August 22st, 2008

DEATH PENALTY/EVERYONE GROUP: SAVE REGINALD BLANTON, SENTENCED TO DEATH IN TEXAS DUE TO RACIAL PREJUDICE AND WITHOUT EVIDENCE

ON 25TH OF AUGUST THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT WILL GRANT HIS LAWYERS AN ORAL ARGUMENT AND DECIDE IN A FEW DAYS WHETHER TO REOPEN THE CASE OR CONFIRM HIS EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION

REGINALD BLANTON, AN AFRICAN AMERICAN, AGED 27, HAS BEEN ON DEATH ROW FOR YEARS IN TEXAS ACCUSED OF MURDER. SINCE HIS ARREST, HE HAS BEEN FIGHTING TO PROVE HIS INNOCENCE AND TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY. THE ACTIVISTS OF EVERYONE GROUP APPEAL TO THE UNITED NATIONS, TO THE USA PRESIDENCY CANDIDATE BARACK OBAMA, TO THE RADICAL PARTY AND ALL DEMOCRATIC NATIONS: “SAVE HIS LIFE, STOP ABUSE ON PRISONERS AND ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, STARTING FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”

Reginal Blanton, aged 27, an African American originally from California but living in Texas since his teens, has been in jail for the last 8 years accused of having killed on the 13th of April 2000 –when he was 18 – his close friend Carlos Garza.
He is presently an inmate on Death Row in Polunksy Prison, Livingston, Texas. For the last seven years he has been attempting to prove his innocence, but most of all to show the level of inhumanity the inmates of Death Row are subjected to, and the level of approximation adopted in trials for crimes that foresee the death penalty - especially towards black defendants like himself.
EveryOne Group, in constant contact with Reginald’s mother, Anna Terrell, has decided to promote an international campaign in an attempt to save Reginald Blanton’s life.
“We are convinced the inquiry and trial that led to Reginald being sentenced to death reveal an abuse of the law, errors of form and procedural flaws” say EveryOne Group’s leaders Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau and the activist Elisabetta Vivaldi. “Reginald is African American, he was a street kid and a member of a gang. He belonged to a world that the US institutions, and Texas in particular, fight with such rigor it often becomes prejudice. We suspect” continue the activists “the verdict contains elements of racial discrimination and this is confirmed by the fact that Reginald Blanton was not judged, according to his constitutional rights, by a jury of his peers. The District Attorney also arranged it so that the entire jury was made up of white Americans. And it is for this reason that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recognized this violation of his assurance of a fair trial”.
Blanton – part of his story is published on www.everyonegroup.com – had a childhood marked by poverty and marginalization: when he was 16, he left home to join a street gang. He had problems with the law for drug pushing and was diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder; he was placed in a 2-year “re-socialization program” organized by the Texas Youth Commission, but when he was 18, while he was changing life, he was accused of the murder of his friend, Carlos Garza. Carlos was shot twice in his apartment and died a few hours later in hospital.
“Reginald Blanton was sentenced on evidence given by unreliable witnesses, extorted under grave threats from his brother Robert – also a members of a gang – and from the latter’s girlfriend. Even if they later withdrew their testimony before the Court,” explain EveryOne Group activists “the climate of intolerance and prejudice had inexplicably led to a verdict of guilt. Added to this there was no eye witness able to identify the culprit; no murder weapon has ever been found; there were no fingerprints belonging to Reginald found, or traces of his DNA in the victim’s apartment. Moreover,” say the members of EveryOne “there is hard evidence to prove the defendant is not guilty. The evidence consists of the footprint left by the killer as he kicked open the door to Garza’s apartment: the print of a size 12 shoe, whereas Reginald Blanton wears a size 9. Blanton has requested several times that his shoes, worn on the day of the crime, be showed to the jury during the trial, so that they could verify this fact, but his request, like many others, has always been turned down”.
After nine requests for appeal, his lawyers Scott Sullivan and John Carroll will finally be allowed to appear on Monday, August 25th, at 9,30 a.m., before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On that occasion the judges could decide to reopen the trial due to the fact that Reginald was judged by a jury made up entirely of white Americans and possibly sentenced on the basis of racial prejudice. However, theymay also establish the date of his imminent execution. “We are able to demonstrate an incredible sequence of errors and violations of human rights in Reginald Blanton’s case,” say the activists “and we are convinced the US judicial system (which still makes use of the death penalty) too often makes legal errors and procedural flaws. The law decides whether a human being should live or die with a margin of error that is inevitably high and often linked to social and personal bias, as well as to the defendant’s previous record and race. All this in defiance of article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We ask ourselves how many other innocent people will be put to death by the executioner before the death penalty is abolished and a respect of life is re-established”.
EveryOne Group is appealing to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, to the democratic USA presidency candidate, senator Barack Obama, but also to the members of the Italian and Transnational Radical Party, promoters of the universal moratorium for the death penalty, and to all democratic nations: “Considering the impossibility, by both the police and judicial system, of proving the guilt “without the shadow of a doubt” of an accused person, and considering the prejudice that is inevitably present in some members of a jury, and considering the fact that any human being found guilty has the right to be rehabilitated, we consider the death penalty a medieval legacy. It is important to support the legal appeal for Reginald Blanton’s life and that of other prisoners” ends EveryOne Group “because we are convinced that many innocent people have been put to death. Those in power often want to set a example in an attempt to fight crime. But when institutional revenge puts an innocent person to death, it makes a martyr of him, and in that moment democracy, civilization and humanity are transformed into cruelty, injustice and brutality”.
On www.everyonegroup.com you will find all the information about the campaign to save Reginald Blanton’s life and the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, starting from the United States of America. You can also sign a petition on: www.petitiononline.com/reggie.

For further information:
EveryOne Group
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 – (+ 39) 334-3449180
www.everyonegroup.com ::  info@everyonegroup.com