Victory for Frances Newton, death row inmate
By Gloria Rubac
Houston
On Dec. 1, only two hours before she was to become the first
Black woman executed in Texas, Frances Newton was told that
Gov. Rick Perry had signed a 120-day stay of execution.
Newton's parents, sisters, brothers and friends were already in
Huntsville.
"The governor's office just now called my cell phone and he
signed it!" Newton's longtime friend Bruce Williams told
Workers World.
"We're so happy and very relieved," said Iva Nelms, Newton's
mother. "Frances is innocent. She just couldn't have been
executed."
The family had already been briefed by prison officials
about how the execution would take place and what would happen
to the body.
It was a bittersweet victory for a woman who has spent
one-third of her life on death row. She has always maintained
her innocence.
Newton's husband, Adrian, and her two young children, Alton
and Farrah, were murdered on April 7, 1987, five days before
Newton's 22nd birthday. There was no evidence linking Newton to
the murders. There was no blood on her body, clothing or in her
car.
Yet her family was shot execution-style at close range.
Blood dripped from the shooter in a trail in the house. The
police admit they tested Newton's hands the night of the
shootings and found she had not fired a gun.
According to results from the now-discredited Houston Police
Crime Lab, her gun was used in the killings. Recent exposures
about this lab have revealed that the police have lied or been
wrong in at least four other death row cases, including those
of Nanon Williams, Johnnie Bernal, Anibal Rousseau and Martin
Draughon. Just this year a federal judge gave relief to
Draughon based on the faulty ballistics evidence from Houston
cops.
Newton's lawyers are now trying to get the district attorney
to release the evidence in Newton's case so that it can be
independently tested.
For only the last six months, Newton has been represented by
attorneys David Dow and John LaGrappe. The Innocence Network at
the University of Houston Law School is working on her
case.
Her first court-appointed lawyer was Ron Mock, who has sent
16 people to death row. These included other prisoners who had
maintained their innocence, such as Shaka Sankofa and Anthony
Ray Westley.
Mock's co-counsel in Newton's trial, Catherine Coulter,
signed an affidavit a week before Newton's scheduled execution,
saying that the young woman had not had effective legal
representation.
Mobilization won the stay
Abolitionists with the Texas Death Penalty Abolition
Movement have been speaking publicly about Newton's case for
the last several months after being contacted by Bruce
Williams. They have been on dozens of TV and radio shows,
sometimes with Williams and Nelms. They've explained the case
and asked people to call the governor and the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles requesting a stay of execution.
David Elliot, spokesperson for the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty, told the Houston-produced Pacifica
Radio program "Fight Back!" that more than 20,000 letters have
been sent to the governor and Parole Board.
The Houston chapter of the National Black United Front sent
a letter to the governor demanding the stay. The letter read in
part: " ... the white supremacist and class orientation of the
application of the Death Penalty in the State of Texas is an
unquestioned fact, well documented. The historical roots of the
death penalty are found in the mob lynching of African people
in America. The connection between the end of slavery and the
beginning of the prison industry lends to the understanding
that 'History flows like a stream and is not a series of
puddles disconnected from one another.'
"In 2004 the public is aware of the many inequities
involving the lack of effective counsel for defendants, the
Houston Police Department Crime Lab SCANDAL and malicious,
unrepentant prosecution by various district attorney's offices
across the state. Therefore, the time is long overdue for you
to take bold action to stop these daily injustices by mandating
an immediate moratorium on the death penalty."
African American Houston City Council member Ada Edwards,
after learning about the ineffective attorneys and lack of
evidence against Newton, publicly requested that Mayor Bill
White contact the governor for a stay. And the mayor did. After
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee met Nelms, she also contacted the
governor.
Letters of support for Newton can be sent to: Frances Newton
#000922, Mountain View Unit, 2305 Ransom Road, Gatesville,
Texas 76528.
'Organize! Agitate!'
Newton would have been the 337th person executed in Texas
since 1982 and the fourth female put to death here since the
end of the Civil War. December 2004 is now the first month
since 1994 that no one has been executed in the United
States.
Her reprieve was the fourth stay of execution over a
four-day period.
In Kentucky, Thomas Bowling was to have been executed on
Nov. 30, despite possible innocence, prosecutorial misconduct
and low IQ. In Pennsylvania, George Banks was to be executed on
Dec. 2, despite severe mental disability. And in North
Carolina, Charles Walker was scheduled to be executed Dec. 3,
although no physical evidence connected him to the crime.
There have been significant trends in recent years regarding
capital punishment.
* There have been fewer executions and death sentences. And
the death row population is lower than a few years ago.
* The former Confederate states now account for almost 90
per cent of all executions.
* Public support for the death penalty is at the lowest
level in 25 years.
* More and more people on death row are being found
innocent; 117 people have been released based on proven
innocence.
* Support for putting juveniles on death row is declining.
The Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of
executing juveniles in the spring of 2005.
The state of Texas, which has carried out over one-third of
the 943 executions in the United States, has seen stinging
reversals this year in three other cases involving death
penalty convictions. This is striking considering that this
conservative court generally favors capital punishment.
All the cases involved Black defendants.
The Supreme Court overturned two because jurors were not
told of the defendants' learning disabilities. In February, the
court lifted Delma Banks' death sentence and delivered a strong
criticism of Texas officials and lower courts, saying
prosecutors hid crucial information that might have helped
Banks' case.
Recently the Supreme Court heard arguments for the second
time in the case of Thomas Miller-El. Eight of the nine U.S.
Supreme Court justices had decided last year that the case of
Miller-El showed ample evidence that prosecutors deliberately
excluded African Americans from his 1986 jury.
"Activists, abolitionists and all who oppose the racism and
anti-poor bias of capital punishment have a duty to increase
pressure on politicians and institutions that keep executions
going," concluded Njeri Shakur, an organizer with the Texas
Death Penalty Abolition Movement. "We must organize and agitate
and campaign until the death penalty is put into the dust bin
of history. Get involved now!"
Reprinted from the Dec. 16, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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