James tested negative twice on DNA analysis and tested negative on the gun powder residue test. The gun and the victims were tested for prints and nothing of James‘ was to be found. There was no conclusive evidence that he fired the weapon. You might be wondering how James was convicted and placed on death row for a crime he is factually innocent in. The answer to that would be, racism. New evidence has been acquired after a policy change required the prosecution to hand over some of their trial work. The state prosecution tried to doctor the documents to hide what they had been doing before eventually handing the paperwork over. The prosecution had a spreadsheet of potential jurors for the case. They had outlined and highlighted in bold the races of the potential jurors of colour. These jurors were then struck from the case, making the jury all white. Whilst James, the defendant is an African American man. The new evidence also includes some hand written notes that stated the reasoning that the jurors of colour were struck from the case. The reasons used to say the POC jurors weren’t fit to make a clear judgement were similar to reasons used to justify why white jurors would be able to make a clear moral judgment. This new evidence makes it abundantly clear that the state prosecution used racial juror selection as a means to attempt to get a racially biased jury who would commit James to the worst possible punishment. During the trial the judge of James‘ case identified this issue and reinstated one POC to the jury. Besides the clear racism in this case, you may be wondering how on earth they managed to find James guilty. Well, that’s another story of misconduct. The whole case was based on an interview conducted with James where he seemingly „admits“ to the crime. However, the context around this interview is very important to understand. When James was arrested he was high on PCP, a dissociative hallucinogenic drug used for its mind-altering effects. It was acknowledged that James was experiencing psychosis and so they placed him on suicide watch in a special cell to ensure his safety from harm he might inflict on himself. When you’re on suicide watch, you’re there for a reason, because it has been deemed that you would be a risk to yourself. However, they removed him from this cell and this is when the interview was conducted, when he was still high on PCP. This interview should have never been allowed to take place and therefore it should not have been allowed to be used as evidence in his case. However, it was, and this was the only evidence used to convict him and sentence him to death. It was recorded that James had requested an attorney twice before this happened but wasn’t appointed council for three days. The interview took place before he was appointed council. If James was given a retrial the interview would be thrown out of evidence, leaving absolutely no evidence for them to convict him. This is why we need your help to make this happen and save this mans life. During the trial, the state also used „evidence“ from the states doctor, who stated that James was a psychopath and therefore it would be unsafe to allow him back into the community, however, this doctor never evaluated James so his beliefs on James‘ mental state cannot be trusted. I have been writing to James for five years now and he is the most kind, loving person. He has been through a tremendous amount of struggle in his life yet he brings so much light to others and he deserves to have a fair trial where he is treated with equality and dignity. Please sign our petition and donate to his legal fees if you can. This will not just help James, but it could help preventing racial juror selection from continuing in the state of Texas.