Senator Rodney Ellis Introduces "Innocence Protection Package" for 2011 Legislative Session

Senator Rodney Ellis introduced an "Innocence Protection Package" for the upcoming Texas legislative session. One bill that he should add to the package is a bill to enact a moratorium on executions, since that is the best way in the short term to ensure that an innocent person is not executed. Texas Moratorium Network lobbied for a moratorium as early as the 2001 session. If the Legislature had enacted a moratorium in 2001 or 2003, then Todd Willingham would likely not have been executed before it was established that he had been wrongfully convicted using junk forensic science.




For Immediate Release
November 8, 2010
Contact: Tina Tran, 512-463-0113

Ellis Introduces "Innocence Protection Package" for 2011 Legislative Session

(Austin, TX)—Today Sen. Rodney Ellis introduced an ambitious package of criminal justice reform bills to prevent wrongful convictions. The Houston Senator's "Innocence Protection Package" incorporates many of the recommendations from the Tim Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions, a bi-partisan group with major criminal justice stakeholders that was established last session to investigate the causes of, and ways to prevent, wrongful convictions. The Innocence Protection Package includes legislation to: increase the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness identification procedures (SB 121); require electronic recording of custodial interrogations for serious felonies (SB 123); improve the state's post-conviction DNA testing statute (SB 122); and update the Fair Defense Act to improve criminal defense representation for indigent defendants (SB 170).

"I have high hopes that 2011 will finally be the year that the Texas Legislature says 'enough is enough' when it comes to putting innocent people in prison," said Sen. Ellis. "Ensuring that evidence is reliable, the innocent are freed and the truly guilty are punished are things that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives can agree on. Let's prove to the people of Texas and the world that restoring trust in the criminal justice system is one of the Lone Star State's top priorities."

In recent months, numerous Texans have been released from prison or jail after it was determined they were wrongfully convicted. On October 27, Anthony Graves was released from jail after being incarcerated for 18 years, twelve of them on death row. In July, two men from Harris County were freed after it was determined they were wrongly incarcerated. Michael Anthony Green was released after being locked up 27 years for a rape he didn't commit. New DNA tests proved his innocence. Allen Wayne Porter was set free after spending 19 years in prison for a rape and robbery in which he was not involved.

The Innocence Protection Package seeks to address the most common cause of wrongful convictions — mistaken eyewitness identification — by requiring all law enforcement agencies to have written eyewitness identification procedures designed to increase accuracy and reduce wrongful convictions. Over 85 percent of Texas' 43 DNA exonerations were due to a mistaken eyewitness, yet only 12 percent of law enforcement agencies in Texas have written eyewitness identification procedures.

Another cause of wrongful convictions is false confessions. The Tim Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions recommended that suspects in serious felonies like murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault should have their full interrogation recorded.

"My hope is that the recommendations of the Tim Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions, combined with these recent exonerations, will result in a renewed focus by the legislature and governor on ensuring accuracy, fairness, and due process in our criminal justice system," said Ellis.

Report from 2010 Lobby Day During Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

Texas House Speaker's Committee Room

By Hooman Hedayati

As part of the 2010 Anti-Death Penalty Lobby Day on March 18, I and several students participating in the Anti Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break visited several offices of Texas legislators at the capitol in Austin with information on Hank Skinner. We asked legislators to write clemency letters to Gov. Perry in support of Skinner, who was scheduled for execution the week after the Lobby Day. The students had been trained in how to lobby on March 17 in a workshop led by Alison Brock, chief of staff to State Rep. Sylvester Turner. James Tate, one of the spring break students, reported on the lobbying training on the Dallas Morning News blog.

The day after the training, we put into action what we learned from Alison by going door to door to visit the offices of our own state representatives and several other members of the Texas Legislature, including Lon Burnam, Ruth Jones McClendon, Harold Dutton, Elliott Naishtat, and Rodney Ellis.

We had initially intended to lobby for moratorium legislation for next year's legislative session. However, after meeting with Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, Hank Skinner's wife, who talked about her husband's case during the alternative spring break, we decided that we can be more effective by asking legislators to write clemency letters in support of DNA testing that could possibly exonerate Hank Skinner. 

The lobby day started with a press conference at the House Speaker's Committee room. The press conference was hosted by Colleen Farrell on behalf of all the students participating in the alternative spring break. Colleen, Amnesty International's Student Regional Coordinator, is a student at SUNY-Geneseo in New York, She came to Texas to attend the alternative spring break to learn more about the death penalty. With all the local Austin channels present, plus Univision and several other reporters, Colleen introduced the exonerated former death-row inmates one-by-one: Ron Keine, Juan Melendez, Shujaa Graham, Perry Cobb, Curtis McCarty and Derrick Jamison. Some of them had come within days and even hours of being executed. Some of them had come within days and even hours of being executed. The exonerees said they supported a moratorium on executions and called on Gov. Perry and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the upcoming execution of Hank Skinner to allow testing of the DNA evidence. Colleen then introduced Hank's wife, Sandrine, who also spoke.

Video: Fox 7 Austin


After the press conference, we went to one of the committee rooms in the Capitol Extension where each exoneree talked in detail about his case and how he had been convicted despite being innocent and how he later had been exonerated. Rep. Lon Burnam, a long time supporter of SADP and also an abolitionist, had sent an email to all the legislative offices in the capitol inviting them to come and hear the exonerees tell their stories.

The Texas legislature is not in session so a most legislators were not in Austin, but staff members of several legislators attended the event, alongside people from other organizations, such as the Texas Catholic Conference. Many tourists walked in the room curious about what was going on and left the room outraged at the injustices of our criminal justice system.

Afterward, the students divided into several groups with each group assigned to visit several legislative offices. Juan Melendez, who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death-row for a crime he did not commit, accompanied my group. First, we visited the office of Rep. Elliot Naishtat, who represents the University of Texas at Austin, where I and several other students went and still go to school. We met with Dorothy Browne, Chief of staff to Rep. Naishtat. She apologized to Juan for not being able to attend the panel discussion event earlier in the day. She had already heard about Hank Skinner in the news and promised to talk to Rep. Naishtat about writing a clemency letter. Before heading for the 5 PM rally and the march through the SXSW crowd on 6th street, we visited the offices of Rep. Harold Dutton, Senator Ellis and Rep McClendon, who represents a student in our group. According to reports in CNN and the Texas Tribune we know that at least two of the state legislators we visited wrote clemency letters to Rick Perry urging him to stop the execution of Hank Skinner today. Naishtat wrote in his letter regarding questions in Skinner's case, "post-conviction DNA testing of evidence could help resolve these questions. Governor, I believe we have time to answer questions in Mr. Skinner's case. We should take that opportunity to have moral certainty that justice is achieved in the case."

Read Rep Naishtat's letter.

Read the letter by Senator Ellis.

On March 24, minutes before Hank's scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and stayed his execution, giving us another reason to celebrate our success at the 2010 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break.

Next year, the alternative spring break will fall in the middle of the 2011 Texas legislative session, so we plan to spend the next year getting ready to visit the capitol again to lobby for a moratorium on executions.

Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break Students Get Legislators to Write Clemency Letters for Hank Skinner

CNN is reporting that Texas lawmakers have written letters to Rick Perry urging him to stop the execution of Hank Skinner today. Last Thursday, students participating in the Anti Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break visited several offices of Texas legislators in Austin with information on Hank Skinner and asked legislators to write clemency letters for Skinner to Perry. The students visited both Senator Ellis and Representative Naishtat, both of whom are mentioned in the CNN article as having written letters.

The students were trained in how to lobby last Wednesday in a workshop held by Alison Brock chief of staff to Rep. Sylvester Turner. James Tate, one of the students, reported on the lobbying training on the Dallas Morning News blog. The next day they put into action what they learned. They had intended to lobby for a moratorium on executions, but Thursday morning the plan was changed to lobby legislators to write clemency letters for Hank Skinner.

Thank you to the students for making a difference!

Read Rep Naishtat's letter.

Read letter by Senator Ellis.

If you have not yet called Rick Perry to urge him to stay the execution of Hank Skinner so that thee DNA evidence can be tested, call now!.

Rick Perry's Phone Number 512 463 2000.

(CNN) -- Texas state lawmakers are among those calling for a last-minute reprieve for a condemned inmate who is requesting DNA testing of evidence, even as he is set to die Wednesday night.

Henry "Hank" Skinner, 47, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) for the New Year's Eve 1993 murder of his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons, Elwin Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20, in Pampa, Texas.

"Since his arrest in the early morning hours of January 1, 1994, Mr. Skinner has always and consistently maintained that he did not commit the crimes for which he was convicted," defense attorney Robert Owen wrote this month in a 30-page letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, seeking a 30-day reprieve of Skinner's execution.

Skinner's attorneys maintain that DNA testing of the evidence could establish his innocence and determine the real killer.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on a stay of execution in the case Wednesday. If the high court denies Skinner's request to review the case, the decision falls to Perry, according to David Protess, a Northwestern University professor and director of the university's Medill Innocence Project, which has investigated Skinner's case.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended Perry reject a reprieve for Skinner on a unanimous vote and also voted against granting Skinner's request for a commutation of his death sentence.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis and state Rep. Elliott Naishtat both sent letters to Perry on Tuesday urging him to issue the reprieve.

"It has come to my attention that there are numerous problems with Mr. Skinner's case that raise serious questions regarding the fairness of his trial and whether or not he is guilty," Ellis wrote.

Perry has received more than 8,000 letters from Skinner's advocates urging a stay, according to the Innocence Project and Change.org, whose members and supporters have sent the letters through their Web sites.

Word about the case has spread as far as France, where demonstrations are planned Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Paris by supporters of Skinner's French wife, Sandrine Ageorges.
Since Skinner's conviction in 1995, he "has tirelessly pursued access to the untested physical evidence," according to court documents filed with the Supreme Court in February.

That evidence includes vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings from Twila Busby, hairs found in her hand and two knives found at the scene, along with a dishtowel and a windbreaker jacket, according to the filing.

Skinner has never denied being in the home when Busby and her sons were killed. However, he maintains he was incapacitated because of the "extreme quantities of alcohol and codeine" that he had consumed earlier that evening, according to the documents.

Prosecutors maintain forensic evidence gathered at the scene and witness statements point to Skinner. A female friend of Skinner's who lived four blocks away testified at Skinner's trial that he walked to her trailer and told her that he may have kicked Twila Busby to death, although evidence did not show she had been kicked. The neighbor has since recanted parts of her testimony.

Authorities followed a blood trail from the crime scene to the female friend's trailer and found Skinner in the closet, authorities said. He was "wearing heavily blood-stained jeans and socks and bearing a gash on the palm of his right hand," according to the Texas attorney general's summary of the case.

In addition, authorities said cuts on Skinner's hand came from the knife used to stab the men. Skinner claimed he cut it on glass. Some DNA testing was done, which implicated Skinner, but not on the items he now wants tested.

"DNA testing showed that blood on the shirt Skinner was wearing at the time of his arrest was Twila's blood, and blood on Skinner's jeans was a mixture of blood from Elwin and Twila," authorities said.
However, Owen wrote in the Supreme Court filing, "the victims' injuries show that whoever murdered them must have possessed considerable strength, balance and coordination." Twila Busby was manually strangled -- so forcefully that her larynx and the hyoid bone in her throat were broken. She then was struck with an axe or pick handle 14 times, hard enough to drive fragments of her "unusually thick skull" into her brain," the court documents said.

"While attacking Ms. Busby, the perpetrator had to contend with the presence of her six-foot-six-inch, 225-pound son, Elwin Caler, who blood spatter analysis showed was in the immediate vicinity of his mother as she was being beaten," the court filing said.

"Somehow, the murderer was able to change weapons and stab Caler several times before he could fend off the attack or flee." Randy Busby was then stabbed to death in the bedroom the two brothers shared, the documents said.

Evidence presented at trial suggested that Twila Busby's uncle, Robert Donnell -- who is now deceased -- could have been the killer. At a New Year's Eve party she attended for a short time on the last night of her life, Donnell stalked her, making crude sexual remarks, according to trial testimony. A friend who drove her home from the party testified she was "fidgety and worried" and that Donnell was no longer at the party when he returned.

"The defense presented evidence that Donnell was a hot-tempered ex-con who had sexually molested a girl, grabbed a pregnant woman by the throat and kept a knife in his car," according to Owen's letter to Perry.

An expert testified at trial Skinner would have been too intoxicated to commit the crimes, and a review of the evidence suggests that Skinner might have been even more intoxicated that initially thought, Owen writes.

Media outlets in Texas have been supportive of a reprieve for Skinner. "Before sending a man to die, we need to be absolutely sure of his guilt," the Houston Chronicle wrote in an editorial Friday.

Skinner's wife, Ageorges, told Radio France Internationale in a Tuesday interview that she began writing to Skinner in 1996 and they began visiting in 2000.

"They just need to do DNA and fingerprint comparison with that other suspect that was never investigated," she said in an audio clip of the interview posted on RFI's Web site. She does not name Donnell, but said the person died in a car accident in 1997.

Recently, questions have swirled in Texas regarding the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for a fire that killed his three daughters. And on March 19, Perry issued a posthumous pardon to the family of Timothy Cole, who was serving a 25-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when he died in prison from an asthma attack.

State needs innocence commission

That is the title of Dallas Morning News' recent editorial calling for creation of Texas Innocence Commission.

A poignant drama unfolded in the state Capitol last week that should have been witnessed by all Texans.

Nine men at a head table in the Senate chamber looked out at a sea of faces and shared stories of lost freedom. Unjustly convicted in Texas courts, each was locked away in prison until the truth of his innocence was established, most of them through DNA tests.

The first to speak, James Lee Woodard, lost 27 years after the travesty of a wrongful conviction in Dallas County. Brandon Moon spoke of his lost 17 years. And Charles Chatman, 27 years. James Curtis Giles, 10 years. Carlos Lavernia, 15 years. Alejandro Hernandez, 13 years. Billy James Smith, 19 years. James Waller, 10 years. Thomas McGowan Jr., 23 years.

Some told their stories with passion and resolve, others with sadness. The facts chill to the bone. They reveal how scant or sketchy evidence, faulty witness identification, faulty forensics and gamesmanship by prosecutors helped railroad innocent people – and let the guilty get away.

"It was a nightmare," said Mr. McGowan, erroneously picked out of a photo lineup by a rape victim in Richardson in 1985. "It could happen to your kids; it could happen to you."

Lawmakers in Texas must do something about that ghastly possibility. Eight lawmakers were in the audience Thursday to hear the testimonials of the exonerated men. Also attending were legal experts, judges, police brass and other law enforcement officials.

They gathered at the invitation of Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who has championed the forMation of a state innocence commission to dissect cases of exonerated people and recommend ways to improve the system. The concept is a sound one and has been adopted by at least five states.

It's needed badly in Texas, which has 33 DNA-established exonerations to date, more than any other state. Seventeen are from Dallas County, more than in any other U.S. county.

News flashes about Dallas cases obscure the fact that local exonerations would not be achieved were it not for the sound practice of storing biological evidence in all criminal cases. No other Texas county has done that; one can only imagine how many wrongly convicted people from the 253 other Texas counties have no shot at DNA exoneration. A special commission could recommend best practices for evidence storage, among a long list of other law enforcement procedures.

Credit goes to several local officials for attending Mr. Ellis' summit and pledging to work to improve justice. They include District Attorney Craig Watkins, Republican Sen. Bob Deuell, Democratic Rep. Terri Hodge, Democratic Rep. Paula Pierson, Dallas Assistant Police Chief Ron Waldrop and Richardson Police Chief Larry Zacharias. Two judges from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals – Barbara Hervey and Cheryl Johnson – offered ideas.

We hope the list of participants reflects momentum for the Ellis proposal after years of indifference and hostility in the Legislature. His legislation cleared the Senate last year but was snuffed out in a House committee.

Roadblocks must be eliminated in next year's lawmaking session, and Mr. Ellis deserves robust support from the Dallas-area delegation.

In fact, a Dallas Republican should step forward to sponsor the bill in the House. That would provide the political and geographic balance to help Mr. Ellis, a Democrat, secure passage.

No county has borne more shame than Dallas County for the outrage of miscarriage of justice. No county has a greater responsibility to change Texas law to prevent tragic mistakes in the future.

Potential legal reforms

A state innocence commission could recommend best practices in these areas:

•Eyewitness identification and testimony

•Photo lineups

•Suspect interrogation

•Preservation of biological evidence

•Forensic technology

•Defendant's access to case files

•The right to competent defense counsel

•Ethical and legal responsibilities of prosecutors

Summit on Wrongful Convictions

(Austin, TX; April 29, 2008) – State Senator Rodney Ellis today announced that a day-long Summit on Wrongful Convictions will be held May 8 at the State Capitol in Austin to determine the causes of wrongful convictions in Texas and identify reforms that can prevent them.

Today's release of James Lee Woodard in Dallas — based on DNA tests showing that he did not commit a murder 27 years ago for which he was wrongfully convicted — comes just one week after Thomas McGowan was freed based on DNA results showing he did not commit the Dallas County rape and burglary for which he spent 23 years in prison. Woodard is represented by the Innocence Project of Texas; McGowan is represented by the Innocence Project. Eighteen people have now been freed based on post-conviction DNA testing in Dallas, and more than 30 people in Texas have been fully exonerated based on DNA results.

As a result of the unprecedented number of exonerations in Texas, key leaders from across the state will gather in Austin on May 8 for a landmark Summit on Wrongful Convictions. Judges, lawmakers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, exonerees, professors and many others will come together for the Summit. The Summit will mark the first time any state's criminal justice leaders have initiated a high-level meeting themselves to address wrongful convictions. Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis is spearheading the Summit, and Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck will attend. The Summit will be open to the public.

"We've reached a tipping point on wrongful convictions in Texas. Nobody can seriously doubt that there's a problem, and next week leaders from across our criminal justice system will come together to start solving it," Senator Ellis said today. "We will bring a wide range of leaders, experts and exonerees together for a full day to develop concrete, common-sense remedies to make our system of justice more fair and accurate. We won't solve these serious problems in one day, but we will make historic strides toward restoring confidence in our criminal justice system."

The Summit on Wrongful Convictions will be held on the Senate Floor at the State Capitol from noon to 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 8. Additional details will be circulated early next week