TEXAS
Gay death row prisoner wins reprieve
By Gloria Rubac
Houston
Texas death-row prisoner Calvin Burdine, a gay man, will
finally be released or retried.
Burdine's attorney, Joe Cannon, slept during his capital
murder trial in 1984. A federal court overturned his conviction
two years ago. But the state of Texas appealed, saying that the
attorney didn't sleep during the "important" parts of the
trial.
On June 3, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the
state's appeal, thereby letting the reversal stand.
"Today an alert and conscious Supreme Court put to rest this
case, which helped wake up the country to the chronic problem
of abysmal legal representation in capital cases," said
Burdine's attorney, Robert McGlasson.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson said
Burdine would probably be retried. Burdine was convicted of
killing his former lover.
McGlasson said he would fight attempts to retry the case,
saying that evidence has grown stale largely because of the
state's protracted effort to preserve Burdine's conviction.
"Burdine's case has attracted worldwide attention, and
rightly so," said activist Lucha Rodriguez, a member of the
Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement. "Texas' appeal was
ludicrous. To put forth that the attorney didn't sleep during
important parts of the trial shows the reactionary path that
Houston and the state of Texas have taken in building the
assembly line of death here."
Anti-gay trial
Gay activists and anti-death-penalty activists have fought
for Burdine for years.
In 1995 a news conference was held in support of Burdine,
who was expecting an execution date at the time. Lawyers
Deborah Gilman of the American Civil Liberties Union and
Mitchell Katine of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby focused on the
anti-gay conduct of both the district attorney and Burdine's
own attorney.
In closing remarks to the jury, prosecutor Ned Morris
responded to attorney Canon's plea to spare Burdine from the
death penalty. "Sending a homosexual to the penitentiary
certainly isn't a very bad punishment for a homosexual, and
that's what Cannon is asking you to do," Morris said.
Katine said that it was ludicrous to think any gay person
might be pleased about getting sent to prison.
In fact, when Burdine arrived on death row, he was
brutalized and lost his vision in one eye. He now wears a patch
to cover the eye.
Even harsher criticism was leveled at Cannon, who let three
people onto the jury who admitted in court to being biased
against gays. Cannon did not call witnesses who might have
helped the defense and, as the world now knows, slept during
significant parts of the trial.
Burdine's case has been given wide coverage in Houston's
leading gay newspaper, The Voice, and also in the national
press. The Supreme Court's June 3 decision was praised by
several mainstream Texas newspapers.
But death penalty abolitionists warn that the Supreme Court
is no champion of those on death row.
The high court ruled in 1984 that defendants whose lawyers
represent them incompetently can get their convictions
overturned, but set a formidable barrier: The defense must
prove not only that the trial lawyer fell below minimum
standards, but also that the deficiencies had a likely effect
on the verdict.
Applying that standard, the Supreme Court and lower courts
have upheld convictions in which the defense lawyer was drunk
or mentally ill, finding no proof that the lawyer's conduct
hurt the client's case.
Just last week, the high court voted eight to one to uphold
a Tennessee man's death sentence. His lawyer presented no
closing argument and was later found to have been mentally ill
during the trial.
The late Joe Cannon was also found to have slept through
part of the trial of another Texas client, Carl Johnson.
Johnson's death sentence was upheld, and he was executed in
1995. At that time George W. Bush was governor.
Burdine came within moments of execution in 1987 before
receiving a court-ordered reprieve.
Bush was asked about Burdine's case while campaigning for
president in 2000. He cited a federal judge's order granting a
new trial as evidence that the state's death-penalty system
worked. As he spoke, the state was seeking to have the order
overturned.
Activists in the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement look
forward to having Burdine back in Houston's county jail, either
to be released or retried.
"When the state sends Calvin to Houston, we will be with him
and working on the outside with the gay community as well as
all Houstonians to build unity and a fight to demand that
Calvin Burdine be released!" the group announced.
Letters of support can be sent to: Calvin Burdine #000758,
Polunsky Unit, 3872 FM 350 South, Livingston, TX 77351.
Reprinted from the June 13, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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