Texas judge draws fire for ruling death penalty is unconstitutional

A Texas judge in the county that sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation ruled in a pretrial motion this week that the death penalty is unconstitutional, saying he could assume that innocent people have been executed.

On Friday, a day after the ruling, state District Judge Kevin Fine found himself facing a torrent of criticism from a string of high-profile Texans, including Gov. Rick Perry (R).

Fine, a Democrat, said there was no precedent to guide him in resolving the issues raised by defense lawyers in a case involving a man accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister in 2008.

Attorneys for John Edward Green Jr. argued that Texas's death penalty statute violates their client's right to due process because hundreds of innocent people have been sent to death row and later exonerated. "Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?" Fine said.

Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos said state and federal courts have previously rejected the defense team's arguments.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called Fine's ruling one of "unabashed judicial activism" and offered to help the district attorney appeal Fine's decision. Perry called the ruling "a clear violation of public trust."

Source: Associated Press, March 6, 2010