Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards' death brought accolades from politicians as
far apart as former President Bill Clinton and current Texas Sen. Kay
Bailey Hutchison. Yet when it came to executing the poor and oppressed,
Richards presided over 48 executions--a record that has only been broken by
one other governor: George W. Bush.
Of the 48 executed, over half were people of color, some were disabled and
others were immigrants who were not citizens and yet were denied their
consular rights guaranteed under the Vienna Convention.
Richards was no friend to James Russell, a Black prisoner executed under
her governorship in 1991, while a large number of anti-death-penalty
activists protested outside the death house in Huntsville. Russell had
written a book about his case giving substantial evidence of his innocence.
Richards was no friend to Johnny Frank Garrett, who was executed on Feb.
11, 1992, for a killing he committed when he was 17 years old. Garrett was,
according to Amnesty International, "extremely mentally impaired,
chronically psychotic and brain-damaged."
Texas executed Jesus Romero in 1992. The entire defense offered by his
Texas court-appointed attorney was a 20-word statement to the jury: "You've
got that man's life in your hands. You can take it or not. That's all I
have to say." Richards, known for her quick responses, found no words for
this travesty.
In 1993, Richards' third year as governor, national attention was drawn to
two separate murder cases in Texas. Both defendants were 17 years old at
the time of the crimes. In one of the cases, a white supremacist skinhead,
Christopher Brosky, was given 10 years probation for the murder of Donald
Thomas, a Black man. Yet a young Black defendant, Gary Graham, also known
as Shaka Sankofa, had been condemned to death for the killing of a white
man on the testimony of only one eyewitness who was 40 feet away in a dark
parking lot.
Richards did not comment on that glaring inequity.
Despite a massive campaign by his supporters around the world, Sankofa was
executed by then-Gov. George Bush on June 22, 2000.
In 1993, Richards became the first and only U.S. governor to execute two
people who were not citizens just two days apart.
Carlos Santana was executed on March 23. He was a citizen of the Dominican
Republic. He admitted to participating in a robbery in a period in which,
he explained, he couldn't find work in Houston and his wife was pregnant
with their second child. He expressed that he was shocked when his partner
shot and killed a man during the robbery.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is from Texas and had been
friends with Richards over the years, tried to see her before Santana's
execution to present a 120-page clemency petition. She refused a meeting
with Clark and with the ambassador from the Dominican Republic.
Two days later, on March 25, Mexican citizen Ramón Montoya was executed.
The people of Mexico were so outraged over his execution--the first of a
Mexican citizen by the U.S. in over 51 years--that his body was met by more
than 3,000 people at the international bridge into Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
Richards rejected clemency for Montoya despite pleas from Mexican President
Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the Vatican.
Shortly before Leonel Herrera's execution in 1993, a group of prominent
Texas attorneys and former judges called on Richards to develop mechanisms
so that condemned prisoners alleging miscarriages of justice would receive
full and fair clemency hearings.
In the case of Herrera, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1993 that it
was not unconstitutional to execute an innocent person. The Supreme Court
stated that Herrera had received a fair trial, even if he was innocent. The
judges also ruled that a defendant with a claim of innocence still has the
opportunity to apply for executive clemency.
The only response from the governor's office was a claim that she would
"study" the group's recommendations.
Herrera was executed that May. |
