Gary Graham was sent to his death Thursday night despite lingering doubts about his guilt, ending a 19-year court battle but leaving behind a volatile political issue for the Republican presidential campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
“They know I’m innocent, but they won’t acknowledge it,” said Graham, who had to be forcibly strapped and handcuffed to a gurney. His last words were, “They are killing me tonight. They’re murdering me tonight.”
He let out a slight groan and fell silent at 8:49 p.m., almost 3 hours later than originally scheduled because of a last-minute civil lawsuit filed by his lawyers in federal court. Outside the prison, police in riot gear and in state helicopters monitored a tense, sometimes unruly crowd of demonstrators.
Shortly before the execution, which was by lethal injection, Bush emerged from his office in Austin to read a statement. In a somber, stern tone, he said Graham’s claims had been reviewed more than 20 times by state and federal courts and found to be “without merit,” a claim disputed by critics of the case who said key elements favorable to Graham were not fully considered in court.
“Mr. Graham has had full and fair access to state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court,” the governor said. “After considering all the facts, I am confident justice is being done. May God bless the victims, the families of the victims, and God bless Mr. Graham.”
In a nod to death penalty opponents, Bush also said he recognizes there are “good people” who oppose the use of capital punishment. “I have heard their message, and I respect their heartfelt point of view,” he said.
Graham’s lead attorney, Richard Burr, maintained after the execution that his client had been wrongly accused. “When I started working on this case seven years ago, I had no doubt he was an innocent man and was the victim of a tragic mistaken identity,” Burr said.
While the Graham saga lent urgency to a national reassessment of capital punishment, his death probably will not bring an end to agonizing questions of guilt, innocence and fair trials in Texas. State authorities plan to execute an average of one man every week through Election Day.
Graham, 36, a 7th-grade dropout, was sent to Death Row at 17 for the 1981 murder of Bobby Lambert in the parking lot of a Houston supermarket. His case became a cause celebre among death penalty opponents in part because his original defense lawyer, Ronald Mock, worked on the assumption that Graham was guilty and put on no witnesses to try to prove his innocence.
No physical evidence tied Graham to the crime. His conviction rested largely on the word of one eyewitness, whose account at trial was never challenged by other eyewitnesses who contended that Graham was not the killer.
On his last day alive, Graham refused to eat and declined to request a last meal, prison officials said. He also said he wanted to be known by a new name, Shaka Sankofa.
Hours before being executed, Graham’s main hope, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, delivered a vote against clemency or further delay in carrying out his sentence. Five of the 17 members who voted, however, did support lifting the death sentence, a departure for a board that in the past has usually cast unanimous votes affirming executions.
The board’s chairman, Gerald Garrett, said all the facts had been weighed with care, but gave no specific reason for the denial.
The U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote shortly thereafter, also rejected a last-ditch appeal.
Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, raised no objections to the 135th execution under his watch. Still, his aides have sought to minimize Bush’s role in the execution, stressing that under Texas law he could have only delayed or commuted the death sentence on the pardon board’s recommendation.
Graham’s lawyers have maintained that Bush could have ordered a 30-day reprieve without such a recommendation, just as former Gov. Ann Richards did in 1993. Texas law also allows a governor to order the board to conduct investigations on clemency cases or to hold public hearings–actions Bush has never taken.
Earlier Thursday, a relaxed Bush met with 10 reporters from newspapers throughout the country. He grew focused and intense as he emphatically defended executions conducted while he has been in office.
“I’m confident . . . that people who have been put to death have been guilty of the crime charged and have had full access to the courts,” Bush said, repeating a contention he has made many times.
On Wednesday night, 24 hours before the originally scheduled execution time of 6:15 p.m., it took five guards to subdue and shackle Graham before he was carried to a prison van. He was taken from Death Row in Livingston, Texas, to the Huntsville Walls Unit, so named for its high walls, where the death chamber is located.
“He doesn’t feel the need to cooperate with an unjust system,” said Rev. Jesse Jackson, who prayed with Graham on Thursday alongside Graham’s stepmother, Elnora. “He is convinced he’s being killed unjustly.”
But Dorothy Lambert, the ex-wife of the murder victim, said justice was served by Graham’s execution. His death, she said, would finally spare the family the renewed pain of repeatedly seeing the televised image of the slain man lying under a sheet, juxtaposed with Graham–who had admitted to a crime spree of 10 aggravated assaults after the murder occurred–gaining near hero status.
“My family has not counted the days until this man was killed. I feel sorry for his family–I really do,” the Kentucky resident said. “But I feel sorry for my family too.”
The victim’s grandson, Bobby Hanners, witnessed the execution along with a robbery victim of Graham and a representative of a pro-death penalty group. Witnesses on behalf of Graham included Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, activist Bianca Jagger and others.
Hanners released a statement that said: “My heart goes out to the Graham family as they begin the grieving process. I also pray that Gary Graham has made peace with God, but I truly feel that justice has been served.”
Much has changed in the year since Bush gave an interview with Talk magazine in which he jokingly mimicked Death Row inmate Karla Faye Tucker pleading for mercy before her execution.
Once a political non-issue, capital punishment has become the focus of growing unease since Gov. George Ryan issued a moratorium on Illinois executions in January, citing the state’s “shameful record of convicting innocent people.”
A Tribune investigation of 131 defendants executed in Texas under Bush found almost one-third were represented by lawyers who presented no evidence or only one witness during the trial’s sentencing phase. Another third of the defendants were given court-appointed lawyers who at one point were disbarred or otherwise sanctioned by the state bar association.
While most voters support the death penalty, Bush’s confidence in the system is not necessarily shared by the public. In California, a poll released Thursday found almost three-quarters of Californians say they would favor a temporary moratorium on executions.
A separate poll released Thursday by the Dallas Morning News showed that while 73 percent of Texas residents support the death penalty, 57 percent believe the state has executed an innocent person.
Bush said the poll results were skewed by recent media reports questioning the fairness of the system.
“I mean, there’s been in our Texas newspapers, I bet, there’s been two weeks of publicity suggesting that [the execution of an innocent person] might be the case,” the governor said. “All I can do is tell you my experience. And my experience is that I’ve reviewed every case and I’m confident that no innocent person has been put to death.”
While Bush acknowledged that he welcomes debate over the death penalty “because it’s a serious matter,” the governor indicated he wasn’t interested in reforming the system to give the state’s governor the final say on whether an inmate is executed.
“Should the governor have the right to say yes or no at the very end of the process, regardless of what the Board of Pardons [says], or should we eliminate the Board of Pardons and Paroles? I don’t think so,” Bush said.
Vice President Al Gore, campaigning with Gov. Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, seemed content with the media raising questions about Texas’ death penalty system, saying he wasn’t familiar with the details of the Graham case.
But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee credited Ryan, Bush’s Illinois campaign chairman, for imposing a moratorium on executions because of a faulty death penalty system.
“I support the death penalty . . . and I always had. But I always assumed that the mistaken convictions were extremely rare,” Gore said on NBC’s “Today” show. “I do not know if Texas has the kind of record that Illinois has, and I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the cases in Texas.”
In their effort to save Graham’s life, his lawyers presented new evidence that they said showed he was wrongly convicted, including signed affidavits from two former supermarket employees who said Graham was not the murderer. The state’s case rested largely on the eyewitness testimony of another former grocery store worker, Bernadine Skillern of Houston.
Outside the prison, local police, Texas Rangers and FBI agents divided demonstrators into pro- and anti-death penalty camps.
The execution drew about 20 members of the Ku Klux Klan, who joined death penalty proponents. Some carried Confederate flags, while others held signs with racial epithets, urging Graham’s execution.
Among the protesters on the other side were members of the New Black Panther Party, who brandished black rifles while clad in black fatigues, black boots and black berets.
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Read the Tribune investigation of the Texas death penalty system at chicagotribune.com
