Perry is following Bush/Gonzales in attitude toward Texas executions

[G_j]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1584314


The Atlantic Monthly | July/August 2003

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200307/berlow

The Texas Clemency Memos

As the legal counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales—now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee—prepared fifty-seven confidential death-penalty memoranda for Bush's review. Never before discussed publicly, the memoranda suggest that Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise Bush of some of the most salient issues in the cases at hand
by Alan Berlow

.....

On the morning of May 6, 1997, Governor George W. Bush signed his name to a confidential three-page memorandum from his legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY. It was the twenty-ninth time a death-row inmate's plea for clemency had been denied in the twenty-eight months since Bush had been sworn in. In this case Bush's signature led, shortly after 6:00 P.M. on the very same day, to the execution of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded thirty-three-year-old man with the communication skills of a seven-year-old.

Washington's death was barely noted by the media, and the governor's office issued no statement about it. But the execution and the three-page memo that sealed Washington's fate—along with dozens of similar memoranda prepared for Bush—speak volumes about the way the clemency process was approached both by Bush and by Gonzales, the man most often mentioned as the President's choice for the next available seat on the Supreme Court.

During Bush's six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas—a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one. The first fifty-seven of these summaries were prepared by Gonzales, a Harvard-educated lawyer who went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court. He is now the White House counsel.

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http://humanraceandothersports.com/columns/13/gonzales-and-the-death-penalty




Saturday, January 15, 2005
Gonzales and the Death Penalty
I am a Ford, not a Lincoln
— Gerald Ford, 1973

<snip>
In an article written for The Atlantic in July, 2003, Alan Berlow describes execution briefings Mr. Gonzales prepared while serving as counsel to Governor Bush. The briefings described the nature of the crime, mitigating circumstances and the like. Mr. Berlow obtained fifty-seven confidential memoranda prepared by Mr. Gonzales. The memoranda formed the basis for discussions Mr. Gonzales then had with Governor Bush that sometimes lasted as long as one-half hour which is not all that surprising given the subject matter of the discussion. Their purpose was to assist Governor Bush in reaching the decision that it was appropriate to let the condemned person proceed to the death chamber for execution.

In analyzing the memoranda Mr. Berlow observes that Mr. Gonzales “repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.” While persuasive in many respects, Mr. Berlow’s description of the memorandum prepared by Mr. Gonzales for the governor’s review of the case of Carl Johnson who was executed on September 19, 1995 is not. Mr. Berlow notes that Mr. Gonzales did not point out to the governor that Mr. Johnson’s trial lawyer had slept through much of the jury selection. What Mr. Berlow probably did not realize is that in Texas that is no big deal. Examples of sleeping lawyers abound as anyone who has followed Texas criminal law knows.

George McFarland, for example, was tried for a robbery-killing and his attorney was described by court room witnesses as having been in a deep sleep for much of the trial. In response to a suggestion that a sleeping lawyer was equivalent to ineffective assistance of counsel the trial judge was quoted as saying, quite correctly: “The Constitution doesn’t say the lawyer has to be awake.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the result although a dissenting judge did hazard the observation that the majority’s conclusion was ridiculous.

Another example of Texas style defense was offered by Calvin Burdine who was also represented by sleeping counsel. In his case not only the court of criminal appeals in Texas but a panel of the Federal 5th Circuit of Appeals thought that was no big deal. Writing for the panel federal judge Edith Jones (who may soon be nominated to join Clarence Thomas and friends) said: “We cannot determine whether slept during a critical stage of Burdine’s trial.” She said other equally amusing things the recounting of which space denies me. Notwithstanding Texas’s somewhat cavalier attitude towards sleeping lawyers, higher courts have intervened and both men remain alive as the wheels of justice creak along.

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[G_j]

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