Contentious Texas case ends with execution of Gary Graham

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Gary Graham, subject of the most contentious Texas death penalty case since Gov. George W. Bush began running for president, was executed Thursday night after putting up a struggle and insisting he was innocent of a 1981 murder.

Graham, 36, received a lethal injection for the killing of a man in a holdup outside a Houston supermarket. The state parole board and appeals courts rejected his arguments that he was convicted on shaky evidence from a single eyewitness and that his trial lawyer did a poor job.

Bush said he supported the execution and pointed out that Graham's case had been reviewed by 33 state and federal judges.

''After considering all of the facts I am convinced justice is being done,'' Bush said after final appeals were denied. ''May God bless the victim, the family of the victim, and may God bless Mr. Graham.''

Graham, who had vowed to ''fight like hell'' on the trip to the death chamber, was strapped to the gurney around his wrists and across his head - more restraints than are normally used in Texas executions.

He made a long, defiant final statement in which he reasserted his innocence, said he was being lynched and called the death penalty a holocaust for black Americans. He asked to be called Shaka Sankofa to reflect his African heritage.

''I die fighting for what I believed in,'' Graham said. ''The truth will come out.''

Outside the Huntsville prison, hundreds of Graham supporters gathered in stifling heat and humidity near the brick building where 222 executions have now been carried out since capital punishment resumed in Texas in 1982. The total is by far the highest in the nation.

When the Texas parole board, made up of 18 Bush appointees, refused to block the execution, that left the Republican governor with no options. The single 30-day reprieve a Texas governor may unilaterally give a condemned inmate was issued to Graham by Bush's predecessor in 1993.

The parole board, which has spared a prisoner only once during Bush's tenure, could have granted a 120-day reprieve, a commutation to a lesser sentence, or a conditional pardon.

''I can say, unequivocally, that the board's decision not to recommend clemency was reached after a complete and unbiased review of the petition and evidence submitted,'' board chairman Gerald Garrett said, hours before the execution.

The Supreme Court, a federal judge and state appeals court also turned down Graham's last-minute appeals, which delayed the execution for more than two hours.

The nation's high court rejected Graham's appeal on a 5-4 vote along its conservative-liberal ideological fault line. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas voted to reject the appeal.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer voted to postpone the execution, presumably to give the court more time to consider his appeal.

Graham was convicted of killing 53-year-old Bobby Lambert in a holdup outside a Houston supermarket one night in 1981. He pleaded guilty to 10 robberies around the same time but said he was innocent of the murder.

No physical evidence tied Graham to the killing, and ballistics tests showed that the gun he had when he was arrested was not the murder weapon. But the witness who identified him, Bernadine Skillern, has never wavered.

Skillern, who was waiting in her car outside the supermarket while her daughter ran inside, saw the holdup from about 30 feet away. She said the lighting in the parking lot was adequate for her to see Graham.

''I don't feel joy and I don't feel sadness,'' she said after the execution. ''I only feel relief. I hope to get back to my privacy, put this incident behind me and now move on.''

Graham also argued that his lawyer during the trial, Ron Mock, should have introduced other witnesses who would say he was not the killer. But those witnesses initially told police they couldn't identify the killer, and prosecutors said they were not actual eyewitnesses.

During Bush's 5 years in office, 133 men and two women have been executed. He said he would treat Graham's case no differently than any other he has considered.

Two years ago, Bush told the parole board to review the case of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas because of questions about Lucas' conviction. His death sentence eventually was commuted to life. This month, Bush granted a condemned man a 30-day reprieve so he could pursue DNA tests.

The debate over Graham's case came amid growing questions about the death penalty. Illinois Gov. George Ryan has placed a moratorium on executions, and Bush and Vice President Al Gore have been forced to address the issue as they campaign for president.

Graham's case brought the loudest protests since pickax killer Karla Faye Tucker was executed in 1998, the first woman put to death in Texas since the Civil War era.

''I recognize there are good people who oppose the death penalty,'' Bush said. ''I've heard their message and I respect their heartfelt point of view.''

The execution was witnessed by supporters that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Amnesty International representative Bianca Jagger.

Leading up to the execution, Graham refused meals but met for about an hour with Jackson, who said he and the inmate talked and prayed.

''He was amazingly upbeat,'' Jackson said. ''There were no tears shed. He had a sense of inner peace. He feels he was being used as a kind of change agent to expose the system. With every passing hour ... there is mass education around the world about what is happening in Texas.''

Outside the prison, six people were arrested for breaking through police lines; other activists burned American flags. Another 150 people protested outside the governor's mansion in Austin.

Protests were also held as far away as San Francisco and Northampton, Mass. In both cities, death penalty opponents were arrested for blocking traffic.

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On the Net: Death Penalty Information Center: http://www.essential.org/dpic

Death penalty links: http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm