Just days after Texas Gov. Rick Perry surprisingly commuted the sentence of Kenneth Foster (who had been sentenced to death row for taking part in a fatal crime but did not personally take a life, under what is known as the “law of parties”), the conservative Dallas Morning News has renewed their call for a moratorium on the death penalty in this state:

It is past time for them to confront the growing list of concerns about the liberal use of the executioner’s chamber. Legislative leaders should start the process by ordering Senate and House committees to study capital justice in Texas and doubts about its fairness.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick will be issuing long lists of “interim studies” to prepare the Legislature for the 2009 session. It would be a disservice to the public to omit examination of the grim business of sending people to their deaths.

This newspaper recently called for an end to capital punishment because of the distinct and unacceptable possibility of deadly error. We know that leaders in Austin are not deaf and blind to evidence of miscarriage of justice. We call on them to act accordingly.

The editorial also proposes ending the “law of parties” as applied to capital punishment, establishing a state innocence commission that includes members of the law-enforcement and legal communities to examine weaknesses in the justice system and whose findings could be used to set new standards for law enforcement, and expanding the governor’s authority in murder cases (currently, the governor can only act upon a recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles). But why a moratorium on executions?

This has been our call for some time. Considering the sobering questions that have been raised across the state, it is appropriate for lawmakers to give themselves time to take a fresh look at capital punishment.

We’re not naive about the Legislature’s willingness to take on the subject, since it would be politically costly to look “soft on crime.” We’re looking for political courage, though. We’re looking for leadership that’s unafraid to call for debate and thoughtful review on life-and-death issues.

•Texas has executed 402 people since capital punishment was reinstated nationally 21 years ago. That is four times the number of the second-most-active state, Virginia.

•Texas’ per capita execution rate is second only to Oklahoma’s.

•374 people are now waiting on death row in Texas, including 364 men in Livingston and 10 women in Gatesville

•22 men have been executed this year; five more are scheduled to die in September

Foster’s near-execution and the fact that a conservative Republican governor even thought it inappropriate serves to illustrate the problems with our use of the death penalty in Texas. The DMN editorial’s suggestions are wise. Hopefully, the legislature will listen next session.

Troy Davis, who I blogged about earlier today, has won a temporary 90-day stay from execution:

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday granted a stay of execution of up to 90 days to Troy Davis, 38, who was convicted of killing a Savannah police officer in 1989.

He had faced a Tuesday execution date before the board’s decision, which came after less than an hour of deliberation. The stay means the execution will be on hold while the board weighs the evidence presented as part of Davis’ request for clemency. The board must rule by Oct. 14.

Earlier Monday, lawyers for Davis pleaded with the board during a closed-door hearing to grant their client a reprieve. Prosecutors were then given a chance to rebut the clemency request.

After the decision, defense lawyer Jason Ewart expressed relief. “We are no longer under the gun and we can present the rest of our innocence case,” he said.

Thank God for that. A new trial at least is in order.

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed tomorrow for a crime that many are saying he did not commit:

A Georgia man is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for killing a police officer in 1989, even though the case against him has withered in recent years as most of the key witnesses at his trial have recanted and in some cases said they lied under pressure from police.

Prosecutors discount the significance of the recantations and argue that it is too late to present such evidence. But supporters of Troy Davis, 38, and some legal scholars say the case illustrates the dangers wrought by decades of Supreme Court decisions and new laws that have rendered the courts less likely to overturn a death sentence.

Three of four witnesses who testified at trial that Davis shot the officer have signed statements contradicting their identification of the gunman. Two other witnesses — a fellow inmate and a neighborhood acquaintance who told police that Davis had confessed to the shooting — have said they made it up.

Other witnesses point the finger not at Davis but at another man. Yet none has testified during his appeals because federal courts barred their testimony.

“It’s getting scary,” Davis said by phone last week. “They don’t want to hear the new facts.”

The case goes on to detail the confused nature of the case against Davis, the pressure the police and prosecutors brought to bear on his case, and the difficulty he had finding a lawyer who would argue his appeals. In other words, all of the ingredients are present for an innocent man to wind up on death row. Judges who believe that their job is to adhere to law and procedure, as opposed to actually doing justice, are denying his appeals. I’m sure they soothe their consciences by telling themselves that the man probably is guilty, that they’re obeying the letter of the law (the “just doing my job” defense), or denying inconvenient facts that argue for lenience. An innocent man may be put to death, and yet somehow no one will feel even a twinge of guilt about it.

And this is why the death penalty must be abolished. Until you have a system in which guilt can be established perfectly, with one-hundred percent confidence, there should be no capital punishment. Without such a system, innocent men and women will always end up in prison, and subject to the arbitrarily imposed death penalty. A horrific crime was committed in this case, and a man died who should still be alive today. But what ends are served by executing a man whose guilt is in doubt, while possibly allowing the real killer to walk the Earth a free man? Those who support the death penalty make emotional appeals to the horrors of crimes committed by those who are (rightly) sentenced to die, but nothing is more horrible than death imposed in slow motion by the tyrannical and beauracratic machinery of the state. The death penalty is an imperfect tool, and can’t be trusted in the hands of those who wield it because they admit to no error. Cases like this make that quite clear, but who can say how many more potentially innocent men or women will be executed before it’s obvious to everyone?

If you oppose the execution of a potentially innocent man, I urge you to take action here. A simple letter from enough people may make a difference.

You may recall the case of Raymond Cantu, convicted of murder and put to death in 1993. His prosecution and conviction has since faced considerable scrutiny, and in response the Bexar County District Attorney’s office launched an investigation. They report, unsurprisingly, that Cantu was in fact guilty of the crime for which he was put to death:

The report from District Attorney Susan Reed says prosecutors interviewed 50 people and gathered evidence from 35 agencies; in the end, their findings confirmed their initial doubts about the assertions that Cantu’s execution was unjust.

The DA’s report for the first time makes public a statement obtained from San Antonio resident and convicted felon Thomas Cooremans, 61. According to the report, Cooremans says Ruben confessed in detail to him when they were in jail together in 1985, both awaiting trials on different crimes.

According to the report, Cantu told Cooremans “he’d stolen two trucks from the same house … and had gone back for a third. He said he’d gone in the house and saw a rifle, a 22, and had picked it up” and then cocked it.

When one of residents awoke and reached for something, Cantu said, “I shot that guy. (Expletive deleted).”

As to the statements made by others that Cantu didn’t commit the murder?

The report also dissects the accounts from Moreno, David Garza, the convicted co-defendant who was Cantu’s friend, and Eloy Gonzales, who years later attempted to provide an alibi for Cantu. It dismisses Garza and Gonzales as convicted felons with credibility problems.

As for that Coormans fellow:

Cooremans, whose chain of criminal convictions stretches back more than 20 years, gave his statement to a DA investigator on Aug. 23, 2006, when he again was in Bexar County Jail awaiting trial on his third DWI.

Huh. Wonder why he did that?

As to who they didn’t talk to:

While the report relies on conversations with former prosecutors originally involved in the case in 1985, prosecutors didn’t talk to the district attorney at the time of the case, Sam Millsap.

Millsap has apologized for Cantu’s prosecution, saying it was a mistake to rest a death penalty conviction on only a single eyewitness.

Who else has credibility problems?:

The report suggests the private detective, Richard Reyna, manipulated Moreno, refusing to accept the witness’ initial statement that Cantu was guilty and then plying him with cash after repeatedly telling him other witnesses were certain Cantu was innocent.

Reyna, a Conroe-based detective whose work on innocence claims has contributed to the release of seven death row inmates, said he has never faced such an attack.

Reyna said he believes DA Reed is biased because as a judge she set Cantu’s execution date and can’t deal with the real issue: That she was responsible for the death of an innocent man.

“She’s shameless,” he said.

Ms. Reed would like you and I to believe that the lone eyewitness, who later recanted his testimony, was actually telling the truth when he said he saw Cantu commit the crime. Why would he do such a thing? Here’s an explanation from my earlier post on the Houston Chronicle story that first uncovered this sordid mess:

And the lone eyewitness, the man who survived the shooting, has recanted. He told the Chronicle he’s sure that the person who shot him was not Cantu, but he felt pressured by police to identify the boy as the killer. Juan Moreno, an illegal immigrant at the time of the shooting, said his damning in-court identification was based on his fear of authorities and police interest in Cantu.

And:

Presented with these statements, as well as information from hundreds of pages of court and police documents gathered by the Chronicle that cast doubt on the case, key players in Cantu’s death-including the judge, prosecutor, head juror and defense attorney-now acknowledge that his conviction seems to have been built on omissions and lies.”

These people, all respectable attorneys, must also have credibility problems. Whereas Ms. Reed, the judge who set the date on which Cantu died and the now D.A. who oversaw this investigation, has none.

Fancy that.

A new study conducted by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that while 62 percent of those surveyed still support the death penalty, 58 percent think there should be a moratorium on executions while wrongful convictions and wrongful death sentences are investigated (though 69% of the public believes that reforms will not eliminate all wrongful convictions and executions).

87% believe that an innocent person has already been executed in recent years, and over half say that fact has affected their views on the death penalty: “Among those who had changed their position on the death penalty over the last ten years, more people became opponents of the death penalty than proponents by a margin of 3 to 2. Support has been lessened because of the many DNA exonerations that have occurred.” Perhaps even more interesting, almost 40% of the public believe that they would be disqualified from serving on a jury in a death penalty case because of their moral beliefs. Women, African-Americans, and Catholics particularly believed they would be excluded.

According to Amnesty International, the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and especially China accounted for more than 90 percent of judicial executions in 2006. A lot of good company we’re keeping there.

While its depressing that so many still support the death penalty despite strong beliefs innocent people have been executed and that it is not a deterrent to future crime, the numbers on a moratorium are encouraging. As has been noted on TWM before, we all pretty much oppose the death penalty because of wrongful convictions, lack of fairness in the system, and because it’s not a deterrent. We could theoretically support the death penalty if those problems were fixed, but it’s hard to see how such reforms could be realistically achieved. But a moratorium is certainly preferable to the status quo and would allow at least some progress to be made toward these goals. Of course, we pretty much can’t expect anything like that here in Texas.

Sen. Russ Feingold has introduced the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act (S. 132) several times since 2000. This bill would suspend executions by the federal government and encourage states to do the same, while a National Commission on the Death Penalty examines the fairness of the administration of the death penalty at the state and federal levels. He has also introduced the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act (S. 122) which would abolish the use of the death penalty by the federal government and commute any standing death sentence to life without parole. When you find time you might write to your representatives and senators to support such legislation.

Our own hometown paper has done us proud:

Opponents of the death penalty have just gained a powerful new ally. Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News changed its editorial opinion and came out against the death penalty. This is important because the Morning News is not only one of the largest newspapers in the state, its editorial board is generally regarded as one of the most conservative.

The DMN points out that at least 13 innocent people have been released from Texas prisons in the recent past. They also point to the case of Carlos De Luna, who was executed even though the evidence now shows he was probably innocent.

The DMN believes (as I do) that the state has the obligation to protect its citizens from violent offenders – especially those who may re-offend in a violent way. But since the passage of “life without parole”, we now have an option other than the death penalty.

No one should forget the victims of violent crime when we debate the morality and effectiveness of the death penalty. But the imprisonment and execution of men and women innocent of the crimes they are accused of is an injustice in two senses, in that someone pays for a crime they didn’t commit, and the guilty party goes free. It’s past time to re-evaluate the death penalty in Texas, and I’m glad to see that the editors of the DMN agree.

The Houston Chronicle has this story today of a young man executed for a crime he in all likelihood did not commit. It’s yet another shameful story of over-zealous police and prosecutors, eager to resolve a case and willing to push witnesses and overlook inconsistencies to do it:

“Cantu’s long-silent co-defendant, David Garza, just 15 when the two boys allegedly committed a murder-robbery together, has signed a sworn affidavit saying he allowed his friend to be falsely accused, though Cantu wasn’t with him the night of the killing.

And the lone eyewitness, the man who survived the shooting, has recanted. He told the Chronicle he’s sure that the person who shot him was not Cantu, but he felt pressured by police to identify the boy as the killer. Juan Moreno, an illegal immigrant at the time of the shooting, said his damning in-court identification was based on his fear of authorities and police interest in Cantu.

Presented with these statements, as well as information from hundreds of pages of court and police documents gathered by the Chronicle that cast doubt on the case, key players in Cantu’s death — including the judge, prosecutor, head juror and defense attorney — now acknowledge that his conviction seems to have been built on omissions and lies.”

This is why I firmly believe that the death penalty should be abolished. It has nothing to do with whether or not murderers deserve to die. I believe they do. But the simple fact is it is impossible to construct a law enforcement and judicial system which we can be assured will never execute an innocent man. Even with all the proper procedures in place, the system is too easily abused by police, prosecutor and judges eager to seek convictions and death sentences for heinous crimes. All of thproceduralar safeguards and appeals that were in place here, failed Cantu. If anything it was simply a matter of not having enough time. Were Cantu in jail now as these revelations came out, he would be awarded a new trial. He might lose twenty years of his life, but he’d have the rest of it to live as a free man. But now, there is no way to undo not only the taking of the victim’s life, but the taking of the life of a man who had nothing to do with the crime.

And I simply cannot stomach arguments that the execution of innocent men and women is a worthy price to pay to execute actual murderers. There is no argument for the death penalty that can justify creating another victim beyond those killed in the crime itself. None whatsoever. The death penalty should be abolished, permanently.