June 20
TEXAS:
The Daily Texan's opinion piece "Death penalty needs reprieve" (6/14/05),
finds that Texas should have a reprieve on executions because of Texas'
"many commutations, overturns and retrials" in death penalty cases.
Let's review The Daily Texans' evidence for a moratorium:
1) a 20 year old Dallas County case - Miller-El - just overturned because
of prosecutorial misconduct.
This case was handled by the appellate system without a moratorium. There
appears no basis for a moratorium, today, for misconduct from 20 years
ago. This appeal took way too long and should have been resolved in no
more than 8 years.
2) "In March, Roper v. Simmons banned the execution of juveniles in the
United States and caused the commutation of the sentences of 29 underage
Texas inmates."
29 17-year-old murderers were properly sentenced to death under Texas law
and U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court changed the law after
those sentences were given.
It certainly isn't Texas' fault that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to
change the rules that it had established another way, not long ago. This
provides no reason for a moratorium.
3) "Medellin v. Dretke, concerned a Mexican national who was denied legal
assistance from his home country when he was convicted of murder in Texas.
The Supreme Court passed on the case earlier this month, but only because
President Bush ordered the retrial of all 51 cases that would have been
affected by the verdict."
Medellin was never denied legal assistance and President Bush never
ordered retrials. This case involves a violation of the Vienna Convention,
whereby Texas (and other states) failed to inform arrested foreign
nationals that they had the right to contact their consulate, if they so
chose.
President Bush ordered new hearings - not retrials - for that issue in the
15 Texas cases. However, Texas already had conducted or would conduct
hearings on that issue, on its own, if merited. Furthermore, it remains to
be seen if the President has the legal authority to order such hearings in
a state court.
And, as The Daily Texan noted, the U.S. Supreme Court passed on this case,
for now.
The lack of notification can, overwhelmingly, be blamed on the U.S. State
Department, not on the Texas (or other states') judicial or enforcement
systems. This international treaty was absent from the knowledge of most
local law enforcement until recent years.
Texas never denied consular access to those detainees or the detainees
lawyers.
Obviously, no need for a moratorium on this issue.
4) "In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of 3
other Texas death row inmates last year."
Texas has one of the nations best records for cases being "affirmed" on
appeal. That is a good thing and speaks against a moratorium. Yes, Texas
can do better and should keep improving until it has the best record of
affirming death penalty cases.
5) "Other states have declared moratoriums to investigate serious flaws in
their capital punishment systems and assure that no innocent life is lost.
Texas should do the same."
Untrue. 2 governors have, by executive fiat, declared moratoriums on
executions. No state through the legislative process, has had a state
moratorium put into law. The Illinois moratorium has been in place for
some years. The Maryland governor declared a moratorium as a political
favor. It only lasted a few months and didn't prevent any scheduled
executions.
7 recent studies all find a strong deterrent effect of the death penalty.
But, even without deterrence, the evidence is that innocents are more at
risk without the death penalty - living murderers are infinitely more
likely to harm and murder again, than are executed ones. Who would have
known?
Hardly a good case for a Texas moratorium, is it?
For nearly a decade, there have been exhaustive efforts by death penalty
opponents to have moratoriums established by law through the legislative
process. None of those have been successful.
There is a reason for that. The facts speak against it, as they do in
Texas.
(source: The Daily Texan (Dudley Sharp Founder of Justice Matters,
Houston, Texas)
***********************
Perry Signs New Law
A new law signed by Governor Rick Perry might spare the life of future
convicted murders.
District Attorney Carlos Valdez says, "Capital murder has only 2
punishments available."
But not for long, Governor Perry signed a law that gives jurors 1 more
option.
Currently in a capital murder cases, jurors can sentence a person to death
or give them life with the possibility of parole. This law lets jurors
sentence criminals to life in prison.
Valdez believes this is the 1st step to abolishing the death penalty,
"When there's 3 options instead of 2, there's more of a chance that the
jury will not assess the death penalty, so I think this is good news for
criminals."
Texas death row statistics
1. Harris - 280
2. Dallas - 92
3. Bexar - 68
4. Tarrant - 59
5. Jefferson - 23
6. Nueces - 22
According to the Texas Department of criminal justice Nueces County is
high on the list of counties issuing the death penalty. Since 1976 we've
sent 22 people to death row.
4 of those men still sit on death row, Larry Hatten, Richard Vasquez, Jose
Villegas and Martin Robles.
Troy Kunkle is the most recent death row inmate from Nueces County to be
executed.
Valdez believes executing is the only way to ensure safety, "People have
the tendency to think that life with out parole means that the community
is protected. That's not how it works. I've seen many people that are
sentenced to life who have either using a telephone or other types of
communication have killed from the outside."
Valdez adds, "The only way to completely do away with the danger is to
execute them."
This law will take effect September 1. It applies only to convictions
after that date.
(source: KZTV News)
**********************************
How long will we continue to punish the mentally ill?----Harris County
can't justify jailings instead of treatment
Consider the sad case of John.
First arrested at the age of 18 in June 2003 for making a terroristic
threat, he spent 90 days in jail. Between Christmas and Thanksgiving that
year, he spent 28 days in jail for trespassing. Arrested again in late
February 2004, he spent 48 days in jail for misdemeanor car burglary. 3
months later, he served a two-week sentence, again for trespassing.
Within two weeks of his release, he was charged with felony possession of
a controlled substance and went to jail for 47 days. Shortly after his
release, he was jailed 13 more days for trespassing. After 2 months of
freedom, he was charged with criminal mischief and went to jail for 18
more days. He was released two days before Christmas. During this time,
Harris County spent more than $17,000 to house and feed John, without ever
dealing with his true problem.
John is mentally ill. He also has mild mental retardation. More than that,
he suffers from a disorganized, disjointed, poorly funded and
under-resourced system that is unable to provide him with the treatment
and guidance he needs to keep him out of jail. He and 15,000 others like
him in Harris County are caught up in a vicious cycle that criminalizes
mental illness, inappropriately processing him and those like him through
the criminal justice system rather than the mental health system. The
system penalizes John, and it also penalizes the citizens of Harris County
with unnecessary costs and the loss of potentially productive citizens who
could care for themselves with a little bit of help.
John is not alone. In fact, he is one of more than 150,000 Harris County
residents with the most severe form of mental illness and disability.
These vulnerable people are often overlooked, stigmatized and punished for
conditions they cannot control without help. They can be difficult,
demanding and helpless, and society turns a blind eye to their plight.
This is especially true in Harris County, where there are 60 % fewer
mental health treatment beds than recommended in national standards. The
help that is available is uncoordinated and difficult to access, leaving
many of these vulnerable people on the streets or in prison - and without
treatment.
County agencies, such as the Mental Health and Mental Retardation
Authority of Harris County and the Harris County Hospital District, are
looking at ways to merge services into a more rational system. Without
funneling the funds for behavioral health for the county into a common
pool with governance over all services, it is unlikely services can be
significantly improved. In that spirit, Healthcare for the
Homeless-Houston (HHH), an independent nonprofit corporation, is
developing several programs to help mentally ill patients who have
committed crimes.
One HHH program in development will help identify mental health patients
as they enter the court system. The plan is to put them into treatment
settings that are more appropriate - and cost-effective - than jail. If
successful, this and other similar programs could save Harris County
almost $33 million a year in jail costs alone. It would also more
effectively manage patients' illnesses and, as a result, reduce the
likelihood of subsequent arrests.
HHH is also trying to design a system that links mental health inmates to
care programs right after they are released from prison. More than half of
these inmates in Harris County are homeless, which increases the risk that
they will return to prison or die on the streets. The results of a 2004
study carried out in a Harris County study showed that a mentally ill
offender was more likely than one without mental illness to face a more
serious charge, go to jail, receive a longer sentence, and be arrested and
charged with another offense.
In response to this, a group of local agencies recently formed the Jail
Diversion Task Force to address these problems. Members of the task force
represent Commissioners Court, the courts, criminal justice agencies
including the Harris County Sheriff's Department, police departments,
probation and pretrial services, and all major health and mental health
care programs in Harris County. The mission of the task force is to
explore funding and approaches for diverting people from jail and helping
their re-entry back into the community.
It is a good start, but it is not enough.
Harris County citizens and political leaders must look into their hearts
and choose. Do we want to continue to pay to punish these people or do we
want to alleviate their suffering? Can any society afford to pay the high
cost of punishment over the reasonable price tag for treatment? We cannot
justify this fiscally. We cannot justify it ethically or spiritually.
When we so easily discard John and others like him in our small community,
we throw away a vital part of ourselves.
(source: Houston Chronicle, Viewpoints (Buck is associate professor of
Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, president and
chief medical officer of Healthcare for the Homeless Houston and chair of
the Behavioral Healthcare Committee of the Harris County Public Healthcare
System Council. Nguyen is with the Mental Health and Mental Retardation
Authority of Harris County, June 19)
FLORIDA:
Justice in Roberts slaying -- but not revenge
The beating and slaying last month in a Holly Hill copse of Michael Eugene
Roberts, a homeless, skeletal and virtually defenseless man, was a heinous
act. Every murder is. The method does not make it more so. Roberts'
killing would have been no less heinous had he been killed in his sleep by
a lethal injection (the kind state governments that favor the method in
their executions call, absurdly, "humane"). Nor would Roberts' killing
have been any less heinous had he been an ordinary, healthy man on his way
to work.
The manner in which he was killed -- he was kicked, punched, struck with
sticks -- allegedly by 5 teens, some of whom frequently played and
maintained a "fort" nearby, and the place where he was killed, near his
childhood home, has understandably heightened the public's revulsion. It
looks like a wanton act. Roberts' family and the public have every right
and reason to feel revolted, and to demand justice.
But not revenge. The law should not be calibrated to respond more or less
harshly to a crime based on visceral public reactions. That it often does
in such cases only shows to what extent prosecutors are willing to use the
law as an extension of political license indexed to the vagaries of public
outrage rather than as an objective standard of fair and rational justice.
The State Attorney's Office itself is responding more viscerally than
fairly by choosing to charge as adults two 15 year olds and one 14 year
old arrested in the Roberts case. Two others also arrested are 18. They
face the possibility of another kind of visceral reaction should the State
Attorney decide to seek the death penalty in their case. In short, the
state is on its way to prosecuting the barbaric killing of Michael Eugene
Roberts with a barbaric strategy of its own. The equivalence is not an
exaggeration -- not if 2 18-year-olds end up on death row, not if the
other 3 juveniles end up in the maw of the state's "youthful offender"
prisons, which are only nominally different from adult prisons. Those
"youthful offender" prisons' indifference to any pretense of
rehabilitation and the casual violence prevalent in them only prepare
inmates for graduation to adult prison come their 18th birthday. That's
not deterrence. It's revenge.
State attorneys are not entirely to blame. When it comes to crime and
punishment legislators have been uninterested in nuance. Teenagers are by
definition reckless, judgment-impaired, works in progress, and sometimes,
unfortunately, very shoddy works in progress. They should be treated as
such when they commit crimes, and the juvenile justice system should be
designed around that rehabilitative premise. But the Legislature in the
mid-1990s set the prosecutorial tone that sees violent juvenile offenders
as "superpredators" no different from their older versions. Local
prosecutors are only following state guidelines.
Yes, up to a point. The fact is that the Legislature leaves it to the
discretion of state attorneys to decide what juveniles 14 and older to
prosecute as adults, a discretion that changes from region to region,
depending on how much the prosecutor chooses to mirror public sentiment
(or political mood swings) as opposed to exclusive and indiscriminate
fairness.
Still, that the state attorney has decided to try all the accused in the
Roberts case as adults doesn't mean that, should they be found guilty,
they'd be sentenced as adults. State attorneys can charge juveniles as
adults. They can't force judges to punish juveniles as adults. There's
that much balance to hope for. This is no knee-jerk plea for Roberts'
killers, whoever they may be. Let them be punished. But not by making law
and cruelty indistinguishable.
(source: Editorial, Daytona Beach News-Journal)
*****************************
He's in good spirits on death row----Prison has not turned him into an
angry beast
On a recent night, my wife got a call from a friend of ours who is on
death row for a Florida murder. His most recent appeal was denied, even
though the court found that he did not actually kill anyone. His partner
was identified as the shooter and escaped lethal injection by being beaten
and kicked to death in his cell. That is, Bill is a convicted murderer who
didn't murder anyone and remains hopeful that a court somewhere will
commute his sentence.
Given the latest legal developments, Bill's life now depends on the
jurisprudence exercised by the U.S. Supreme Court. That cannot be a
comforting thought, but according to my wife, Bill was in good spirits, as
he usually is when they talk once a month. She always comes away from
these 10-minute conversations struck by how concerned he is about our
struggle.
True to form, Bill gave my wife an update on his case, but his focus was
on how my efforts at parole were going. After spending maybe 2 minutes on
his own situation, he moved immediately to ours, offering advice and
encouragement and ignoring the death sentence hanging over his head.
Our mutual criticism of the Florida system gives us common ground, but
what is so striking to my wife and me is Bill's persistent philosophical
acceptance of a life forever confined to a prison cell, a life that could
literally end in the next few weeks. He sounds so alive and animated. This
is made more remarkable by what he faces if he is not executed.
Even if Bill is able to get his death sentence overturned, he would face
life in prison without parole, plus several other sentences imposed
consecutively. (Florida takes no chances, often imposing consecutive
sentences to run after a death sentence.) He is 47 now and has been on
death row for 20 years, which means that if his appeal is successful, he
would probably serve another 20-30 years before dying inside.
Yes, some will argue that he should have been executed long ago, because
even if he didn't kill anyone, he still played a role in the crime in
which someone died, and the law says that participants are all equally
culpable.
I recognize the legal validity of that argument, even if logic seems to
dictate different sentences for varying degrees of participation. But this
condemned man's ability to inspire others with his quiet resolve and
uncompromising honesty overshadows the legal considerations.
As articulated in his published autobiography, Bill is a career criminal
and makes no excuses for the path he chose. This makes him a rare bird in
today's prison environment, where so many people have some lame excuse for
the crime that got them into prison.
In a world in which politics is driven by spin and the country's leaders
often have only a nodding acquaintance with the truth, Bill's candor is
refreshing. He admits his mistakes, above all the last one that caused a
man's death, and acknowledges that the crimes he committed deserved
punishment. He has come to terms with his potential execution and managed
to find peace, even as he fights to live the rest of his life in prison.
Bill's ability to avoid the stark pessimism that infects death row sets
him apart from most condemned prisoners. His determination not to
surrender to bitterness and curse every mother's son within earshot
illuminates a near-Renaissance spirit. And his gift for standing at the
abyss and gazing into it without becoming the abyss, as Nietzsche put it,
means that the state has failed in these 20 years to turn him into the
animal it claims he is.
And yet my wife and I are terribly afraid for him because we know how
single-minded the state of Florida can be in executing people. We don't
worry about his sanity, but a sound philosophy is futile without a living
brain to house and articulate it.
Bill is, however, adamant. Although sentenced to death, he continues to
comfort my wife and me in our grinding pursuit of parole in the face of
repeated disappointments and to be the voice of reasoned optimism when we
are tempted to abandon hope.
Over the years, Susan has come to know him, and she is upset when she
thinks about the death that possibly lies ahead for him. Instead of
permitting her to comfort him, he always turns the conversations around,
refusing to let her dwell on the hypothetical and assuring her that he is
not even close to being executed - and then he begins planning strategy
for my next parole hearing.
(source: Concord Monitor (Charles Huckelbury is serving time in the New
Hampshire state prison for a murder he committed in Florida.)
USA:
Major Death Penalty Rulings This Term
Roper v. Simmons: Court rules 5-4 to outlaw the death penalty for people
who committed crimes when they were juveniles, citing a national consensus
that such executions are unconstitutionally cruel.
Medellin v. Dretke: On a 5-4 vote, turns away as premature an appeal that
contended 51 Mexicans on U.S. death row were improperly denied legal help.
Justices reserved the right to hear the case again once state court
appeals are exhausted.
Smith v. Texas: Voting 7-2, overturns death sentence of convicted Texas
killer LaRoyce Lathair Smith because jurors in his trial did not consider
his learning disability and other evidence.
Miller-El v. Dretke: Court, voting 6-3, overturns the conviction of black
death row inmate Thomas Miller-El, who said Texas prosecutors unfairly
stacked his jury with with whites.
Rompilla v. Beard: Court decides 5-4 to order a new sentencing trial for
Pennsylvania death row inmate Ronald Rompilla, warning state courts that
shoddy defense work won't be tolerated.
Florida v. Nixon: Votes 8-0 that Florida death row inmate Joe Elton Nixon
should not automatically get a new trial even though his lawyer conceded
Nixon's guilt without his consent. Justices reasoned that the decision was
a reasonable trial strategy.
Deck v. Missouri: Votes 7-2 to throw out the death sentence of convicted
murderer Carman Deck, who was shackled during sentencing. Justices say
it's unconstitutional to force defendants to appear before juries in
chains during a trial's penalty.
Brown v. Payton: Rules 5-3 that a jury that sentenced convicted killer
William Payton to death had properly taken into account his religious
conversion, even though a prosecutor argued incorrectly that it was
irrelevant.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
U.S. Supreme Court vs. The World
The rumors sweep through Washington, D.C., like summer storms. One day,
Chief Justice William Rehnquist is about to resign. The next day, not. The
day after that, one or more justices will join him in leaving the bench.
The truth is, no one can predict what will happen.
Rehnquist, who is fighting thyroid cancer, is keeping his plans to
himself, if he has any. He has shown remarkable stamina and determination
in keeping up with his work at the court, and it would surprise no one if
he defied all the experts and stayed on for months or longer.
So here is a safer prediction: When and if a new justice is nominated, he
or she will be grilled about an issue you have probably not heard much
about: whether it is proper for the Supreme Court to use international or
foreign law as a resource in deciding U.S. cases.
Before your eyes glaze over or wander to a nearby cartoon, let me add:
This issue is a big deal and has already played a significant role in the
court's decision-making in recent years.
In landmark rulings upholding affirmative action, supporting gay rights
and, most recently, striking down the death penalty for juvenile
offenders, justices have invoked the practices of foreign nations and the
rulings of international courts to support their conclusions. In the March
1 ruling Roper v. Simmons, Justice Anthony Kennedy took note of the "stark
reality" that the United States was the only nation in the world that
still sanctioned the execution of those who were younger than 18 when they
committed their crimes.
That fact was far from the only reason Kennedy and four other justices
found such executions unconstitutional. But to hear conservatives' violent
reaction to the decision, you would think that it was the only
justification, and that Kennedy had suddenly ceded the authority of the
Supreme Court to the laws of Klingon, or Mars.
The uproar
In a tone of incredulity, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said in April,
"We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law
not the Constitution of the United States." Congressional Republicans have
introduced a resolution to disapprove of the practice. Justice Antonin
Scalia, the leading opponent of the trend, said recently that the framers
of the Constitution "would be appalled" to see the Supreme Court cite the
laws of nations they were trying to distance themselves from. As the issue
gains traction, the chances improve that Scalia or Clarence Thomas, who
also opposes using foreign sources, will be nominated as chief justice.
Kennedy can kiss his chances goodbye.
Why all the fuss over a seemingly technical point of law? This debate is
driven by outcomes. In each of the recent cases in which invoking foreign
law has sparked controversy, the decisions have been progressive or
liberal. But a lot of international law is not so progressive. On issues
ranging from freedom of speech to abortion, much of the world is far to
the right of U.S. law. It will be interesting to see whether conservatives
get so upset when cases come along in which international doctrines would
help their side.
But at a loftier plane, this is an important debate about the court's
role. Conservatives who believe in a limited role for judges say the
Supreme Court should stick to its knitting, namely interpreting the U.S.
Constitution as written, and should ignore current fads here or abroad.
But the counter-argument is strong. If globalization has flattened the
world in terms of the economy and culture, isn't it time that our legal
system also look beyond our borders? Are we so arrogant that we think we
have nothing to learn from judges and lawmakers around the world who have
faced the same issues we face?
Kennedy's progression
I remember covering a meeting of the American Bar Association in London in
2000 where Kennedy was asked by a British barrister during a panel
discussion why the Supreme Court so rarely cites foreign court rulings,
when those courts so often cite ours. Foreign rulings were too remote and
unknown to American judges to cite reliably, Kennedy replied - an answer
that nearly got him hooted off the stage.
Kennedy has come a long way since then, and other justices have too. They
all have come to realize that the American legal system is no longer
viewed as the only beacon of justice in the world. They do have something
to learn from the courts and laws of other nations.
As is often the case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has traveled a sensible
middle road on the issue. She recently said the controversy was "much ado
about nothing." Sometimes it is appropriate to look to foreign law, she
said, and sometimes not - but never should it be the deciding factor when
the job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the U.S. Constitution.
But in today's world, ignoring it altogether is not an option, she has
said. In a speech before the American Society of International Law in
2002, O'Connor put it this way: "Because of the scope of the problems that
we face, understanding international law is no longer just a legal
specialty. It is becoming a duty."
(source: Opinion; Tony Mauro is U.S. Supreme Court correspondent for
American Lawyer Media and Legal Times. He also is a member of USA TODAY's
board of contributors; USA Today)
