could hear everything. He would be given a chance to make a final statement. He could talk as long as he wanted. We would know when he finished because he had provided the warden with a “code word” he would use to indicate he was finished speaking and the process could begin. The first drug to be introduced into his body would paralyze him. Three minutes would pass with him strapped to the gurney totally immobilized. Then a second drug would be introduced into his body to cause his lungs to collapse. We were warned that a sound might occur at this point, but it would just be the air rushing out of his body. It would not be speech or an attempt to speak. Three more minutes would pass. Six minutes after he was immobilized, the third and final drug would be injected. This drug would stop his heart. Again, three minutes would pass before a doctor would be brought in to examine him and pronounce him dead. Five years later, I remember every step, especially the loud “thump” as each drug was introduced. Nine minutes – three drugs – death. Just nine minutes from start to finish. I still recall how little the doctor spoke after the examination. “Time of death 6:13.” Nine minutes from life to death. Five years later and the questions still linger in my mind. Did anyone else notice that none of the drugs were to avoid pain? While my brother was strapped down for those nine minutes, was he in pain? Had he not been immobilized would he have been screaming out for help? Where is the humanity?

To those who stood outside the Walls Unit, those who stood outside the governor’s mansion, and those who held vigils in other cities around the world my eternal thanks. I would also like to extend my thanks to those who gave support in other ways. The kind emails, flowers, and food were greatly appreciated. Thanks also to all those who traveled to Huntsville to insure that none of the family who witnessed the execution had to drive afterward. I also want to thank all those whose efforts continue for this cause. If I have forgotten anyone, thank you too.

Bill Vaught

Note: I have lost the email addresses of many who have supported me over the years, please feel free to forward this message as appropriate.