[NYTr] Support builds to save Kenneth Foster's life

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[It better build fast, with two days left.-NYTr]

Workers World - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/kenneth-foster-0830/

Support builds to save Kenneth Foster's life

By Gloria Rubac
Houston

Kenneth Foster’s Aug. 30 execution is only days away, yet he, his
family and supporters are not willing to give up the fight to save his
life.

Foster did not kill anyone. The state of Texas is the first to admit
this. But because when he was 19 years old, on Aug. 14, 1996, someone
he was with murdered a young man, Foster was convicted and sentenced to
death under Texas law.

However, under the law, Foster should not have been convicted because
he did not fit the criteria of planning or conspiring or even
anticipating a murder.

The last month has been a whirlwind of rallies, marches, forums,
hip-hop concerts, and radio and TV interviews. Public meetings have
been held in Houston, San Antonio and Austin, and also in Harlem, N.Y.

Foster’s case has been covered in news media across the country and
around the world. Even in Texas, several of the major daily newspapers,
in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Galveston, have editorialized against
his execution. From Australian radio to Spanish television, the world
is learning about yet another case of an innocent person set for
execution in Texas.

Texas state legislators have received more than 2,500 email letters
asking them to look into Foster’s case and to contact the governor and
Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop his execution. Web sites and blogs
are spreading the word.

This week a YouTube campaign to stop the execution began. People are
recording a statement and uploading it to YouTube saying why Texas Gov.
Rick Perry and the Board of Pardons should stop Foster’s execution.
Then they are sending a message to the governor and board that includes
a link to their videos.

Also this week, civil disobedience was planned for an Austin rally at
the governor’s mansion. And death penalty abolitionists in New York
City planned to take signs against the execution of Kenneth Foster to
the big glass windows at the ABC studio broadcast of “Good Morning
America.” A public forum featuring Foster’s family is being held in
Houston on Aug. 25.

Only four states across the country have laws that enable prosecutors
to hold those who were merely present at the scene of a crime legally
responsible. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in
capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a
person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death
penalty.

Foster’s attorney, Keith Hampton, filed a last appeal with the U.S.
Supreme Court in mid-August, calling it a “shot-in-the-dark brief.” It
is based on the court’s 1982 ruling in Enmund vs. Florida that forbade
capital punishment for a getaway driver sitting in the car during a
botched robbery-turned-murder. The court decided the case under the
premise that the driver “did not kill or intend to kill, and thus his
culpability is different from that of the robbers who killed.”

In a separate case five years later, the justices ruled the death
penalty can be imposed on an accomplice if he or she was a “major
participant” in a murder and acted with “reckless indifference” to
human life.

“There are constitutional limitations on what you can do to somebody
who isn’t the triggerman,” said Steven Shatz, director of the
University of San Francisco’s Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project.
“Merely participating in a robbery is not sufficient, is not in itself
a reckless disregard.”

In Foster’s case, not only was he not a participant in the robbery or
murder, he did not have any knowledge that his friend was going to do
it and he had no way of anticipating it.

Foster was driving his grandfather’s car with three friends on that
night in 1996. Two of the young men had committed two robberies that
evening. As they were driving one man home, Foster’s companion Maurecio
Brown got out of the car to talk with a young woman while Foster and
the other two sat in the car about 80 feet away with the windows rolled
up and the radio playing. They reportedly heard a “pop” and realized
that a shot had been fired.

Foster and Brown were tried together even though Brown admitted to the
shooting as an act of self-defense. Both had inadequate court-appointed
attorneys. Brown was executed in July 2006.

Two weeks ago, journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales interviewed
Foster’s family on the radio and television show “Democracy Now.”
During the program, Foster’s 11-year-old daughter, Nydesha, talked with
wisdom and strength about her father.

“He encourages me,” she said. “That’s what keeps me strong. ... I would
probably not be able to do anything, because I’d be so sad and stressed
out. ... And even though he is a father behind glass, he does a lot of
stuff for me. You know, he still is a father. And people need to
recognize that.

“When somebody is a big part of your heart, like my father is—I mean,
my father is more than half of my heart. I mean, I love him so much.
And if the state of Texas kills him just for driving a car, it’s like
you’re killing my heart. It’s like you’re killing half of me. It’s like
if you execute him, you might as well execute me. ... But I think that
I manage to keep myself together, because, you know, me and my father,
we write back and forth. And, you know, we’re constantly talking to
each other. ... We’re not going to let Texas separate us, because we
love each other so much. I mean, I don’t think there is a relationship
this big, as me and my father’s.”

Foster’s web page http://www.freekenneth.com has many of his writings.
He ends one passage with these words: “I’m here to expose the death
penalty for what it is ... and I will continue to scream that CAPITAL
PUNISHMENT IS GENOCIDE! AND I MEAN THAT!”

Call Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 512-463-1782 to demand that the execution
of Kenneth Foster be stopped. Call the Texas Board of Pardons to ask
for clemency for Foster at 512-463-1679.

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