Texas Democrats strike right tone on death penalty

By Michael Landauer/Editor

In its platform adopted last week, the Texas Democratic Party seems to have it right on capital punishment. The party does not go as far as we do. We want to abolish the death penalty in Texas. Democrats want to win elections. I get that. But the plank in the platform on Capital Punishment is a good place to start for lawmakers considering common-sense reforms that people on both sides could agree on:

Capital Punishment

- When capital punishment is imposed, Texans must be assured that it is fairly administered. Texas Democrats extend our deepest sympathies to all victims of crime and especially to the families of murder victims, and we strongly support their rights. The Texas death penalty system has been severely criticized by religious leaders, appellate courts and major newspapers that have observed that the current system cannot ensure that innocent or undeserving defendants are not sentenced to death. The Dallas Morning News has called for abolition of the death penalty in Texas. In the modern era, Texas has executed over 400 people, far more than any other state in the nation. The frequency of executions and inadequacies in our criminal justice system increase the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed. The State of Texas may have already executed at least two innocent people, according to major newspaper investigations into the cases of Carlos DeLuna and Cameron Todd Willingham. Another inmate, Ernest Willis, was exonerated and released from Texas Death Row in 2004 after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment.

- We condemn Governor Perry's manipulation of the forensic science commission investigation of the science which led to the execution of a possibly innocent person.

- In order to promote public confidence in the fairness of the Texas criminal justice system, Texas Democrats support the establishment of a Texas Capital Punishment Commission to study the Texas death penalty system and a moratorium on executions pending action on the Commission's findings.

- Texas Democrats support the following specific reforms:

• establishing a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases to ensure that every person accused of a capital crime has equal access to well-trained trial and appellate attorneys, regardless of income, race or the county of jurisdiction;

• allowing testing of any possibly exculpatory DNA evidence to ensure guilt or innocence before executions are carried out, and allowing testing of DNA evidence after an execution to determine if an innocent person has been executed;

• establishing procedures to determine before a trial takes place whether an accused has mental retardation, in order to be sure that Texas complies with the U.S. Supreme Court's ban on executions of people with mental retardation;

• banning death sentences and executions for people with mental illness;

• requiring the Board of Pardons and Paroles to meet in person to discuss and vote on every case involving the death sentence;

• restoring the power to the Governor to grant clemency in death penalty cases without a recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles. To restore public confidence in the process, the Board should meet in public and decisions should be made by majority vote;

• when the imposition of the death penalty is before the Parole Board or the Governor we urge consideration of all reasonably certain scientific or factual evidence that has become known since the trial; and

• reforming statutes related to the "Law of Parties," to make sure individuals who actually commit crimes are the primary focus of prosecution.

Source: The Dallas Morning News, June 29, 2010