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Embarrassing: Lege ensures more false convictions with 81st session failures

After all the fawning over Timothy Cole's family and public declarations throughout the 81st Texas Legislature that the state would act to prevent false convictions, all the major innocence-related policy reforms proposed this year died in the session's waning hours with the exception of one bill requiring corroboration for jailhouse informants.Two other pieces of legislation for a brief moment had passed both chambers on Friday as amendments to HB 498, but after a 110-28 record vote approved the measure, Rep. Carl Isett moved to reconsider the bill and it was sent to a conference committee, where the amendments were stripped off for germaneness.Sen. Rodney Ellis earlier in the day had requested the House appoint a conference committee and approve a resolution to "go outside the bounds" to consider eyewitness ID, but that resolution never came and instead the bill was denuded of all policy substance to become a bill to study whether to study the causes of false convictions...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 01, 2009 (boomark / email).