This piece appears in the August 2007 edition of We The People.

Texas loves executing people; especially if they’re poor minorities; bonus points if they’re mentally impaired or innocent.

Sounds a bit cynical, doesn’t it? But how else do we explain how four death penalty cases were railroaded through Texas courts only to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court this year? Why is it that a mentally retarded man was executed in April, and another, innocent man committed suicide on death row last October? More importantly, as progressives and radicals, what the hell are we going to do about it?

Texas death row inmates are disproportionately black or Hispanic. Almost all are indigent or poor. The mentally handicapped are sentenced to death at an alarming rate. And, recent Supreme Court rulings show that the capital punishment system in Texas is rife with corruption and judicial laziness.

On April 25, the Supreme Court overturned three Texas death penalty cases in a single day: LaRoyce Smith’s, Jalil Abdul-Kabir’s, and Brent Ray Brewer’s. In Smith’s case, the court ruled that the state court misinterpreted federal law by not allowing jurors to consider helpful or mitigating evidence, such as a defendant's background or character, that could warrant a sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty. Similarly, Abdul-Kabir and Brewer were entitled to jury instructions about evidence presented, such as mental impairment and childhood mistreatment that might have prevented a death sentence.

On June 29, the Supreme Court blocked the execution of Scott Panetti, whose mental illness prevented him from understanding why he was to be executed. Panetti knew that he was convicted and what the charges were, and understood that he was to be executed. However, Panetti also believed that Satan and the State of Texas conspired to use the capital punishment system in order to prevent him from spreading the Gospel.

Satan, eh? Maybe Panetti’s on to something. James Lee Clark, who was demonstrably mentally retarded, was executed on April 11. Michael Johnson, an innocent man, committed suicide out of desperation on Oct. 19, 2006. Using his own blood, he wrote “I DIDN’T DO IT” on his cell wall before slitting his throat with a shank. And unless we act soon, Kenneth Foster will be executed on Aug. 30 for the heinous crime of driving a car.

Abolitionists—anti-death penalty activists—generally agree that Texas is the lynchpin in the national struggle to abolish capital punishment in the United States. And we’re in a hard spot if we can’t even save the innocent and mentally disabled.

“Texas is number one in executions and [at the] heart of the struggle to end the death penalty,” according to Hooman Hedayati, founder of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty. “It is very similar to the civil rights movement. The solution to winning the civil rights movement was to end segregation in southern states, not in states like Vermont. So I think fighting the death penalty is very similar to the civil rights movements. However, today the national anti-death penalty leadership is doing exactly the opposite by trying to end the death penalty in states that have not executed anybody for more than a decade. I think they should put their resources into states like Texas and Virginia, who execute more people than states like Wisconsin that don't even have the death penalty.”

“A major problem in Texas is that funders and some national leaders have seen Texas as a lost cause and [have] not directed funding here for us to develop a grassroots infrastructure that we can mobilize. Right now, we have an enormous opportunity looming in Texas to actually achieve a moratorium on executions because of the three innocence cases that have come to light in the past 19 months, but because funders have not invested enough resources into Texas for us to have built a grassroots infrastructure of people to mobilize, we are not in a very good position to be able to take advantage of this ripe political moment. Look at the amount of anti-death penalty money that has gone to states like New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. If that kind of money had come to Texas in the last two years, we would have no problem putting serious pressure on policy makers.”

Yeah, things are rough in Texas. So what might we do?

Clearly, part of an effective national abolitionist strategy would be to channel resources towards states with high execution rates, and especially Texas. Likewise, an effective strategy for Texas abolitionists should be to focus on fewer death penalty cases. As of this writing, Texas has executed 19 people this year. July, in fact, marks the 400^th execution for Texas. When we attempt to protest each execution or attend every vigil, it spreads us thin and makes it impossible for us to retain new, younger activists. And, let’s face it, we won’t be anything without numbers.

Building death row solidarity also matters. The Death Row Intercommunalist Vanguard Engagement, or DRIVE Movement, connects activists with Texas death row inmates who actively resist their impending executions and protest against prison conditions so that all prisoners might suffer less. They have keen advice when it comes to strategy. We should listen.

We must also overcome the challenge posed by media. In Corpus Christi, most news stations are either indifferent or pro-death penalty. For instance, KIII-TV refused to cover Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) protests at the corner of SPID and Staples because of the station’s pro-death penalty stance. When CEDP members finally protested KIII-TV’s policies in front of the station, the best they got was a soundbite. This isn't conspiracy theory. It happened. When we’re shut out like this, we must find other inroads into popular consciousness. We need to take advantage of progressive and independent media such as We the People and Turning the Tide.

More broadly, we must connect the abolitionist movement with anti-war efforts, the immigrant rights movement, feminism, queer liberation, participatory economy, democratic society, and other struggles on behalf of social justice and human dignity.

In any case, we shouldn’t give up. Fighting Satan is always worth it.

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