Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Lee Graham; September 5, 1963 – June 22, 2000) was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 17 for the murder of 53-year-old Bobby Grant Lambert during a deadly 1981 crime spree in Houston, Texas, that also included at least 10 armed robberies and a rape.

Sankofa was scheduled to be executed five times: once in 1987, three times in 1993 (April, in which Lambert's widow Loretta appealed to Governor Ann Richards to spare Sankofa's life; May and August), and once on January 11, 1999; each time he was given a stay of execution before it was later lifted.

He was executed by lethal injection on June 22, 2000, in Huntsville, Texas.

Background

Gary Lee Graham was born to Thelma Griffin and Willie Graham.

On May 13, 1981, Graham murdered Bobby Lambert while attempting to rob him in a Safeway supermarket parking lot. In the days after the murder, Graham committed numerous assaults, a rape, and at least ten armed robberies. A 57 year old female taxi driver directed police to Graham after he had robbed and raped her. Graham was asleep in bed when police arrived and arrested him.

Graham denied committing the murder, but admitted to the other crimes he committed during the week-long spree. The facts of those crimes bore similarities to the attempted robbery and murder of Lambert, including assaulting some of the victims in parking lots, threatening to shoot the victims, and in one case beating and shooting another victim.

Graham was convicted of ten armed robberies and murder.

During the appeals process he told his new court-appointed attorney that his counsel did not call alibi witnesses during the trial. Two alibi witnesses testified at a hearing in 1988. In the seven years between conviction and the appeals hearing the witnesses had never visited Graham in jail, they had never contacted the police or told anyone that Graham had been with them the night of the murder. The appeals judge found that the witnesses were not credible and ruled against Graham.

The United States Supreme Court did not extend the prohibition on the juvenile death penalty to 17-year olds until Roper v. Simmons (2005). Roper said that "the age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood." Roper overturned Stanford v. Kentucky (1988) which had upheld the death penalty for crimes committed by 16 and 17 year olds. The death penalty has been barred for those 15 and younger since Thompson v. Oklahoma was decided in 1988.

Lambert was murdered in 1981. Texas was one of the states that allowed the death penalty for 17 year olds. Youth was considered a mitigating factor at sentencing. Graham's post-conviction claims argued that the Texas statute required the jury to impose the death penalty when certain conditions were met such as a finding of "future dangerousness". Graham argued that this prevented the jury from weighing mitigating circumstances like his youth and difficult childhood. After Penry v. Lynaugh was decided a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated his death sentence but it was reinstated by an en banc rehearing.

Reaction

Sankofa's execution became a campaign issue in the 2000 presidential election. Jesse Jackson compared candidate George W. Bush to Pontius Pilate (implicitly comparing Sankofa to Jesus Christ). The National Review criticized Sankofa's supporters who had raised no objection when Arkansas governor Bill Clinton paused his 1992 presidential campaign to oversee the execution of a man with brain damage.

As support for Graham's cause grew the eyewitness who picked Graham out of the police line-up began to experience harassment related to the case.

Incarceration

thumb|upright|Graham (Shaka Sankofa) raises his fist in defiance prior to his execution

thumb|upright|[[Huntsville Unit, where Sankofa was put to death]]

Sankofa entered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) as inmate #696 on November 9, 1981.

In prison, Sankofa learned to read and write, earning his GED and paralegal certification. From the day of his arrest, he acknowledged portions of his week-long crime spree. For these crimes, he had served almost two decades in prison, apologizing verbally and in writing to the victims of these crimes and asked young people to turn their backs on criminal conduct. He became an activist and, in 1995, changed his name from Gary Lee Graham to Shaka Sankofa. The name "Shaka" was chosen in honor of the South African warrior Shaka Zulu.

Execution

thumb|upright|Robert Muhammad, Bianca Jagger, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpeton talk privately before witnessing the execution

thumb|upright|Sankofa is carried into the Texas Death House by a team of Correctional Officers prior to his execution

After the appeals had failed, Sankofa resisted when the time came for him to be taken to the death chamber. A Cell Extraction Team was dispatched to force him towards the death chamber, where it took five jail guards to strap him to the gurney.

Sankofa released a final statement in which he called his execution a "legal lynching" and "genocide in America". He called on his followers to "take this down to international court and file a lawsuit". He said his "lynching will be avenged" and the "revolution will go on". Hundreds of pro and anti-death penalty demonstrators gathered outside the prison where Sankofa was executed. Police in riot gear managed parading Ku Klux Klan and New Black Panther Party members.

See also

  • Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States
  • Capital punishment in Texas
  • Capital punishment in the United States
  • List of people executed in Texas, 2000–2009
  • List of people executed in the United States in 2000

References

  • CNN - Graham Case Before Texas Board As Clock Ticks Towards Execution (includes video and audio files)
  • CNN - Texas Parole Board Considers Fate of Condemned Man (includes video and audio links)
  • Greta Van Susteren talks to Shaka Sankofa, and Discussion: Transcript (aired June 9, 2000)
  • Gary Lee Graham at the Office of the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney