Written by Petra Hädrich-Kabacali with Gerald Marshall’s help
and available documents.
Gerald Marshall was convicted and sentenced to death on November
24, 2004; he arrived on Texas death row on December 8, 2004.
Gerald is one of four codefendants sentenced to death row, the
others are serving lengthy prison terms, Gerald is poor and has been
appointed to state attorney after state attorney that has not helped him
in proving his innocence or that his trial was unfair.
During Gerald’s trial his attorney did almost no work to prove
Gerald’s innocence, and the little work they did do helped Gerald be
convicted and sentenced to death.
Once Gerald was sentenced to death his court appointed attorneys
did little to help him, but Gerald did obtain transcripts, a written
copy of his trial and he started to help himself by studying the law and
researching his transcripts.
While doing this Gerald became aware of the ineffectiveness of his
attorneys and started to write his state habeas attorney about putting
his claims in his most important appeal, the state habeas.
During this communication Gerald was lead to believe his attorneys
would investigate the evidence that proved his innocence and that: his
trial was unfair. They didn’t instead they lead Gerald, to believe
that they were looking into the claims. When the attorney filed
Gerald’s most important appeal, these was only four claims in it. The
attorney failing Gerald on his state habeas appeal has almost ensured
Gerald’s unjust death unless we help him.
CURRENT STATE OF GERALD’S CASE
Gerald’s case is in a unique position. Geralds knows the Texas
law and he filed several things with the trial Judge. The judge then
allowed more time to investigate claims that Gerald was trying to get
filed in his first state habeas.
Gerald does not have the same state habeas attorney who failed him
on his initial state habeas. This attorney was a part of an
investigative series that the Austin American Statesman published
chronicling the systemic problems with Texas state habeas attorneys
appointed bay the state of Texas. After the series ran the attorneys
withdraw from death penalty cases, soon after he died. Gerald was
appointed a new attorney and the new attorney was given more time to
investigate the claims that should get Gerald off death row. This is
where Gerald’s cases is currently at.
The bad news is the first state habeas attorney was paid $25,000
for the lack of work he did and the state is not going to give another
$25,000 for the case investigative work even though there is evidence
that proved Gerald’s innocence of murder. This is where your
purchasing Gerald’s book will help us save his life. We need the
proceeds to properly
investigate Gerald’s case.
WHAT PROCEEDS FROM THE BOOK AND DONATIONS WILL BE USED FOR:
Investigations in CRIMINAL CASES ARE NOT DONE BY ATTORNEYS THEY ARE
DONE BY INVESTIGATORS.While our ultimate goal is to sell a huge number
of books to hire a proper attorney we have a more feasible goal which is
to hire an investigator and have him work directly with Gerald in
investigating the claims that will save Gerald’s Life.
To hire an investigator it normally costs five to ten thousand
dollars in a retainer fee. A retainer fee is something that will get the
investigator to start working on Gerald’s case. We will retain him
with the first fee, the second fee normally goes by the hour, most
investigators normally charge anywhere from 45$ to 100$ an hour for
their services after the retainer fee. We are selling this book to an
investigator that will work with Gerald to investigate the claims that
will help him get off death row. Here are the claims:
1.
OBTAINING DENNIS MEYERS STATEMENT AND GETTING IT TRANSCRIBED, TO
PRESENT IN GERALDS APPEAL.
Dennis Meyer was a prisoner who was in the dame cage as Gerald’s
co-defendants when he was being set up by them. Meyer helped the
co-defendants write affidavits against Gerald saying did everything by
his self. Meyer took this evidence to the state police, and he was
offered a time reduction in the time he was facing for an unrelated
charge. Meyer then gave a tape recorded statement.
Gerald’s trial attorney knew about this tape months before
Gerald’s trial, but they never listened to it at all! And to this day
the taped statement that Meyer gave has not been listened by any of
Gerald’s attorneys. If we can get this tape and present it in evidence
as a viable defense at trial, or how it could have been used as a viable
defense at trial, we can prove that these trial attorneys were
ineffective in representing Gerald and this could get Gerald a new trial
and get him off death row.
2. Obtaining Gerald’s Co-defendants Transcripts
3. Obtaining second Opinion on the medical Examiners testimony at
Geralds Trial.
read
more on points 2.-4.
4. Getting Gerald’s statement to police transcribed to show it
was illegally tampered with by state prosecutors.
We hope that you will ask friends and family members to
buy this book in support of us trying to save Gerald’s
life.
Thank you for your time.
An Execution Date set
