Death Penalty Update

Another execution based upon voodoo science has, at least for the moment, been avoided in Texas. The Medical Examiner who testified against Cathy Henderson, the woman accused of murdering a baby she was babysitting for, has recanted his testimony that the injuries were inconsistent with a fall. Henderson has always maintained that the death was an accident.

Apparently “new evidence” has convinced the doctor that he might have been wrong about what he was certain enough about 12 years ago to be the crucial witness leading to Henderson’s conviction. Exactly how she was considered dangerous enough under the Texas aggregating factors to get the death penalty is still a mystery to me.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed her execution and remanded the case to the trial court for a more careful examination of the new scientific evidence. Amazing, there are signs of intelligent life in the Texas justice system.

Elsewhere, the Tennessee legislature has overwhelmingly approved a study of the death penalty in that state based upon a negative report from the American Bar Association and New Jersey is moving at a snail’s pace toward abolition. Motions have been introduced but there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency in the Garden State. Perhaps that’s because New Jersey has never executed anyone under the current statute and is in no danger of performing an execution anytime soon.

There have been 22 executions so far this year, 15 of which have been in Texas. This is about the same as last year. Also similar to last year, there are a lot of executions scheduled during the summer. There are 28 executions scheduled between now and the end of September, including 12 in Texas. That would put 2007 well ahead of the execution rates in 2005 and 2006.

So things aren’t really getting much better despite a new DPIC poll that shows that 58% of Americans feel that it’s time for a death penalty moratorium. Perhaps that’s because, according to the same poll, 40% feel they would be excluded from serving on a death penalty jury and an incredible 87% believe that an innocent person has been executed in recent years.

In the meantime, in the Fantasyland called Washington D.C., the Supreme Court, in a recent decision upholding the decision of a trial judge to exclude a juror that simply had doubts about the death penalty, appears to have widened the range of jurors that won’t be allowed to serve on capital cases which would further reduce the chance of broad spectrum juries and fair trials when folks are on trial for their life.

And I thought things couldn’t get any worse. Let that be a lesson to me, things can always get worse.