Jan 7, 2000

Dear Tracy & Dave,
I hope this letter finds you well.  Thank you for the lovely Christmas card. I received before I took sick and had to be hospitalized around the 11th of Dec through the fourteenth due to having a fever a 105.3.  I learned that I  was anemic and need to have a blood transfusion because I had a low blood count.
I received the blood and the fever came back again.  I was taken again to John Sealy in an ambulance.  I was admitted for a day and sent back.  The Following week.  The same thing happened again.  This time they sent me to John Seal and didn't know who requested to see me.  That pissed me off.
Christmas came and went.....The holiday really took a toll on me as well too.  I was felt down through the holidays myself.  Imagine going through what I have went through.  Then, I caught this virus everyone has and caught a cold on New Years Day.
After going back and forth to the Hospital.  My mother came to visit once she heard how sick I had been from some other people from Houston who have relatives here on Death Row.
Last week, on the 29th of Dec., I went to telemedicine at Estelle and I talked to a new doctor about why I had stopped taking the medicine, like, I explained to him, I was dissatisfied  with the results and the side effects it was having on me, which were uncomfortable.  The doctor said that, if I didn't start any taking any I could be dead in six months.  That I was a disaster waiting to happen.  If I was waiting on or looking for a miracle he couldn't sit around with me and wait.
So we talked about another regiment of medicines and I have started them already.  We'll do conduct some more blood work to see if the medicines are doing what they are suppose to do.  If not its back to the drawing board again to see what would be appropriate in the future for me.  The downside to this is that if the medicines don't work I could possibly still die from other opportunic infections.
On the 1st of Jan., I went to Estelle for telemedicine again.  The doctors just wanted to know how I was coping with the new medicines.  The first dosage gave me diarrhea but I had some other medicine for that.  I took it and the diarrhea stop.
Later, today I was about to take the second dosage the pills got hung in my throat and I started throwing up everything.  I was taken to the clinic they said they couldn't do anything for me when they were supposed to give me a shot to stop the nausea but they didn't.  It really pissed me off that they acted like they didn't know what to do.  When the instructions were right there in the from the doctor.
Now I am back in my cell with mild chills and a stopped up nose along with a bad cough.  Other than that I am allright.  I just wanted to share that with you.  So there you have it in a nutshell from me.
What I wanted to add to my webpage are excerpts from the audio tapes which were found after.  That clearly shows the threatening and bribery involved in this case.  Once you hear what Mr. Fuller say on these tapes you'll agreed with me.  They are block buster.  A private investigator withheld these for six years who was employed by the District Attorney's office in Harris County under Chief prosecutor Johnny B Holmes watch.
People have seen the composite sketch but they haven't heard those though.  I feel once the public hears those tapes they'd be more compelled to act more in our plight.........
Yours truly, Nathaniel Barley

Bessie refused to have her son buried in Huntsville and the cheapest funeral she can find in Houston is $3200.00.  Nathaniel's attorney gave her the 1800.00 left in his account for investigations soBessie still needs  $1400.   Bessie is disabled from a stroke and a single parent.  She desperately needs our help.  The funeral home gave her until next Friday, the 4th of
 Feb. to have the money.
   Please send whatever contribution you can to bury our friend Nathaniel.
                          You can send, it to the:

                          Nathaniel Barley Defense Fund, Wells Fargo Bank,
                                          1500 Waugh Drive, Houston, TX  77019.
                                          The account number is 0436623987.
           The routing number is 590011745.  I don't know if you need that or not.

 Friends, Nathaniel Barley was an innocent man who was in prison over 8  years for something the District Attorney in Houston KNEW he did not do.  The DA hid the evidence that could have exonerated Nathaniel and  Nathaniel's wonderful attorney, Greg Wiercioch, found it 2 years ago,
just 30 days before his state habeas was due.  Between Johnny Holmes, DA, and  the Texas prison system, Nathaniel has been killed, alone, in prison, away from his family. Bessie has worked with the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement for years  and years, overcoming her shyness and her despair to speak out for her son.  She spoke in 1998 when the Journey of Hope was here for our annual  Memorial Day Celebration and was so encouraged by the kind words of so many
of you, including Sonny Jacobs and Miki Dickoff.  She truly believed that  the truth would come out and Nathaniel would come home.  Bessie was in tears when she left the hospital Monday, telling us that she got to touch her son for the first time in 8 years.  She did not know he would be dead the next day, before she got to see him again.   Thanks so much for your help. I know that Nathaniel had pen friends around the US and also in Europe.  I hope each of us will help with what we can.     Cards can be sent to his mom,
Bessie Mitchell
9125 Simmons,
Houston, TX
  77093.
The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement

Death Penalty / He was sentenced to death for committing murder on the grounds of very dubious eyewitness testimony and without any concrete evidence pointing to his guilt. He's been on death row in Huntsville (Texas)
for five years pleading his innocence.  According to his counsel his chance
to escape the lethal injection is " less than five per cent".
Nathaniel Barley, age 33 is a case study against the death penalty.

-    Dieter Arnold, Huntsville

Ellis Unit, Huntsville, on the notorious, worldwide known "Texas Death Row": About 450 men sentenced to die are waiting years and years and sometimes decades for their execution. One of them is Nathaniel Barley, born in Houston on September 27, 1964, two earlier convictions for minor drug felonies. He looks younger than he is, his glasses make him look a little like a student. In the visitors room, from behind a barred windowpane he is telling us for two hours of his ordeal, swearing to be an innocent victim:
  " I haven't done anything.  I'm no robber and no murderer."

                        Attorney is convinced

After the interview we ask David Nunnelee, public information officer of the Huntsville prisons, for his opinion about Barleys story. "Well, you know", Nunnelee replies,   " If I wanted to believe everything that the people around here are telling, everybody would go home tomorrow and the death row would be empty."

Greg Wiercioch, a Houston attorney specialized on defending death row inmates, admits that often times prisoners are putting up fabrications:
"You investigate, you waste a lot of time and in the end you find nothing to back up the claims of innocence."
with Nathaniel Barley, though, it's a whole different story.

Wiercioch has been his counsel since 1996: " He is the most troubling case that I know of. I've never seen so much deliberate or negligent misconduct by the state.   There is no substantial evidence pointing to Barley's guilt."

               An everyday story from Houston

Nathaniel Barley was convicted for allegedly having robbed a convenience store in Houston on the 4th of May, 1991, and for having killed the store owner Cong Duc Nguyen. His inmate file in Huntsville states: "Barley, armed with a pistol, confronted Nguyen as the owner entered his grocery carrying a bag of money. As Nguyen turned toward Barley, he was shot twice. Nguyen was shot a third time after collapsing to the floor. Barley took the money bag and fled. He was arrested after being identified by three eyewitnesses to the crime. Neither the robbery nor Barley's murder trial was mentioned in the local press but with a few lines - much too common is this kind of events in Houston, Texas.

The case, however, is not as clear cut as it seems to be according to Barley's prison file. Barley, who was 26 back then, not only didn't have a history as a violent person, but he also had a regular job with a mail-order service. Neither the murder weapon nor the money - 4000 dollars - were ever found. There were no fingerprints nor any other evidence found at the crime scene that would have pointed to Barley.

He only became a suspect after a notorious drunk and police informant, Jimmy Lee Fuller, tipped him off to the police. Fuller later recanted his story (that was based on mere hearsay, anyway) and said he could not remember anything because he had been totally drunk at the time. Still, with a procedural trick the prosecution succeeded in bringing up Fuller's affidavit as evidence in the trial against Barley.

Although Nguyen's killer had escaped in a car driven by somebody else and with even more passengers aboard, nobody else than Nathaniel Barley was ever pursued or indicted of the crime. In a first photo spread the three eyewitnesses were not able to identify Barley. Only after the police showed them "better" pictures did they believe to recognize Barley as the culprit.

   Composite sketch "vanished"

Barley himself could not prove his alibi. The prosecution suggested a deal: In exchange for a guilty plea they wouldn't seek the death penalty but a life sentence instead. Barley declined categorically. The trial took place, Barley was found guilty and sentenced to death. Since the 3rd of March, 1993, he's been in Huntsville, listed as "Death Row Inmate # 999052".

The first appeals were denied as a matter of routine. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stated that the police had done the identification procedures in a suggestive manner indeed but "not impermissibly so". But in July 1997 Barley's attorney got new information from one of the three eyewitnesses: The police had made a composite sketch of the suspect. The sketch, however, wasn't ever brought up during Barley's trial. Based on a new law Greg Wiercioch in September 1997 demanded and was granted access to the police files. Immediately it became clear why the sketch had "vanished": lt bears no resemblance whatsoever to Nathaniel Barley.

                    "Odds less than five per cent"

The sketch is Barley's trump-ace among a massive array of unfair and improper procedures listed by his attorney in a 70-page-application for writ of habeas corpus. The appellate process currently is in the second of three stages. Theoretically an execution date could be set at any time. Wiercioch puts the odds of being successful with Barley's appeals at "less than five per cent".

"We have a strong case", says Wiercioch, "but I don't want to delude myself. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will get a recommendation by the same judge that presided over Barley's trial. In 99 per cent of all cases the court will rubber-stamp these recommendations, simply because the justices don't have the time to read all the paperwork."  Moreover, says Wiercioch, all the judges in Texas are elected by popular vote:  lf a judge was so courageous to throw out the verdict, I can guarantee you:  When he's up for re-election he will be attacked for having set free a convicted killer."

                         Hoping for the federal judges

Therefore, Wiercioch's hopes are concentrated on the third stage of the appellate process that takes place before federal judges that are appointed by the president and serve with no term limits. Unfortunately the 5th Circuit covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi has "a dreadful reputation regarding death penalties". Dreadful - needless to say - from the perspective of Wiercioch who opposes the death penalty as a matter of principle.

And how does Nathaniel Barley cope with his situation ? "I don't", he says.
" I keep moving, I keep working on my appeals. I can't  just sit around and wait to be framed. I haven't done anything. Every night, before I fall asleep, I ask myself why they hid the sketch. Why would anybody do this to me ?
I don't know." 

In the United States the risk of innocent people being executed due to miscarriage of justice has grown in the last few years. This is what the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) in Washington is saying. According to the 1997 report "Innocence and the death penalty"' the main reason is the political trend of shortening the appellate process (and thus speeding up executions), cutting funds for public defenders, and expanding the use of the death penalty.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the DPIC, estimates that "four or five innocent people, maybe more have been executed" since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated after a short pause. To determine the exact number of people innocently executed is not easy, first of all because it's hard to prove afterwards that an innocent person has become victim of a tragic miscarriage of justice:"You can't appeal to a court anymore, and the attorneys are busy with other cases." The only possibility would be, if the state would admit of having committed an error - "which it hardly ever does", as Dieter adds.

                                Levels of innocence

On the other hand Dieter makes a distinction of "different levels of innocence". The case of Jessie Jacobs is a typical example: In 1986 he was sentenced to death in Texas for having murdered a woman. Seven months later Jacobs' sister Bobbie Hogan was accused of the same murder - and the same district attorney explained to anotherjury that he had come to the conclusion that Bobbie Hogan (not Jacobs) hat pulled the trigger. "Jacobs", says Dieter "was clearly involved with a crime. But he wasn't the killer. But that is exactly what the jury who sent him to death row was told." Jessie Jacobs was executed in Huntsville on the 4th of January, 1995.

A similar example of "qualified innocence" is Henry Lee Lucas, whose execution was stayed in the last moment by Texas governor (and president's son) George Bush at the end of last June. The 61-year-old Lucas is serving six life sentences for various homicides. But with all the evidence known today he most certainly didn't commit the one murder that earned him the death sentence. Consequently the Texas Board of Parole did what it had never done since 1976: It recommended to Governor Bush to stay the execution.

                          From death row to freedom

As difficult it may be to determine the number of innocently executed people, as well proven is the number of death row inmates who were set free. According to Richard Dieter this has been the case in the United States 75 times since 1973. Not included are cases of clemency or death penalties converted to a lesser sentence, Dieter points out, but only cases where the appellate process turned up serious failures of the system or clear evidence of innocence.

"This is a clear sign", concludes the DPIC-study, "that our process for sentencing people to death is fraught with fundamental errors - errors which cannot be remedied once an execution occurs."

 Write to him directly at the address below to show your support or for more information !

                                                        
        Nathaniel Barley #999052
                      Ellis One
               Huntsville, Texas
                    77343 USA

1. Visit the following website read and see Nathaniel Barley's story about
his appeal.    At:  http://www.dellavalle.net/nathaniel.html
Make copies of this story or request copies from his Defense Commitee and circulate them to friends and family, your church, and to progressive organizations.

2. Schedule a meeting where supporters can come speak about his case.

3. Order  copies  of his ink pens  ($1.00)  and  videotaped  interview ($10.00)
that includes footage done by the BBC about his case.

4.  Hold a fundraiser or make a donation so that we can publicize the case & hire investigators.

5.  Write to him and ask him anything you need to know about the case.
  anything you want to know about
  the case:
  Nathaniel Barley #999052
  Ellis One
  Huntsville, Texas 77343
  USA

  Send donations to his defense fund:

or send donations to his mother, Ms. Bessie Mitchell or co-sponsor and Secretary:

Bessie Mitchell, President
Secretary Gloria Rubac
  Nathaniel Barley Defense Fund
  P.O. Box 595
  Houston, Texas
    77001  USA

  Or send donations to the home address of Nathaniel's mother for personal use:     By purchasing an international money order and make it out to.
  Bessie Mitchell
  9125 Simmons
  Houston, Texas 77093

Please send you generous donations for $25, $50, $100 or whatever you are able to contribute
  Or send whatever you can contribute! They may be sent to the  the below and
  the above addresses or directly to the bank. For foreign contributions purchase an international money order and mail directly to the bank:

  Nathaniel Barley Defense Fund
  Account number 0436-623987
  Wells Fargo Bank
  1500 Waugh Drive
  Houston, Texas 77019
  USA

  You may contact his family and supporters at:
  +1 (713) 699 9576

  Write or visit the
  TEXAS COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
  TCADP /  S.H.A P.E. Community Center
        3903 Alameda
     Houston, Texas
       77004   USA
  phone: 1 (713) 521 0629

  Check out their website at :  http://lonestar.texas.net/~acohen/tcadp/
  email: tcadp-post@juno.com

                The CCADP offers free webpages to over 500 Death Row Prisoners
                                             Contact us for more information.
            
                                                   "The Eyes Of The World Are Watching Now"