2009-07-19
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
CAMPAIGN TO END THE DEATH PENALTY
Lily Hughes (512) 482-0642 or Laura Brady (512) 638-0403
DO NOT EXECUTE REGINALD BLANTON!
Friday, July 17th: Austin's chapter of the Campaign to END the Death Penalty condemns the execution date recently given to Texas Death Row prisoner Reginald Blanton. Blanton was delivered an execution date for Tuesday, October 27th 2009 by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Blanton's supporters with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) claim he has a strong innocence claim. According to Randi Jones of the CEDP, no physical evidence links him to the crime.
"Reginald's case exemplifies serious prosecutorial misconduct," said Jones, "They systematically excluded African Americans from the jury pool."
Jones added that Blanton was forced to rely on an incompetent public defender who failed to present evidence of innocence at the original trial.
Blanton has a strong base of support. Most notably, his mother Anna Reese has, along with fellow parishioners at San Antonio's Macedonia Baptist Church, held several events to publicize Blanton's case.
Blanton is a founding member of the DRIVE Movement, a group of prisoners who seek to unite the death row community and organize for better living conditions at the notorious Polunsky Unit, Texas’ Death Row prison house in Livingston, Texas.
Reginald’s case is not free from the problems that exist throughout this country.
Texas continues to buck the national trend, which is turning against capital punishment and is churning forward with numerous scheduled executions in spite of the recent 135th national exoneration from death row.