Amnesty International USA URGENT ACTION APPEAL:  Stop the Execution of Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham)!

Shaka Sankofa, formerly Gary Graham, is scheduled for execution on 22 June 2000 for a murder committed when he was 17. Now aged 38, he has spent over half his life on death row in Texas, and came within hours of execution in 1993 and 1999.  

He has admitted to other violent offences committed around the time of the 1981 murder, but has always maintained his innocence of the killing. Issues of guilt aside, however, his sentence is illegal under international law, which bans the death penalty for crimes committed by under-18-year-olds.  

On 13 May 1981 Bobby Lambert, a white man, was shot by a black male in a shop car park in Houston in an apparent robbery attempt. A week later, Gary Graham was arrested on unrelated robbery and assault charges. A week after that, he was charged with Lambert's murder when he was identified by an eyewitness to the crime.  

At the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, the only evidence against Graham was this sole eyewitness account. Evidence subsequently uncovered, however, has called the account's reliability into serious question, as well as raising serious concerns about the quality of Gary Graham's representation at trial. Amnesty International has documented many cases of shockingly inadequate defence representation of capital defendants in Texas which have been left unremedied by the appeal courts. In this case, his trial lawyers appear to have assumed their client's guilt from the outset because of his involvement in other violent crimes. In 1993, the defence investigator stated in an affidavit: 'Because we assumed Gary was guilty from the start we did not give his case the same attention we would routinely give a case. We just did not have the time to worry about a guilty client, and I would not have felt comfortable trying to find evidence that would have proved him innocent. It may sound unfair but that's the way it was.'  

The trial lawyers failed to investigate the credibility of the key eyewitness or to interview other eyewitnesses to the crime, none of whom has identified Gary Graham as the gunman, despite allegedly having had a better view of him. At least two of the eyewitnesses have said Graham was not the man. Several have said that the gunman was shorter than Graham. The trial lawyers also failed to interview or present any alibi witnesses. Five people claim that Gary Graham was with them several miles away at the time of the murder. The appeal courts have ruled that these witnesses are unreliable, although their testimony has never been heard in open court.  

SHAKA SANKOFA (GARY GRAHAM) IS INNOCENT!