Death Penalty News

Kevin Fine Texas judge who in 2010 had declared the death penalty unconstitutional before an appeals court overruled him is resigning effective immediately. The Houston Chronicle reports ( http://bit.ly/PbuBDo ) state District Judge Kevin Fine announced his resignation Tuesday. He wasn't seeking re-election this fall. Fine wasn't commenting but Robert Fickman, one of his confidants, told the newspaper Fine apparently is seeking a job that wouldn't be available if he waited until after the November election to step down. In March 2010, Fine initially declared the Texas death penalty statute unconstitutional after granting a pretrial motion in a capital murder case over which he was presiding. He later rescinded the ruling and ordered a hearing. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped the hearing, later ruling Fine had exceeded his authority. Source: The Associated Press, Aug. 21, 2012

District Judge Kevin Fine  WASHINGTON — The highest criminal court in Texas intervened Wednesday to halt a rare case challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty. Texas District Judge Kevin Fine opened the case on December 6 with a series of hearings to determine whether the death penalty as applied in Texas risks executing innocent people. Fine himself is a rarity, a heavily tattooed Democrat elected to his job in the politically conservative state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals suspended hearings on December 7 on the case, and announced Wednesday that by a 6-2 vote it would not let the case proceed. Judge Fine raised the issue in the case of John Green, 25. The prosecutor in the case has vowed to seek the death penalty for Green's involvement in a 2008 robbery. However, Green's case has not been tried yet, so the appeals court ruled that the case was inadmissible. "Mr. Green asserts that he is innocent, but apparently assumes that, if he goes to...

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 or...

Judge Kevin Fine A hearing on the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty will be held in Judge Kevin Fine's courtroom in Houston on Monday, December 6, at 9 AM. Texas' use of capital punishment will undergo legal scrutiny at this hearing. Evidence and arguments will likely be presented that there is substantial risk that the state's death penalty law does not adequately protect against the execution of an innocent person. John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. Green’s defense attorneys will argue that a number of factors in Texas' death penalty system increase the risk of wrongful executions in Texas, including a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection. ...

Harris County Texas is the death penalty capital of the democratic world. It accounts for about 1 percent of the U.S. population but has carried out nearly 10 percent of the country's executions since 1976. So when a state district judge in Houston, Kevin Fine (pictured), unexpectedly ruled Texas's capital punishment procedures unconstitutional last week, it was a shot heard 'round the world. Attorneys for the defendant in the case, John Edward Green Jr., who is charged with killing a woman in a robbery and shooting her sister, praised the decision as "the beginning of the end of the death penalty in Texas." But proponents of the death penalty, who carry larger bullhorns, were indignant. Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general, called the ruling "legally baseless," while Governor Rick Perry, who has presided over 211 executions during his long tenure, denounced the "activist judge [for] legislating from the bench." Click here to read mo...

A Houston judge who last week ruled that the Texas death penalty procedures are unconstitutional has scheduled a hearing on April 27 to hear evidence on the issue. State District Judge Kevin Fine said he wants more information before making a final decision about whether the state's death penalty statute allows for the possible execution of an innocent person. Judge Fine has asked Harris County prosecutors and defense attorneys to submit motions on the due process issue by April 12. Fine will then have an evidentiary hearing April 27 when testimony on whether innocent people have been executed in Texas is set to be presented. The defense attorneys are still determining whom they might call to testify at the April 27 hearing, but they said it might include officials connected to the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, whose 2004 execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 house fire near Corsicana is now being questioned. Below: Watch video of Judge Fine explaining his ...

Judge Kevin Fine spoke the unspeakable when he said that the death penalty as applied in Texas is unconstitutional. Immediately he was attacked by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos as partaking in judicial activism. However, Fine spoke the truth. The death penalty was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 because it was being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. It was declared constitutional again in 1974 after states amended their death penalty laws to make them less arbitrary and capricious. However, it has been very clear to many people in Texas and elsewhere that the death penalty is still applied in an arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory manner. Who does and doesn't get the death penalty depends on a variety of factors, including the race of the victim of the crime, politics and where the crime takes place. Most people who end up on death row could not afford a top-qu...

A Harris County judge who came under criticism for declaring the death penalty unconstitutional took back his decision on Tuesday. The judge, Kevin Fine of 177th Criminal Court, said he still wanted more information on whether the state’s death penalty statute was unconstitutional because it allowed for the possible execution of an innocent person. In a ruling last week, Judge Fine said it was safe to assume that innocent people had been executed. A string of high-profile Texans, including Gov. Rick Perry, strongly criticized the decision. Judge Fine declined to say why he took back his ruling. Source: The New York Times, March 9, 2010

Since State District Judge Kevin Fine of Houston declared the death penalty unconstitutional, critics have pointed out that he: A. Is a Democrat. B. Is a recovering alcoholic. C. Is a former cocaine user. D. Has a lot of tattoos. They have not provided a coherent defense of the death penalty as it is administered in Texas. If you want to read some really brutal criticism of Texas’ death penalty, forget about Judge Fine for a minute. Take a look at the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, most of whom were appointed by conservative presidents. For the past decade, they’ve had a lot to say about Texas. Click here to read more. Source: GalvestonDailyNews.com , March 9, 2010