A DEATH Row prisoner in Texas has been granted the chance to live after a tireless campaign by a Malvern woman.

Cathy Walters, of Wye Avenue, Barnards Green, began writing to convicted murderer José Briseno after a car crash forced her to abandon her career.

The former occupational therapist soon began a campaign to have Briseno’s death sentence commuted to life-imprisonment due to the circumstances of the case.

Last week, Mrs Walters, along with other supporters of the jailed man, received the news they were waiting for – Briseno would be granted a new sentencing trial to take into account mitigating factors such as his learning difficulties (he has an IQ of 69 against an average of 100) and impoverished upbringing.

Mrs Walters said: “It’s brilliant news. It’s what I had hoped for – that they would look at his sentence again.”

Briseno, aged 53, was convicted for the 1991 killing of Dimmit County sheriff Ben ‘Doc’ Murray following a violent confrontation in the victim’s home. He had been scheduled to face lethal injection on April 7, 2009, but was granted a stay of execution with just four days to go. He had been set to use his last telephone call to speak to Mrs Walters.

The Court of Criminal Appeal threw out the original death sentence on Wednesday, June 9, after ruling the original jury did not receive enough information from the judge before deciding on the sentence.

“At some point José will be taken back to the county court of his trial and will be held in a local county jail. He will get a much nicer prison experience. At the moment he spends about 22 hours a day in a cell on his own,” said Mrs Walters.

Mrs Walters’ campaign included sending letters to the Queen, then US president George Bush and the Archbishop of Canterbury.