Last Meal : Darrel Grayson - The Problem with Alabama

"Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed." ~ Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

“The poor quality of indigent defense is still the ugliest scar on capital punishment in America.” ~ Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama in a NY Times article published June 9, 2009.

I’ve been taking turns at the easel with the Darrell Grayson Last Meal painting that I began this past summer and while it’s been kicking around the studio the whole time, it is more often than not covered. This serves two purposes – it keeps me from brooding over what has to be changed to move the composition forward and saves me from answering any questions about the innocence of Darrell Grayson. There are a myriad of issues surrounding the debate about capital punishment and innocence is not the only one.

As I’ve written previously, Grayson was executed in Alabama in 2007 for the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1982; while he freely admitted being capable of committing the crime, he had been drinking heavily and reportedly had no memory of that evening. While physical evidence was collected at the scene of the murder, the State of Alabama repeatedly refused requests to have a DNA test performed that would either confirm or deny his involvement. A black man with little income, he was represented at trial by a court-appointed divorce lawyer with no experience in capital cases and was convicted by an all white jury. (His last meal, by the way, consisted of a cheese omelette and sliced tomatoes.)

The lack of representation in capital cases is a particularly troubling issue throughout the United States, but particularly in Alabama which has a long history of ineffective legal support of capital defendants and which has no public defender’s office. Following conviction (in trials that often take days as opposed to weeks as in other states) death row inmates are often forced to navigate the appeals process without any legal representation even when new evidence has come to light that might prove their innocence. There is also no legal requirement or procedure by which an inmate can obtain DNA testing of evidence, nor any requirement that that evidence be held, meaning that the evidence by which an inmate might be able to prove his innocence may actually be destroyed before he has secured access to it.

In a state in which judges campaign for office on the promise to use the death penalty and can overturn a jury’s sentence (and many do – almost a full quarter of Alabama’s death row inmates are there due to a judge overriding a jury’s lesser sentence) it is imperative that defendants receive the best defense possible, however the small amounts paid to public defenders is so low as to be laughable. To my mind, a black man who finds himself in Mobile might just want to keep moving on up the road.

To quote Ken Silverstein in his article, "The Judge as Lynch Mob" (from Machinery of Death, edited by David and Mark Dow, 2002)

“Alabama’s death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor – 95 percent are indigent – and they are in the racial minority. Blacks make up just 26 percent of Alabama’s population, but 46 percent of death row, higher than the national average of 43 percent.…[T]he lingering effects of Jim Crow attitudes on the state judiciary are obvious: there are few black trial judges in Alabama, the court of criminal appeals is all white, and the only two African Americans on the Alabama supreme Court were both voted out in November 2000.”

This post is admittedly brief, but there’s plenty of information available for those wishing to learn more about the application of justice and the death penalty in Alabama. Aside from the abovementioned NY Times article and the collection of essays in Machinery of Death (which is recommended reading in my house), the American Bar Association has issued a damning report of Alabama’s justice system and recommends a number of changes, as well as a full moratorium on executions in the state. For current stories and more information on issues of racial bias and inadequate counsel surrounding the death penalty, visit the Equal Justice Initiative website.

WTF is wrong with Texas? More on Cameron Todd Wilingham and the Last Meals Paintings

It seems I can’t shake off thoughts about the Cameron Todd Willingham story and it’s a good thing – it means a lot of citizens of Texas won’t be able too either. While I’ve long believed capital punishment is a grievous wrong, the execution of an innocent man must give pause to even the most ardent supporter of the death penalty.

The crime he was accused and convicted of was shocking – the murder of his 3 young daughters in a deliberately set house fire. As it turns out, however, the fire Willingham was executed for in 2004 was likely accidental.

“I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit," Willingham said angrily. "I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."

While Texas authorities dismissed his protests, a Tribune investigation of his case shows that Willingham was convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to 4 fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental.

Before Willingham died by lethal injection on Feb. 17, Texas judges and Gov. Rick Perry turned aside a report from a prominent fire scientist questioning the conviction."~ Chicago Tribune, December 2004

In the 5 plus years since the Chicago Tribune article, evidence continues to mount that the fire was not deliberately set.

Last Meal: Cameron Todd Willingham was the second in my series of paintings about the death penalty and quite possibly the most taxing mentally. Aside from the chilling details of the case, the difficulty I routinely have in preparing and eating the requested meal in preparation of the composition (I’m already squirming to remove myself emotionally from the process by introducing the technical aspect of the work) was multiplied by Willingham’s symbolically grim request of 3 BBQ ribs. (I could barely choke them down, so I’m not sure how he did.) Revealing to my friend, Ed that I actually ate the meal prior to painting it, he wrote that it “help[ed] make sense of the unnerving intimacy of [the] paintings.”

These paintings are deeply intimate to me and because of this, I rarely discuss them in any detail; I do not want to appear to inject myself into someone else’s tragedy, but wrestle with the fact that I create them to encourage debate around the issue. If I don’t dust them off and talk about them, who will?

While I didn’t know Todd Willingham or his family, I can not consider his case without imagining what it must be like to lose your children to a fire you witnessed, be arrested for their murders, grieve alone in prison, lose your wife, and spend 12 years on Death Row to be executed, knowing that evidence of your innocence was submitted to the state in time for a stay. Choke on those ribs? I choked on them every day that I stood in front of that painting and that's nothing compared to the anger Willingham likely felt.

Which brings us circuitously back to Governor Perry and today’s news in this 18 year old story.

Texas Governor Rick Perry’s decision to replace 3 members of the Texas Forensic Commission on the very day they were to review the evidence in the Cameron Todd Willingham case is extremely troubling; not only was today’s widely anticipated meeting cancelled, it is reported to have set the Commission’s work back by several weeks.

The clip below from this evening's news features reactions to Perry's shakeup of the commission by author Kerry Cook ('Chasing Justice') who spent 20 years on death row before being cleared by DNA evidence and Aliece Watts, one of the commissioners replaced by the governor.


So, WTF is wrong with Texas? Looks like it starts at the top.

If you’re reading this on facebook and the clip from tonight’s broadcast isn’t attached, you can check out my blog here.

Cameron Todd Willingham - Evidence Towards the Execution of an Innocent Man in Texas

Last Meal: Cameron Todd Willingham was among the first paintings I completed in my series of work protesting capital punishment in the United States.

Condemned to death in 1992 and executed in 2004 for the alleged murders of his three young children in a house fire, evidence of Todd Willingham's innocence was first publicly reported in the months following his death in a Chicago Tribune article in which noted fire investigators suggested the alleged arson was actually an accidental fire. Fast forward almost 5 years and David Grann's compelling New Yorker piece "Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?" may finally have created enough interest to have a long hoped for moratorium on executions declared in Texas - that most killing-est of states.

A Nightline report on September 17 finally brought the story to primetime television, and as you can see from the clip below, the response by Willingham prosecutor (and now Judge) John Jackson to expert interpretation of the facts is nothing short of chilling. With lawmen like this, it is a wonder that more innocent men aren't executed (and therein lies the argument for an immediate moratorium on executions in Texas, as well as throughout the United States.)

Learn more about the case and sign the petition asking Texas Governor Rick Perry to acknowledge Willingham's innocence or discover more about the particular issues informing the fight for a moratorium on executions in Texas.

This week's playlist.... My Top Ten!

I love the (rare) hot muggy weather Vancouver's been recently blessed with (it almost makes me want to move back to the Maritimes for a sticky summer) so I took an extra day off from my air conditioned office to steal some time at the easel this week.

Painting's a 20 minutes on/ 5 minutes off sort of thing for me, as my eyes are only fresh for 20 minutes at a time (and some days I doubt they're any good that long!) That 5 minutes is often spent standing at my laptop (like now,) but Tuesday I spent those extra minutes crafting a playlist for myself.

There's been much discussion amongst my friends the past few years about each of us compiling our own Top Ten songs to be played in the event of our death. (Selections are often hotly debated, but only after a bottle of bourbon hits the table, of course.) Having yet again been raised as a topic of conversation on Friday, I undertook the challenge and burned my own top ten. Surprisingly, it was harder to find 10 songs to list than 10 influential albums (there always seem to be too few songs and too many albums, but songs - as I'm sure most of you will agree - are really getting down to the nitty gritty.)

My list is below and may or may not contain a few surprises (depending on how well or how long you have known me,) is not at all maudlin, and makes for a good afternoon of painting. It's also a lot of fun to dance around to - I’d be happy to be invited to party that included this set list - except for being dead, of course!)

Much to the chagrin of my neighbours and the amusement of the construction workers on my patio, these are my chosen top ten songs in order of track sequence (I guess they'll just have to get used to it because I'll be playing it for most of the summer) --

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Bettye LaVette (I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise)

RC's Beliefs - Kingsway & Counterrevolutionaries (Brand New Golden Oldies)

Sweet Jane - Lou Reed (Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse)

Kiss Me Deadly - Generation X (Generation X remastered)

Bird on a Wire - Jennifer Warnes (Famous Blue Raincoat)

Hospital - The Modern Lovers (The Modern Lovers)

Gold Lion - Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Show Your Bones)

Gloria - Patti Smith (Horses)

Bad Reputation - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (Bad Reputation)

A Little Rain - Tom Waits (Bone Machine)

Have you ever made a Top Ten (or even considered it, morbidity aside?) What would you choose that I forgot to consider?

New Last Meal Painting Finally on the Easel

I began roughing in Last Meal: Darrell Grayson this morning, but in truth the work itself actually began a few weeks ago. Unlike most of my pieces, which are typically composed and begun in a matter of hours or days, the paintings in the series of death row Last Meals take much longer (no pun intended) to execute.

To research and make a decision on which execution to highlight is difficult for me; while the impetus to select an innocence case is sometimes overwhelming, it is the grey areas within justice, society, redemption and punishment that I ultimately find more compelling. I haven’t met anyone that believed the execution of an innocent person was not a terrible injustice; however opinions vary as issues of race, legal representation, sanity, police misconduct, and evidentiary procedure are raised; and tempers flare as the nature and types of crime are revealed. It is within grey areas such as these that a society defines its humanity.

Preparing and consuming the inmate's last meal can be emotionally draining and some meals are simply more difficult than others. (Take for example, the 3 barbecue ribs from Cameron Todd Willingham’s last meal – executed for the arson deaths of his 3 children in a fire now widely believed accidental, each bone on the plate was both eerily symbolic and repulsive at the same time.) The excesses of some meals (James Colburn’s 6 tins of Coke come to mind) contrast with the simplicity of others (Tookie Williams’ oatmeal) while preparing, serving, and dining result in a host of conflicting emotions, as the complementary roles inmate/chef, guard/state/executioner, and condemned man converge. While I photograph the leftovers immediately following the meal, it is often several weeks before I gain sufficient distance to formalize the composition and actually begin painting.

Which brings us back to Last Meal: Darrell Grayson. Darrell Grayson was executed in Alabama in 2007 for the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1982; while he freely admitted being capable of committing the crime, he had been drinking heavily and reportedly had no memory of that evening. While physical evidence was collected at the scene of the murder, the State of Alabama repeatedly refused requests to have a DNA test performed that would either confirm or deny his involvement. A black man with little income, he was represented at trial by a court-appointed divorce lawyer with no experience in capital cases and was convicted by an all white jury. His last meal consisted of a cheese omelette and sliced tomatoes.

To learn more about Darrell Grayson's case, visit the Innocence Project for news articles surrounding his execution.

Agree with me? Disagree with me? That's what comments are for!

Tags: art death penalty, death penalty art, Kate MacDonald, death row Last Meals, painting

Latest Vancouver Cityscape Finished!

There's nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a piece that you've laboured over (except for perhaps selling it!)

Woodwards Construction with Crane (24 x 36" - oil on canvas) is the beginning of a subtle shift in my cityscapes; the perspective is gradually becoming flatter and pattern has begun to define depth. Going forward, I suspect the 2 dimensional plane might finally overtake my manipulation of the object to "turn in space." The detail is also sharper, perhaps sharper than I am typically comfortable with, as it eschews the motion blur I am so fond of. (That should silence the critics who suggest I am incapable of painting a properly straight line!)

Another cityscape that I am currently working on continues in this vain while a new series using firing range targets (tentatively titled Perforations) may finally break my absolute lock on realism. Only time will tell.

Controversy at Death Penalty Art Show

LAWMAKER TAKES OFFENSE TO CAPITOL ART DISPLAY

Execution Images Removed by Houston Legislator

By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

State Rep. Borris Miles removed two pieces of art from public view in the Texas Capitol Extension on Monday, calling them appallingly objectionable, especially with children milling about.
Miles, D-Houston, removed a color painting showing a black man hanging from a rope. In the background, another black man stands behind bars. Miles also removed a black-and-white illustration showing a man tied to an electric chair with the inscription "Doing God's Work."

The Capitol "is no place for this display," said Miles, who is African American. He said the pieces will stay in his office until someone claims them.

The works were part of an exhibit put up by the Texas Moratorium Network, which is seeking a two-year moratorium on executions.

Scott Cobb of Austin, president of the group, said he intends to speak with Miles.

"The purpose of the show is to spark civic engagement around the issues of the death penalty, particularly the risk of executing an innocent person," Cobb said.

In an e-mail to colleagues, Miles wrote, "I was greeted with these images as I walked through the halls of the extension this morning with my two children, ages five and eight. I consider them to be extremely inappropriate and highly objectionable. Capitol exhibits are supposed to serve a public purpose or be informational in nature. These pictures were hung with no accompanying text or explanation.

"I have spoken with staff at the State Preservation Board regarding the process for selecting exhibits and the oversight responsibility for items selected for display. I am sending these for your review and comment on the pictures and the process by which items for public display in the Capitol and Extension buildings are selected and approved."

Miles later called the displayed works "an innocent mistake." He added that procedures are needed for what goes on display.

Julie Fields, spokeswoman for the preservation board, said the agency does not edit exhibits properly sponsored by legislators — in this case, Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston. Dutton did not immediately return a call for comment.

...travels to the city most likely to execute

Last Meal: Ruben Cantu, the first painting of my continuing series on capital punishment has toured to Houston, TX and is currently on display at M2 Gallery. It was one of 55 pieces chosen for exhibit in Justice For All? Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty and was originally exhibited at the Lombardi Gallery in Austin in May of last year. (A show that the Austin Chronicle proclaimed “nothing short of powerful.” )

Ruben Cantu was seventeen years old at the time of the offence for which he was wrongly convicted. After sentencing, he wrote to the people of San Antonio:“My name is Ruben M. Cantu and I am only 18 years old. I got to the 9th grade and I have been framed in a capital murder case." His last meal consisted of barbecue chicken, brown rice, refried beans and sweet tea. His request for bubble gum was denied.

His innocence is now widely accepted; it is believed that a close family member who fled to Mexico was the actual perpetrator of the crime.

All jury-selected works for are available for viewing on the Justice for All? website and include audio statements by the artists.

My continuing series of paintings protesting capital punishment is regularly updated on the last meals page of my artist website.