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

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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.

Death Row Exoneree Shujaa Graham Coming to 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty Oct 30 in Austin

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Shujaa Graham, who spent three years on death row in California for a crime he did not commit, will be a special guest at the 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 30 in Austin Texas at 2 PM at the Texas Capitol. Shujaa is coming as a member of the Journey of Hope and Witness to Innocence. He will join exonerees Curtis McCarty, Ron Keine, and Greg Wilhoit at the march. Shujaa was last in Austin during the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break in March talking to students about his experience as a wrongfully convicted person condemned to death. In October 2009, he delivered 6000 petition signatures to the office of Governor Rick Perry (pictured).

Shujaa Graham was born in Lake Providence, Louisiana and grew up on a plantation. His family members worked as sharecroppers in the segregated South of the 1950s. In 1961, he moved to join his relatives in South Central Los Angeles and build a more stable life. As a teenager Shujaa experienced the Watts Riots and police occupation of his community. In and out of trouble, he spent much of his adolescent life in juvenile institutions, and when he turned 18 he was sent to Soledad Prison.
Within the prison walls, Shujaa came of age, mentored by the leadership of the Black Prison movement. Shujaa taught himself to read and write, he studied history and world affairs, and became a leader of the growing movement within the California prison system, as the Black Panther Party expanded in the community.
Shujaa was framed in the 1973 murder of a prison guard at the Deul Vocational Institute in Stockton, California. Despite the local community’s involvement and support, Shujaa and his co-defendant Eugene Allen were sent to San Quentin’s death row in 1976. Because the district attorney had systematically excluded all African-American jurors, in 1979 the California Supreme Court overturned the death conviction. After three years on death row, Shujaa and his co-defendant continued to fight for their innocence. Their third trial ended in a hung jury, and it was not until after a fourth trial that they were found innocent. Rather than being protected by the United States’ criminal justice system, Shujaa often points out that he won his freedom and affirmed his innocence “in spite of the system.”
Shujaa was released in March 1981, and began work in the Bay area building community support for the prison movement and against police brutality. Since then he has moved away from the Bay Area and created his own landscaping business. He now gives lectures on the death penalty, the criminal justice system, racism, incarceration and innocence in America. “I’m filled with ideals for a better future,” he says. “That’s my struggle, and that’s going to be my struggle until I die. But I have no regrets. The movement has become my life; it gave me something to live for, made me proud of myself, and offered me a greater sense of dignity. I may never enjoy the fruits of this labor, but our children will. Hopefully they won’t have to experience what we experienced. We’ve spent many hours campaigning for something that should be here already —justice.”
Shujaa and his wife, Phyllis Prentice, raised three children together, and he developed a program combining his story with original blues lyrics put to music. Shujaa indomitable spirit and commitment to justice through Witness to Innocence make him a powerful leader in the anti-death penalty and human rights movements.

The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including Texas Moratorium Network, the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Death Penalty Free Austin, and Kids Against the Death Penalty.

Death Row Exoneree Greg Wilhoit Coming to 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty Oct 30 in Austin

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Greg Wilhoit is an innocent man who spent five years of his life on death row for a crime that he did not commit. He received a full exoneration in 1993. On October 30, 2010, Greg will be at the Texas Capitol for the 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty. The march starts at 2PM. He is coming as part of the Journey of Hope … from Violence to Healing, which has proclaimed October 30, 2010 “Greg Wilhoit Day”.
The Journey of Hope is an organization led by murder victim family members joined by death row family members, family members of the executed, the exonerated, and others with stories to tell, that conducts public education speaking tours and addresses alternatives to the death penalty. They will be touring Texas telling their stories in cities across the state from October 15-31.
“At the sentencing,” Wilhoit said, “the judge told me I was to die by lethal injection. Then he said, ‘But if that fails, we’ll kill you by electrocution. If the power goes out, we’ll hang you. If the rope breaks, we’ll take you out back and shoot you.’”
On June 1, 1985, Greg’s wife Kathy was brutally murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leaving Greg to raise two little girls 4 months and 14 months old. Almost a year later Greg was arrested and charged with Kathy’s murder because two dental “experts”, one of whom had been out of dental school less than a year, testified that a bite mark found on Kathy’s body matched Greg’s teeth.
Greg’s parents hired an attorney who had a reputation as one of the top defense attorneys in Oklahoma to represent him. Unfortunately, in the preceding years the attorney had become an alcoholic and had developed alcohol-related brain damage. He embodied the definition of an incompetent attorney and did no preparation whatsoever for Greg’s trial. He appeared in court drunk, threw up in the judge’s chambers, and literally put on no defense. Greg was consequently found guilty and sentenced to death.
Greg was assigned an attorney, Mark Barrett, from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System to handle his appeal. Barrett was convinced of Greg’s innocence and worked tirelessly for over 4 years to help correct a terrible wrong. The 12 top forensic odontologists in the country examined the bite mark evidence and all 12 testified that the bite mark could not possibly be Greg’s. Greg was eventually granted a new trial and was out on bail for two years while the District Attorney decided whether or not to retry the case. A second trial was held in 1993, but after the prosecution presented their case (without the bite mark evidence) the judge issued a directed verdict of innocence and Greg was cleared of all charges.
Greg lost 8 years of his life, the opportunity to raise his two daughters, his livelihood, and his physical and mental health. He now lives off social security checks because he continues to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He has never received an apology or one penny in compensation. In 2003, the Oklahoma Legislature voted overwhelmingly to award exonerated inmates $200,000 for their time served in prison. However, Greg has yet to receive any compensation. Greg is trying to get on with his life, but it’s not easy to get over the nightmarish trauma of those eight years.
Greg was recently featured in John Grisham’s latest book, “The Innocent Man” (Grisham’s first non-fiction book), and travels across the country active in the movement against the death penalty, speaking to numerous universities, schools and other audiences about his experience as a survivor of death row.
Greg today lives in Oklahoma. He is engaged to get married on Sept 18th to his fiancée Judy. They have known each other for 25 years.
Greg will join other innocent death row exonerees who will be attending the 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty, including his fellow Oklahoma exoneree Curtis McCarty, as well as Ron Keine and Shujaa Graham. Curtis spent 21 years in prison – including 19 years on death row – in Oklahoma for a crime he did not commit. Shujaa spent 3 years on death row in California for a crime he did not commit. Ron spent two years on death row in New Mexico for a crime he did not commit.
The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including Texas Moratorium Network, the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Death Penalty Free Austin, and Kids Against the Death Penalty.

Charging Documents Filed with Review Panel in Sharon Keller’s Appeal

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The Austin American Statesman reports on the latest news in the ongoing saga of Judge Sharon Keller, who is appealing her sanction of a “Public Warning” for judicial misconduct for her actions on the day of the execution of Michael Richard, when she said “we close at 5”.  You can read the latest charging documents here, filed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct with the three-judge review panel appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to hear Keller’s appeal. All three judges on the review panel are Republicans, as is Keller.

From the Statesman:

The special counsel for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct this morning filed charges accusing Judge Sharon Keller of violating her duty as a judge during a botched 2007 death penalty appeal.

It’s the next step in Keller’s appeal challenging the commission’s public warning, issued in July. The warning said Keller acted improperly by choosing to close the Court of Criminal Appeals clerk’s office at 5 p.m. despite knowing that defense lawyers wanted to file an appeal in a pending execution.

The charges lay out, point by point, the commission’s version of what happened on Sept. 25, 2007, when lawyers for murderer Michael Richard requested extra time to file an appeal. The points were compiled from sworn testimony by Keller and others.

The charging document was filed with a three-judge special court of review, which now has 30 days — with a 30-day extension available — to schedule a hearing on the charges.

After the hearing, the review court has 60 days to render a decision about whether Keller was properly reprimanded by the commission, an independent agency that investigates allegations of wrongdoing by Texas judges.

Charging Document Against Judge Sharon Keller

Ohio Governor Commutes Death Sentence of Kevin Keith to Life; Texas Needs a Governor Who Will Provide Similar Leadership

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The Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, today commuted the death sentence of Kevin Keith to life in prison. Keith maintains he is innocent. This is what leadership from a governor looks like. In making the decision, Strickland rejected an 8-0 recommendation from the Ohio Parole Board that Keith should be executed. Strickland also overrode the parole board in 2008, when he commuted the death sentence of another inmate who claimed innocence. In Texas, it has happened that the parole board has recommended clemency and the governor has rejected that recommendation and allowed a person to be executed. In Ohio, the opposite just happened. Texas needs to elect a governor in 2010 who will be willing to provide the kind of leadership that Governor Strickland is providing the people of Ohio. Certainly in cases where there is any doubt at all about a person’s guilt or innocence, governors should take action to prevent executions of people who are possibly innocent. In states that still have a death penalty, the standard for execution should be beyond any doubt.

In 2004, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 5-1 to recommend to Governor Perry that the execution of paranoid schizophrenic Kelsey Patterson be commuted to life in prison, but Perry refused to grant the commutation and Patterson was executed. In Patterson’s case the issue was mental illness.

From CNN:

An Ohio death row inmate who has repeatedly claimed his innocence was spared execution, after the state’s governor Thursday noted “legitimate questions” about evidence used to convict the man.

Kevin Keith for now will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. His legal appeals will continue, with lawyers claiming newly discovered evidence and discredited eyewitness testimony will ultimately exonerate him.

Keith was convicted of the 1994 killings of three females, including a child, in an apartment in Bucyrus, 60 miles north of Columbus. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection September 15, and had exhausted most of his federal and state court appeals. Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, issued his commutation this week after a number of civil liberties and innocence groups urged he step in to prevent a possibly innocent man from being executed by the state.

“Clearly, the careful exercise of a governor’s executive clemency authority is appropriate in a case like this one, given the real and unanswered questions surrounding the murders for which Mr. Keith was convicted,” said Strickland in a statement. “Mr. Keith still has appellate legal proceedings pending which, in theory, could ultimately result in his conviction being overturned altogether.

The governor added, however, that he believes “it is far more likely that Mr. Keith committed these murders than it is likely that he did not.” Strickland urged the courts to give a “full, fair analysis” of the issues raised in the appeal. He ignored the recommendations of the state’s parole board, which last month unanimously recommended against clemency.

Keith’s lawyers applauded the governor’s decision, but promised to continue the fight to clear the inmate.

“Mr. Keith remains incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, and that crime remains unsolved,” said a statement from his five-person legal team. “The commutation to a life sentence does not lessen the need for justice to prevail.”

Prosecutors said the 46-year-old Keith had maliciously sprayed a home with gunfire, that left a four-year-old dead, along with her mother and aunt. Three others were wounded but survived, including a man who later testified against the main suspect. At trial, the state argued one of the victims was the brother of an undercover police informant who had implicated Keith as a drug dealer.

But Keith’s public defenders point to at least one other suspect, and say a detective in the case lied on the stand about how a survivor of the shooting identified Keith. His defense team also later presented alibi witnesses.

Calls to the Crawford County prosecuting attorney’s office were not immediately returned.

The issue of “actual innocence” and the rights of prisoners to challenge their sentences years after a trial will be argued next month at the U.S. Supreme Court. A Texas death row inmate wants DNA testing from evidence that had not been analyzed at the time of his trial, to try to prove he did not commit the crime.

The Innocence Project, a New York-based legal clinic said 258 people have been exonerated through DNA testing and new evidence being uncovered, with their convictions being tossed out. Many defense attorneys have urged the courts to make it easier for inmates– especially those facing execution– to go to court to press for a new look at these innocence claims, including more sophisticated DNA testing of old evidence.

“It’s a win-win for the justice system. If he turns out to be guilty, we have the certainty of that fact with objective DNA science prior to the time that we carry out the ultimate punishment,” said Nina Morrison, a staff attorney with the Innocence Project. “And if he’s not guilty, obviously that’s something that we, and surely the state, would want to know prior to the time that an irrevocable penalty of execution is carried out. “

New Song About the Case of Todd Willingham by Luke Powers

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Click here to watch a video of a new song about the case of Todd Willingham by Luke Powers.

Luke Powers is not your ordinary Nashville songwriter. With a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University, he writes in the tradition of Flannery O’Connor and sings like William Faulkner.HWY 100 is available on I-TUNES and CDBaby.com. Free downloads (mp3s, music videos) and information about the songs can be found at http://www.phoebeclaire.net.

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