Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 23, 2006 6:02:55 GMT -5
to Texas death row
State is on a pace to execute 29 inmates by the end of 2006
Without explosive constitutional debates that helped cause lethal
injections to decline from 2002 to 2005, Texas executioners have become busy again.
Amarillo child-killer Robert Anderson on Thursday became the 16th Texas prisoner to die by injection this year, compared with 19 in all of 2005. 8 more executions are scheduled so far, including one next week.
The state is on pace for 29 executions, which would be the most since 33 killers were executed in 2002. The record is 40 in 2000.
Different legal take
3 major legal debates have been addressed since 2002. The Supreme Court outlawed executions of juveniles and the mentally retarded, and President Bush told Texas courts to review the cases of 51 Mexican prisoners who claim they were improperly denied consular access.
"When you remove collateral issues, step by step, what's going to be left is simply, 'Does the (Supreme Court) believe the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual?' " said South Texas College of Law professor Gerald Treece, who added there's no indication that's going to happen anytime soon with the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
"You've lost these powerful voices (late liberal Justices Hugo Black, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall) and politically replaced them with people of good will, but with a different take on the Eighth Amendment," Treece said, referring to the constitutional prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments."
Recently a popular appeal has been that lethal injection itself is cruel. The Supreme Court last month allowed such legal claims to be made, yet it has continued to allow such executions to proceed.
Longtime death penalty opponent Dave Atwood, of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said his movement's next major battleground probably will be over mentally ill killers rather than the methodology of execution.
"If you're going to exclude people who are mentally retarded, and you do it by saying they're less culpable, certainly someone who is seriously mentally ill is less culpable," Atwood said.
The steady flow of inmates through the death chamber this year indicates the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, is not concerned Texas' lethal injection is unconstitutional.
"It doesn't seem to impress a majority of the court to issue a stay," Treece said.
Legal issues a factor
Dianne Clements, of the victims rights group Justice for All, said there's nothing that speeds the pace of executions, only legal issues that slow them down.
"I think it's just the way the process works," she said of the current trend. "I don't think it's tied to anything political."
The status of capital punishment law made little difference to Anderson, 40, a repeat child-sex offender who requested that no new appeals be filed on his behalf as his execution approached in the abduction and slaying of a 5-year-old girl in 1992.
Source: Houston Chronicle
State is on a pace to execute 29 inmates by the end of 2006
Without explosive constitutional debates that helped cause lethal
injections to decline from 2002 to 2005, Texas executioners have become busy again.
Amarillo child-killer Robert Anderson on Thursday became the 16th Texas prisoner to die by injection this year, compared with 19 in all of 2005. 8 more executions are scheduled so far, including one next week.
The state is on pace for 29 executions, which would be the most since 33 killers were executed in 2002. The record is 40 in 2000.
Different legal take
3 major legal debates have been addressed since 2002. The Supreme Court outlawed executions of juveniles and the mentally retarded, and President Bush told Texas courts to review the cases of 51 Mexican prisoners who claim they were improperly denied consular access.
"When you remove collateral issues, step by step, what's going to be left is simply, 'Does the (Supreme Court) believe the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual?' " said South Texas College of Law professor Gerald Treece, who added there's no indication that's going to happen anytime soon with the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
"You've lost these powerful voices (late liberal Justices Hugo Black, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall) and politically replaced them with people of good will, but with a different take on the Eighth Amendment," Treece said, referring to the constitutional prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments."
Recently a popular appeal has been that lethal injection itself is cruel. The Supreme Court last month allowed such legal claims to be made, yet it has continued to allow such executions to proceed.
Longtime death penalty opponent Dave Atwood, of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said his movement's next major battleground probably will be over mentally ill killers rather than the methodology of execution.
"If you're going to exclude people who are mentally retarded, and you do it by saying they're less culpable, certainly someone who is seriously mentally ill is less culpable," Atwood said.
The steady flow of inmates through the death chamber this year indicates the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, is not concerned Texas' lethal injection is unconstitutional.
"It doesn't seem to impress a majority of the court to issue a stay," Treece said.
Legal issues a factor
Dianne Clements, of the victims rights group Justice for All, said there's nothing that speeds the pace of executions, only legal issues that slow them down.
"I think it's just the way the process works," she said of the current trend. "I don't think it's tied to anything political."
The status of capital punishment law made little difference to Anderson, 40, a repeat child-sex offender who requested that no new appeals be filed on his behalf as his execution approached in the abduction and slaying of a 5-year-old girl in 1992.
Source: Houston Chronicle