The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Witness to Innocence are shining a light on the case of Carlos DeLuna with this petition urging President Biden to clear federal death row. 

In 1989, Texas executed Mr. DeLuna for a murder that someone else likely committed.  Mr. DeLuna's case is documented in the film The Phantom.

Take action with us - Sign the petition!

PRESIDENT BIDEN: 
COMMUTE FEDERAL DEATH ROW

President Biden, please ensure that the U.S. government does not execute innocent people. Please clear the federal death row.

• Since 1973, at least 185 people across the country, including 16 Texans, have been wrongly sentenced to death and exonerated. These are just the cases we know about.  For other people, like Carlos DeLuna, the truth emerged too late and a likely innocent person was executed. 
   
• Virginia recently ended the death penalty to ensure that no innocent people are executed in the state. As President, you can set a moral example that will help lead additional states towards abolition.
   
• Black people are only 13.4% of the nation’s population but make up 39% of prisoners on federal death row — some were sentenced to death by all-white juries. Overall, 57% of people on federal death row are people of color, including disproportionate numbers of Latinos like Carlos DeLuna. 
   
• Seven of the 13 executions carried out by the Trump administration during a seven-month spree were of people of color.
   
• Nearly two-thirds of those executed by the federal government since the 1960s come from just three states — Texas, Virginia, and Missouri. All of the federal death sentences given in Virginia and the Eastern District of Missouri in the modern era, and 75% of those from Texas, have been imposed on people of color.  
   
• Just as in the states, police and prosecutorial misconduct, unreliable jailhouse informants, junk science, and grievous mistakes by defense counsel create a grave risk of wrongful convictions and sentences in the federal death penalty system.