Tutu urges U.S. to abolish death penalty

Tutu urges U.S. to abolish death penalty

The daughter of Gary Graham is comforted after he was denied a reprieve by the Texas parole board. Graham was sent to his death Thursday night by lethal injection, ending a 19-year court battle.

By Martin Griffith

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Two days after a Texas inmate's execution prompted a loud outcry over capital punishment, Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged the United States to abolish the death penalty.

Too many innocent people have been sent to death row, Tutu told reporters Saturday at a news conference before he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nevada at Reno.

"I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it,'' he said.

I can't understand why a country that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.''

Gary Graham, 36, received a lethal injection Thursday night for killing a man outside a Houston supermarket in 1981. The state parole board and appeals courts rejected Graham's arguments that he was convicted on shaky evidence from a single eyewitness and that his trial lawyer did a poor job.

His execution was the 23rd this year in Texas and came amid growing questions about the death penalty.

In Illinois, Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on executions in light of the 13 death row inmates who have had their convictions overturned since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1977.

When you see the evidence of so many mistakes, you realize more mistakes can be made,'' said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. ''Once an execution is done, you can't correct it.''

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