Graham's planned execution comes in the midst of heightened debate over the fact that, as with other trials and sentencing, workers who are on death row are likely there because of an outrageous violation of their rights. The big business class hopes to put a lid on the emerging scandal and growing evidence that a high percentage of inmates are unjustly convicted, put on death row, and shoved into the death chamber.

The proposed liberal reforms--making DNA tests available to inmates on death row and supplying competent defense attorneys--have nothing to do with fairness and ensuring legal rights for workers and farmers. The legislative "safeguards" are merely attempts to restore weakened confidence in their judicial system.

No worker caught up in the tentacles of the U.S. penal system finds justice. Any worker walking into a U.S. courtroom is automatically assumed guilty, more so if they are Black or Latino. The scales of justice are tipped against us. Workers sometimes win a measure of justice, but that is despite the legal system, not because of it.

Many liberals readily acknowledge "the shameful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row." But the bottom line is the wealthy class has no intentions of relinquishing their prerogative to execute human beings. The number of yearly executions have tripled during the eight years of the Clinton administration. Clinton's signing into law the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act paved the way for an express train of more executions by placing time limits on the rights of death row inmates to appeal their convictions.

Under the Clinton tenure, the U.S. rulers have doubled the prison population, placed greater restrictions on parole rights, and strengthened the powers of the police. This steady erosion of democratic rights and increased authority to use repression is aimed at crippling the ability of the working class to organize and fight in its own interests. This is the real concern of the wealthy rulers. The death penalty is part of the arsenal of weapons used by the owners of capital to try to terrorize working people and deal blows to the rising resistance, confidence, and increased combativity among growing numbers in the United States. The stakes are high in the fight against the death penalty. Activists in the labor movement and all defenders of democratic rights need to make our voices heard against this barbaric practice.

Stop the execution of Gary Graham!

Release all inmates from death row!

Abolish the death penalty!  
 
 
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