May 27
MAY 27, 2019:
TEXAS:
Despite bipartisan support, Texas bill tackling intellectual disability in
death penalty cases fails----Negotiators in the House and Senate couldn't come
to an agreement on a bill addressing how Texas handles capital murder
defendants who may be intellectually disabled. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities amounts to cruel and
unusual punishment.
A bill aimed at ending Texas' years of legal troubles around ensuring it is not
administering the death penalty on people with intellectual disabilities died
in the Texas Legislature this weekend after negotiators in the Senate and House
failed to find common ground. The legislative session ends Monday.
House Bill 1139, by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, was originally
written to allow capital murder defendants to request pretrial hearings to
determine if they are intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the
death penalty. If the trial judges found they were intellectually disabled,
they would be ineligible for a death sentence and instead receive an automatic
sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
As the bill moved through the Senate, however, it was largely gutted, instead
only stating that a defendant who has an intellectual disability can’t receive
the death penalty and such determinations must be made using current medical
standards. That language would have codified existing U.S. Supreme Court
rulings but offered no direction on how to follow them.
Earlier this week, when the bill came back from the Senate amended, Thompson
requested a conference committee in which members from both chambers could iron
out the differences between the two versions. The committees had until midnight
Sunday to file a report with a compromise version. The deadline passed without
a report.
Thompson’s original version of HB 1139 passed out of the Texas House in an
102-37 vote and was supported by members of both parties. She could not be
reached for comment Saturday night.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual
disabilities amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, but left it up to states
to determine the definition of such disabilities. Texas has never passed
legislation to regulate the process, leaving it up to courts to decide if a
defendant is eligible for the death penalty.
However, Texas courts have still run into trouble with the higher court because
of a test some judges have implemented to determine if a defendant is eligible
for the death penalty. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals’ process as unconstitutional in a case involving
Bobby Moore, ruling that it used outdated medical standards and non-clinical
factors that advanced stereotypes, like how well a defendant could lie. The
Texas court was asked to re-evaluate Moore using different methods. The court’s
revised method, which still rejected Moore’s claim of intellectual disability,
was again knocked down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.
“There’s a disconnect between the U.S. Supreme Court and our court down here,”
Thompson told the Tribune earlier this year. “We just want to make sure that
we’re doing justice, that we’re following the law.”
State Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who is vice-chair of the Senate's
Criminal Justice Committee, opposed the version of the bill that passed the
House, questioning whether the pretrial process would allow “activist judges”
who were against the death penalty to use it as a way to limit capital
punishment. State Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat who carried the bill in
the Senate, later presented the much more limited version of the bill, which
passed out of that chamber.
“As the legislation moved, I worked with my fellow members in the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee and passed a version of the bill to continue the
discussion in a conference committee where we could craft language that would
respect the US Supreme Court rulings,” Miles said in a statement Saturday
night. “Unfortunately, the leadership would not allow HB 1139 to move forward,
dooming the bill.”
A spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not immediately respond to
questions on the bill.
State Rep. Joe Moody D-El Paso, a member of the conference committee, said that
the House members on the committee attempted to use the report to advance two
other death penalty-related bills when it became clear that the Senate was not
going to support addressing the issue of ensuring that Texas isn't executing
people with intellectual disabilities.
The 1st, House Bill 1030, would clarify instructions to a jury when they are
deciding whether to give a defendant the death penalty of life in prison. The
2nd, House Bill 464, would allow evidence appeals that could lessen
punishments, like a death sentence, instead of just overruling a conviction.
“The attempt of the conference was if they were going to zero out the base
effort of (House Bill) 1139, then, let's see what other movement we can make on
the death penalty as a whole, which included two bills that were voted out of
the House with over 130 votes apiece,” Moody told The Texas Tribune Saturday
night before the midnight deadline.
As the session is scheduled to wrap up another session on Monday with no
resolution on the issue, Moody said he think Texas will continue to struggle
with court cases involving individuals with intellectual disabilities until the
Legislature takes the burden off the courts.
“The courts have been there, sitting there, making their best effort to get a
system in place, but it keeps getting thrown out by the Supreme Court,” Moody
said. “So this is our job. Our job is to legislate and not force this job on
the judges and the courts.”
(source: Texas Tribune)
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