for the top stories of today and of the week this is the weekly auntie the u.n. now backed peace plan for syria it's on the rocks just days ahead of a cease fire deadline the syrian rebels have refused the regime's demands for guarantees they'll lay down their arms before damascus recalls its own troops. all of egypt's presidential hopefuls have dallas submitted their applications ahead of the first round of the coast guard is taking place next month. i did other news of

the week moscow valves to secure the return of the boot that's after a u.s. judge sentenced the russian businessman to twenty five years behind bars for conspiring to kill americans. well now it's the second part of our special report about a man who's been skating with his life and decades despite having been sentenced to death this is what's. the unofficial motto here is that we don't joke around in texas. this is this story into producing and. we was for. the joke some areas that we still didn't use for a person for to be. exposed and that was the system work like i see it is the american dream. all of these inmates know that death row is an impossible place to escape from. throughout the years thomas miller's hopes of his case being revisited

have faded away as seasons past he has seen many of his companions depart for the execution room little to hold on to cheering his weight's just letters and a few visits by close friends or family who have also had to prepare for the execution that won't happen again but he fast me i'd go as you already been confronted to an exact question i know that my friends who have been to get your own ways wanted to protect people they love from the trauma of looking at them die . a few lawyers have tried to attack the texan system. jim marcus is one of them and he made a one of a can discover. in his office of the law faculty of austin thomas miller case takes up a lot of space in an official. jim marcus entered this case almost by chance in one

thousand nine hundred four back then he was working for an organization of volunteer lawyers defending inmates with no means of their own row one there are five by the time the case was over the file itself filled to all that's it was a huge file. because over the overtime we just collected all. a lot of evidence mostly documenting racism and. for months jim marcus studied all the files from the one nine hundred eighty six case one stumbled upon something. but dallas county had a manual that instructed prosecutors to discriminate against potential jurors on the basis of race religion gender who were wearing what jim marcus discovered was staggering the discrimination handbook written at the end of the sixties and used by judges to systematically exclude black members

of the jury. basically it's based on stereotypes it's based on prejudices it says that. you know people. who are from any minority group are going to empathize with the accused expresses a general distrust of women. and pretty clearly says don't take jewish from. not only jews but also fat people those who don't wear ties were considered empty conformists and were said to make bad jurors. are looking for white hunters. to be the jurors. it is clearly stated that white hunters are always good jurors for the state these prosecutors and thomas' case said they were not for us but if you look at their notes it'll say black male no tie and for no tie his beard no tie no ties wearing jeans.

so you can see that with the with the notes show is that they were exactly following this. the initials b m r for a black male he's a black man and has a beard that's one who is left out. if it's for latino female here is a hispanic lady who did not make it through selection. these are a few of many handwritten annotations corresponding to potential jury members presenting themselves to the court for the defendant. to recount about the trial it. was the hatred that was going to. be a process. in the bigotry. discrimination that was coming openly going on within the system.

thomas miller's trial ten out of the eleven black jurors were left out we met one of them. billie fields agreed to meet us at an airport lobby. twenty two years after the miller trial she seems almost surprised by our questions to live in a society that is full of discrimination you have to have a thick skin and so therefore things bother me that way you know i don't take it personally as this is the truth will have you being asked to be a good juror dear oh yes but go to the courts own as they call it a panel is. always rejected so you know this continuous. to savage face this is we can sure say oh i guess i don't know but the thing is that yes i have been called to jury duty many times since then and i've never been

selected to be part of a jury either my name is carol and i only testimonies of the ignored jurors overlaps a movie made ten years ago by some young lawyers confirms this and also reassure cheri that her father was a victim of a truncated trial. so. i would ask him thanks them how did they feel it were they feeling that the time when they could not. sit on the jury because they were black and that was they are wrong. here if you're. listening to the evidence. i think even when i die races will. go up or. similar to what happened in the miller case more than ninety percent of black jurors have been

left out from trials over the past forty years and dallas says. this is the whole we're led by this man judge bill hill. how can one explain that such ways were left on punished. perhaps because the death penalty is a source of contention in the u.s. . we have officials here who are right wing politicians who do not value human life and who use the death penalty to promote their political careers and promote their or their life and their lifestyle all our politicians are elected course our governor all our state representatives our senators. our judges criminal court judges are district attorneys they're all elected and they like this they think it's good to be appear to be cuffed on crime and the toughest on crime they think they can be used to have the death only and

the support of death. is the death penalty used as a means to profits bill hill's now retired did not wish to comment on us. we really focused on two issues both having to do with the fairness of this trial one was the racism the other one was that you know thomas was shot by the police when he was arrested with a with a round of ammunition that explodes on impact so a bullet entered his abdomen and then exploded and shredded you know parts of his organs and so forth. and he was an intensive care for a long time they basically moved him from the hospital of the jail and tried him and at the time of his trial he had lost you know fifty pounds he was you know out of it he was on medication he was not competent to be tried. very poor health and incapable of attending a trial this confirms

a document that we got ahold of. famous dr ari key wrote the following. mr thomas miller was not able to defend himself even if he could be present at the audience. any man presenting such to question pain and wounds wouldn't be able to endure such a stressful event even more so if the trial was a life or death decision. in two thousand and one thomas miller had been on death row for already fourteen years when his lawyer jim marcus finished his counter investigation which detailed the discrimination and irregular. ironies of the trial. the file was sent to the appeals court of texas. and there we have so much evidence there is no way that we can. and then we look

they struck us as execution for late february or into the first two thousand and two. you know it was a sense of relief you know it's like all up uses and exhausted we have every reference of the supreme court and you know live in different words like. this it's like here. in the beginning of two thousand and two this was the last chance the u.s. supreme court in washington is the highest in the land it is the only one capable of revoking a stiff made decision each year the supreme court receives around one thousand mans from death row inmates and only two or three are accepted for thomas miller's defense a true race against death started so it was about it was less than a week before the execution and the supreme court. announced that it would hear the

case that was a huge relief. convinced that there was discrimination during the trial the supreme court demanded that the death row sentence be reexamined but the techs in court did not see eye to eye with this decision had refused to admit the miller had been a victim of racist practice he was to be executed. next in justice supported by a strong conservative public opinion and by very active victim associations refuses all the examination of the case. i believe as we practice criminal justice in texas we do a better job of it than any other state in america. one we execute our convicted capital murder we have the highest execution rate in america we're not afraid to do it we do it well we tolerate a lot in texas you can be anything you want in this state but be prepared to pay

the consequences of your actions. and i think. that the rest of the country should take note of all of that so in that respect i believe texas is the most progressive state in america. how can such confidence be understood when suspicions of judiciary errors increased in texas. and universities and for those who defend human rights the miller case has become a symbol. culprit is one of the main leaders of the abolition this movement teaches history at dulles university. is not surprised by the ruthlessness of the texan authorities. and why do you think they want to kill the minorities so badly because the state is a hateful racist state that wants to kill poor and poor people and

people of color this is a hate state this is the region the south is still hateful the american criminal justice system is discriminatory this is a normal part of the american criminal justice system and this state is among the worst of the worst the high profile nature of his case. which has an barest correct fully this state oh notable occasions to show the how wrong and terrible the state was in its prosecution of him the state will do all that it can it will make the extra effort to prove that the end result would be ok we couldn't kill him but we'll make sure he never gets out you think it would he would die in jail i don't think thomas nurul izzah are going to see the light of day as a free man i hope that he would confronted with texan stubbornness and refusal to recognize any mistake in the miller case the supreme court decided in june two

thousand and five to reverse the decision. in its report accounts denounced the selection of the jurors by race and concluded that there is no doubt that the use of this temple can texas allows judges to discriminate. with six votes against three judges of the supreme court's order of a new trial. cases during the sixty's seventy's and eighty's this daniel miller case goes all over the media never before had the state of texas been asked to revoke the death sentence was. and when i went i actually went down that in the lead in told me that he had something to tell me so i went that is and i said down he come out was it always molly and he tell me that his case had been heard at the supreme

court and that they made a decision that they're going to retry his case and they were going to actually hear it the supreme court and at that point it was like the hyde had stuck to where ok. he has an opportunity to actually get off. the texan justice hadn't said its last word the threat of execution returns. raised by the supreme court's decision dallas county general attorney bill hell struck back. he refused to deny miller's guilt and warned that we will request the death penalty at the new trial. police want to rescind body and convict and prosecutors want to win for some reason the truth goes out the window nobody gives a damn about the truth they want to win. defense attorneys prosecutors they want to

win. in order to win as the year two thousand and seven came to an end justice proposed a deal to thomas miller attorneys refer to it as an increment but miller's friends and family saw it as a trap even the trial will take place again and he might end up sentenced to death or he could plead guilty and the sentence would be changed to life imprisonment in order not to die thomas miller had to accept to stop claiming the innocence which he had been defending for twenty years for his friends the choice was clear better to plead guilty event to be sentenced to death again thomas miller still wants to defend his innocence but richard the detective found the words to tear him from it if you want to represent yourself i told you that i would stay with you. i would help you and i will do that but. be sure that there's only one thing that's going

to. you're going to go to trial. you're going to be found guilty and you're going to be sentenced to death again that's going to. going to die but you are going to save his life thomas miller finally decided to give up defending his innocence despite all the unanswered questions despite all the efforts that were made to counter investigate and despite the real doubts about whether or not he is guilty thomas miller signed. on march nineteenth two thousand and eight he signed this document in which he pleads guilty and sees. sentenced changed to life imprisonment . he left death row forever and was transferred to this detention center where we met him nineteen years after our first encounter. with the good news is.

we. don't hope the us is teams that turns the top of us about two weeks off in a different story that we had from a putrid everything right. people are really have a seal of the appreciation for sane would be. and they are was what most to. tonight go back to try but then when did you realize that this thread is here. but. when they said we had a license. in jerusalem to relicense him he shook our hands which was a good look. on the rest of life. if that port has something to begin from. i was just pressured they begin to summarize for us

mentally and psychologically almost like physically that we as a parent around. him it was almost like a medium towards we come it really struck me as a person just began to just disappear gradually you know i believe in death for all was. but at the same time you know. because. for thomas miller and for all the inmates discriminated over the past few decades in texas hopes to have a face of one man. craig watkins is the new attorney general of dallas county he follows the much feared bill hill and he is the first black man to take on this job in texas. the trial which he witnessed on september nineteenth two thousand and eight was a landmark one man walking forward and a tween all his lawyers that spent twenty five years in prison for rape which he

had always tonight finally authorized by the attorney general d.n.a. tests proved his innocence and the judge then had to decide if he were to be freed or knows. you. see. there. the first marriage they said. was really just. for. my daughter for good. earphones. thank you thank you thank you only

a few people to thank her in a general watkins personally congratulated johnny lindsay and wished him good luck he also told him how to term and he is to continue to fight against wrongful accusations. that. johnny lindsay is the. one thousandth man to be freed in only a few months and more than three hundred files have yet to be examined. still with kid space theory is a great it's a great day for you. know it's not for me a place where it comes just system. and i hope that we can carry on this issue for you think it's easier to be in the frickin american do they swear you know i don't know if it's been here. but from where i come from i didn't have a choice i had to do save many innocents in prison yes

well you know the deal with how they exclude certain that differ from the jury because of race. in texas some years ago. early ninety's mid ninety's we decided to change how we. actually have a student juries but i think i want a long way to make sure that our juries are the first to go even further because prosecutors there's a culture that this is just a small moment in time and so at the end of the day i understand and hopefully when i'm gone. it will have to compress a system a legal system that asks for forgiveness and gives freedom back to those who were wrongfully accused such as the image that's sure reka holds on to she dreams of freedom for her father. since his sentence has been changed to life imprisonment

she can visit him every week she does not shy away from her one goal to get my dad . that's it looks like it's ready. and there's no stopping point. there's no stopping point at all. to be truthful based upon the law in the state of texas people differ over don't normally get out of prison you know your home is for the rest of life in prison ok . so if we get out you know it would be a blessing and we'd like better to show that. the person who come from what you call them those that knows you know you know jeff and or actually some of the come from that and actually make a positive contribution to humanity so we hope and that deborah calls people to

stop and look maybe execution is not the answer maybe it is something else that we could get was asking the people in our to prove it can help it was. you know him to some degree or another we're just hoping that we can be positive as for me. life can be a system of example for humanity in general you know. that a good idea. everything that. you think yourself and your goals of the girls will be correct for it's mine for us to occur if that conflict will thomas miller was thirty four when he was sentenced is now sixty one but these people. in theory it is possible to imagine a conditional release for good behavior and after more than twenty years spent in jail. vitamin. d.

in reality is fate is still in the hands of the texans you disagree system. what.

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