COMMENTARY: Tied Hands: The Tragic Death of Gary Graham

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.) (UNDATED) Like much of the nation, I sat […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) Like much of the nation, I sat in front of the television for several hours June 22, riveted by the Gary Graham death watch. Like many, I believed the nation was approaching a moral watershed. Would Graham, whose defense in a 1984 murder trial was characterized by ineffective _ some would say incompetent _ counsel and whose conviction was dependent largely on the testimony of a single eyewitness, be executed in the face of such reasonable doubt?


The answer, as it turned out, was “yes.”

For me, the scene was all the more disturbing because I have in my possession a letter dated July 22, 1993 and written on White House stationery.

The letter reads: “Dear Rev. Atchison: Thank you for your letter regarding the scheduled execution of Gary Graham.

“In state cases such as Gary Graham’s, there is no legal basis for the President to intervene to prevent an execution. National involvement in state cases is constrained by our federal system.

“Executions raise extremely difficult moral and ethical issues. People who hold sincere and profound beliefs often differ on issues concerning life and death. I have spent countless hours myself contemplating the justifications for the state to take a human life. My own decision to uphold death sentences in Arkansas was reached only after much prayer, study and consultation.

“Thank you very much for writing me with your thoughts. Sincerely, Bill Clinton.”

What struck then, and now, was Clinton’s professed inability to intervene because it was a “state case.” In other words, the president couldn’t get involved because he lacked the jurisdictional authority to do so. Similarly, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, in whose state Graham was executed, said last week that because a previous governor had granted Graham a 30-day reprieve several years before, Bush, too, was powerless to intervene.

When the chief executives of both the state and the nation are rendered powerless to intervene in a matter of life and death, one is forced to ask, in the immortal words of Abbott and Costello, “Who’s on first?”

There is also the issue of Graham’s appeals as seen from the vantage point of Texas’ post-conviction process. Just prior to Graham’s execution, Bush said Graham had had “full and fair access to the state and federal courts.”


Bush’s statement is technically true in that Graham’s case did wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court before being rejected on a 5-4 vote. However, both the state of Texas and the federal courts have severely curtailed appeals procedures in recent years, often denying hearings even when new evidence is presented.

While Graham’s case was reviewed by the courts more than 30 times, it was, like those of many other criminal appellants around the country, routinely denied on procedural rather than evidentiary grounds. In the words of Steven Hawkins, director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, new evidence in the Graham case was “excluded because the state courts have taken the view that it is being presented too late and that it would not have made a difference.”

Let’s be honest. Graham was no altar boy. He admitted to a crime spree in which he committed at least 10 robberies, shot two people and raped a third. And, indeed, he may well have killed Bobby Lambert, whose murder led to Graham’s execution.

That said, there is considerable doubt as to whether the state of Texas proved its case against Graham. As has been well documented, there was no physical evidence linking Graham to the murder and ballistics tests proved the gun found on Graham at the time of his arrest was not the murder weapon. Thus the prosecution was left only with the testimony of a single eyewitness who watched the murder from some 30 feet away.

And she has stuck with her story. Convinced after 19 years that she had indeed identified the murderer, she has done the right thing by maintaining her testimony.

Yet there is mounting evidence to suggest eyewitness testimony is not as foolproof as once thought.


There remains considerable debate over the execution of Gary Graham. There are probably as many people who believe in his guilt as those who maintain his innocence.

I, for one, make no claim either way. For neither I, nor the jury, nor Bush, nor Clinton, nor the courts heard all the evidence. Gary Graham never really had his day in court. That’s why we’re still debating his guilt, even after his death.

DEA END ATCHISON

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