Let him know the American people will not elect
someone who tolerates injustice.
Call Bush Campaign HQ: 512-637-2000
Or click here to Email them
[Facts from Amnesty International-- SCROLL DOWN for full report]

Graham was represented at trial by a count-appointed lawyer who failed to investigate his case. Eye witnesses who said Gary WAS NOT the gunman WERE NOT CALLED TO TESTIFY. In 1993, new lawyers investigated his case and discovered compelling evidence which conclusively establishes his innocence.

• At least five eyewitnesses state that Graham was not the gunman and did not meet the physical description of the gunman.
• Four alibi witnesses passed polygraph tests.
• A ballistics report withheld from the jury proved the gun that prosecutors presented trial was not the gun used in the crime.

In 1981, a 17 year-old Gary Graham was convicted and sentenced to death for robbery/murder of a white man, by a nearly all white jury based on the testimony of a single eyewitness who saw the gunman for brief seconds from a distance of 30 to 40 feet while sitting in a car in a dark parking lot.

No other evidence linked him to the offense-no fingerprints, no confession, and no gun.

The presidential campaign office number is 512 637 2024: the
receptionist will transfer you to the policy division, where you can
explain that Dubbya should call for a moratorium, give Gary Graham a
fair trial, or get out of the race, as his record on the death
penalty is going to sink his campaign.

The Governor's office is 512 463 2024: if you state you are calling
to protest a death penalty issue, you will be put onto an answering
machine with 60 seconds to record a message about the death penalty.

The office of executive clemency and parole board hearings is 512 463
1679, which has received a lot of calls today. A polite human being
will take your message and pass it on to the office and board etc.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL URGENT ACTION APPEAL
May 5, 2024

USA/Texas

Shaka Sankofa, formerly Gary Graham, black, aged 38
UA 109/00

Death Penalty/ Legal concern

Shaka Sankofa, formerly Gary Graham, is scheduled for execution on 22 June 2024 for a murder committed when he was 17. Now aged 38, he has spent over half his life on death row in Texas, and came within hours of execution in
1993 and 1999.

He has admitted to other violent offences committed around the time of the 1981 murder, but has always maintained his innocence of the killing. Issues of guilt aside, however, his sentence is illegal under international law, which bans the death penalty for crimes committed by under-18-year-olds.

On 13 May 1981 Bobby Lambert, a white man, was shot by a black male in a shop car park in Houston in an apparent robbery attempt. A week later, Gary Graham was arrested on unrelated robbery and assault charges. A week after that, he was charged with Lambert's murder when he was identified by an eyewitness to the crime.

At the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, the only evidence against Graham was this sole eyewitness account. Evidence subsequently uncovered, however, has called the account's reliability into serious question, as well as raising serious concerns about the quality of Gary Graham's representation at trial. Amnesty International has documented many cases of shockingly inadequate defence representation of capital defendants in Texas which have been left unremedied by the appeal courts. In this case, his trial lawyers appear to have assumed their client's guilt from the outset because of his involvement in other violent crimes. In 1993, the defence investigator stated in an affidavit: 'Because we assumed Gary was guilty from the start we did not give his case the same attention we would routinely give a case. We just did not have the time to worry about a guilty client, and I would not have felt comfortable trying to find evidence that would have proved him innocent. It may sound unfair but that's the way it was.'

The trial lawyers failed to investigate the credibility of the key eyewitness or to interview other eyewitnesses to the crime, none of whom has identified Gary Graham as the gunman, despite allegedly having had a better view of him. At least two of the eyewitnesses have said Graham was not the man. Several have said that the gunman was shorter than Graham. The trial lawyers also failed to interview or present any alibi witnesses. Five people claim that Gary Graham was with them several miles away at the time of the murder. The appeal courts have ruled that these witnesses are unreliable, although their testimony has never been heard in open court.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The USA is almost the only country which executes people for crimes committed when they were children -- those under 18 at the time of the crime. Since September 1997 there have been eight such executions reported worldwide, seven of them in the USA (the other was in Iran). The global ban on the use of the death penalty against child offenders is now so widely accepted, and adhered to, that it has become a principle of customary international law, binding on all countries, regardless of which treaties they have or have not ratified.

Since 1973, 87 prisoners have been released from death row in the USA after evidence of their innocence emerged. Contributing factors to these wrongful convictions include inadequate legal representation, prosecutorial and police misconduct, and the use of unreliable physical and witness evidence.

In Texas, the Governor can only grant clemency if the Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) recommends it. However Governor Bush has the power of 30-day reprieve, and there is no doubt that he can use his influence over his BPP appointees to have them give particular consideration to a case, as he did with Henry Lee Lucas, whose sentence was commuted because of serious doubts about his guilt. Governor Bush has repeatedly stated that he will only stop the execution of people whose guilt is in doubt. Under international law, the federal government also has an obligation to stop this execution. For further information on the US death penalty, see Failing the Future: Death Penalty Developments, March 1998-March 2024.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please send telegrams/faxes/express/airmail letters:

expressing deep concern that Shaka Sankofa, formerly Gary Graham, is scheduled for execution for a crime committed when he was 17; pointing out that his death sentence and planned execution violate customary international law, which is binding on the USA and Texas; expressing outrage that the USA carried out seven of the world's last eight executions of child offenders. You may note that in 1997, China, which accounts for more executions than any other country, abolished the use of the death penalty against defendants who were under 18 at the time of the crime in order to comply with its international obligations; expressing concern that serious doubts remain about his guilt of the crime for which he was sentenced to death; noting the widespread concern about wrongful capital convictions in the USA, which has led the Governor of Illinois to suspend executions in his state; noting Governor Bush's repeated assurances that he will not allow people to be executed whose guilt is in doubt; calling for this execution to be stopped and for clemency to be granted.

Leaders of the Reform Jewish movement today urged Texas Gov. George Bush to stay the execution of Gary Graham, who is sentenced to die on June 22 for a crime he allegedly committed as a minor.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center, joined Rabbi Lawrence Jackovsky, director of the Southwest Region of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in writing a letter to Gov. Bush requesting the stay.
The full text of the letter follows:

Dear Gov. Bush:

On behalf of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, whose membership includes over 895 congregations, and 1.5 million Reform Jews and the Central Conference of American Rabbis representing 1,700 Rabbis, we urge you to stay Gary Graham's sentence of death. In the most rational, ethical terms, capital punishment makes little sense. In order to prove a crime is wrong, capital punishment offers a crime in itself. Over and above our overarching concerns with the morality of the death penalty, this case raises special concerns.

Gary Graham was convicted of the murder of Robert Lambert, a crime he allegedly committed at the age of seventeen. The United States is one of only five countries in the world that currently imposes a sentence of death upon juveniles. In addition, Gary was convicted on the strength of testimony given by a single eyewitness, who had a poor view of the crime scene. While that witness, Bernadine Skillern, adamantly sticks to her testimony, she saw the killer for only a split-second from at least 30 feet away.

We believe our tradition provides a useful insight into this case. Jewish tradition requires that with human life hanging in the balance, we must be doubly certain before imposing a death sentence. To that effect, stringent procedural safeguards aimed at ensuring the accuracy of eyewitness testimony were imposed. The wisdom that established this level of certainty has stood up for a thousand years, and it is applicable today as it was in the earliest days of our faith.

The prophet Zechariah enjoins us: "See that justice is done." It is our solemn obligation not just to promote justice, but also to stand up and decry injustice when we witness it. We are opposed to the imposition of the death penalty, but we also believe that the system for administering capital punishment is seriously broken, to the disadvantage, of poor and minority defendants who are unable to mount a defense that would result either in acquittal or in the imposition of a lesser sentence.

We do not seek to discount and denigrate the suffering of the victim and his family. However, executions cheapen life. If we are ever to still the violence, we must take a lesson from our religious traditions and cherish life. Respectfully,

/s/
Rabbi David Saperstein
Director and Counsel,
Religious Action Center

 Appeal by Jesse Jackson and Ruben "Hurricane" Carter

To: News Desk
REP. JESSE L. JACKSON, JR. PRESS ALERT

Contact: Frank Watkins

202-225-0773

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter
and Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Want a New Trial for Texan on Death Row

They will hold a News Conference
on May 26th at 2:00 pm at the House Triangle
in Washington, DC

Washington, DC. May 25, 2024. Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, the subject of the critically-acclaimed film The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington, will join Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. tomorrow to call for a new trial for Texas death row inmate Gary Graham.

"Cases like that of Gary Graham are the reason why I have introduced H.R. 4162, legislation calling for a national moratorium on the death penalty," Jackson said. "Gary Graham has come within minutes of being executed on more than one occasion, and he may be the innocent person Texas Governor George Bush says does not exist on his state's death row. Let's give Gary the opportunity to prove his innocence. Let's look closely at all questionable death row cases like Gary's before we commit state-sanctioned murder."

Ruben "Hurricane" Carter spent 19 years in prison on a murder conviction before he was proven innocent. Among those joining Jackson and Carter at the news conference will be Gary Graham's attorney, Richard Burr.

Frank E. Watkins, Press Secretary/Director of Communications
Office of Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
313 CHOB
Washington, DC 20245-1302
Voice: 202-225-0773
Fax: 202-225-0899
Home Voice: 202-554-5580
frank.watkins@mail.house.gov