Death Penalty presentation this Wed. @ Resistencia

En el corazon del South Austin

tenemos un love for liberation! c/s

Red Salmon Arts & Resistencia Bookstore Calendar May 2009

7pm Wednesday May 13, 2009

Red Salmon Arts presents The Death Penalty and the Modern Meaning of Southern Justice:

a platica/discussion with Melynda Price

Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law

Melynda Price teaches in the areas of torts, immigration, law and social science and law and popular culture. Her research focuses on citizenship, punishment and the role of law in the politics of race and ethnicity in the U.S. and its borders. In 2006, Price completed a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan. She was awarded the 2006 Best Dissertation Award by the Race, Ethnicity and Politics section of the American Political Science Association. She is currently completing a book, At the Cross: Race, Religion, and Citizenship in the Politics of the Death Penalty Among African Americans. Price also has a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law and an undergraduate degree from Prairie View A&M University. Her most recent publication is Litigating Salvation: Race, Religion, and Innocence in the Cases of Karla Faye Tucker and Gary Graham in the University of Southern California Review of Law & Social Justice. Price has a forthcoming publication on the death penalty and the pursuit of justice in the Rwandan genocide, Balancing Lives: Individual Accountability and the Death Penalty as Punishment for Genocide (Lessons from Rwanda) in the Emory International Law Journal. She serves on the Board of the Kentucky Equal Justice Center. She is a native of Houston, Texas.

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9pm Saturday May 23, 2009

*Conjure: Calling up the Spirit of Struggle, Resistance, & Liberation*

We invite you to a forum for progressive artist/activists:

A series of experiments in jazz music, dance, spoken word, & cinema

This session will feature:

spoken word peformance by Matt Richardson & body movement/dance by Annelize Machado

Rooted in the tradition of improvisation, revolution, and blues, Conjure is a sovereign site for artistic/exploratory/spiritual collaboration, expression, and rejuvenation. Each jam session will highlight the “Afrological improvised music” of the 3 Jazz Collective along with a featured spoken word performer, dancer, and filmmaker inspired by the jazz aesthetic.

Throughout the series, we will celebrate/recognize/honor through artistic revelation/expression the resistance and revolutionary creativity of warrior women and men from John Coltrane and Joe Henderson to George Jackson, Assata Shakur,

and local warriors such as Ana Sisnett and raúlrsalinas.

$5 dollar suggested donation

a salmonrojo production.

Sponsored by Thematic Initiatives and Community Engagement of the University of Texas at Austin (TICE)

3 Jazz collective: Joao Costa Vargas – bass

Phillipe Vieux – baritone, tenor, & soprano saxophones

Kevin Witt – drums

Bruce Saunders - guitar

www.myspace.com/3jazzcollective

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New & Recent Titles

Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations edited by Leanne Simpson {Arbeiter Ring Publishing}

Ismaelillo: The First bilingual edition of poetry by Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti {Wings Press}

What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, & the State of the Nation edited by the South End Press Collective {South End Press}

The Medicine of Memory: A Mexica Clan in California by Alejandro Murguia {UT Press}

Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political & Cultural Connections Between African Americans & Asian Americans edited by Fred Ho & Bill V. Mullen {Duke Unvi. Press}

Baby Coyote & the Old Woman/El coyotito y la viejita: a bilingual celebration of friendship & ecological wisdom by Carmen Tafolla {Wings Press}

Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World edited Bill Bigelow & Bob Peterson {A Rethinking Schools Publication}

When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story in the Movement for Prison Abolition by Jamie Bissonette {South End Press}

A Tuesday Like Today: a novel by Cecilia Urbina translated by Clare E. Sullivan {Wings Press}

Native Americans & the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances by Andrea Smith {Duke Univ. Press}

Brown Unlike Me: Poems from the Second Layer of Our Skin (chapbook) by Emmanuel Ortiz {Calaca Press & Red Salmon Press}

That's Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca's struggle for justice/No Es Justo! La Lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia written by Carmen Tafolla & Sharyll Teneyuca/illustrated by Terry Ybanez {Wings Press}

Big Noise Dispatches 01 thru 04: A look at war, crisis, survival & dignity {Big Noise Films/PM Press} DVD's

The Jena 6 by Big Noise Tactical Media narrated by Mumia Abu Jamal {Big Noise Films/PM Press} DVD

The War of 33: Letters from Beirut by Big Noise Tactical Media {Big Noise Films/PM Press} DVD

CHECK IT OUT!

COLLECTIVE MEMBER LILIA ROSAS SET UP A RED SALMON ARTS CYBER-SITE/TUMBLR AT:

salmonrojo.tumblr.com

Resistencia Bookstore, casa de Red Salmon Arts

1801-A South First St.,

Austin, Tejas 512-416-8885

Red Salmon Arts is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Midnight Friday Deadline to Help Texas Anti-Death Penalty Groups Win $3,000; Vote for Us Today!

The deadline to vote for Texas anti-death penalty groups in the Jenzabar Social Media Leadership Award contest for $3,000 is Friday, May 8, at midnight.

They will announce the finalists on May 11 and the winner on May 13. We are doing great, especially considering our entry is made up of all-volunteer groups that are able to accomplish a lot with very little funding.

Forward this to your friends and let's bring this money to Texas to use against the death penalty in the state where on June 2 the governor will be in office for the 200th execution since he became governor.

Several Texas anti-death penalty groups are jointly entered in the Jenzabar Social Media Leadership Award contest for $3,000. The winner is the entry that gets the most people to comment on their entry by May 8, so to "vote", you leave a comment on the blog post of their nomination. They deserve to win because they have used social media tools very effectively to jointly mobilize against the Texas death penalty.

Go here to vote by leaving a comment on the nomination page for our entry.

We just had another great success by getting a floor vote for Monday on the Law of Parties bill that we have been lobbying in favor this session. We held a lobby day on March 24, we met with legislators again last week, we testified in committee, we made many phone calls, we held a rally on May 2, and now the vote is this Monday. We could not have done it without social media.

The cooperating groups are Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, the Austin chapter of Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Kids Against the Death Penalty, Students Against the Death Penalty and the Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center. They have a cause on Facebook called Abolish the Death Penalty in Texas. Each organization brings unique skills and experiences to the cause.

This alliance is a great example of how small organizations can have a remarkable impact way out of proportion to their funding by using social media tools to work together.

These grassroots groups work against the death penalty in the state that has executed more people than any other state. Texas has executed 437 people since 1982. The second place state has executed 103.

A few weeks ago, members of the groups were at the Texas capitol from 9:30 to 1 AM meeting with legislators about HB 2267 to end the death penalty under the Law of Parties, talking to the media and testifying at the hearing on the Sharon Keller impeachment resolution. In 2007, Texas Moratorium Network used online social media tools to gather around 1,900 signatures on a judicial complaint against Keller. Here is a video of a news report on Austin TV Monday night.

While at the capitol, we updated supporters online by posting to the blog, using Twitter and uploading video to Facebook and YouTube, all good examples of using social media tools to affect change and build a movement, and a good reason our groups should win the Social Media Leadership Award. Vote for us at the link below.

Go to the page and scroll down to the comment form. There are four fields, name, email, website (you can leave that blank or put in your own personal website or a website you like), and a text field for a comment.

Our entry is called "Texas Friends and Allies Against the Death Penalty"

From the entry:

This alliance is a great example of how small organizations can have a remarkable impact way out of proportion to their funding by using social media tools to work together.

Texas is a challenging political environment in which to work against the death penalty, but these groups have found a way to make significant progress against the death penalty by working together both offline and online using social media tools for education, outreach and grassroots organizing.

If you think these groups have been doing a good job using online social activism tools, especially considering that they are all-volunteer organizations, please vote for us in The Jenzabar Foundation Social Media Leadership Award by leaving a comment on our entry.

Does Anti-Death Penalty Public Information Campaigns Work?

While reading Barkan & Cohn's 2005 paper On reducing white support for the death penalty: A pessimistic appraisal (Criminology & Public Policy, 4, 39-44), I noticed the following assessment of the effectiveness of the public information campaigns by the anti-death penalty groups to bring awareness about the racism in our death penalty system. The authors believe that a two-pronged approach strategy of fighting the death penalty in both streets and courts based on the civil rights movement is more effective than public education campaigns used by anti-death penalty groups. Interestingly this two-pronged approach is being used by groups such as the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which successfully organized that led to commutation of Kenneth Foster's death sentence in 2007.

This admittedly simple demonstration (simple because the change in
death penalty support may partially reflect other attitudinal differences
between prejudiced and nonprejudiced whites) brings us back to our
earlier points: (1) Racial prejudice is a strong and stable value; (2) white
support for the death penalty has a strong basis in racial prejudice; and (3)
white support is thus relatively intractable to intentional efforts by
informational campaigns to change it. As death penalty opponents, we
would like to believe, as Unnever and Cullen and other observers do, that
death penalty support can be reduced by public education campaigns
highlighting the inaccuracy and unfairness of its application, but we cannot
share their optimism. If white support during the 1990s dropped only 9.4%
despite the publicity over wrongful convictions in capital cases and a sharp
drop in the homicide rate and still remained at almost 70%, we do not
hold much hope that this opinion can be swayed through the public
education campaigns these observers advocate.

That leaves us to suggest an approach that is admittedly speculative.
This approach recalls the two-pronged strategy of the Southern civil rights
movement and some more recent movements, perhaps most notably the
environmental movement, in fighting the good cause in both the streets
and in the courts. The civil rights movement rehed on nonviolent protest
to propel segregation into the national consciousness and on litigation to
win important legal battles that perhaps were more winnable because of
attention and pressure from the protest (Branch, 1998; Scheingold, 1974).

An anti-death penalty movement that simultaneously used nonviolent
protest to bring the anti-democratic roots of death penalty support into
national consciousness and litigated against the death penalty's
constitutionality may likewise prove effective. If much white support for
the death penalty stems from racial prejudice and is thus anti-democratic,
then opinion polls exaggerate "legitimate" support for capital punishment.
Because it is inappropriate in a democracy for judicial and legislative
officials to allow racial prejudice to influence public policy, perhaps the
Supreme Court could be persuaded that "common standards of decency"
no longer justify the constitutionality of the death penalty. Although the
Court's current ideological composition makes this outcome unlikely, it
might still be open to a new line of argument that highlights the racially
prejudiced roots of white death penalty support, especially if attention was
given to these roots by a nonviolent protest movement.

Barkan, S. E., & Cohn, S. F. (2005). On reducing white support for the death penalty: A pessimistic appraisal. Criminology & Public Policy, 4, 39-44.

HB 2267 (Law of Parties bill) Voted out of Calendars for Vote on House Floor May 8

I just talked to Terri Hodge's office at 11:15 PM tonight and found out that HB 2267 (the Law of Parties bill) passed Calendars today and was placed on the General State Calendar for May 8, which means it could be voted on this Friday on the floor of the House. Hodge's office says there is a small chance they could vote on it tomorrow sometime, but more likely it will be Friday.

Number one priority is everyone call your state representative tomorrow and urge them to vote for HB 2267. Tell the office you call that HB 2267 is on the General State Calendar for May 8.

Go here to find out who your state representative is.


Scott Cobb

Colorado Senate Votes to Defeat the Abolition Bill

The Colorado Senate has voted 18-17 to defeat a measure that would have repealed the death penalty and use the savings from its elimination to fund cold case investigations.

Four Democrats sided with Republicans Wednesday to shoot down the measure. The bill had faced tough opposition since it was introduced. It passed in the House by a single vote last month.

Protest the 200th Execution Under Texas Governor Rick Perry

On June 2, 2009, the 200th execution under Texas Governor Rick Perry is scheduled to take place. Since he became governor of Texas in December 2000, Perry has allowed more executions to proceed than any other governor in U.S. history. The date of the 200th execution could change if any scheduled executions are successfully stopped.

The Texas anti-death penalty community asks people around the world to focus your attention on Texas and join us in protesting the 200th execution carried out under Rick Perry. Altogether, Texas has executed 437 people since 1982, including 152 under former Texas Governor George W. Bush.

How you can protest the 200th execution under Texas Governor Rick Perry

Visit http://www.protest200executions.com/.

1) On the day of the 200th execution, call Governor Perry at 512... and tell him your opinion on the death penalty. If you live in the U.S., you can use his the form on his website to email him. We suggest you both call him and email him. If you live outside the U.S., you can fax him at (512) 463-1849 or send him a letter in the postal mail. We would like to hand deliver letters to him, so please send your letter to the address below and we will deliver it to Rick Perry: You can send us your letter to Perry for us to deliver whether you live in the U.S. or another country.

Texas Moratorium Network

3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251

Austin, Texas 7831

2) Attend a protest in your city either on the day of the 200th execution or sometime before. If a protest is not scheduled, you can organize a protest. If you live outside the U.S., organize a protest at the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Send us a photo or video of your protest by email and we will post it on this website and on YouTube. Or you can upload your photos and videos yourself to our social networking site or directly to our group on YouTube. If your organization is planning a protest, please let us know so that we can list your protest on this site.

3) Sign the petition and add your name to the list of people who are raising their voices to protest the 200th execution under Texas Governor Rick Perry.

4) Donate a symbolic 200 cents towards helping us organize against the Texas death penalty. That is one penny for every execution under Rick Perry. We are asking everyone to donate $2, which is the equivalent of 200 pennies. You are welcome to donate more if you can afford it, but everyone can afford to donate $2.

The artwork above by German artist Jasmin Hilmer represents the isolation of Texas in the world community. While most of the rest of the world, including all of Europe, have turned their backs on the use of capital punishment, Texas continues to execute people at a shocking rate.

This campaign is sponsored by Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Campaign to End the Death Penalty - Austin, Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Abolish the Death Penalty Project on Amazee. If your organization would also like to be a sponsor, email us at admin@texasmoratorium.org or call us at 512-961-6389.

Sarah Hannah is organizing the protest in Huntsville. She will be announcing details later. If you would like to help her or let her know you will attend, you can contact her at 979-450-2179.

Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement is organizing the Houston protest. Contact them at Abolition.Movement@hotmail.com.

More protest annoucements coming soon.

Join our Social community at http://abolishtexasdeathpenalty.ning.com/

Op-Ed by State Rep Lon Burnam: Approve resolution calling for impeachment of Keller

Approve resolution calling for impeachment of Keller
By STATE REP. LON BURNAM
May 1, 2009

By far, the most profound of powers vested in Texas government is the prerogative to take a human life. The decision to execute an inmate demonstrates the state’s full and ultimate authority. Such a decision should be made judiciously and only in the context of all considerations. Such was not the case with the execution of Michael Richard.

Richard was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. on Sept. 27, 2007. The presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, Sharon Keller, was aware of the impending execution. Judge Keller also knew the United States Supreme Court had announced that very morning its intention to hear Baze v. Rees, in which the plaintiffs argued that the method of execution used in Kentucky was unconstitutional. Because Texas uses the same execution method, Richard had strong grounds for an emergency appeal.

Judge Keller and the rest of the Court of Criminal Appeals were informed by General Counsel Edward Marty to anticipate filings by Richard’s lawyers. Richard was represented by lawyers from the Texas Defender Service. Because of a computer breakdown, Richard’s lawyers called the court clerk’s office at 4:45 p.m. to ask that the office be kept open after 5 p.m. so they could file the appeal. Marty called Judge Keller at home for a decision on that issue. She refused. Although a judge assigned to Richard’s case and other members of the court were available at the court, Judge Keller never told them about the request by Richard’s lawyers. Michael Richard was executed at 8:20 p.m. that night.

The Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently granted stays of execution for other inmates based on grounds identical to those Richard’s lawyers sought to present.

In October 2007, I filed a complaint against Judge Keller with the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct. In December 2008, the commission completed investigating the judge, but withheld its report from the public. On Feb. 16, 2009, I filed House Resolution 480, which calls for Judge Keller’s impeachment and removal from office. Later that week, the commission released its report charging Judge Keller with violating the Texas Constitution and Code of Judicial Conduct.

Last week, a group of 24 national experts on judicial ethics issued a statement that Judge Keller has consistently demonstrated a lack of impartiality in cases involving criminal defendants like Richard that violates their constitutional right to due process of law.

Article XV of the Texas Constitution clearly establishes that the Legislature has the power and responsibility to impeach. Section 4 of that article states that an impeached official is also subject to “indictment, trial and punishment according to law.” The impeachment of Judge Keller would neither pre-empt nor interfere with the commission’s investigation, and the commission’s investigation neither pre-empts nor interferes with impeachment.

Impeachment is a serious process reserved for only the most extreme derelictions of the duties of public office. The Texas Legislature has investigated only four state judges since the state’s Constitution was adopted in 1875; Judge Keller is the fifth.

The taking of human life without due process is an extreme dereliction of duty. For the most trivial of reasons — a narrowly missed deadline — Judge Keller callously dismissed a clearly relevant appeal to spare a man’s life. That’s unacceptable.

Because death penalty cases exemplify the state at the zenith of its power, those who adjudicate these decisions must be held to the highest ethical standards. That’s what the impeachment of Judge Sharon Keller is about — ensuring that those who wield power over life and death have the integrity and sound judgment necessary to make such decisions.

We cannot allow a judge with a self-declared bias against capital defendants to continue deciding execution appeals. The best way to promptly get Judge Keller off the bench is through impeachment. That would avoid an additional 18-month deliberation by the commission during which Judge Keller would continue to make life-or-death decisions.

If the Texas House passes H.R. 480, the speaker would appoint a seven-member committee to investigate Sharon Keller. That committee would then report its findings to the House, and a simple majority would be needed to approve the articles of impeachment. Judge Keller would be immediately barred from serving on the bench until the issue is resolved by a trial in the Texas Senate.

I call on every Texan who values the rule of law to contact their state representatives and urge them to vote for H.R. 480, the resolution calling for the impeachment of Judge Sharon Keller.

Burnam, a Democrat, has represented Texas House District 90 in Fort Worth since 1997.

Judge Rules in Favor of Charles Dean Hood

District Court Judge Greg Brewer has ruled that death-row inmate Charles Dean Hood received an unfair trial due to the fact that the prosecutor of the case had a sexual relationship with the judge. Here is what CBS' Andrew Cohen had to say about the case.

The last time we checked in on law and justice in Collin County, Texas, Matthew Goeller had almost single-handedly stopped an execution less than two hours before it was scheduled to begin. The former assistant district attorney had sworn under oath in an affidavit that the trial judge in Charles Dean Hood’s capital murder case in 1990 had been having an illicit affair with the prosecutor in the case.

Goeller’s belated act of courage - he had known about the affair for decades before he went public with the information - has begun to force the state of Texas, grudgingly it seems, to do the right thing. Hood’s scheduled execution was postponed. An appellate court authorized an honest review of the unthinking conduct of former judge Verla Sue Holland and former prosecutor Thomas S. O’Connell, Jr. On Friday, a judge formally confirmed Goeller’s story.

Holland, the judge, and O’Connell, the prosecutor, “were involved in an intimate sexual relationship prior to Hood’s capital murder trial,” reads the Collin County District Court order. Neither disclosed that fact to Hood or to his attorneys before, during or after the trial. In fact, Collin County District Judge Greg Brewer found the lovers, both of whom were married to other people, “took deliberate measures to ensure that their affair would remain secret” even when specifically confronted by others, including defense representatives, about their relationship.

Holland and O’Connell, the court ruled Friday, “wrongfully withheld relevant information from defense counsel prior to and during the trial, the direct appeal, the state habeas proceedings, the federal habeas proceedings, and the successive state habeas proceedings.” This, Judge Brewer unsurprisingly found, amounted to a deprivation of Hood’s constitutional right to a fair trial. So he recommended to his bosses at the appeals-court level that they grant Hood a new trial, 19 years after his last one, to fix a problem that is plain for all to see.

The Court of Criminal Appeals now has the matter and its record in capital cases is not a particularly auspicious one. This is the court, remember, that directly and deliberately defied the United States Supreme Court in Miller-El v. Dretke, an infamous capital case involving racial discrimination in jury selection. The increasingly-frustrated justices kept sending the case back down to Texas with instructions to better protect the defendant’s rights. And the Criminal Court of Appeals, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, kept failing to take the hint.

Now that Judge Brewer has found facts that establish the affair, and the efforts of two sworn public servants to hide it, it’s hard to identify a legal theory upon which Texas or its appellate courts could rely in denying Hood a new trial. Is there a more direct conflict of interest, negating the duty of impartiality and integrity in the criminal justice system, than what Holland and O’Connell did? Would you want to be a defendant in those circumstances? Would you trust the judge’s rulings, or the prosecution’s conduct, or the interaction between the two knowing that your adversary and tribune had been shacking up?

It’s possible, I suppose, that the appellate court could reject Judge Brewer’s legal conclusion that Hood’s attorneys can push this matter further even though all of the relevant events took place 19 years ago. It’s even possible, I suppose, that the appellate court will reject the interpretation Judge Brewer gave to the facts before them. But such poor judgments surely would themselves generate an appeal, and another, and maybe even a Supreme Court review. And before you know it we’ll be five more years down the road without any finality or certainty for Hood or the families of his victims, Tracie Lynn Wallace and Ronald Williamson.

Texas might consider doing here what the Justice Department did in the Ted Stevens corruption case. Faced with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, the feds simply walked away from the conviction they obtained. Texas wouldn’t need to go nearly that far - no one (except for Hood) is suggesting that he ought to be freed or that he is necessarily an innocent man. All Texas would have to do, saving time and money, is agree now that Hood can and should be tried again before an impartial judge and an honest prosecutor. There appears to be ample evidence suggesting Hood’s culpability.

Texas then could use the money it saves fighting against a new trial for Hood on ensuring that its judicial officials understand what a conflict of interest is, and how it can be avoided, why it’s never okay for a judge and prosecutor to be romantically involved when they are working on the same cases together and why, worst of all, it’s never okay to hide such a material fact from opposing counsel. Hood’s judge and prosecutor lied, over and over again, to hide their affair. Any blame for the delay in bringing justice to Hood is their fault, not his, and Texas would be better off acknowledging that now.

JUDGE GREG BREWER's RULING in Favor of CHARLES DEAN HOOD

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law & Government Business & Law charles deen hood judge greg brewer

Colorado May End Death Penalty to Focus on Cold Cases

I don't know how many of you are following the death penalty abolition in Colorado, but this Washington Post article is worth a read. Like many of the state's considering abolition, CO is mainly talking about cost. The interesting thing about this one is that the bill would use the money saved after abolition to investigate cold cases. So, it's still bound up in the same tough on crime/victims' rights rhetoric of LWOP bills in other states, but with a different twist. -- Bryan J. McCann, ABD

DENVER -- Colorado is one of 10 states that have considered abolishing the death penalty this year to save money, but Colorado's proposal has a twist: It would use the savings to investigate about 1,400 unsolved slayings.

The measure has sparked fierce debate between prosecutors and some victims' families. Prosecutors want to keep capital punishment as an option for heinous crimes, and they say the bill has raised unrealistic hopes about solving cold cases.

Supporters of the bill say it's more important to find and prosecute killers still on the loose than to execute the ones already convicted.

"The death penalty is not relevant without a murderer brought to trial," said Laurie Wiedeman, the older sister of 17-year-old Gay Lynn Dixon, whose 1982 slaying remains unsolved. "I would like to see the person who killed my sister put to death. But to have that person free to run around and committing other crimes?"

Abolishing Colorado's death penalty would save an estimated $1 million a year that now is spent on prosecutors' time, public defenders' fees and appeals, according to a legislative analysis.

Supporters of the death penalty repeal measure want that money diverted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations cold case unit, which has just one staffer. The extra money could add eight people to the unit, the legislative analysis said.

Proponents, led by Evergreen-based Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, also say Colorado's death penalty is so rarely used that it's not a deterrent.

Colorado has executed only one person in the past 42 years, Gary Lee Davis, put to death in 1997 for his conviction in a 1986 slaying. Two men are currently on the state's death row.

The Colorado House narrowly passed the measure in late April, and the Senate is expected to vote before the session ends Wednesday.

Gov. Bill Ritter hasn't publicly said whether he would sign the bill if it passes. Before becoming governor, Ritter was Denver's district attorney and unsuccessfully sought capital punishment seven times. Before becoming district attorney in 1993, Ritter had expressed personal doubts about capital punishment.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and all but one of the state's district attorneys oppose the bill. Even if the savings were applied to a cold case unit, which Suthers and other said isn't guaranteed by the bill, many cases may remain unsolved.

"I think it's a sad situation," Suthers said. "You have hundreds of ... parents of murdered children, sitting there being led to believe that if they abolish the death penalty in Colorado their child's death will be solved.

"A million dollars doesn't buy you a lot of cold case investigation," he said.

He and other prosecutors say additional DNA testing, including a proposal pending in the Legislature to take samples at the time of a felony arrest, could do more than expanding the state's cold case unit to solve old cases.

New Mexico this year became the second state to abolish the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate capital punishment in 1976. New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007.

Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Texas considered abolishing the death penalty, but bills in those states have stalled, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

"It (budgetary concerns) was a prominent issue and an impetus for these bills getting hearings this year," Dieter said.

Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons documented 1,434 unsolved slayings in Colorado since 1970, and a CBI database for law enforcement closely matches those numbers

"We have 1,400 murderers walking around. We don't feel threatened by it, but we should," said Frank Birgfeld, whose 34-year-old daughter Paige Birgfeld disappeared from Grand Junction in July 2007 and is presumed dead.

But cold cases become harder to solve as time passes. In February, 65-year-old Tina Louise Lester was arrested in Ohio on a 1968 warrant in a Denver shooting death, but District Attorney Mitch Morrissey decided against filing charges because of the lack of witnesses who could counter Lester's self-defense claim.

"Two men in that bar, who are pivotal witnesses, would have been in their late 80s," Morrissey said.

That doesn't sway Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, whose 19-year-old son Guy Oliver was the victim of a still-unsolved 1975 slaying in Arizona.

"We know they won't all be solved," Morton said. "We think that some of them will be, and more importantly it sends a signal that for those who have gotten away with murder, we're coming after you."

Sharon Keller Questions

Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman has answered a few common questions regarding Judge Sharon Keller.

Why didn’t Keller send the request for more time to Judge Johnson?

After all, Johnson was the duty judge assigned to handle Richard’s case. It was her responsibility to review all late filings and poll the court’s nine judges about whether to grant or deny relief.

Keller, however, didn’t know which judge was assigned to Richard’s case, said her lawyer, Chip Babcock (photo). Keller believed she was being asked a matter of policy — Does the clerk’s office close at 5 p.m.? — that was unrelated to the specific case, Babcock said.

“She just thought she was being asked an administrative question. She certainly didn’t think she was having a discussion about whether or not (Richard’s lawyers) could file or not file,” Babcock said.

But Michol O’Connor — a former Texas appeals court judge who recently testified in favor of a House impeachment investigation of Keller — said Keller had a responsibility to refer Marty’s call to the duty judge.

“She should’ve said, ‘Why are you calling me? I’m not the assigned duty judge for this case,’” said O’Connor, author of several textbooks on practicing appellate law in Texas.

And what about Marty? He assigned the duty judges, so why did he call Keller instead of Johnson? And why did he fail to tell Johnson about the request to file an after-hours brief, even though he and Johnson spoke later that night? (Johnson was one of three judges working late in anticipation of just such a filing.) Marty, however, has refused to answer reporter questions about the Richard case, so we may have to wait until Keller’s trial in August to hear from him.

Why didn’t Richard’s lawyers call Johnson directly to file their brief?

Because they didn’t know Johnson was their judge. The name of the duty judge is always kept confidential. All Texas appeals courts follow the same procedure to discourage improper communication between judges and lawyers or the public.

In fact, several lawyers who have spent decades working on death penalty appeals say they didn’t even know there was a duty judge assigned to each case.

Next time:

Why didn’t Richard’s lawyers start calling every judge on the court and ask them to accept the late briefs? Appellate rules allow for such a practice.

Video of Execution Vigil in Austin for 198th Execution Under Rick Perry

Derrick Johnson was executed April 30, 2009 in Texas. He was the 198th person executed under current Texas Governor Rick Perry. He was the 437th person executed in Texas since 1982. The 200th execution under Perry is currently scheduled for June 2.



Watch video on YouTube of Vigil.

From the Austin American-Statesman

The execution of a convicted Dallas killer proceeded as scheduled Thursday despite reports that a new test showed Derrick Lamone Johnson may have been mentally disabled.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of anyone with mental disabilities.

Controversy surfaced after a group of lawmakers, angered that the state Board of Pardons and Paroles initially confirmed Johnson's execution without reviewing the medical test information, asked Gov. Rick Perry to delay the execution.

Perry declined, and Johnson was executed as scheduled shortly after 6 p.m. — soon after the U.S. Supreme Court refused Johnson's last-minute appeals.

At 6:23 p.m., he was declared dead in the death chamber at Huntsville. Johnson, 28, a 10th-grade dropout, was convicted in the 1999 slaying of LaTausha Curry, who was kidnapped, beaten, suffocated and robbed of $10.

Lawmakers vowed to continue asking questions about how the case was handled. They also said they might try to amend one of several pending clemency bills to prevent such issues in the future.

"There is no reason why the State of Texas should rush to execute this man before it can be confirmed whether or not he is mentally retarded," said Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston.

Turner and Reps. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, and Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, petitioned the parole board late Wednesday for a second vote based on the new medical exam results just received in the case. Thompson and Hodge said the board voted before lunch Wednesday to deny a reprieve, even though they had been advised that Johnson's new attorney, who joined the case in early April, was rushing to submit new test results about Johnson's mental capacity.

Statesman: Compensation for unjust convictions in Texas

The following is the Austin American-Statesman's editorial in support of the Timothy Cole Act, which passed the House last week and is waiting for the Senate's vote.

Compensation for unjust convictions in Texas
Timothy Cole Act would honor signature victim of wrongful conviction who died
in prison.

It's rightly being named the Timothy Cole Act. And if it's passed by the
Legislature, which it should be, it will be the influence of Cole — who died a
decade ago while in prison — that gave it the momentum to become law.

Under the measure, compensation for people who were wrongfully imprisoned
would increase to a lump sum payment of $80,000 per year of incarceration, up
from the current $50,000. It would direct payments to the next of kin in cases
in which those who were wrongfully jailed die before they were exonerated.

This is a good bill that the House passed last week. Now it's up to the Texas
Senate to follow suit, and the chances look good, according to Senate
sponsors, Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. The bill
could come up for a vote this week.

The legislation is likely to require a constitutional amendment to pardon the
deceased Cole, who spent about 14 years in prison for a crime he did not
commit. The Cole case drew national attention earlier this year, being called
Texas' first posthumous DNA exoneration.

While a student at Texas Tech University in 1985, Cole was convicted of raping
fellow student Michele Mallin. Police zeroed in on Cole, though he did not fit
the profile of the person who had raped several women in the Lubbock area.
Mallin had identified him as her attacker in a rigged lineup, underscoring
problems with eyewitness identification procedures. But this year she joined
Cole's family in seeking post-mortem exoneration for him after DNA evidence
cleared Cole and fingered another person, who ultimately confessed to the
crime. Tragically, it was too late for Cole, who died of asthma behind bars
while serving a 25-year sentence.

The legislation in his name would provide financial compensation to Cole's
mother, Ruby Session, who never gave up pursuing her son's innocence. In
addition to lump sum payments, the bill offers monthly annuity payments for
life, health insurance and 120 hours of tuition courses at a community college
or state university.

If that sounds expensive, consider that it could actually save the state money
by preventing lawsuits and avoiding large settlements and legal fees. Those
who are awarded benefits would forfeit their rights to sue the state. And the
legislation would not reward people who were exonerated but went on to commit
other crimes. They would not qualify for benefits.

The best reason to pass the legislation is because it is the right thing to
do. No one can give back the time or erase the miseries endured in prison. And
Texas leads the nation in the number of people, 38, who have been exonerated
by DNA testing. Perhaps attaching a cost to wrongful convictions will help
improve the legal system.

In any case, Texas owes compensation in the way of money and benefits to those
whose lives were unjustly disrupted and destroyed by guilty verdicts and
prison. That is the least we can do.

Daily Texan: Support Keller impeachment

Support Keller impeachment

Sharon Keller denied Michael Richard’s constitutional rights when she closed her courtroom at 5 p.m. and refused to accept his last-minute appeal (“Representative initiates efforts for impeachment of Sharon Keller,” April 28). Justice is not a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. issue, and everyone deserves a fair hearing in the court of law, even those who we deem to be the worst of our society. HR 480 is the only way to get Keller off the bench promptly, rather than the long process through the Commission on Judicial Ethics.

I invite everyone to visit www.sharonkiller.com and contact members of the House Committee on Judicial and Civil Jurisprudence in support of Rep. Lon Burnam’s impeachment resolution. By removing Sharon “Killer” Keller from the bench, we can set the example for others that no one is above the law, even the presiding judge of Texas’ highest criminal court.

Hooman Hedayati
Government and Middle Eastern studies senior
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Report Fom Our Second Lobby Day Against the Death Penalty This Year

Yesterday, we were at the Texas capitol from 9:30 to 1 AM meeting with legislators about HB 2267 to end the death penalty under the Law of Parties, talking to the media and testifying at the hearing on the Sharon Keller impeachment resolution.

We spoke with members of the Calendars Committee about the Law of Parties and were encouraged by what we heard from a couple of offices. We also ran into Terri Hodge in the hall and exchanged a few hugs and thank yous.

While we were there, we updated our friends and supporters online around the world by posting to our blog, using Twitter and uploading videos while we were still at the capitol to Facebook and YouTube, all good examples of using social media tools to affect change and build a movement, and a good reason we should win the Social Media Leadership Award. Vote for us at the link below.

Several Texas anti-death penalty groups are jointly entered in the Jenzabar Social Media Leadership Award contest for $3,000. The winner is the entry that gets the most people to comment on their entry by April 30. To "vote", you leave a comment on the blog post at the link below.

http://thejenzabarfoundationblog.com/2009/04/24/texas-friends-and-allies-against-the-death-penalty

Our entry is called "Texas Friends and Allies Against the Death Penalty"

To vote for us to receive this award and the $3,000 prize, you just have to leave a comment on our nomination entry here:

http://thejenzabarfoundationblog.com/2009/04/24/texas-friends-and-allies-against-the-death-penalty

On that page scroll to the bottom, where you see "Leave a Comment", then enter your name, your email address, a website (you can skip that one if you don't have a website or you can enter any website you like), then enter your comment in the large box. Hit submit and that's all. The entry with the most comments wins.

Our group at the capitol yesterday included Scott Cobb (whose birthday was yesterday), Gloria Rubac, Crystal Wilson, Terri Been (sister of Jeff Wood), Lawrence Foster (grandfather of Kenneth Foster,jr) and Kenneth Foster Sr (father of Kenneth). We were joined later at the hearing by Hooman Hedayati, who gave some great testimony to the committee on Sharon Keller.

Here is a video of a news report on Austin TV that includes a statement by Terri Been and shots of us in the press conference by Lon Burnam.



Other videos we took during the day are on YouTube, including this video of the press conference.



We took this video of Lon Burnam around 12:30 AM last night. His message to our friends and supporters is "Call your state representative" and urge them to support the impeachment proceedings against Keller. We got the impeachment ball rolling last Fall when we approached Lon with the idea of impeaching Keller.

The Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence took testimony on April 27, 2009 on Lon Burnam's resolution to impeach Sharon Keller.

Watch video of Hooman Hedayati testifying.