North (San Diego) County Times: Errors mandate death penalty moratorium

[question everything]

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Errors mandate death penalty moratorium

By: North County Times - Editorial

Our view: High court's review of Texas case highlights serious problems

Yet another reason for a moratorium on executions surfaced this week with a likely crackdown by the U.S. Supreme Court on two defiant courts that weigh death penalty appeals in Texas.

On Monday, the nation's high court heard arguments for a second time in two years in the case of Thomas Miller-El, a Texas death row inmate. Legal experts said the court's decision to hear the case is a clear signal that justices are supremely unhappy with the performance in death-penalty cases of the federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest state court in Texas.

Six times over the last decade, the Supreme Court has reversed decisions in Texas death-penalty cases, each time finding problems with the fairness of procedures used to convict and sentence inmates. Yet the lower courts have stubbornly refused to adopt certain legal guidelines as ordered by the high court. A sweeping rebuke seems certain.

(snip)

Flaws in Illinois prompted its governor, George Ryan, in 2000 to suspend executions until "flaws in the system" could be fixed. The state found that it wrongly convicted 13 people on death row, more than the 12 it had executed since 1977.

(snip)

Fundamentally, we believe that there should be a death penalty, reserved for only the most heinous crimes and clear-cut guilt. Still, a national moratorium seems essential as our country hones its judicial system. Perhaps a special court should be created to handle capital cases. It may even be possible to reduce the exorbitant cost and endless delays that afflict the existing process.

(snip)

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/12/opinion/editorials/22_05_5712_9_04.txt

[Judi Lynn]

1. We need to see more articles on this subject. Lots more.

From the article:

Looming over the dispute is the death count in Texas ---- 336 executions since 1976. California, with a much larger death row, has killed 10 prisoners over the same period. Also disturbing is this statistic: the Texas high court reversed just 3 percent of the 270 death penalty convictions it considered from 1995 to 2000. The national average reversal rate is 68 percent, according to a study of 6,000 cases before federal or state appeals courts in the 20 years ended in 1995.

It's clear that the system is broken in Texas. But there is cause for concern across the nation.
(snip)

California has moved cautiously in carrying out executions. Still, we are haunted by the 635 people facing death sentences in the state.
(snip)

Your article's link has disappeared, so I looked the article up in google and got a new link for the same article:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/10/opinion/editorials/22_05_5712_9_04.txt

Thank you, question everything.

[question everything]

2. Thanks. Sorry about the missing link

What is impressive is that this newspaper and its readers are very conservative - San Diego County - and very much Bush county. Will have to watch for letters attacking this editorial.

I remember some years back I read that a "delegation" from Florida came to Texas to learn about how to efficiently implement the death penalty, or something like that.

And I was thinking of writing a letter to the editor, and never did, wondering whether this was how Barbara Bush raised her two sons.

Since then, of course, I no longer consider Barbara Bush to be a decent nice person. A real vengeful, hateful, bitter woman is more like it.