TEXAS GOV. PERRY THROWS WRENCH INTO INNOCENT EXECUTION INVESTIGATION

dr. e - Thank you for bringing this to the attention of TMV readers. This story was reported in some depth two days ago by NPR but has attracted almost no national attention.

The timing of this "change" in three commissioners is very suspicious. It occurs two days before the Commission was expected to review the expert's report and perhaps issue a finding that Willingham was innocent. It has also been speculated that this move was calculated to bury the report so it would not affect the spring primary in the governor's race.

What is not in this piece, but was reported by NPR, is that the new chairman, unlike the prior moderate chairman, is a hard core prosecutor (some say the toughest in Texas) who will do everything he can to prevent the report from ever being issued.

Travesties of justice come in many forms. This smells like one of the highest order.

What is it with Texas and the death sentence anyway? Being execution happy is bad enough without actual guilt becoming a dispensible part of the process as well. Apparently politics comes before everything... including the sanctity of human life.

Readers, I apologize, I see the link at the bottom did not 'take.' I will go fix it right away.

thanks for bearing with.

dr.e

Ok, the link now works at bottom of article, taking you dear reader to the Dallas News article on this topic of Governor of Texas suddenly removing Forensic Science Commission panelists looking into the execution of a potentially innocent man.

Thank you for your patience.

dr.e

Dr e,

For the life of me, I don't know why you felt you had to preemptively apologize for that image. There was nothing to apologize for.

My eye fell on the image before I saw your Coda, and I thought it was stunning. I can't even think of the right adjectives to describe my reaction, but the originality of your choice combined with its stark, direct hit, on-the-bull's-eye message just took my breath away. I mean, that image says it all.

I understand why you apologized in advance, but I really don't think you needed to.

What is it all about really? Injustice? Martyrdom? Murderers murdering murderers? A blood thirsty state out of control in its desire to take the lives of mostly moral mis-steppers. Most crimes they say are emotional crimes, not premeditated. It could be me (or you), a stranger walking down the street when a crime is committed. You get swept up with others—WHY ARE YOU HERE………..in this town, at this time? The pressure to solve the crime mounts………the front pages say WHO? –relentlessly. The politicos want safe towns, neighborhoods, we want the criminals tattooed like Nazis in a Tarantino film. You take a public defender who visits once or twice, offers a plea bargain, --be a martyr, absolve the town, return us to our innocence – you who have lost everything must know give up your most valuable possession, your life, your divine life. Doubt creeps in with its question—Why were you there? Maybe you did it and forgot, the way a thrown stone makes concentric circles in the lake but returns with certainty to its placid state. You forgot……Remember the time you drove the car to Florida in a trance……….14 hours in a mere moment. That’s where your picture, CP, makes sense to me……Jesus was accused too……the trial was rigged…..he was what we might call a political prisoner……….Somehow it is important to go down without slobbering, with dignity………..and if you can pull it off—with forgiveness.

Dr. E,

I also thank you for bringing this story to light. I came across it yesterday over at The Agitator as was pretty sickened by what I read.

This is not simply a death penalty issue but also a prosecutorial misconduct issue. If the state is going to try a man for murder, they had best get their facts straight before they try him. And if they are pressing for the death penalty, then that is all the more reason that they do their best to reach the truth and not the conclusion arrived at by their cherry-picked forensics.

Apparently this is a big problem in Lousianna and Mississippi, where there have been several convictions that have now been questioned based on the fact that prosecutors relied upon their favorite state medical examiners in order to arrive at erroneous conclusions. Radley Balko has written more than a hundred articles about this subject over at The Agitator.

Governor Perry's decision to replace three members of the commission in the middle of an investigation also speaks to his hypocrisy as a politician. He has spent the last several months railing against the goverment, and yet, when push-comes-to-shove, he is an apologist for the state. Mounting evidence suggests that an innocent man was executed under his watch, and he defends what happeded.

Disgusting.

Sometimes, and I know it is over determined, but I feel everything boils down to the system, the capitalist system in the sense that everything is a SELL job.

We create scapegoats and demons, especially if we don’t look more deeply at the root causes of events. The laws favor the higher classes and white wealthy men. Like Rubber bread or the jelly jar that never empties. Can we sell it?

There is no problem getting expert health or legal care if you have the resources. And it is a myth that we are a nation of laws, strictly interpreted, for the laws are subject to all types of manipulation. Ask ol Michael Milken or even Cheney’s boy, Cheney’s liar? Pardoned. Justice blurred or blunted at best, they land on their feet. Work awaits them. Their family and children await them.

The Politician must have safety and order. The Police promotion depends on solving crimes. The obese military must find a casus belli to assert its might. The war must be sold. We hire psychologists to train our advertisers and promoters to make the case…………the fringe elements are pushed aside ………….the mob is coming to a town near you…….. they say YOU did it………..you know you have to hide, and your fear betrays you, for an innocent man would not run, correct? The handcuffs are too tight.

You think, maybe this karma, maybe there was a crime I committed in another life time and the inter-uterine police have tracked you down through several life times. The jury has been pre-selected, hand selected to be of a higher order. You are the equivalent of an untouchable. They know what to make of your shuffling feet……..your inability to make eye contact. You have become suspect, perhaps even to yourself. Facts may come later. For now a kind of intuitive justice fills the room as if all the thoughts of all the jury suddenly become visible to all. “He looks the part,” thinks one of them. “He could a done it,” concludes another.

All Rise for the honorable so and so. The black robe sits, a traffic cop in a legal nightmare. How do you plead?” Beside you, invisibly are Lenord Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal leaning in whispering something… ….INNOCENT, you hear yourself speak, but too loud and lurching as if you had been nudged. Innocent, you say witheringly, lowering your head. You feel like an actor on a stage, a very public stage, but the play is a horrible tragic drama that persists day after day after day. You are the star of this Hollywood production. “Guilty” says the first prosecution witness. “I saw the shape of his unmistakable buttocks climbing out the window on the 24th floor of the Mansion on the hill. “Can you point to the buttocks you saw that day? POINT YOUR TONGUE IN THE DIRECTION OF THOSE CHEEKS, the lawyer instructs. Glancing between the witness and jury, you see all their finger and tongues pointing at you. Then comes the confusing cycle of competing witnesses. Who saw what? Who to believe? GUILTY says the main juror. Please stand. Punishment: Texas you will be banished from these here United States for a period of no more than a dime and no less than a nickel.

At the bar the prosecutors and the defense team buy each other rounds, interrupted only by their cell phones ringing offering investment opportunities in the new country of Texas. They make their bids over the line, grinning about their futures, participating in the only game in town, reveling at the fact that they had an inside track………… like the dark birds of investment impatiently waiting for Katrina to finish her work.

David Grann wrote an extensive 17-page article on this story in The New Yorker last month. While it doesn't prove that Cameron Willington was innocent, it certainly raises a lot of questions. It makes me wonder whether Governor Perry is even aware of all the facts of the case.

Well, first of all, Texas specifically has some problems that need to be addressed ("the judge is not in -- appeals and stays related to tonight's execution are rejected or suspended until at least the start of next week"). Second, why not suspend all suspect, or all, period, death sentences until they have been checked, DNA testing used where possible now, and so on?

thank you, and the article was brought to me by Mr. Sweete; I've him to thank for bringing.

You probably have seen the mostly night-time vigils over the decades at every site of execution in the US. Catholics, Quakers, Mennonites, and others, including citizens not affiliated with religious groups, hold candlelight and pray against murder of any kind. I've been there. A lot of us have.

It makes you wonder deeply at the 'execution boulder' rolled from the top of the hill by men in power, who even seeming if they wanted to, cannot get in front of that boulder's momentum, to stop it, once questions or other evidences surface.

As DLS, Nic and spirasol, tidbits, kathy, jspencer and others poignantly point out... why cant people in charge take time to look precisely at evidences (rather than only years of appeals/stays that often seem to not bring sciencebased evidences to light), to test with current, uncorrupted, and easily available testing models/tools where applicable?

Why does something other than the adjunct of science not be allowed to be entered and balanced against, particularly, circumstantial evidences... or "evidence" imagined as true because the false argument has been so convincingly presented...

If evidence based science for instance, in cases where clear forensics can determine validity of 'evidences,' can trump "trumped up" evidence and thereby overturn others' 'veracity' or privilidege, or appointment, or job power, or community sheen, then one might be able to see why, in terms of the least of human sense of justice, some go low.

There are several legal groups affiliated with law schools, who have examined the evidences for executions that have taken place, and published their findings...which point to many executions done on frail or non-existing evidences.

Those groups continue to examine cases of evidence in execution sentences where the prisoner is still alive on 'death row.'

I think it's possible that the Texas Forensics commission members (one or more) may have been in touch with one or more of those groups and their often highly experienced jurists/legal forensics professors.

Again, to commenters, thank you for links and other info regarding this situation... nic, your pointer link to David Grann's article for readers allows inquiring minds to go down the stairs into the murk where so much can be seen but which may remain indeterminate in a capital case, without science being admitted as witness.

For the first time ever, DLS, I agree with you, without any "but's."

It makes you wonder deeply at the 'execution boulder' rolled from the top of the hill by men in power, who even seeming if they wanted to, cannot get in front of that boulder's momentum, to stop it, once questions or other evidences surface.

One the people in power acknowledge that they may have made a mistake, normal people (Not Lefties, or the odd religious group, Quakers for example) are going to start wondering how many other mistakes have been made. Once people seriously start asking these kinds of questions, support for the Death Penalty takes a real beating and Conservatives lose another social issue to beat Liberals over the head with.

I have often asked the question how is it possible for one State in the Nation to be so skewed? And like Spirasol's question. . ."murderer murdering murder ?". And yes, that may be the ground of the past raising up into present?. . . .

Somethings do come up from the ground, and continue to breath the old into the present . . .and since that might sound a bit woo woo. . .i will use the word history. . .

Remember the Alamo. . .As a person educated in Texas school system, Texas History was considered more important than U.S. history, thus Texas citizenship was deemed prestigious . . .Texas was even rejected concession to the U.S. if i remember correctly prior to the succession in 1861. The Lone Star State

Recall of Texas History . . . Part of this in quotation marks is taken from a Historian Monty Rainey on the Alamo. . .
"In the 1830's the total population was only 20,000". . . . during these years "Mexico had been unsuccessful in populating this land, generous offers of land proved ineffective in encouraging Mexican families to move to the untamed region. . . Being a settler in the Texas coastal plains region in the 1820's was no easy task. Indian raids were a constant threat and Mexico was in need of men with the pioneer spirit to tame the region. Texas became so rough the Mexican government passed what is known as the Colonization Law forbidding further immigration from the U.S. A rather ironic action considering today’s problems of illegal immigration from Mexico. It was also rumored that Mexico would soon begin sending their convicts to Texas. Settlers feared Texas would become little more than a Mexican penal colony."

Texas was untamed, rough and considered unsuitable for the more peace abiding settler families, it became populated by outlaws and criminals that where driven from the States or where fleeing from the laws. In many ways Texas was the United States Penal Colony and also the lands Mexicans that did not hold to the laws of the land resided. . .

Thus the laws of Texas where set by this kind of mentality. . .people drenched in real and imagined fear. . .Perhaps people that created laws based on fear as well as their own unexamined outlaws, criminal, and murderer family shadows. . . From what i have been able to find Texas law has changed little in how they view their prisoners and reform is desperately needed for all prisoners in Texas. . .

I suggest the current Texas treatment of prisoners and the unexamined and unmerciful case at hand is a long withstanding mentality based on fear that has now become part of the proud 'cult'ural identity of too many Texans. . .In my opinion. . .There are many good people in Texas, but not enough if they re-elect Gov. Perry and allow him to get by with this injustice. . .very ironical isn't it?

http://www.utwatch.org/archives/workingstiff/vo...
http://www.juntosociety.com/essays/alamo.htm

Dr. E. thanks for this picture. . .it touches deep. . .for this case the Lamb of God could well fit. . .

and there are the other cases where there is guilt. . . and i have often thought of the Jewish ritual where the scapegoat is brought forth and all the sins are placed in the scapegoat then turned into the wilderness to take their chance on survival. . .for a number of years i gathered material for mitigation to be used to plea the death penalty to life in prison without parole. . .what i found where the most wounded of the wounded in our society. . .and example one young man strung out on drugs murdered a woman and he was guilty. . .he was raised by a mother that had chronic untreated schizophrenia and a alcoholic father that used the method of of making his son eat his own feces in order to potty train him. . .so often those on Death Row are not the Lamb of God but are truly Scapegoats of forces so vile and dark it would be insane of us to believe they could escape the wilderness and the distortion of what they had been formed by. . .those years turned me into a "bleeding heart" liberal for those on Death Row. . .

What’s with all the sensitivity? Why on earth would anybody be offended? Why would you care?
We should NEVER allow religion to curb, subdue, change, or otherwise affect Free Speech.

Sparrow -

Those who do mitigation work are the angels of God. They devote themselves to the lowest of the lowest, who often do not know or appreciate the love and committment. They travel to dark places and risk danger to interview and see those who do not want to be seen. With a firmness and rightness of principle they stand against a system that would rather kill the inconvenient person than listen or understand. You have done God's work. Thank you.

We are free to say whatever we want so long as we are powerless, standing unsteadily under a lamp post, bottle of wine in hand. Once we get power, others are listening and joining us, -- it is than the authorities take notice, and move to subdue your free speech. What should we allow to curtail free speech? Has free speech ever been effected by money? security? Do we pay people off to keep silent?
Myself I don't think our speech is so free, especially when we know our email, telephones, and neighborly conversation is being monitored or could be turned into the FBI by a concerned citizen.

"What is it with Texas and the death sentence anyway?"

I think it has something to do with the citizens not wanting to pay $75,000 per year to dress, feed, and house a piece of garbage. They apparently have better things to do with their tax money.

When a murderer steals life from another innocent person, they deprive that person of their Constitutional right to LIFE, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. Therefore, their life is taken.

Just like a liberal: Save the guilty (murderers) and kill the innocent (unborn).

I personally don't care if they monitor my email, phone calls, or neighborly conversations.

I always say then what I'd say out in public. I've got nothing to hide.
Of course, if I find myself duct-taped, bound, and in the back of a black van; I may change my tune a bit.
Until that time, screw em'. I am not afraid of the government. Come and get me, fellas.

JD -

Do those views also apply to executing the innocent? That's what this post is about.

One other quick point. Because of the all the legal issues, it costs about the same to execute someone as it does to house the person for life without parole. There are no savings to the taxpayer, but even if there were, money is no excuse for executing the innocent.

Jefferson you might find this link of interest. . .scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you will see that it cost the State of Texas three times more money to have a person on Death Row than to give the person life without parole. . . the legal cost of placing someone on Death Row is astronomical because of all the appeals and years of judicial wrangle. . .

also Texas much like California is one of those States that has a huge prison industry where they take prisoners from other States and they are scattered out through rural communities. . .prisons have become a very important Texas industry. . . The cost to the State is high but at the same time it becomes politically supported because so many jobs and industries grow up around it. . .

John Moritz Star-Telegram Austin Bureau". . .
http://www3.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/juvenile/texa...
" * If Texas were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, easily surpassing that of the United States and Russia, the next two finishers, and would be seven times that of the next biggest prison system in China.

* Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites, and nearly one in three young African-American men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice control."

* one out of every 20 adults in the state is under the watch of the criminal justice system, according to national study released today..



http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-pen...

Jefferson Davis. . .

here is a really good podcast link that goes into the cost of Capital Murder Cases. . .

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/podcast/audio/C...

Ah, you missed something...............there is a degree of over zealousness, mob justice in Good ol Texas. There hanging, injecting and electricuting innocent people...... You know there are plenty of stories of guys found innocent and released with an administrative apology... sorry dude....... get some money, some class, and a good lawyer and you might just be eligible for some of that good ol American justice we hear folks talkin' about.

......famous last words................if you knew how many people have
been duct taped, etc. etc. ................either that or your not
important enough to qualify for attention.......they have a way of
befriending, fueling the very fire, passion your are
nurturing.............they will supply the materials, they will help you
set it up .............and then just like that you are front page for
the governments anti terror program, justifying the need for supervising
us all the time in the war war all the time world. == making us feel
safe from the Chavez's and the Admajinajad's, -- problem is WE are the
enemy, problem is Israel is the enemy, Problem is Israel has more nukes
than anyone, and are attacking their neighbors, killings thousands.

Sparrow, I've always enjoyed your posts.
This one goes out to you and to Tidbits concerning the cost of the death penalty....

I agree that every effort must be made to keep an innocent away from prison or the electric chair. We should expect that in our justice system. That's where we should put the concern and effort, not against the choice of punishment. The people in Texas overwhelmingly support their death penalty. So let them. We don't have it in our state, but they can have it in theirs if they wish.

The cost is where we disagree, I think. First, countless appeals are allowed - both legitimate and frivolous. There are so many loopholes that a prisoner can do the research and exhaust the courts with technicalities. Now if a death-row inmate petitions for proof toward his/her innocence, then great. Otherwise, the appeals should be minimized. This is where the astronomical cost comes from, as you mentioned. The cost of a bullet, rope and gallows, or even electrical current, cyanide, or lethal injection is cheap compared to keeping a prisoner for the rest of their life.

Which brings up another point. Are you really doing a person justice by keeping them caged for the rest of their lives. You spared their lives in the electric chair, and gave them what? The chance for sodomy, gang activity, and animalistic survival?

One last thing.... I've never bought into the black vs white argument within incarceration rates. If any race commits a crime, then they should face the penalty. My black friends and I have discussed this at length. They agree that the entire black community needs to change. The roll models should not be gangstas. And their opportunities (or lack thereof) should be expanded within their own communities.

dear Jefferson on first impulse i thought about pointing out again the differences and using more stats to support how i am right and you are wrong. . .UGH!. . . and then you could come back with stating your opinions and sources and we would be at the same place. . .UGH!. . .

but Jefferson i will spare us from that. . . my stance is not grounded with what i know but rather with what i do not know. . .

I don't know. . .after my experience of working with just one phase of the judicial system in relation to the process of Capital Murder. . . there are too many places and layers where a case can be tainted, distorted, and exploited for power, for profit, for position, or prestige that has little to do with the actual person on trial. . .there are all kinds of players in the judicial world. . . some really good ones, and some that would throw granny under the train for one of the aforementioned "p's". . . Jefferson there are so many places it can go wrong. . .too many times i shrugged my shoulder with " i don't know."

human nature?. . .the best. . .the worst. . .it is all there. . .within me. . within you. . .within everyone. . . i agree with you concerning life in prison without parole not being a cakewalk and was glad to hear you are not coming at execution from a space of vengeance as many seem to do. . .often have thought if i had to choose, i would take execution to life in prison without parole. . . but would never chose that for someone else because even if there was one in 1000 cases where power went amuck or even if it was clean mistaken injustice, it would not be right to take an innocent life if it was mine or yours, or somebody else's; brother, sister, husband, wife, child, father, mother, friend. . . .

Jefferson in my early childhood there was a T.V. show called the Real McCoy's. . .Each week they started it off with a song. . .part of the words where. . ." he roars like a lion but he is as gentle as a lamb.". . . That what i often think when i read your posts. . .I think if you sat down and really listened to the individuals on Death Row your heart would not advocate for their execution. . .Maybe your head, but not your heart. . .

You may be right, sparrow. I would like to think that my heart would go out to them.
To the penetant ones, most likely. To the unremorseful, it would be difficult, but my Christianity would take over and I'd then worry about their souls.

But alas, I tend to deny the term "human" at times. (Bear with me here). Since they rip the right of life away from an innocent (as well as their children and families), a big part of me thinks of them as having given up their right to humanity - humane treatment? maybe. But to be given life at all? No. This isn't the vengeance position you were talking about. It is true justice to me and to many in Texas. The death penalty is spelled out in both Old and New Testaments, so there's also the religious aspect to all of this in terms of popular support.

I stand against cruel and unusual punishment. And to me, it is much more humane to send a man to his death, than to let them rot in prison for the rest of his life.

Innocence: I agree. But in cases where there is a confession or eye-witness (at least 3 witnesses) testimony; i see no problem with capital punishment.

JD - I don't have the words, the time or the space.

Like Sparrow I have considerable experience in this area. The unjust application of capital punishment is legion. Some state provide adequate funding to defend capital cases, others so restrict funding that only low end attorneys, with little staff support do these cases. Blacks receive the death penalty far more than whites for similar crimes. A black killing a white receives the death penalty at a rate 16 times that of a white killing a black. Incidence of death penalty can vary from county to county depending on the prosecutor's discretion in charging.

By the way, can't tell you how many false "confessions" I've seen. Almost every capital case has false confessions, often multiple. And, eyewitness reports are horribly unreliable, no matter how many. Law enforcement is very good at getting people to ID the target of the investigation. Particularly true in cross-racial ID's.

Wish I had time & space to go into details, but have to leave for a meeting. Please, please go to the site Sparrow recommended. It has much information and statistics on death penalty. I use the site regularly and have referred to it before on other threads. Learn about people being put to death after having attorneys who fell asleep at trial, showed up drunk, were subsequently disbarred, or made public statements that their own clients should get the death penalty, etc.

The site is http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org Worth a look just to get a glimpse of what is really going on out there

I checked out the deathpenaltyinfo site. I noticed that it is a non-profit organization that is against the death penalty in all cases. There is also http://www.prodeathpenalty.com which does the same as a carbon copy. I am suspicious of info from either site. One quote I found interesting on the pro-capital punishment site:

"The law recognizes the specific distinction between those legally innocent and those actually innocent, just as common sense dictates. Yes, there is a difference between the truly "I had no connection to the murder" cases and "I did it but I got off because of legal error" cases." I really have little sympathy for those that "beat" the system through technicality. If you truly commit a capital offense, the punishment should match.

I have seen research within both camps that argue for and against capital punishment. Both have merit. That leads me to believe that capital punishment should be reformed, but not abolished.

JD -

First let me compliment you on your willingness to look into the issue. Being open to consider all sides is a great virtue.

My goal was never to change your mind. I believe that is a long process and often never happens. Having been "in the trenches" on this issue, I have a pretty firm belief system based on that experience, and could tell you things you never saw on either site. Perhaps there will be another time for that. For now I respect your opinion, though we disagree.

Thank you again for making the effort to become better informed.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. J.R.R. Tolkien