After I learned that I’ve been living in the state the holds the highest number of executions in the country; I began to take the slogan “Don’t Mess with Texas” more seriously. Sense the Supreme Court brought back the death penalty in 1976, Texas has executed over 400 offenders, this is more than the total executions made by the next three states add up together.
On September 25, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Sharon Keller added one more execution to the list and drew the nation’s attention to Texas toughness on crime. Keller shocked the nation when she closed the court’s door denying the appeal request of convicted murder Michael Richard, when his attorneys showed up 20 minutes after closing time. Richard was executed that night; this has been the only execution to take place since The Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection.
To avoid future problems, over 300 lawyers signed a petition asking the court to allow appeals via email. This is extremely necessary, but I doubt it will make significant changes in the Texas death penalty system; there are many other factors that contribute to large amount of executions in Texas.
Of course everybody wants to live in a save place and to feel secure, and since Texas judges are elected, they must be tough on criminals to win reelection. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals regularly denies appeal requests from prisoners in the death row. Such procedure happens so often that Texas Appeal court seams to be only a step towards execution instead of an official juridical assembly.
In a capital case, if the defendant gets life sentence, he must serve a minimum of 40 years in prison before being able to get out on parole. It is three times cheaper to keep a prisoner in the maximum security for 40 years than to pursue a death penalty case. The problem is that, in such cases, according with The Texas Constitution, the defensive attorney is not allowed to give such information to the jury. Consequently, the juries most likely chooses to give the death penalty over the life sentence fearing that the defendant can get out early and maybe a danger to the society.
Even the ones in favor of death penalty should disagree with Texas rules for representation. While the federal court requires at least one lawyer to have experience with felony cases, Texas allows any member of the Texas Bar to represent someone in the death row even if they don’t have any experience. Everybody should have proper representation when their life is in trial.
Juvenile cases, execution of mental retarded convicts, and death row racial statitistics are also questionable in Texas. Out of the 9 juvenile executions made in the USA since 1990 6 where in Texas, 69.3% of offenders on death row are of races other than white, and 6 mental retarded offenders where executed in Texas since 1982.
I don’t think that is acceptable for a state with only 7.6% of the nation’s population to account 36.5% of executions nationwide. It is obvious that the death penalty in Texas is not handled correctly. Execution is not the only form of justice.
