Death penalty protestors gather in front of the Texas State Capitol every year on the weekend before All Souls' Day, or The Day of the Dead, which falls on November second. This Tuesday happens to also be Election Day.
For the men leading the procession from the Capitol, down Congress Avenue to 6th Street, it’s a tough walk. They were once on Death Row. Evidence exonerated them. The journey's been an especially hard one for Gregory Wilhoite. After he was freed, an accident put him in a wheelchair.
“For whatever reason, I'm convinced that God's got a job for me, so I'm a man on a mission, and the mission is educating people about the realities of capital punishment,” Wilhoite says.
He used to be pro death penalty until he found himself on death row for a crime that evidence would later show he did not commit. Another Death Row survivor, Shujaa Graham, says he made a lot of promises while he was there.
“I promised a lot of prisoners that once I was released from prison that I would fight and try to see that they would be able to survive themselves,” Graham says.
The survivors here are not just ex-prisoners. Bill Pelke's grandmother was murdered by four teenage girls. One got the death penalty.
“Originally I supported the judge's decision,” Pelke says. “But I went through a transformation and became convinced that execution is not the solution.”
Some protestors carried signs and shouted chants against Governor Rick Perry, a death penalty proponent. Not everyone at the Capitol agrees with those views.
“I am for the death penalty,” Mike Smith, visiting from Houston, says. “But I also agree to freedom of speech, and it's a good thing that they can voice their opinions.”
Sylvia Garza is voicing her opinion. Her son Robert was convicted under the law of parties.
“It's not a crime to be in a car behind some people that committed a murder,” Garza says. “He didn’t commit the murder.”
Many Death Row inmates claim innocence, including Rodney Reed of Bastrop. Now the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether Reed will get to walk this walk with other death penalty survivors.
Reed’s brother, Rodrick Reed, says, “If he wins this appeal, then my brother will come home and be a free man so that's what, that's what we're shooting for.”
How important the death penalty issue is remains to be seen at the ballot box on Election Day. According to several recent polls, immigration and the economy are the two top issues on voters' minds.
Texas has executed 17 people so far this year. The state executed 24 people last year. There are currently 333 people on death row in Texas.
Exonerees, advocates to rally for death penalty reform
One local group is taking action to abolish the death penalty here in Texas.
The group, called
Journey of Hope, met at the Capitol Building Friday to discuss alternatives to capital punishment.
On Saturday, Journey of Hope is hosting a march to raise awareness for their cause.
It’s a cause that Curtis McCarty knows a lot about. He was wrongly sentenced to death over 20 years ago.
"I was arrested and charged with first degree capitol murder in the spring of 1985," McCarty said. "I went to trial in 1986, sentenced to die and spent the next twenty years fighting for my life."
The president of Journey of Hope, Bill Pelke, wants Gov. Rick Perry to know his organization believes another man was wrongly convicted and put to death at the hands of the state.
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, but new forensic evidence strongly suggests he was not responsible for the arson and murder of his three young children.
"When the death penalty was ended in New York state it really was because people had a moral conversion," Pelke said. "I think it was primarily the realization that we did not have a system that could guarantee that innocent people would not be executed.”
The Willingham case is waiting for an appeals ruling to move forward in an evidentiary hearing. Willingham’s fate will be decided right here in Austin.
As McCarty continues to adjust to being a free man, he still remembers the lessons of youth that didn't hold true for him.
"I believed all those things that I was taught in school, that we're a nation of laws, that we have a constitution that protects us from misconduct, that we all receive a fair trial,” he said. “And it simply didn't happen."
Source:
News8Austin, October 30, 2010
