U.S. 'HUMAN RIGHTS'?
Death penalty under fire
Bold Texas actions hit death row
By Gloria Rubac
Houston
As the pace of executions speeds up in Texas and conditions on
death row deteriorate daily, activists on both sides of the walls
are increasing their fight back.
In May, men on death row initiated a voluntary lay-in. This
means they will not go to recreation, to shower, or to the
commissary except for stamps and hygiene products. And they will
not speak to guards except to give their prison number during
counts.
They are refusing to participate in normal prison life. An
innocent youth activist on Pod D, Nanon Williams, initiated
this.
There are reports that others prisoners are organizing
different actions. The 450 men on Texas death row are on the
move.
Held in six-by-10-foot cells behind steel doors and going to
their one hour of recreation alone, communication is difficult.
Yet struggle and actions are taking place and a proactive spirit
is building.
Every Saturday in May lines of angry people, ranging in age
from pre-teen to senior citizens, are holding signs and chanting
into bullhorns up and down Farm-to-Market Highway 350 in
Livingston, Texas, to demand the cruel, inhumane treatment
stop.
"Guard brutality, gassings with pepper spray, a starvation
diet, lack of medical care, tampering with mail including legal
mail from attorneys and courts, and the sensory deprivation and
isolation are issues we are raising. Also, there is no work
program, no educational program, no religious services, no
television or newspapers. All this compounds the isolation that is
pushing prisoners to the brink of insanity," explained abolition
movement activist Njeri Shakur.
The protests are a continuation of the actions initiated by the
Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement that took place every
Wednesday in March. A death-row mother in a wheelchair joins
activists and other families. There's a Houston Catholic priest
with his lay youth volunteers, prisoners' pen pals from as far as
Chicago and even Europe, a law student from New York University, a
retired member of the long shore union, students from Texas A
& M University, a merchant marine, a lawyer who represents
Texas prisoners, mothers, fathers, wives and children of those on
death row, and activists from around the state.
When the weekly protests began in March, the prison cops told
demonstrators that they couldn't stand on the sides of the highway
and police would be called unless they moved. No one moved.
The cops came. The sheriffs came. Prison security from Austin
and San Antonio came. Not a single protester was intimidated into
leaving.
Visiting families stop to take fliers along the highway.
Neighbors stop and say they didn't know of the brutal conditions.
A man living across the highway who raises goats allows
demonstrators to park and protest on his property and comes out to
visit every week.
Each week the protesters walk from the prison entrance about a
quarter mile down to the highway and rally across from Warden
Zeller's house.
Zeller lives on the vast prison property in a big,
well-maintained house. One prisoner wrote Workers World that as he
looked out of the three-inch slit of a window toward the warden's
house, he wasn't sure what century he was in. He saw Black men in
white uniforms washing the warden's cars, mowing his expansive
lawn, and working on the roof.
It looked like a plantation scene from the past.
As the microphone is passed around at the protests, everyone
tells why they are there. Anger builds. So does the solidarity of
families and activists, who pledge they will not stop until the
torture and executions stop.
Texas has already executed 11 men this year. Thirteen more
executions are scheduled through August.
As another state, Maryland, announced a moratorium on
executions, Texas is going full steam ahead, planning to execute
innocent men, men with mental problems, men who didn't have decent
attorneys and a man who was a juvenile when arrested.
The juvenile case is that of Napoleon Beasley, who was 17 at
the time. He is scheduled to die May 28. In a clemency petition
filed May 7th with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, his
lawyers asked for a 120-day reprieve to allow the Supreme Court to
rule in this case.
Beasley is mentally disabled. His attorney Walter Long said in
the petition that he believes the court soon will bar the
execution of mentally disabled defendants and persons who were 17
at the time of their offense because a national consensus has
developed against executing those individuals.
Twenty-eight states bar the death penalty for offenders younger
than 18. "I predict that, whether or not Texas continues to kill
child offenders, the United States Supreme Court will soon put an
end to it," Long wrote.
"For his sake, the health of his parents and family, and the
well-being of his community, I do not want my client to be the
last child offender executed by Texas."
As happened last summer when Beasley had an August execution
date, his case is drawing an unusually high level of attention.
Pleas for leniency are pouring in from all over the world. Most
mention Beasley's age and the fact that international law bars the
execution of juvenile offenders.
"The amount of attention he is drawing is above the norm," said
Gerald Garrett, who chairs the parole board.
Last August, the board voted 10 to six against recommending
clemency for Beasley. Garrett said the board will vote later this
month on Beasley's latest petition.
The board has received letters in German, French, Polish and
Spanish seeking mercy for Beasley.
To send a letter asking the parole board to grant a stay,
write:
Board Of Pardons and Paroles, Gerald Garrett, Chairman, P.O.
Box 13401, Austin, Texas 78711-3401; Phone: (512) 463-1679; Fax:
(512) 463-8120. Also, please sign a petition for Beasley at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ab17an77.
Reprinted from the May 23, 2002, issue of Workers
World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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