There are news articles and editorials, today. Let's begin with news coverage; editorials in the next post.
"Hearing on death penalty starts in Houston court," is the latest AP report. It's unsigned and via Google News.
Experts on eyewitness identification, confessions and forensic evidence are among those expected to testify at an unusual hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty that starts Monday in the Texas county that has sent more convicts to death row than any other.
Harris County Judge Kevin Fine ordered the hearing last spring in response to a routine defense motion that judges typically reject. Fine, who stands out as a Democratic judge in deeply Republican Texas, declined to be interviewed but has indicated he's aware of recent exonerations of death row inmates and his decision in the case will "boil down to whether or not an innocent person has actually been executed."
Defense attorneys who filed the motions said they plan to call legal and academic experts who will detail how flaws in such things as eyewitness identification and confessions have led to wrongful convictions and sent innocent people to death row. The attorneys represent John Edward Green Jr., who is awaiting trial on charges he fatally shot a Houston woman and wounded her sister during a June 2008 robbery. The hearing could last up to two weeks.
Fine originally responded to the motion by declaring the death penalty unconstitutional. The decision surprised many Texans and generated a storm of criticism from Republican Gov. Rick Perry and others. The judge then clarified his ruling, saying the procedures the state follows in getting a death sentence are unconstitutional. Then he rescinded his ruling and ordered the hearing, saying he needed more information before making a final decision.
Fine has said he believes capital punishment is constitutional and the hearing will focus only on the specific issues raised by Green's attorneys.
Still, his actions seem to be in contrast to the beliefs of many Texans who consider the death penalty a fitting punishment for the worst kind of crimes. And, the hearing is being held in Harris County, which includes the state's largest city, Houston, and has sentenced more people to death than any other Texas county — 286 since executions resumed in 1982. One hundred fifteen of those have been executed.
While anti-death penalty groups have lauded Fine, those in favor of capital punishment have called him misguided.
Prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney's Office unsuccessfully tried to get him removed from the case. While they declined to comment before the hearing, they said in court documents that Fine has shown "antagonism against the death penalty" and they doubted he could be impartial.
An earlier AP report, "Texas judge to hold hearing on death penalty law," by Juan Lozano is via the Austin American-Statesman.
In this deeply Republican state that has executed more convicts than any other and in the county that has sent the most to death row, an unusual legal proceeding will begin this week: A Democratic judge will hold a lengthy hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty in Texas.
State District Judge Kevin Fine surprised many Texans in the spring when he granted a typically rejected defense motion and ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. His ruling came in the case of John Edward Green Jr., who is awaiting trial, accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister during a June 2008 robbery.
A torrent of criticism has come from Republican Gov. Rick Perry and other Texans, prompting Fine to clarify and then rescind his ruling. He ordered the hearing that starts today, saying he needed more information before making a final decision.
Fine is an unusual Houston jurist: a Democrat who sports dense tattoos and has said he's a recovering alcoholic and former cocaine user.
He declined to be interviewed for this story, but he's said that he's taken notice of recent death row exonerations and his ruling will "boil down to whether or not an innocent person has actually been executed."
Fine also has said that he has no personal interest in the death penalty, that he believes the death penalty is constitutional and that the hearing will be limited to issues related to Green's case. The hearing, which could last up to two weeks, is expected to include testimony that Green's attorneys say will show how flaws in such things as eyewitness identification, confessions and forensic evidence have led to wrongful convictions.
Harris County has sentenced 286 people to death since Texas resumed executions in 1982, and 115 of those have been executed.
Today's Wall Street Journal carries, "Hearing to Delve Into Texas Executions," by Ana Campoy.
Capital punishment in Texas will go on trial Monday, as lawyers for an accused killer prepare to argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it carries high risks that innocent people could be executed.
Lawyers for John E. Green Jr., who is charged with killing a woman in front of her children, are not challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty, only how the punishment is applied by the state.
At the hearing before State District Judge Kevin Fine in Houston, Mr. Green's lawyers are expected to argue that he should not be prosecuted for capital murder, which is punishable by death.
With 464 executions in the last three decades, Texas has put to death far more convicts than any other state. But a dozen death-row inmates have been exonerated of the crimes of which they were convicted.
Critics of the Texas justice system point to a range of problems they say increase the risks of convicting the innocent, from police procedures that can mislead eye witnesses in identifying perpetrators to the state's failure to provide the accused with adequate defenders. They also say evidence is often not analyzed with the best scientific methods, leading to mistakes.
Mr. Green's lawyers say the evidence the state collected in his case is unreliable—including prints that were not sufficiently clear to identify the perpetrator—and risks wrongfully convicting him.
The hearing "will lay out powerful proof that the risks of executing the innocent in Texas are too high and these procedures have to be fixed," said Barry C. Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project, which is based in New York and is assisting the Green legal team. "It's a pretty important issue for the whole viability of capital punishment if there's something profoundly wrong with it."
The Harris County District Attorney's office declined to comment on the hearing. But in a brief filed with the court, prosecutors called "largely unfounded and/or exaggerated" claims that innocent defendants have been convicted in other death-penalty cases, and argued that such claims should not prevent them from pursuing capital punishment for Mr. Green.
Time reports, "The Death Penalty on Trial." It's written by Nathan Thornburgh.
Recent revelations about faulty evidence in two Texas death-penalty cases have raised new questions about the fairness of the death penalty. Now those questions will get an unprecedented hearing in the middle of a current murder trial: on Monday, a judge will hear evidence in the case of Texas v. Green that isn't about the crime in question at all, but instead about whether there's enough risk of wrongful execution in Texas to render the death penalty unconstitutional.
The trial's defendant is John Edward Green Jr., who is charged with capital murder in the 2008 shooting death of a Houston woman who was gunned down in her driveway in front of her children. Prosecutors in Harris County, where the case is being tried, declined to comment about the case, but Williamson County district attorney John Bradley said the death penalty is still needed for "horrific crimes." This would certainly qualify.
But Green's defense team, led by the Texas Defender Service, is taking advantage of an uncommon Texas procedure that allows judges to consider how a requested punishment (like the death penalty) is applied across the state, and consider that evidence as part of a trial. It's a new forum for old wars about the constitutionality of the death penalty: those battles are usually fought in appeals court, not during the first trial itself.
"This is completely unique," says David Dow, a University of Houston law professor who also works with the Texas Defender Service. "It's never happened before in Texas. That alone makes it important."
Two executions recently re-examined by the Innocence Project and others have likely inspired this hearing. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his children; the arson testimony that led to his conviction has since been widely discredited. The 1990 conviction of Claude Jones was recently called into doubt, in a case that was first reported nationally in TIME, when a new DNA test found that the prosecution's key evidence — a piece of hair — belonged, in fact, to the victim, and not Jones.
The Innocence Project and one of its co-founders, Barry Scheck, have long argued that the DNA exonerations they've worked on reveal other prosecutorial flaws that contribute to wrongful convictions. In 75% of DNA exonerations nationwide, they say, one or more eyewitnesses made false identifications.
Earlier coverage begins with the post, "Harris County Hearing Set for Monday." The basis for the hearing is contained in this brief filed by Mr. Green's attorneys.
Complete coverage of the Todd Willingham and Claude Jones cases at the links.
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