Press Release
NATIONAL COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY and
TEXAS
COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
David Elliot, NCADP Communications Director 202-387-3890, ext. 16
cell phone: 202-607-7036
delliot@ncadp.org
Rick Halperin, TCADP President
214-768-3284
rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu
AGAINST THE STRENGTHENING TIDE: TEXAS EXECUTION RATE SOARS DESPITE DECLINING NATIONAL TREND
May 7, 2002 -- Texas' execution rate is soaring during the month of May, despite a rapidly increasing nationwide focus on the problems with the death penalty and despite the fact that executions in other states are expected to drop for the third consecutive year.
"Texas legislators, judges and voters need to understand that the Lone Star State is not an island unto itself," said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The same problems that have turned up in Illinois, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania and elsewhere exist in Texas. The only difference is, other states are beginning to honestly address the issue. In Texas, officials are in a deadly state of denial."
So far this year, Texas has accounted for 10 of the 24 executions that have occurred. Nationwide, ten executions were scheduled for the month of May, seven of which were scheduled to take place in Texas. Beyond the month of May, nine executions have been scheduled nationwide, eight of which are in Texas. All told, by summer's end, Texas could well account for more than half of the executions taking place in the United States.
Hawkins noted that the execution rate in Texas is soaring despite a national critique of the current death penalty system:
- More than 100 people have now been released from death row due to actual innocence. The latest innocence cases came out of the states of Arizona and Pennsylvania. Other possible innocence cases are pending in a number of states.
- In Maryland, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has called for a moratorium on executions. Although 28 percent population of Maryland's population is black, blacks comprise 70 percent of the state's death-row population. In Texas, the ratio is even more disproportionate -- 11.5 percent of the state's population is black, yet blacks make up 42 percent of the death row population.
- In Illinois, the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment recently released a 207-page report containing 85 recommendations aimed at preventing the execution of innocents. Of the key recommendations included in the report, none are believed to have been implemented by the state of Texas. These recommendations include preventing death sentences from being levied based on the testimony of a single eyewitness; preventing death sentences from being levied based on the testimony of jailhouse informants; substantially improving the quality of defense counsel; and requiring videotaped interrogations.
Rick Halperin, president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Texas once again is inviting the scorn and ridicule of human rights observers from throughout the United States and around the world. "We have a Court of Criminal Appeals that does not even recognize the right of death row inmates to effective legal counsel during habeas appeals," Halperin said. "We have a parole board that does not take seriously its statutory responsibility to hold legitimate clemency hearings. We have a governor who is beginning to look like he might upstage his predecessor as the state's executioner-in-chief. We have a flawed and broken execution system in Texas, and even more tragically, there is no political will or moral leadership from either party in the state to stop and critically examine what is happening here."
