The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case of John Lezell Balentine, a death row inmate from Texas who argued his capital conviction was tainted by racist jurors – and his own lawyers’ prejudice.
The high court rejected his last appeal on Wednesday without comment, paving the way for his execution later that evening.
Balentine, a Black man, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of three white teenagers Edward Mark Caylor, 17, Kai Brooke Geyer, 15, and Steven Watson, 15, in Amarillo, Texas, SCOTUSblog reports.
“I hope you can find in your heart to forgive me,” were among his last words, according to witnesses at the execution.
Balentine, 54 at the time of his execution, confessed to the crime but said he committed the murder because Caylor disapproved of the relationship between him and Taylor’s sister and threatened him with guns.
At trial the following year, racism impact his conviction, according to Balentine’s attorney.
They argue that the jury, which was all-white but for one person, was led by a foreperson who failed to disclose a violent past, didn’t let other jurors ponder sentences beside execution, and claimed he “would need to hunt [Balentine] down” if he was ever eligible for parole.
Handwritten notes from Balentine’s lawyer’s at the time also contained a message that read, “Can you spell justifiable lynching?”, his attorneys at appeal said.
A Texas judge held last week the execution should be delayed for unrelated procedural reasons, but a Texas appeals court reinstated his death sentence on Wednesday.
The state of Texas argued it was too late for the man to be raising “highly fact-bound questions.”
Randall Sherrod, one of Balentine’s original attorneys, told The Guardian he didn’t remember the note and says he always treated his client fairly.
“I think he got a fair trial,” he said. “I think we had a good jury … We tried to help John whatever way we could.”
Shawn Nolan, one of Balentine’s appeals attorneys, said the Texas man should have had a chance for his claims to be explored before being executed.
"Racism and racial issues pervaded John Balentine’s capital trial," he told Newsweek on Wednesday.
"In light of this highly charged atmosphere, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal’s unwillingness to address issues of bias and misconduct by the jury foreperson who held racist views, and who bullied people favoring a life sentence into voting for death, is all the more problematic."
The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.
