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| Robert Garza |
Activists have been holding press conferences, speaking to community meetings and rallies, getting letters to the Governor and Board of Pardons signed and mailed, as well as feverishly using the Internet, Face Book, and e-mail lists to try to prevent the execution of Robert Garza on September 19. Baring a last minute court ruling that Garza’s trial attorneys were indeed ineffective and barring a last-minute recommendation for clemency by the Texas Board of Pardons (1), a man who did not kill anyone will be executed.
Robert Garza was charged and put on death row in 2003 under Texas’ Law of Parties. This law allows a person to be executed even if they were not the shooter and were not aware that a crime was going to take place.
Garza has always maintained that he was not the trigger man. The physical evidence and witness testimony support this claim. Even though Garza was convicted under the Law of Parties, no other person was convicted in this crime. As Garza himself asked reporters, "Where is the party?"
Garza’s mother, Sylvia Garza, along with his younger sister Kory and brother Eric have worked for years and years to fight this unfair Law of Parties. Participating in Death penalty Lobby Day in 2009, 2011 and 2013, the Garza's worked with the Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty they supported and lobbied for proposed legislation to end the Law of Parties. In 2007, activists were successful in having Kenneth Foster, involved in a similar Law of Parties case, get his execution stopped by Gov. Rick Perry and his sentence reduced to life.
“They say the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst yet Texas wants to execute my son who did not shoot the victims in this case. This cannot be considered fair,” said Sylvia Garza.
Attorney David Dow, from the UH Law School’s Innocence Network, has an appeal pending based on the ineffective work Garza’s court-appointed attorneys did at trial.
This week the American Bar Association’s Texas Capital Punishment Assessment Team released the results of its more than two-year study of the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty system in Texas. The report finds that the Lone Star State is significantly out of step with better practices implemented in other states that allow the death penalty.
According to the report, Texas fails to rely upon scientifically reliable evidence and processes in the administration of the death penalty, and it provides the public with inadequate information to understand and evaluate death penalty cases.
The 500-page report, which analyzes Texas’s laws, procedures, and practices, recommends numerous reforms to correct shortcomings in the administration of the death penalty in Texas.
In August 16, 2013, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States of which the U.S. is a member, asked the United States to abstain from executing of Garza until they could issue a final ruling on the case.
As we go to press, the Garza family is visiting Robert at the Polunksy Unit in Livingston. Unless there is a stay of execution, they will tell their loved one good-bye Thursday in Huntsville and Garza will become another innocent man executed by Texas following a law that has no logical basis.
(1) The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency for Robert Garza, 7--0.
Source: Gloria Rubac, TCADP, Sept 18, 2013