-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
NY Times 2/7/00
A Smooth Road to the Death House
By STEPHEN B. BRIGHT
Rregardless of the extent of compassion in his "compassionate
conservatism," Gov. George W. Bush of Texas could show some
concern for justice by following the example of his presidential
campaign
chairman in Illinois, Gov. George Ryan, who last week announced a
moratorium on executions in his state.
Governor Ryan is concerned that an innocent person might be
executed.
There are now 161 people on death row in Illinois. Since the death
penalty was reinstituted there in 1977, 13 people who were condemned
to die have been exonerated. Twelve have been put to death, and
there
were serious questions of innocence in the case of one of those 12.
Three people were freed from death row in Illinois after a
journalism
class at Northwestern University established their innocence and
proved
that someone else had committed the crimes. One condemned man came
within two days of execution.
Mr. Bush, who has presided over more than 100 executions, has never
expressed a doubt about the assembly-line process by which Texas
courts dispatch people to its execution chamber. But because the
system
to provide lawyers for the poor is so weak in Texas, there is
reason to be
even more concerned about the risk of wrongful executions there
than in
Illinois.
And although an investigation by the CBS News program "60 Minutes"
contributed to the release of a man under a death sentence in Texas
in
1990, and the documentary film "The Thin Blue Line" won the release
of
another in 1989, there are too many cases -- more than 450 -- moving
far too fast for most of them to get the attention of journalists or
journalism classes.
In Illinois, many people facing the death penalty are represented by
public defenders like those working in Chicago for the highly
respected
homicide unit of the Cook County Public Defender, which specializes
in
the defense of capital cases. Texas has no public defender system.
Instead, the presiding judge in a case assigns a lawyer to
represent the
accused. Judges have sometimes chosen lawyers with an eye toward
getting cases disposed of quickly, and in a survey of judges for
the Texas
bar association last year, more than half agreed that lawyers'
contributions to judges' election campaigns at least sometimes
influence
the appointments.
The lawyers are compensated at far below what attorneys can make for
less demanding work. They are often denied the assistance of
investigators and experts necessary to make an independent
determination of a defendant's guilt.
The Texas courts do not even require that defense counsels remain
awake during trial. The lawyer representing a defendant named George
McFarland, who is now on death row, repeatedly fell asleep and
snored
during his trial in Houston.
Texas' highest criminal court -- made up of judges chosen in
partisan
elections, some of whom ran on platforms supporting the death
penalty --
upheld the death sentences in Mr. McFarland's trial and two others
in
which defense attorneys fell asleep. One of those defendants, Carl
Johnson, was executed in 1995.
Snoring through trials is only the most visible example of the Texas
system's problems. Yet last year Governor Bush vetoed a bill, passed
unanimously by both houses of the Texas legislature, that would have
taken a few modest steps toward creating public defender offices in
Texas counties.
Besides lacking these offices, which pay lawyers a salary to
specialize in
defending the poor, Texas, unlike Illinois and most other states,
also has
no office that specializes in representing those sentenced to death
in the
later stages of appeal, a process called post-conviction review.
Texas
had such a program, but it was shut down five years ago when
Congress
eliminated its federal financing. Texas judges have appointed
lawyers
who have missed deadlines, costing the death row inmates they
represent
the review of their cases. Other lawyers failed to investigate the
cases
and filed documents that failed to identify any issues that should
be
reviewed.
As one Texas judge observed, dissenting in a case in which a
condemned
man was assigned an inexperienced lawyer with serious health
problems,
the lawyer's failure to recognize and present any issues "certainly
makes it
easier on everyone -- no need for the attorney, the state, or this
court to
consider any potential challenges to anything that happened at
trial."
Nationwide, more than 80 people have been released from death rows
after their innocence was established. There is no reason to think
that
Texas makes life-or-death mistakes in capital cases less frequently
than
other states, and good reason to think the risk is higher there.
Whether this risk is acceptable is a separate question from whether
one
supports the death penalty.
As Governor Ryan recognized, it is a question of fundamental
fairness, of
ensuring that the guilty are punished, not the innocent.
The president of the United States has no greater responsibility
than to
protect the fairness and integrity of our justice system. Governor
Bush,
who has expressed his approval of the process in Texas and refused
to
intervene or support reform, has failed to provide leadership in
this
critical area, raising troubling doubts about his ability to carry
out that
responsibility.
Stephen B. Bright lectures at Yale Law School and is director of the
Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
