 |
 |
 |
 |
Helping Karl
American-Statesman
May 2007
Death Row Appeals Bill Derailed
Supporters scramble to revive
measure aimed at sloppy lawyers.
A bill to change death row appeals in Texas — replacing a taxpayer-funded system beset by sloppy, shoddy legal work — was dealt a potentially fatal delay Thursday in the Texas House.
Objections on the House floor by Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, bounced the bill back to the House Judiciary Committee, where a hastily called evening meeting attempted to revive it in the waning days of the legislative session.
Committee members voted unanimously to re-approve the bill, and Chairman Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, gave the measure a "better than even" chance of reaching a floor vote Monday or Tuesday, the deadline for the House to consider Senate bills.
"It's still got some time," Hartnett said.
The measure, Senate Bill 1655, would create a state office of lawyers and investigators to help death row inmates file petitions for writs of habeas corpus, considered the most important of two appeals offered to the condemned. Writs are meant to ensure that the death penalty was legally and properly imposed by reinvestigating every aspect of the sentence, from trial witnesses to lawyer conduct.
However, an October 2006 examination by the American-Statesman found that court-appointed Texas lawyers regularly submitted habeas petitions that were incomplete, improperly argued or incoherent. Many petitions were poorly copied from previous appeals or showed little thoughtful effort.
The low-quality work was tolerated by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals despite a 12-year-old state law requiring the court to ensure that death row inmates receive competent legal help on habeas petitions.
Legislation creating the Office of Capital Writs cleared the Senate 30-0 in mid-April, calling for a professional cadre of lawyers and investigators to handle the appeals for indigent death row inmates. The office would be run by a director hired by the Court of Criminal Appeals from a list prepared by an outside committee.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, has called habeas review a safety net ensuring that the right person was convicted and sentenced to death.
But Talton, after consulting with the Harris County district attorney's office, moved Thursday to derail the bill by raising a point of order, a parliamentary move that returned the measure to committee. With the session due to end May 28, any such delay is potentially fatal to legislation.
Talton compared the state writs office to death penalty resource centers, federally subsidized offices that helped defend death row inmates until they were abolished in the mid-1990s over complaints that they were acting as tax-financed groups working to abolish the death penalty.
"I won't vote for it," he said.
Martha Dickie, an Austin lawyer and president of the State Bar of Texas, said the bill is desperately needed to improve the state's judicial system. The bar endorsed the Office of Capital Writs after its own examination found the state writ system to be seriously flawed.
"This is really about one of the fundamentals of the judicial system: access to competent counsel," Dickie said. "It's not a bill for or against the death penalty."
House approval is expected if the habeas bill reaches the House floor.Chuck Lindell
American-Statesman
18th May 2007
