I did a Google News Search and found this. I haven't heard of this source before, but they are opposed to the Death Penalty. In Texas, if you can't do the time/DP, don't do the crime!
Somehow, I feel certain that they are leaving a lot of pertinent information out regarding the witnesses recanting their stories, and the four "strong supporters of the death penalty" petitioning for him to be taken off death row. Interesting. I'd like to find out what the real story is here. I bet he did it.
http://www.news-journal.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/03/06/1046928838.00353.1186.0839.html
AUSTIN — In six days, the state of Texas plans to strap a black man named Delma Banks to a gurney and execute him. If that happens, Banks could become the 300th inmate put to death since capital punishment resumed in 1982. He might well be innocent. Last-minute claims by condemned prisoners are not unusual when execution dates draw near. But in Banks' case, evidence that he was unjustly convicted is compelling enough that former U.S. District Judge and FBI Director William Sessions, joined by two other former federal judges and a former federal prosecutor, have filed court arguments calling Banks' conviction a potential miscarriage of justice and asking that his execution be stopped. All four are considered strong supporters of the death penalty. "The questions presented in Mr. Banks' petition directly implicate the integrity of the administration of the death penalty in this country," the four men argue in a friend of the court brief. "The prosecutors in this case concealed important impeachment material from the defense." In a flurry of last-minute appeals, Banks' lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and Gov. Rick Perry to halt his execution set Wednesday. Evidence developed during years of appeals, they say, shows with remarkable clarity that Banks was unfairly convicted because witnesses lied and prosecutors withheld crucial evidence that support his claims of innocence. Banks was convicted in 1980 of killing 16-year-old Richard Wayne Whitehead in Nash, near Texarkana. No physical evidence connected Banks to the crime, and he was convicted largely on the testimony of two prosecution witnesses. Since then, both of those men, along with several other prosecution witnesses, have recanted their testimony, said George Kendall, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who is representing Banks. More importantly, Kendall said, he has found proof that Bowie County prosecutors knowingly allowed witnesses to commit perjury and did not turn over to the defense a key document that would have seriously undermined their star witnesses' testimony. Neither the Bowie County prosecutor's office nor the assistant district attorney who helped prosecute Banks returned phone calls seeking comment. Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office is fighting Banks' federal appeal, will continue to press for his execution. Kendall argues there is strong evidence that, at a minimum, Banks did not receive a fair trial. Prosecutors did not tell the jury — or Banks' defense lawyer — that one of the two key witnesses was a paid police informant, Kendall said. Farr's recantation was enough to convince a U.S. district judge in 2000 to order that Banks' death sentence be overturned. Three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, overruled that decision. In addition to the state and federal appeals, Kendall has asked Perry to grant Banks a 30-day stay of execution, and is seeking clemency from the Board of Pardons and Paroles. 03-06, State: Former judges, FBI director join effort to prevent inmate's death
By DAVID PASZTOR
