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Kenneth Foster: Texas' Execution Commuted, "I Want To Raise My Daughter To Be An Activist" - Blacks need To "Activize" Our Children To Influence The System! - RI10
Kenneth Foster:
Texas’ Execution
Commuted, “I Want
To Raise My
Daughter To Be An
Activist” - Blacks
need To “Activize”
Our Children To
Influence The
System! - RI10
Texas Spares Life of Kenneth Foster
The governor of Texas commuted the death sentence of Kenneth Foster yesterday six hours before Foster's scheduled execution. Governor Rick Perry made the decision after the state's parole board voted six to one in favor of sparing Foster's life. This marked only the third time Perry has commuted a death sentence. Since he took office in 2000 Perry has overseen 162 executions. Anti-death penalty activists hailed the decision as a major victory. Dana Cloud of the “Save Kenneth Foster” campaign said QUOTE “This case demonstrated to the world just how arbitrary and capricious capital punishment is". Foster had been sentenced to death for a crime the state of Texas admits he did not commit or plan. In a recent interview with CourtTV, Kenneth Foster talked about how he wants to keep helping raise his 11 year-old daughter.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/31/1435243
Tabacco: That quote was said by the man the State of Texas wanted to execute yesterday. Now maybe we know why they were so persistent. That is not the sort of idea that Republican-Conservative-Texas-Bigots will relish!
Kenneth Foster
Parole board urges Texas governor to spare getaway
driver sentenced to death
2007-08-30 21:52:00 -
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - The state parole board recommended Thursday that the governor spare a condemned inmate scheduled for execution later in the day for being the getaway driver in a 1996 murder. Kenneth Foster's death sentence had drawn protests from death penalty opponents because he was not the actual shooter.
Foster was convicted and sentenced under a Texas law that makes non-triggermen equally accountable for a crime. Another condemned man was executed under the same statute earlier this year.
After reviewing Foster's case, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 6-1 Thursday to recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute his sentence to life in prison.
There was no immediate response from the governor's office. Perry does not have to accept the highly unusual recommendation from the board, whose members the governor appoints.
Foster has acknowledged that he and his «knucklehead» friends were up to no good as he drove them around San Antonio in a rental car and robbed at least four people.
«It was wrong», Foster, 30, said recently from death row. «I don't want to downplay that. I was wrong for that. I was too much of a follower. I'm straight up about that».
Their robbery spree, while they were all high on alcohol and marijuana, turned deadly when Foster followed Michael LaHood Jr., and his girlfriend to LaHood's home about 2 a.m. Aug. 15, 1996. One of Foster's passengers, Mauriceo Brown, demanded LaHood's wallet and car keys, then opened fire when 25-year-old could not produce them. LaHood was fatally shot through the eye.
Brown and Foster were tried together and convicted of capital murder. Foster was set to die Thursday evening, 13 months after Brown, 31, was strapped to the same death chamber gurney in Huntsville for lethal injection.
Foster's lawyers argue that statements from the other two friends, both now serving life sentences, provide new evidence that supports Foster's claim that he didn't know Brown was going to shoot LaHood.
Brown testified at trial that he thought LaHood had a gun, so the shooting was self-defense, though authorities found no other weapon near the body.
Foster did not testify. «I thought what (Brown) said was good enough», he later said. Mike Ramos, among the prosecutors in the trial, said he found Foster's claims unbelievable.
«When you let somebody out of your car with a loaded handgun, what do you expect?» Ramos said, adding that he was irritated by a publicity effort to spare Foster. Last weekend, a group of Foster supporters picketed outside an Austin church the governor attends.
Ramos said it was clear to him that Foster was «the puppet master pulling all the strings» during the robbery spree.
LaHood's brother, Nico LaHood, said Wednesday he was frustrated that people were willing to believe only Foster's story.
«I don't know what dynamics are going on that allow us to make the person who is the wrongdoer to become the victim in this case», LaHood said. His brother, he said, was being «lost in the whole thing».
On the Net
Kenneth Foster site: www.freekenneth.com
Press release: www.pr-inside.com
Kontaktinformation: e-mail
http://www.pr-inside.com/parole-board-urges-texas-governor-to-r214641.htm
Declaration of Independence Day Edition
July 4, 2007
The Disturbing Case of Kenneth Foster
Texas Wants to Kill Another Man, the Law be Damned
By RON JACOBS
So, it's the week of the Fourth of July-the date the United States celebrates its struggle for independence from England and its throne. Scooter Libby, who was convicted (in the place of more serious crimes and perpetrators) of lying to Congress about matters of state, has just had his 30-month sentence commuted.
The reason for the July 4th date is because it was the date in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was signed. Of course, this independence was really only for the southern white male planters and their northern counterparts, but the seed it planted has inspired men and women around the world to make the words of that declaration's preamble universal. Yet, we are still quite far from that goal, even here in the United States. Indeed, especially here in the United States. Poverty prevents millions from achieving their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Hundreds of thousands of those denied these rights end up in prison not only lose the latter, but quite literally lose their liberty. Of those hundreds of thousands, hundreds have lost their lives because of the state's' insistence on their right to execute certain prisoners, most of them black and brown-skinned.
One of these men is Kenneth Foster, a young African-American resident of Texas who is facing execution at the end of August 2007. His case revolves around a very controversial law known as the "law of parties." In essence, this law imposes the death penalty on any body involved in a crime where a murder occurred, even if the accused was not involved in the murder or even aware that the killer intended to commit murder. If this law were applied to Scooter Libby's case, there's a good chance that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove would have also been convicted, even if they didn't know that Libby was going to lie to Congress.
Kenneth is also a founding member of the Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement, or DRIVE. Members of DRIVE have organized in the worst of circumstances to protest the awful living conditions on Texas' death row and against the death penalty in general. DRIVE is a first-of-its-kind social movement with a growing base of support in the U.S. and internationally. They have also created a politicized environment on death row in which condemned inmates are refusing to walk to their executions, forcing guards to drag them instead. More information about DRIVE is available online at http://www.drivemovement.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs07042007.html
Edited by Tabacco for brevity; to read the entire Counterpunch Article, go to the web link above.
Tabacco: Make no mistake; Kenneth Foster’s life was spared for one reason and one reason only:
Were it not for all the publicity surrounding the “Texas Law of Parties”, all the loud voices supporting Kenneth Foster, all the demonstrations and important international voices, raised to denigrate both the law and the planned execution of Kenneth Foster, Kenneth Foster would be dead as you read this.
Transparency is the ONLY SOLUTION to
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
POLITICIANS’ PREFERENCE FOR LOBBYING $ OVER THE INTERESTS OF AVERAGE PEOPLE!
Tabacco previously suggested a non-governmentally-controlled TV Network:
It would focus on wars, without political or governmental oversight, would not take advertising of any kind, be publicly funded, and be required to air all state-sanctioned executions. This idea will work; it will end US Wars for Profit & Legal Executions!
T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-C-Y!
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization) – Think Tank For Other 95% Of World