Upcoming Executions
Click for a list of upcoming scheduled executions in Texas.
Innocence
The death penalty puts innocent people at risk of execution.
Todd Willingham
Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed under Governor Rick Perry on February 17, 2004.

Anibal Garcia Rousseau, #942 on Texas’s death row for the past 15 years and 3 months, died this morning at 1:45 of complications of Hepatitis C.

An article in The Houston Chronicle from May 30, 2005 said that

Three of the 12 Harris County jurors who sentenced Anibal Rousseau to death 16 years ago say they would not have voted to convict him if they had known about ballistics evidence that supports his claim of innocence.

But the evidence, processed by the Houston Police Department firearms lab, was never made available to the defense by police or prosecutors, who included current District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.

The three jurors expressed dismay that Rousseau is still in prison and has yet to receive a new trial, four years after defense attorneys first discovered the evidence during the appeal process.

“Oh, that’s unbelievable,” said Karl Holdaway, a 67-year-old former Marine. “I thought Anibal would have been released by now.”

If the jury had known about the ballistics evidence, he added, “there would have been no conviction.”

Larry Youngblood, 55, an “ultraconservative” who also served on the jury, had a similar reaction: “I thought it would be over with by now. If an execution date is ever set, I’ll be climbing the walls of (the prison), because I am totally convinced he didn’t do it.”

Another juror, chemical plant worker Barry Carlblom, said the evidence “definitely would have had a bearing on my decision.”

“I would think it would be automatic that they would have a retrial,” said Carlblom, 60.

A fourth member of the jury said he at least would have wanted to know about the ballistics evidence during the trial, even if it didn’t change his mind about Rousseau’s guilt.

“It sounds like it could have been important,” said Bert Rosenbaum, 52, who works for an investment company.

It’s not everyday that a candidate for Texas governor testifies in favor of a person who has been on Texas death row for more than 20 years.Kinky Friedman testified that he believes Max Soffar is innocent. Kinky has signed a petition calling for a moratorium on executions. Go to the website of TSADP to see a picture of him signing the petition. Though he told an interviewer last year that he did not oppose the death penalty, Friedman said Tuesday that he has changed his position and will campaign against capital punishment.

“The (criminal justice) system is not perfect,” he said. “Until it’s
perfect, let’s do away with the death penalty.”

Friedman testified during the punishment phase of Max Soffar’s trial that the defendant should not be executed and questioned the evidence used to convict him.

“I’ve seen the problems with the lawyers. Everybody’s dead. All the witnesses are dead. Tthere’s no evidence against him,” he said. “And I can’t even believe he was brought to trial in the first place.”

Friedman, a musician-turned-mystery author-turned-politician, said his court appearance had nothing to do with his run for governor. Known for his trademark black cowboy hat and cigar, Friedman needs to collect more than 45,000 signatures after the March 7 primaries to be placed on the November ballot.

Texas Moratorium Network has just been awarded $3,000 by RESIST, Inc., a national progressive foundation located in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Texas Moratorium Network
received funding for our work fighting for a statewide moratorium on executions in Texas. “We are very pleased to receive this grant from RESIST”, said Scott Cobb, President of TMN. “The grant comes at a busy time for TMN. We are working on two major projects this Spring – an alternative spring break and an art show”.

“Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break” is March 13-17. TMN began the alternative spring break in 2004 and this year turned it over to a new, statewide, student-run organization called Texas Students Against the Death Penalty. MTV will feature this year’s “Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break” on the MTVU channel and online at www.mtvu.com.

Justice for All?: Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty” is an international, juried art show to be held at Gallery Lombardi in Austin May 6-22. The deadline for submissions to the art show is March 20, 2006. Jurors for the show are Annette Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art in Austin; Lora Reynolds, owner of Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin; and Malaquias Montoya, an artist and professor at the University of California, Davis. The art show is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Visit www.deathpenaltyartshow.org for more information.

RESIST began in 1967 with a “call to resist illegitimate authority” in support of draft resistance and in opposition to the Vietnam War. RESIST has continued to fund movements for social justice, including: civil rights; environmental; international human rights; reproductive rights, women’s rights, economic justice; prisoners’ rights; media and culture; and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights. Over the years, RESIST has evolved into a national foundation providing small but timely funding for grassroots peace and social justice groups. RESIST has six funding cycles during the calendar year. RESIST gives grants and loans up to $3,000. In fiscal year 2004, RESIST gave almost #305,000 to 136 organizations across the country.

“Each year, RESIST funds groups like Texas Moratorium Network, because our mission is to support people who take a stand about the issues that matter today, whether it’s to resist corporate globalization, promote a woman’s right to choose, or develop activist leaders,” says Board Chair Marc Miller.

We recently discovered a cool new service called TextPayMe, which allows you to send money to others via a text message on your cell phone. Paying for stuff through text messaging is pretty common in Europe and Japan, but it hasn’t yet caught on here in the States. We think that it will be as popular as PayPal in a short time.

Click the banner below to check it out and sign up for free. They’ll even deposit five dollars in your TextPayMe account when you sign up. No kidding. You get $5 for free. It costs you nothing. So sign up by clicking on the link below, get your $5 for free, and then you can help us out by donating the $5 to Texas Moratorium Network, so that we can raise some funds to use against the death penalty.

And, if 35 more people sign up via the link below, TextPayMe will give us an XBOX 360, which we will then auction on Ebay and raise some more funds for our non-profit work.

It is very easy to use. To donate to TMN, just follow the instructions and text the message to the cell phone number 512-689-1544.


SignUp at TextPayMe

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