PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 51/007/2008

21 January 2008

Further Information on UA 308/07 (AMR51/182/2007, 16 November 2007) Unfair Trial

USA Gary Tyler (m)

Amnesty International has learnt that Governor Blanco did not intervene in Gary Tyler’s case before she retired from office at the end of 2007, and the Pardon Board did not consider his case at its session in December. A new legal appeal will be filed by Tyler’s lawyers in the coming months.

Gary Tyler, a 49-year-old African American has spent more that 33 years in prison in Louisiana after being convicted of murder in the shooting of a white schoolboy during a racially charged incident in 1974. Aged 16 at the time, Gary Tyler has consistently maintained his innocence of the murder and federal reviewing courts have declared his trial fundamentally unfair.

As a life sentenced prisoner, Gary Tyler cannot be granted release on parole unless his sentence is first commuted to a term of years by the state Pardon Board and the Board’s recommendation is accepted by the Governor. His latest application for pardon, filed with the Louisiana Pardon Board in 2007, requested that Gary Tyler’s life sentence be commuted to a defined number of years so that the outgoing state governor could authorize his release before she retired from office.

Despite his youth at the time of trial, and his exemplary record in prison, Gary Tyler has served more than three times as much as the national US average for a person convicted of murder or non-negligent manslaughter.

Many thanks to those who sent appeal. No further action is required at this time.