Davis' Kin: Death Row Families Suffer Most

Martina Correia

Having a loved one on death row would be stressful enough for most people. The trial, sentencing, appeals and the wait to see if there is any possibility that the worst you can imagine may not come to pass can take its toll on anyone’s physical, emotional and mental health.

Martina Correia understands that better than most. The sister of Death Row inmate Troy Davis has been going through that emotional roller coaster for years and wrestling with a number of health issues, including her own battle with Stage IV breast cancer.

Davis, who is black, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of white Savannah policeman Mark MacPhail.

No physical evidence has linked Davis to the killing, and seven of the nine witnesses who implicated Davis at trial have since recanted, saying that they were pressured into naming him. Last year, the presiding judge of an evidentiary hearing in the case ruled that Davis failed to establish his innocence, clearing the way to set a new execution date.

In late March, the U.S. Supreme Court did not address Davis' appeal of the judge's ruling. Barring any other legal remedies, the remaining option would be getting the state of Georgia's Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him clemency.

The pressure definitely took a toll on Davis’ family. His father died six months after he was convicted; an aunt died 16 months ago, and his mother died in April.

Correia told BlackAmericaWeb.com that within 30 minutes of telling Davis that his mother had died, prison officials also told him he could not have his monthly contact visit with his family. Authorities contended, Correia said, that there was concern about how Davis would react with relatives present so shortly after hearing the news about his mother.

So, beyond just working to see that her brother receives justice in the courts, Correia is also monitoring his treatment in prison while undergoing treatment for breast cancer, raising her teenaged son and caring for her husband, who recently began intensive dialysis treatments.

“I just have a strong faith in God,” Correia said when asked how she manages. “Whenever I have something happening, and it’s too much of a burden for me to carry, I just give it over to God."

She said lawyers for Davis continue to seek legal avenues to have his case heard.

In not hearing Davis’ case in March, Correia said, “They didn’t deny Troy’s case; they didn’t select Troy’s case. There’s a difference,” which may leave an opening for further appeal.

Correia said a new warden was assigned a year ago to the prison where Davis is incarcerated and has taken a hard line on the treatment of death row inmates, including limiting or eliminating contact with families, severely restricting inmates’ physical movement and increasing fines for minor infractions.

“For 20 years, there was no problem until the new warden came in,” she said. “They talk real nice to the family on the phone, and then go antagonize the inmates” to provoke them into committing infractions for which they can be punished.

“They put dog cages on the yard so they can’t go out for recreation. They have to go into these cages that are 5-by-9 or 6-by-9 and just stand. My brother said he hasn’t been outside for a year,” Correia said.

At one time, inmates were allowed to have books in their cells, some minimal art programs, “just things to keep them sane,” but all of those things have been eliminated or severely curtailed.

“The morale is so low that they’ve had suicide attempts and one suicide success. We get outsiders to talk (to officials on Davis’ behalf) because it minimizes the punishment,” Correia said, noting the Georgia state NAACP and the Southern Center for Civil Rights have been helpful go-betweens.

Through it all, she said, her brother has shown resilience. “He asks God if it’s his will to use him to make a bigger statement about innocence, then that’s God’s will."

Beyond getting her brother off death row and getting evidence that could prove his innocence heard, Correia said there is a push to change death penalty law in general. The law, as it is written, doesn’t require a confirmation of guilt, just a guilty verdict.

“The lawyers have told us it is not illegal to execute innocent people in this country if the courts feel they got a fair trial."

In the meantime, Davis’ family and supporters are urging people to go to www.JusticeforTroy.org, and sign the petition calling for his release, link the site to their Facebook pages and get friends to sign the petition too.

“Get Troy’s address from the site, and send him words of encouragement,” Correia said. “Not letters of ‘Woe is me’ and ‘the Department of Corrections sucks’ - which we already know."

Once the execution day is set, a Global Day of Solidarity will be scheduled five to 10 days before the date, with events held in various locations around the world and in Georgia, where Davis is imprisoned.

Correia said she wants people to remember that “both (MacPhail’s and Davis’) families are victims; Death Row families especially because they keep dealing with the uncertainty over the appeals."

“I just think my mother died of a broken heart, but she made sure we were strong enough to deal with this," Correia said. "It’s not just the inmate who is on death row. That whole family is on death row."

Source: blackamericaweb.com, May 19, 2011

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Clemency recommended for Ohio death row inmate Shawn Hawkins

The Ohio Parole Board today recommended that death row inmate Shawn Hawkins of Cincinnati be spared execution and spend the rest of his life in prison.

The clemency report by the parole board recommends that Ohio Gov. John Kasich commute the death sentence and order Hawkins, 42, to be in prison for life without parole.

Hawkins was convicted and sentenced to death out of Hamilton County for the June 1989 deaths of Terrance Richard and Diamond Marteen. Hawkins is scheduled for execution on June 14, 2011.

According to the report: "The Board is not confident in the death sentence in this case, but is also not convinced that Shawn Hawkins is innocent.''

Because of that uncertainty, the 7-member board recommended unanimously that Kasich commute the death sentence.

Anthony G. Covatta Jr., Hawkins' Cincinnati attorney, who has argued that Hawkins deserves a new trial, said the death penalty is a "fate that Shawn does not deserve."

Covatta said the parole board had evidence that the jury in the original case did not see or hear.

"We are confident that Governor Kasich will use his clemency power to affirm the Parole Board's unanimous recommendation,'' he said.

Covatta has filed a motion for a new trial. Arguments from defense lawyers and Hamilton County prosecutors are scheduled Tuesday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

The mother of victim Terrance Richard was outraged at the recommendation for clemency.

"My son's death was in vain," said Barbara Richard, 60, of North College Hill. "They make me feel like they're rewarding him (Shawn Hawkins) for killing my son because of the detectives of Mount Healthy weren't doing their job."

She said the governor has the last word, "so hopefully he will do what is right."

Richard's cousin, Shirley Miller, 70, of Forest Park, urged Kasich to reject the recommendation for clemency.

"The governor needs to send a message to all of the young folks out there with guns that when you kill somebody you're going to have to give up your own life," she said.

Source: cincinnati.com, May 12, 2011

Inmate asks to be spared death

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An inmate scheduled to die next month for killing two men in 1989 is asking the Ohio Parole Board for mercy, saying new evidence exonerates him of the crime.

A new forensic analysis casts doubt on the prosecution's argument that one of the victims was killed in a car by death row inmate Shawn Hawkins in Mount Healthy, according to a motion for a new trial filed by attorneys for Hawkins.

The motion also argues that three witnesses now provide alibis for Hawkins at the time of the slayings of 18-year-old Terrance Richard and 19-year-old Diamond Marteen, and that a partial fingerprint of Hawkins found in the car was handled improperly and is flawed evidence.

The motion also questions inconsistent testimony from the sole eyewitness to the slayings.

"It beggars the imagination of the undersigned as to how a conviction was ever obtained on such evidence," attorney Anthony Covatta said in the filing Monday.

On Wednesday, Covatta argued before the Ohio Parole Board that Hawkins' life should be spared.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: cincinnati.com, May 4, 2011

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URGENT APPEAL for Troy Davis facing the possibility of his 4th execution date

Troy Davis

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis is facing the possibility of his fourth execution date in four years after the US Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on 28 March. Doubts persist about his guilt in the crime for which he was sentenced to death two decades ago.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. No physical evidence directly links Davis to the murder – no murder weapon was ever found. The case against Davis primarily rested on witness testimony. Since his trial, seven of nine key witnesses have recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.

In 2009, the US Supreme Court ordered a federal evidentiary hearing to review Troy Davis’ innocence claim.

At the hearing in June 2010, US District Court Judge William Moore addressed not whether the state could demonstrate a watertight case against Troy Davis, but whether Davis could show “by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new evidence” that had emerged since his 1991 murder trial. Under this “extraordinarily high” standard, Judge Moore wrote, “Mr Davis is not innocent”. Elsewhere in his ruling, however, he acknowledged that the new evidence presented by Troy Davis cast “some additional, minimal” doubt on his conviction, and that the state’s case was not “ironclad”. In 1991, the jury had found Troy Davis guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” Judge Moore noted, “but not to a mathematical certainty”.

On 28 March, the US Supreme Court refused to take the Davis case, clearing the way for Georgia to set an execution date. Troy Davis was less than 24 hours from execution in 2007 when the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay. The Board said in 2007 that it would not allow an execution to go ahead “unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused”. Since then Troy Davis has faced two more execution dates, both in 2008, which were stayed by the courts.

Since 2007, three states in the USA have legislated to abolish the death penalty. When signing the abolitionist bills into law the three state governors all pointed to the risk of irrevocable error as a reason to support abolition. Since Troy Davis has been on death row, more than 90 prisoners have been released from death rows around the country on grounds of innocence. In each case, at trial the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In the past four years, three states in the USA – New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois – have legislated to abolish the death penalty. Signing the bills in law, the three governors pointed to the risk of irreversible error in an imperfect system as a reason to support abolition. In 2007, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine said that “government cannot provide a foolproof death penalty that precludes the possibility of executing the innocent”. In 2009, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico said that to carry out an irrevocable punishment, “we must have ultimate confidence – I would say certitude – that the system is without flaw or prejudice.” This, he added, “is demonstrably not the case”. In March 2011, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said that the capital justice system was “inherently flawed”, and that it was “impossible to devise a system that is consistent, that is free of discrimination on the basis of race, geography or economic circumstance, and that always gets it right.” He said that, “as a state, we cannot tolerate the executions of innocent people because such actions strike at the very legitimacy of a government”.

More than 130 people have been released from death rows across the USA since 1976 on the grounds of innocence. Among other things the cases reveal the frequent unreliability of witness testimony. The Troy Davis case is one in which most of the witnesses who testified against the defendant have since retracted or contradicted their trial testimony in sworn statements. Nevertheless, a prisoner seeking to rely on revised witness testimony faces a high hurdle in the face of deference to the original jury verdict. At the June 2010 evidentiary hearing in US District Court, the Georgia prosecutor argued that “every court in the United States at every level has said, recantations are not favoured, they are looked at with great scepticism, they’re unreliable.” She concluded about the Troy Davis case: “This was their chance. The standard is extremely high…, they have not met it”.

One of the witnesses who appeared at the hearing was Benjamin Gordon, who in 2008 had signed a statement that an alternative suspect (a relative of his by marriage) had told him that he had shot Officer MacPhail. At the hearing, Benjamin Gordon asserted for the first time that he had actually seen this individual shoot the police officer. Benjamin Gordon, who had just turned 16 at the time of the crime, again alleged that he had been coerced by police into signing a statement implicating Davis. He said that he had not come forward sooner with the assertion about seeing who shot the officer out of fear, and that he had decided to “come in today and just let the truth be known”. Judge Moore concluded that Benjamin Gordon was “not a credible witness”.

The international community has agreed safeguards for capital cases in those countries that still retain the death penalty. One of these concerns the burden of proof on the death penalty state: “Capital punishment may be imposed only when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts”. The “extraordinarily high” burden of proof chosen by Judge Moore is less protective than this.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of questions of guilt or innocence, the crime in question, or the method of execution. There have been 1,246 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977, including 12 so far this year. Georgia currently does not have the drugs necessary to carry out a lethal injection after the Drugs Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice seized sodium thiopental in the possession of the state in order to conduct an investigation into how it was obtained. It is not known how long this may delay an execution date being set.

For further information on the Troy Davis case, see USA: ‘Unconscionable and unconstitutional’: Troy Davis facing fourth execution date in two years, May 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/069/2009/en ; USA: Less than ‘ironclad’, less than safe, 27 August 2010, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/077/2010/en

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

-Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Troy Davis was sentenced to death;

-Noting that doubts persist in the case even after the federal evidentiary hearing in 2010;

-Pointing out that the Board acts as a failsafe against irreversible error, and recalling its statement in 2007 that it would not allow any execution to proceed where there was any doubt about the guilt of the prisoner;

-Pointing to the substantial evidence of the fallibility of the capital justice system;

-Calling on the Board to grant clemency and to commute the death sentence of Troy Davis.

APPEALS TO:

State Board of Pardons and Paroles

2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE

Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower

Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909, USA

Salutation: Dear Board members

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

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Death Penalty Opponents Assail Troy Davis Ruling

Troy Davis

Anti-death penalty activists criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reject without comment death row inmate Troy Davis’ appeals seeking to delay his execution while he attempts to prove he was wrongfully convicted of killing a white police officer in 1991.

Without another appeal, commutation or pardon, Monday’s decision likely will allow the state of Georgia to set another execution date for Davis. There may be a slight delay in scheduling because of questions over the state’s supply of a key lethal injection drug.

Federal regulators seized the entire stockpile of sodium thiopental earlier this month after questions arose about the way the state obtained the drug.

“We are deeply shocked and disappointed because we think that [Davis] has made a compelling case of innocence and that there are too many questions to go forward with his execution,” Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer, largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony, but 7 of the 9 witnesses who implicated Davis have since recanted, and other witnesses have come forward to say another man confessed to killing MacPhail. Further, there has been no physical evidence linking Davis, who had no prior criminal record, to the killing.

Restrictions on federal appeals prevented Davis from having a hearing in federal court on the reliability of the witness testimony used against him. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles also rejected Davis’ application for clemency. An appellate court stayed Davis’ execution date so that his lawyers could file the appeals to the Supreme Court.

Davis was granted a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court 2 hours before he was to be put to death in 2008, and the court in 2009 ordered the federal District Court to take another look at the case.

After holding a hearing to review evidence, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that Davis "failed to show actual innocence" in the case. The District Court suggested that, for procedural reasons, Davis should take his appeal of its ruling directly to the Supreme Court.

In January, Davis’ lawyers filed two pleas. One sought review of the Georgia federal judge's rejection of the innocence claim, and the other asked for a test of the 11th Circuit's refusal to review the case.

"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, told WSAV-TV after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.

"The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable," said Cox. “It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."

“I think the position of the state has been the burden of proof is on the defense since there’s been a determination in the process,” Rust-Tierney said. “But when all the legalese is pushed aside, the question is is there enough confidence in this conviction to go forward with an execution?”

Davis' sister told CNN Monday that she was "very disappointed" by the Supreme Court's rejection.

Martina Correia-Davis said Davis' attorney told her they would continue to pursue all possible legal options, including a possible repetition of the Georgia State Board of Parole.

MacPhail’s son, Mark MacPhail, Jr. told WSAV-TV in Savannah that the High Court’s ruling proved what the evidence has always shown and what his family has known all along: that "Troy Davis is guilty."

MacPhail, Jr., who was just a few months old when his father was slain, told the television station he had been getting somewhat frustrated and nervous and "wondering what was taking so long."

But Davis’ case has received broad support from entertainment, social and political figures, including former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI. There also have been calls for the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to commute Davis’ sentence.

It is unclear what Davis’ lawyers' options are, but defense attorney Jason Ewart told The Associated Press the likeliest route is appealing to the pardons and parole board, a five-member board that rarely postpones executions.

"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, told WSAV. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made.

“There are no do-overs when it comes to death," said Moye. “Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."

Source: BlackAmericaWeb.com, March 30, 2011

Why the war to save Troy Davis isn't over

On March 28, 2011 I woke up elated about my 10 year anniversary as a cancer survivor. I looked outside and it was cold and gloomy, the sun was nowhere to be found. It's about 9:30 a.m. and the phone rings, it's my brother Troy Davis' lawyer and from the tone in his voice I knew, it was not good news.

My heart sank to a heavy place as I listened to his monotone voice saying, "We just received news that the United States Supreme Court has denied Troy's appeal." Knowing that the appeals for Troy have always been an uphill battle and the lawyers have always stated that from a legal standpoint. Yet today I also heard optimism in the statement, "We will seek and exhaust all legal means available to us." I know from a legal standpoint denial by the Supreme Court is nothing a lawyer finds optimism in, yet I felt the readiness for yet another battle.

My first concern was my mother and my brother Troy. I cannot imagine facing three execution dates and the possibility of a fourth. I knew Troy would be more concerned about our family than himself, but I also knew that as much faith and spirituality as my mother has, she is still a mother and we are fighting for my brother's very existence. In this fight Troy is no longer voiceless and my family is no longer invisible, yet the court still refuses to hear what we have to say. Innocence does matter and beyond a reasonable doubt should be of utmost.

One thing for certain is that the global concern about this case is growing and yet the highest court in the United States is not willing to address the issue of innocence and new evidence. We live in country that is supposed to promote democracy and human rights for other countries yet it is not unconstitutional for us to execute innocent people in the U.S. if the courts feel they received a fair trial.

I am both enraged and empowered, for this battle to save Troy is a war of life and death for me! Until there is no breath left in my body I will fight for Troy, fight against the injustice of the death penalty, because this battle is bigger than Troy it is a war against a system is not impartial, a system that cares less for fairness and more for finality. In no way have we ever diminished the loss and hurt of the McPhail family, yet both families have been victimized. Being a mother and having Stage 4 cancer I understand the importance of life and I am willing to give my life to spare my brother's. No matter the final outcome of this case, my war against the death penalty is far from over and I will no longer be a victimize by this system in the United States, that justice depends on your ability to pay for it.

The hearing held in June 2010 in Savannah was like a puppet show, it was entertaining to some, upsetting to others, yet once the judge opened his mouth and looked at my brother with disgust I knew that no matter what Troy's lawyers had to present the judge had already made his decision to deny Troy, so he was just going through the motions like a puppeteer. I saluted the witnesses, even though they were criminalized by the state prosecutor for recanting their trial testimony. When they testified against Troy all those years ago, the police treated them like heroes, even though they had the same criminal history in 1989. It also seemed amazing that all the police who testified had amnesia about their role of misconduct with the witnesses, yet the judge chose to believe them over recanted testimony of the very witnesses they used to secure a conviction and death sentence for my brother.

The Georgia Parole Board said they will not execute when there is doubt. The case of Troy Anthony Davis is full of doubt.

As Troy said to me, "It's not over 'til God says it's over, this fight for justice did not begin with me and will not end with me."

The battle for Justice and the War to save Troy wages on! My name is Martina Correia and I am on Death Row because that is where my brother lives, our lives intertwined. If Troy is executed he will become even more powerful, because people all around the world are saying, "I AM TROY DAVIS," and his story will be heard.

Source: Opinion, Martina Correia, The Grio, April 3, 2011
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Arizona executes Eric John King

Eric John King

FLORENCE, Ariz. — A man convicted of killing two people in a 1989 Phoenix convenience store robbery was executed Tuesday despite last-minute arguments by his attorneys who raised questions over one of the lethal injection drugs and said they had raised “substantial doubt” about his guilt.

Eric John King’s death at the state prison in Florence was the first execution in the state since October and one of the last expected to use a three-drug lethal injection cocktail.

The 47-year-old had maintained his innocence since his arrest and his lawyers fought until the last minute to get his sentence reversed or delayed.

Defense attorney Mike Burke said before the execution that he visited with King on Tuesday morning.

“Although he’s very calm, he continues to maintain his innocence,” Burke told The Associated Press. “He’s done what he can do. All he has left to do is maintain his dignity.”

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to stay King’s execution Monday after Burke argued that the state should wait until it enacts its new lethal injection protocol. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan announced Friday that Arizona will switch to using just one drug in an effort to allay any “perceived concerns” that sodium thiopental is ineffective, but only after the scheduled executions of King and Daniel Wayne Cook on April 5.

Defense attorney Michael Burke had argued that the Department of Corrections may have engaged in fraud when it imported the sedative from Great Britain by listing it on forms as being for “animals (food processing),” not humans.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said the mislabeling resulted from a clerical error.

Arizona obtained the drug legally, and that’s why it has been able to avoid problems other states have had, Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani has said. Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental was seized by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents on March 15 over questions about how it was obtained.

The drug is part of the three-drug lethal injection cocktail used by nearly all 34 death penalty states, but it became scarce last year after the sole U.S. manufacturer stopped making it.

Some states started obtaining sodium thiopental overseas, and lawyers have argued that potentially adulterated, counterfeit or ineffective doses could subject prisoners to extreme pain.

Texas and Oklahoma recently announced they are switching from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital in their three-drug protocol. Ohio has switched to using only pentobarbital for its executions, and Ryan said that’s the drug Arizona might start using.

Burke also was unable to successfully argue that King be granted clemency at a hearing Thursday. Burke had argued that the two key witnesses who testified against King at his trial have changed their stories, that no physical evidence exists and surveillance video used at trial was of extremely poor quality.

Vince Imbordino, a prosecutor with the Maricopa County attorney’s office, argued that the photographic evidence was clear and that if jurors didn’t believe King was guilty, they wouldn’t have convicted him.

King was convicted of fatally shooting security guard Richard Butts and clerk Ron Barman at a Phoenix convenience store two days after Christmas in 1989. Butts and Barman both were married fathers whose families have testified that their deaths in a robbery that netted $72 devastated them.

Shortly before the killings, King had been released from a seven-year prison term on kidnapping and sexual assault charges. Police say King, who was 18 at the time, and another man kidnapped a woman and took her to an abandoned house, where both repeatedly and brutally sexually assaulted her over six hours.

Before he was sentenced in that crime, deputy adult probation officer Lee Brinkmoeller wrote that King had plans to reform himself.

“The defendant’s plans for the future are to become a machinist and to have his own car, house, family, and start being able to do things for his mother for all the things she has done for him,” Brinkmoeller wrote. “He states that he wants to have his mother be proud of him before she dies and he wants to be somebody.”

Court documents show King had a troubled childhood. Born in a taxi on the way to the hospital in Phoenix, King was one of 12 siblings whose alcoholic, abusive and mentally disturbed father died of a heart attack when King was 11, according to court records.

Records also say King’s mother struggled to provide for the children, who were so hungry at times that they tried to catch crawdads in irrigation canals and frequently were without electricity.

King reported to a prison psychiatrist that he had heard voices on and off his entire life, and suffered from anxiety and insomnia.

His son, 20-year-old Eric Harrison, saw King for the first time Thursday at the clemency hearing and asked the board to spare his father.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen my dad, ever in life, and I know I love him,” Harrison said. “That’s my dad. He gave me life. Just don’t take him.”

King is the 23rd death row inmates Arizona has executed with the three-drug method since it began using lethal injection in 1993.

The state had previously executed 38 inmates with lethal gas since it started using that method in 1934. Another 28 inmates were executed by hanging between 1910 and 1931.

Source: AP, March 29, 2011

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High court rejects appeal from Troy Davis

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, clearing the way for the state to resume planning for Davis' execution.

The justices on Monday refused to order the federal appeals court in Atlanta to examine Davis' case and they declined to do so themselves.

In 2009, the high court ordered a federal judge to examine evidence Davis said would show he was innocent of the 1989 killing for which he has been sentenced to death.

But the judge decided last year that Davis had failed to clear his name.

At the moment, executions are on hold in Georgia after federal agents seized the state's supply of a key lethal injection drug.

Source: Associated Press, March 28, 2011

Appeal denied in high-profile US death row case

The US Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal to death row inmate Troy Davis who is seeking a new trial after 7 of the 9 witnesses against him recanted their murder trial testimony.

The Supreme Court rejected a request for an appeal hearing submitted by lawyers on behalf of Davis, a 42-year-old convicted of murdering a police officer in the southern state of Georgia in August 1989.

The decision clears the way for the execution of Davis, who has been on death row in Georgia since 1991 but has always maintained his innocence.

Davis's conviction rested on the testimony of the 9 witnesses, with no direct physical evidence such as a murder weapon, DNA or fingerprints linking him to the crime.

After a series of failed earlier appeals, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in August 2009 allowing Davis to present what he claimed was exculpatory evidence that was not reasonably available during his trial.

But after the rare hearing in August 2010, the judge decided there was not enough evidence to prove Davis's innocence.

With its racial overtones -- Davis is black, the officer Mark Allen MacPhail was white -- and the prisoner's continued claims of innocence, the case has triggered an international outcry.

Critics have included the European Union, whose member states oppose the death penalty, as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Pope Benedict XVI.

Source: Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2011

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Texas: New DNA evidence clears man imprisoned 17 years for rape

(CNN) -- Houston prosecutors will ask a court Thursday to formally exonerate a Texas man after DNA tests ruled out his guilt in a rape for which he served 17 years in prison.

George Rodriguez was freed in 2004 after an appeals court found that faulty scientific evidence had been used against him in his 1987 trial. Prosecutors didn't retry him, citing concerns about having the victim -- who had identified Rodriguez as one of her two attackers in a police lineup -- testify again.

State officials had denied his request for a pardon, but Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos agreed to review his case after she took office in 2009.

New DNA tests on the forensic evidence in the case came back February 22 and conclusively ruled out Rodriguez, now 50, Lykos said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

"When this scientific inquiry began, there was no legal requirement or mandate for any further work to be done by our office, because the case had been dismissed," Lykos said. "Instead, we acted on the most important obligation of all -- to see that the truth emerges, and that justice is done. Today, we can state that an innocent man has been vindicated."

The Harris County District Attorney's office will ask a judge to formally declare Rodriguez innocent at a Thursday hearing, she said.

Lykos, a Republican, campaigned on promises to reform the prosecutor's office in Texas' largest city, and she has drawn praise from defense lawyers for creating a post-conviction review process to examine new evidence. The Innocence Project, which won Rodriguez's release in 2004, gave her an award in 2010 for that program.

Another man, Manuel Beltran, is now serving a 60-year prison term in connection for rape. The DNA testing also confirmed that another man, now dead but long considered an alternative suspect, also assaulted the victim, who was 14 at the time.

Source: CNN, March 3, 2011

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Troy Davis files new appeal with U.S. Supreme Court

Attorneys for Troy Anthony Davis are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a federal judge who decided last year the Georgia death row inmate failed to clear his name after getting a rare chance to prove his innocence.

Davis' latest appeal, filed Friday, says the U.S. District Court judge ordered by the Supreme Court to hear his innocence claim last year "evinced a clear hostility to Mr. Davis and his claims throughout the hearing."

Davis has long said he could prove he was wrongly convicted of the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail if a court agreed to hear new evidence.

The Supreme Court in late 2009 ordered U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. in Savannah to preside over such a hearing. Moore heard 2 days of testimony in June.

In August, the judge ruled evidence presented by Davis' attorneys wasn't nearly strong enough to prove he's innocent. He wrote that while the evidence casts some additional doubt on Davis' conviction, "it is largely smoke and mirrors."

In their latest appeal, Davis' lawyers say the judge was wrong in refusing to hear from witnesses who say another man later confessed to MacPhail's killing.

They say the judge should have ruled that other testimony casting doubt on the case would have been sufficient to sway reasonable jurors from convicting Davis.

"The evidence, new and old, establishes that Mr. Davis is innocent by any reasonable standard," Davis' attorneys wrote.

A rejection by the Supreme Court would clear the way for Georgia officials to resume planning Davis' execution.

His case has taken a number of unexpected turns over the years. Davis has been scheduled for execution three times since 2007, but was spared each time by courts agreeing to take another look at his case.

Davis' lawyers tried to challenge Moore's ruling last year in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That court refused to hear Davis' appeal, saying he must go straight to the Supreme Court because it ordered the hearing on his innocence claim.

Davis' lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to return the case to the 11th Circuit. But they also filed arguments challenging Moore's opinion in case the Supreme Court refuses to return the case to the lower appellate court.

MacPhail was working off-duty at a Savannah bus station on Aug. 19, 1989, when he was shot twice after rushing to help a homeless man who had been attacked. Eyewitnesses identified Davis as the shooter at his trial, but no physical evidence tied him to the slaying.

Davis' case has attracted international attention, including support from the NAACP, Amnesty International, former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI.

Source: Associated Press, January 25, 2011

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Texan declared innocent after 30 years in prison

Cornelius Dupree Jr.

DALLAS – A Texas man declared innocent Tuesday after 30 years in prison had at least two chances to make parole and be set free — if only he would admit he was a sex offender. But Cornelius Dupree Jr. refused to do so, doggedly maintaining his innocence in a 1979 rape and robbery, in the process serving more time for a crime he didn't commit than any other Texas inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.

"Whatever your truth is, you have to stick with it," Dupree, 51, said Tuesday, minutes after a Dallas judge overturned his conviction.

Nationally, only two others exonerated by DNA evidence spent more time in prison, according to the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that specializes in wrongful conviction cases and represented Dupree. James Bain was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years in Florida, and Lawrence McKinney spent more than 31 years in a Tennessee prison.

Dupree was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980 for the rape and robbery of a 26-year-old Dallas woman a year earlier. He was released in July on mandatory supervision, and lived under house arrest until October. About a week after his release, DNA test results came back proving his innocence in the sexual assault.

A day after his release, Dupree married his fiancee, Selma. The couple met two decades ago while he was in prison.

His exoneration hearing was delayed until Tuesday while authorities retested the DNA and made sure it was a match to the victim. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins supported Dupree's innocence claim.

Looking fit and trim in a dark suit, Dupree stood through most of the short hearing, until state district Judge Don Adams told him, "You're free to go." One of Dupree's lawyers, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck, called it "a glorious day."

"It's a joy to be free again," Dupree said.

This latest wait was nothing for Dupree, who was up for parole as recently as 2004. He was set to be released and thought he was going home, until he learned he first would have to attend a sex offender treatment program.

Those in the program had to go through what is known as the "four R's." They are recognition, remorse, restitution and resolution, said Jim Shoemaker, who served two years with Dupree in the Boyd Unit south of Dallas.

"He couldn't get past the first part," said Shoemaker, who drove up from Houston to attend Dupree's hearing.

Shoemaker said he spent years talking to Dupree in the prison recreation yard, and always believed his innocence.

"I got a lot of flak from the guys on the block," Shoemaker said. "But I always believed him. He has a quiet, peaceful demeanor."

Under Texas compensation laws for the wrongly imprisoned, Dupree is eligible for $80,000 for each year he was behind bars, plus a lifetime annuity. He could receive $2.4 million in a lump sum that is not subject to federal income tax.

The compensation law, the nation's most generous, was passed in 2009 by the Texas Legislature after dozens of wrongly convicted men were released from prison. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.

Dallas County's record of DNA exonerations — Dupree is No. 21 — is unmatched nationally because the county crime lab maintains biological evidence even decades after a conviction, leaving samples available to test. In addition, Watkins, the DA, has cooperated with innocence groups in reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates for DNA testing.

Watkins, the first black district attorney in Texas history, has also pointed to what he calls "a convict-at-all-costs mentality" that he says permeated his office before he arrived in 2007.

At least a dozen other exonerated former inmates from the Dallas area who collectively served more than 100 years in prison upheld a local tradition by attending the hearing and welcoming the newest member of their unfortunate fraternity. One of them, James Giles, presented Dupree with a $100 bill as a way to get his life restarted.

At one point, Scheck pointed out that eyewitness misidentification — the most common cause of wrongful convictions — was the key factor that sent Dupree to prison. The attorney then asked how many of the others were wrongly imprisoned because an eyewitness mistakenly identified them. A dozen hands went in the air.

Not in attendance Tuesday was Dupree's accused accomplice, Anthony Massingill, who was convicted in the same case and sentenced to life in prison on another sexual assault. The same DNA testing that cleared Dupree also cleared Massingill. He says he is innocent, but remains behind bars while authorities test DNA in the second case.

Dupree was 20 when he was arrested in December 1979 while walking to a party with Massingill. Authorities said they matched the description of a different rape and robbery that had occurred the previous day.

Police presented their pictures in a photo array to the victim. She picked out Massingill and Dupree. Her male companion, who also was robbed, did not pick out either man when showed the same photo lineup.

Dupree was convicted of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. According to court documents, the woman and her male companion stopped at a Dallas liquor store in November 1979 to buy cigarettes and use a payphone. As they returned to their car, two men, at least one of whom was armed, forced their way into the vehicle and ordered them to drive. They also demanded money from the two victims.

The men eventually ordered the car to the side of the road and forced the male driver out of the car. The woman attempted to flee but was pulled back inside.

The perpetrators drove the woman to a nearby park, where they raped her at gunpoint. They debated killing her but eventually let her live, keeping her rabbit-fur coat and her driver's license and warning her they would kill her if she reported the assault to police. The victim ran to the nearest highway and collapsed unconscious by the side of the road, where she was discovered.

Dupree was convicted and spent the next three decades appealing. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.

Related story: "Texas: Anthony Graves Released from Death Row, Case Dismissed", Houston Chronicle, October 27, 2010

Source: Yahoo! News, January 4, 2011

10 Infamous Cases of Wrongful Execution

There’s no doubt about it – the U.S. criminal justice system is not perfect. And those imperfections become apparent when someone is the innocent victim of the death penalty. Wrongful executions have been happening for hundreds of years, but until the advent of DNA evidence and improved forensics technology, these individuals have remained guilty as charged.


Today, DNA evidence has exonerated and released 15 death row inmates since 1992, but only eight inmates have been acknowledged of their possible innocence after execution by the Death Penalty Information Center.


Here are 10 infamous cases of wrongful execution that deserve a second look:

1. Claude Jones: Claude Jones was executed in 2000 for the murder of liquor store owner Allen Hilzendager, in San Jacinto County in 1989. On Nov. 14, 1989, Jones and another man were seen pulling into a liquor store in Point Blank, Texas. One stayed in the car while the other went inside and shot the owner. Witnesses who were standing across the road couldn’t see the killer, but Jones and two other men, Kerry Dixon and Timothy Jordan, were all linked to the murder. Although Jones said he never entered the store, Dixon and Jordan testified that Jones was in fact the shooter and they were both spared the death penalty. The deciding factor and only admissible evidence in Jones’ conviction came down to a strand of hair that was found at the scene of the crime. A forensic expert testified that the hair appeared to have come from Jones, and he was sentenced to death. Forensic technology was underdeveloped during the 1990 trial and it wasn’t able to match Jones’ DNA with the hair sample. Therefore, before his 2000 execution, Jones’ attorneys filed petitions for a stay of execution with a district court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and requested that the hair be submitted for DNA testing that was now possible, but all courts and former Texas Governor George W. Bush denied Jones and he was executed. In an attempt to prove that Texas executed an innocent man, the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer filed a lawsuit in 2007 to obtain the strand of hair and submitted it for DNA testing, which was determined to be the hair of the victim.

2. Jesse Tafero: Jesse Tafero was executed by electric chair in 1990 for murdering two Florida police officers, Phillip Black and Donald Irwin. The murders occurred on Feb. 20, 1976, when Black and Irwin approached a parked car at a rest stop and found Tafero, his partner Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs, her two children and Walter Rhodes asleep inside. They were ordered to get out of the car when the officers saw a gun lying on the floor inside the car and, according to Rhodes, Tafero proceeded to shoot both officers and took off in their police car. They disposed of the police car and stole a man’s car, but were arrested after being caught in a roadblock. The gun was found in Tafero’s waistband, although it was legally registered to Jacobs. Tafero had been convicted of robbery and had served seven years of a 25-year sentence before being convicted for murder. Tafero and Jacobs claimed that Rhodes was the lone shooter, but Rhodes testified against them in exchange for a lighter sentence. Rhodes later admitted that he was responsible for the killings, but Tafero was still sentenced to death.

3. Cameron Todd Willingham: Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for murdering his three young daughters by intentionally setting fire to the family home in Corsicana, Texas. The arson-murder case fueled much controversy about Willingham’s guilt, which was determined by the case’s primary evidence – the arson investigators’ findings. They determined that the fire was deliberately set with the help of a liquid accelerant due to specific burn patterns, laboratory tests and points of origin. Willingham maintained his innocence and appealed his conviction for years, but was executed at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville on Feb. 16, 2004. In 2009, the Texas Forensic Science Commission panel reevaluated the case and determined that state and local arson investigators used "flawed science" when they labeled the fire as arson. Although advances in fire science and arson investigations have improved since 1991, the year of the fire, experts now believe the Corsicana Fire Department was negligent in their findings. The science commission is still investigating the arson ruling, and if the judge clears Willingham, it would be the first time an official has formally declared a wrongful execution in Texas.

4. Larry Griffin: Larry Griffin was executed in 1995 for a drive-by shooting that killed 19-year-old drug dealer Quintin Moss in St. Louis. Griffin immediately became a suspect because his older brother Dennis Griffin, another well-known drug dealer, was murdered just six months earlier. Moss was believed to have killed Dennis Griffin. Although there were a number of possible suspects in the murder of Moss, a witness account by a white man named Robert Fitzgerald, who claimed to have seen the shooting, knew the license plate number of the vehicle and could identify the gunman was all it took to have Griffin arrested. Fitzgerald was a convicted felon who had a long history of run-ins with the law, which raised concerns about the legitimacy of his story. During the 1993 hearing, Fitzgerald admitted to being unsure if Griffin was the man in the car after all. There were two key witnesses who wavered and a third person whose testimony could have helped Griffin, but was never contacted by either the defense or prosecution. Griffin continued to proclaim his innocence until his execution. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund investigated the case after Griffin’s execution and wanted to uncover more witness accounts that could support their claim that Missouri executed an innocent man.

5. Ruben Cantu: Ruben Cantu was executed in 1993 for the murder-robbery of a San Antonio man at the age of 17. Cantu had no previous convictions, but was pinpointed as a violent murderer who shot one victim nine times, as well as shot the only eyewitness nine times with a rifle, but he lived to testify. Juan Moreno offered his testimony to police and identified Cantu as the shooter, but later recanted, admitting that he said Cantu out of influence and fear of authorities. Although the case had a compelling witness testimony, there was no physical evidence that linked Cantu to the crime. In addition, his co-defendant David Garza, who allegedly committed the murder-robbery with Cantu, remained silent and signed a sworn affidavit allowing his accomplice to be falsely accused. Cantu maintained his innocence until his execution and claimed that he had been framed in this capital murder case.

6. David Spence: David Spence was executed in 1997 for murdering three teenagers in 1982 in Waco. Spence was convicted of raping, torturing and murdering two 17-year-old girls and murdering an 18-year-old boy. As the original allegations go, Spence was hired by convenience store owner Muneer Deeb to kill one girl and he ended up killing these three teens by mistake. Deeb was charged and sentenced to death, but later received a re-trial and was acquitted. Authoritative sources even had serious doubt about Spence’s guilt. Although there was no clear physical evidence to link Spence to the crime, prosecutors used bite marks that were found on one of the girl’s body and matched it to Spence’s teeth. Even jailhouse witnesses were bribed into snitching on Spence. Despite weak evidential support and jail mate testimonies, Spence was executed.

7. Carlos De Luna: Carlos De Luna was executed in 1989 for the 1983 stabbing of Wanda Lopez, a Texas convenience store clerk. There were two eyewitnesses who played a key role in the conviction of De Luna. Before the murder-robbery, George Aguirre was filling up at the gas station where the crime occurred, when he saw a man standing outside the store slide a knife with the blade exposed into his pocket and enter. The man asked Aguirre for a ride to a nightclub, but he refused and went inside the store to warn Lopez about the suspicious man. Aguirre left and Lopez called the police to describe the man. As she was on the phone with a dispatcher, the man came back into the store and robbed her. The second witness, Kevan Baker, pulled into the station and heard bangs on the station’s window and saw a man struggling with a woman. As Baker approached the gas station, the murderer threatened him and took off. When police searched the area, they found De Luna not far from the station. He was shirtless and shoeless in a puddle of water and screamed, "Don’t shoot! You got me!" Both Aguirre and Baker confirmed De Luna was the man at the station. Little to no physical evidence was collected at the crime scene, including blood samples and fingerprints that could have helped De Luna. De Luna maintained his innocence and repeated that Carlos Hernandez was the actual killer. Despite Hernandez’s trouble with the law and repeated confessions to the murder, De Luna was executed.

8. Joseph O’Dell: Joseph O’Dell was executed in 1997 for raping and murdering Helen Schartner. O’Dell was convicted on the basis of blood evidence and a jailhouse snitch. O’Dell represented himself and continued to proclaim his innocence in various unsuccessful appeals to the Virginia Supreme Court, Federal District Court and the Supreme Court. O’Dell requested that the state submit other pieces of evidence for DNA testing, but he was refused. Despite much effort and several appeals, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his conviction and reinstated his death sentence. After his execution, Lori Urs, an anti-death penalty advocate and former wife to O’Dell, sought to further investigate the case and exonerate O’Dell based on mistaken blood matches, court opinions and refusal of DNA testing. However, the last of the DNA evidence from O’Dell’s case was burned in March 2000 and the appeals were laid to rest.

9. Leo Jones: Leo Jones was executed in 1998 for murdering a police officer in Florida. Although Jones confessed 12 hours after the murder, he said that he was forced to say he did it during hours of intimidating police interrogation, where they threatened his life and made him play Russian roulette. One witness believed that the police department was out to get Jones because he had assaulted an officer once. The same two arresting officers were released from the department shortly after for using violence in other cases. Despite repeated appeals, other potential suspects and witness testimonies in support of Jones’ exoneration, the sentencing stood as is. Jones was also denied another method of execution and was killed by the electric chair.

10. Timothy Evans: Timothy Evans was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of his daughter in 1949 at their home in Notting Hill, London. Evans maintained his innocence and repeatedly accused his neighbor, John Christie, of murdering his wife and daughter. The police investigation and physical evidence used to convict Evans was weak. After Evans’ trial and execution, Christie was found to be a serial killer who was responsible for murdering several women at his residence. There were massive campaigns to overturn Evans’ conviction and an official inquiry was conducted 16 years later. It was confirmed that Evans’ daughter had been killed by Christie, and Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. This case of injustice had a strong influence in the UK’s decision to abolish capital punishment.

Source: Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, December 13, 2010

Framed for Murder?

Kevin Cooper

“California may be about to execute an innocent man.”

That’s the view of five federal judges in a case involving Kevin Cooper, a black man in California who faces lethal injection next year for supposedly murdering a white family. The judges argue compellingly that he was framed by police.

Mr. Cooper’s impending execution is so outrageous that it has produced a mutiny among these federal circuit court judges, distinguished jurists just one notch below the United States Supreme Court. But the judicial process has run out for Mr. Cooper. Now it’s up to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to decide whether to commute Mr. Cooper’s sentence before leaving office.

This case, an illuminating window into the pitfalls of capital punishment, dates to a horrific quadruple-murder in June 1983. Doug and Peggy Ryen were stabbed to death in their house, along with their 10-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old houseguest. The Ryens’ 8-year-old son, Josh, was left for dead but survived. They were all white.

Josh initially told investigators that the crime had been committed by three people, all white, although by the trial he suggested that he had seen just one person with an Afro. The first version made sense because the weapons included a hatchet, an ice pick and one or two knives. Could one intruder juggling several weapons overpower five victims, including a 200-pound former Marine like Doug Ryen, who also had a loaded rifle nearby?

But the police learned that Mr. Cooper had walked away from the minimum security prison where he was serving a burglary sentence and had hidden in an empty home 125 yards away from the crime scene. The police decided that he had committed the crime alone.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: The New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof, December 8, 2010

Prosecution 'Stands Mute' At Texas Death Penalty Hearing

Judge Kevin Fine

HOUSTON — Prosecutors on Monday told a judge presiding over an unusual court hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty in Texas that they won't participate in the legal proceeding and will "stand mute" during the hearing.

Despite the prosecution's actions, the judge ordered the hearing to go forward and lawyers for John Edward Green Jr., the Houston man who asked for the proceeding, began calling witnesses.

The attorneys say will try to show that the way death penalty cases are handled in Texas creates a risk that innocent people will be executed. Green faces a possible death sentence if convicted of fatally shooting a Houston woman during a June 2008 robbery.

The hearing was ordered by Kevin Fine, a state district judge in Harris County who in the spring granted a motion by Green's attorneys and declared the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional. Under heavy criticism, Fine clarified then rescinded his ruling and ordered the hearing, saying he needed to hear evidence on the issue.

Experts on eyewitness identification, confessions and forensic evidence are among those expected to testify at the hearing, which resumes on Tuesday and could last up to two weeks. Green's attorneys called four witnesses on Monday.

The first witness called was Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that has been critical of capital punishment.

Dieter discussed the 138 exonerations of death row inmates that have occurred in the U.S. since 1978, including 12 in Texas. He said that for every nine executions that have occurred in the U.S., there has been one exoneration.

Dieter said his group's review of these exonerations has shown that faulty eyewitness testimony, unreliable informant testimony and false confessions are some of the factors that have contributed to innocent people being wrongfully convicted.

"The system, the number (of exonerations), the fortuity of finding mistakes would lead me to believe there is certainly a risk of executing the innocent and that risk still exists today," he said.

After Green's attorneys finished questioning Dieter, Fine asked prosecutor Alan Curry if he had any questions.

"We still respectfully refuse to participate in the proceeding your honor," Curry said.

Later during the hearing, Fine told Curry he expected prosecutors to participate.

"I have been instructed by my boss, the district attorney, to stand mute for the remainder of the proceedings," Curry said, adding he meant no disrespect to Fine or others involved in the hearing.

Before the hearing began, Curry reiterated objections prosecutors have had to the hearing, saying the issues being debated are settled case law and that some of the issues Green's attorneys plan to discuss at the hearing, such as crime clearance rates and alleged racial discrimination in how juries are chosen, have no relevance to Green's case. Fine asked Curry to submit his objections to the relevancy of some of the issues to be discussed but said the hearing would go forward.

Prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to get Fine removed from the case, saying he is biased against the death penalty.

Fine has said he believes capital punishment is constitutional and the hearing will focus only on the specific issues raised by Green's attorneys.

Also testifying on Monday was Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center and an expert on eyewitness identification. Guerra testified that she believes such identifications can be filled with problems, including witnesses being overconfident in recalling events and witnesses being influenced by a need to help authorities. She was a member of a panel created by the Texas Legislature that earlier this year made recommendations on improving eyewitness identification procedures and allowing more DNA testing to take place after convictions.

If Fine were to rule the state's death penalty statute is unconstitutional, prosecutors have said they would appeal the decision, which would have a good chance of being overturned. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, has previously ruled against similar challenges to the law like the one Green is making.

The hearing is unusual for Texas, a Republican state that has strongly supported capital punishment. The hearing is being held in Harris County, which includes the state's largest city, Houston, and has sentenced more people to death than any other Texas county – 286 since executions resumed in 1982. One hundred fifteen of those have been executed.

While anti-death penalty groups have lauded Fine, those in favor of capital punishment have called him misguided.

Green's attorneys say they plan to bring up executions that have been recently questioned, including that of Cameron Todd Willingham.

Willingham was put to death in 2004 for burning down his Corsicana home in 1991 and killing his 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins. Several fire experts have found serious fault in the arson findings that led to his conviction.

Source: The Huffington Post, December 6, 2010

Texas Defender Service: The 6 best arguments against the death penalty in Texas

Execution chamber
Huntsville Unit, Texas

The following guest blog post was written by Andrea Keilen, Executive Director of Texas Defender Service.

This week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens published an essay detailing the Court's decisions that created a system infected with problems, and one he now believes is unconstitutional. Since 1976, 138 people have been exonerated from death row nationwide.

12 of them were in Texas.

The fact that some mistakes were discovered in time and innocent people were exonerated strongly suggests that there have been other occasions when mistakes were not discovered in time and innocent people were executed.

Beginning Monday, December 6, at a hearing next week in a Harris County District Court, expert witnesses will testify about the numerous flaws that leave Texas' system riddled with errors, inherently unreliable, and unconstitutional as applied.

Attorneys for John Green, who is charged with capital murder, will urge the court to rule the Texas death penalty statute unconstitutional because it creates an unacceptable risk that innocent people have been, and will be, wrongfully convicted and executed.

When innocent people are exonerated, it is often a matter of dumb luck . For example, the real killer confesses or pro bono law firms take an interest in the case. It is rarely because the system catches errors and corrects itself.

Both Ernest Ray Willis and Cameron Todd Willingham were convicted of murder by arson and sentenced to death on the basis of junk fire science. Mr. Willingham is dead and Mr. Willis is alive -- and free -- because a pro bono law firm took Mr. Willis' case.

At the hearing, witnesses will testify about the following factors, which taken together, create an unacceptable risk of wrongful conviction in capital cases:

1st, Texas has no standards to ensure that eyewitness testimony is obtained in ways that protect against the risk of mistaken identification.

Texas does not follow the scientific research or best practices on eyewitness identification recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, or the ABA. Nationwide, more than 75% of individuals exonerated by DNA evidence were convicted because of faulty eyewitness identifications .

2nd, Texas allows the introduction of confessions that have been obtained without safeguards to protect against false confessions. Texas law does not require recording interrogations . 25 % of the exonerations in the U.S. revealed through DNA testing involved a false confession .

3rd, use of informant testimony is largely unregulated in Texas.

Although in 2009 Texas began to require corroborating evidence for jailhouse informant testimony, that standard is loosely defined. Further, Texas has not implemented other important safeguards involving greater transparency and pretrial reliability screenings which more fully protect against false testimony. In one study, nearly 50% of wrongful murder convictions involved perjury by a jailhouse snitch or another witness who stood to gain from false testimony. (Professor Gross study, p. 39)

4th, pervasive flaws have been identified in the analysis of presentation of forensic evidence that result in unreliable results. In a study of DNA exonerations , the prosecution provided invalid forensic testimony in 60% of the cases, that is, testimony that misstated the data or was not supported by the data. (Garrett and Neufeld, p. 41) The National Academy of Sciences recently issued a broad critique of the nation's forensic system. The risk of wrongful conviction due to faulty forensic science at the is, standing alone, constitutionally intolerable.

5th, pretrial discovery procedures are inadequate to safeguard against the prosecution's suppression of evidence favorable to the accused.

A survey of published capital cases in Texas documented state misconduct in 41 capital convictions. (Texas Defender Service, p. 48)

6th, Texas prosecutors in Harris County and elsewhere have a shameful history of excluding African Americans from juries. Although this practice has been illegal for more than a century, recent research shows that discrimination in jury selection increases the risk of wrongful convictions by reducing the thoroughness and accuracy of jury deliberations.

Texas routinely fails to provide competent counsel and adequate defense funding in state habeas corpus proceedings. Extensive research, and a State Bar Task Force have all reached this conclusion. In almost 40% of state habeas cases, the petitions did not include any materials beyond the existing record, a clear indication of a lack of investigation.

The Texas clemency procedure lacks most elements of a sufficient clemency review and fails in its role as the last safeguard against executing the innocent. For example, Claude Jones was executed in 2000 based on false evidence. During the clemency review, then-Governor Bush was not informed that Mr. Jones had requested DNA testing that might have exonerated him. Ten years after Mr. Jones' execution, a DNA test showed that the hair sample at the crime scene was not his.

All 3 branches of Texas government have created entities to review issues in the criminal justice system based on the risk of error:

•In 2005, the Texas legislature created and Governor Rick Perry signed legislation creating the Texas Forensic Science Commission .

•By executive order, Governor Rick Perry created the Criminal Justice Advisory Council .

•In 2008, the highest criminal court in Texas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, created a Criminal Justice Integrity Unit .

•In 2009, the legislature created and the governor approved the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions .

But virtually nothing has been done to reduce the most prevalent causes of wrongful convictions Innocent people can and do get sentenced to death in Texas. Action by the courts and legislature to address these serious problems is long overdue.

Source: Dallas Morning News, December 3, 2010