2012 ~ 2011 ~ 2010 ~ 2009 ~2008 ~ 2007 ~ 2006 ~ 2005 ~ 2004 ~ 2003 ~ 2002

Read about GRACE's development, from just a “scrappy little group of volunteers” working out of the crowded attic apartment above Danalynn's home, to the organization it is today.

December 31, 2009

A Year of GRACE

It has been a year of extreme highs and lows for GRACE. In March, we secured a life sentence for a severely mentally ill man who had been returned for resentencing after 23 years on death row. But, in April, Michael Gonzales was resentenced to die despite our mitigators’ efforts. In May, I wrote to announce our “Best Day Ever” when we secured life-saving resolutions in three unrelated trial level cases and a remand in a post-conviction case. But, six weeks later, I asked you to envision “A Day Without GRACE” when we failed to meet our payroll and were in grave danger of shutting down. Your response to that S.O.S. helped us limp along, with an exciting record of successes set against the backdrop of a brutal economic struggle for survival of the office.

In July, I was privileged to stand beside Deryl Madison in a Houston courtroom as he hugged his mother for the first time after 21 years on death row. GRACE’s Retrial/Resentencing Project provided pro bono legal services to negotiate a resolution that spared him from again facing death.

In September, we had another amazing, life-affirming, week. First, longtime GRACE client Michael Toney walked out of the Tarrant County Correctional Facility when the state dismissed the charges against him after more than a decade on death row. Then, just days before the trial of a terrible case where the state had been entirely unwilling to negotiate, the client finally received a life-saving plea -- offered in response to a mitigation presentation prepared by GRACE. In an inspiring act of grace and faith, the victim’s widow publicly forgave our client, causing us to forget for a moment the anxiety of our financial peril and remember why we do this work.

A month later, Michael Toney was killed in a car accident. Then, our mitigation presentation on behalf of a federal client persuaded Attorney General Holder not to seek the death against him.

All told, in 2009 GRACE mitigation specialists persuaded prosecutors to accept life-saving plea offers from two pretrial clients and take death off the table in four pretrial cases. This is in addition to the seven unrelated Retrial/Resentencing cases successfully resolved through GRACE’s pro bono legal services. GRACE staff also provided faculty to over a dozen capital training programs around the US and individual mentorship to five new mitigation specialists in Texas and Oklahoma.

But, always, these victories were tempered by the reality that GRACE may soon be forced to cut back or even eliminate the programs that made them possible. Please help us continue this work.

Fall from GRACE Award

Our 2009 Fall From GRACE Award goes to Governor Rick Perry for rejecting the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles’ recommendation that he spare the life of Houstonian Robert Thompson, who was condemned under Texas’ arcane “law of parties” for a murder actually committed by his co-defendant. The execution of defendants who did not kill or intend to kill is not permitted in most states and not supported by public opinion here in Texas. Nor does it serve the purpose most often given in favor of the death penalty. (Since a “non-triggerman” didn’t think once about killing, you can’t say the threat of the death penalty will make him think twice!!) The Texas legislature came close to repealing the law, but was deterred by Perry’s threat of veto. Shame on him!

September 15, 2009

Free & Painless ways to help GRACE!

GRACE is registered as a charity with two websites that will make donations, at no cost to you, every time you use them.

Just set your preferred charity as "Gulf Region Advocacy Center", then shop and surf the net just as you do already:

www.goodsearch.com

This operates just like any other search engine, except that funds raised from advertising are donated to charity IF you so designate. Use it just like google and send a few cents to GRACE with every click!!!

www.igive.com 

When you shop online, please go through www.igive.com to access all the major retail outlets and online vendors, including Amazon, Travelocity, 1800Flowers, Avon, various rental cars, department stores, name brand outlets, etc.. Vendors donate anywhere from 1% to 15% to the charity of your choice if you purchase through this website.

Thanks for your support!

September 14, 2009

Another week of GRACE

Last week was another life-affirming reminder of why we do what we do here at GRACE. Just days before the start of jury selection in a terrible case where the state had previously indicated no interest in negotiation, the client finally received a life-saving plea -- offered in response to a mitigation presentation prepared by GRACE after nearly a year of mitigation investigation by three of our amazing staffers -- John Fox, Gilly Ross and Matt Silverman, along with numerous interns.

This came the day after another GRACE client, Michael Toney, who spent more than a decade on death row, walked out of the Tarrant County Correctional Facility after the state had dismissed the charges against him. It was then GRACE employee Tena Francis who, along with several other GRACE staff and interns, first investigated Michael's case six years ago, became convinced of his innocence and recruited lawyers from the Innocence Project to represent him in post-conviction. After Michael's conviction and sentence were overturned, GRACE also provided mitigation investigation and I enrolled as penalty phase counsel. But, thanks to the amazing work of Michael's team of pro bono lawyers, our services have been happily terminated!!

Back in May, when GRACE had what I called "the best day ever", I wrote that "[a]bout the only thing that could spoil this moment is the knowledge that GRACE may soon be eliminating several of the projects and positions that made these victories possible." 

Though we have made some progress in the three months since that posting, I am feeling much the same today as I did then. It is work such as our long involvement in Michael Toney's case and other retrial/resentencing cases, which are put at greatest risk by recent cut backs in both private and court-appointed funding.

As I noted in May, GRACE is attempting to continue our current level of pro bono services and hang on to our current staff by recruiting a large base of small private donors who will enroll to make automatic monthly donations. The idea is to stabilize GRACE and replace our dependence upon a few large, unpredictable, funders with a big community of small, steady donors. These automatic monthly donations of $10, $20, $50 or $100 a month from private individuals will add up to give us a reliable monthly income that can be used to fund our pro bono work and to compensate for slashed vouchers in our court appointed work.

Since the beginning of this funding campaign, many of you have signed up to become automatic monthly donors, and others have made generous one-time donations to our building fund. But, the numbers have not added up as quickly as we hoped. We have not reached our recruitment targets in any month this year. Many of you have written or spoken of your intention to enroll as an automatic monthly donor. I'm writing today to give you a little nudge. It just takes a few minutes to set up an automatic monthly withdrawal of any amount you choose from your checking, savings, credit card or debit card. Once you establish the transaction, you never have to think about it again, except to know, whenever you see mention of GRACE's work, that you made it possible.

It's a tough economic time for everyone, of course, but if you can spare even as little as $10 a month, please enroll as an automatic monthly donor at www.gracelaw.org or on Facebook at "GRACE Saves Lives". And, please invite all your friends to join you in supporting this life-saving work.

July 24, 2009

GRACE client pleads to Life after 20 years on death row

Today, Deryl Madison hugged his mother for the first time since his 1988 arrest for the capital murder of Beulah Jolivet in Houston, Texas. Tonight, Deryl will fall asleep without the specter of a death sentence hanging over him for the first time in 21 years.

Deryl is one of nearly 500 Texas prisoners sentenced to die by jurors who had been unconstitutionally prohibited from considering their life histories as a reason to choose life. Only around 50 of those prisoners survived to see the day, in 2006, when the Supreme Court finally ruled that Texas courts had been misinterpreting the constitution for decades. Around two dozen of those inmates, including Deryl, have since been granted new sentencing trials and another 20 await similar rulings.

Through our Retrial and Resentencing Project, GRACE was able to provide a pro bono lawyer to join Deryl's team for the purpose of negotiating an agreed resolution that saved Deryl's life, gave finality to the survivors of Beulah Jolivet and spared both families the retraumatization of a second trial. GRACE mitigator Gillian Ross also provided mitigation services to the team through a court appointment, building the life history narrative that the team presented to the prosecution as a basis for sparing Deryl's life.

GRACE's Retrial and Resentencing Project has now successfully resolved nine of these cases and currently represents three other inmates facing new trials or sentencing hearings. In several of these cases, GRACE mitigators have been court appointed, but in every case our attorneys provided legal services for free -- funded entirely by private donations and grants.

Please help us continue this work. Become a Steadfast Friend of GRACE by establishing an automatic monthly donation of any amount. Make the temperature rise on our fundraising thermometer at FB Cause "GRACE Saves Lives".

June 30, 2009

Imagine A Day Without GRACE

We've certainly had our fair share of ups and downs as we struggled to build GRACE from scratch into an award-winning, case-winning, non-profit capital defense office. Many times we have been on the verge of laying off staff, cutting our caseload or even closing the doors when a donor, a grant or payment for appointed work arrived just in the nick of time. By hook or by crook, we have managed to meet our payroll without interruption since 2004. Until today.

This past Saturday was the 7th Anniversary of GRACE's incorporation and today is the first time we have failed to make our payroll since our earliest days.

They say that if a non-profit survives five years, it has long-term staying power. When we reached that mark, I breathed a sigh of relief for GRACE. But, I'm holding my breath again as I fear the current economic crisis, which has reduced donations and slashed vouchers on appointed cases, may be too much for this scrappy little office.

We have attempted to respond by shifting to a new funding base. Inspired by the Obama Campaign and other grass-roots efforts, we began this year with the announcement of our Steadfast Friends program -- an effort to establish a base of small, individual donors who will enroll to make automatic monthly donations of any amount they can afford from $10 to $100 per month. We hope that these small donations, automatically withdrawn from individual checking accounts, will be a relatively painless way (even in uncertain economic times) for our friends to hold us up and give GRACE a steady, reliable income base insulated from the economic and political vagaries of big donors and court funding.

Some of you immediately joined us as automatic donors. Others have given what they could on a one-time basis and still others have pledged to join us as soon as they are able.

I'm writing today to give you a little nudge. If you've been "meaning to" set up an automatic monthly donation, today is the day. If you are already doing what you can, but you've been "fixing to" send out a fundraising plea to your own email list and FB friends, please do it today. If you are already an automatic monthly donor and are willing to make a recruitment pledge to sign up other automatic monthly donors, please call or email me today and we will send materials immediately.

Whatever you can give or whatever you can do to spread the word -- today is the day to move GRACE to the top of your "to do" list.

If GRACE has made a difference in the life of one of your clients or loved ones; or if it comforts you to know that GRACE is here to provide representation and mitigation services to indigent defendants fighting for their lives; or if you are relieved to know that GRACE is here to provide team consultation and training to underfunded and over-committed capital defenders in the most deadly jurisdictions in America, please take a moment to imagine what a day without GRACE would look like. And, then, please take action. Today.

See us on Facebook at "GRACE Saves Lives" or go to our website at www.gracelaw.org and read the instructions for making sure your donation repeats automatically each month on any day of the month that you choose.

Thanks for helping keep GRACE alive!

December 12, 2009

HTX Freezes Over!

Houston, Texas, that is. It snowed! Real snow that accumulated all day! And, there were no new death sentences in Harris County for the second year in a row.

And the Dallas County DA is spending his office resources to set innocent people free. Plus, the new Harris County DA punishes prosecutors in her office for racial discrimination in jury selection.

So, this holiday season, we can cautiously celebrate a sudden and unexpected climate change in Texas. However, the 'ole Lone Star still ain' t so shiny for the fifty men and women living in peril of execution for convictions secured under the old, unconstitutional, Texas statute.

Between 1976 and 1991, nearly 500 Texans were sentenced to die by juries that had been unconstitutionally prohibited from considering their life histories as a reason to choose life. Only about 50 of those prisoners survived to see the day, in 2004, when the Supreme Court finally ruled that Texas courts had been misinterpreting the Constitution for decades. Around two dozen of those inmates have since been granted new sentencing trials and another 20 await similar rulings.

GRACE's Retrial and Resentencing Project has now successfully resolved eleven of these cases, negotiating agreements that saved the client’s life, gave finality to the victims’ survivors and spared both families the retraumatization of a second trial. In several of these cases, GRACE mitigators were court appointed, but in every case our attorneys provided legal services for free -- funded entirely by private donations and grants.

Unfortunately, in some counties, the new commitment to ensuring that the wrong people are not convicted does not extend to making sure that the wrong people are not sentenced to die. Indeed, the same Dallas County District Attorney’s Office that leads the nation in "conviction integrity" has also leapfrogged over Harris County to take the lead in securing death sentences.

Despite the new awareness of junk science in the context of wrongful convictions, the threshold for death eligibility in Texas continues to turn on the testimony of prosecution "experts" endowed with the supernatural ability to see into the future and determine that a defendant (even one they have never met) will, more likely than not, commit criminal acts of violence in the future.

In a resentencing trial, this process of “predicting” a defendant’s behavior in prison becomes even more preposterous given that his prison adjustment has already happened. Sorta like asking a psychic to predict whether you will give birth to a boy or girl – after your child has graduated from college. And, worse, crediting the psychic’s prediction against the evidence of real life.

But, yet, prisoners returned for resentencing are finding little interest among some of the new “smart on crime” regimes in revisiting the capital authorization decisions made decades ago by the old “tough on crime” cowboys responsible for all those wrongful convictions.

This year, Dallas County became the most lethal county in the state, with three new death sentences and one resentencing after reversal. Next year, Dallas County plans to again seek death against two other prisoners returned for resentencing after 22 years and 34 years -- despite the fact that neither of them committed a single violent offense in their decades on death row!! 

GRACE represents both these men, on a pro bono basis, through our Retrial/Resentencing Project – a program funded entirely by private donations.

And, we need your help.

Read the story in the Houston Chronicle here.

June 3, 2009

Danalynn Recer receives NLADA Kutak-Dodds Prize

Danalynn Recer, executive director of GRACE, was awarded the Kutak Dodds Prize on June 3 by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association at the Exemplar Awards Dinner.

The award is given if recognition of her efforts to ensure equal justice for all, regardless of ability to pay.

"Recer’s dedicated efforts toward improving the standards of defending capital punishment cases" said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA president and CEO, "has not only helped provide clients with a fair and appropriate defense but has also served to bring a new awareness to the issue. She has acted as attorney, advocate, investigator and leader in improving the prospects of those facing the possibility of death.”

Click here to read the press release. 

Danalynn Receives the Kutak Dodds Award

Click Here to see pictures from the evening.

Fragile Gavel Award Presented to
Judge Jeannine Barr

“Fragile as reason is (and as limited as the law is as the institutionalized medium of reason), that's all we have between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feelings.”
              --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter

In 2009, GRACE is proud to present the Fragile Gavel Award to Harris County District Judge Jeannine Barr, who had the courage to prohibit prosecutors from using their peremptory strikes to bar African-American citizens from jury service.  In refusing to wink and nod at the “race-neutral” explanations of two prosecutors who used 60% of their strikes to eliminate all African-Americans from a jury panel, in resisting the gravitational tug of business-as-usual and “this is how we’ve always done things,” Judge Barr’s firm adherence to the letter of the law sent a clear message that the Harris County District Attorney’s Office would be no longer be immune from constitutional imperatives and that Houstonians of color will no longer be excluded from one of the most important roles a citizen can play in our democracy.

Judge Barr is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and a graduate of LSU law school (1985).  A former English teacher, she served as a Harris County Assistant District Attorney (1986 –1994) before being elected to the 182nd District Court in November 1994.  She is currently serving her fourth term.  Judge Barr is a longtime member of the Houston Bar Association’s Night Court cast, which performs an all-lawyer musical review each year.  She is married to former District Judge Jim Barr and together they enjoy traveling as much as possible.

Click Here to Read more about the Fragile Gavel Award.

May 15, 2009

What a Day!!!

Here at GRACE, we've been fortunate enough to savor quite a few victories in our seven years, but the past 24 hours must top the list as BEST DAY EVER!!!

Yesterday morning, a young man with whom we have been working for almost a year entered a life-saving plea bargain. That afternoon, we learned that our presentation to the US Attorney General on behalf of a federal capital defendant was successful and that the death penalty would be waived. This morning, we entered into an agreement with the Harris County District Attorney to spare the life of a client who had served 20 years on death row and been sent back for a new sentencing trial three years ago. And, an hour ago, one of our few post-conviction clients, whom I have been representing for over a decade, won a new hearing on four issues!

What a wonderful feeling to see the hard work of all the GRACE staff and volunteers result in such life-saving outcomes! About the only thing that could spoil this moment is the knowledge that GRACE may soon be eliminating several of the projects and positions that made these victories possible. Due to loss of donors, elimination of funded programming and state court judges who cut our vouchers, GRACE may soon be forced to greatly reduce our pro bono services -- including the Retrial Project which has been so successful at negotiating life sentences for former death row inmates.

In an attempt to continue our current level of pro bono services and hang on to our current staff, GRACE is completely reworking our funding plan. We are seeking to develop a large base of small private donors who will enroll to make automatic monthly donations. The idea is to stabilize GRACE and replace our dependence upon a few large, unpredictable, funders with a big community of small, steady donors. These automatic monthly donations of $10, $20, $50 or $100 a month, from private individuals will add up to give us a reliable monthly income that can be used to fund our pro bono work and to compensate for slashed vouchers in our court appointed work.

It's a tough economic time for everyone, of course, but if you can spare even as little as $10 a month, please enroll as an automatic monthly donor, and please, invite all your Facebook friends to join GRACE Save Lives and support this life-saving work.

April 2, 2009

Jose Briseno Receives a Stay of Execution

Congratulations to GRACE board member Dick Burr!

On April 2 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Mr. Briseno a stay of execution to consider whether the jury was given proper instructions to consider mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial.

Below is a statement from his attorney and GRACE board member, Dick Burr:

 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today stayed the April 7 execution of Jose Briseno to consider whether Mr. Briseno’s jury was allowed to give appropriate effect to the mitigating evidence of childhood deprivation, abandonment by his parents, limited intellectual functioning, alcoholism and drug abuse, and lifelong poverty introduced on his behalf in the penalty phase of his trial.  The Texas courts have wrestled with this issue in numerous cases since 1989, when the Supreme Court first addressed this problem with the Texas capital sentencing procedure.  A 2004 decision by the Supreme Court has given the Court of Criminal Appeals reason to revisit this issue in cases involving crimes that occurred before September 1991.

Mr. Briseno has gained worldwide support, with people petitioning the Governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles from 22 countries in his quest for clemency, due to his extraordinarily positive contributions to the lives of many people since his incarceration on death row in 1992." 

Read the story in the Houston Chronicle here.



June 3, 2009

Danalynn Recer receives NLADA Kutak-Dodds Prize

Danalynn Recer, executive director of GRACE, was awarded the Kutak Dodds Prize on June 3 by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association at the Exemplar Awards Dinner.

The award is given if recognition of her efforts to ensure equal justice for all, regardless of ability to pay.

"Recer’s dedicated efforts toward improving the standards of defending capital punishment cases" said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA president and CEO, "has not only helped provide clients with a fair and appropriate defense but has also served to bring a new awareness to the issue. She has acted as attorney, advocate, investigator and leader in improving the prospects of those facing the possibility of death.”

June 25, 2009

George Rodriguez Awarded $5 Million

GRACE Board member, Mark Wawro, won $5 million for George Rodriguez, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. GRACE provided the fact investigation in 2004, which helped exonerate Mr. Rodriguez.

Read more about George Rodriguez here.