About seven years ago, I started writing to prisoners on Death Row. After much research, I decided to keep in regular contact with Gerald Marshall #999489, who is imprisoned in the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas.
Due to my work on the #SaveWILG campaign, I did not keep up the commitment I had made to Gerald. I am deeply sorry about this. I still talk about Gerald and the harshness of his sentence. Indeed, I was only talking about him last week and made a decision to get back in touch with him.
Imagine my surprise then, when I received a letter from him yesterday morning. I will be replying to him very quickly, as I believe in him and the merits of his case. I want to use this blog to highlight the injustice against Gerald Marshall, and help him in any way I can. He is in urgent need of a decent standard of legal representation. There is little I can do to help him in this respect, but I can communicate with him and find ways of offering hope.
You may be thinking, why the hell am I bothering with someone from Death Row? I know there are plenty of differences between us, but I can only see the similarities. We are both trapped and imprisoned, we are both authors, we are both artists, we are both sexually frustrated and we are both victims of a political system gone wrong.
I know that he made a choice to go down the wrong road, while I had no control over my genetic make-up, but I want to help someone who had a traumatic upbringing and has been the victim of a glaring injustice, as you can see in the details of his case that I have copied from his excellent website below.
I will not be sharing the letters written between Gerald and I, as they are personal letters between two friends. However, I will be keeping you up to date with Gerald’s progress and the multiple ideas I have to help him, as I know how it feels to be redundant of hope.
***
GERALD’S CASE –
In order to understand the injustices that Gerald faces and how we can help him you will have to get a general understanding of the people involved. Here is a list of the people involved:
Gregory Love – Love is the manager who set up the inside robbery.
Kenny Calliham – Kenny is a co-defendant, and testified against Gerald at his trial. He is also friends with the shooter, Ronald Worthy.
Ronald Worthy – Worthy is the person who shot Christopher Dean and Calliham’s close friend.
THE CASE ACCORDING TO TEXAS STATE PROSECUTORS –
In the early morning hours of May 11, 2003 a robbery occurred at a Whataburger on the north side of Houston Texas. During that robbery Christopher Dean was killed.
Police found no hard evidence at the crime scene to point them in the direction of the killer. There were two witnesses there at the scene, Tony Ketchum and Wilbert Marsh. Both gave statements to the police on the date of the incident, and Mr. Marsh gave another statement on May 27th, 2003.
In all three statements the robber who came in the restaurant was described as a dark-skinned male, in his 20’s with a slim build, holding a shiny gun in his left hand.
Houston Police Department’s first break in the investigation of the crime was an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers on May 12, 2003. The caller said that the police should focus their investigation on the Greenspoint area of Houston and look for “Bo” and “Tank”. The Crime Stoppers caller identified “Bo” as the killer, and when pressed for “Bo’s” address gave “Bo’s” address. The caller admitted that Bo admitted to the caller that he had murdered the deceased.
In the following days Gerald “Tank” Marshall, Ronald “Bo” Worthy, Kenny Calliham and Greg Love were arrested. Police research learned that the robbery was in fact and inside job where Love would give the money over willingly and no one would get hurt. The question then became who killed Christopher Dean. Gerald Marshall or Ronald Worthy.
GERALD’S INNOCENCE
Gerald went to trial and was charged of being the trigger man during the fake robbery. There were several people who testified at his trial. Those people are:
Clarence Green (jail house snitch)
Green was facing 25 years to life in prison for physically assaulting his wife and a female police officer. Green went from facing a life sentence to a one-year sentence for testifying against Gerald. Saying Gerald told him he committed the murder.
Tony Ketchum (store clerk, eyewitness)
Ketchum was an employee who was at the Whataburger. He testified he was not able to see the shooters face when he came in, but in his statement to police he stated that he saw the shooter coming in the window with a silver gun in his left hand. Ronald Bo Worthy is left handed. Gerald is right handed.
Wilbert Marsh (store clerk, eyewitness)
Marsh, another employee at the Whataburger restaurant, testified at Marshall’s trial as the key witness. He too – with Ketchum – stated a person entered the drive through window with a silver pistol in his left hand. He also said that the person who entered the store was the person who shot Dean. The officer who lead the investigations, showed Marsh a photo line-up with suspects after the crime and said that Marsh immediately picked out a person and that person was not Gerald Marshall.
Dennis Meyer (prisoner housed with co-defendants)
Dennis Meyer, a prisoner with 25 convictions on his criminal record, was housed in jail with Calliham and Worthy. Meyer testified that he helped them prepare affidavits to lie on Marshall saying that he was the person who did every thing. He also testified that he heard the plotting to write affidavits; also that Worthy said that he went into the store but didn’t want to put that into the affidavit. This would show that Worthy was the person in the store and who killed Dean. Both Marsh and state prosecutors said that the one person went into the store – the shooter.
After Meyer gave this knowledge to the police in an interview, the prosecutors offered
Meyer a time reduction to testify against Calliham and Worthy. From the court documents it is evident that Calliham is protecting Worthy and Worthy entered the Whataburger, as he told Meyer but didn’t want to include it into evidence.
At Gerald’s trial the state put these witnesses on the stand and the jury believed their lies and inconsistent testimony, convicted Gerald then sentenced Gerald to death.
GERALD’S INNOCENCE –
It is important to realize that Gerald was a part of the inside robbery, but he was not the actual killer. Here is the evidence that we believe shows that Gerald is not the killer:
Eyewitness Misidentification –
Eyewitness Misidentification occurs when a victim or eyewitness to a crime says that they saw some one, and then subsequently picks the person, the wrong person out of a photo line- up or live line-up. Both types of line-ups consist of potential suspects being showed to witnesses, along with several people who had nothing to do with the crime.
Numerous studies have been published about the fallibility of eyewitness identifications. Most notably a psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus pioneered the scientific study into eyewitnesses who chose the wrong person during line-ups. Her findings concluded that once an officer investigating a crime has a specific suspect in mind, he begins to give subtle hints to any witnesses who were at the crime scene, he is telling the witness who he thinks the robber/killer or rapist is. Most times, according to Loftus’ research, this process starts off with the cop who suspects a person. He interviews the witnesses and gives them subtle hints as to who they should point out, but because the witness has not seen any one he gets no positive identification. The officer doesn’t stop there; he insists and supports the witnesses’ cooperation by showing photos of the potential suspect. After showing the witnesses photos of the potential suspect, the officer takes the witness to the police station and gives them a photo line-up.
When the witnesses are shown for a second time a photo of the suspect the police think us responsible for the crime, they pick out the person the officer showed them days earlier. Then they are given a live line-up where the suspect is shown for the third time to the witness. Naturally they pick this person out of the line-up. After these identifications the police think that they have what they need to convict at a trial and a trial begins. At the trial the witnesses will testify that the person they saw commit the crime is the same person on trial that day. They then give an in-court identification pointing to the defendant, in most cases this in-court identification is all juries need to send an innocent man to death row. It is what happened in Gerald’s case.
Misidentification in Gerald’s Case –
Wilbert Marsh is the main reason that Gerald Marshall was convicted for shooting Dean. He testified at trial that he saw Gerald that night, and that Gerald was the person who shot Dean. According to the court transcripts, Marsh saw the shooter that night while the shooters face was covered. The parts that were covered were the eyes and the mouth.
Two days after the crime Marsh was given a photo line-up. In the photo line-up were Gerald Marshall and several suspects. Marsh picked out a dark-skinned man, not Gerald Marshall. The officer who gave Marsh the photo line-up said that Marsh immediately picked out that person. He picked out a suspect named Robinson. According to the officer there was a “strong resemblance” between Bo Robinson and Bo Worthy (dark-skinned, tall, skinny).
During Gerald’s trial Marsh would testify that he was given a photo line-up and he picked Gerald out. He would also point at Gerald during trial saying that he was the person he saw, the person who shot Dean.
There was some compelling evidence that came out during Gerald’s trial as well. Before Gerald’s trial investigator Harry Johnson interviewed Marsh where he found out that Marsh had been given a second photo line-up, during this line-up he picked Gerald out. But before he was given the second photo line-up he was told by an officer that he picked out the wrong person the first time.
Excerpt from Gerald’s Trial Transcript: Testimony of Harry Johnson (A) about interviewing Wilbert Marsh.
Q. Did he tell you whether or not he was able or did identify in that photo spread?
A. Yes sir, he identified some one in the spread.
Q. He told you he did?
A. Yes sir he said he picked some one out.
Q. And did he tell you the person he identified was the person who entered the restaurant and shot the complainant in this case?
A. Well he said he picked some one out but he was told he had picked the wrong person out.
Q. But did he tell you that the person he picked out was the person he was identifying as the person who came in the restaurant and shot the man?
A. Yes sir…
This testimony shows that it is evident that the eyewitness was told to pick put Gerald during the second photo line-up, Gerald was the only person in the first photo line-up and the second line-up. He is the only person of all his co-defendants to be put in a line-up.
We believe that even though Marsh picked out Gerald during the second photo line-up identification officers suggested that Gerald was the person they wanted him to pick out. This is blatant eyewitness misidentification, and the number one reason why Gerald Marshall is currently on death row.
SNITCH TESTIMONY
Next to eyewitness errors, criminal informants, or “snitches”, play a major role in the wrongful conviction phenomenon. According to the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School, 11.6 percent of documented wrongful convictions have been traced to false informant testimony.
Judge Trott of the Ninth Circuit Court commented:
“Never has it been more true than it is now that a criminal charged with a serious crime understands that a fast and easy way out of trouble with the law is not only to have the best lawyer money can buy or the court can appoint, but to cut a deal at some one else’s expense and to purchase leniency from the government by offering testimony in return for immunity or in return for reduced incarceration.”
Snitch testimony in Gerald’s case:
Clarence Green is what you call a habitual criminal. A habitual criminal is a person who has been to prison three times or more, and because he has such an extensive criminal record if he is arrested for another major crime he is automatically faced with 20 years to life in prison.
Green was facing 25 years to life for physically assaulting his wife and a female police officer testified that he was put in a holding cage with Gerald for five minutes in which Gerald secretly confessed that he killed Dean. In his letter to police and prosecutors he wrote that Gerald said the fake robbery occurred at a Wendy’s but on the stand he said he was mistaken, he said Wendy’s because he liked it.
Green went from facing a life in prison to a one year sentence for testifying against Gerald. It is evident from the lengthy time he was facing that he would say anything to get out of jail. States all over America have taken notice to the unreliability of snitch testimony; some do not allow it to be used all together, even in Texas laws have been passed severely restricting the testimony of snitches. We are confident at a new trial Green would not be allowed to testify against Gerald under these new Texas laws.
RONALD BO WORTHY KILLED CHRISTOPHER DEAN
* All of the evidence that was collected pointed to Ronald Bo Worthy being the shooter of Christopher Dean.
1) The three statements taken from witnesses Marsh and Ketchum stated that the shooter was described as a dark-skinned male in his 20’s with a slim build, holding a gun in his left hand. In May 2003 at the time of Worthy’s arrest he was listed at six feet one inch and weighing 195 pounds. He is a dark-skinned African American, and he is left handed. All descriptions from the eyewitness pointed to Worthy.
2) The Crime Stoppers tipster told police that Bo and Tank were involved with the fake robbery but they also told police Bo Worthy said that he’d killed Dean, and gave the police the correct address for the killer.
3) Worthy committed a theft before going to commit the fake robbery. At the theft there was a bullet found on the ground that matched the bullet that was inside Dean. This put Worthy in possession of the murder weapon minutes before the fake robbery occurred.
4) Ronald Worthy and Kenny Calliham are best friends and put the entire robbery on Gerald. Kenny said that Worth never went inside the store but chased the car when he got out of the vehicle. In addition to this Kenny and Ronald were housed together in the county jail. When there are several prisoners charged with the same crime, they are “kept separate”. In Gerald’s case he was kept separate from Worthy and Calliham, but they were put in the same tank together. Here is where Worthy admitted to going into the store but changed it – according to Dennis Meyer.
5) Worthy discarded “bloody clothing” to keep police from finding them.
Police officers took Worthy from the county jail to look for the murder weapon, while doing so he allowed Worthy to use his cell phone. He called his girlfriend P. Pitts. When police talked to Mrs. Pitts they found out that she threw away Worthy’s clothes at his demand, and that they had blood on them. Here is the statement from the police reports:
“Ronald Worthy would tell us many lies on the night of May 14, 2003. He would take investigators on a wild goose chase looking for evidence in this murder. He would also be allowed on several occasions to use my personal cellular phone so that he could call his family members. One of the people he would call would be a neighbor to his girlfriend. We would learn that his girlfriend had destroyed evidence by throwing bloody clothing into a waste management dumpster at Worthy’s direction…”
At no time was the fact that Mrs. Pitts or the fact that she threw away bloody clothing talked about at Gerald’s trial. This evidence was located in the police reports and never brought up by Gerald’s attorneys or prosecutors, it is just another piece of evidence that shows Gerald did not shoot Christopher Dean. He is innocent of the crime that he was sent to death row for.
