| Li'l Tex - Rick Perry | The Texecutioner - George W. Bush |
Texas may reclaim death penalty record
The prospects appear good
for Texas reclaiming in 2002 the distinction as
the nation's most active
death penalty state.
With Oklahoma carrying
out 18 executions in 2001, Texas for the 1st time
since 1996 surrendered
the title of America's execution capital.
"We really don't have
anything to do with the scheduling and timing and
how that pans out," says
Jane Shepperd, a spokeswoman for the Texas
attorney general's office,
which takes over death penalty cases from
local prosecutors once
the cases hit the federal appellate courts. "The
office of attorney general
is to represent the state of Texas in the
final appellate stages
of capital cases."
State district judges,
usually in consultation with county district
attorneys, set execution
dates.
The impact of measures
intended to accelerate appeals, an ambitious
execution schedule for
early 2002 and the hindsight of history all point
to a busier year for
lethal injections in Texas.
This year's 17 executions
represented a 57 % drop from 2000 and
contributed to the national
year-to-year decline of 22 %, buoying hopes
of death penalty opponents.
"While the past year had
been a time of real progress in addressing the
problem areas of the
death penalty, the crisis continues," said Richard
Dieter, executive director
of the Washington-based Death Penalty
Information Center.
Notably absent from among
the 17 killers who reached the Huntsville Unit
gurney were inmates sentenced
out of Harris County. The county
encompassing much of
the city of Houston accounts for 1/3 of the some 450
inmates awaiting death
in Texas, or more than the entire population of
Oklahoma's condemned.
Gary Graham, whose lengthy
and contentious case culminated with his
execution in June 2000,
was the last convicted murderer from Harris
County to reach the death
chamber.
"You're going to be seeing
more rollout from Harris County," predicts Roe
Wilson, an assistant
district attorney whose office handles capital case
appeals.
Nearly 60 Harris County
cases are in the federal Southern District of
Texas courts.
"In the last few months,
they've been breaking away," Wilson says. "The
huge lump of them were
in federal court.
"I liken it to a boa constrictor
that has swallowed a pig for dinner. You
watch the pig progress
down the boa constrictor and that pig is the big
glut that is in the federal
courts right now."
Out of the clogged federal
district courts, the appeals go to the New
Orleans-based 5th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the nation's most
capital punishment-friendly
appellate courts. In several current Harris
County cases there, briefings
are finished and rulings are imminent.
U.S. Supreme Court intervention
is rare, and the Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 imposed new restrictions on the
ability of condemned
prisoners to have their convictions reviewed by a
federal court. Thus,
the landscape is clearer than ever for trial judges
to set execution dates.
Inmate Michael Moore,
reprieved from punishment in March, is the 1st
scheduled for injection
in 2002 with a Jan. 9 date.
"I hope it would be the
last," says Moore of his execution. "But being a
realist, I know it's
not going to be." 3 more inmates are set to follow
Moore to the death chamber
in January. 2 more are scheduled for February
and another in early
March.
In addition, the so-called
"railroad killer," Angel Maturino Resendiz, is
awaiting the results
of psychological examinations that seek to determine
if he's competent to
drop appeals and pave the way for his demise.
"I fear for those left
behind," Vincent Edward Cooks said in an interview
weeks before he was put
to death Dec. 12, becoming the 17th and final
condemned killer to be
executed in Texas this year.
Historically, recent slow
years in the Texas death house have been
followed by busy ones,
as cases backed up in the legal system burst to
completion in a process
not unlike the prosecutor's boa constrictor
analogy.
In 1996, 3 executions
were carried out, followed by 37 the next year. In
1998, there were 20;
in 1999, 35. The aberration was 2000, when a record
40 inmates went to the
gurney.
The spurt, however, is
what happened this year in Oklahoma, where
Attorney General Drew
Edmondson expects 10 executions at the most in his
state in 2002, a decline
by nearly half.
"There was such a backlog
on death row and the cases were old," he said.
"We were working through
the appeals process. At some point, the number
of executions should
be equal to roughly the number of new arrivals, less
cases that are reversed."
That's about what's happening
in Texas, where 30 convicted murderers came
to death row in 2000
and 2001, 48 in 1999, and 42 in 1998.
There may be no downturn in 2002.
With the new year, at
least 3 capital murder trials are set to get under
way in Harris County,
including the trial of Andrea Yates, the mother
accused of drowning her
5 children.
In Dallas County, 5 former
prison escapees charged with capital murder in
the death of an Irving
policeman face death sentences if convicted like
their ringleader, George
Rivas, last August.
And in Polk County, a
new sentencing trial is set early in the year for
Johnny Paul Penry, whose
claims of mental retardation prompted the U.S.
Supreme Court to halt
his scheduled execution early this year.
(source: Associated Press)
| Li'l Tex - Rick Perry | The Texecutioner - George W Bush |
