Stop the execution of Innocent woman, FreeFrances.org

[hiley]

Frances Elaine Newton
could soon be the first African American woman executed in modern Texas history despite resounding questions of whether she is guilty and whether she received a fair trial.

Almost half of those on Texas' death row are African American, yet they are only 12 per cent of the population. Newton is from Harris County, where the Houston Police Crime Lab has botched so many cases that even the police chief and a state senator have asked the governor to halt executions from Harris County.

snip---
http://www.freefrances.org/
*** URGENT ***
20 DAYS
TO SAVE FRANCES

An execution date has been set again:
September 14, 2005
TO learn more about Frances Newton, you can go to DemocracyNow!
Today's show had a segment on Frances and her innocence.Read the transcript, view online or download the mp3,pod cast or bit torrent file.

From DemocracyNow!

Two Dutch journalists recently interviewed the state prosecutor in charge of Newton's case. In that interview, Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson contradicted a key piece of evidence that led to Newton's conviction. While prosecutors linked one gun to Newton, it now appears that there was a second gun that was never tested in a crime lab.

Texas leads the nation in the number of executions performed since the moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1974. Almost half of the people on death row in Texas are African-American though only 12 percent of the population is. And in Harris County, where Frances Newton is from, the police crime lab is notorious for botching capital cases.

Another hurdle in Newton's case was her state-appointed attorney. She was originally represented by the infamous defense attorney Ron Mock, who has lost so many capital cases that he is known as "death row Mock." At least sixteen of Mock's clients have gone to death row and he has never won an acquittal in a capital case. He has been suspended from the bar twice. A colleague in Frances Newton's case says Mock told her that he had not thoroughly examined the evidence. In another high profile capital case, Mock is known to have fallen asleep while defending Shaka Sankofa, or Gary Graham, in court.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/25/1342238

For more information or to order DVDs of Frances or postcards to the
Texas Governor, go to http://www.freefrances.org
*** URGENT ***
20 DAYS
TO SAVE FRANCES

An execution date has been set again:
September 14, 2005.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. Is there a capable defense attorney in Texas?

[funflower]

30. Texas budgets a shamefully low amount for defense of indigent people

accused of capital offenses. Something like a few thousand bucks for the entire trial.

[hiley]

4. Death row is where she is

not out spending money...
*** URGENT ***
20 DAYS
TO SAVE FRANCES

An execution date has been set again:
September 14, 2005

When Ron Mock was her court appointed lawyer he failed, that is what he did with all death penalty cases that he was assigned.
When you have a court appointed attorney that means you have NO MONEY!

The DVD's are interviews with Frances.
From the web site..
What to DO?

New actions planned, new materials available.

1. Get and mail a postcard to Governor Rick Perry (see Materials); distribute to people you know.

2. Attend the PRESS CONFERENCE,: Thursday August 25, 9:30 AM at S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, 3815 Live Oak Street at Alabama (Phone: [phone]).

3. Take part in the March in Austin, Texas, 2 PM on Saturday, August 27, 2005. Show the world we care. NEW INFORMATION: Bus from Houston, FLYERS (RTF format; HTML format)

4. Be creative! Help in your own way. Call or write the media. Ask questions in public. Bring it up at church. Help show the DVD of interviews with Frances. AUDIO & VIDEO FILES ONLINE
http://www.freefrances.org/

[Surya Gayatri]

25. Done (what I can)...

e-mails to Gov. Perry and a whole list of state legislators; forwarding to others.
I live abroad, so can't do much else but pray for her...
May the law of karma smite the rotten bastards who govern Texas, with a special turn on the wheel for her so-called lawyer, that SOB Mock.

[hiley]

28. Surya Gayatri

Thank you so much for your efforts.
Frances will know that people care about her and her innocence.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. AAAAAAAAGH

How, how, HOW to write an answer to this post and not get deleted????

HOW??????????????

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KitchenWitch]

8. Good grief

Can you even conceptualize that there may be citizens with money that want to get the word out about this, and being that the internet is almost universally accessible, they spent the money on a website to generate support for Frances.

THINK! Frances cannot have possibly been able to fund it for herself. Get a grip.

:eyes:

[hiley]

2. Death Row Mock (nickname of court appointed attorney)

Off the kuff
Feb.12, 2005
snip--
Mock handled 19 capital murder cases between 1986 and 2001, and 16 of his clients ended up on death row. More than 10 have been executed, records show.

He stopped accepting court-appointed capital murder cases in 2001, after a new state law set stricter requirements for indigent capital defense.

"I was tired of the heat, so I got out of the kitchen," Mock said in an interview last year.

Several death row inmates he represented claimed on appeal that Mock did not represent them adequately.

Most recently, Frances Newton of Harris County said Mock met with her several times but never thoroughly discussed with her the case involving the 1987 murders of her husband and two children.

snip--
http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/004933.html

[nofurylike]

6. recommended. please do this folks! media blast like DU can! eom

[KitchenWitch]

9. Also recommended

Needs one more vote.

[hiley]

10. Thank you nofurylike, her execution is set for September 14,2005

From DemocracyNow! transcript of today's show.


AMY GOODMAN: What is the key issue that you feel needs to be raised right now for people to understand about Frances Newton?

DAVID DOW: Well, I think that there are really three key issues, and two of them are more important legally than the third, even though that's -- that's ironic, because the issue that I think people need to understand that we're certainly including in everything that we file but that is very difficult to raise at this stage of her case is simply the fact that she's innocent and the fact that there isn't any evidence that suggests that she was guilty.

Essentially, the state had three pieces of evidence at her trial. It had the motive evidence, which was the claim that she had purchased life insurance and then killed her family in order to collect that money. And it had two pieces of physical evidence; one piece of physical evidence was the presence of nitrite particles on the lower portion of the skirt that she was wearing on that night. And nitrite particles can come from gunpowder residue. And then the final piece of evidence was the gun. The state claimed that the gun that Frances Newton took out of the house, the gun that you just heard her talking about, was the murder weapon. Those are the three pieces of evidence.

When we investigated the case, the first thing when my office, Jared Tyler and I, started to investigate the case, the first thing that we realized was that if you simply built a timeline, Frances Newton didn't have time to commit the crime. We figured that even if you were the most generous to the state's version of what had happened when, she had a total of 20 minutes. Now, 20 minutes is not very long to kill three people, and entirely eliminate any physical evidence that connects you to the crime. What do I mean by that? I mean that when the police arrived at the scene, they did an atomic absorption test on her hands, and there was no gun powder on her hands. There was no evidence that she had fired a weapon. There was no gunpowder residue on her sweater, which is where, of course, you would expect to find it if somebody was holding a handgun and firing it.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/25/1342238

[nofurylike]

11. thank YOU, hiley. this is an outrage!!! ANOTHER outrage. please keep

on!!

i am passing this on. please everyone pass this on and take action!!



peace

[hiley]

15. Thank you for passing this on..

My heart breaks for Frances, seventeen years on Death Row and she is Innocent and her family is murdered. I don't know how she has survived and stayed sane. This is why there should be no Death Penalty.

[nofurylike]

19. all thanks go to you for bringing this to our attention. heartbreaking. nt

[nofurylike]

12. kick!

[Window]

13. Dear Lord!

A travesty in the making. Thanks for sharing this info.

[Mnemosyne]

14. .

:banghead: :grr: :kick:

[understandinglife]

16. We must stop killing people. Period.

Peace.

[Talismom]

17. I heard about this horrible story on Democracy Now this morning!

done, nominated!

[BamaBecky]

18. kick for life

[nofurylike]

20. kick

[never give n]

21. Should post in Texas forum too.

:kick: I just found out about it from Democracy Now this morning too.

[hiley]

22. Kick for

Frances, it is very easy to send emails at the web site.

http://www.freefrances.org
*** URGENT ***
20 DAYS
TO SAVE FRANCES

An execution date has been set again:
September 14, 2005.

NOW: e-mail multiple selected elected officials at ONCE !!!
or
e-mail Governor Perry,
solely, the old-fashioned way.

[NoSheep]

42. Sent multiple emails. This is horrifying. Thank you for posting. Maybe we

can make a difference.

[snot]

23. kick and nom'd -nt

[GliderGuider]

24. kicked and nominated

I also printed the postcards.
There are 4 people of voting age in our house and it's such a simple thing to do.

[Stand and Fight]

26. I've done what I can...

I really wish I could do more -- state sanctioned murder is so barbaric, so reprehensible. I hope that this comes through. However, I have doubts because she is not blonde and white and blue-eyed. I would like to see some compassionate conservatism in action.

[hiley]

27. I know, it is so frustrating..

Texas leads the nation in the number of executions performed since the moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1974.

Almost half of the people on death row in Texas are African-American though only 12 percent of the population is. And in Harris County, where Frances Newton is from, the police crime lab is notorious for botching capital cases.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/25/1342238

[Beaverhausen]

29. Friday Kick

[Eloriel]

31. and another n/t

[Bo]

32. Good christians at work

[Ladyhawk]

33. If this woman is innocent, I'm absolutely pissed she has spent

so much time in prison. Why can't the law work more quickly on cases like this?

LH

[RevolutionStartsNow]

34. Stop executions, period.

Though this one in particular seems heinous.

But I will nitpick on that statistic...I'm not questioning its accuracy, but it's not as meaningful as the stats showing the percentage of criminals tried for capital offenses who actually end up on death row, revealing that the majority are more likely to be poor and unable to afford a "real" lawyer.

And even if it weren't so tragically mis-applied, the death penalty is barbaric.

[smurfygirl]

35. kicking up

:kick:

[nofurylike]

36. kick. keep on this! write, call, media blast. all possible. i will too. nt

[nofurylike]

37. kick

[nofurylike]

38. act, please folks! kick before going off. more tomorrow. eom

[UrbScotty]

39. Be pro-life. Stop executions.

[Kipepeo]

40. kick n/t

[The Straight Story]

41. Called and left a message with gov's office (# below)

Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 12428, Austin, Texas 78711, Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]