The StandDown Texas Project

Death Penalty System Fatally Flawed

That's the title of an OpEd from the Saturday San Antonio Express-News by former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap.  LINK

According to a report released last week by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty — Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2008: The Year in Review — this year Texas juries condemned the fewest number of people to death in more than 30 years.

As of Dec. 10, a total of 10 people (nine men and one woman) had been sentenced to death in Texas in 2008.

Perhaps this reflects the public's growing uneasiness with the death penalty or prosecutors' recognition that the costs of the ultimate punishment — both human and financial — are too high. Or perhaps my fellow Texans have come to share my realization that a fallible system that puts people to death simply cannot be trusted.

Evidence of misplaced trust in the death penalty system was on stark display on Aug. 25, when a Collin County court dismissed all charges against death row inmate Michael Blair for the 1993 rape and murder of 7-year-old Ashley Estell.

After the results of new DNA testing failed to connect him to the crime, those involved in the case agreed that there was not enough evidence to uphold the conviction. Blair had spent 14 years on death row. Michael Blair was the fourth person exonerated from death row nationally in 2008 and the 130th overall since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

And:

We cannot sanction a death penalty system that gets it right most of the time. An honest assessment of the problems associated with the death penalty is long overdue.

I urge Texas lawmakers to consider the cases of Cameron Todd Willingham, Carlos De Luna, Michael Blair, Ernest Ray Willis and others when they reconvene in January and to recognize the ultimate fallibility of a system that no longer deserves our trust... or our support.

When it comes to human life, a system that gets it right most of the time should not exist at all.

More from Sam Millsap in this earlier post.

At the Death House Door an Oscar Contender

The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, entertainment industry journals, are reporting today that the acclaimed IFC documentary is on the short list of documentaries that will be considered for an Academy Award.  "Oscar Watch: Documentary, " is THR's report.

Of the 15 features the Academy's documentary branch members are now being asked to screen over the holiday season, approximately 10 could be described as social-issue films, with varying degrees of didactic intent. Even within that category, there's tremendous variety: "Fuel" (Greenlight Theatrical/Intention Media) a grassroots-marketed film about the biodiesel movement, has little in common with "Standard Operating Procedure," 2004 Oscar winner Errol Morris' ruminative exploration for Sony Pictures Classics of the Abu Ghraib detainee-abuse photographs. (Whatever one makes of Morris' films, they certainly don't lack for artisanship.) Neither of those bears any similarity to Zeitgeist Films' "Trouble the Water," a rip-roaring, rough-and-ready Sundance Award winner about a poor African-American couple surviving Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

One can further divide the issue-oriented flicks into those that seem especially geared to the moment, in the vein of a recent Oscar winner featuring a former vice president, and those that tackle documentary perennials like the death penalty (IFC's "At the Death House Door" from the "Hoop Dreams" (1994) team of Peter Gilbert and Steve James) or the Holocaust (Balcony Releasing's "Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh").

Variety looks at six of the short-listed films, including this profile of At the Death House Door.

DIRECTORS: Peter Gilbert and Steve James previously collaborated on "Hoop Dreams" and "Stevie."

SUBJECT: Texas death-row chaplain Carroll Pickett, who presided over 95 executions, questions his belief in capital punishment after ministering to Carlos De Luna, one of his charges who was put to death for a crime he almost certainly didn't commit.

FINANCING: Approximately $850,000 funded by IFC.

DISTRIB: Doc played in Los Angeles and New York in March and ran on IFC in May.

HELMER COMMENTS: "We were first approached about doing a film about Carlos De Luna ... but when we heard about Pastor Pickett's life journey, we felt that's where the true heart of the story lay," James says. "Pickett's transformation from a death-penalty supporter to being against it was a long, complicated and compelling story."

Says Gilbert, "What helped us decide to move forward was that we had extremely compelling personal stories to tell. We also felt strongly that we could expose the audience to a different view of the death penalty through the eyes of the people who truly witnessed and participated in them."

Earlier coverage of the documentary is here.

Rev. Carroll Pickett: The Evolution of a Death Penalty Opponent

That's the title of an interview with Carroll Pickett on the Dallas Morning News editorial page.  LINK

For 15 years, the Rev. Carroll Pickett was a witness to state-sanctioned death. As a prison chaplain in Hunstville, he presided over 95 executions. After each one, Mr. Pickett recorded his thoughts on tape. The documentary At the Death House Door chronicles his anguish as he eventually concludes that some of the men he led to death were innocent.    

Dallas Morning News editorial writer Colleen McCain Nelson interviewed Mr. Pickett via e-mail this week:

After each execution, you recorded a tape about what you had seen.  What purpose did that serve?    

Living alone at the time that I started executions in 1982, I came home after the first, and I had to talk. ... I decided to talk to a machine and get it all out. It helped make a traumatic experience a little more bearable.

You spent time with inmates during their final hours. Did they confess their crimes? Proclaim their innocence?    

Yes, and more. There were many who did not commit the crime, and their innocence was the basic topic for the entire day and night. These were difficult since I knew some of them were not the people who pulled the triggers. Some were victims of the law of parties. Some were fully innocent.

When did doubts about capital punishment begin to creep into your thoughts?    

Maybe it was the first [execution]. But it became very real with one of the first [executions of someone who] did not pull the trigger. ...Then, I began to visit with families of the victims who found no closure. ... It was not a deterrent to anyone except the one who was executed.

Was there a pivotal moment that changed your mind about the death penalty?    

No, it was a period of growth. But I watched a young man die who called me "Daddy." I knew that he was innocent, and another inmate in another unit bragged about doing the murder. My inmate took the fall. That was a strong factor.

Do you believe that you saw innocent men executed?    

Absolutely. If a man is killed for just being [at the scene of a crime], to me, he was innocent. And others did not commit the crimes. Others just didn't have the means, the money, or the legal system to help them.

Earlier coverage of Carroll Pickett and his appearance in the documentary, "At the Death House Door," begins with this post.

Carlos DeLuna's Sister Speaks Out

Rose Rhoton writes the OpEd, "When it comes to capital punishment, Texas is guilty of failing to protect the innocent," in today's Austin American-Statesman.

'I want to say that I hold no grudges.'  

These were the final words of my brother Carlos De Luna before he was executed by the state of Texas in 1989 for a crime he did not commit. His last words express remarkable forgiveness from an innocent man facing the ultimate miscarriage of justice. Unfortunately, in the 19 years since his execution, the numerous problems that led to his wrongful conviction have never been addressed and continue to plague the Texas capital punishment system. With executions in the state about to resume, I hope that legislators and the courts will learn lessons from my brother's story.

Carlos was convicted, sentenced to death and executed in six short years, despite overwhelming problems with the case. In 1983, convenience store clerk Wanda Lopez was stabbed to death, and Carlos became a suspect when he was found near the scene shortly after the crime took place. But the crime had all the hallmarks of a violent felon who had a history of knife attacks against women in the area. This individual had repeatedly bragged to friends and family members that he committed the crime and that his "stupid tocayo," or namesake, had taken the fall. Police and prosecutors ignored the information and refused to look into the alternate suspect who many in the community believe committed the crime.

Instead, prosecutors convicted my brother on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony and no supporting forensic evidence. The main eyewitness told the Chicago Tribune, in the newspaper's re-investigation of the case, that he has serious doubts about Carlos' guilt. The identification was made while Carlos was in the backseat of a police car and after the police told the witness they had arrested Carlos near the scene, giving the witness a false sense of certainty that Carlos was guilty.

Unfortunately, my brother's story is not unique.

And:

By not reforming its capital punishment system, Texas will continue to recklessly gamble with a broken system that risks the execution of more innocent people and others who do not deserve death.

It is unconscionable for a broken system that cannot protect the innocent to move forward with executions. I know firsthand the tragedy that results.

Earlier coverage of Carlos DeLuna's case is here.

At the Death House Door

The highly acclaimed documentary, "At the Death House Door," premieres tonight on cable channel IFC at 9:00 pm (EDT), 8:00 pm (CDT.)  There are lots of reviews today.

In the Houston Chronicle, Eric Harrison reports, "Quiet death penalty activist goes public."

Carroll Pickett is an unlikely activist against the death penalty. The retired Presbyterian pastor is 74, soft-spoken and gentle of spirit. A native Texan, he grew up in a conservative household, the grandson of a murder victim.

He grew up believing in the death penalty. The deaths of two of his parishioners in a 1974 riot at the state prison in Huntsville did nothing to soften his disposition toward criminals. Pickett, then the pastor of a church in Huntsville, said yes when he was asked in 1979 to become chaplain at the Walls Unit, ministering to death row inmates in their final hours.

That was the beginning of what Pickett, who retired from the prison in 1995 and now lives outside Houston, calls the "process." Gradually, he came to believe the system is unfair and that innocent people have died, sometimes painfully, in "botched executions."

We get to know Pickett in At the Death House Door, a sobering documentary that airs tonight on IFC.

The Boston Globe has, "Documentary listens in 'At the Death House Door'."

The Los Angeles Times has, "'At the Death House Door' on Independent Film Channel."

The New York Daily News has, "Chaplain found grave issues on death row."

The Philadelphia Inquirer has, "Jonathan Storm: Witness to death sentences."

The Washington Post has, "The Convicted and Conflicted 'At the Death House Door'."

Variety has, "At the Death House Door."

Earlier coverage is here.  Carroll Pickett's memoir, Within These Walls, is available in the right-colum Books section.

New Documentary to Examine Carlos DeLuna Case

"At the Death House Door," is the title of a documentary currently in production.  It's a production of Kartemquin Films.  The studio is best known for it's 1994 Academy Award winning documentary "Hoop Dreams."  The Cantu documentary is being produced in association with the Chicago Tribune. 

Here's what Kartemquin says about the film.

In production for The Independent Film Channel...At the Death House Door is the story of the wrongful execution of Carlos DeLuna and the Death House Chaplain, Pastor Carroll Pickett, who spent the last day of DeLuna’s life with him. The feature documentary, currently in production, follows the remarkable career journey of Pickett, culminating in the story of DeLuna, a convict whose execution bothered Pickett more than any other. He firmly believed the man was innocent, and the film will track the investigative efforts of a team of Chicago Tribune reporters who have turned up evidence that strongly suggests he was. The documentary takes a very personal and intimate look at the death penalty in Texas, the first state to do lethal injection. Pickett was present for the first lethal injection in 1981. At the Death House Door is a Kartemquin Films Production in association with the Chicago Tribune.

WorldScreen.com reports the film will premiere on IFC in May.

IFC will premiere a lineup of new original non-fiction programming in 2008, including three documentaries: At the Death House Door, Heavy Load and Goth Cruise.

Premiering May 2008, the documentary At the Death House Door examines the death penalty in Texas, the first state to perform lethal injection. It is a Kartemquin Films Production in association with The Chicago Tribune. The documentary is directed and produced by Steve James and Peter Gilbert and executive produced by Gordon Quinn.

The Tribune's Steve Mills and Maurice Possley reported the story of how DeLuna, a likely innocent, was executed in 1989.  StandDown coverage is here.  The Tribune series is here.

The Chicago Tribune was a finalist among the nominees for the  2007 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for its series "Did this man die ... for this man's crime?," which ran in June 2006.

Journalists have also reported on two other likely innocents executed by Texas, Ruben Cantu and Todd Willingham.

Questions Should Halt Death Penalty

That's the title of an OpEd in the San Antonio Express-News by Dave Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  LINK

During the past year, three men have risen from the grave in Texas and said they were innocent of the crime for which they were put to death: Carlos De Luna, executed in 1989; Ruben Cantu, executed in 2003; and Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004.

Questions of Cantu's innocence were the result of investigative reporting by the Houston Chronicle, while questions of innocence in the De Luna and Willingham cases were the result of investigative reporting by the Chicago Tribune.

These claims of innocence are a bitter pill for Texas politicians who are strong supporters of the death penalty. They claim the Texas death penalty system works perfectly fine as opposed to Illinois, where a commission recommended 85 improvements to its criminal justice system after a number of innocent people were discovered on its death row. Because of concern with the fallibility of the Illinois system, Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions, pardoned several men and commuted to life the sentences of the remaining people on death row before he left office.

You can rest assured that such bold action has never been contemplated in Texas, which prides itself on the efficiency of its execution machinery. In fact, Texas cannot find the wherewithal to conduct a thorough investigation when a case of possible innocence is revealed. After all, such a study might conclude an innocent person has been executed and the system isn't so perfect after all.

More on DeLuna

The Dallas Morning News has an editorial today, Justice Without Doubt: "Questionable death cases call for review."  It reviews the Chicago Tribune reporting on the Carlos DeLuna case and the need for a proper state investigation. LINK

Yet, as in other recent cases, the state is impotent in the matter because it lacks an apparatus to delve into questions of fatal error. And the Nueces County district attorney's office has indicated no interest in re-examining the case. This sense of cold indifference is a disservice to Texans who care about the quality of justice in each of 368 executions carried out in their names since 1982.

The facts of the De Luna case make a powerful argument for action.

And:

The De Luna case is troubling enough taken alone, but it must be considered alongside two other capital murder convictions brought into question in recent months:

•That of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004 for the arson-slayings of his three young children in their Corsicana home. Expert testimony in his prosecution has since been discredited as based on outmoded forensic science. Local officials nevertheless maintained they got the right man.

•Ruben Cantu, executed in 1993 for the robbery-slaying of a construction worker in San Antonio based solely on eyewitness testimony. The eyewitness recanted last year, saying police leaned on him hard to finger Mr. Cantu as the killer.

Also, Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey looks at the DeLuna case today.  LINK

As the San Antonio District Attorney's Office continues to investigate the possibility that Texas wrongfully executed a man there in the wake of dogged investigative work by my colleague Lise Olsen, here comes the Chicago Tribune with a compelling case that the same thing may have happened in Corpus Christi.

More on Carlos DeLuna

Yesterday, the sister of Carlos DeLuna spoke at a Houston news conference and called for a state commission to be created to examine her brother's case.  The Chicago Tribune, which investigated and broke the DeLuna story - the likely innocent person executed by Texas in 1989, has coverage of the news conference here.

The Tribune series found that De Luna's case was compromised by unreliable eyewitnesses, sloppy police work and a failure by prosecutors to pursue evidence pointing to the other man, who died in prison while serving time for another crime.

"My brother was killed by the state of Texas on Dec. 7, 1989," Rose Rhoton, De Luna's sister, told a news conference. "He insisted time after time that he did not commit this crime. But nobody ever took the time to investigate."

The Washington Post also had a brief on the news conference.  LINK

HOUSTON -- Opponents of the death penalty in Texas -- joined by Rose Rhoton, the sister of Carlos De Luna, a Corpus Christi man who may have been executed for a murder he did not commit -- called on Texas officials to establish a commission to investigate allegations that innocent prisoners have been put to death in the nation's most aggressive death-penalty state.

Complete Chicago Tribune coverage of the DeLuna case is here.

Not In the Name of Justice

That's the title of an OpEd in today's Chicago Tribune by the paper's former editor and publisher examining the Carlos DeLuna case.  LINK

he reason to abolish capital punishment is not that it is immoral for a society to choose death over life. Every time we decide to do a major construction project or launch a space-shuttle program or send in troops (or allow people to drive 70 m.p.h.) we know fairly precisely how many people are likely to die as a result.

Nor is the reason that killing someone inflicts pain. That is almost beside the point, not least because we have the ability to anesthetize effectively if we have the wit to use it.

The real reason is that no government is good enough to entrust with the absolute power that capital punishment entails.

 

Carlos DeLuna Condensed

Today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram runs a condensed version of the Chicago Tribune's three-part series on Carlos DeLuna, the likely innocent executed by Texas in 1989.  LINK

More on DeLuna

Andrew Cohen's Bench Conference on WashingtonPost.com praises the Chicago Tribune series on Carlos DeLuna, the likely innocent executed by Texas in 1989.  LINK

The story of Carlos De Luna and Carlos Hernandez, as told by the two reporters, is a sadly familar one to those who follow closely the criminal justice system. The police do a shoddy job at the crime scene. Witnesses are duped into making positive identifications. The suspect acts irresponsibly. The prosecutors at trial gloss over exculpatory information and leads. The judge is a hazy figure who doesn't do much, the jury in the end doesn't get all the information it should before sending off some poor loser to death row, and the appellate judges and politicians have put up so many hurdles designed to deny defendants post-trial relief that mistakes go uncorrected for years, or perhaps, forever.

The Tribune three-part series is here.

Also, the current issue of the Austin Chronicle, our local, independent Alt-Weekly, has a brief on the DeLuna case.  LINK

The intrepid reporters at the Chicago Tribune are at it again – reporting in a three-part series this week that it appears another Texas death row inmate, Carlos De Luna, was wrongfully executed for the 1983 knife murder of Wanda Lopez at a Corpus Christi convenience store. The Trib series (which began June 25 and was written by the same team who earlier this year revealed that the state had likely executed another innocent, Cameron Todd Willingham, for an arson-murder he didn't commit) reports that prosecutors and police ignored information that another man, Carlos Hernandez – a man with a penchant for knife assaults – actually killed Lopez. De Luna (who, admittedly, had had his share of run-ins with the law, primarily for nonviolent offenses) was executed Dec. 7, 1989, even though no evidence linked him to the crime, save for identification by two witnesses, one of whom has since said he was persuaded by police that De Luna was the murderer.

New Featured Book

With the Chicago Tribune's three-part series on Carlos DeLuna, a likely innocent executed by Texas in 1989, we see a familiar name involved with the story - Carroll Pickett.

Here's an excerpt from the Tribune series:

De Luna was the 33rd Death Row inmate to whom Pickett ministered, and in the years that followed he would minister to 62 more. But this one stayed with him always: how De Luna claimed he was innocent, how he took longer to die than most inmates, how he tried to raise his head from the gurney and speak to Pickett before the lethal injection left him lifeless.

"When I saw him die," Pickett said, "part of me died too."

The experience forced him to ask a question he says he still can't answer: Do the innocent die differently than the guilty?

We've added Carroll Pickett's powerful 2002 memoir, Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, to the Books section on the right-hand column.  If you haven't read it, we highly recommend it.

Carlos DeLuna

The third and final installment of the Chicago Tribune investigation into the conviction and execution of Carlos DeLuna is here.

The Tribune's analysis of financial records from the Sigmor gas station also undercuts the state's assertion that the killing took place during a robbery, an aggravating circumstance that elevated the murder to a death penalty case. Newly examined inventory documents suggest no money was taken at all.

The prosecution argued that Hernandez was a "phantom," even though one of the prosecutors knew well of Hernandez but failed to inform De Luna's attorneys--a possible legal error that could have been a reason to overturn his conviction.

And one of Corpus Christi's senior detectives at the time of the crime now says he believes De Luna was wrongly executed. The former detective, Eddie Garza, said tipsters told him that Hernandez killed Lopez, the mother of a 6-year-old girl. Yet it appears those tips were not pursued.

The Tribune also has an editorial, "Death in Texas."  LINK

This nation has had a long and impassioned debate about the imposition of the death penalty, and that debate goes on. The Supreme Court revealed its own divisions Monday, upholding a Kansas law on capital punishment by a 5-4 vote.

Capital punishment is here and likely to be around for many years. One would hope as the debate goes on that those on either side of the divide could agree on this: As long as the government imposes the death penalty, it has an obligation to make every possible effort to protect the innocent from wrongful prosecution.

The Chicago Tribune concludes a series on Tuesday that raises new questions about whether we can have such certainty. The series lays out the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man 17 years ago.

 

Part 2 - Carlos DeLuna

This morning's Chicago Tribune has part two of its three-part series on the conviction and execution of Carlos DeLuna, a likely innocent executed by Texas.  LINK

Finally, jurors rejected De Luna's testimony that another man, Carlos Hernandez, was the real killer. The lead prosecutor scoffed at De Luna's assertion, calling Hernandez a "phantom."

But the jurors who found De Luna guilty and then sentenced him to death in July 1983, five months after his arrest, didn't hear the whole truth.

Hernandez did exist. Not only was he well-known to police in this Gulf Coast city as a violent felon, but the co-prosecutor at De Luna's trial and the lead detective in the case knew Hernandez too.

There is also a sidebar, "A prosecutor's silence."  LINK

When lead prosecutor Steve Schiwetz told a jury that a man named Carlos Hernandez was a "phantom" and not the killer of gas station clerk Wanda Lopez, his co-prosecutor sat nearby and said nothing.

Yet Ken Botary, a veteran of the Nueces County district attorney's office, was, by his own account, well aware of Hernandez and his reputation for violent acts here.

More on Carlos DeLuna

Associated Press' re-write of the first in the Chicago Tribune's three-part series is here.

Chicago Tribune Series Begins

The Chicago Tribune has started the series we told you about yesterday on the case of Carlos DeLuna, a likely innocent person executed by Texas in 1989.

The Tribune has a small sidebar, "About the Series."  LINK

The first in the three-article series is, "I didn't do it, but I know who did."  LINK

Arrested just blocks from the bloody crime scene, De Luna was swiftly convicted and sentenced to death--even though the parolee proclaimed his innocence and identified another man as the killer.

But 16 years after De Luna died by lethal injection, the Tribune has uncovered evidence strongly suggesting that the acquaintance he named, Carlos Hernandez, was the one who killed Lopez in 1983.

Ending years of silence, Hernandez's relatives and friends recounted how the violent felon repeatedly bragged that De Luna went to Death Row for a murder Hernandez committed.

The newspaper investigation, involving interviews with dozens of people and a review of thousands of pages of court records, also shows the case was compromised by shaky eyewitness identification, sloppy police work and a failure to thoroughly pursue Hernandez as a possible suspect.

           These revelations, which cast significant doubt over De Luna's conviction, were never heard by the jury.

Be sure to visit the Tribune site for multimedia on this story.  The series continues Monday. 

Another Innocent Executed in Texas?

The Chicago Tribune is promoting a major, three-part series scheduled to run this weekend on another likely innocent person executed by Texas.  LINK  A brief video is available for viewing at the Tribune site.

On December 7, 1989, Carlos De Luna was executed for murder.  But a Tribune investigation has uncovered evidence he was not the killer:

    Part 1  Open-and-shut case unravels.
    Part 2  Coming Monday.  Phantom or murderer?
    Part 3  Coming Tuesday.  What the judge and jury never heard.

ABC News' Nightline is also expected to report on the case in tonight's broadcast.  Check your local listings for time.  Nightline generally airs following the 11:00 pm (EDT)/10:00 pm (CDT) local news.

In 2004, a Tribune series on junk science concluded that Todd Willingham, executed earlier that year, had been convicted on the basis of discredited arson analysis.  A recent report by the Innocence Project, conducted by a team of leading arson experts, supports the Tribune story.  The Innocence Project has asked the newly created Texas Forensic Science Commission to investigate.  Original Tribune reporting on the Willingham case is here.  The Innocence Project Report on the Willingham case is here.

In November 2005, the Houston Chronicle reported on the  case of Ruben Cantu, executed in 1993.  The Chronicle reported that the person who identified Cantu said that he only did so because he believed the police wanted him to select Cantu.  Sam Millsap, the Bexar County District Attorney when Cantu was prosecuted, has said that he has no reason to doubt the recantation, and regrets that a death sentence was sought in the case. 

In recent months there has been widespread criticism of an investigation conducted by the current district attorney due to conflict of interest.  The seemingly stalled investigation has also led to calls for an independent investigation. The Chronicle reporting on the Cantu case is here.

To date, Texas has executed 366 men and women since 1982, more than 35% of all executions in America since reintroduction of the death penalty in the 1970's.  Many of those executions were carried out in spite of significant questions about the reliability of convictions and/or sentencing.  The DeLuna case will only strengthen demands for a moratorium on executions and a proper review of Texas' application of capital punishment.

In 2005, the State Bar of Texas endorsed a legislative proposal to create a state-sponsored death penalty study commission.  The legislation was sponsored in the House by State Rep. Elliott Naishtat of Austin, and in the Senate by State Senator Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso.

The Abilene Reporter-News, Austin American-Statesman, Bryan College Station Eagle, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, El Paso Times, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Victoria Advocate and Wichita Falls Times Record News have editorially endorsed moratorium proposals and reforms.

After formal studies, both the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the League of Women Voters of Texas called for a moratorium and reforms. The Travis County Commissioners’ Court has also adopted a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions.

The Fall 2004 Scripps Howard Texas Poll showed that 70% of respondents believed that Texas had executed innocent people.