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.

Juan Melendez, an innocent man who spent more than 17 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, will be coming to Corpus Christi, Texas June 25-26 to attend the 2010 Texas Democratic Party State Convention and to speak at the meeting of “Democrats Against the Death Penalty” at 1 PM on Friday, June 25. The meeting will be in room 225 D-E of the American Bank Center. The party is expecting more than 5,000 delegates, alternates and guests to attend the state convention.

Juan is traveling to Texas with the assistance of Witness to Innocence, which is the nation’s only organization composed of, by and for exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones. These individuals are actively engaged in the struggle to end the death penalty, challenging the American public to grapple with the problem of a fatally flawed criminal justice system that sends innocent people to death row.

Members of Texas Moratorium Network started the “Democrats Against the Death Penalty” caucus in 2004. In 2008, more than 300 people attended the caucus meeting at the state convention. In 2004, the Texas Democratic Party endorsed a moratorium on executions in the party platform. In 2008, the Resolutions Committee at the state convention approved a resolution in support of abolishing the death penalty in Texas, but the resolution was not voted on by the floor of the convention before adjournment.

Raised in Puerto Rico, Juan Melendez was working in Polk County as a fruit picker before he was sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1983 killing of an Auburndale beauty salon owner named Delbert Baker. A police informant implicated Melendez and another man. The second man cut a deal with prosecutors and testified against Melendez, but 12 years later, he recanted, saying he was coerced.
Juan Roberto Melendez-Colon spent seventeen years, eight months and one day on Florida ’s death row for a crime he did not commit. Upon his exoneration and release from death row on January 3, 2002, he became the 99th death row inmate in the country to be exonerated and released since 1973. There was no physical evidence ever linking Juan Melendez to the crime and his conviction and death sentence hinged on the testimony of two questionable witnesses. Despite his innocence, Juan Melendez’s conviction and death sentence were upheld on appeal three times by the Florida Supreme Court. In September of 2000, sixteen years after Juan Melendez was convicted and sentenced to death, a long-forgotten transcript of a taped confession by the real killer, was fortuitously discovered. Ultimately, it came to light that the real killer made statements to no less than sixteen individuals either directly confessing to the murder or stating that Juan Melendez was not involved. In a seventy-two page opinion in which she overturned Juan Melendez’s conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial, Judge Barbara Fleischer went to tremendous lengths to underscore the injustices that had been bestowed upon Juan Melendez and to show that an innocent man was on death row. She chastised the prosecutor for withholding “crucial” evidence pertaining to the credibility of the State’s two critical witnesses and she set forth in meticulous detail the “newly discovered evidence,” including numerous confessions and incriminating statements made by the real killer to friends, law enforcement officers, investigators and attorneys that substantiated the defense theory that Juan Melendez was innocent. Without admitting any wrongdoing, the State of Florida declined to pursue a new trial against Juan Melendez because one of its key witnesses had recanted and the other had died.
Upon his release from death row, without bitterness, anger or hatred towards those responsible for wrongfully convicting and sentencing him to death, Juan Melendez has traveled throughout the United States speaking to audiences about his story of supreme injustice. When he is not speaking throughout the country or abroad, he works at home in Puerto Rico in a plantain field where he counsels troubled youth who work alongside him. As a former migrant farm worker, Juan Melendez’s idol and inspiration was and continues to be Cesar Chavez.

UPDATE: May 25, 6:50 pm. John Alba has been executed.

Tuesday, May 25, Texas is scheduled to execute John Alba (TDCJ info). He has a 10th grade education.

If he is executed, Alba will be the 458th person executed in Texas since 1982 and the 219th person since Rick Perry became governor. He will be the 11th person executed in Texas in 2010. 
Use the Governor’s email form to contact Perry to express your opposition to this execution. Or call Perry and leave a voice mail at 512 463 1782. If you live in Texas, call your state legislators and let them know that you support a moratorium on executions. Find out who your legislators are here


John Alba, 54, is set to die Tuesday for killing his wife nearly 19 years ago. He will be the 11th Texas inmate executed this year unless his attorneys succeed with an appeal filed Monday in state court.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused last week to hear an appeal in which Alba’s attorneys argued his death sentence violated his civil rights because prosecutors emphasized the fact that Alba was Hispanic and his slain wife was white when they questioned potential jurors.

Another execution is set for next week in Texas. George Jones faces lethal injection June 2 for a fatal carjacking robbery in Dallas 17 years ago. 

Click here to join the Texas Moratorium Network Facebook page to stay current on death penalty news.

Below is an undated letter from John Alba from the website www.johnalba.com


Greetings from Texas death row

John and his daughter SabrinaLet me tell you a bit about myself: I am a 48-year-old Mexican man. I have been on Death Row (D/R) for 14-years. (I first arrived on D/R in May 8, 1992) I have 4-children, and 9-grandchildren. I have my mother, four brothers and one sister. My father died when I was 15. I never did finish school. I quit school after my father died so I could work full-time and help my family. Work was not a stranger to me, as I had worked since a young child in the cotton fields, chopping cotton and picking cotton. We were poor so all of the family had to work so we could eat and survive.I have been thinking back on these past 14-years and I am trying to remember how many men have been executed, but it’s been so many that I have lost count? I know, at least, 250 men, some who were my friends, or most who I had met over the years. It was a sombre experience to be speaking to these men, knowing that in only a few days, sometimes the next day, they would be dead. Some accepted it, some didn’t. One man, whose image stays in my mind, I will never forget. As they were taking him out of our wing to be executed, he stopped at my cell to tell me “good-bye”. It was his eyes, his eyes were wide open with fear. I felt his fear (if that is possible to explain) it was so overwhelming. That, took place in 1997, and more than 5-years later, I still see his eyes
My days on Death Row (D/R) are spent locked away 23-hours-a-day in a 6-x-9 cell. We are allowed to recreate for one-hour each day. One shower a day. There are no TV’s on Texas D/R. We are allowed to buy a small plastic radio from the prison commissary store, and that is our ‘entertainment’. We are allowed to correspond with free-world people. So as one can imagine, mail-call in the evenings are our ‘highlight’ of the day, what we look forward to each day. We cannot receive packages from the free-world, we must buy everything we need from the prison store. We can only receive books from the publishers or website book sellers like Amazon.com. We are allowed one (2-hour) visit every week. However, we are also allowed 2-special (4-hour) visits every month, as well – but only if our visitors are coming from over 350-miles away, which my family does not qualify.
Every 6-months, they lock down the entire prison and they search our cells and personal property. It is then that we are fed a sandwich 3-times a day. We are only allowed to shower on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. No recreation. It is hard to be locked away in prison, in a small cell, with nothing to do, nothing to occupy your time – and mind. A human mind needs to be stimulated. My cell is painted completely white, which can play havoc on ones eyes. I have had to put up magazine pictures on my walls so as to break the whiteness.
John and his grandson JohnnyMy daughter Sabrina wrote to me 2-days ago! She hopes to be coming to visit me soon – which I am looking forward to seeing her again. It has been almost 2-months since I last saw her because she recently gave birth to my youngest Grandchild, Thomas. It has been even longer since I last saw her other 3-children). But they have to go to school so I can understand. And it is a long drive (4-hours) to this prison, from their home. Children can get “cranky” on long trips! But I do love speaking to them, as they have so many questions to ask, and so much love to give. Yet, they still don’t understand ‘why’ they cannot touch “Paw-Paw” (Grandpa) as we are always separated in the visit room by a thick glass. I too, wish I could hold them but we have to be content to press our fingers against the glass and somehow feel each other’s warmth through the glass – or imagine it. My other children have had 5 kids between them, so I have 9-grandchildren total. I saw two of the youngest in December 2001. I hope to also see them again soon.

From the Texas Tribune: “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Mr. Skinner’s appeal,” Skinner attorney Rob Owen, co-director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Capital Punishment Clinic. “That decision represents the necessary first step to our eventually obtaining the DNA testing that Mr. Skinner has long sought. We look forward to the opportunity to persuade the Court that if a state official arbitrarily denies a prisoner access to evidence for DNA testing, the prisoner should be allowed to challenge that decision in a federal civil rights lawsuit.”

From Reuters:


The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether a Texas death row inmate can use a civil rights law to require that the state test DNA evidence he says could prove his innocence in a triple murder.

The justices agreed to hear Henry Skinner’s appeal. On March 24, they granted him a stay about an hour before his scheduled execution to give them more time to decide whether to take up his case.

In an order issued Monday, the Supreme Court said it decided to rule on the issue presented by his case. Arguments are expected to be heard in the upcoming term that begins in October.

Skinner’s lawyers maintain that his rights under the civil rights law were violated by authorities’ refusal to grant DNA testing after his conviction.

In the United States, post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 people, including 17 prisoners who served time on death row, according to a group called the Innocence Project.

Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of his girlfriend and her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve in 1993 in the small town of Pampa, Texas. He has always maintained his innocence.

Skinner’s attorneys are seeking DNA testing of key evidence from the crime scene, including a bloody towel, two knives and a man’s windbreaker, and swabs from a rape kit.

Skinner’s lawyer at trial did not seek the DNA testing. His attorneys who have been handling his appeals have sought the DNA tests for 10 years, but the state has refused to grant the request.

U.S. courts rejected Skinner’s request for the DNA tests on the grounds it cannot be pursued under the federal civil rights law, but must be brought under what is known as a federal habeas challenge.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that convicted criminals do not have a constitutional right to demand that the state conduct DNA testing of evidence. But that case did not involve a death row inmate seeking to prove his innocence.

Monday, we wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on life without parole for juvenile offenders and how Texas was actually more progressive on that issue than the Court


Today’s Rick Casey column in the Houston Chronicle, which is also about Texas being ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of life without parole for juvenile offenders, has a couple of interesting quotes. 


One is by Justice Clarence Thomas and the other by Williamson County DA John Bradley. Thomas comes across sounding not quite of sound mind, while John “The Wolf” Bradley sheds his persona as Rick Perry’s “cleaner” and actually sounds reasonable.


Casey’s Thomas Quote:

In his dissent to the Supreme Court’s ruling banning life without parole for juvenile offenders who do not kill, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote that life without parole “would not have offended the standards that prevailed at the founding” of our nation, and we are bound by the standards. At that time, as Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out, a 7-year-old could be sentenced to death for stealing $50.

Casey’s Bradley quote:

The bill (banning LWOP for juveniles) made its way through a very difficult legislative session with surprising ease. At a Senate committee hearing it was supported not only by the ACLU, but by Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, one of the state’s most aggressive prosecutors who has made a name for himself as the controversial new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

“I was not a big supporter of life without parole,” Bradley testified. “I think even people who commit some of the most horrible crimes need an incentive to behave (in prison) and to rehabilitate and develop over a long period of time. I think that applies even greater when that person is a juvenile.”

Casey finishes up with a nice quote of his own making:

The majority, however, continued a long-standing practice of applying evolving societal norms.
Defense lawyers are already talking about asking the Supreme Court to bar life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder.
It’s not hard to imagine them arguing that if the Texas Legislature bans it, then it must be outside of societal norms.

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