Texas leads the country in executions, and Rick Perry holds the record tally.
Should Perry wish to commute a death sentence, under state law he must wait for the BPP [Board of Pardons and Paroles] to recommend he do so before he can act accordingly. In that sense, says Jordan Steiker, a professor at the University of Texas' School of Law and co-director of its Capital Punishment Clinic, a Texas governor's hand is not as strong in death cases as some might suppose. "The sort of large picture ... is that the governor isn't all that powerful," he says. Yet the governor is responsible for appointing the members of the BPP (because Perry has been governor for three terms, all of the current appointees were named by him) and so is effectively able to stack it as he wishes. If Perry were at all skeptical of capital punishment, one would expect that skepticism to be reflected in his choices for the board.
As it stands, the current members are a not a bleeding-heart bunch. That is one reason that the Foster case stands out: "The Foster case was unusual; it was an actual vision of the death penalty as being disproportionate," says Steiker. "But [Perry] hasn't been consistent with that principle since Foster." Indeed, although "his powers are significantly limited in terms of clemency procedures," notes Kristin Houl̩, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Perry has demonstrated clearly that he runs the show, rejecting the two other cases where the board recommended clemency Рincluding one similar to Foster's. In 2009, the BPP recommended that Perry commute the sentence of Robert Thompson, also convicted and sentenced to die under the state's law of parties. Thompson had participated in a robbery that left a store clerk dead, but he had not fired the fatal shot. His accomplice, Sammy Butler, was responsible for Mansoor Mohammed's death; at trial, Butler was given a life sentence. In rejecting the BPP's recommendation, Perry noted that Thompson had a "murderous past."
(It's necessary to point out that the state of Texas only employs a "clemency" process at all because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that one is required for any state that allows the death penalty. In fact, the Texas system is designed so that actual clemency – an extrajudicial judgement of mitigating circumstances requiring mercy – has as little effect as possible. State officials, including the governor and his appointed members of the BPP, routinely cite the existence of "due process" – trial, conviction, and appeals – for their confirmation of death sentences, and potential reasons for clemency are rarely addressed at all.)
Since 2001, the BPP has made three recommendations that a death sentence be commuted to life. In two of those cases, Perry rejected the recommendation and allowed the offender to be executed. In fact, Perry stands in the annals of history as the governor who has presided over the most executions during the modern era of the death penalty.
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