Ben DeSoto / Chronicle
Dennis Longmire, a criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, holds a candlelight vigil outside the Walls Unit each time the state executes an inmate. Chronicle file photo
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A typical Texas execution is attended by a handful of protesters. But when the prisoner's innocence is at issue, as was the case during the January 22 execution of Gary Graham, the crowds can be intense. Flag-burning was one of the ways people expressed their anger. The case focused the nation's attention on the issues of bad lawyering, the reliability of eyewitness testimony and prosecutors' aggressive pursuit of the death penalty in borderline cases. Condemned for the robbery-murder of Bobby Lambert in a Houston supermarket parking lot in 1981, largely on the identification of a lone eyewitness to the crime, Graham died proclaiming he was the wrong man. |
E. Jospeh Deering / Chronicle
The Texas electric chair executed 361 inmates from 1924 to 1964 at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. Now "Old Sparky" is on display in the prison museum in downtown Huntsville and inmates executed at the Walls Unit die by injection.
E. Joseph Deering / Chronicle
Once the legal appeals are exhausted and the clemency request denied, a death row inmate is bound for lethal injection. The deadly potion is mixed in this room and delivered through intravenous tubes to the executioners table, visible through the mirrored window. 
E. Joseph Deering / Chronicle
Preparing for an execution, Officer C. Peralta blocks the street between the prison system's administration building and the Walls Unit, home of the death chamber. 
E. Joseph Deering / Chronicle
Texas executed a record 40 inmates last year. If life without parole were to become an option, that number would drop significantly, said University of Houston law professor David Dow.