|
stella41b -> RE: Innocent blood is on the hands of all Texans (8/26/2009 5:37:58 PM)
|
This is the same state where Judge Sharon Keller is facing a reprimand or removal from the bench for her conduct on the day Michael Richard was executed on September 25, 2007.
She had left the court early that day and was at home when she received a call from an assistant at the court saying that the attorneys for Richard were requesting more time to file an appeal based on a U.S. Supreme Court order earlier that day. Despite the fact that the attorneys had indicated they were having computer problems and needed more time to complete the appeal, Judge Keller reiterated that the court closed at 5 pm. As a result, the appeal was not ruled on by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and Richard was executed a few hours later.
If the court had considered and even denied the appeal, it is almost certain that the U.S. Supreme Court would have granted a stay of execution, as happened in all other cases scheduled for execution from that day until April 2008 when the Court handed down its decision regarding the constitutionality of lethal injection in Baze v. Rees. Judge Keller insisted that she was doing her duty when she stated that the clerk's office closes at 5. The presiding judge at the tribunal will now submit a report to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which will decide whether sanctions should be imposed on Judge Keller.
What is the point of having the death penalty when it cannot be so carefully administered so as to avoid erronous and premature executions?
All too often people are executed not because they have committed the worst crimes but simply because they have been denied 'due process' (supposedly guaranteed under the Constitution and numerous Supreme Court rulings) or have been assigned the worst possible legal representation.
This is Texas, the state where Ron Mock, an attorney practising out of Houston has represented some 10% of those sent to Death Row, arguably more than any other defense attorney in Texas. Each day Mock starts his day as a member of the bar, but not the one in court but his own bar in downtown Houston known as Buster's Drinkery. Of his 15 capital clients 12 of them ended up on Death Row, including the then 17 year old Gary Graham who was convicted largely on the basis of a single eyewitness and no physical evidence. Mock's investigator, Merv West, said Mock discouraged him from working hard on the case: "I remember that from the first Ron Mock insinuated that Gary was guilty, and that definitely affected my investigation. Since we both assumed Gary was guilty, I decided not to waste time trying to substantiate his alibi. . . ."
Also in Houston is Joseph Frank Cannon, another defence attorney who has had 10 clients sent to Death Row. Cannon brags about hurrying through capital trials like 'greased lightning' and Candelario Elizondo, past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, said that it is "generally reputed in the Harris County legal community" that Mr. Cannon received capital appointments "because he delivers on his promises to move the courts' dockets."
One of Mr. Cannon's former clients closest to death is Calvin Burdine. The jury foreman from Burdine's trial has submitted an affidavit in court asserting that Cannon repeatedly fell asleep during the trial. Cannon also used slurs such as "queer" and "fairy" in court papers for Burdine, an openly gay man. According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Cannon doesn't remember the details of the Burdine case. "I don't have to prove anything," he remarked. "My record speaks for itself."
But this isn't just Texas, this is right through the other states too. In Florida Andrew Golden is a former teacher who had never even received a traffic ticket. He had been married to his wife, Ardelle, for twenty-four years, sharing a very close relationship. He adored his two sons, Chip and Darin. That is why life on Florida's death row was so difficult for Golden, almost driving him to suicide. He kept his sanity by making things for the boys and helping them with their college applications--and by fighting to prove his innocence.
Golden was sent to death row in 1991 for allegedly drowning his wife. The case against him was amazingly weak: Ardelle and the family car were found in a lake at the end of a boat ramp near Winter Haven, but even the police investigators and medical examiner stated at trial that the evidence did not suggest foul play.
However, Golden's lawyer did almost nothing to prepare for trial, having assumed that he would have the case thrown out beforehand. When the case was announced for trial, it was too late to prepare. There was no time for an accident reconstruction. The attorney put on no defense. He never presented the jury with the reasonable explanation that Golden's wife might have committed suicide, having been depressed over the recent death of her father. He never told the jury about the coffee mug wedged near the brake and accelerator pedal, or the four death notices of her father which Ardelle had with her in the car.
Andrew Golden, with a new lawyer, had his conviction overturned by a unanimous Florida Supreme Court and was freed into the welcoming arms of his children and granddaughter in 1994.
In Georgia Aden Harrison, Jr., a black man, had as his court-appointed counsel 83-year-old James Venable, who had been an imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan for over 15 years. The judge who reviewed Venable's representation in 1990 said the lawyer all but abandoned his client and suffered from "advanced age, and numerous lapses of judgment." Jack House was represented at his capital trial by a husband and wife team (also in Georgia) who had never read the state's death penalty statute. The lawyers never visited the crime scene or interviewed the state's witnesses, made no attempt to discover the state's evidence (they were "too busy"), and barely spoke to their client. One of them left during the testimony of a key prosecution witness (whom he later cross-examined), and they presented no mitigating evidence at sentencing because they were unaware that there even was a sentencing phase to the trial.
The above are not just isolated cases, but all too often an accurate description of the reality faced by anyone on Death Row who often have been convicted not for their crimes but with the help of incompetent defense counsel and who are struggling to get through the post-conviction appeals process with similarly incompetent lawyers.
The prospects for change are getting worse, not better. Funding for indigent defense are being cut back, the number of people facing imminent execution is increasing dramatically and Congress have been working to eliminate the last protections these defendants have of ever countering these injustices.
The main reason for this neglect is that the death penalty in the States has become so political. Politicians, from prosecutors to presidents, seize upon the death penalty as their symbol of toughness against crime. Therefore, it is not surprising that the appointment of counsel in capital cases is steeped in politics as well. As Stephen Bright wrote recently in The Yale Law Journal, those on death row are not a powerful constituency:
The quality of legal representation in capital cases in many states is a scandal. However, almost no one cares. Those facing the death penalty are generally poor, often members of racial minorities, often afflicted with substantial mental impairments, and always accused of serious, terrible crimes. . . . All of this leads to, at best, indifference and, more often, hostility toward the plight of those accused."
It's very easy to be in favour of the death penalty when you don't have a specific person or crime in mind, but the Susan Smith case illustrates just how critical the sentencing phase is and just how sensitive it needs to be. I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever that Susan Smith drowned her two sons and that she appeared to do it with premeditation, but the jury needed to be told Susan Smith's life story, a story of sexual abuse, of mental instability and suicide attempts, in order to make that crucial decision between life and death.
But if she was left to tell that story herself Susan Smith would probably be dead now. She needed that experienced advocate who had gone through every aspect of her life so as the jury might be able to understand not just what had happened but why. However unfortunately, and perhaps scandalously defense attorneys are all too often silent when it comes to that phase in the trial.
Justice isn't condemning someone to death because it is believed they have probably or might have committed a terrible crime. Justice is knowing they have committed the crime, knowing the answer to why they have committed the crime, so as to make a decision as to the most appropriate sentence for that crime, that person, in those circumstances.
I sincerely believe that if the people of Texas (or anywhere else where capital punishment exists) looked beyond their own moral judgments and actually got to know and to see the death penalty process for what it really is they would be against it. I actually believe that if the people in Texas took the trouble to see what is really going on in places such as Harris County, Houston and elsewhere there would be an outcry, there would be an outrage.
But there isn't. And that's why the death penalty is as it is in Texas and why innocent people get executed. People just aren't that bothered.
Sources:
P. Weber, "Trial of Texas judge over death-row appeal ends," Associated Press, Aug. 21, 2009
P. Marcotte, Snoozing, Unprepared Lawyer Cited, ABA Journal, Feb., 1991, at 14.
S. Bright, Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer, 103 Yale Law Journal 1835, 1838 (1994).
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
|
|
|
|
