That's the title of Austin-based NPR correspondent John Burnett's report for All Things Considered. There is audio at the link.
As the longest-serving governor of Texas, Rick Perry has overseen the application of the death penalty more than any other U.S. governor — 236 executions, and counting.
While Perry is unquestionably a steadfast supporter of capital punishment, his overall record on criminal justice is more complicated than that.
Inside the Texas Prison Museum, off Interstate 45 in the city of Huntsville, sits a stout oak chair, its varnish dull with age, fitted with thick leather straps.
"This is the Texas electric chair dubbed 'Old Sparky' by the inmates," says Jim Willett, a former warden and director of the prison museum. "In fact, the inmates referred to the execution as 'riding the thunderbolt.' "
Before the chair was retired in 1964, 361 convicts were put to death in it by judicial electrocution.
And:
It's often said the Texas governor "presides" over an execution, but that's inaccurate. He doesn't sign a death warrant or set an execution date, as in some states. In Texas, the only power the governor has is to grant a single 30-day reprieve — and then only if his Pardons Board recommends it.
"The train runs on its own," says Jordan Steiker, co-director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas Law School. "Execution dates will be scheduled. The attorney general's office and the local district attorneys will defend the death sentences. The governor's office basically doesn't have to do anything, and capital punishment will run in a robust way in Texas."
Perry commuted one death sentence to life in prison in his more than 10 years in office. George W. Bush granted one commutation. Democrat Ann Richards — a liberal icon — did not grant any.
Critics say Perry is a more passionate advocate for the death penalty than his predecessors, and that zeal has manifested itself in two controversial actions.
Also:
But is that the end of the story — that Perry favors frontier justice?
There are criminal justice reformers in Texas who insist that Perry is anything but a hang-'em-high governor.
"I think Rick Perry is really getting a bum rap if and when he's being portrayed as some sort of bloodthirsty tyrant that just likes to kill people," says Jeff Blackburn, chief legal counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas, which works to overturn wrongful convictions.
"What we're accustomed to, frankly, is the governor's office being the primary obstructer of reform and progress, and that has not been the case with Rick Perry,"
More coverage of Rick Perry, the death penalty in Texas, and 2012 politics begins at the link; that would include more commentary from Jordan Steiker, noted last month.
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