Todesstrafe Texas Farley Matchett

The State of Texas killed Farley Charles Matchett - September 12th 2006

..... Roy E. Greenwood, an Austin lawyer appointed to represent Matchett in the Huntsville cases, said he remains puzzled about Matchett's guilty plea. He said Matchett should have been able to argue in court that he killed Anderson in self-defense, but was prohibited by the plea.

"Why he (Davis) pled him guilty and blew off all these legal issues never made sense to me," Greenwood said. "You just don't give up with plea of guilty."

Matchett, whose federal and state appeals all were denied, also faulted his trial attorneys for not presenting mitigating evidence for jurors to consider a lesser punishment. He also claimed that court-appointed appellate attorneys botched his appeals.

Excerpt: HoustonChronicle 09/10/06

The Death Penalty USA

People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

Representation:

The quality of legal representation is related to the arbitrary application of the death penalty in that inadequate representation contributes to mistakes in capital sentencing.

People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. . . . I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.

- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2001)

After 20 years on (the) high court, I have to acknowledge that serious questions are being raised about whether the death penalty is being fairly administered in this country. Perhaps it’s time to look at minimum standards for appointed counsel in death cases and adequate compensation for appointed counsel when they are used.

- Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (2001)

The National Law Journal, after a study of death penalty representation in the South, concluded that capital trials are "more like a random flip of the coin than a delicate balancing of scales," because the defense attorney is "too often . . . ill-trained, unprepared [and] grossly underpaid." (M. Coyle, et al., Fatal Defense: Trial and Error in the Nation's Death Belt, Nat’l. L.J., June 11, 1990). States vary enormously in the quality of representation they provide to indigent defendants.

Source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1328#Representation

Human Rights Record of United States in 2007

TCADP Report on Capital Punishment in Texas - IMAGES OF INJUSTICE -January 2007

Download at: http://www.tcadp.org/contents/webreport.pdf

Harris County Death Penalty Study (pdf)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20080429_sidebar_study.pdf

April 29, 2008

New Look at Death Sentences and Race
By ADAM LIPTAK

About 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the last three decades. Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, accounts for more than 100 of those executions. Indeed, Harris County has sent more people to the death chamber than any state but Texas itself.

Yet Harris County’s capital justice system has not been the subject of intensive research — until now. A new study to be published in The Houston Law Review this fall has found two sorts of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty there, one commonplace and one surprising.

The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. More than 20 studies around the nation have come to similar conclusions.

But the new study also detected a more straightforward disparity. It found that the race of the defendant by itself plays a major role in explaining who is sentenced to death.

It has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many experts, including some opposed to the death penalty, have said that evidence of that sort of direct discrimination is spotty and equivocal.

But the author of the new study, Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a robust relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the race of the victim and other factors were held constant.

His statistics have profound implications. For every 100 black defendants and 100 white defendants indicted for capital murder in Harris County, Professor Phillips found that an average of 12 white defendants and 17 black ones would be sent to death row. In other words, Professor Phillips wrote, “five black defendants would be sentenced to the ultimate sanction because of race.”

Scott Durfee, the general counsel for the Harris County district attorney’s office, rejected Professor Phillips’s conclusions and said that district attorneys there had long taken steps to insulate themselves from knowing the race of defendants and victims as they decided whether to seek the death penalty.

“To the extent Professor Phillips indicates otherwise, all we can say is that you would have to look at each individual case,” Mr. Durfee said. “If you do that, I’m fairly sure that you would see that the decision was rational and reasonable.”

Indeed, the raw numbers support Mr. Durfee.

John B. Holmes Jr., the district attorney in the years Professor Phillips studied, 1992 to 1999, asked for the death sentence against 27 percent of the white defendants, 25 percent of the Hispanic defendants and 25 percent of the black defendants. (Professor Phillips studied 504 defendants indicted for the murders of 614 people. About half of the defendants were black; a quarter each were white and Hispanic.)

Mr. Holmes was, Professor Phillips said, selective but effective: he asked for the death sentence against 129 defendants and obtained 98.)

But Professor Phillips said that the numbers suggesting evenhandedness in seeking the death penalty did not tell the whole story. Once the kinds of murders committed by black defendants were taken into consideration — terrible, to be sure, but on average less heinous, less apt to involve vulnerable victims and brutality, and less often committed by an adult — “the bar appears to have been set lower for pursuing death against black defendants,” Professor Phillips concluded.

Professor Phillips wrote about percentages and not particular cases, but his data suggest that black defendants were overrepresented in cases involving shootings during robberies, while white defendants were more likely to have committed murders during rapes and kidnappings and to have beaten, stabbed or choked their victims.

When the nature of the crime is taken into account, Professor Phillips wrote, “the odds of a death trial are 1.75 times higher against black defendants than white defendants.” Harris County juries corrected for that disparity to an extent, so that the odds of a death sentence for black defendants after trial dropped to 1.49.

Jon Sorensen, a professor of justice studies at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, said he was suspicious of Professor Phillips’s methodology.

“It’s bizarre,” Professor Sorensen said. “It starts out with no evidence of racism. Then he controls for stuff.”

Moreover, Professor Sorensen said, Professor Phillips failed to take account of other significant factors, including the socioeconomic status of the victims.

Professor Sorensen said he remained convinced that racial disparities, if they exist at all, “are victim-based only,” as earlier studies have found.

This discussion, at least where the courts are concerned, is entirely academic. Twenty-one years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that even solid statistical evidence of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty did not offend the Constitution. The vote was 5 to 4, and the case was McCleskey v. Kemp.

That ruling closed off what had seemed to opponents of the death penalty a promising line of attack, and they are still furious about it, comparing it to the court’s infamous 1857 decision that blacks slaves were property and not citizens.

“McCleskey is the Dred Scott decision of our time,” Anthony G. Amsterdam, a law professor at New York University, said in speech last year at Columbia.

“It is a decision for which our children’s children will reproach our generation and abhor the legal legacy we leave them,” said Professor Amsterdam, who worked on the McCleskey case and many other capital punishment landmarks.

The majority opinion in McCleskey was written by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. After he retired, his biographer asked Justice Powell whether, given the chance, he would change his vote in any case.

“Yes,” Justice Powell said. “McCleskey v. Kemp.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/29bar.html?ref=us

High Court Justice Wants End to Executions
Justice Stevens Upholds Ky. Lethal Injection, Calls Executions 'Pointless'
By ARIANE de VOGUE
April 16, 2008—

Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's most senior member, took aim at the entire system of capital punishment Wednesday, writing in an opinion that it was a "pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes."

Stevens' stance came to light in his opinion on Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, which the court, including Stevens, upheld Wednesday in a 7-2 decision. There had been an unofficial moratorium on executions while the court mulled the case.

It is the first time 87-year-old Stevens has called on states to stop executions entirely.

Stevens wrote, "the risk of executing innocent defendants can be entirely eliminated by treating any penalty more severe than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as constitutionally excessive."

In essence, Stevens has sent a signal that, while he recognizes the court has, in the past, found the death penalty to be constitutional, he thinks it's now time for state legislatures, Congress and the courts to reconsider.

He wrote how current attempts to "retain the death penalty as part of our law" are the "product of habit and inattention, rather than an acceptable deliberative process" that weighs the costs of administering the penalty against its benefits.

Wednesday's disclosure marks an evolution of Stevens' thoughts.

In 1976, only months after he had been nominated to the high court by President Gerald Ford, Stevens voted to reauthorize the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. Four years earlier, the court had invalidated it.

In 2002 he wrote an opinion in Atkins v. Virginia, which halted the death penalty for state execution of mentally retarded criminals. In 2005, he voted to end the death penalty for juveniles.

In speeches, Stevens has hinted that he found problems with the way the death penalty was administered, but Wednesday marked the first time he has used an opinion to clarify his position.

In an August 2005 speech before the American Bar Association, Stevens cited reports that death sentences had been imposed erroneously. "That evidence is profoundly significant," he said, "not only because of its relevance to the debate about the wisdom of continuing to administer capital punishment, but also because it indicates that there must be serious flaws in our administration of criminal justice."

No other sitting justice chose to sign on to his opinion, but conservative Justice Antonin Scalia was quick to respond to Stevens' new position.

Writing separately, he chastised Stevens, saying, "What prompts Justice Stevens to repudiate his prior view and to adopt the astounding position that a criminal sanction expressly mentioned in the Constitution violates the Constitution?"

Scalia, who was joined in his opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, added, "I take no position on the desirability of the death penalty, except to say that its value is eminently debatable and the subject of deeply, indeed passionately, held views which means, to me, that it is pre-eminently not a matter to be resolved here. And especially now, when it is explicitly permitted by the Constitution."

Stevens joins only three other justices in history William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun who voiced their opposition to the death penalty.

Blackmun made his opinion known shortly before his retirement, writing, "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."

Stevens, who turns 88 later in the week, shows no sign of retiring.

soure: ABC News Internet Ventures

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/SCOTUS/

August 11, 2007

Will Democrats field candidates against Texas Court of Criminal Appeals?

By Scott Henson, Pegasus News

Court of Criminal Appeals

Texas elects our judges, and in the case of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals we have elected a group who Texas Monthly has called "Texas' worst court," and who continue to affirm draconian sentences in the face of legitimate "actual innocence" claims.

First DNA wasn't good enough to exonerate someone, now they're relying on narrowly construed technicalities to refuse to consider new evidence in a death case. Their recent decisions in criminal cases have been struck down more often by the US Supreme Court than any other state's high court. In short, they've become a national embarrassment.

But in 2006, Democrats ran no candidates against two of the three incumbents who were up, and the Democrat who did run against CCA Chief wasn't a legitimate candidate - J.R. Molina spent virtually nothing and refused to even attend newspaper editorial board meetings. Still he got 43% of the vote. By comparison Chris Bell, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, received 29%! Libertarians in the other two CCA races received that party's highest totals in any statewide race.

As we head into the political season with primaries six months away, I'm disappointed that no Democratic candidate nor Republican primary challenger has stepped up so far to take on any CCA incumbent.

I had hoped Judge Susan Criss in Galveston might run for a CCA seat, but she decided to pursue a slot on the Texas Supreme Court - more power to her and good luck, but she would have been a great high court addition on the criminal side, I thought.

Past Democratic Senate nominee Barbara Radnofsky is another name that's come up as a good possibility for the CCA - she's got more name ID, especially among Democrats, than a lot of potential candidates bring to the table, but I haven't heard anything concrete about her plans. Rob Owen, one of the attorneys who keeps getting CCA death penalty decisions knocked down at the Supreme Court, is someone else who'd make a good CCA judge, and I wish he'd throw his hat in the ring.

Somebody with experience or name ID would be good, but in the general election at least it hardly matters. Think about the judicial and DA's races in Dallas in 2006 - a lot of those folks didn't expect to win, but by fielding candidates they were able to take advantage of opportunities provided by larger, macro-level national events. Judicial seats are downballot races, so candidates don't have to raise that much money, by comparison with other statewide seats, to become real players.

That will also be true in 2008. Certainly much will depend on who are the nominees at the top of the national ballot. But if, as in 2006, the general electorate trends especially Democratic because of national issues like the war, a campaign for these judicial seats against already weak incumbents could earn the party its first statewide officeholders in years.

The issues for the race are clear, the discontent abundant, but it's
impossible to win without horses in the race. And hopefully not just
placeholders unwilling to run a real campaign, but candidates of whom the Dems can be proud.

---

Source : Pegasus News

Dec. 8, 2005

When the State Murders Murderers

Column: Martin LeFevre, Scoop

The United States just executed the 1000th person since the death penalty was reinstated and Gary Gilmore was killed by firing squad on January 17, 1977. Besides the Gulf Wars, no other factor has contributed more to the moral and spiritual decline of America than these thousand State-sanctioned murders.

When the State murders murderers, it makes accomplices of all its citizens. As the Los Angeles Times said in a recent editorial, "The reason to oppose capital punishment has to do with who we are, not who death row inmates are. The death penalty is inappropriate in all situations because it is unbefitting of a civilized society."

The death penalty defines the cultural divide in America, reflecting sharply divergent worldviews by its defenders and decriers. But the debate is confined to secondary issues such as deterrence and fairness. That is, nearly all the arguments for and against miss the point.

Whether carried out by hanging, electrocution, gas, or lethal injection, ending someone's life is an act of collective savagery that saps the spirit of a people and stains them with the very toxins they seek to extirpate.

Why is that so? Because when the State puts someone to death, the poison of an individual's murder is spread throughout the society, and enters the bloodstream of the people, diminishing them and eroding the psychological, emotional, and spiritual health of the people as a whole.

The erosion of civility, fellow feeling, and basic human concord in the United States in the last quarter century is directly related to the shadow of death that has progressively fallen over the land as the drumbeat of executions have piled one on top another.

The amoral impulses of hate and vengeance that give rise to individual murder are drawn from the same source as State-sanctioned murder, even if they are called by the more palatable names of retribution and punishment. When the State kills, it disperses throughout the land the toxins that give rise to despicable crimes in the first place, and no citizen is immune from their effects.

The measure of the social health of a country is how it treats the least and worst of its citizens. The abolishment of the death penalty is a sign of civilization in a country; the reinstatement of the death penalty was a huge step backward for America.

To be a civilizing influence, the State must respond with humaneness to inhumanness. Indeed, the more vile the crime, the more necessary it is for the State to be civilized in its response. That is not some high-minded morality, or adherence to religious injunctions against taking human life. Rather than mitigating evil, the death penalty degrades a people, and increases the inhumanity and barbarity of a society.

Of course, it is an outrageous hypocrisy, in this supposedly religious country, that many of the same people who call themselves followers of Jesus are the most ardent proponents of State-sanctioned murder. As journalist Michael Rowland said, "A large proportion of Americans are devout Christians, proudly living their lives according to the scriptures. But the commandment prohibiting killing is conveniently ignored when it comes to punishing people for serious crimes."

The prevailing attitude of Americans is summed up best by John McAdams, Professor of Political Science at Marquette University: "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."

The primeval human reaction to violent crime is one of vengeance, retribution, and punishment. However the State's responsibility is to protect its citizens, not carry out their basest impulses. That's why injecting the emotions of the victims of violent crimes into the equation is wrong and perverse.

In addition to prevention, redressing the wrongs perpetrated upon the victims of crime (as much as possible) must be at the forefront of the State's prosecution of criminals. If not, the State is failing its citizens. Putting the emotions of victim's families on the scales of justice doesn't further that goal. If the desire for vengeance and retribution by the victim's relatives are truly important factors in the equation, then the State might as well sanction revenge killings by the relatives.

The State, and its laws, are the _expression of the entirety of the citizens that reside in it. The perennial question is, how are "law-abiding citizens" to deal with people who break the law, especially those who commit heinous crimes, such as cold-blooded murder, rape, and pedophilia?

We need to rethink not only the primitive reaction of the death penalty, but also the entire notion of punishment, which is always tinged with retribution. In the end, the choice is not between punishment and rehabilitation, but between vengeance and prevention.

---

Source : Scoop (Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00105.htm

STATES WITH THE DEATH PENALTY

Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Indiana Illinois Kansas * Kentucky	Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Mexico New York * North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma	Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas "EXTRA" Utah Virginia Washington Wyoming ALSO - U.S. Gov't - U.S. Military
STATES WITHOUT THE DEATH PENALTY
Alaska Hawaii Iowa Maine Massachusetts	Michigan Minnesota New Jersey* North Dakota Rhode Island Vermont	West Virginia Wisconsin ALSO - Dist. of Columbia

There are currently 37 states (incl. FED and Military) with the Death Penalty in the USA

New Jersey abolished in 2007!!!

Stop taking Lives in the name of Justice - Abolish Capital Punishment

US Capital Punishment, 2005