REGINALDS WORDS
7 years, 7... Long... years I've struggled to be heard; struggled through my isolation like a flower fighting to grow through concrete. My only hope... that some rain may come before the sun makes me wither away. The sun? People’s misconception that the criminal justice system works; peoples misconception that I can't be a man behind bars, inside concrete, on Death Row. An innocent man on top of that. The silence and indifference is hot, scorching! My state Habeas attorney refused to file any of my innocence claims I wrote to him about; pleaded to him about, over the course of the year, he, what the system calls, represented me. I swear I don’t know who that "me" is. Because it wasn't Reginald W. Blanton. So I compiled the carbon copies I had of these letters together and filed it in a petition to the court. It was my cry: LOOK! My representation "is not representing me. He won’t file my innocence claims which have merit because most of it is already recorded!
But the court ignored me. Not a word--though I sent it to the judge, court clerk, DA’s office, and my own attorney, certified mail/ return receipt. Then I filed the same petition to the next court (C.C.A) and they ignored me. I even filed a grievance to the State Bar against my State Habeas attorney and they acted as if they read someone else’s grievance, stating my grievance didn't allege any misconduct, classifying it as an inquiry. I wasn't inquiring about anything. I was showing them the significance of my claims and how the attorney failed to file them.
Now as a result of my State Habeas attorney's refusal to represent my legal interest at the state Habeas stage of my appeal, all my innocence claims have been procedurally barred. My case now sits in the Supreme Court which will be heard shortly.
7 long years, at just 27 years old, I've fought hard. And over the years my supporters and I have contacted, lord knows how many Organizations across the world, from California, to New York on to United Kingdom and Europe, and almost everywhere in between, and they have all said the same thing: Don't have the resources; don't have the time; don't have! don't have!
Proving I'm innocent after I'm murdered wrongfully by the State will not resurrect me, nor my mama or my wife; because they will surely die inside if I lose my life.
Will you, too, burn me with your silence, your indifference, or will you contact my wife who will put you in contact with my court appointed Federal attorney who is fighting, against the seed of judicial time, to save the life of the quadriplegic appeal my previous state Habeas Attorney left behind? Now this is an "inquiry".
Everything I Am,
because I have nothing left
Reginald W. Blanton 999395
Polunsky Unit D/Row
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston,
TX 77351