After repeating this several times, he turned back to face the crowd again and shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture of futile appeal.

His head had been shaved of the shoulder-wide Afro hairstyle he had the day before when he appeared at the state Pardon Board in a futile appeal.

Additionally Mugabe had started to appoint with judges sympathetic to the government, making any judicial appeal futile.

Chen Xi's wife, Zhang Qunxuan, told reporters that her husband was innocent, but would not launch a "futile" appeal against his conviction.

Having ignored these futile appeals for at least a decade, Congress will predictably ignore them in the future.

The Vatican's repeated calls that it do so did not succeed, and even the hand on the 17th-century pope's statue seemed to extend in a frozen and futile appeal.

Bernardo attempts a futile last-minute appeal to the Pope to have mercy on his family.

Like Ament, Khan realized, Seven could do little more than make a futile appeal to the vengeful superman's unheeding conscience.

On the night before they were due to enter Sarang, Mirza Saeed made another futile appeal to the pilgrims.

It is touching to read Abigail Adams's futile appeal to her husband John, in a 1775 letter, as affairs of the nascent state preoccupied him.