Oct. 3
TEXAS:
This Texas County Kills More People Than Any Other County In America
Since 1976, Harris County, Texas has executed more criminals than any other
U.S. county, according to a study from the Death Penalty Information
Center(DPIC). The county includes Houston, Texas' largest city.
The results show that more than 1/2 of America's executions since 1976 come
from only 2% of its counties. And Harris County tops the list. Los Angeles
leads the U.S. in putting people on death row - but it hasn't killed as many
criminals as Harris County.
Within the top 1%, 15 counties comprise 30% of nationwide executions. Harris
County killed more inmates than any other county in that group. It has executed
115 people since 1976. The next-highest, Dallas County, executed just 50 people
in that period.
Harris County has been sharply criticised for the way it handles death penalty
cases.
A 2011 study about race and the death penalty from the Houston Chronicle found
that of the last 13 men sentenced to die in Harris County, 12 were black. The
lone, white male requested a death sentence after strangling and torturing 4
women and girls and raping 3 of them.
Texas executes the most criminals of any state. More than 1/3 of Texas??? 305
death row inmates - and 1/2 of the 121 black death row inmates - came from
Harris County, according to the same study.
A more recent analysis from Raymond Paternoster, a criminologist at the
University of Maryland, found the district attorney in Harris County more than
3 times as likely to pursue the death penalty for black criminals.
Duane Buck, accused of a double murder in 1997, is often cited as an example of
bias against black defendants in Texas. The court allowed a psychologist to
classify Buck as more dangerous and more likely to re-offend simply because of
his race, according to the Texas Observer.
Brent Newton, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, wrote a
frequently cited article in the 90s that tried to explain why Texas executes so
many people, according to Frontline. For one thing, Texas appeals court judges
are elected, and they have to appear tough on crime for successful re-election.
And up until about 2001 Texas didn't have a public defender system for poor
defendants and instead relied on outsourced lawyers who weren't necessarily
familiar with capital cases.
Mistakes have definitely been made in Texas' death penalty cases. The top 2% of
counties for executions also constitute 52% of the death penalty reversals
since 1976, according to DPIC.
(source: Business Insider)
*******************
Texas experimenting with secret execution drugs -lawsuit
3 Texas death row inmates claim the state plans to execute them by
experimenting with new drugs, never used for such a purpose, that were obtained
under false pretenses, attorneys told Reuters on Wednesday.
Texas is turning to the new execution drugs in a desperate attempt to keep the
United States' most active execution chamber operating despite dwindling
supplies of the drug traditionally used for lethal injections, a lawsuit filed
by the inmates says.
The inmates, one of whom is scheduled for execution on Oct. 9, allege the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice used the address of a hospital unit shuttered 3
decades ago in order to obtain the 3 new drugs.
They say the drugs - propofol, midzolam and hydromorphone - would likely not
have been supplied if the manufacturers knew the purpose they would be used
for, according to a lawsuit filed this Tuesday in federal court in Houston.
Texas prison officials declined to comment on the allegations made in the
lawsuit.
They said Wednesday that they have enough pentobarbital, the barbiturate used
in Texas executions since 2012, to last them until at least next year. The
state recently received a fresh supply of the drug from a Texas compounding
pharmacy, after warning in August that their supplies were nearly exhausted.
"The purchase will allow the agency to carry out all currently scheduled
executions," state officials said in a statement.
Texas has 7 executions scheduled, including two in October. The state has
executed 13 inmates so far this year.
Among the inmates suing the state is Michael Yowell, set to die Oct. 9 for
killing his parents and blowing up their home in Lubbock, Texas, in 1998.
The lawsuit alleges that because of a shortage of drugs traditionally used in
executions, Texas correction officials are turning to "drugs and methods of
execution that have never been used before, by any state. Some are banned for
use in animal euthanasia," and run a "substantial risk of grave pain," the suit
claims.
"We are concerned that they are experimenting on people," Austin attorney
Maurie Levin, one of the lawyers representing the inmates, told Reuters on
Wednesday.
The lawsuit says Texas is trying to hide from the public its plans to use new
drugs for executions. It asks the court to halt executions in Texas until the
state can review the drugs.
Propofol and midazolan are used as sedatives in medical procedures.
Hydromorphone is used to relieve pain.
Texas, which has carried out more executions than any other state since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976, switched to administering a single,
lethal dose of pentobarbital last year when the state had to change drugs after
the maker of sodium thiopental, Hospira Inc, stopped manufacturing it.
Pentobarbital is used for physician-assisted suicide in Europe. Denmark's
Lundbeck LLC, which makes pentobarbital, has objected to its use in executions,
leaving it in short supply.
Several states have reported running low on pentobarbital and have halted
executions while they seek access or resolve other lethal injection issues,
said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center.
The Texas lawsuit claims the state used a subterfuge to obtain propofol,
midzolam and hydromorphone from manufacturers unwilling to have their products
used for execution.
The state purchased the drugs for delivery to the "Huntsville Unit Hospital," a
medical ward that has not existed since 1983, to cover up the fact that the
drugs may be used for executions, the lawsuit alleges.
It also says the state attempted to purchase a pentobarbital compound from New
York-based Pharmacy Innovations delivered to the same address with a
prescription written in the name of the prison warden. The suit says the
company canceled the order when it found out who was ordering it and what it
was for.
The case is 4:13-cv-02901 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District
of Texas Houston Division.
(source: Reuters)
******************
Death Watch: Madness and Forensics----2 capital cases raise psychological and
evidentiary issues
Michael Yowell's parents were still asleep on the morning of May 9, 1998, when
he entered their bedroom to steal his dad's wallet so he could buy drugs.
Yowell, then 29, had an extensive history of mental health problems and drug
abuse - for at least a decade he'd been in and out of state hospitals, had
suicidal and homicidal thoughts, was a major abuser of many different drugs,
and heard voices telling him to hurt others.
That spring morning in Lubbock, where his parents Carol and John lived in a
home with Yowell's grandmother, he allegedly snapped when his dad awoke and
caught him trying to take money. Yowell shot his father in the head and then
strangled his mother with a lamp cord. He then opened a gas line in the home's
kitchen and fled to a friend's house, where he cleaned himself up and stashed
his .25-caliber handgun. When Yowell's grandmother later awoke and opened her
closed bedroom door, the gas in the house ignited and the home exploded. She
died 2 weeks later from injuries sustained during the fire; the remains of his
parents were incinerated.
2 days later Yowell admitted to police that he'd committed the double murder,
fled the scene with his dad's wallet and car, and cleaned himself up from blood
from the scene with which he was "pretty well covered," he said. Yowell was
charged, tried, and convicted of capital murder, and in October 1999, he was
sentenced to die.
On appeal, Yowell's lawyers argued that there was insufficient evidence
presented for a jury to disregard Yowell's claim that he was insane at the time
of the murders, and also that his lawyers were deficient for not pushing harder
to have evidence of insanity considered by jurors. Yowell's appeals have each
been denied.
On Oct. 1, however, he and 2 other inmates filed suit in federal court in
Houston, asking that his impending execution (and, by extension, that of the 3
others slated for execution before the end of the year) be put on hold while
the courts can consider whether Texas would violate their constitutional rights
by changing its execution drug protocol, without disclosing to the inmates it
intends to kill anything about that drug, and how it would be used.
With last week's execution of Arturo Diaz, the state's supply of pentobarbital
expired, leaving the Texas Department of Criminal Justice without an execution
drug. The state has 3 other drugs on hand that it could use - including
propofol - but none has ever been used in execution here or elsewhere. "To
permit TDCJ to proceed without the opportunity for this court to review the new
drugs and new protocol essentially permits human experimentation that must be
reviled by any civilized society," reads a motion seeking a temporary
injunction or restraining order against the state.
Unless the court intervenes, Yowell will be executed on Oct. 9, becoming the
14th inmate to die this year in Texas' execution chamber, the 506th inmate to
die here since reinstatement of the death penalty, and, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center, the 1,261st inmate ever to be executed in the
state.
The Swearingen DNA
In other death row news, although Attorney General Greg Abbott strongly
endorsed a measure to ensure DNA testing of biological materials in all death
penalty cases prior to trial - a measure (SB 1292) that easily passed through
the Lege this spring - the state is nonetheless still fighting efforts by
condemned inmate Larry Swearingen to obtain DNA testing on key pieces of
evidence that his lawyers say could prove he is not responsible for the 1998
murder of Montgomery County Community College student Melissa Trotter.
Swearingen has avoided the death chamber four times for the murder of Trotter,
who disappeared from her college campus in December 1998. Her body was found
several weeks later, on Jan. 2, 1999, in the Sam Houston National Forest.
Prosecutors argue that forensic examiners positively identified a length of
pantyhose used to strangle her to a portion of a pair found later by
Swearingen's landlord inside his rented trailer.
Swearingen has maintained his innocence and has 4 times sought testing of the
pantyhose ligature along with other items of evidence - including blood flakes
found under one of Trotter's nails that to date have not been matched to anyone
connected to the case, including Swearingen. In 2011, Swearingen brought to the
courts histological evidence that he says proves he could not have killed
Trotter: Trotter's tissue samples were too well preserved to be consistent with
her body having lain in the forest for weeks. If she were indeed killed closer
to the time her body was found, as the tissue samples reflect, then Swearingen
could not be guilty because he'd been in jail, on outstanding warrants, since
right after she disappeared. However, the courts have so far ruled that the
basic tissue science Swearingen has raised is not actually reliable - and
Montgomery County prosecutors have called it junk science.
In January, a district court judge again pulled Swearingen's date with death
and granted his motion for DNA testing. Previous bids to have the evidence
tested were rejected because, prosecutors argued and the Court of Criminal
Appeals agreed, Swearingen could not demonstrate, prior to testing, that there
was actually biological material that could be found on the pantyhose in order
for it to be tested. State lawmakers in 2011 broadened the post-conviction DNA
statute to address this very situation, leading, ultimately, to the district
court's ruling this year that the Swearingen case evidence should be tested.
Still, the state is fighting that bid, arguing, again, not only that Swearingen
can't prove there's anything there to test, but that regardless, it would not
be enough to exonerate him even if a DNA profile other than Swearingen's could
be extracted from the deadly pantyhose ligature. Indeed, someone else could
have touched the material, they argue in a brief filed recently with the CCA.
The defense response is expected in a matter of weeks.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
***************************
Death row inmate sues prison system over execution drug
A death row inmate from Lubbock, who is scheduled to be executed next
Wednesday, has sued Texas prison system administrators over the drugs used in
executions.
Attorneys for Michael Yowell and 2 other condemned prisoners have asked for
specific information about the drugs used, and their source, to determine if
they are safe, reliable and effective.
Yowell murdered his parents in their Lubbock home in 1998. He would be the 1st
executed since the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's previous supply of
pentobarbitol expired last month.
A prison system spokesman said the agency has bought 16 vials of pentobarbitol
from a Texas compounding pharmacy.
(source: myfoxlubbock.com)
**************************
TEXAS VIEW: Willingham case needs full probe
THE POINT - Questionable evidence for man convicted of deadly arson should be
reviewed.
Cameron Todd Willingham's guilt or innocence should be a matter of evidence
explored, not death penalty politics debated.
The evidence thus far says faulty arson claims were used to convict the
Corsicana man for setting fire to his house and killing his 3 young daughters.
Prosecutorial misconduct also may have contributed to Willingham's conviction,
according to evidence presented last week by the Innocence Project.
The group asked Gov. Rick Perry last week to order a state investigation into
whether Willingham was wrongfully executed in 2004 and should be posthumously
pardoned. The Innocence Project previously supported fire research that led to
a report by the Texas Forensic Science Commission that discredited the arson
claims used to convict Willingham.
Neither the discredited fire claims nor the possibility of wrongdoing by
prosecutors cited by the Innocence Project settles the issue of Willingham's
guilt or innocence. Given the years that have gone by since his conviction in
1992 and the circumstantial nature of much of the rest of the case against him,
producing a conclusive answer about Willingham's guilt or innocence might be
impossible. But the time is past due for the state to try to determine the
truth.
In an amendment to a petition filed last year by Willingham's family with the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Innocence Project said it has uncovered
new evidence that indicates false testimony was solicited against Willingham
and used at trial to help convict him. The Board of Pardons and Paroles would
have to investigate the case and issue a recommendation favoring Willingham's
innocence before Perry could grant him a posthumous pardon.
Arson investigators concluded that Willingham used a liquid accelerant to set
the fire that killed his 3 young daughters in their Corsicana home in December
1991. Their testimony was instrumental in persuading jurors to convict
Willingham in 1992. He was sentenced to death and executed in February 2004.
The fire investigators' testimony against Willingham was based on commonly held
beliefs about how fire spreads and acts that had little or no basis in tested
science. In the years since Willingham's conviction, experts studying fires
methodically rather than merely accepting assumptions about them have learned
that much of what arson investigators thought they knew about fires was wrong.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission was asked to study the arson science used
to convict Willingham and concluded in April 2011 that none of the more than 20
"arson indicators" cited by investigators in the Willingham case reliably
pointed to accelerant use. The commission agreed that the arson claims used to
convict Willingham were faulty, but the commission was not in a position to
determine Willingham's guilt or innocence.
Willingham's prosecutors continued to maintain he was guilty. They pointed to
witnesses who said they found Willingham inadequately upset during or after the
fire. And faulty fire evidence aside, prosecutors said they had information
from a jailhouse informant that Willingham had admitted setting the fire.
A statement made by the informant, Johnny Webb, possibly points to
prosecutorial misconduct, the Innocence Project said last week. Webb claimed
Willingham had confessed his crime to him while the 2 men sat in jail, but the
Innocence Project said it has evidence the prosecutor who tried Willingham
elicited false testimony from Webb and later reclassified his crime from
aggravated robbery to robbery to reduce his 15-year prison sentence.
Webb claimed in 2000 that prosecutors had asked him to lie, the Innocence
Project said. But Webb's statement was never given to Willingham's attorneys
before he was executed in 2004.
The 2 opposing sides in the Willingham case are each convinced they're right.
Death penalty politics shape the debate. Those who believe in Willingham's
innocence think he was wrongly executed. Those who maintain Willingham's guilt,
such as Perry, say the state has never executed an innocent man.
We are in no position to pass judgment on Willingham's guilt or innocence. But
there is enough evidence to warrant a thorough - and open - state
investigation. Otherwise, Willingham's case is doomed to haunt criminal justice
in Texas.
(source: Editorial, Austin American-Statesman)
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