The State of Texas plans to execute 34-year-old Christopher Young next month. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for the murder of 55-year-old convenience store owner Hasmukhbhai Patel. But the Christopher Young who was sentenced to death 12 years ago is not the same person. That 22-year-old was a gang member, and a self-confessed alcoholic and drug abuser. This Chris Young is a thoughtful, caring, gifted artist, who says, “Death row saved my life. . . . If I would have gone straight to prison with the attitude I had, my growth process would not have started, and my gang-banging ways would still be there. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to look at myself and tell myself I was doing wrong. I wouldn’t have been able to help anybody.”
Young’s attorneys are challenging his conviction and seeking a new trial based on what they consider a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Their appeal specifically cites the fact that during jury selection in Young’s trial, a potential juror was struck from service based solely on her religious affiliation and her participation in the Outreach Ministries Program at Calvary Baptist Church in San Antonio. The attorneys argue such religious discrimination is impermissible and must be remedied in this case.
In early 2017, more than 550 faith leaders nationwide endorsed a letter of support asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider Chris’s case. Unfortunately, the Justices declined to do so.
Please sign our petition here to Governor Gregg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking them to grant clemency to Chris.
This is a classic case of redemption. Chris Young is a changed man. A man who would like to help others who come to prison as angry, hate-filled, lost, and afraid as he was. Clemency for Chris Young would help so many people, besides Chris. He has pledged to be a mentor if his life is spared and his sentence commuted to life-without-parole.
You can read Chris’s story, and listen to him talk about it in his own words, here. It was published by Community Based News Room, which has worked on it with Law at the Margins, a nonprofit social justice advocacy group based in New York.
