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Feb. 1st, 2010: Life for Gabriel !!! 

About Gabriel:
DoB 03/22/1974
Date of crime 07/20/1994
On death row since 03/26/1997
currently in county jail awaiting a new sentencing trial

Welcome to my ALIVE website!

How would you feel if I told you "130 Innocent People" have been exonerated and released from Death Row? How would you feel, if I told you that Texas leads the nation and almost the entire world in executions and over 432 men, women and children have been executed by the state of Texas. Many of them were innocent and many find themselves warehoused like sardines on death row awaiting State sanctioned murder? What if you knew (at least those documented) that 28 people had been proven innocent too late - after their execution?

Well sadly, all of the above is true (see Death Penalty Information Center) and yet the death penalty persists! This must be changed!!! My name is Gabriel Gonzalez. I am one of the many innocent on Texas death row! I am a Latino and father of 4 precious children and companion blessed to a wonderful fiancé, Carolina that I love more than the air I breathe. They are my light that shines in this darkness, the love that burns in my heart and soul daily and remind me that when a man has a reason to live he can survive under any circumstances and discover the eternal fortitude to overcome. I am a poet, artist and activist involved into the anti death penalty movement and prisoner activism and other social causes in which my fiancé and I share together. I enjoy reading, writing, listening to music, spoken word poetry, learning about different cultures and simply trying to broaden my mind as much as possible. I enjoy also meeting people I can share and build solid friendship with.

I have been illegally imprisoned for 13 years forced to watch my children suffer my absence helplessly and grow up through bullet proof, desolate Death Row visiting room windows and with no physical contact what so ever for a crime I did not commit. In my years on death row subjected to some of the worst indignities mind, body and soul I have come to discover the unjust political nature of my illegal imprisonment, conviction and sentence. I have come to see that I have been sentenced to State sanctioned murder by lethal injection for what the environment considers the crime of being poor and
considered lover class - how do you classify human worth when all human beings have equal worth?

However, here I am!

Gabriel Gonzalez

Overview about the Case

Previous ongoings

In July 1994 Gabriel, who at the time was a CRIPS gang member, met up with his girlfriend Susie at an apartment that was a common place to meet for the gang members. Four young men that he barely knew- DeAnthony, Shawntee, Markett and Sherrard- were around as well, speaking about a robbery that they were planning.
Gabriel concedes vaguely overhearing their conversation from a back room, but growing up in the ghetto and being an active gang member, talk like that was nothing out of the ordinary for him and thus of no big interest to him.
On the eve of the robbery all of them were in Lisa McHenrys apartment, drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. Gabriel was drinking and smoking Marijuana until he was so drunk he could hardly walk. Late at night the guys went to get something to eat and convinced Gabriel to come along. When they came back to the apartment between 3 and 4 am, Gabriel was not with them. Susie, his then girlfriend asked about him and was told Gabriel was passed out in the car. She went out to him, but was not able to wake him up from his alcohol and marijuana inducted sleep.

 
The crime

On the following morning - 20th July 1994- the four young men, DeAnthony, Markett, Sherrard and Shawntee drove to a pawnshop. According to the State Gabriel was the driver of the car. Gabriel himself claims he was still high and drunk asleep in the back of the car and did not notice when the others, their faces covered with bandanas, set off for the pawnshop. At that time the owner of the shop, her daughter, an employee and a customer were inside the pawnshop. The young men told them to get down on the floor and when Louella Hilton, the owner of the shop tried to escape to a room in the back of the shop, one of the men followed her and several times shot at the closed door behind which L. Hilton was hiding, deadly injuring her.
Meanwhile the other men stole 29 weapons in the store and the person who had been shooting emptied the cash register. All of them drove off in the car to Lisa McHenrys apartment where they shared the money and the weapons. Some of the weapons were given to other young men who came by the house and the car they used for the robbery was disposed of.
 

What happened next

During the next 3 days all of them were arrested.
Gabriel did not tell his version of what happened and his girlfriend Susie was never questioned as a witness either. Back then Gabriel was deeply involved in gang activities and the gang code dictated not to snitch on one another. He feared for the safety of his three children and their mothers if he made a statement and for that reason decided to keep silent.
DeAnthony Walker was the main witness against Gabriel; he was 14 at the time of the robbery, also a Crips-member, and just previously released from prison from robbery. When questioned by police and prosecution DeAnthony made contradicting statements and they differed strongly from what he testified in court. He pled guilty for capital murder and testified against the others. In exchange he got an 18 years sentence- without this deal he would have faced up to 40 years.
Lisa McHenry, another important witness, strongly contradicted herself, too, in her statements.
She was given 5 years probation to lie against Gabriel because she had been arrested with a gun used in the robbery and could face the death penalty. She lied to save herself.
The third witness was an eyewitness. He claims to have seen the driver of the getaway car’s profile for a few seconds - across a busy 5 lane highway. He was not able to identify Gabriel until the third try, two weeks after the robbery, after Gabriel’s picture had already been all over the media. Gabriel is Latin and he was the only Latin person at the line-ups, all the other ones were Black.
There is absolutely no evidence against Gabriel. No fingerprints of his were found in the pawnshop or on any of the rediscovered weapons that were stolen during the robbery, nor was any of the stolen money or weapons found in Gabriel’s possession.

 
 
Actual state of affairs

Spring 2009

The new punishment trial is supposed to start in the beginning of May 2009. However it gets delayed indefinitely.

13.05.2008

At a court hearing 12 of the 13 points that Gabriel cited were accepted. The only issue that court did not accept was about his claim that the death sentence violates the constituation.

2008

The evidence and the development of the appeals are showing that there are reasonable doubts of Gabriel’s guilt. He is in county jail awaiting a new sentencing at the moment.

The wrongful conviction of Gabriel Gonzalez                                                                          

By John Albert                                                                                                 
                                                                           

...the life of a street gang hoodlum is educational in some ways, but not conducive to a liberal, academic education. It is to be expected that such a boy, with such a tragic family background, living on the streets, would become a hardened criminal at a young age, perhaps, even a murderer. Such is not the case with Gabriel Gonzalez. He is innocent of the crime he was convicted for. The facts in this case speak for themselves...    

Gabriel was born in New York on March 22, 1974. His Puerto Rican mother was then 23 years old and his Cuban father was 21. His father was epileptic and could not handle a steady job. He lived on a small disability income from social security. His mother worked irregularly at menial cleaning jobs, so the family was always extremely poor. His parents decided that they were not comfortable with the fast-paced, dangerous New York lifestyle, so when Gabriel was about five years old, the family moved to Grand Prairie, Texas. His maternal grandmother, his aunt Millie, and her husband all lived in Grand Prairie. When Gabriel was nine years old, his family, his aunt, and her husband relocated to San Antonio, Texas.

Gabriel’s father was a violent, brutal, mentally-ill man and the family all lived in great fear of him. He was temperamental, violently abusive and had been physically beating and sexually molesting both his wife, his two sons Gabriel and Gregory, and their older sister Damaris, for many years. Due to his father’s epilepsy, his mother always drove the car. One Sunday, as the family returned from church services, his mother announced to his father that she wanted a divorce and wanted him to leave. He slapped her and attacked her there in the car and tried to take the car keys away from her. Both Gabriel and his sister fought with their father in defense of their mother. Gabriel was only 12 years old at the time, but he had built up a great deal of anger toward his father. Although his father was a big, powerful man, and Gabriel was getting the worst of the fight, he kept hitting his father with a fierce violence. The fight ended when his mother pulled Gabriel away from his father as his father succumbed to a grand epileptic seizure there on the sidewalk in front of their apartment. The police had come because his sister had run next door to her aunt’s and called them. When his father awoke from his seizure the police forced him to leave.

Gabriel, his mother, sister, and younger brother, immediately packed their belongings, got in the car and drove to Grand Prairie. It was a very happy trip for the children because they were so relieved by having got rid of their father. A year later they returned to San Antonio so that his mother could be close to her sister, Millie.

In addition to his antagonistic relationship with his father, Gabriel did not have a good relationship with his mother either. He resented her unwillingness to protect him and his siblings from their father. Besides that, she had never been affectionate towards him, there was no emotional bond or communication between them and he did not feel any genuine maternal love from her. He felt abused, unloved, neglected and rejected by everyone in his family, except for his sister, Damaris and his cousin Bekie. They were his sole defenders and confidantes.

In San Antonio his mother became friendly with another man who soon became Gabriel’s step-father. He was a truck driver and a drug dealer who transported cocaine in his truck. He was also a highly domineering and controlling man and mistreated Gabriel and his siblings. There were frequent fist fights between them. So Gabriel left home several times at 13 and 14. By the age of 15 years, he left home for good and dropped out of school. He has had very little contact with any of his family since then and no support from his family. He had joined a street gang at 14 and so he grew-up on the streets of the San Antonio ghetto for the next five years. Street gangs are not actually criminal organizations and are not formed for the purpose of committing crimes. Instead, they develop as family-like substitutes for ghetto children who feel rejected at home. The camaraderie, friendships and brotherly affection is a strong bond that replaces the lost family attachment for these young boys. Juvenile street boys who are attracted to join gangs are at the age of early puberty, when their sense of manhood is just beginning to develop, so the ritual trappings of street gang indoctrination and membership are sometimes harsh and brutal, but that is not due to criminal intent. They are merely children trying to make their way in a hostile world on their own. The criminal influences from their ghetto environment encourage them to turn to petty crime, gambling, drinking and drugs at an early age. It is a part of the normal maturation process for ghetto children.  

When Gabriel Gonzalez was 20 years old, he was having an affair with a girl named Carolina, and while visiting with her on July 18, 1994, he overheard some boys planning a robbery. He met with Carolina at her cousin, Shawntee Simmons house, where he saw DeAnthony Walker, Haywood Grant and some other boys talking and plotting together in the living room as he passed through. He knew Walker, although not well, they were not friends, but Grant and the others he did not know at all. He and Carolina went into a bedroom to spend the evening together while Walker, Grant and their friends discussed their plans in the other room. At one point he went back into the living room to get a package of diapers for Carolina so she could change her baby daughter before putting her to bed. He heard enough to know that they were planning a robbery, and he could hear them talking through the drape over the bedroom doorway, but he was preoccupied with Carolina and paid no attention to their conversation.

The following day, July 19, 1994, Gabriel spent the day with another girlfriend, Susie, and he started drinking early. He was already high when DeAnthony Walker and his friends, Sherrard Williams, Markett Warfield, and Shawntee Simmons came over to the apartment that evening. They had brought some 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor along with them and everyone was drinking and smoking pot. That was a surprise for Gabriel since he barely knew Walker and he did not know the others at all except for having seen them at Simmon’s house the day before. Gabriel had been drinking all day before they came and so he became quite drunk in a short time, he was soon slurring his speech and staggering around.

At about midnight, Gabriel’s friend, Roderick Whitehead, came over and spoke with Gabriel for a while, but Gabriel was too drunk to carry on a conversation so after a short time Roderick left. Shortly after 2 AM, the other four guys persuaded Gabriel to go with them to get something to eat. Gabriel was reluctant to go with them; he was too drunk and tired, but they helped him to the car since he could not walk on his own.

When the four boys returned to the apartment between 3 and 4 AM, Gabriel was not with them. They told Susie that he was passed-out in the car. She went out to the car and found him in a deep, stuporous sleep. She tried to wake him to bring him inside, but he could not be woken, so she left him there, then went to sleep by herself in the apartment. Gabriel was still asleep in the car when the four boys left the apartment, drove to a pawnshop to rob it and shot the owner. Gabriel was not aware of what transpired while he slept in the back seat of the car until he was told about it afterward.  

One day later Gabriel was arrested for a probation violation. Just two days after that, he was charged with the murder of the pawn shop owner.  

The life of a street gang hoodlum is educational in some ways, but not conducive to a liberal, academic education. It is to be expected that such a boy, with such a tragic family background, living on the streets, would become a hardened criminal at a young age, perhaps, even a murderer. Such is not the case with Gabriel Gonzalez. He is innocent of the crime he was convicted for. The facts in this case speak for themselves. It is not unusual to overhear people making plans to commit a crime in the ghetto. When one lives in a high crime neighborhood, one hears discussions of crimes all the time. It is a common, almost everyday occurrence. Since these people were not comrades of Gabriel’s, he would never have become involved in their plans. They would not trust him and he would not trust them. One does not trust strangers that well. Besides, he was not a part of the conversation and only had the vaguest impression of what they were discussing. Haywood Grant, however, testified at the trial that Gabriel was a part of the group planning that robbery. He gave conflicting and contradictory testimony against Gabriel and the others in the different trials. But in fact, Grant had been deeply involved in the planning himself; he was supposed to receive two guns from the pawnshop robbery in return for his part in it. At that time, Grant had charges pending against him for unrelated crimes of burglary, auto theft and trespass. He was exposed to being sentenced for up to 99 years, so he benefited by having all of those charges dropped in return for turning state’s evidence against Gabriel and the others. As a plotter in the pawnshop robbery he was also subject to a death sentence under the law of parties. He had adequate motive to lie in order to shield himself. As well as that, one of the robbers, DeAnthony Walker, named Gabriel as the shooter, and he was convicted on that, and on Grant’s testimony implicating him in the plot. There was also a witness who was parked across the street from the pawnshop and saw the car with the robbers drive away. He claimed to have recognized Gabriel as the driver, but Gabriel was asleep laying down in the back seat throughout the robbery, the murder, and the getaway. Based upon the condition he was in on the night of the 19th and the next morning, he could not have participated in a robbery or a murder. Gabriel’s attorney filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1999. Some significant portions of that petition have been granted by the court, but the final result is undecided and still pending after six years. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded to the lower court for an evidentiary hearing, which was held in September 1999, regarding the conflicting, inconsistent statements by two witnesses which had been withheld from the defense at trial. After the lower court viewed those inconsistent statements, the court found them to be exculpatory in a Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law, and granted a new trial. That was submitted to the Court of Criminal Appeals for their opinion, but the Court of Criminal Appeal has not addressed the issue to date. It would appear that the court has no option other than granting a new trial. It is extremely uncommon for the court to withhold a decision for such a long time as six years, and the court does not explain itself, but they are under no legal requirement to finalize their decision in a timely manner. There is no legal method of reminding the court of its unconscionable delay. A new trial would very likely exonerate Gabriel because there is no evidence placing him at the scene of the crime, no weapon was found, he was not found to have any of the spoils of the robbery, and with Walker and McHenry’s testimony discredited, that leaves only two items of evidence to deal with. Haywood Grant‘s testimony that he overheard Gabriel participating in planning the robbery is untrue and self-serving, but he did not witness the crime. The evidence is that Grant, himself, participated in the planning, not Gabriel Gonzalez. The eyewitness from across the street could not have seen Gabriel driving the car as he claimed, but he did not witness the crime either. There is no valid evidence to convict Gabriel Gonzalez of this crime. Prosecutors always base their decision to prosecute a case on one single consideration. That is whether they believe they can persuade the jury to convict or not. The issue of actual guilt or innocence is never a consideration. If they do not believe they can win a conviction, they will not take the case to trial. It is very likely that in this case they will decide to forgo a second trial, but we cannot count on that. Meanwhile, we are in limbo awaiting the action of the Court of Criminal Appeals.   

Gabriel has three children whom he is devoted to. Two girls, and a boy. He has a profound love and feeling for children and he is strongly committed to devote himself to helping youths get through the teenage years and become responsible citizens with a bright future. He is involved in launching a newsletter written for teenage consumption to reach out to juveniles who face the same problems that he went through. Part of his self-improvement can be attributed to the influence of coming to live in prison on death row at the age of 20. It is a lonely, unhappy, solitary life, but can lead to an enriching introspection for the more intellectually curious minds like Gabriel’s. As unpleasant and difficult as it is, Gabriel has taken advantage of the few positive aspects of prison life and developed a broad understanding of himself and his world grounded in an acceptance of reality. He has managed on his own, without any professional psychological guidance, to analyze, comprehend, and deal with his past life and put it all behind him. He looks forward to leading a wholesome, rewarding life when he is finally exonerated and released.  

Consider the following excerpt from Gabriel’s writings, reproduced here to give the reader some insight into his character:

"Murder. That seems to be the centerpiece that my life revolves around. Texas’ Death Row is my current place of confinement. I’m imprisoned in a 6 by 9 corner of this slaughterhouse, forced to witness the torturous prelude to the execution of the people around me. I’m here, sentenced to die, but that isn’t as simplistic as it may sound. The thought of death, the constant flow of death, living alone in this monotonous lifestyle of Death Row, combines to make a daily dose of lethal, mental and emotional deterioration. "I am dying in here; a part of me is dying every day. But actually, I am faring well by comparison with some of the other men here. Maybe it’s because I’m still young and considerably stubborn minded. Maybe it's the fear that runs through me when I witness men slowly slip into different stages of dementia. I can honestly say that I do not fear dying, but I do fear losing all sense of myself as a human being before dying. When a man mops his cell down with feces or urinates on the floor, as if to mark his territory like an animal, his human self is no longer intact. He is no longer a part of society, not even of prison society. He is merely subsisting on the peripheral edge of everyone else’s consciousness. In other words, no one gives a damn about him. It is the indiscriminate rapidity with which this craziness strikes that I fear the most.

"The atmosphere of the building that Death Row prisoners are housed in is seemingly designed to drive us out of our minds. It is as if the prison administrators are deliberately driving men insane so that they match the sensationalized image of a Death Row murderer that they represent in the administrator’s minds. Perhaps they believe that it is easier to kill a man thought to be crazy, over one who is still coherent and desperate to remain alive. I do not know, but that appears to be the theme here.

"There are no televisions, no craft programs; there are no work programs, nothing to occupy one’s mind, and prisoners are locked in their cells 23 hours out of every day. From the moment they come here, until the day their remains are wheeled out, visitation, mail, showers, and one hour of single-man recreation are the only variations. Recreation consists of one hour alone, in a cage slightly larger than the one we are forced to live in. Every day living here is a constant strugg1e to maintain the desire to live. Many men are finally eager to go down to the executioner. Their constitution has been murdered. Their strength has been murdered. Their desire for life has been murdered. What is there left, to sustain life? That is a question I hope that I never have to ask myself.

"For now, I know that I have much to live for, but sometimes, the constant killing of men around me makes all that I have left in life seem mediocre compared to all that I have to live with."

Artwork

UNSUNG SOULJERS

Young Lords and other unsung souljers who have been                               
Getting down
Down in prison                                    
Down throughout time
Never having heard their song put to rhyme
Miguel “Micky” Melendez, Lolita Lebron, Filiberto Ojeda, Jose Marti
Souljers near to the ground
Ready for the next round
Having always lived grassrooted
Never having been uprooted                   
But Always having their lives looted
Who will sing their songs                    
When the drama of their lives moves on?
YOUNG Lords/Los Macheteros?
Los Independistas Puerto Riqueño—always down
Down throughout time
Near to the ground
Always getting down
Never uprooted
Rooted to the soul of a righteous fight
Our unsung Souljers                    
Who have turned on the lights for us
Who will carry on their flight?
Who will uplift their songs?
They have not heard the rap of your songs—your poems
Your voice is unheard
Though they have always heard your blues
They fought for you                      
While you were unaware
You were people not knowing why                     
Or for what to care
Yet kept a Movement Alive                     
That you have benefited from                     
And squandered
Today they can’t get a song from you                     
A rap from you

DIGNIFIED

“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”
                                                              Emiliano Zapata  

A brother asked me whether a state
sanctioned “Murder sentence” is
better than reactionary suicide???
And I answered by saying that it is,
For some of us,
Because regardless of guilt or
innocence, some of us
are challenging these murder
sentences, refusing to lay
down to it and sleep with it,
having courage enough to fight
for FREEDOM day and night
to reunite ourselves with everyone and
everything we know
and LOVE!  

Yes, I believe it’s better for
some of us, for those of us refusing to forfeit
being the men
we were born to be, the men our
families so desperately
need us to be—protectors,
providers and riders
in the sense of being active
men to our community, fathers
to our children,
husbands to their mothers and
not just knocked off baby fathers.  

And though we all won’t make it,
some of us still
find it a must, fighting to
change the gruesome
face of our present reality to the death versus
complacently waiting to die a number!
There are no appeals, pardons,
prayers or fighting back
from being dead, for death is the
promise never broken.  

So long as there remains a
breath left to breathe
inside the soul of a DRIVE RESISTER,
you can bet
your live that there’s a fight being
fought to live,
to be free, and to not just sub-sist.
Anything less would make
us nothing but breathing dead men
feeding on a steady diet of oppression and self-destruction—
a life left for
voluntary neo-slaves in a new-wave
era that bends over accepting to be
penol-ogically sodomized
and laying down to accept their
judicial biocide.
We REFUSE!
“Better to die on your feet
than to live on your knees.” 

Contact and Donations

Gabriel Gonzalez
# 521992
Bexar County Jail
200 N. Comal
San Antonio, TX 78207
USA

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