Gary Graham's lawyers pleaded with the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Friday for clemency for their client, scheduled to be executed Thursday for a 1981 Houston murder.
Attorney Richard Burr said he is optimistic that the board will delay Graham's execution.
"I am an optimist," Burr said. "I expect some form of intervention by them."
In a news conference here Friday, Burr reiterated that the testimony of Bernadine Skillern, the only eyewitness to testify in Graham's trial, is questionable because she saw the killer's facial features for only a moment.
Skillern, breaking seven years of silence, said Thursday she is certain Graham is the man she saw fatally shoot Bobby Lambert in a supermarket parking lot May 13, 1981. Burr, however, said the conditions in which she saw the killing continue to cast doubt on her identification of Graham.
"We don't question Ms. Skillern's sincerity," Burr said. "We question her reliability."
Burr said the meeting with parole board Chairman Gerald Garrett was intended to ensure that he understands the key points in the petition for clemency.
Garrett "clearly knew the (Graham) case" and "asked good questions that needed to be asked," Burr said.
Garrett, reached in Austin, said he encouraged Burr and co-counsel Jack B. Zimmermann to prepare a written summary of their arguments in the meeting so Garrett could distribute them to the 17 other board members.
"We are continuing to review the case," Garrett said.
Zimmermann and Burr have asked the board to recommend to Gov. George W. Bush a 120-day reprieve to allow for a hearing before the board on the facts of the case, a full pardon, a conditional pardon in which Graham would submit to a new trial, or a commutation of his death sentence.
The two lawyers also met with Bush's general counsel, Margaret Wilson. Burr said they wanted to ensure that Bush is fully informed about the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to hear Graham's appeal, and Burr said the lawyers cannot again ask the court to hear the case unless the clemency petition is denied.
Burr sought to cast doubt on some of Skillern's statements Thursday and to correct what he called errors in some of the reports about her comments.
For example, he said the characterization of Sherian Etuk and Ronald Hubbard as "new witnesses" was incorrect. They were mentioned in the initial police reports, he said, but Graham's trial lawyer never sought their testimony.
Burr said Etuk and Hubbard, based on a clearer and longer look at the killer, have described him as 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5. Prison records list Graham as 5-foot-10.
Burr said he admires Skillern's courage in coming forward to talk to police and testify, but he believes the courts should also have had access to the other witnesses' testimony.
"Ms. Skillern believes she's telling the truth," Burr said. "She's a fine woman, she's a fine citizen who did her best."
Burr also criticized Texas Attorney General John Cornyn for using information about Graham's other crimes to support his argument that Graham should be executed. Graham, now 36, has been convicted of 10 robberies, and authorities have said they linked him to 22 crimes in a weeklong period.
To say Graham deserves execution simply because he is a "nasty man," Burr said, is to endorse lawlessness.
"We do not kill people in this country who do not kill other people," he said.
He said Graham has changed in prison.
"He has become an educated man," Burr said. "He's no longer a street thug."
Also Friday, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association called on Bush to impose a moratorium on executions in Texas, citing the Graham case as "a perfect example of a system gone afoul."
"Our system is rife with problems," said Richard Frankoff, president-elect of the lawyers' group. "In our haste to punish, we're overlooking the rights of the accused."
Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a Republican who supports capital punishment, imposed a moratorium on executions in that state in February based on similar concerns. Bush has said he sees no need to take such a step in Texas.