Day of Action to Save Reginald Blanton: Today! October 14th!

[nofurylike]

From the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Action Alerts:

Day of Action for Reginald Blanton, another innocent African-American railroaded to Texas death row.

Reginald’s case, like many other Texas death row cases, is riddled with injustices. He was convicted based on coerced testimony with no physical evidence; his court appointed attorney did not provide adequate defense; he was convicted by an all-white jury and subjected to a jury shuffle which purposefully excluded African-American jurors. Reginald has an execution date of October 27th, but with enough public outcry and pressure, we can save his life!

I am asking you if today, Wednesday October 14th, you will please either send a fax to Governor Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (I am attaching a couple of sample letters that will be really easy to personalize) and/or call their offices and ask them to commute Reginald’s death sentence.

Reginald’s case is important not just because he is innocent; not just because the death penalty targets people of color and the poor. Reginald is also an activist and a leader on death row. He helped found the DRIVE Movement (http://drivemovement.org/) which has held numerous hunger strikes and protests on death row. He is an inspiration to both death row inmates and human rights activists.

Now is the time to put the pressure on. The Texas Death Penalty and Rick Perry, in particular, have come under public scrutiny because of the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham was executed for a fire that killed three of his children. The Texas Forensic Science Commission discovered that the fire was accidental, making Cameron Todd Willingham INNOCENT. Perry, who refused to even look at that commission's report before sending Mr. Willingham to his death, has since tried to cover up this state-sponsored murder by changing around the personnel on the Commission. We cannot let Perry kill another innocent man!

I hope you can also take the time visit Reggie Blanton's website: http://www.myspace.com/freereggieb


Day of Action to Save Reginald: Wednesday, October 14th!


Make phone/fax calls to Gov. Rick Perry’s Office:

Phone:
Texas callers: 800-252-9600 / 800-252-9600

Austin and out of state: [phone]

Fax: [phone].

Office of the Governor Main Switchboard: [phone] (office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00pm CST)

*

Contact the Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles and tell them to grant Reginald Blanton clemency:

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone] (These two different fax numbers appeared on separate action alerts. Please post if you have problems with either number.)


The sample letter to Governor Perry and the Texas BOPP will be in the next post in this thread. Please customize it and fax it! There is also time to snail-mail hand-signed copies, as well.

***

A good source of information on this case is the article "Innocent until proven dead," by Cartel Pagel, a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, that explains very well the colossal miscarriage of justice for Reginald:

http://socialistworker.org/2009/10/12/innocent-until-proven-dead

Innocent until proven dead

Carter Pagel, a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, documents the long list of injustices that have put Reginald Blanton face to face with the Texas death chamber.

October 12, 2009

IN TEXAS, it doesn't matter if you're innocent. They'll kill you anyway.

-snip-

And he has done just that (continued fighting). Reggie personally presented his court-appointed appellate attorney, James Scott Sullivan, with approximately a dozen critical issues in the categories of: wrongfully admitted evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, perjured testimony, ineffective assistance of counsel, mitigating evidence, insufficient investigation and actual innocence. He followed up with letters, begging his lawyer to file appeals, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. (Sullivan also failed to return phone calls for this story.)

-snip-

Finally, in a last ditch effort to have his interests represented in his appeal, Reggie sent the same filing to the American Bar Association, which is supposed to investigate claims of professional misconduct among lawyers. After viewing the complaint, the ABA stated, "If your case involved a court-appointed attorney, court appointments are exclusively under the authority of the appointing court (which had already ignored his plea), and the Board cannot take any action to remove or replace a court-appointed attorney."

-snip-

Despite the glaring lack of evidence and court-acknowledged racial discrimination in jury selection, the blood-soaked wheels of Texas justice continue to steam forward.

-snip-

***

Thank you


peace and solidarity

[nofurylike]

1. Sample letter to fax to Governor Perry and Texas Board

The following is a sample letter to fax to Governor Perry. Please customize it to express your own feelings.

Please also send another, similar, customized letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, making sure to change the header of the letter:

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Fax: [phone]
Phone: [phone]

(Governor Perry claims that it was the board that never recommended clemency for Mr. Todd Willingham because they never took serious review of the affidavits from the arson expert that proved that Mr. Willingham was wrongfully convicted, and so an innocent American was executed.)




Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Fax: [phone]
Phone : [phone]

Dear Governor Perry,
I am an American citizen and a very concerned member of the public in the case of Mr. Reginald Blanton, TDC No. 999395.

Mr. Blanton, an African-American citizen, is scheduled to be executed on October 27 for a crime he did not commit, and his case is riddled with injustices.
He was wrongly convicted of murdering his friend and robbing him of jewelry that already belonged to Reginald. There was no eyewitness and no murder weapon was found. Because of his street gang affiliation, Mr. Blanton was "guilty" before he ever went to trial. There was reasonable doubt, and this alone should have thrown out his guilty verdict. The disturbing facts of this clear miscarriage of justice are the following:

-The initial suspect could not be found.
-The only two witnesses were forced to sign statements against Mr. Blanton, under threats of being charged with the crime. These witnesses were Reginald’s brother, Robert, and Robert’s then pregnant girlfriend.
-Prosecutors racially excluded African Americans from serving on his jury.
-The shoe print on the victim's kicked in apartment door DID NOT MATCH the shoes Reginald wore the day of the crime.
-His appellant attorney refused to represent his legal interest, ignored all of his letters pleading this attorney file what amounted to innocence claims and, because of this failure, all Reginald’s innocence claims were procedurally barred from ever being heard.

The trial was shoddy, and false testimony was used to get a conviction. Other factors in the trial include, prosecutorial misconduct, perjured testimony, ineffective assistance of counsel, mitigating evidence, insufficient investigation and actual innocence.
He was sentenced to death on circumstantial evidence and testimony that was coerced.

You have allowed an innocent American, Todd Willingham, to be executed by refusing to review the affidavits from the arson expert that proved that Mr. Willingham was innocent: the execution of Reginald Blanton is the wrong message for the State of Texas to send. It is obvious that Reginald Blanton is not a man for whom the death penalty should be applied today. He has proved wrong the jury's findings about him being a future danger to society. His death will not help the murder victim or his family. Please review his case and commute the sentence of Mr. Reginald Blanton. America does not execute her citizens when there is absolutely no physical evidence in the case to prove their guilt. America does not execute her citizens by using coerced eyewitness testimony.

Sincerely,