Roger McGowen is an African American born in Houston , Texas , in 1963. Although born in particularly underprivileged circumstances, and having experienced several tragedies before he came of age, Roger was a young man full of promises and his future looked bright. He was working as a manager in small, successful restaurant, was the father of a little boy, taking good care of his sisters, and doing his best to look after his elder brother whose life of addiction and criminality was fraught with problems. Suddenly, Roger’s life changed radically and turned into an endless nightmare. He was 22 years old when he was arrested, then accused of a murder he did not commit, and for which he received the death penalty a little over a year later, in 1987.

As is often the case for less fortunate African-Americans, a state-appointed lawyer was assigned to Roger who took no interest in his case, and his whole trial turned into a travesty of justice. More than two decades after being sentenced to death, Roger is still on Texas death row, waiting for an appeal and a chance to prove his innocence.

After years without receiving any visits or letters, Roger came into contact with European correspondents. Gradually, the extraordinary personality of this man, who had every right to be bitter, full of hatred, and desperate, revealed itself through his letters. From the hell that is Texas death row, emerged a unique being whose spiritual strength, generosity, and loving attitude towards all very deeply moves anyone who gets to know him, Some of his letters have been compiled into a book that has become a source of inspiration for thousands of readers: Messages de vie du couloir de la mort, by Roger McGowen, in collaboration with Pierre Pradervand, published by Editions Jouvence in 2003 (www.editions-jouvence.com), soon to be published in English under the title Messages of Life from Death Row. ( See[The Book][17] ).

[17]: the_book.html (Messages de vie du couloir de la mort - jouvence editions)

Roger’s life before his trial

Roger Wayne McGowen was born on December 23, 1963, in the Fifth Ward of Houston Texas, then one of the city’s worst ghettos; he was the seventh of ten children. His parents divorced when he was still a child, and he spent most of his youth with his mother, a deeply devoted Baptist, and a few years of his adolescence with his father James. The Third Ward, where his father lived, was less tough and unstructured, and Roger keeps a luminous memory of those years. The schools there were slightly better, the streets a bit tidier, the people a little more open. His step-mother Ernestine encouraged him with his homework, and he formed a strong attachment for his half-brother Terry. Their father was an electronic hydraulic engineer; tragically, in his 43rd year, he got killed by a man who was attempting to rob him in 1982, just as Roger turned 18.

Roger always maintained a very close relationship with his mother, who communicated to him her very lively faith. In a brief, ten-page autobiographical document, he describes her in a manner that shows the profound influence she had on him.

"My mother was a lady who believed strongly in God and looked for the good in every one. She taught us the value of life, and also the heartache of pain, which comes from suffering. She was the strongest person I ever knew in my life, and she remained that way till she was called home to God. And many of the lessons she taught me have remained with me till this very day. But at the time, when she was imparting her wisdom to me, I had no use for it. I was young and thought that I knew everything, only to learn that when I thought I understood, I found that I only misunderstood. So often we take the wisdom of our elders for granted, not realizing that we have not even begun to encounter half the things which they have experienced, the experiences that will eventually make or break us, as one says. My mother would tell me: Roger, wisdom does not come from age, it comes from experience. It comes from countless encounters with the things that life will show us, give us or take away from us".

_“It would be years before I would realize what she was talking about. And even today I call upon her wisdom, from the grave where she now rests, to sustain me and guide me through the perils of a sometimes cold world.” _

Life in the ghetto --or rather, survival-- was hard. When he was about ten, Roger started to work outside school with his uncle Jimmy who had a big 18-wheel truck. Later, he found a job in a restaurant. _ “When I was nineteen years old, I was purchasing clothes for my sister Rhonda.”_ He began to follow a professional training, but had to quit in order to help his mother when his grandmother died.

Roger’s elder brother Charles was, in Roger’s own terms, his idol. It is important to understand their almost symbiotic relationship if one to comprehend what happened later, when Roger was accused of murder.

_“My eldest brother was well known around our neighborhood. He was known for not being one to mess with, and being his little brother; I was privileged not to be messed with either, unless you wanted to deal with Charles. Man, could he fight. I saw him fight a guy one day for beating up one of his friends. It wasn’t really a fight. He hit the guy, and the guy hit the ground. But in other fights I watched him weave and bob and slip punches. I thought he could whip Mohammed Ali, the then heavyweight champion of the world.” _

_“He and I were very close. I would try and follow him and his friends. He would see me and run me back home. But sometimes I would follow them from a distance, without them knowing. I tried to walk like him, talk like him, practically become him. He was my idol then. He was great. He used to talk with me and tell me things about him and his friends and swear me to secrecy. I thought I was carrying a real top secret and was ready to defend it with y life, if need be. Thank God it never came to that.” _

Charles had brushes with the police at a very young age already. At one time, he was even charged with murder, but as he was still an adolescent, he was sent to a juvenile facility.

Shortly before she passed on, their mother was taken to the hospital where she stayed quite a few days in a coma. In a letter dated March 6, 2006, Roger gave the following details about the experience that would come to play such a crucial role in his life. Roger was visiting his mother and _ “She came out of her coma. She was speaking very incoherently. She would start talking about one thing, then right in the middle [of the sentence], about something else. She realized it too, and started smiling. She said to me, ‘Roger, I don’t want to die, but I feel there’s nothing between me and God. I’m young, I have a lot to live for, but I’m at peace. If I don’t make it, look after your brother. You are strong and always have been, and you’ve had it good. Your brother hasn’t. He can’t go back to prison. You are the backbone of the family. Take care of them.’ One of the nurses came into the room and saw me talking to her, and realized she had come out of her coma. She rushed me from the room, and that was the last conversation I had with her.” _

At the time of the crime of which he was accused, Roger was 22 years old and working full-time. Ha was taking care of his sisters who lived at the other side of town. He would stop by regularly to inquire about their well-being, bring them food, and make sure their bills were paid. A member of his extended family who had a key to his car borrowed it one day (Roger was the only one of his mother’s children to own a car and he shared it generously). That man, was accompanied by Charles that night and they went to a bar to perpetrate an armed robbery that ended in the killing of the bar owner. Witnesses took down the car’s license plate number, and Roger was arrested at his apartment a few weeks later and accused of the murder.

In an attempt to protect his brother whom he then believed was responsible for the crime, Roger initially took the blame upon himself. As nothing tied him to the crime, he felt certain his innocence would become evident, all the more so because he had an alibi. Also, he was going through a depression because of the recent death of his mother, and he did not really care what would happen to him. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. With his sacrifice, Roger was hoping that Charles would see how much he loved him and that this would bring him to break with delinquency and addiction, and to turn his life around. Tragically, Charles was shot down by the police during an attempted robbery just two months before Roger was sentenced to death. This has probably been one of Roger’s life’s most cruel experiences: the man whom he had wanted to protect and for whom he had taken the blame --and the death penalty-- had been killed. At that moment, his sacrifice seemed completely devoid of any sense.

Roger’s trial

As is usually the case with less fortunate African-Americans, a state- appointed attorney was assigned to Roger. The attorney took no interest in Roger’s case, visited him only once very briefly before the trial, and he based his plea solely on the basis of the police report. A notorious alcoholic, he failed to represent his client’s interests during the entire proceedings.

Roger’s trial was characterized by a long series of major judicial and constitutional irregularities. In what appears to be common practice in the United States, the District Attorney approached a convicted felon whom Roger had known when a young teenager and had not seen in the last ten years, to (falsely) testify against him. Such people are called jail “snitches” and there is an unspoken agreement that if a “snitch” agrees to testify against an accused, he will receive a substantial sentence reduction. The “snitch” in question fabricated about 1500 robberies purportedly committed by himself together with Roger over a period of two and a half years, while Roger was working full time…

Roger wrote: _ “In one instance,_ [the snitch]_ said he and I robbed this old man who was a security guard at a supermarket. The prosecutor contacted the man and had him testify for the prosecution against me._ [The snitch] _ said I had the knife and I was going to kill the man. But when the elderly gentleman took the stand, he said it wasn’t me! He said it was_ [the snitch] _ and someone else.” _

Roger’s lawyer did not make any attempt to verify information that was communicated to him and that he should have used to prove his client’s innocence and save his life. This and many other serious mistakes constitute a major violation on his part of the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution and of Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution of the State of Texas .

Roger’s attorney also neglected to protest against serious breaches in the jury’s behavior. Those alone would have justified a new trial. A few examples:

• One of the jury members confirmed under oath that the jury foreman, a former policeman, had introduced information during the deliberations that had not been presented in court; that information greatly influenced the jury’s decision in favor of the death penalty for Roger.

• The jury foreman was highly biased throughout the deliberations. Yet, Texas law states clearly that “the presence of one partial juror on the jury destroys the impartiality of the body and renders it partial”.

• Various members of the jury were not in favor of the death penalty for Roger, but because of the strong personality of the ex policeman, who presented himself as an expert, they finally gave in.

• In violation of the Constitution and the law, the presiding judge refused to instruct the jury about the difference between voluntary homicide and voluntary homicide with premeditation.

• Whereas the jury initially voted eleven to one (11 to 1) for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, the judge presented information which erroneously implied that if Roger were to be sentenced to life in prison, he would end up spending only one third of the time in jail before being released. This untruthful information also contributed to the jurors’ switching of their position in favor of the death penalty for Roger.

• In their deliberation room, the jurors had access to newspaper articles presenting a highly biased view of the crime, in which the police falsely claimed that Roger had committed about fifty armed robberies. In that instance, Roger’s trial attorney did protest, but inadequately.

Roger’s trial attorney was later reprimanded five times by the Texas Bar Association, and he was finally forbidden by the State of Texas in 2005 from taking death penalty cases, after he failed to meet the higher standards set by the State -- alas, too late for Roger…