The StandDown Texas Project

Questioning Capital Punishment

That's the title of Bruce Shapiro's article in The Nation.  LINK

In the long, contentious history of capital punishment in America, there has never been a moment like this: Over just a few days in mid-December, judges in California and Maryland and the governor of Florida shut down any pending executions in those states--all because of rapidly growing doubts about the humanity and constitutionality of lethal injection. In less than a week, 1,052 death-row inmates were thrust at least temporarily beyond reach of the needle.

And:

Finally, and most important, the Supreme Court's reversals in recent years--its wholesale rejection of executions of juvenile offenders and the retarded--suggest that "evolving standards of decency" are real. Polling data suggest the same thing. To Americans the other methods of state killing employed by a diminishing number of nations--beheading (Saudi Arabia), the shot behind the ear (China), the gallows (Iran)--all seem archaic, visceral, violent. Cool, clinical and peaceful, lethal injection was supposed to overcome public revulsion, but it will not always do so. California may concoct a new drug cocktail or protocol that satisfies Judge Fogel; when Jeb Bush leaves office in January his successor will likely lift the moratorium. But even in the lingering, unforgiving shadow of September 11, the country continues its march away from capital punishment.

Decline in Texas Death Sentences

That's the topic of a major story in the coming issue of Texas Lawyer, exploring a 65% decrease in death sentences in the state in the past decade.  LINK

While Texas has long been known as one of the nation's most bloodthirsty jurisdictions when it comes to capital punishment, recent statistics reveal that death sentences are on the decline in the Lone Star State.

According to numbers released last month by the State Office of Court Administration, death sentences returned by Texas juries have dropped steadily over the past 10 years.

During fiscal year 2006, juries returned 14 death sentences in Texas — a drop of 65 percent from the 40 death sentences imposed during fiscal year 1996.

That decline is in keeping with a national trend in which the number of death sentences has fallen by more than half over the past 10 years. Nationally in calendar year 2005, there were 125 death sentences assessed in the United States — a drop of 61 percent from the 317 death sentences imposed during calendar year 1995, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.

And:

But more than a dozen lawyers who handle death penalty cases in Texas say there is no simple explanation for the drop. A variety of factors — including the increased length of prison sentences, a lower crime rate, the high cost of prosecuting death-sentence cases, improved DNA testing, key U.S. Supreme Court cases that have eliminated capital punishment for certain criminals and a better prepared criminal-defense bar — have played a part in the decline, they say.

While experts offer different reasons for the drop in death sentences in Texas, one thing is sure: No Texas county has experienced a sharper decline in sending prisoners to death row than Harris County, which had been known as one of the busiest death penalty jurisdictions in the nation.

And:

Some prosecutors believe that death penalty prosecutions will drop even further, because a law the Legislature passed a year ago makes a sentence of life without parole an option juries can consider in death penalty cases. Texas Penal Code §12.31 went into effect on Sept. 1, 2005, but few if any capital murders committed after that date have gone to trial yet, two criminal-defense lawyers say.

Hunt County District Attorney Duncan Thomas says 14 people have been indicted in his county for capital murder since July 2003, but all resulted in life sentences.

In most of those cases, Thomas decided not to seek the death penalty at the request of the victims' families.

The decline in death sentences also matches a state and national decline in the number of executions.  In Texas the peak came in 2000 when the state carried out 40 executions.  This year Texas executed 24, a slight increase from last year when 19 were executed.  Nationally, the peak was in 1999 when 98 executions occurred.

Death Penalty's Southern Accent

That the title of an article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch exploring why so many executions occur in the old South.  LINK

The number of executions have dropped in Texas and Virginia, and death sentences are down in both states. Nationally, there has been a 60 percent drop in death sentences since 1999.

In the past year and a half, Virginia has had one execution. In the past two years, it had three death sentences. However, execution dates have been set for two killers this month in Virginia. And Texas has executed 13 so far this year.

Dieter said geographic and other disparities make the words of one U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1972 ring true today: "It is impossible to distinguish the few cases that receive the death penalty from the many that are eligible. Such a punishment is arbitrary and therefore cruel and unusual."

Defenders say geographic disparity simply shows that the death penalty is used where the public and judiciary most strongly support it.

Why the South leads the nation in executions is a complicated question with no definitive answer, say historians.

The Times-Dispatch also has a sidebar stating that Virginia carries out the highest rate of excutions to death sentences imposed.  LINK

Through the end of 2004, Virginia had executed 65 percent of the 144 people sentenced to death in the state. The next closest state, Missouri, executed 35 percent. The national average is 12.5 percent, according to available federal figures.

GRACE Law Fundraiser

The Gulf Region Advocacy Center will hold a fundraiser this Friday, June 23, in Houston. From the GRACE website:

On June 23, 2006, defense counsel Gerry Zerkin, will speak about his recent experience representing Zacarias Moussaoui and what this victory teaches us about the death penalty in the United States. The event is a fundraiser commemorating the Fourth Anniversary of the founding of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center, (GRACE), a non-profit law office representing indigent defendants facing the death penalty, and is open to the public. The fundraiser will be held at Gallery 101 located at 101 Franklin St. in Houston, TX, from 7:00 to 11:00 pm. It will include a silent auction, casual buffet, music and dancing.

Prior to the fundraiser, Mr. Zerkin will host a private cocktail party from 5:00 to 7:00 pm, also at Gallery 101. Tickets are $30. Call (713)869-4722 for Reservations.

 

The Failed Experiment

That's the title of Anna Quindlen's column in the current Newsweek.  LINK

Hardly any other civilized place does this anymore. In the past three decades, the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has risen from 16 to 86. Last year four countries accounted for nearly all executions worldwide: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

As my Irish grandmother used to say, you're known by the company you keep.

Last week the Supreme Court agreed to cogitate once more about capital punishment, a boomerang the justices find coming back at them time and time again. This new case is about the way lethal injection is administered. The argument is that even though one drug anesthetizes, a second paralyzes and a third stops the heart, the first is not sufficient to mitigate the pain and the second makes the inmate appear peaceful when he is in agony.

And:

In judicial terms, Justice Harry Blackmun concluded in 1994 that all it came down to was figuring out how to "tinker with the machinery of death."

And he was officially finished with it, writing: "Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed." The question isn't whether executions can be made painless: it's whether they're wrong. Everything else is just quibbling. And most of the quibbling simply boils down to trying to make the wrong seem right.

More on the Hecht Admonishment

There are plenty of opinions about the admonishment of Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht by the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct over his Miers' comments while she was a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Hecht has vowed to appeal.

Let's start with a column by the Houston Chronicle's Austin bureau chief Clay Robison titled, "State justice's remarks on Miers were perfectly proper."  LINK

The San Antonio Express-New has an editorial, "Hecht should accept wrist-slap over Miers."  LINK

The Austin American-Statesman editorial is,"Hecht took political misstep, but commission also slips."  LINK

More on Hecht Admonishment

Houston Chronicle coverage is here.  Dallas Morning News coverage is here.

Justice Hecht Admonished

Texas State Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht has been admonished by the Commission on Judicial Conduct for comments he made to the press regarding Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court.  LINK

In its May 10 admonition, released today, the commission found that Hecht's actions constituted "persistent and willful violations" of two canons of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct. Canon 2b states that "a judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others." And Canon 5(2) states that "a judge or judicial candidate shall not authorize the public use of his or her name endorsing another candidate for any public office, except that either may indicate support for a political party."

Hecht plans to challenge the admonition.  The admonition, made public today, is here.

The Texas Supreme Court is the highest state court for civil matters.  Criminal cases are heard before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.