were Hispanic). Two-thirds were single or divorced at the time they committed their offense. Almost all of them had committed previous offenses. Those on death row were primarily unskilled laborers (68 percent) or craftsmen (13 percent), with less than a high school education (just less than 90 percent). Over half of those convicted after 1972 had one ore more property crime convictions. Fifty-six percent had a violent crime conviction. Just over half of the prisoners had been previously sentenced to prison for other offenses. Murder in the course of a robbery was by far the most common crime committed, with a total of 207 convicts on death row. The next closest are 77 prisoners convicted of rape/murder. One third of the robbery murderers were from Huston. Sixty-five percent of those one death row used a gun to kill their victims. Forty-seven percent had help in committing their offense (Marquart 135-137). After examining these statistics, one must conclude that there is no outstanding numbers to prove any racial motivation for sentencing.According to the Chicago Tribune, in a study of the 145 executions under Bush, it was found that in 40 of the cases the defense attorneys made no real defense. Dozens of defendants were compromised by unreliable evidence. An example would be in the case of Gary Gram. Gram was convicted of killing Bobby Grant Lambert in a Safeway parking lot. He was found guilty after only two days. If this wasn’t enough to enrage protesters, no murder weapon was found, nor were there any fingerprints, blood, or DNA matches. He was identified by a woman who picked him out on a second chance line-up. Gram was the only man to appear in both line-ups (Black 1). Gram was only a teenage at the time of his conviction and his execution was postponed eight times. He was finally put to death at age 36. He was the 135th person put to death in Texas since George W. Bush became governor (Arnold 1). The choosing of court-...
