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Texas parole board to consider fate of condemned man
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (CNN) -- Condemned killer Gary Graham has one last chance before his scheduled 6 p.m. CDT execution -- the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which meets earlier on Thursday. The 18-member board could recommend a reprieve, a commutation or a pardon for Graham. Supporters of Graham took to the airwaves and the streets on Wednesday as the hours ticked away. Texas Gov. George W. Bush reaffirmed his support for the death penalty, offering little hope to Graham's supporters who are calling for mercy. Prison officials said they were preparing for an execution even as the board of pardons and paroles reviewed the case one final time.
"The reason I support the death penalty is because I believe it saves lives," a somber Bush said. "The death penalty is not an easy subject for a lot of folks, but I'm going to uphold the laws of the land, and if it costs me politically, it costs me politically." Later in the day, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson criticized the governor, saying the scheduled execution contradicts Bush's presidential campaign message of "compassionate conservatism." Calls for parole board reviewJackson called on the parole board to meet publicly and cited what he said were troubling facts about the case. Graham was convicted of the 1981 murder of Bobby Grant Lambert, of Tucson, Arizona in a supermarket parking lot in Houston. "What has not changed is the ballistics report saying the gun that Mr. Graham had is not the one that killed Mr. Lambert, that has not changed, the lack of positive identification has not changed, the lack of cross-examination has not changed, inadequate legal representation has not changed," Jackson said. Appearing with Jackson at a news conference in Houston was Bianca Jagger, an activist with Amnesty International. "The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery," she said. Other demonstrators chanted on the streets of Austin. And prosecutors released an affidavit from a retired Harris County deputy sheriff who said at the end of Graham's trial, the convict told him, "Next time, I'm not going to leave any witnesses." But the outcome of a parole board hearing, or even if it would take place, remained in question. Sen. Rodney Ellis, chairman of the state Senate's Jurisprudence Committee, wrote to the head of the parole board asking for a hearing before the board votes in private whether to grant Graham's petition for clemency. "I believe that these concerns warrant a board hearing to consider all of the evidence in the case before the board makes a recommendation to the governor," Ellis wrote to Gerald Garrett, chairman of the Board of Pardons and Parole Board. Ellis wrote to Garrett Thursday and has not heard back from the parole board, a spokesman for the senator told Reuters. But Garrett told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that chances of a last-minute public hearing were "remote." "It is probably not going to happen," Garrett was quoted in the newspaper's Wednesday editions. "At this point, I have had no indication from the members that we need to have a formal hearing to adequately explore this matter." The 18-member parole board, appointed by Bush, is expected to vote privately on the clemency petition Thursday. They usually vote remotely by phone or fax from the board's seven offices across the state. Preparations for executionMeanwhile, prison officials adopted a business-as-usual approach on Wednesday, saying they were preparing for the execution as they would any other. Spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said authorities at the Huntsville Unit, which houses the death chamber, were preparing for demonstrations. Officials were expecting members of the Black Panthers, the Ku Klux Klan and various anti-death penalty groups to converge on the prison grounds. "We are certainly aware of the crowd we're going to have and we've taken appropriate action," Fitzgerald said. He said that Graham had met with friends, family members and attorneys throughout the day. Graham, he added, had not requested a final meal. Texas Attorney General John Cornyn defended his state's criminal justice system. He said in a news conference there was nothing wrong with Graham's conviction or Texas justice.
"The Texas criminal justice system is fair and Mr. Graham did get a fair trial. And he has gotten a fair review by more than 20 different courts and 33 judges," Cornyn said in Austin, Texas. Graham, 36, will be put to death by lethal injection at 7 p.m. EDT on Thursday, unless the board decides to commute his sentence, grant him a conditional pardon, or give him a reprieve so a hearing can be held. The board's decision is expected early Thursday afternoon. Conflicting eyewitness accountsGraham's conviction was based mostly on the testimony of one eyewitness, Bernadine Skillern, who was sitting in a car in the parking lot where the murder occurred. Six other witnesses near the supermarket that night either could not identify Graham, or described somebody else as Lambert's killer. None of those witnesses was called by Graham's attorney at trial. Graham's supporters contend Skillern's identification was flawed because police showed her only Graham's picture after she described the gunman. Graham, who now prefers the African name Shaka Sankofa, did plead guilty to a week-long rampage of 10 armed robberies which left two people wounded.
Garrett, the chairman of the pardons and paroles board, said he had not talked much with other members of the panel because he did not want to appear to be trying to persuade members one way or the other. Some members have told reporters they now believe Graham might be innocent, but Garrett said the facts he has seen appear to confirm Graham's guilt. "The facts do lend support to the conviction and the findings of the jury, but there's still information that I want to review and be sure that I have, in fact, taken all that into consideration," he said. Bush has been dogged by anti-death penalty demonstrators who want him to speak out against the execution. Under Texas law, Bush cannot commute a death sentence, but he appoints the members of the board, which has that power. "This case is being reviewed by the Board of Pardons and Paroles right now. It's been looked at by a lot of judges and a jury of the person's peers," Bush said. "I will make judgment on this case after the Board of Pardons and Paroles rules." Should Graham be put to death on Thursday, he would be the 222nd person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban. Virginia, with 76 executions in the same period, is the nation's second most active death penalty state. Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Graham case before Texas board as clock ticks toward execution RELATED SITES: Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Death Row | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lisa Blackburn describes the terror of her
encounter with a violent Gary Graham
"Early Edition's" Leon Harris interviews Rusty
Hardin
