Eyewitness vs. death-row convict

Eyewitness vs. death-row convict

In Texas, 36-year old Gary Graham faces execution, a man condemned to die based on the testimony of a single eyewitness.

NBC's Pete Williams reports on whether too many eyewitnesses turn out to be wrong.


		By Jim Cummins NBC NEWS

		HOUSTON, June 16 — Yet another convicted killer who is just days from execution is raising questions about how he ended up on death row. So far, this year, there have been 48 executions in the United States; the largest number, 22, in Texas. Next week in Texas, 36-year-old Gary Graham faces execution — a man condemned to die based on the testimony of a single eyewitness.

THE GARY GRAHAM case pretty much comes down to one person’s word against another’s.
“I saw Mr. Graham shoot and kill Mr. Lambert,” said Bernardine Skillern.
“I did not kill Bobby Lambert,” Graham retorts.
One is an eyewitness and one is a convict on death row. It all began on the night of May 13, 1981, in a supermarket parking lot in Houston. Skillern was sitting in her car with two of her kids when she says she saw Graham approach Bobby Lambert, apparently to rob him.
“I saw him shoot and kill him,” Skillern said. “I saw him for a matter of one and a half minutes.”
Skillern says she chased Graham with her car.
“I looked at him from different angles,” she said. “And I know that that’s the young man that shot Mr. Lambert.”


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There was no physical evidence linking Graham to the crime. The murder weapon has never been found. And Bernardine Skillern was the only eyewitness who testified at Graham’s trial. On the strength of her testimony, Graham was convicted and sentenced to die. His lawyers say that’s not enough proof.
“How can a jury convict if there’s one eyewitness who sees something for two or three seconds?” asks Lawrence Marshall, a legal director at Northwestern University who handles wrongful convictions.
“I’m very sure,” Skillern said. “There has never been a doubt in my mind.”
Graham’s conviction and death sentence have been upheld by appeals courts more than 30 times, twice by the Supreme Court. And Graham confessed to 10 armed robberies during a crime spree in the days after the Lambert murder. But Graham insists he had nothing to do with killing Bobby Lambert.

“There’s a relevant body of evidence of innocence here that has not yet been fully examined,” Graham said from a jail telephone. “Those witnesses have not been heard.”

OTHER WITNESSES
He’s talking about two store employees who didn’t see the shooting, but claim they saw the shooter and that he was at least six inches shorter than Graham. Graham’s lawyer Jack Zimmerman says no jury has ever heard their testimony.
“The jury didn’t hear what I call the evidence of innocence that was in the offense report that the police developed,” Zimmerman said.


Death row on the Web

	Many states have details on the Web about their capital punishment programs, including:

	•	Texas

	•	Oregon

	•	Arizona

	•	Florida

	•	South Carolina

	•	North Carolina