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Tonight, in Texas, America’s criminal “justice” system executed a Black man, Brandon Bernard, despite the objections of many involved in Bernard’s case.
Bernard, 40, was pronounced dead at 9:27 P.M. His state-sanctioned killing was done by lethal injection.
Bernard was convicted and sentenced to die in 2000, for allegedly being a murder co-conspirator, along with Christopher Vialva, in the 1999 murders of Todd and Stacie Bagley.
Prosecutors had argue that Bernard had killed one of the victims, Stacie Bagley. But new evidence emerged allegedly showing that prosecutors suppressed evidence favorable to Bernard. The death of both Bagleys were apparently caused by the actions of Vialva, who had shot both victims. Vialva was executed in September.
This new evidence led five of the nine surviving jurors to say they would not have voted for the death penalty had this information not been suppressed. Many groups and personalities tried to stop the execution.
Today, Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. said this:
“Today, Brandon Bernard is scheduled to be executed – one of five the Administration has scheduled between now and the end of President Trump’s term in office. This evening, as the world observes Human Rights Day, the Trump Administration is set to execute Brandon Bernard over the objections of the majority of jurors in his trial, and 23 prosecutors, and despite the fact that critical evidence was withheld that would have fundamentally undermined the prosecution’s case for death.”
Even one of the prosecutors changed her mind about executing Brandon Bernard.
Angela Moore, the prosecutor who first fought against an appeal for Bernard, told CBS News she changed her mind because of “the legal reasons, aside from my own personal beliefs, it’s the evidence and what we have found out since. Mr. Bernard did not shoot and kill the victims in this case.”
In the end it didn’t matter. America’s racist criminal justice system has just executed another Black man.
