[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 4


TEXAS-----new execution date

Tyler judge sets execution date despite court-ordered stays----Death
penalty machinery still running; lawyer says judge is following mandate.


The courts may have called a temporary halt to executions, but the wheels
of death penalty justice continue to turn in Texas.

On Wednesday, a Tyler district judge set a Nov. 6 execution date for Allen
Bridgers, a high school dropout who fatally shot a Tyler woman in the
throat before stealing her car in 1997.

The U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals have
blocked 2 Texas executions in the past week. The delays were ordered while
the U.S. Supreme Court reviews claims that lethal injections - a 3-drug
combination that sedates, paralyzes and kills - may subject inmates to
intense pain but leave them unable to cry out.

"It's baffling, because it doesn't make any sense to schedule an execution
date based on what the U.S. Supreme Court and Texas court have done in the
last week," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender
Service, which represents Bridgers.

"It just creates completely unnecessary litigation" challenging Bridgers'
execution, Keilen said.

A message left for District Judge Cynthia Kent, who scheduled the
execution, was not returned.

But Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham said Kent was bound by a
previous mandate from the Court of Criminal Appeals to schedule Bridgers'
execution. When Bridgers' latest round of appeals was exhausted, the
original mandate went back into effect, Bingham said.

"Procedurally, setting the death date was the next step in this case,"
said Mike West, an appellate lawyer for the district attorney's office.
"Judge Kent is really just following procedure and the law."

In Texas, the judge who presides over a capital murder trial sets the date
after all appeals are exhausted.

This is the 3rd execution date for Bridgers, who has admitted to the
killing and blamed his actions on a crack cocaine addiction.

The first, in 2001, was delayed because his appeals had not been
exhausted. A 2006 date was delayed to weigh claims that Bridgers has
mental retardation, which would make him ineligible for the death penalty.
The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that claim in September.

3 other executions were scheduled before the Supreme Court accepted the
lethal injection challenge last week. A Harris County judge last week
scheduled a Feb. 26 execution date for Derrick Sonnier, convicted of
raping and killing an Humble woman and killing her 2-year-old son in 1991.

All execution dates remain in force, and requests to block the executions
must be filed case by case. State prosecutors plan to oppose all such
motions.

"I believe that they should carry out the sentence assessed by the jury,"
Bingham said of the Bridgers case. "I'm hopeful that he will be executed
on Nov. 6, but I'm also aware that it's highly possible that it will not
occur on that date."

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

No Time To Be a Renegade


In delaying a scheduled execution this week, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals has belatedly bowed to the reality of federal jurisdiction on the
matter of capital punishment. The move is a welcome one, albeit tardy by 7
days.

After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last week to review the
constitutionality of lethal injection, the state's high court shamelessly
allowed an execution to proceed hours later using the "we closed at 5"
excuse to cut off appeals. 2 days later, the state court was fine to have
another execution carried out, but the Supreme Court stepped in to stop it
without comment.

Judging from the Texas court's decision Tuesday to hold up a 3rd
execution, it looks as if the state's highest criminal appeals court got
the message. The practice of killing someone with a specific poison
cocktail has been attacked as offending the Eighth Amendment's ban on
cruel and unusual punishment. Until the case becomes settled law, the
state of Texas would marginalize itself if it insisted on executing people
using the very method in question. Many other states have already formally
closed their death chambers pending a ruling from the Supreme Court.

The latest Texas case involves Heliberto Chi, convicted in the 2001
robbery and murder of Armand Paliotta in Arlington. We have no reason to
doubt that the killer was properly tried and convicted for cruelly taking
an innocent life.

Yet carrying out his execution Tuesday, as scheduled, would have cast
Texas as the national renegade with no respect for the rule of
constitutional law. The Court of Criminal Appeals should set aside the
execution dates of all condemned killers until the question before the
Supreme Court is resolved.

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)

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

Attorneys were tardy


Re: "We Closed at 5  Office hours irrelevant when death on the line,"
Tuesday Editorials.

The Dallas Morning News thinks it was unconscionable that the appeals
court did not stay open beyond normal business hours to receive an appeal
from Michael Richard's attorneys.

The more unconscionable act was Mr. Richard's attorneys waiting until just
before close of business to file the appeal. If those attorneys were
working on my dollar, I'd see what I could do about getting their licenses
to practice revoked.

George Mabry, Garland

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)

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

Lethal injection won't disappear, experts say


Some form of lethal injection is likely to remain the method of execution
in much of the United States, no matter how the U.S. Supreme Court rules
next year, death penalty experts say.

"I don't think the Supreme Court's decision is going to herald the end of
capital punishment," said Houston attorney David Dow.

Should the court deem as "cruel and unusual" the current three-chemical
cocktail administered to death row inmates in Kentucky, where a challenge
is pending, Dow said states likely would just adjust the mixture.

Dow represents Heliberto Chi, 28, the North Texas inmate whose scheduled
execution Wednesday for killing a shopkeeper in Arlington was halted this
week by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Though the lethal injection argument affects nearly every death row case
in the country  the number of death row inmates nationally is put at more
than 3,330  the scope of the challenge is rather narrow, Dow said.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said his office would
"pursue death penalty cases just like we always have."

He said his office was moving forward this week with one of two death
penalty cases. The second case would be prosecuted early next year. He
said he was confident the nation's highest court would not view lethal
injections as inhumane.

"When the Founding Fathers wrote about cruel and unusual punishment, they
were talking about things like drawing and quartering and being tortured
to death," not lethal injection, he said.

Executions nationally are expected to grind to a halt, however, until next
year, when the court issues its ruling in Baze v. Rees.

37 of 38 states with the death penalty, including Texas, carry out
executions with lethal injections. Electrocution is allowed in lieu of
lethal injection at the inmate's request in 9 of the 37 states, the gas
chamber in 5, hanging in three and the firing squad in 2, according to the
Death Penalty Information Center.

Nebraska is the only state that uses electrocution as its sole method, but
that means is being appealed.

No moratorium in Texas

Texas, the country's most active death penalty state, hasn't issued a
moratorium on executions, but Tuesday's decision by the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals to stay Chi's execution amounts to an informal one.
Because there's no moratorium, death row attorneys will be forced to file
paperwork on each case before the state's highest court, experts said.

There are 2 executions scheduled in Texas this year, both from Tarrant
County, and two scheduled early next year, one from Dallas County, the
other from Bell County.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in its ruling Tuesday, gave attorneys
for the state 30 days to file arguments that its executions do not cause
unnecessary pain.

Prosecutors around the state seem undaunted by the current halt in
executions, temporary as they are likely to be.

'Only a matter of time'

Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness said he thought lethal
injection would survive the challenge against it, but if it doesn't,
"states will redo their chemicals. That's quite simple to do," Maness said
from Beaumont.

Steven Conder, an assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, said he
expected the two Tarrant County inmates with scheduled dates to be
executed.

"It's only a matter of time," he said.

Even if the lethal injection challenges didn't lead to the abolition of
the death penalty, Dow said he was hopeful the review would provide more
details about state-sponsored killings.

He said it was possible the public would learn about the qualifications of
the people who carry out executions, the training they receive, whether a
doctor is present and the precise dosage of the lethal cocktail.

"There's more we don't know than that we do," he said. "These are all
things that are germane to the issue of whether lethal injection violates
the Eighth Amendment."

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Texas executions likely over until high court rules


In the past week, 2 Texas killers whose guilt was unquestioned were
diverted from the execution chamber in Huntsville while the U.S. Supreme
Court waits to hear arguments over whether administering a lethal
injection to a condemned inmate violates the constitutional ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.

The action has prompted attorneys and legal scholars to suggest that Texas
and the 36 other states that have adopted the deadly injections as their
preferred means of carrying out the death penalty are effectively under a
moratorium on executions until the nation's highest court resolves the
matter.

Here are some questions and answers that might help bring into focus the
debate over the future of the death penalty in Texas, which by far leads
the nation in the number of executions carried out in the modern era.

Don't most news accounts describe a rather serene process when an inmate
is executed by lethal injection? How can that be excessively cruel?

The process, in most cases, appears to be painless. But some experts have
suggested that one of the three drugs used simply paralyzes the body's
muscles so intense suffering is masked.

What drugs are used, and how do they work?

The first drug to enter the inmate's system is sodium thiopentol, which
induces sleep. The next is pancuronium bromide, the paralyzing agent that
also prevents the diaphragm and lungs from functioning. That causes
suffocation. The last is potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
Critics say that because doctors do not participate in the delivery of the
drugs, the dosages can be misapplied. And if too little of the
sleep-inducing agent is injected, the inmate could wake up to the intense
pain of the potassium chloride but be unable to signal as much because of
the pancuronium chloride's effect.

Are animals euthanized in pretty much the same manner?

Generally not. The American Veterinary Medical Association bans
pancuronium bromide for such purposes on grounds of humaneness.

Have lethal injections ever gone awry?

Some have not gone according to plan. The needle popped out of the arm of
Texas inmate Ray Landry in December 1988 and had to be reinserted. Stephen
McCoy, who was executed in Huntsville 6 months later, had a violent
reaction to the drugs that caused spasms and choking. A witness in the
execution chamber fainted during the procedure. Last December in Florida,
an execution took more than 37 minutes because the needle was improperly
inserted, and witnesses said the inmate appeared to be in extreme
distress.

If lethal injection in its present form is declared unconstitutional, does
Texas have a fallback method to continue capital punishment?

The law gives the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the responsibility
for developing the formula for the injection, so theoretically a new
compound could be developed that might pass constitutional muster. Some
states, such as Oklahoma, still allow electrocution or even firing squads.
Texas does not.

What becomes of the executions already scheduled?

Texas officials say they will be carried out unless the courts intervene.
But legal experts said the courts have signaled that they will likely set
aside the dates until the matter is finally resolved.

How many people have been put to death by lethal injection in the United
States?

Since the method was first used on Fort Worth killer Charlie Brooks nearly
25 years ago, 929 people have died from lethal injection. Of them, 405
have been executed in Texas.

What do victims' rights advocates make of the latest phase of the debate
over capital punishment?

They are frustrated but confident that the Supreme Court will finally rule
that executions can go forward, says Dianne Clements of Texas' Justice for
All. "The anti-death penalty crowd is using the old tactic of throwing
everything against the wall to see what sticks," Clements said. "I think
the Supreme Court decided to take up this issue to say once and for all
that lethal injection is not cruel and unusual punishment despite all this
junk science we're hearing."

(source: Staff writer John Moritz has covered capital-punishment issues
for 10 years and has witnessed more than a dozen executions; Fort Worth
Star-Telegram)

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

Innocence is not the only issue in the death penalty debate


The national discussion about the constitutionality of lethal injection
has finally reached Texas.

On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of
Heliberto Chi, a Honduran man from Tarrant County who was scheduled to die
Wednesday. In so doing, the court asked the state prison system to address
ongoing questions about whether lethal injection subjects inmates to
unnecessary pain and suffering.

The court acted after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a
6-month stay for Chi, who was convicted of murdering the manager of a
men's clothing store in Arlington 6 years ago.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of another Texas
man, Carlton Turner, who killed his parents. His attorneys had argued that
Turner should receive a stay pending the outcome of a larger legal battle
over state-sanctioned death.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week voted to consider the constitutionality
of Kentucky's lethal injection procedure, which is similar to the one used
in Texas. The $86 "cocktail," as it's euphemistically called, contains
sodium thiopental for sedation, pancuronium bromide for muscle paralysis
and a potassium chloride solution to stop the heart.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Web site, the
offender is usually pronounced dead 7 minutes after injection.

Members of the medical community have expressed concern that
participating, in any way, in lethal injections of inmates is contrary to
the Hippocratic oath they take.

Last year, California murderer Michael Morales was scheduled to be
executed, but was given a temporary reprieve when 2 anesthesiologists
tasked with monitoring his death refused to participate.

Had they participated, they would have been obligated to intervene if
Morales regained consciousness or appeared to be in pain during the
procedure. They would then have had to intervene to render Morales
unconscious or "otherwise alleviate the painful effects" of the drugs.

"Any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical," the doctors
said in a written statement at the time.

One Texas district attorney, Carlos Valdez of Nueces County, has announced
that he will stop seeking the death penalty until the high court issues a
decision, but many others, including Bexar County DA Susan Reed, told
reporters they would enforce current law until otherwise directed.

According to news reports, this is the first time the Supreme Court has
addressed the constitutionality of an execution method since upholding the
firing squad method in 1879. The court's decision, expected next summer,
will have far-reaching implications for whether executions as we know them
will continue.

It's important to figure this out, if only because the Constitution is
worthless if its tenets are not upheld, even for the most reprehensible
among us.

But even if it turns out that lethal injection as currently applied does
not subject the convict to undue pain and suffering, that does not settle
the question of whether the death penalty should continue in Texas.

That issue, coupled with an alarming number of exonerations (most of them
not death row cases) should raise serious doubts in the mind of any
thinking person about how our justice system works.

Are there innocent people on death row? Have any innocent people been put
to death? Those are lingering questions that may never be answered.

But perhaps focusing on potential innocence is a red herring.

At its core, the death penalty is fundamentally flawed. It leaves no room
for human error and, more important, you do not kill to prove that killing
is wrong. Now is the time for Texas to seriously consider a moratorium -
if not an end - to the death penalty.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

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

Informal talks opened door to lethal injection


Editors Note: This story is the first in a series examining the death
penalty from both opponents of and those in favor of lethal injection.

It was a long time ago, said Dr. Gerry Etheredge, when he was speaking
with Dr. Ralph Gray about lethal doses of drugs.

The thing that had brought these two men together  Etheredge, a
veterinarian by trade, and Gray, then the Medical Director of the Texas
Department of Corrections  was lethal injection, a process that Gray,
along with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, would spearhead.

"When they first started talking about lethal injection, I discussed with
him the use of that drug," Etheredge said.

That drug was Pavulon, more commonly known under its generic name of
pancuronium bromide, a drug that is now at the forefront of what seems to
be a nationwide halt to lethal injection in the U.S., as all ears wait for
a decision from the Supreme Court.

That conversation over this simple drug may have shaped the current method
of lethal injection in the state, but it wasn't the 1st in what one
Supreme Court justice called a "machinery of death," and an "experiment
(that) has failed."

An experiment in death

While Texas was the first to use the brand-new lethal injection protocol
in 1982, it got its start some 5 years earlier in nearby Oklahoma.

Bill Wiseman, a Republican state representative from Tulsa, was in the
capitol building the day the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted to
re-instate the death penalty after a lengthy halt in the U.S.

Looking for a more humane way to execute the condemned  at the time,
hanging, firing squad, the gas chamber and the electric chair were the
only methods available  Wiseman called out to the Oklahoma Medical
Association for help.

But no one from the medical field would help, citing their oath to save
lives, not take them.

"I muttered to colleagues that it looked as if I would need to find a
veterinarian to tell me how to 'put down' condemned prisoners," Wiseman
told the Christian Century magazine in 2001.

But he did find help in Jay Chapman, Oklahoma's medical examiner, who
offered a rough outline of the lethal injection procedure used today.

According to records, Oklahoma passed the bill, drafted by Wiseman and
Chapman, on May 10, 1997. Texas passed a similar bill the next day.

The bill didn't specify the type of drugs to be used, other than to
roughly specify the mechanics of them, leaving the actual policy of the
drugs and amounts used up to the then Texas Department of Corrections.

It was now that Gray entered the picture, and his conversation with
Etheredge would be paramount.

Of mice and men

When told of the drugs Gray intended to use, Gray suggested an
alternative: a method that Etheredge already knew worked.

Phenobarbital sodium, a drug commonly used in the euthanization of
animals, was considered as the one and only drug to be used in lethal
injections.

But Gray said the drug wouldn't stand up in the court of public opinion.

"Dr. Gray's feelings on it were they would start equating lethal injection
with killing dogs and that there would be public outcry against it and
they had to come up with something different," Etheredge said. "At least
that's what Dr. Gray said, and that sounds good to me."

So Gray developed the current protocol, and it quickly was copied by 36
other states.

Seen as a more humane way to execute the condemned versus the
alternatives, it quickly became the preferred  and increasingly more
common  protocol used in the nation.

When used in the euthanization of animals, Etheredge claims the drug is
very effective and causes no pain to the animals.

"This works too well (to use anything else)," Etheredge said. "It's too
smooth, it's too safe and you only have to give one drug. It's painless."

On the flip side, Etheredge quotes doctors who say the current procedure
is painless and poses no real risk of unnecessary pain.

"Both anesthesiologists who are in favor of lethal injection and those who
are opposed to lethal injection  except for the activists  have said the
cocktail that is given is safe and painless," Etheredge said. "At least
from the standpoint that you're not going to cause the individual taking
the drugs any undue stress."

"Well, obviously that's a stressful situation to begin with."

Etheredge said that, even so, he suggested the method to Gray because he
believed it to be the preferred method.

Then why wasn't it adopted?

"It's a political thing," Etheredge said.

In 2002, a delegation from the state of Alabama took a visit to Texas. But
this visit was all business. The delegation  including Grant Culliver, the
then-warden of the Hollman Correctional Facility, home to the state's
death row and execution chamber  visited the Huntsville "Walls" Unit and
witnessed an execution at the facility.

"We visited Texas and witnessed an execution there," Culliver said in a
2002 interview with The Atmore Advance. "It was very professional and
handled well. Everything went according to plan."

The process, Culliver said, was heavily copied from Texas' own, after the
Legislature in Alabama passed a law requiring the state to partially
retire the electric chair, known affectionately as "Yellow Mama" because
of its bright yellow appearance, and switch to lethal injection as its
primary means of execution.

Other states took the lead from Texas, even though Oklahoma pioneered the
idea of lethal injection, after a track record of uneventful executions.

According to a report from the Human Rights Watch, an anti-death penalty
group, a legal case over Louisiana's copying of Texas method brought a
flurry of controversy over how the process was developed.

A Louisiana prison pharmacy director, Donald Courts, according to the
group had the following conversation with a Texas prison official about
the executions.

"We were getting ready to hang up the phone, and I said, 'I have but just
one question I need to ask you," Courts said. "Every other state I have
spoken to is using 2 grams of sodium pentothal. Why are yall using 5?' And
he started laughing and said, 'Well, you see, when we did our very first
execution, the only thing I had on hand was a 5-gram vial. And rather than
do the paperwork on wasting 3 grams, we just gave all 5.'"

Wait and see

A case before the Supreme Court now has massive implications for the
future of lethal injection in the nation, opponents and proponents of the
procedure say.

But its scope is narrow, only focusing on the drugs used in the current
protocol of all but one state that uses the method.

The court is not expected to rule on the case until sometime next year,
and its consequences could change the process of execution throughout the
nation.

Dennis Longmire, an outspoken critic of the death penalty and professor of
criminal justice at Sam Houston State University, said the case brings a
time of pause that could be used to examine other methods of execution.

"I'm not an executioner or expert on it, but its worth noting that in any
technique we use that requires an injection-based process we have to rely
on some sort of chemical we have the problem of maintaining reliabilty,"
Longmire said. "I hope if anything comes out of the Baze case there is a
requirement that states provide some sort of monitoring through the
process to ensure if something is going wrong they can do something to
intervene or stop the problem."

But proponents of the process say there is nothing wrong with the way
things are.

Walker County Criminal District Attorney David Weeks said he believes the
process to be humane.

"I have been to an execution," Weeks said. "It was a case I tried and I
went to be with the victims family. It went very smoothly. They have a
plan and procedure they follow very closely."

Even so, Weeks  who has prosecuted several capitol murder cases  believes
the decision on how to implement the procedure is in good hands with the
courts and the state Legislature.

"How they execute them, that's really for the legislators and others to
decide," Weeks said. "I don't really have an opinion one way or the
other."

(source: Huntsville Item)

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

Spared inmate: 'I confronted death'


"I was ready to die. I confronted death. I was dead," Carlton Turner said.

Turner was the first Texas inmate to benefit from the Supreme Court review
of lethal injection, spared just moments before he was to die last
Thursday.

He may have been ready to die then, but now he's ready to fight for his
life.

"The death penalty itself is unfair. It's a negative consequence, but it's
unfair, alright? It's inhumane. There is no humane way to kill somebody,
right. You killed a person," Turner said.

But many beg to differ.

Crime victims' advocate Andy Kahan said the whole debate over whether
lethal injection is cruel and unusual is only cruel and unusual to those
who have suffered at the hands of violent criminals.

"Timing is everything, and timing couldnt have been better for Carlton
Turner," Kahan said.

People like those who are waiting for Turner to be executed for the brutal
shooting deaths of his adopted parents in Dallas 9 years ago.

"I think anybody on Texas' death row right now is probably going to be
breathing a big sigh of relief and they're probably going to be hoping for
an even bigger decision in their favor," Kahan said .

Included in that group is Heliberto Chi, a convicted murder who was set to
be executed Wednesday, but received a stay.

Instead, he was at the prison smiling, being interviewed by a newspaper
reporter from his native Honduras.

As for Turner, he says he's found God in prison, and he's willing to fight
what he believes is wrong: Texas executing him, he says, out of hate.

What he calls hate, others call justice.

Turner knows that the state might get that justice if the Supreme Court
decides in favor of lethal injection.

"I'll be ready," he said.

It could take until February for the Supreme Court to rule on the lethal
injection challenge filed by an inmate in Kentucky.

That's what prompted the stays in Texas, since the states use the same
method.

(source: KHOU News)

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

Jury deliberations begin in capital murder trial----Davis accused of
killing ex-girlfriend's mother during crime spree


A Travis County jury left state District Judge Julie Kocurek's courtroom
at 11:25 a.m. today to begin deliberating whether Selwyn P. Davis is
guilty of capital murder or, as his defense lawyers contend, guilty of
murder - which isn't punishable by the death penalty.

Davis is accused of killing Regina Lara, his ex-girlfriend's mother, on
Aug. 22, 2006, to cap a two-day crime spree during which he is accused of
breaking his ex-girlfriend's jaw, slicing his uncle with a knife, sexually
assaulting a teenager and trying to run over a police officer with a car,
according to court documents.

He broke into Lara's apartment on 381/2 Street and when Lara came home, he
raped a teenage girl that sometimes lived there and killed Lara, according
to testimony. He stabbed Lara, 57, four times in the heart, once in the
back and tried to strangle her and when police arrived, fled out a back
window, according to testimony.

Davis took Lara's purse, her checkbook and fled in her minivan, narrowly
missing a police officer in the parking lot, according to testimony.

The jury should find Davis, 25, guilty of capital murder, Kocurek
instructed, if they find beyond a reasonable doubt that he intentionally
killed Lara in the course of committing burglary or robbery.

Defense lawyer Steve Brittain told the jury in his closing argument that
they should opt for murder.

"The murder is not part of a scheme to rob, not part of a scheme to
burglarize. It's from hate and anger and should be punished," he said.
"This was never capital murder."

Brittain argued that Davis had been welcomed at Lara's home and therefore
wasn't guilty of burglary. Davis, 25, only decided to take Lara's things
as an afterthought, he argued.

Prosecutor Judy Shipway said Davis' conduct fits perfectly the definition
of capital murder in Texas.

One definition of burglary under Texas law is entering a home without the
effective consent of the owner and committing a felony, theft or assault.

Shipway argued that Davis wasn't welcome in Lara's home because he had
smashed her daughter's eye socket the day before. She said Davis' break-in
was burglary because he sexually assaulted the teenager, which was a
felony assault.

Robbery, under one definition in Texas law, is committing theft and in the
course of that theft intentionally causing bodily injury to another person
or threatening bodily injury or death.

Shipway argued that Davis was "jonesing" for a crack fix and took Lara's
checkbook from under her mattress after stabbing her to death.

Both prosecutors implored the jury to think of Lara, a mother of 3 and a
grandmother of 8 and a longtime provider at an East Austin day care.

"Take your common sense with you when you go back to deliberate," Shipway
said.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

Dewhurst backs innocence panel


Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he supports creating a state innocence
commission to study wrongful convictions and possible reforms to the
criminal justice system.

In a meeting Tuesday with the Star-Telegram's Editorial Board, Dewhurst
said that he will ask the Senate to conduct an interim study during the
Legislature's hiatus to determine the commission's charge. He did not
offer detailed ideas about how much authority the commission should have
on issues such as how law enforcement agencies use DNA technology and
preserve evidence.

Dewhurst's support of an innocence commission follows 14 DNA exonerations
of prison inmates from Dallas County, which has reversed more convictions
because of DNA evidence than any other U.S. county.

"We only want the truly guilty to be subject to punishment in Texas. None
of us want an innocent person convicted," Dewhurst said. "I've been
supportive of this in the 2003 and 2007 sessions, and I'd like the Senate
to coalesce on a position."

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, sponsored legislation this year to create an
innocence commission. His bill passed the Senate but not the House.

Ellis said Wednesday that he was pleased to hear of Dewhurst's support for
a commission but that he was "getting a little impatient." He noted that
Gov. Rick Perry or Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson
could form a commission without legislative approval, as could the state
Court of Criminal Appeals.

"Any opportunity to review the criminal justice system in Texas is
certainly well-warranted," Ellis said. But "if nobody else is willing to
step up and show leadership on this issue, I may just do it for them."

Ellis said he may hold a series of public meetings on the issue. His bill
proposed allowing the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker to
make appointments to the commission, which would have the power to
investigate individual cases, identify defects in the system and suggest
changes to the Legislature.

Dewhurst, who considers requests for stays of execution when Perry is out
of the state, said he wants to make sure the system is working properly.

For example, he agreed with Perry's decision in August to commute Kenneth
Eugene Foster's death sentence to life in prison. Perry encouraged the
Legislature to re-examine the state law that allows an accomplice to be
tried by the same judge and jury as the shooter.

Last month the Dallas County district attorney's office withdrew its
request that Joseph Lave, who was convicted under the same law, get a
lethal injection. Authorities discovered that crucial evidence was not
turned over to Lave's defense attorneys.

And in Houston this week, DNA evidence prompted the Harris County district
attorney's office to ask that a man convicted of sexual assault in 1995 be
released from prison.

Dewhurst said he supports the death penalty but believes that it must be
applied fairly and objectively. "I think we have to bend over backwards
that we dot the i's and cross the t's," he said. Jefferson, the chief
justice, has spoken in favor of an innocence commission in 2 speeches to
the Legislature.

Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee,
which would probably conduct the study, said getting the commission
approved would need the support of Jefferson and others.

"It seems like in this building we are talking about a smarter approach to
fighting crime," said Whitmire, D-Houston. "You want to do it right, and
it is only as good as it works and as people respect it.

"There is something to be said about scrubbing decisions and court
actions. How do we prevent the next mistake?"

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

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

'Cruel and Unusual' Case Halting Executions?----States React to Supreme
Court's Decision to Hear Lethal Injection Challenge


Texas, the U.S. state that carries out the most death penalty sentences,
may be on the verge of a shutdown of executions performed by lethal
injection.

On Monday the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas stopped today's planned
execution of Heliberto Chi, who was convicted in 2001 for killing the
manager of a men's clothing store during a robbery attempt.

The court has given the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and
prosecutors 30 days to reply to Chi's allegations that the current method
of administering lethal injection in Texas constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment that would violate the Eighth Amendment.

While the court hasn't ordered a halt to lethal injection executions,
taking this issue under advisement may prompt Texas to soon join 11 other
states in such a moratorium.

Last month the Supreme Court said it would hear a similar challenge to
lethal injection.

Legal experts agree that Tuesday's Texas court order signals that the
state might put all such executions on hold until the nation's highest
court deals with the issue.

However, Elisabeth Semel, a law professor at University of
California-Berkeley, cautions that it's too early to say whether all
lethal executions in the states that allow such a method will be halted
until the Supreme Court rules.

"Courts generally are cautious about granting stays when the
constitutional claim against lethal injection comes up after the execution
day has been set," she said.

Semel believes the high court will search for a uniform standard to apply
to lethal injection procedures that will avoid arbitrary differences in
how the procedures are reviewed by various state and local courts.

The next scheduled execution in Texas is Nov. 27. However, Christopher
Scott Emmett of Virginia will most likely challenge his execution,
scheduled for Oct. 17, by referencing the case pending at the Supreme
Court.

At issue before the high court will be the standard of pain regarding the
executions, the drug protocol that is used, as well as the ability of the
people involved with the administration of the drugs to carry out the
procedure.

Most states use the same protocol of 3 drugs: sodium thiopental,
pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Currently, of the 38 states with the death penalty, 37 allow lethal
injection. However, 11 states have put lethal injections on hold for a
variety of reasons. 3 states -- Illinois, New Jersey and New York -- have
all methods of executions on hold.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the lethal injection case early next
year with a decision sometime this spring.

(source: ABC News)

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

DID UNBUDGING TEXAS BUREAUCRATS KILL A MAN?----Court Told Condemned Man:
Sorry, We're Closing


The state of Texas executed death row inmate Michael Richard because the
court responsible for his sentence was unwilling to remain open an
additional 20 minutes to receive a petition for a stay on his execution.

Business hours were to be respected, and Richard was killed, on schedule,
by lethal injection. When it comes to Texas justice, 20 minutes could mean
the difference between life and death. The Austin-American Statesman
newspaper reported this week that the state executed death row inmate
Michael Richard on Sept. 25 -- because bureaucrats couldn't be bothered to
wait 20 minutes to receive his lawyers' appeal for a stay.

According to the newspaper, when the lawyers explained to Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals at 4:50 p.m. that their computer had crashed and they
needed extra time, they were told: "We're closing at 5."

The case has sparked outrage in the United States and is providing fodder
for opponents of capital punishment. In an editorial, the Dallas Morning
News described the action as "unconscionable." The paper wrote: "Hastening
the death of a man, even a bad one, because office personnel couldn't be
bothered to bend bureaucratic procedure was a breathtakingly petty act and
evinced a relish for death that makes the blood of decent people run
cold."

Earlier on the day of Michael Richard's scheduled execution, the US
Supreme Court had agreed to review the constitutionality of death by legal
injection in the spring of 2008. The decision was in response to the
appeals of 2 death row inmates from Kentucky, who argued that this was a
form of "cruel and unusual punishment." It's the 1st time since 1879 that
the Supreme Court has accepted an appeal against a method of execution.

Attorneys for Richard, convicted of having committed rape and murder 20
years ago, scrambled just hours later to file an appeal for a stay of
execution based on the new development. Normally, the attorneys could have
appealed directly to the US Supreme Court, which stays open on the night
of executions, if the Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected their
petition.

But because it was closed, according to the Austin-American Statesman,
they then turned to a Houston district judge to stop the execution. The
denial there, however, put the case on a "different procedural path to the
high court, eventually dooming the attempt," Andrea Keilen of the Texas
Defender Service, which represented Richard, told the newspaper.
"Basically, it came down to a procedural technicality that Richard was
executed," Keilen said, describing the event as an "inexcusable failure."

Since capital punishment was reinstated in the US in 1976, 1,099 people
have been executed -- 928 by legal injection, a method that has been
employed for the last 25 years. The state of Texas has long led in
executions, applying capital punishment to 400 people since 1976.

(source: Der Spiegel (Germany) )