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Urgent Call for Letters: APPEAL FOR CLEMENCY FOR FREDDIE LEE WRIGHT
Freddie Lee Wright is sentenced to be executed on March 3rd. He was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death as a result of the State's suppression of evidence that would surely have led to his acquittal.
Freddie's case demonstrates
a grotesque miscarriage of justice and is a clear example of the urgent
need for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Please write Gov. Don
Siegelman urging clemency for Mr. Wright and also support for Sen. Sanders'
(Alabama) moratorium legislation (Contact information follows case).
On December 1, 1977, the owners of a Western Auto Store in Mount Vernon, Alabama were killed during the course of a robbery. Shortly afterward, the police arrested a suspect known as Theodore Otis Roberts, based upon an eyewitness's identification of Roberts. The State then positively identified as the murder weapon a handgun traced to Roberts, whose girlfriend corroborated that the gun belonged to Roberts in a statement which she gave to the police.
About 7 months later,
Roger McQueen was taken from Parchman Prison (Mississippi) where he was
serving time for an unrelated crime, and brought by the Alabama authorities
to a motel for questioning about the Mt. Vernon murders. Under duress,
he implicated himself, Percy Craig, Reginald
Tinsley, and Freddie
Lee Wright, stating that Wright was the triggerman. McQueen and Craig
both confessed to the robbery and avoided charges on the count of murder
by offering to testify against Wright. Roberts was released, and
Freddie Lee Wright was indicted for the capital crime of murder.
It took two trials to convict Freddie. In violation of Court Orders to produce any exculpatory evidence to Freddie's lawyers, the State suppressed the evidence it had against Theodore Otis Roberts. Even without this evidence being available to his defense, Freddie's first trial ended in a mistrial, voting 11 to 1 for acquittal.
At the second trial, the
State excluded blacks from the jury, and besides the testimony of
Roger McQueen and Percy Craig, produced a new witness named Doris Lambert,
a former girlfriend of Freddie's who testified that Freddie had confessed
the murders to her. The date she gave of his said
confession was several
months before the murders occurred. Her testimony was the only difference
(aside from the all-white jury) between the first and second trials, and
resulted in Freddie's conviction and sentence of death.
The state concealed that
they had records of Lambert's mental instability covering at least five
years up to the time of the trial. Her psychiatric symptoms included hearing
her dead father speaking to her,
fantasizing about murder
and suicide, requiring psychiatric medication, and a history of drug use.
She had also expressed to her mother, upon learning of Freddie's plan to
marry, that she would "see him dead" before that happened.
It was also revealed later
that the State had made a deal with Roger McQueen and Percy Craig
permitting them to plead guilty to the much lesser charge of robbery in
exchange for their testimony against Freddie. This would allow McQueen
to get away without having to serve a day in jail for
his role in the murder.
In 1996, McQueen freely recanted his testimony against Freddie, stating
in open court that Freddie Lee Wright had not killed the Greens and that
the State had induced him to testify against Freddie by promising him this
deal. For his part, Percy Craig walks the streets of Mobile today a free
man.
Freddie Lee Wright has already lost his youth, his health, and 22 years of his life as a result of a this outrageous miscarriage of justice, and unless he is pardoned or at the very least stayed, will die in the electric chair onMarch 3rd. Write to the Governor of Alabama to urge him to grant clemency to Freddie and to follow the example of Governor Ryan of Illinois to support a moratorium in his state against the Death Penalty. Address your letter to the governor:
The Honorable Don Siegelman,
Governor, State Capitol, Room N-104
600 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery,
AL 36130
but send it to Freddie's attorney:
Brian McDonough, Esq.,
Drinker, Biddle & Reath
One World Trade Center,
NY, NY 10048
For further information
contact <mbarne@sonic.net> Millie Barnet
(707)546-0778,
or Wendy Fancher (205) 925-1659 (Birmingham).
Freddie Lee Wright, #Z-389,
Holman #3700 Rm. 8-U-7, Atmore, AL 36503-3700
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