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Battle escalates as execution nears Gary Graham's supporters put
pressure on Texas officials Condemned Texas inmate Gary Graham
remains defiant as supporters try to stop his scheduled execution.
By Paul Duggan
THE WASHINGTON POST
AUSTIN, Texas, June 21 — As Texas's pardons board prepares to vote
Thursday on Gary Graham's petition for a sentence commutation or
reprieve, opponents and supporters of his planned lethal injection have
escalated their public relations battle over one of the most debated
death penalty cases of Gov. George W. Bush's tenure.
'I'm going to look at the innocence and guilt of each person, and
whether or not the person has had full access to the courts.'
— TEXAS GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH
TO HIS MANY supporters, Graham is not a murderer but a
"victim," an innocent man railroaded into a "killing machine" known as
the Texas death penalty system. But to those in favor of his scheduled
execution Thursday, Graham is not only a murderer but a remorseless one,
a manipulator whose highly publicized campaign for clemency is based on
lies and misguided sympathy.
After a week of demonstrations here and elsewhere in the
country, Graham's supporters said they intend to show up in huge numbers
Thursday outside the state penitentiary in Huntsville, 130 miles east of
Austin, where Texas carries out its executions.
Officials there said security would be exceptionally
tight around the prison, where 221 inmates have been put to death since
the restoration of capital punishment in 1976, including 134 since Bush
took office 5½ years ago.
"We're calling for 10,000 people to come to Huntsville on
June 22 for an emergency day of protest," Graham, 36, said in a
nationally televised interview.
BOARD REVIEWS CASE
Secluded from the turmoil, the 18 members of Texas's
Board of Pardons and Paroles — all Bush appointees — are studying
hundreds of pages of legal briefs, police reports and court records
filed by prosecutors and Graham's attorneys.
Photojournalist Ken Light takes a rare look into the faces and lives of
doomed, forgotten men on Texas death row.
Graham, charged with killing a man in a 1981 parking lot
robbery in Houston, was convicted based solely on the testimony of a
woman who said she glimpsed the shooter's face for a few seconds. In
statements videotaped by Graham's current laywers, two witnesses who
were not called to testify at the trial said Graham was not the gunman
they saw. Graham's attorneys point out that those witnesses have never
been heard by a judge or jury.
In affidavits filed with Graham's clemency petition,
three trial jurors who recently viewed the videotaped statements said
they would not have voted to convict Graham if they had heard those
witnesses in court.
Graham is seeking a commutation of his sentence to life
in prison or a four-month reprieve so that the two witnesses can testify
before the pardons board. The board members, scattered across the state,
rarely meet as a group. As in Graham's case, they normally review
petitions individually and fax their votes to Austin.
What's your view on the death penalty?I support it as it standsIt
should be abolishedI support the system but it should be overhauled.
Vote to see results
If a majority of the board votes against clemency, it
would spare Bush, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, a difficult
political decision, because he would be legally powerless to stop the
execution. But if a majority of the board favors clemency, it would be
up to Bush to grant or deny it. The board's decision likely will come
just hours before Graham's scheduled 6 p.m. (CDT) execution.
BUSH HOLDS FIRM
While Graham's supporters staged demonstrations this week
in Austin, New York, Chicago and other cities, anti-death penalty
activists dogged Bush at campaign stops in California. At a Los Angeles
news conference today, Bush avoided commenting specifically on Graham's
case, but reiterated his faith in the Texas death penalty system. Bush's
state leads the nation in the number of executions by a wide margin.
"I analyze each case when it comes across my desk," Bush
said, in what has become his standard reply to death penalty questions
during the presidential campaign. "I'm going to look at the innocence
and guilt of each person, and whether or not the person has had full
access to the courts. And as far as I'm concerned, there has not been
one innocent person executed since I've been the governor."
State-by-state stats MSNBC Interactive•Find out more about the
demographics of death row
Texas law allows the governor to issue a one-time, 30-day
stay of execution for a condemned prisoner. Bush approved such a
reprieve for the first time three weeks ago, so DNA tests could be
conducted in the case of death row inmate Ricky McGinn.
But Bush's office said he cannot issue a 30-day reprieve
for Graham, because Graham was granted a temporary reprieve by then-Gov.
Ann Richards (D) on the eve of an execution date in 1993. A court later
issued a longer-term stay.
Death penalty opponents, noting that the pardons board
members were appointed to their $80,000-a-year jobs by the governor,
said they have focused their protests on Bush because they believe he
can influence their vote. Bush's office said he has no such power.
Death row on the WebMany states have details on the Web about
their capital punishment programs, including:•Texas
•Oregon
•Arizona
•Florida
•South Carolina
•North Carolina
Asked about the Graham case today, Vice President Gore,
the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said that a moratorium
on executions would be justified in any state where there have been
numerous errors by the criminal justice system in capital cases.
Gore, a death penalty supporter, was careful to say he
did not not know the situation in Texas, but pointed to Illinois, whose
governor has imposed such a moratorium.
"In my opinion, any state that finds it has a record
comparable to what was found in Illinois, would be justified in having a
moratorium," Gore told reporters on his campaign plane.
He also added that "if you are honest about the debate,
you've got to acknowledge there are always going to be some small number
of errors."
Bush has said he does not favor a moratorium on
executions in Texas, and he lacks the legal authority to impose one
unilaterally.
JACKSON SEES SYMBOL
Graham, who was 17 when the killing occurred, has been
cast by some supporters as the personification of black victimhood, an
innocent young man wrongly caught in a racially skewed death penalty
system. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has compared his plight to Jesus being
judged by Pontius Pilate.
Crime & PunishmentComplete coverage
from MSNBC.com•Add to your list of bookmarked sites
"He asked the mob, 'What do you think?' And he enforced
the mob rule," Jackson said this week. "George Bush is asking, 'What do
the polls say?' "
In the days following the May 13, 1981, slaying, Graham
went on a crime binge. He eventually admitted to committing 10 armed
stickups in which he shot and seriously wounded two victims, though he
has always denied the murder charge. Police said they suspect he carried
out at least 22 robberies. But the jury in his trial heard about those
crimes only during the penalty phase, not during testimony preceding the
guilty verdict.
Jackson described those crimes as "heinous youthful
indiscretions" that in no way suggest that Graham also committed the
parking lot killing.
PRO-EXECUTION SPIN
Proponents of the execution, including Texas Attorney
General John Cornyn, a Republican and Bush political ally, also have
been spinning the facts in their favor.
Taking an unusually public role in the case this week,
Cornyn repeatedly asserted in nationally televised interviews that the
two witnesses cited in Graham's clemency petition have already told
their stories in court.
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"Mr. Graham has had all his witnesses heard and they've
been determined by a judge after a hearing in court to have no
credibility whatsoever," Cornyn said on ABC's "Nightline" program
Monday. When a law professor on the show tried to correct him, Cornyn
replied that the professor "needs to check his facts."
But neither of the two witnesses has testified in court.
By the time Graham's appellate lawyers found them and obtained their
affidavits in the mid-1990s, appeals courts were barred by Texas and
federal laws from considering their testimony because too much time had
passed since Graham's 1981 trial.
Staff writer Ceci Connolly contributed to this report.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
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