Complaint Review: Texas District & County Attorneys Association

The Prosecuting Attorneys and Judges in Texas who preside over the criminal courts are perhaps a little TOO zealous in their prosecution without insuring that the proper safeguards are in place to insure the accused the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.

Texas leads the United States in the number of executions on its Death Row.

How many of those who were executed were truly INNOCENT?

When a person is GUILTY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, they DESERVE EXECUTION but an increasing number of those convicted have been exonerated from the crime they never convicted by DNA evidence and taken off Death Row when they had no business being there in the first place!

AFTER A PERSON IS EXECUTED FOR A CRIME THAT HE OR SHE DID NOT COMMIT AND THERE IS ONLY MARGINAL EVIDENCE TO CONVICT HIM OR HER, IT IS TOO LATE TO APOLOGIZE WHEN THE REAL PERPETRATOR IS FOUND.

With this in mind, I would like to bring the following factual material to your attention.

A group of death row survivors called on the Texas Legislature to halt executions and establish an innocence commission to free other wrongfully convicted inmates.

Former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap said Texas, which has executed 419 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty, has the ''most efficient death machine in the free world.''

Millsap once supported capital punishment but now believes he probably sent an innocent man to the death chamber. He says he joined the opposition movement because he lost faith in the justice system.

Gov. Rick Perry has said previously that there are enough safeguards in the Texas justice system and has expressed opposition to a moratorium on the death penalty.

The group of exonerees from Texas' Death Row came together in the Texas State Capitol building Friday afternoon, October 31,2008 to call for a statewide moratorium on executions. More than 20 people who served time on death row before evidence of their innocence led to their release attended the event, which was being organized by Witness to Innocence, an advocacy organization spearheaded by exonerees.

The group argues that exonerations should be halted so state officials can study the broken death penalty system, which has exonerated nine people from death row since 1987, third only to Florida and Illinois in death-row exonerations.." (Witness to Innocence includes people who were exonerated through DNA testing, as well as many others whose convictions were overturned based on other evidence.)

A column by Bob Ray Sanders in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram considers the prospect of innocent people on death row, and agrees with Witness to Innocence:

"More and more leaders are recognizing that we do have a broken system in the Lone Star State.

"Last summer the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals announced the creation of a Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit to examine weaknesses in the criminal justice system. And, Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court is among those calling for a statewide innocence commission.

"It makes sense that while we recognize an imperfect system with weaknesses that must be examined and corrected, there ought not to be any more executions in Texas until those issues have been fully addressed."

The Fort Worth,Texas daily newspaper, The Star-Telegram is on record supporting a moratorium on executions.

Meanwhile, the Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit held hearings yesterday on problems with eyewitness identification procedures in the state. Richardson Police Chief Larry Zacharias and Iowa State Psychology Professor Gary Wells were among the speakers.

When sentencing a person to the ULTIMATE DEATH PENALTY SENTENCE, THE PROSECUTOR NEEDS TO ESTABLISH GUILT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.

And there are many things that could go wrong that would allow an INNOCENT PERSON to be sentenced to death:

Seven of the most common causes of wrongful convictions include:

* Eyewitness Misidentification- While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable.

* Unreliable or Limited Science - The arrival of DNA evidence in American courtrooms in the late 1980s and 1990s changed the criminal justice system forever. The widely accepted strength of DNA testing has led experts to call into question the reliability of other forms of forensics. Where these older forms of forensic science could indicate that someone might have committed a crime, DNA can show whether someone is actually guilty or innocent.If evidence and lab tests are mishandled and not presented fairly to a jury, scientific evidence can carry a false appearance of reliability and lead to wrongful conviction. A jury hears that science supports the prosecution's theory but it doesn't always hear that the science may be unreliable or inexact.

*False Confessions - A variety of factors can contribute to a false confession during a police interrogation. Many cases have included a combination of several of these causes. They include:

* duress
* coercion
* intoxication
* diminished capacity
* mental impairment
* ignorance of the law
* fear of violence
* the actual infliction of harm
* the threat of a harsh sentence
* Misunderstanding the situation


* Forensic Science Misconduct - Because forensic science results can mean the difference between life and death in many cases, fraud and other types of misconduct in the field are particularly troubling. False testimony, exaggerated statistics and laboratory fraud have led to wrongful conviction in several states.The identification, collection, testing, storage, handling and reporting of any piece of forensic evidence involves a number of people. Evidence can be deliberately or accidentally mishandled at any stage of this process.The risk of misconduct starts at the crime scene, where evidence can be planted, destroyed or mishandled

Since forensic evidence is offered by "experts," jurors routinely give it much more weight than other evidence. But when misconduct occurs, the weight is misplaced. In some instances, labs or their personnel have allied themselves with police and prosecutors, rather than prioritizing the search for truth. Other times, criminalists lacking the requisite knowledge have embellished findings and eluded detection because judges and juries lacked background in the relevant sciences, themselves.

In some cases, critical evidence has been consumed or destroyed, so that re-testing to uncover misconduct has proven impossible. Evidence in these cases can never be tested again, preventing the truth from being revealed.

*Government Misconduct - Most law enforcement officers and prosecutors are honest and trustworthy. But criminal justice is a human endeavor and the possibility for corruption exists. Even if one officer of every thousand is dishonest, wrongful convictions will continue to occur.DNA exonerations have exposed official misconduct at every level and stage of a criminal investigation.
This misconduct has included:

* deliberate suggestiveness in identification procedures
* the withholding of evidence from defense
* the deliberate mishandling, mistreatment or destruction of evidence
* the coercion of false confessions
* the use of unreliable government informants or snitches

* Informants / Snitches -In more than 15% of cases of wrongful conviction overturned by DNA testing, an informant or jailhouse snitch testified against the defendant. Often, statements from people with incentives to testify particularly incentives that are not disclosed to the jury are the central evidence in convicting an innocent person.
People have been wrongfully convicted in cases in which snitches:

* Have been paid to testify
* Have testified in exchange for their release from prison.
* Have testified in multiple distinct cases that they have evidence of guilt, through overhearing a confession or witnessing the crime.
DNA exonerations have shown that snitches lie on the stand. To many, this news isn't a surprise. Testifying falsely in exchange for an incentive either money or a sentence reduction is often the last resort for a desperate inmate. For someone who is not in prison already, but who wants to avoid being charged with a crime, providing snitch testimony may be the only option.

*Bad Lawyering

The resources of the justice system are often stacked against poor defendants. Matters only become worse when a person is represented by an ineffective, incompetent or overburdened defense lawyer. The failure of overworked lawyers to investigate, call witnesses or prepare for trial has led to the conviction of innocent people. When a defense lawyer doesn't do his or her job, the defendant suffers. Shrinking funding and access to resources for public defenders and court-appointed attorneys is only making the problem worse.
Asleep on the job

A review of convictions overturned by DNA testing reveals a trail of sleeping, drunk, incompetent and overburdened defense attorneys, at the trial level and on appeal. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Innocent defendants are convicted or plead guilty in this country with less than adequate defense representation. In the some of the worst cases, lawyers have:

* slept in the courtroom during trial
* been disbarred shortly after finishing a death penalty case
* failed to investigate alibis
* failed to call or consult experts on forensic issues
* failed to show up for hearings

ALL OF THESE THINGS COMBINED WOULD PUT A REASONABLE DOUBT IN MY MIND IF I WAS ON A JURY!

HOW MANY TRULY INNOCENT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EXECUTED ON DEATH ROW AS A RESULT OF THE CAPRICIOUSNESS OF THE PRESENT LEGAL SYSTEM?

THE DEATH PENALTY ONLY NEEDS TO BE APPLIED TO THE GUILTY! IT IS NOT A ONE-SIZE FITS ALL TICKET TO THE EXECUTION RAILWAY!

Angry Citizen
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.