Death Row

Black Man on Death Row

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Ryan Matthews is a six feet tall , seventeen year old African American at the time of his arrest for the murder of Bridge City , Louisiana Comeaux grocery store owner Tommy Vanhoose on the evening of April 7 1997

Ryan Matthews ' story underscores some despicable truth of the death penalty in this country : the execution of juveniles the execution of the mentally retarded the execution of innocents and the racial difference in death penalty sentencing

That night , April 17

, 1997 , a gunman wearing a ski mask walk into the Comeaux 's Grocery Store owned and managed by Tommy Vanhoose . The lone gunman confronted Vanhoose and demand the money at gunpoint . Hesitant to hand over the money , Mr . Vanhoose was shot a number of times by a .38 caliber revolver to his death

After the murder , the masked gunman rush out of the store while firing his gun and "dived to the open passenger side window (TIJT , 2004 ) of the getaway car . A witness , Candice Meza , who was in her car some distance away at the time of the incident , told the police the he saw the gunman raised his masked briefly before running out of the store firing shots towards her

Another witness , Brent Cheramie , saw a glimpsed of the gunman 's face in his rear view mirror and noticed the assailant throw his mask , gloves and shirts . Cheramie picked up the items and later gave it to the police . According to the eyewitness report , the getaway car is similar to a mid-eighties gray Oldsmobile Monte Carlo or a Ford LTD (Reprieve n .d

A few hours after the murder , the police , with the of the get away car apprehended Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes driving a gray 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix , twenty minutes away from the scene of the crime (TIJT , 2004

During the investigation , the witness , Brent Cheramie was brought to the scene and positively identifies Matthews . However , Dale Blanchard who was with Cheramie during the incident and had a better view of the gunman claims that he could not be positive if it was Matthews . In the other part of the investigation , Ryan Matthews picture was shown to Candice Meza , the witness who saw the gunman lifted his mask , made an indecisive identification but emphasized that she is not sure . Some other witnesses who saw the gunman fleeing away described his height between 5 '4 ' and 5 '8 ' tall (TIJT , 2004 . These doubtful identifications by Charemai and Meza are the only evidence that led to the arrest of Mathews

Ryan Matthews , a poor black youth , was presented at trial by an unprepared court appointed lawyer . He faced a predominantly white jury eleven whites and only one African American . At the time of the trial the defense had no knowledge of whose tissue samples were found by the police at the assailant 's mask and the outcome of the DNA test that might indisputably exclude Matthews and Travis from...