[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 7



TEXAS:

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Releases Report on Death
Penalty Developments in 2007


Questions Regarding the Constitutionality of Lethal Injection Protocol Cap
Year of Dramatic Developments in Nation's Most Active Death Penalty State

The State of Texas accounted for 62% of all executions that took place in
the United States this year, according to a new report from the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP), a statewide, grassroots
organization based in Austin. Only a U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear a
Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of the current lethal
injection protocol (Baze v. Rees ) forced the state to put its death
penalty apparatus on hold. On December 7, 1982, Charlie Brooks was the 1st
person executed by the State of Texas under its revised statute  and the
1st person executed by lethal injection. His execution ushered in a new
era in which Texas emerged as the uncontested leader in the use of the
death penalty in the United States.

"In a year when most other states proceeded cautiously with their
administration of the death penalty, Texas continued to carry out
executions at an alarming rate," said Bob Van Steenburg, Vice President of
TCADP. "The majority of our elected officials failed to recognize the many
flaws that characterize the Texas death penalty system  flaws that include
an unacceptable rate of error when it comes to convicting the innocent, a
crime lab scandal that drew national attention, and continued questions
regarding the quality and competency of defense counsel, both during the
trial and appellate stage of capital cases. 25 years ago, Texas carried
out the 1st execution by lethal injection in the United States. Today we
mark this somber occasion by acknowledging twenty five years of a fatally
flawed process."

Fourteen DNA exonerations from Dallas County, the ongoing review of cases
implicated by the Houston Police Department crime lab scandal, and
investigations into potentially wrongful executions continued to raise
questions about the reliability of the state's criminal justice system.
Such concerns about the risk of error led the Dallas Morning News'
Editorial Board this past spring to reverse its more than 100-year-old
position of supporting the death penalty and instead call for its complete
abolition in Texas.

Here are some highlights of TCADP's report, "Texas Death Penalty
Developments in 2007":

 In 2007, the State of Texas accounted for 26 out of the 42 executions
that took place in the United States. Only 9 other states carried out
executions in 2007; none executed more than three people.

 Harris County now accounts for 102 executions, more than any state in the
country except Texas as a whole, which has carried out a total of 405
executions since 1982.

 Texas ' last execution of the year took place on September 25, the same
day the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear Baze v. Rees. The
appeal of Michael Richard was denied whe the presiding judge of the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals, Sharon Keller, failed to grant his attorneys a
20-minute extension to deliver the appropriate paperwork. All scheduled
executions  both in Texas and around the country  have since been stayed
pending the outcome of *Baze v. Rees.

 7 inmates scheduled for execution in 2007 received last-minute stays, due
to concerns about their possible innocence, the fairness of their trial,
or issues related to lethal injection. The execution warrant for an
additional inmate was withdrawn after the discovery of suppressed
evidence.

 According to data available from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
and the Office of Court Administration, 14 men were sentenced to death in
Texas in 2007 (as of December 7). Over the last 5 years, the number of new
death sentences in Texas has declined by approximately 50%, which mirrors
national trends. The decline in new death sentences is particularly
noteworthy in Harris County.

One person who was not executed as scheduled was Kenneth Foster, whose
sentence was commuted to life in prison by Governor Rick Perry upon his
receipt of a rare recommendation for clemency from the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles. Foster had been convicted under the controversial law
of parties for the 1996 murder of Michael LaHood, even though he was
sitting in a car 80 feet away at the time of the crime. This was only the
third such recommendation for clemency from the Board in 25 years, and the
first such decision for Governor Perry in a case where the inmate faced
imminent execution.

TCADP's report also recaps the activities of the Texas Legislature,
including the passage of House Bill 8, which expands the scope of the
death penalty to repeat child sex offenders. "In a year when numerous
states gave serious consideration to abolishing the death penalty
altogether, some in the Texas Legislature pursued a bill that actually ran
counter to the wishes of victims' advocates and prosecutors throughout the
state," said State Representative Dora Olivo (D-Fort Bend).

While efforts to improve the system met with mixed success in 2007, many
remain optimistic about recent developments. "There is promise for the
future as increasing numbers of Texans express concerns about the
reliability, fairness, and morality of our state's death penalty system,"
said Bishop Gregory M. Aymond of the Catholic Diocese of Austin. "The
Church truly looks forward to the day when our state embraces a culture of
life."

* *

"Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2007: The Year in Review " is
available online at http://www.tcadp.org/contents/2007annualreport.pdf.

(source: Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)

*********************

Death Penalty in Texas 25 years later: "For"


Should society exact the ultimate punishment from those who break its
rules most heinously? The majority of Texans have little trouble in
answering a resounding yes to that question.

The pace at which the Lone Star State carries out capital punishment
bolsters the cries of barbarity by death penalty opponents everywhere.

So be it. The majority of us go about our days knowing justice is being
served.

In the ordered society in which we choose to live, we operate by a code of
conduct. It's not something held in secret that people only find out about
by trial and error. Our society that says if a jury of your peers
determines that you've violated our code, you forfeit your right to
freedom. And in some cases, the violation is so reprehensible that the
consequence is the ultimate: You forfeit your right to live.

Legitimate questions are being asked about the concoction of deadly drugs
used and how they are administered in some states. The Supreme Court is
expected to provide the answers to those specific issues next year. But
the overall question of whether capital punishment represents cruel and
unusual punishment has been settled.

Capital punishment is not about vengeance -it is about justice. And that
includes determining appropriate punishment. The death penalty is our
society's just and symmetrical response to the premeditated act of murder.

People talk about prevention, rehabilitation and reform. I'm all for using
every means we can to plant the seeds of civility in every child. But I'm
also in favor of planting the seeds of personal responsibility. Sadly,
they don't find fertile ground in every case.

It is a sobering reality that certain people should never be allowed to
mingle with the rest of us.

The function of law enforcement and the criminal justice system is to
respond to crime after it occurs and to hold people responsible for their
actions.

If juries were convinced that a life sentence meant that a convicted
killer would never again walk free, then fewer death sentences would be
meted out. But there are too many stories of offenders who get out only to
commit additional violent crimes. In states where juries are not given the
option of life without parole, the death penalty is the sure way of
guaranteeing that society's worst won't cause future heartaches.

For many Americans with strong religious beliefs, the question is whether
the state should execute a person who has come to know God and has
repented of his or her sins.

Repentance may save their souls but has nothing to do with saving their
lives.

Tried in a court of law and found guilty for their earthly actions, those
deeds are why they are executed. Their faith in eternal salvation is
between them and their God.

(source: KERA----Jill "J.R." Labbe is deputy editorial page editor of the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

*******************************

Death Penalty in Texas 25 years later: "Against"


As a Texan living in Europe, I sometimes feel as if I'm bearing a big and
unusual scar - the kind that compels strangers to ask: How'd you get that?

The scar is the Texas death penalty, and what Europeans really want to
know is: What drives Texas to use it so wantonly? What makes Texas swim so
strongly against the tide of human decency?

I don't defend Texas because I share most Europeans' belief that capital
punishment is wrong.

In the 27 countries of the European Union, and in Switzerland, where I
live, capital punishment is rightly banned as cruel, an offense against
human dignity and an ineffective deterrent against violent crime.

No country of the European Union has executed a human being since Latvia
did so in 1996 - 8 years before it joined. If Latvia had not stopped
executing human beings, it wouldn't have been allowed to join. The trade
off was that stark.

Texas, by contrast, has been on a death-dealing splurge. In all the time
that the European Union has executed nary a soul, the Lone Star state has
executed 301. A total of 405 people have been put to death in Texas since
executions resumed there in 1982.

Even among the states, Texas stands out for its bloodlust. Although Texas
accounts for only 8 percent of the U.S. population, it accounts for 37
percent of its executions.

Because of the haphazard and unfair manner in which Texas administers
justice, it can't even be sure that all the people it executes are truly
guilty.

Thanks to the modern miracle of DNA testing, Dallas County recently
exonerated 13 people of crimes they didn't commit. The wrongly convicted
felons served a total of 185 years behind bars. Fortunately, none was on
death row. But what are the odds that Texas has executed an innocent? I'd
say they're high.

I'm pleased that the federal judiciary has tossed a wrench into the gears
of the Texas death machinery. A de facto national moratorium is in effect
while the United States Supreme Court tries to decide whether lethal
injections violate the Constitution's prohibition against "cruel and
unusual punishment".

Unsurprisingly, Texas is resisting. Even though the Supreme Court has
indicated that it will brook no more executions until it finishes sorting
through the issue, some defiant Texas judges continue to set execution
dates.

But the fundamental question isn't whether to replace lethal injections
with some supposedly more humane method. The fundamental question is
whether capital punishment should exist at all.

It shouldn't.

What would be more humane? Beheading? Hanging? Stoning? Shooting? Gassing?
Electrocution? They're all beastly. They all preclude any chance of
appeal.

I'm not saying that Texas should emulate Europe in every respect. In most
of Europe, the alternative to capital punishment is life imprisonment. But
life imprisonment here rarely means that. In Germany, for example, a life
sentence usually translates into closer to 15 years in jail. In Spain, the
maximum a judge can apply usually is 30 years.

Texas could abolish the death penalty while retaining its power to impose
life sentences without possibility of parole.

The state's reputation is on the line. Being a pariah can have real
consequences. Companies can decide not to invest. Customers can choose not
to buy. Tourists can decide not to visit. And Texans living abroad can
find that people regard them strangely - as if they carry a repulsive
scar.

Just ask me.

(source : KERA News ----Timothy O'Leary is a journalist and editor living
in Switzerland and a former writer for the Dallas Morning News)

********************

Today's legal lynchings


The next time you travel to downtown Houston to visit the Museum of Fine
Arts, you should walk a few blocks to Houston's Old Hanging Tree at the
corner of Capital and Bagby streets. That huge 200-year-old oak tree is
the location where many "Negroes" were illegally lynched many years ago.
Almost 150 years after the Civil War ended, Texas remains haunted by its
long history of slavery, and even today the state still practices
lynching. But today it is done by the state, rather than a group of
white-hooded men. It is called execution by lethal injection.

In the 1920s, as people started to become more repelled by the brutality
of illegal lynchings, some people started to look into alternatives to
lynching, thanks to the efforts of the Niagara Movement and the NAACP. The
answer came from J. W. Thomas in a small town near Waco, who ran for the
state Senate on a platform that "hangings should be removed from the
emotional atmosphere of local communities to the more remote prison in
Huntsville." In the early hours of Feb. 8, 1924, 5 condemned black
murderers from rural East Texas were electrocuted. Thus began the modern
era of executions in Texas. Today, the small town of Huntsville in Walker
County is the headquarters of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and
the Walls Unit Prison, which holds Texas' infamous death chamber. In 2007,
the state of Texas executed 25 men, most of them black or Hispanic.

The last person to be execution by Texas was Michael Richard, another
black man who died on Sept. 25 only because Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller did not want to stay at work a few
minutes past 5 o'clock to consider his appeal. Who cares about a black man
getting executed anyway? Maybe she wanted to make it over to Whole Foods
before the masses.

People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 percent of total
executions in the U.S. since 1976 and comprise 55 % of those currently
awaiting execution. According to Amnesty International, at least one in 5
of the African-Americans executed since 1977 were convicted by all-white
juries, in cases which displayed a pattern of prosecutors dismissing
prospective black jurors during jury selection. A training handbook once
used by the Dallas County District Attorney's office actually said, "Do
not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race
on a jury, no matter how rich or how well-educated." Even though blacks
and whites are murder victims in nearly equal numbers of crimes, 80 % of
people executed since the death penalty was reinstated have been executed
for murders involving white victims.

The overwhelming evidence suggesting a racial bias in our criminal justice
system and possible execution of African Americans and other minorities,
who might have been found innocent otherwise, should shake the soul of
every human being. We need to accept the relationship between our current
criminal justice system and the 1920s lynch mobs. Now is the time to
recognize, as most of the countries around the world have recognized, that
the death penalty cannot be implemented fairly. It is the time to follow
in the steps of abolitionists such as Frederick Douglas and abolish the
blatant, unjust application of legalized lynching in our criminal justice
system.

(source: The Daily Texan ---- Hooman Hedayati is a government junior)

***************************************

Controversial milestone: 25 years of lethal injection


ABOUT DEATH ROW

- 1977: Texas adopts lethal injection as means of execution.

- Dec. 7, 1982: Texas executes first offender by lethal injection.

- 405: Executions since 1982.

- 371: Inmates currently on death row.

- 284: Inmates Harris County has sentenced to death.

[source: The Texas Department of Corrections]


Charlie Brooks Jr., 40, with a self-etched Born to Die tattoo on his left
forearm, lay on the gurney in the Texas death chamber 25 years ago today
and became the first person in the United States to die by lethal
injection.

Brooks also was the first person executed in Texas after an 18-year
moratorium. He was the sixth person executed in the U.S. after the U.S.
Supreme Court temporarily halted capital punishment by forcing the states
to rewrite their laws to limit executions to heinous crimes.

Brooks was executed for murdering a 26-year-old Fort Worth auto mechanic
by shooting him in the face during a botched, drug-and-alcohol-induced
kidnapping.

Shortly after Brooks' death, a typed letter passed among death row inmates
telling them to "open their eyes," executions were about to begin again.

"We all felt capital punishment would be abolished and all sentences would
be commuted to life," death row inmate Joseph John Cannon of San Antonio
told reporters at the time. "The Brooks execution sure proved us all
wrong."

Since the Brooks execution, an additional 404 Texas inmates were executed
before the U.S. Supreme Court created a de facto moratorium in September
by agreeing to consider Kentucky cases on whether the chemicals used in
lethal injection amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

In the intervening years, the Texas Legislature expanded the types of
crimes than can result in death, including the murder of a child under the
age of 6. At the same time, the Supreme Court has reduced the field of
killers eligible for death by limiting executions of mentally retarded and
people who commit their crimes when under the age of 18. Meanwhile, the
debate continues over whether capital punishment is appropriate.

For one, there are questions about whether executions are carried out
equitably.

There are 134 Texas counties - out of 254 - that have never sentenced a
person to death. But Harris County, with 284 sentenced offenders, has sent
more inmates to death row than Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Tarrant and Travis
counties combined, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice says.

Murder rate dropped

At the time Brooks committed his murder, Texas did not have a law that
made accomplices equally liable. Brooks' accomplice, Woody Loudres, served
11 years for his role in the murder of David Gregory before being released
on parole in 1989.

Most recently, the debate has focused on whether capital punishment is an
effective deterrent to crime, or just retribution.

As Texas' execution chamber became one of the busiest in the nation, the
state's murder rate dropped by half. Texas has executed four times as many
inmates as any other state.

When Brooks was executed, the Texas murder rate was 16 per 100,000
residents, dropping to about 6 per 100,000 in 2005, the most recent year
of statistics available from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

That decline could be because of the fact the Texas economy improved in
the 1990s, or because of the fact the number of inmates housed in the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice almost tripled in the 1990s, growing
to more than 146,000 inmates, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau
of Justice Statistics.

But while the murder rate has declined, the number of capital crimes in
Texas has actually grown.

In the year Brooks was executed, there were 252 capital murder indictments
returned in Texas. There were 489 capital murder indictments returned last
year.

And yet few of those capital murder indictments result in a death
sentence. Out of 5,025 capital murder indictments in the past decade, 274
resulted in death sentences, according to the Texas Office of Court
Administration.

Steve Hall of the anti-death penalty Stand Down Texas said the statistics
show capital punishment does not stop crime in Texas. "I don't think there
is any credible evidence that demonstrates a deterrent effect from the
death penalty."

Hall said he understands that many Texans care little if capital
punishment deters crime.

"Retribution is something a lot of people in Texas support," Hall said.

Life vs. death

Dudley Sharp of the pro-death penalty Justice Matters in Houston said
murder rates cannot be used to measure the deterrent effect of capital
punishment. He said Detroit and Washington, D.C., have high murder rates
without capital punishment and so does New Orleans in a state with the
death penalty.

Sharp said people are overwhelmingly deterred from crime by the fear of
incarceration, but he said criminals fear the death penalty more. He said
almost all inmates would choose life in prison over being executed.

"Does the death penalty offer an enhanced deterrent over life without
parole?" Sharp said. "It's more of a deterrent than just incarceration."

Study disputes benefit

Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan did an extensive study of
capital murder in Harris County from 1976-2003. Fagan said the capital
punishment does little to halt murder.

"We find no evidence of any marginal deterrent effect over and above
whatever deterrent effect the criminal system may be creating by
incarceration," Fagan said. "We don't see capital punishment adding
anything to that effect."

Fagan's study in Harris County found that capital-eligible crimes grew in
Houston from 1990 on during the same period that executions were on the
rise, but non-capital murders declined.

"A good, efficient criminal legal regime that finds offenders once they
commit crimes, calls them to account and punishes them proportionately and
appropriately will keep crime rates in check," Fagan said. "You gain
nothing by putting execution on top of that."

New York Law School professor and death penalty advocate Robert Blecker
said executions are a "marginally effective deterrent." Blecker said the
main reason to have the death penalty is to give justice to the murder
victims.

"It would be nice if it was a more effective deterrent," Blecker said.
"The issue for me is justice."

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the lethal injection issue by next
June. At most, the states are expecting to have to do nothing more than
change the set of chemicals used in lethal injection before the executions
begin again.

For death row inmate Cannon - whose eyes were opened by the Brooks
execution - time ran out a decade ago.

Because he was a former drug user, prison officials had trouble finding a
vein for the injection. The needle popped out once, spewing fluids onto
the gurney before it was reinserted.

Cannon had been 17 when he murdered his lawyer's sister. At age 38, he
apologized to her children before he died.

"I am sorry for what I did to your mom. It isn't because I'm going to die.
All my life I have been locked up, I could never forgive what I done,"
Cannon said. "Thank you, God. All right."

Then he was executed.

(source : Houston Chronicle)

******************

Potter spent $123K on case-----Death penalty overturned by appeals court


Potter County prosecutors spent $123,000 since 1992 to ensure a man
convicted of murder was put to death. But Gregory Van Alstyne won't die
from lethal injection, because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has
determined he is mentally retarded and ineligible for execution under U.S.
Supreme Court guidelines.

Van Alstyne was convicted for the fatal beating and stabbing of James
Benton Atkinson Jr., a 42-year-old pizza delivery man. Van Alstyne's
sentence is now reduced to life in prison.

The county's cost includes court-appointed attorneys for Van Alstyne,
investigator fees, court reporter fees and other incidentals, according to
the Potter County Auditor's Office. It does not include the actual cost of
prosecution or the time prosecutors put into the case. About $66,000 was
spent on the original trial and $57,000 strictly on appeals, according to
the auditor's office. Randall Sims, 47th District attorney, said
overturning death sentences like Van Alstyne will continue to be an issue
because clear guidelines are not given on how to determine mental
retardation.

Sims said standards such as IQ tests below 70 or limitations in "adaptive
functioning" are gray areas of law. Arguments can be made against the
relevancy of IQ tests and how you determine a lack of adaptive functioning
or ability to cope with daily life, Sims said.

"Where does that line fall between mentally retarded and not being
mentally retarded?" Sims asked.

Sims said that when cases now come to his office, there is an "all
encompassing background investigation" to make sure issues like mental
retardation can be addressed in advance.

Death penalty cases are typically the most expensive, and Potter County
Judge Arthur Ware said those cases being overturned is a chance
prosecutors take.

(source: The Amarillo Globe-News)

*********************************

Fennell indictment renews interest in Stites' murder


There are renewed calls to grant a Texas death row inmate a new trial in
connection with the murder of Stacy Stites in Bastrop 11 years ago.

This comes after a former suspect in her murder - her fianc, who is a
police officer - was charged with three felonies on unrelated charges
Tuesday.

Georgetown Police Sgt. Jimmy Fennell, 35, is accused of sexually
assaulting a woman at gunpoint while he was on duty.

Fennell was Stites' fianc at the time of her murder. He was an officer in
Giddings when Stites was found strangled in 1996.

Rodney Reed has been on death row since 1998 after he was convicted of the
crime. His family believes in his innocence and says Fennell's indictment
this week will help their case.

"They didn't find him guilty. They said he was guilty. That's 2 different
things," Rodney's father Walter Reed said.

Reed's supporters and death penalty opponents believe Fennell's legal
troubles have strong implications in this case.

"He had a very shabby trial originally. And then there was some follow-up
testimony afterward that the Court of Criminal Appeals discounted. And I
think with the indictment in Williamson County that this should open up
the whole case again and people ought to start over," Jim Harrington of
the Texas Civil Rights Project said.

New evidence in Reed's case surfaced last year when a witness testified
she saw Fennell and Stites together the morning before her death. Martha
Barnett's testimony contradicted some of the information attorneys were
working with when Reed was convicted in 1998.

But a Bastrop County judge said that evidence wasn't enough to warrant a
new trial.

Harrington pointed out Wednesday that Fennell's testimony played a role in
Reed's conviction. And in light of Fennell's indictments, Reed should be
given a new trial.

Reed's supporters from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty say Fennell's
legal troubles could help Reed as well.

Reed will plead his case before the Court of Criminal Appeals in the next
few weeks.

The Bastrop District Attorney was not available for comment on Wednesday.

(source: News 8 Austin)

***********************************

"Justice doesn't close at 5"


LAURA BRADY reports on protests against a Texas judge who refused to stop
an execution in order to close her office on time.

ANTI-DEATH penalty activists delivered their message to Texas Judge Sharon
Keller at a November 16 protest in Austin: Justice doesn't close at 5.

Keller is responsible for the only execution that has taken place anywhere
in the U.S. since the U.S. Supreme Court announced in late September that
it would hear an appeal on whether lethal injection violates the
Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That decision has led
to a de facto moratorium on executions until the justices make their
decision, expected no sooner than next spring.

Texas death row prisoner Michael Richard was scheduled to be executed on
the day that the Supreme Court made its announcement. Richard's attorneys
spent the afternoon compiling a 180-page application for a stay of
execution until the justices reviewed the lethal injection procedure.

After encountering computer problems, the lawyers contacted Keller and
told her they wouldn't be able to file the appeal until 5:20 p.m. and
asked her to keep the court's office open. Keller's cold-hearted response:
"We close at 5." Michael's execution went ahead a few hours later.

On November 16, demonstrators gathered at the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals building to call for Keller's immediate resignation. The
protesters filed into the clerk's office 10 minutes before 5 p.m. to
submit copies of judicial complaints bearing more than 1,600 signatures
and personally written letters demanding justice.

At 5:03 p.m., with several people still waiting in line to turn in their
complaints, the clerk stopped accepting submissions, turned off the lights
and shut the door.

Campaign to End the Death Penalty member Lily Hughes read her letter aloud
to the employees still inside the locked office, stating that Keller had
"stepped far outside understood standards of judicial conduct, much less
human decency." Requests to keep the clerk's office open long enough to
receive every letter were denied, of course--the staff had already broken
the "Keller Rule" by remaining open three minutes past 5.

Public outcry against Keller's actions has led to the appeals court
creating an "e-mail filing system for urgent pleadings," but for Michael
Richard and his family, that's too little, too late. Outside the
courthouse, Michael's sister, Patricia Miller, told the crowd of activists
and media, "If it weren't for Sharon Keller, he'd be here today." She
demanded that Keller resign her position as judge.

"Killer" Keller, as she is known to activists, is notorious for not caring
about the rights of defendants. She has voted to ignore DNA evidence of
innocence and ruled that a defendant in a capital murder case whose lawyer
slept through parts of the proceedings didn't deserve a new trial.

Michael Richard should never have been eligible for capital
punishment--with an IQ of 64, his execution should have been stopped under
a 2002 Supreme Court decision that bars use of the death penalty on the
mentally retarded.

As Richard's brother-in-law, Paul Miller, told reporters, "We know what
Michael did was wrong, but also, on the other hand, this system did not
treat him fair either."

(source: Socialist Worker)

*******************

Panelists to discuss capital punishment


Texas author Bill Crawford, best known for his compilation book of photos
and last statements from executed inmates in Texas, will host a roundtable
on the 25th anniversary of the first lethal injection in the nation at
6:30 p.m. today at the Texas Prison Museum.

The discussion will bring several witnesses to executions in Texas into
one room to discuss the form of capital punishment at the forefront of a
U.S. Supreme Court case.

The event will feature a panel of 4 who, collectively, have witnessed
nearly every execution in the state's 25-year history of lethal injection.

The exhibit, dubbed "Texas Death Row: Executions in the Modern Era,"
features a stark-black posterboard with mug shots of the 405 men and women
executed by the state in Huntsville.

Crawford, whose book "Texas Death Row: Executions in the Modern Era,"
chronicles the last statements of each, put together the exhibit and
seminar along with museum director Jim Willett. "I put together the 1st
edition of the book in 2000 and people liked it an awful lot," Crawford
said. "It seems to me executions are such an important act for the state
to carry out that it requires more attention."

Crawford said that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, historians
and the media began using his book as a reference to past executions.

"I ran into some friends working with TDCJ and noticed they were using my
book as a reference," Crawford said. "That a book is useful as a
reference, that's the greatest compliment an author can have."

While Crawford has shown his exhibit several times, this will be the 1st
time it is completely up to date.

In September, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case from 2
condemned inmates in Kentucky over the constitutionality of lethal
injection - a process pioneered in Texas when it executed its first inmate
on Dec. 7, 1982.

Charlie Brooks became the 1st man to be executed by the process in the
U.S.

The timing of the discussion and the hiatus of executions was not on
purpose, Crawford said, but he hopes everyone will come to the discussion
more informed after the recent attention paid this topic.

"In only a few months, the Supreme Court will determine whether lethal
injection violates the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual
punishment," he said. "Though the panel is timed to coincide with the
first lethal injection 25 years ago, it's also coming at a time in which
Americans are increasingly aware of the controversy surrounding this
method of execution."

Among the panelists are Michael Gracyzk, a correspondent for the
Associated Press who has witnessed more than 300 executions; former TDCJ
Public Information Manager Larry Fitzgerald who has witnessed more than
200 executions; and Jim Willett, who in his tenure as warden of the
Huntsville "Walls" Unit proceeded over 90 executions.

The panel will also include Paula Kurland, a victim's right advocate who
was one of the first victim's to meet face-to-face with her family
member's killer.

"Paula has been a very eloquent victim's family members spokesperson and
has a very interesting angle and perspective," Crawford said. "I wanted to
include Paul because some of the criticism we've had in the past is it
doesn't honor the victim's enough. Paul has been very active and I wanted
to provide that perspective to the panel."

Crawford said the memories of those who have witnessed executions are
important parts of history that might go unrecorded if it were not for
these types of discussions.

"Really, there is no recording made of the execution so the only record we
have are those maintained by TDCJ and people's memories," Crawford said.
"There are some last statements that have been made in Spanish and no one
there understood what Spanish was. Everyone sees an execution slightly
differently and that's reflected in their memory."

Along with the exhibit of mug shots of executed offenders, a listing of
the names of each victim Crawford compiled will be on display as well. A
short video compiled from interviews with Willett and other witnesses will
be displayed.

The latest version of the book that is the basis for the exhibit will be
released by Plume Press in January 2008, the 1st time the book has been up
to date at its release.

The panel will be recorded, and Crawford plans a public release of the
findings upon conclusion of the panel.

(source: Hunstville Item)

***************************

Harris County getting help in review of Houston crime lab


A legal group that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions is
teaming up with Harris County in its efforts to review cases with
questionable blood analysis work by the Houston Police Department's
troubled crime lab.

The Innocence Project of Texas will help lawyers heading up a county
review of 180 serology cases identified as having "major issues,"
officials said Friday.

The cases were identified in a final report earlier this year from a
special investigator hired by the city of Houston to investigate the lab.

The Innocence Project of Texas chief counsel Jeff Blackburn said his
organization usually finds itself at odds with government officials and
prosecutors. His group is an offshoot of the Innocence Project, a New
York-based legal clinic that has helped exonerate inmates across the
country.

"This is a historic process that Harris County is getting involved in,"
Blackburn said.

The Houston crime lab's work has been under scrutiny since 2002, when the
DNA section was shut down. Inaccuracies were later found in 4 other lab
divisions that test firearms, body fluids and controlled substances. The
DNA section has since been reopened.

3 inmates have been released from prison because of mistakes by the lab: 2
men wrongfully convicted of rape and another man convicted of kidnapping
and rape whom prosecutors decided not to retry

The cases being reviewed, some of which date to the 1980s, include several
death row inmates and others convicted of violent crimes such as robbery
and rape.

Retired state District Judge Mary Bacon, who is presiding over the probe,
praised the Innocence Project's help with the review during a meeting
Friday with defense attorneys and prosecutor Marie Munier, whose office
had pledged its cooperation.

The Innocence Project of Texas will provide 40 to 50 law students in
Houston, Dallas and Lubbock who can help attorneys review case files and
sort through legal documents.

It'll be similar to what they have done in Dallas County, where the
Innocence Project has teamed up with officials to review more than 400
cases in which inmates have requested DNA testing. Over the past 5 years,
DNA tests have exonerated 14 inmates in Dallas County, Blackburn said. In
the first 3 months of the Dallas review, 57 cases have been evaluated. Of
these, 7 will have DNA testing, said Blackburn, an Amarillo-based
attorney.

"We've learned that's a very efficient way of doing it," he said. "We can
do the factory side of the work."

Bob Wicoff, one of the Houston defense lawyers assigned to lead the
review, said the Innocence Project's help will be invaluable. It's
impractical to either have attorneys assigned to each case and have them
do all the work or to file legal challenges to each case without first
doing research.

After Harris County judges announced plans in October to conduct the
review, Wicoff held videoconference meetings with the 160 inmates, from
the 180 cases, who are still in prison. All but 4 agreed to have their
cases reopened.

Of the remaining 20 cases, half are inmates who have been executed and 1/2
have been freed from prison.

Wicoff said he will try to contact the freed inmates and see if they want
to be included in the probe. But he doesn't have the resources or time to
look into the cases of executed inmates.

Since the videoconferences, Wicoff has visited with 14 inmates. A 2nd
attorney, Christopher Downey, has been appointed to help Wicoff.

(source: Associated Press)

*******************

Man shows up for urine test, arrested in '92 double murder


A man who police say lived under a false name after fatally shotgunning 2
Houston brothers in December 1992 was arrested Thursday in a Harris County
office building and booked on murder charges filed against him in 1993.

Genovevo Salinas, also known as Rodrigo Pellayo Zamora, was arrested when
he showed up for a urine test at a Harris County pre-trial services office
on San Jacinto Thursday afternoon, said HPD homicide Det. C.E. Elliott,
who has dogged the double-killing case for 15 years.

"He had a look on his face like he had been kicked in the stomach,"
Elliott said of Salinas's demeanor after he was handcuffed on murder
charges while he was in the county building in connection with an October
2007 arrest on drug charges.

When he was arrested on the drug charges under the Zamora name,
fingerprints taken matched those of Salinas already on record, Elliott
said. Salinas already had posted bond before the match was made, so police
had to wait until he showed up for a court-ordered urine test, Elliott
said.

"I think he thought he was cool after he got out on bond," Elliott said.

On Thursday, Salinas denied his real identity, Elliott said.

"I told him I recognized him from back then and he still denied who he
was," Elliott said. "The tattoos and everything are the same."

Salinas was a suspect in the killings of Juan and Hector Garza on Dec. 18,
1992, but had fled to Mexico before detectives developed a case against
him in early 1993, Elliott said.

Elliott said Houston police eventually found out where Salinas was and
learned that he ended up in a Mexican prison for several years. Mexican
officials refused to help get Salinas back to Texas because of the
possibility he might be hit with a death sentence if convicted of killing
the Garza brothers, Elliott said.

The Mexican government has repeatedly protested its citizens being faced
with execution in American prisons.

"He was pretty much untouchable on the other side of the border because of
their policy on capital punishment," Elliott said.

Witnesses told police in 1992 that the Garzas died when a man came to the
door of their apartment at 26 Farrell, near Airline, at about 6:45 p.m. on
Dec. 18, 1992.

Juan Garza, 26, who answered the door, was shot in the back and died at
the scene; police said.

Hector Garza, 27, was shot inside the apartment and died soon after at Ben
Taub Hospital from a wound to the upper left side of his torso, police
said.

The shooter ran from the apartment and sped off in a dark-colored car,
police said at the time.

In the following weeks, police developed physical evidence and talked to
people who connected Salinas to the shooting, Elliott said Friday.

(source: Houston Chronicle)