UT Law School Symposium Apr 9-10: The Direction of Legislative Change and the Prospects for Legislative Abolition of the Death Penalty

From the Courthouse to the Statehouse

Date:    Friday, April 9, 2010 & Saturday, April 10, 2010

Location:        Eidman Courtroom @ UT Law

Description:     From the Courthouse to the Statehouse: Politics Reshapes Capital Punishment

Audience:        Alumni, Faculty, Staff, Students, Prospective students, Public

Sponsor:         William Wayne Justice Center

The American Death Penalty in the 21st Century:

The Direction of Legislative Change and the Prospects for Legislative Abolition

EIDMAN COURTROOM

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SCHOOL OF LAW

April 9-10, 2010

Friday April 9th

10:15 — 10:30 Welcoming Remarks

        Dean Larry Sager, UT School of Law

        Jordan Steiker, Professor, UT School of Law

10:30 — 12:00: National Perspective on Recent Developments

        Shari Silberstein, Executive Director, Equal Justice USA

        Dick Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center

        Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

        Moderator: Maurie Levin, UT School of Law

12:00 — 1:30: Lunch

1:30 — 3:00: Abolition Achieved : The Experiences in New Mexico, New Jersey, & New York

        Shari Silberstein, Executive Director, Equal Justice USA

        Viki Elkey, Director, New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty

        Jonathan Gradess , Executive Director, New York State Defender's Association

        Moderator: Jordan Steiker, UT School of Law

3:15 — 4:30: Study and Reform of the Death Penalty: Maryland & California

        Dick Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center

        Amy Fusting — Program Director, Maryland Citizens Against State Executions

        Gerald Uelman, Dean, Santa Clara School of Law

        Moderator: Jim Marcus, UT School of Law

Saturday April 10th

8:30 — 9:45: Reintroduction, Expansion and Administration of the Death Penalty: Georgia, Virginia & Massachusetts

        Chris Adams, Law Office of Chris Adams, Atlanta, Georgia

        Beth Panilaitis, Executive Director, Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

        Renny Cushing, New Hampshire House of Representatives; Executive Director, Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights

        Moderator: Rob Owen, UT School of Law

9:45 — 11:00 Abolition Contested: The Experiences in Colorado, Kansas & New Hampshire

        Michael Radelet, Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder

        Donna Schneweis, State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator, Amnesty International

        Renny Cushing, New Hampshire House of Representatives; Executive Director, Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights

        Moderator: Jordan Steiker, UT School of Law

11:00 — 12:15: Reform to Redress Race Discrimination: The experience in North Carolina

        Rob Owen, Professor, UT School of Law

        Ken Rose, Senior Attorney, Center for Death Penalty Litigation

        Larry Womble, State Representative, North Carolina      

        Moderator:       Maurie Levin, UT School of Law

Follow New Jersey, repeal death penalty

Thats the title of an op-ed in Houston Chronicle by NCADP's Diann Rust-Tierney and TCADP's Rick Halperin.

What do law enforcement officers, prosecutors, crime victims' advocates and both Democratic and Republican state legislators have in common?

Recently, all of these groups came together in New Jersey to support legislation to repeal that state's death penalty. The legislation was signed into law last week by Gov. Jon Corzine, and New Jersey became the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since Iowa and West Virginia did so way back in 1965.

The fact that New Jersey acted as it did may surprise anyone not familiar with the growing national discussion over capital punishment. But for those who are familiar with this discussion, the surprise is not that New Jersey acted as it did — but rather why other states such as Texas have not taken similar steps toward repeal.

The overwhelming and bipartisan vote to repeal New Jersey's death penalty did not happen overnight — far from it. And it will not happen overnight in Texas.

In the end, it came after study, discussion and deliberation — and after hundreds and hundreds of hours of testimony from police, prosecutors, murder victims' family members and others.

In New Jersey, a special commission was appointed to thoroughly study the pros and cons of the death penalty — and to recommend what measures could be taken to fix the state's death penalty statutes. The commission was made up of victims' rights advocates, county prosecutors and other members of law enforcement, a retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice and many others.

The study found that there was no "fix" for the death penalty. It found that it is a deeply flawed public policy and, in the words of one state senator who in 1982 voted to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey, it is a "false and ineffective choice for taxpayers and residents who have lost loved ones. It has for too long been sustained by mythology and fiction, propped up by outdated rhetoric when courage and common sense would have served us better."

The commission further found that the death penalty squanders millions in tax dollars, does not serve a legitimate purpose such as crime deterrence, delays healing for the loved ones of murder victims and, despite many safeguards, carries no guarantee against what would be our worst nightmare — the execution of an innocent person.

New Jersey is hardly the first state to begin to rethink the nation's experiment with capital punishment. Illinois and Maryland have had moratoriums. California, North Carolina and Tennessee have had study commissions. All the while, death sentences are down sharply and executions have decreased since reaching a crescendo in the late 1990s.

In 2007, the state of Texas carried out 26 executions, accounting for 62 percent of the executions that took place in the United States this year. The executions in Texas occurred at a time when nearly a dozen other states had instituted a moratorium or were considering issues related to the administration of lethal injection. From Jan. 10 to April 23, Texas was the only executing state in the country. Texas now has executed a total of 405 people since 1982 (of 1,099 executions nationwide since1977).

According to data available from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Office of Court Administration, 15 men were sentenced to death in Texas in 2007 (as of Dec. 14). Over the past five years, the number of new death sentences in Texas has declined by approximately 50 percent, which mirrors national trends.

In Texas and across the nation, the death penalty is under increased scrutiny and the result is that the public is beginning to arrive at an inevitable conclusion: Capital punishment is a fundamentally flawed public policy that is collapsing under the weight of its many blunders, biases and bureaucracies.

Blunders? 125 people have been freed from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged.

Biases? Try as we might, we have yet to find a way to fairly decide who gets death and who doesn't and at the end of the day who is actually executed.

Bureaucracies? In New Jersey, $253 million has been spent on capital punishment, 60 people have been sentenced to death, 52 death sentences have been reversed and not one person has been executed.

Across the nation, many of the 3,300 people on death rows have sat there for decades.

In New Jersey, regardless of their initial views on capital punishment, a panel of experts and a bipartisan group of lawmakers determined that the system is beyond repair. When will Texas reach the same inevitable conclusion?

Rust-Tierney is the executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Halperin is the president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and a professor of Human Rights at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

A time for candor. A time for fairness.

Here is a great op-ed by Diann Rust-Tierney of National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, regarding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of federal prosecutors:

Two years ago, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced confirmation hearings, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stressed that the nation’s chief law enforcement officer “must demonstrate the highest commitment to fairness, due process and equal protection under the law.”

We based our opposition to Gonzales’ confirmation on our belief that his track record on death penalty cases in Texas failed to meet this challenge. Time and again the legal analysis he provided to then-Gov. George W. Bush on the eve of executions failed to include any discussion of the most salient issues, including severe mental retardation and mental illness, abysmally poor legal representation and, in more than a handful of cases, even credible claims of innocence.

With the recent revelations that differences regarding the death penalty played a role in the dismissal of at least three U.S. attorneys, our fears, sadly, have been justified.

Then, as now, Mr. Gonzales placed Bush’s political agenda above honesty, integrity , and commitment to fairness. In Texas this took the form of cursory review – and then denial in every single case but one – of clemency applications as President Bush parlayed his “tough-on-crime” persona into a successful run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Today, Mr. Gonzales’ failed priorities have contributed to a politicized federal death penalty system instead of one based on fairness and integrity. Consider:

• At least three U.S. attorneys – Paul Charlton of Arizona, Margaret Chiara of Michigan, and Kevin Ryan of California – were dismissed after clashing with the Justice Department over death penalty policy. Although the final decision has always rested with the U.S. Attorney General, a U.S. attorney’s recommendation that death should not be sought has traditionally been given great deference – until recently.

• During the six years that President Bush has been in office (a span of time marked by Mr. Gonzales and his predecessor, former Attorney General John Ashcroft) the federal death penalty was sought 95 times, or about 16 times a year. That’s twice as often as the 55 times it was sought during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, roughly seven times a year.

• Ominously, the Bush Department of Justice has sought the federal death penalty in states where voters, through their elected representatives, have rejected capital punishment. These jurisdictions include Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, and Vermont, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. (New York, a state without a functioning state death penalty, has a stunning 51 potential federal death penalty cases in the works.)

Perhaps the most telling statistic: The size of federal death row has tripled since Bush took office, while state death sentences and executions are down sharply from their historic highs in the late 1990s. Three federal death row inmates already have been executed under the Bush administration; another four federal death row inmates are nearing the end of their appeals.

What does it say that the federal death penalty under Gonzales is inconsistent with state trends, which show capital punishment is on the wane? It says, simply, that the Bush Administration has chosen to politicize the death penalty. That is wrong.

Both death penalty proponents and opponents agree on this: Fairness and integrity must be present at the highest levels of our criminal justice system, especially when a person’s life is in the balance. That is why, increasingly, groups such as murder victims’ family members, religious groups, and leaders in the law enforcement community are calling for fairness.

Mr. Gonzales promised fairness in 2005 when he faced confirmation hearings. He was not candid about his record on the death penalty then and he is not candid today. It is past time for General Gonzales to tender his resignation, for the President to nominate, and for the Senate to confirm an Attorney General who will “demonstrate the highest commitment to fairness, due process and equal protection under the law.”

Rust-Tierney is executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty