I am a African male inmate on Texas death row ! I am 26 years of age & have been incarcerated since 1995 !  I am writing this in hopes that someone, anyone ! will listen as I try to explain, why I have been wrongly convicted of Capital murder & sentenced to die for protecting my own life !  On the date of July 19, 1995 an incident occured, a drug deal, which I was the drug dealer, I was to sell some men some drugs, we ended up having a disagreement, which put me in a position to defend for my life, as a result two men ended up losing  their lives !  There was substancial evidence that would have surely proved that I was reacting to a violent situation that otherwise, I felt could have cost me my life !    But because of my attorney being very ineffective, did not investigate the facts, never talked to my witness, whom had interviewed with the State prosecutor attorney and backed up my story, regarding self-defence!  The prosecutors never told my attorney that they had in fact, interviewed my witness and his story had corroborated with mine !  The judge denied my attorney the right to present my case in the light of self-defence, therefore, not allowing the jury to weither conmsider a lesser charge or find that it was indeed self-defence !

Because the jury was only allowed to review my case from under the instructions of Capital Murder, I was convicted and sentenced to die !

I'm not writing my story trying to convince anyone that I know nothing about this incident !  It's a sad situation when a human being loses his or her life,  but it was never my intentions to take someone's life !

My life was threatened and I reacted in self-defence !

I'm asking for assistance of those who are sincerely concerned about equal justice, in the state of Texas, to please look into my case !  The evidence is out there to prove that this is a case, where a man was defending his life, but as the story goes in Texas ! Because I was poor, I had unqualified legal representation to bring out the facts in this case, well, I'm desperatelywriting this letter from death row and unless some one actually gets involved in my case, Texas is going to murder me for defending my life !

Imagine riding down the street, in your car & someone jumps out in front of you, firing a gun in your direction, you run over this individual to save your own life and because of that, you are now sitting on death row !  Or lets say, you're a sales man & you go to one of your customer's home, you & him have a disagreement, he puts you in a situation where you have to defend yourself & because of that you are sitting on death row !

My name is Paul Slater & I am still defending my life!  I hope & pray that I have said, something in my story that will get the attention of those that can very well find themselves in my position  !

For any additional information regarding my case, please write to me personally  & I will answer all letters as Honestly as possible !  Please let me hear from you Soon !

Paul Slater