A case that demonstrates the injustice of the death penalty, which must be abolished, starting from the United States of America
Reginald Blanton, aged 27, an African American, originally from California, has been in jail for the last 9 years (7 on Death Row) accused of having killed –when he was 18 – his close friend Carlos Garza for reasons connected to drug possession and pushing.
EveryOne Group has decided to promote an international campaign in the attempt to save Reginald’s life.
“We are convinced the inquiry and trial that led to Reginald being sentenced to death reveal an abuse of the law, errors of form and procedural flaws” say Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau, leaders of Everyone.
Reginald is African American, he was a street kid and a member of a gang. He belonged to a world that the US institutions, and Texas in particular, fight with such rigour it often becomes prejudice.
We suspect the verdict contains elements of racial discrimination and this is confirmed by the fact that Reginald Blanton was not judged, according to his constitutional rights, by a jury of his peers. The District Attorney also arranged it so that the entire jury was made up of white Americans. And it is for this reason that the 5th Circuit of Appeal recognised this violation of his assurance of a fair trial”.
Reginald is presently an inmate on Death Row in Polunksy Prison, in Livingston, Texas. For the last seven years he has been attempting to prove his innocence (but most of all to show the level of inhumanity the inmates of Death Row are subjected to) through peaceful and non-violent protests - hunger strikes lasting weeks, articles given to his closest friends or his mother Anna, with whom the activists of EveryOne are in constant contact with. “We are convinced the US judicial system ( which still makes use of the death penalty) too often makes legal errors and procedural flaws”, continue the activists. “The law decides whether a human being should live or die with a margin of error that is inevitably high and often linked to social and personal bias, as well as to the inmate’s previous record and race. All this in defiance of article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We ask ourselves how many other innocent people will be put to death by the executioner before the death penalty is abolished and a respect of life is re-established”.
Reginald Blanton’s story
Reginald had a childhood marked by poverty and marginalisation. When he and his twin brother were still children and living in Oakland, California, their mother Anna separated from her husband, a former military man with a drink problem, and she brought the boys up in Texas among great hardship.
When he was 16, Reginald left home to join a street gang, entering the world he himself defines “the American subculture”. He had problems with the law for drug pushing and was diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder.
From the age of 16-18 he was placed in a “re-socialization programme” organized by the Texas Youth Commission, that foresaw the possibility of attending a two-year course, on probation and with a scholarship, with the aim of becoming a nurse or being admitted to the ASVAB, a kind of military academy. The official who was to have helped him during his probation, John Rubucalva, for some reason did not fill in either application.
When he was 18, Reginald’s girlfriend left him. She was a single mother of a 4-year-old child whom Reginald loved as his own. Shortly afterwards his world fell apart when he was accused of the murder of his close friend, Carlo Garza, aged 20. Carlo was shot in his apartment and died a few hours later in hospital. Reginald has been in prison, on Death Row, ever since.
After nine requests for appeal, his lawyers Scott Sullivan and John Carro will finally be allowed to appear on August 25th, 2008 before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal.
On that occasion the judges could decide to reopen the trial due to the fact that Reginald was judged by a jury made up entirely of white Americans and possibly sentenced on the basis of racial prejudice. According to the testimony, articles and statements EveryOne Group has gathered together, Reginald Blanton was sentenced on evidence given by unreliable witnesses, sometimes extorted under threat and in a climate of intolerance and prejudice.
Inexplicably, they were able to reach this verdict, in spite of the fact that there was no eye witness able to identify the culprit, no murder weapon was found, there were no fingerprints or traces of DNA, and there was evidence that could prove the accused was not guilty. The evidence consisted of the footprint left by the killer as he kicked open the door to Garza’s apartment: the print of a size 12 shoe, whereas Reginald Blanton wears a size 9.
Campaign to save the life of Reginald Blanton and to promote the abolition of capital punishment.
With some fellow inmates of “The Green Mile”, Christopher Young, Gabriel Gonzalez, Robert Will and Kenneth Foster (all inmates sentenced to death and whose murder trials are full of contradictions and groundless evidence, but which has still not led the Court to suspend their death sentences) Reginald founded D.R.I.V.E. (Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement) a human rights association which is fighting to abolish the death sentence with peaceful, non-violent means.
“It is important to support the legal appeal promoted by Reginald and the other activists who are working to abolish capital punishment”, continue EveryOne,” because we are convinced that many innocent people have been put to death. Those in power often want to set a example in an attempt to fight crime. But when institutional revenge puts an innocent person to death, it makes a martyr of him, and in that moment democracy, civilization and humanity are transformed into cruelty, injustice and brutality. Reginald Blanton has never surrendered to the verdict that condemns him to die by lethal injection.
His testimony and his commitment to fighting the death penalty are published on several blogs and on his Myspace page
“We are able to demonstrate an incredible sequence of errors and violations of human rights in Reginald Blanton’s case”, say the activists, “but we also wish to reassert the need to promote, in all areas, the abolition of the death penalty.
Considering the impossibility, by both the police and judicial system, to prove the guilt “without the shadow of a doubt” of an accused person; considering the prejudice that is inevitably present in some members of a jury; considering we are talking about human beings subjected to cultural, instinctive and media influences; we believe that the medieval use of the death penalty (which severs the life of a human being) denies the people and the organizations the time to gather the necessary evidence for proving the inmate’s innocence through further investigations and deductions. Work that can often take many years, even decades.
No law should deny an inmate the chance of being rehabilitated, freed and even compensated, until the last day of his life on Earth. We must also consider that often the memory and information held by the prisoner is often indispensable for reaching a new and often more just verdict.”
To support the campaign to save Reginald Blanton’s life and to promote the abolition of the death penalty, sign the petition at the following link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/reggie
and send emails, postcards and letters to the following addresses:
classify@tdcj.state.tx.us
parole.div@tdcj.state.tx.us
bpp-pio@tdcj.state.tx.us
parole.pio@tdcj.state.tx.us
webmaster@bop.gov
finance@barackobama.com
luisa.morgantini@europarl.europa.eu
InfoDesk@ohchr.org
niu@ohchr.org
gmagazzeni@ohchr.org
dexrel@ohchr.org
radical.party@radicalparty.org
info@everyonegroup.com
http://answers.usa.gov/cgi-bin/gsa_ict.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php
Write one of the following messages:
- Save an innocent life, let Reginald Blanton live!
- Let’s reopen Reginald Blanton’s case, with a jury of his peers.
- Reginald Blanton is black, but he was sentenced, without evidence,
by a jury of white people.
- Justice for Reginald Blanton.
or/and your personal message in support of the campaign and Reginald Blanton’s life.
For further information:
Gruppo EveryOne
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 - (+ 39) 331-3585406
www.everyonegroup.com :: info@everyonegroup.com