RIP Reginald Blanton
Texas killed Reginald Blanton Tuesday night in arguably the highest profile execution so far this year.
Mr. Blanton’s supporters claimed:
The Initial suspect could not be found. The only two witnesses were forced to sign statements against Reginald, under threats of being charged with the crime. These witnesses were Reginalds brother, Robert, and Robert’s then pregnant girlfriend. Prosecutors racially excluded African Americans from serving on his jury. The shoe print on the victims kicked in apartment door did not match the shoes Reginald wore the day of the crime. Reginald was wrongly convicted of murdering his friend and robbing him of jewellery that already belonged to Reginald!
More traditional media noted:
This morning, his brother, Andre Bios, appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss his brother’s impending execution. Bios is an Iraq vet; he served in the 1991 Gulf War. Speaking to Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Bios described the cruel irony of having devoted himself to supposedly defending democratic ideals on behalf of his country, only to have his brother sentenced to die at the hands of the state
The Democracy Now interview is here and Anna Terrell, Reginald Blanton’s mother, speaking at a rally in Austin, TX this past weekend is here. and previously here .
October 28th, 2009 at 10:42 am
After listening to the discussion on “Democracy Now” of Reginald Blanton’s pending execution for a crime that he almost certainly did not commit, and for which he was not tried by a jury of his peers, I reached by phone the office of
Governor Rick Perry, and told the woman who answered that I begged Perrry not
to execute a man who deserved a new, fair trial. There must have been a great
many calls similar to mine, but Texas continues to be the “legal” murder capital of of the United States.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I enjoyed this review of a law prof’s book on capital punishment: http://www.lastingliberty.com/ll-blog/
October 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
i looked this case up when I heard about it on Flashpoints where Reginald was portrayed as bssically a great man. Would a great man pawn the jewelry of the person who was killed and why did Reginalds twin brother testify that Reginald did the murder. I am not really for the death penalty but is Retinald a great man who is walking in the way of the Lord as he is being protrayed? Really the only way to avoid trouble now is to just stay by yourself because most people today are talking about “punks” and slapping people around and basically have adopted prison speak, jsut getting ready to hopefully smash some innocent person for some insane reason instead of doing the right thing.
November 14th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Steve,
I don’t know how much research you did but… the jewelry was already Reginald’s so there wasn’t anything for him to pawn that belonged to a murder victim (friend or no). Second, both his brother and his brother’s girlfriend have spoken of the duress they were placed under for their statements. If you take those pieces of information, you then realize how weak the case really was. Even if you don’t believe those pieces of information they introduce a very serious reasonable doubt and that is even before you find out that the physical evidence at the scene was retrievable but certainly not left by Reginald.