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| Judge Kevin Fine |
A hearing on the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty will be held in Judge Kevin Fine's courtroom in Houston on Monday, December 6, at 9 AM.
Texas' use of capital punishment will undergo legal scrutiny at this hearing. Evidence and arguments will likely be presented that there is substantial risk that the state's death penalty law does not adequately protect against the execution of an innocent person.
John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. Green’s defense attorneys will argue that a number of factors in Texas' death penalty system increase the risk of wrongful executions in Texas, including a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.
State District Judge Kevin Fine of the 177th Criminal Court in Harris County (Houston) set the hearing for Dec. 6 as part of a pretrial motion in which two defense attorneys for a Houston man facing a possible death sentence asked that Texas' death penalty statute be declared unconstitutional.
In March, on a motion filed by attorneys for John Edward Green Jr. (facing death for the 2008 robbery and murder of Huong Thien Nguyen in Houston), Fine ruled that capital punishment as practiced in Texas is unconstitutional for failing to adequately protect the innocent. Fine quickly rescinded that original order, but he has granted Green's attorneys the right to a hearing on the matter. Green's attorney Casey Keirnan told the Associated Press that he expects the hearing could last up to two weeks and that death penalty experts from around the country will likely testify. "I think everybody in the United States would agree that the possibility exists" that an innocent person has already been executed, he said.
TEXAS MORATORIUM NETWORK: If you live in Houston or can be there, there will be a demonstration against the Texas death penalty outside the courthouse at 8 AM on Monday Dec. 6, 2010 (RSVP on the Facebook event page). Location: Harris County Criminal Justice Center, 1201 Franklin, 19th Floor, Houston, Texas 77002
Source: Texas Moratorium Network, December 1, 2010
Texas Judge to Rule on Death Penalty Constitutionality
Texas' messy death penalty saga continues Monday in a Houston courtroom, where a district judge will for the first time in state history consider whether the risk of executing an innocent person makes capital punishment unconstitutional.
Harris County District Judge Kevin Fine is set to hold a hearing in the case of John Edward Green, who is charged with fatally shooting a Houston woman during a robbery in June 2008. Harris County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. But Green’s attorneys and capital punishment opponents want Fine to rule that prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty because the way it is administered in Texas is unconstitutional. They say they have proof that at least two wrongfully convicted men have been executed. With so many chances for error in the courts, they argue, Texas shouldn't risk putting an innocent person to death. “The current system is profoundly and fundamentally flawed from top to bottom,” says Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender Service.
Source: The Texas Tribune, December 2, 2010
Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional In Texas
WASHINGTON -- At a hearing scheduled for Monday, December 6, a district court in Texas will decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional in the state based on the disproportionately high risk of wrongful convictions in Texas. This is the first time in the state's history that a court will examine the problem of innocent people being executed in a Texas capital trial.
John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. According to legal documents obtained by HuffPost, Green's defense attorneys will be arguing on Monday that a number of factors in Texas's legal system increase the risk of wrongful executions there, including a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.
The death penalty in Texas came under fire earlier this month when a DNA test conducted on a single hair undermined the evidence that convicted a Texas man of capital murder over ten years ago. The hair had been the only piece of evidence linking Claude Jones to the crime scene, but the new test results revealed that the hair likely belonged to the murder victim instead of Jones.
Maurie Levin, a law professor at the University of Texas and an expert on capital punishment, said she would not be surprised if Judge Kevin Fine ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional in Texas on Monday.
"I would think that Judge Fine would have substantial basis in the evidence that I'm aware of that would lead to a conclusion that the Texas death penalty is unconstitutional as applied," she told HuffPost.
Since 1976, twelve people have been exonerated from death row in Texas out of 139 nationwide, and four study commissions set up by the Texas government have formally recognized the serious risks of wrongful convictions there. Out of the 464 people that have been executed in Texas, about 70 percent have been minorities, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, said it is clear to her that the death penalty is handed down unfairly and erratically in Texas.
"It is my opinion and the opinion of many people close to this issue that the Texas system is wholly incapable of carrying out the death penalty in a fair and reliable way," she told HuffPost. "Texas is remarkably out of step with the rest of the country and certainly out of step with what the average Texan would expect when dealing with capital punishment. We're seeing in case after case that the system is just inherently prone to the risk of wrongful convictions and has a complete inability to correct its mistakes."
Keilen said that while the state has a history of strong popular support for capital punishment, she thinks Texans would feel differently about the practice if they knew all the facts.
"I think there is support for the idea of the death penalty among the average Texan, but that if the average Texan were to get a closeup view of how the system actually operates, that support would significantly wane," she said. "It's an abstract concept to most people, but if they saw how abysmal the quality of representation can be, how the system is biased racially, how prosecutors can not disclose evidence, or how DNA testing can be wrong, my opinion is that they as reasonable people would find it unacceptable."
Source: The Huffington Post, December 2, 2010
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