 "Photo: Tamir Kalifa/The Daily Texan")
 "Photo: Tamir Kalifa/The Daily Texan")
Anti-death penalty activists joined two exonerated death row inmates Tuesday to deliver a petition for a moratorium on the death penalty to Gov. Rick Perry.
The protestors unveiled large papers covered with more than 6,000 signatures asking for a halt to executions in Texas.
After the unveiling, supporters joined former death row inmates Shujaa Graham and Curtis McCarty as they presented the petition to Perry’s office.
Perry did not accept the petition himself.
Graham, a volunteer for Texas Moratorium Network, said he dedicated his life to the abolishment of the death penalty after being found guilty for the murder of a prison guard that he didn’t commit and spent six years shuffling between death row and county jails.
McCarty spent 19 years on death row despite winning three appeals that proved that he did not commit the murder of a woman he had barely known.
McCarty was exonerated after the FBI reevaluated his case and determined DNA evidence from the crime scene and victim’s body did not match his own. After five years on death row, the government released him from jail.
Graham and McCarty now travel around the country educating people about what they believe are fatal weaknesses in the death penalty system. Under the Texas Moratorium Network, they support the passage of a bill proposed by state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, that suggests a moratorium on the death penalty.
Naishtat has pushed for the bill since 2001.
“Sometimes it comes to court, sometimes even to hearing. We will keep filing it. That’s the right thing to do,” said Dorothy Browne, Naishtat’s chief of staff.
Browne says that though the public majority is currently pro-death penalty, the majority is slowly shrinking, especially because of cases like Cameron Todd Willingham.
Willingham was executed in 2004 for the death of his three children in a house fire he was accused of starting.
In August of 2009, Texas Forensic Science Commission investigator Craig Beyler released a report evaluating the crime scene, details and case history, which concluded the fire was not arson, and therefore Willingham was not guilty on the charge of arson.
Anti-death penalty and pro-moratorium groups and individuals across the nation are hoping that Willingham’s story will prevent another innocent man from being executed for a crime they did not commit.
A statement e-mailed by Perry’s office, said that, despite Beyler’s report, “like most Texans, Gov. Perry supports the death penalty for those who commit the most heinous crimes.”
McCarty said out of the 1,200 death row sentences since 1964, 138, or roughly 10 percent, have been exonerated.
“Todd Willingham shows us we have to remember law enforcement officials, judges and juries are human beings. We want them to be perfect but they can’t [be]. So we can’t risk the death penalty. If your bank told you there was a 10 percent rate of failure each month, you wouldn’t put your money there. If the school buses had a 10 percent chance of an accident, they wouldn’t put their children there,” McCarty said.
Nicholas Prelosky, executive director of Young Conservatives of Texas, said he believes while Todd Willingham’s case is unfortunate, it shouldn’t justify the removal of the death penalty.
“Juries and judges should have options available to them. Because [they] can make mistakes doesn’t mean they should be stripped of their right to [give] correct punishments,” Prelosky said. “If there is the slightest doubt in a case, then maybe they should consider a different punishment. But if there is concrete evidence, if the crime is heinous enough to merit [the] death penalty, capital punishment should be on the table.”
Anna Blanton, mother of Reginald Blanton who was executed Tuesday afternoon for a murder he professed he did not commit, came to a protest at the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday to support the moratorium effort.
Austin resident Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network, hoped that the petition would convince Perry, who, despite the results of Beyler’s report, refuses to clear Willingham of any guilt.
“Perry is trying to hide the fact that he is the first governor in the nation who sentenced an innocent person to death during his tenure,” Cobb said.
