Texas guv makes history with 200th execution

Chanting “Perry says death row, we say hell no,” Texas activists gathered in Austin, Huntsville and Houston on June 2 to protest Gov. Rick Perry’s 200th execution since he was elected in December 2001. Perry has surpassed the previous record of 152 executions set by the former governor—George W. Bush.

Illustrating the legacy of slavery, Sister Krystal Muhmmad holds up a noose at Houston rally June 2. WW photo: Gloria Rubac

In Houston they went to the site of the Old Hanging Tree, where the county courthouse stood at the end of the 1800s. The historical marker in front of the 400-year-old oak tree reads: “It is rumored that 11 criminals were hung here.” A speaker told the crowd: “Those of us who live in the South know who was hung in the trees outside of the county courthouses or on the town square—it was Black people who were lynched.”

In all three cities, the 200 names of those put to death were read aloud. In Europe on the same day, protesters gathered outside U.S. embassies. In Montreal a large die-in was held by activists dressed in black, wearing white plastic face masks and holding signs with the image of the state of Texas on them.

In Huntsville, where prisoner Terry Hankins was strapped that day to a gurney and lethally injected at 6 p.m., Kids Against the Death Penalty chanted, “What do we want?” The crowd responded, “Abolition!” “When do you want it?” “Now!”

Huntsville protest, June 2. Photo: Terri Benn

Sister Krystal Muhammad with the New Black Panther Party told the Houston crowd, “This execution tonight is nothing but a legal lynching. We know that Blacks and Latinos are the majority on death row, and we know that regardless of color, those on death row are poor. I call on you to each bring five more people with you to the next execution protest. We must stop these lynchings.”

Speaking from Montreal, the Amnesty International organizer of that militant protest, Charles Perroud, told Texas organizers that it was “a vibrant success with even the more ‘popular media,’ the ones never there to cover our events, coming in throngs!! Real strong coverage to say the least.’’

The death penalty in the U.S. is fraught with corrupt district attorneys, lying cops, faulty crime labs, incompetent court-appointed attorneys and wrongful executions. Governor Perry knows this because 40 people have been exonerated and released from prison after being granted DNA testing. Some of them had served over 25 years for crimes they didn’t commit.

Perry knows that intensive newspaper investigations by the Houston Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune have discovered at least three people put to death in Texas who were found to be innocent—Todd Willingham, Ruben Cantu and Carlos de Luna.

Texas leads the country with 439 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. (amnesty.org) More than 90 percent of all U.S. executions have taken place in former Confederate states. In 2008, 95 percent took place in the South. In 2009, more than half of all executions have been carried out in Texas. (deathpenaltyinfo.org)

However, the struggle to abolish the death penalty is gaining ground. Death sentences are down. Executions are down. Public support for capital punishment is down, even in Texas. And in Harris County, the leading jurisdiction that sends people to death row in the U.S., not a single person was sentenced to death last year for the first time in more than 30 years.

For more information see ww.protest200executions.com.