Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional In Texas

[sonias]

Huffington Post 12/1/10
Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional In Texas

WASHINGTON -- At a hearing scheduled for Monday, December 6, a district court in Texas will decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional in the state based on the disproportionately high risk of wrongful convictions in Texas. This is the first time in the state's history that a court will examine the problem of innocent people being executed in a Texas capital trial.

John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. According to legal documents obtained by HuffPost, Green's defense attorneys will be arguing on Monday that a number of factors in Texas's legal system increase the risk of wrongful executions there, including a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.

The death penalty in Texas came under fire earlier this month when a DNA test conducted on a single hair undermined the evidence that convicted a Texas man of capital murder over ten years ago. The hair had been the only piece of evidence linking Claude Jones to the crime scene, but the new test results revealed that the hair likely belonged to the murder victim instead of Jones.

Lets hope the judge in the case actually weighs the facts of the case, if he/she does they should rule our killing machine justice system in Texas unconstitutional!

:kick:

[efhmc]

1. Who is the judge?

[sonias]

3. Judge Kevin Fine

According to the article. Sorry I have no idea who the judge is.
:shrug:

[efhmc]

5. Found this about him.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6397293 Interesting that he actually said he should have discussed this in private.

[sonias]

8. Well that may not be a good sign

:shrug:

[onestepforward]

2. I'm glad to hear that the death penalty will be looked at

by a court and I'm very surprised that this will be the first time. With such a serious risk of wrongful convictions and without an ability to correct its mistakes, a judicial review is well over due.

I would personally love to see it ruled as unconstitutional.

[sonias]

4. Me too - I would love to see it ruled unconstitutional

Probably the only way the killing machine stops in Texas. The courts would need to stop it, because blood thirsty Texans support it as well as the repuke haters at the Lege.

From the same article:

Since 1976, twelve people have been exonerated from death row in Texas out of 139 nationwide, and four study commissions set up by the Texas government have formally recognized the serious risks of wrongful convictions there. Out of the 464 people that have been executed in Texas, about 70 percent have been minorities, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, said it is clear to her that the death penalty is handed down unfairly and erratically in Texas.

:kick:

[efhmc]

6. Didn't that already happen and was rescinded?

[sonias]

7. Not that I know of

SCOTUS ruled that executing people with diminished mental capacity was unconstitutional but not the death penalty in Texas.

[efhmc]

9. This is what I was referring to. Hope it conforms to the rules.

From this site: http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/death/history.html
Legal challenges to the death penalty culminated in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 153 (1972), which struck down federal and state capital punishment laws permitting wide discretion in the application of the death penalty. Characterizing these laws as "arbitrary and capricious," the majority ruled that they constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Only two of the justices concurring in the decision (Justices Brennan and Marshall) declared capital punishment to be unconstitutional in all instances, however; other concurrences by Justices Douglas, Stewart, and White focused on the abitrariness of the application of capital punishment, including the appearance of racial bias against black defendants. In all, nine separate opinions -- five invalidating existing laws and four arguing for their retention -- were written by the nine Supreme Court justices spelling out their different views on what constituted the "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.


New laws upheld
More than 600 death row inmates who had been sentenced to death between 1967 and 1972 had their death sentences lifted as a result of Furman, but the numbers quickly began to build up again as states enacted revised legislation tailored to satisfy the Supreme Court's objections to arbitrary imposition of death sentences. These laws were of two major types:
The first type, providing for guided discretion, was upheld by the Supreme Court in three related cases: Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976), and Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976). The Georgia, Texas, and Florida statutes validated by the Supreme Court afforded sentencing courts the discretion to impose death sentences for specified crimes and provided for two-stage, or "bifurcated," trials, involving in the first stage the determination of a defendant's guilt or innocence and, in the second, determination of the sentence after consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. In Georgia and Texas, the final sentencing decision rested with the jury, and in Florida with the judge.
Those laws which provided a mandatory death penalty for specific crimes, and allowing no judicial or jury discretion beyond the determination of guilt, were declared unconstitutional in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976) and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976). These rulings led directly to the invalidation of mandatory death penalty statutes in 21 states, and resulted in the modification of the sentences of hundreds of offenders from death to life imprisonment.


Executions resume
Table: Executions post-FurmanThe first execution under the new death penalty laws took place on January 17, 1977, when convicted murdered Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah. Gilmore's was the first execution in the United States since 1967. Two prisoners were executed in 1979; one in 1981; two in 1982; and five in 1983. Executions increased dramatically in 1984, with 21 in that year, and there have been at least 10 executions in the U.S. every year since. There were 74 executions in 1997. From 1977 to 1997, a total of 432 executions took place. Of the executed prisoners during this period, 266 were white, 161 were black, and five were of other races. By the end of 1997, 38 states and the federal government had capital punishment law; 12 states (including Alaska) have no death penalty. (Bureau of Justice Statistics annual bulletins on capital punishment provide current information on U.S. jurisdictions which authorize the death penalty.) By the end of 1996, 3,219 prisoners were under sentence of death, including 3,208 in 34 states and 11 under federal jurisdiction. All were convicted of murder.


Supreme Court
decisions refine
death penalty laws
In 1977, the Supreme Court declared in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977) that applying the death penalty in rape cases was unconstitutional because the sentence was disproportionate to the crime. Coker resulted in the removal of twenty inmates -- three whites and 17 blacks -- awaiting execution on rape convictions from death rows around the country.
In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978), the high court forced a number of states to again revise their death penalty statutes by ruling that the sentencing authority in a capital case must consider every possible mitigating factor to the crime rather than limiting, as Ohio had, the mitigating factors that could be considered to a specific list. For additional Supreme Court decisions, see Selected Supreme Court Decisions, below.


Current Status

Since the 1976 Gregg decision upholding the constitutionality of Georgia's death penalty law, numerous states have reinstated capital punishment in their statutes. The most recent state to enact a death penalty law was New York in 1995. As of January 1998, 38 states and the federal government have capital punishment laws in effect. Alaska, eleven other states -- Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- and the District of Columbia do not have a death penalty. Sites providing information on the current status of the death penalty throughout the nation are available on the Death Penalty Statistics page.

[sonias]

10. Thanks for the link

Great historical reference.

:thumbsup:

[sonias]

11. Hearing to Delve Into Texas Executions

Wallstreet Journal 12/6/10
Hearing to Delve Into Texas Executions

(snip)
Lawyers for John E. Green Jr., who is charged with killing a woman in front of her children, are not challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty, only how the punishment is applied by the state.

(snip)
Critics of the Texas justice system point to a range of problems they say increase the risks of convicting the innocent, from police procedures that can mislead eye witnesses in identifying perpetrators to the state's failure to provide the accused with adequate defenders. They also say evidence is often not analyzed with the best scientific methods, leading to mistakes.

Mr. Green's lawyers say the evidence the state collected in his case is unreliable—including prints that were not sufficiently clear to identify the perpetrator—and risks wrongfully convicting him.

The hearing "will lay out powerful proof that the risks of executing the innocent in Texas are too high and these procedures have to be fixed," said Barry C. Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project, which is based in New York and is assisting the Green legal team. "It's a pretty important issue for the whole viability of capital punishment if there's something profoundly wrong with it."

:kick:

[sonias]

12. A Texas Case Puts the Death Penalty on Trial

Time Magazine 12/06/10
A Texas Case Puts the Death Penalty on Trial

Recent revelations about faulty evidence in two Texas death-penalty cases have raised new questions about the fairness of the death penalty. Now those questions will get an unprecedented hearing in the middle of a current murder trial: on Monday, a judge will hear evidence in the case of Texas v. Green that isn't about the crime in question at all, but instead about whether there's enough risk of wrongful execution in Texas to render the death penalty unconstitutional.

(snip)
But Green's defense team, led by the Texas Defender Service, is taking advantage of an uncommon Texas procedure that allows judges to consider how a requested punishment (like the death penalty) is applied across the state, and consider that evidence as part of a trial. It's a new forum for old wars about the constitutionality of the death penalty: those battles are usually fought in appeals court, not during the first trial itself.

"This is completely unique," says David Dow, a University of Houston law professor who also works with the Texas Defender Service. "It's never happened before in Texas. That alone makes it important."

Two executions recently re-examined by the Innocence Project and others have likely inspired this hearing. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his children; the arson testimony that led to his conviction has since been widely discredited. The 1990 conviction of Claude Jones was recently called into doubt, in a case that was first reported nationally in TIME, when a new DNA test found that the prosecution's key evidence — a piece of hair — belonged, in fact, to the victim, and not Jones.

The Innocence Project and one of its co-founders, Barry Scheck, have long argued that the DNA exonerations they've worked on reveal other prosecutorial flaws that contribute to wrongful convictions. In 75% of DNA exonerations nationwide, they say, one or more eyewitnesses made false identifications. False confessions factored into a quarter of DNA exonerations, by their count, and unreliable informants and jailhouse snitches were a factor in half. They also point to numerous crime-lab scandals and racial discrimination in jury selection. There is a reason 139 people have been exonerated from death row since 1976, says Scheck: the death penalty is simply not fair.

Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project are doing tremendously good work. I wish them the best!

[sonias]

13. Hearing will put death penalty under review

http://www.mysanantonio.com/crimebase/article/Hearing-will-put-death-penalty-under-review-862782.php">San Antonio Express News 12/6/10
Hearing will put death penalty under review
The state of Texas does not adequately safeguard against executing the innocent, national anti-death penalty experts and defense lawyers are expected to argue this week in an effort to get a Houston judge to renew his declaration that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

The hearing, a rare judicial review of capital punishment in Texas, is expected to last two weeks and attract some high-profile death penalty opponents, including Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project.

Scheck is expected to try to convince the judge that Texas executed two innocent men and has almost certainly executed others who were innocent.

Nine months ago, state District Judge Kevin Fine declared the procedures surrounding the death penalty in Texas unconstitutional, then rescinded his ruling to gather more information.

This story says Fine was the judge that had previously declared the death penalty unconstitutional. So actually he may be the perfect judge for this case now. He obviously has some problems with how execution as a penalty is applied in Texas. I hope he has the backbone to stick to his decision if he does rule it unconstitutional.

:kick:

[sonias]

14. Texas judge puts state's death penalty on trial

Yahoo News 12/6/10
Texas judge puts state's death penalty on trial

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A Houston judge on Monday began a hearing on the legality of the death penalty in Texas, which executes more convicts than any other U.S. state, and will render a high-profile judgment that could influence the national debate on capital punishment.

(snip)
During roughly two weeks of testimony, state District Judge Kevin Fine will hear arguments from prominent death penalty opponents, who will shine a spotlight on the legal processes and evidentiary support used in Texas' capital punishment trials, which critics say are error-prone.

"This will be an authoritative statement on the death penalty in Texas," said James Liebman, a law professor at Columbia Law School. The case could impact other states like Illinois, where there is a legislative effort to repeal the punishment, Liebman said.

County prosecutors said they will "stand mute" during the hearing, after citing 19 reasons why it should not proceed. Prosecutor Alan Curry told Judge Fine he would "respectfully refuse to participate" in the hearing. Fine later told Curry, "I expect your participation."

:thumbsup:

[sonias]

15. Legal Challenge to the Death Penalty Begins in Texas

NY Times 12/06/10
Legal Challenge to the Death Penalty Begins in Texas

HOUSTON — The death penalty went on trial Monday in Texas, a state where more prisoners are executed every year than in any other and where exonerations of people on death row occur with surprising regularity.

(snip)
Alan Curry, the chief of the appellate division in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, argued that the hearing should not be held and announced his office would not participate.

He declined to cross-examine witnesses. The prosecution has claimed that Judge Fine is biased against the death penalty and moved to remove him from the case, but the highest criminal court denied the motion.

(snip)
But Richard Burr, one of the defendant’s lawyers, said wrongful convictions happened so frequently in Texas that Mr. Green was at serious risk of ending up on death row. He also said the chances of overturning a bad conviction on appeal were low in Texas, which requires a defendant to show “no reasonable juror” would have convicted him.

:kick:

[kentauros]

16. Texas High Court Halts Hearing On Death Penalty

Hair Balls - Houston Press News blog

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, acting on its own motion, has ordered a halt in the hearings District Judge Kevin Fine is conducting into the constitutionality of the death penalty as it is applied here.

District Attorney Pat Lykos' office made the announcement, having been informed of the move late Tuesday. Her prosecutors had been standing more or less mute during the proceedings, which began Monday.

Their take:
The Harris County District Attorney's Office was notified late Tuesday that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, on its own motion, has granted a stay in the death penalty hearing regarding The State of Texas versus John Edward Green being held in the 177th District Court. The hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty will be effectively stopped pending legal arguments to be made by the parties. All parties will have 15 days to respond to this order by drafting legal briefs with their stated positions.

So, as expected, nothing much will come of the high-profile hearings.

Green's attorneys had this to say:

more at link...

Looks like the Texas Powers That Be don't want this to happen :mad:

[sonias]

17. Damn it!

Those bastards!

I hope the media across the country picks up this story and blasts it everywhere. The Texas execution chamber couldn't stand the light of day. Why is Texas scared of shinning a little light under the process?

:mad:

[kentauros]

18. Probably because the bloodlust is strong with those in power right now.

That or it's more profitable to kill prisoners than it is to keep them alive...