Shaka Sankofa illegally convicted

"In 1981, when I was a 17-year-old juvenile, I became the victim of poor legal representation and a racially biased prosecution system that is more often criminal than just. I was wrongly convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by a nearly all white jury in spite of overwhelming and compelling evidence of my innocence. My trial was a travesty of justice and a strong people's movement is the only hope to prevent my legal lynching and to stop my execution."

The above was spoken by Shaka Sankofa (also known as Gary Graham). Despite his repeated claims of innocence, he was executed by the state of Texas on June 22, 2000.

Sankofa was convicted for murder based upon the testimony of a single eyewitness who claimed that she saw Sankofa kill Bobby Lambert back in 1981; there was no other evidence to support his guilt. However, six other eyewitnesses have claimed that Sankofa was not the killer, and another four witnesses have passed lie-detector tests stating that Sankofa was with them on the night of the murder. None of this evidence supporting Sankofa's innocence has ever been heard by a jury, thanks to legal technicalities, an incompetent court-appointed lawyer (who claims that he's had more clients sentenced to death than any other lawyer in the country), and the 1996* passage of the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act."

*In case you didn't see that, it said 1996 anti-terrorism act.


This case is NOT unique, there are still many cases where African American men and women are asked to be removed from the jury, or the rebuttal evidence is never shown. The legal system doesn't help in legal cases.