Former Death-Row Inmate Sent Back to Prison

"Boy, the big guys must have really made you do this," Draughon said to McKee.

The parole board voted to allow Draughon to be released. Before he could return to Livingston, Draughon had to stop at McKee's office to sign some ­documents.

While they were talking, McKee pushed the papers to the side of his desk and said, "Draughon, are you sure you don't want to move to Florida? Get out of Texas and go live with your sisters?"

"No," Draughon replied. "This is where my woman is. This is where my ministry is. This is where God paroled me out to, and this is where I'm supposed to be."

McKee said okay, and Draughon returned to the KDOL house.

He and Weathers began speaking of his case on the radio. Draughon wanted to tell the guys he felt like there was a target on his back, but he wasn't letting the system kill his hope.

"I can see now that was my test of faith," Draughon says.

Draughon's GPS monitor began losing signal almost daily. The device would beep, alerting Draughon that his parole officer was unable to track him. Draughon was required to reset the device within ten minutes or call McKee to verify that he was home.

Draughon began writing down everything he did in a spiral notebook. When his GPS would lose signal, Draughon would mark it down in his book. He recorded phone conversations he had with McKee.

Weathers started videotaping Draughon in the house with his monitor beeping. She wanted evidence, she says, that Draughon was where he was supposed to be.

The monitor would often beep while Draughon was speaking on the radio. Weathers had Wolfe install baby monitors throughout the house, so if Draughon was in another room, she could record the sound.

Finally, Draughon was arrested again. The warrant was issued after Draughon failed to answer phone calls from his parole officer for about 30 minutes after his GPS device had lost signal.

Weathers prepared to take the case before the parole board, and she was certain there was no way Draughon could lose. In fact, with the amount of evidence she had gathered, she thought they could prove the entire GPS system was faulty.

"There are so many people who have been screwed by the system, and Martin's case can affect so many," Weathers says.

Buckley handled Draughon's case for the second parole hearing, and Weathers turned over all the video and audio evidence she wanted Buckley to use. She gave Buckley a list of witnesses — people who had been involved with her ministry and radio show — to testify on Draughon's behalf.

Weathers wanted Buckley to hire a private investigator to track down former employees of the company that manufactures GPS devices. She wanted to hire an electrical engineer to testify against GPS.

"I felt that was an overbroad approach. Nobody in that system is going to acknowledge that. They're not going to invalidate their whole system. I felt we should have focused on the specifics of Draughon's case," Buckley says. "He would have been better served staying away from this radio activism thing. He needed to get away from the prison system, and that falls in line with staying away from the whole ­culture."

The big plans for the parole hearing never materialized. Many of the witnesses were never called before the parole board, and only some of the video was allowed as evidence.

McKee argued that the video proved nothing about the reliability of GPS, and he accused Draughon and Weathers of intentionally causing the device to ­malfunction.

"I don't think the plan included him going back to the joint," Buckley says. "The whole video thing was put on as a ruse so they could change the system. They had him methodically screwing with the system so they could influence some public policy change."

The parole board voted to revoke his parole, and Draughon was taken back to prison.
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Draughon is locked up about 50 miles northwest of his old cell on death row and the KDOL house in Livingston. He was placed in the Eastham Unit, a maximum-security prison near the town of Lovelady.

He's been there about a year, which, he says, is about a year longer than he expected. Draughon arrived at Eastham with a strong faith that the parole board would reinstate his parole on an appeal, the latest of which was filed in January.