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StandDown Texas Project

Texas-centric examination of conditions, reform initiatives, and emerging issues related to best practices in the indigent criminal justice system with particular attention to issues involving capital punishment and the administration of the death penalty.
By StandDown Texas Project

Post Frequency: 49.3/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:21:29

Summit on Wrongful Convictions

Posted on May 08, 2008
Senator Rodney Ellis convenes a Summit on Wrongful Convictions at 1:00 p.m. (CDT) today in the Texas Senate Chamber. The Summit will be webcast by Senate Media Services, here. Here's more from Senator Ellis' announcement: As a result of the...

Roy Mersky - UPDATED

Posted on May 08, 2008
UT Law has lost one of it brightest stars. Roy Mersky died Tuesday. He held the titles of Harry Reasoner Regents Chair in Law and Director of Research. Roy was well known nationally, for among many other things, his classic...

An Evangelical Voice on Baze

Posted on May 07, 2008
Scott Kincaid writes, "Deadly 'Cocktail' Is Beside the Point," at Evangelicals for Social Action. But legal and public opinion, even Christian opinion, is not the sole or primary source for discerning which public policy choices disciples of Jesus should support...

Fearing Too Much Justice

Posted on May 07, 2008
That's the title of must-read commentary by Berkeley Law prof Elisabeth Semel for the National Law Journal. LINK Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has approved Kentucky's administration of lethal injection in Baze v. Rees, prosecutors, especially in the Death...

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A Death Sentence Voided

Posted on May 07, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times, with the subhead, "The Adam Miranda case shows that the California death penalty costs too much in time, money and justice." If a respected entertainment lawyer had not decided...

Virginia's Fight for Lethal Injection

Posted on May 07, 2008
I want to highlight Lyle Denniston's SCOTUS Blog report, "Virginia: lethal drug method valid," which he posted Monday evening. Here's his lede: The state of Virginia, arguing that its lethal injection protocol for executions is ?virtually identical? to a method...

Ohio Lethal Injection Hearing Concludes

Posted on May 07, 2008
The Elyria Chronicle-Telegram reports, "Burge's death penalty hearing wraps up." It's written by Brad Dicken. Earlier this year, ACLU attorney Jeff Gamso said he hadn?t gone looking for ?nice ways to kill people,? but he may have found one that?s...

The Death Penalty Returns

Posted on May 07, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's New York Times. LINK Roughly 15 death row prisoners are scheduled to be put to death between now and October, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. This flood of executions is...

As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness

Posted on May 06, 2008
That's the title of an article in Wednesday's New York Times reported by Shaila Dewan from North Carolina. LINK The release of the third death row inmate in six months in North Carolina last week is raising fresh questions about...

Execution in Georgia

Posted on May 06, 2008
Georgia carried out the first execution of 2008, this evening. It marks the first execution in America since September 25, 2007 when the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of lethal injection executions through the Kentucky case, Baze v...

Another Outstanding Review of 'At the Death House Door'

Posted on May 06, 2008
Cathleen Falsani writes, "The Most Spiritually Film You'll See This Year," about the IFC-produced documentary, At the Death House Door. Thanks to the always observant Scott Taylor for forwarding this. Some conversions take a lifetime. For the Rev. Carroll "Bud"...

An Update on Paul House

Posted on May 06, 2008
The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court's order to free Tennessee death row inmate Paul House. AP reports, "Appeals Court Upholds Death Row Inmate Release," via WSMV-TV. A federal appeals court Monday upheld an order...

More on Medellin Execution Date Setting

Posted on May 06, 2008
As noted in this post yesterday, a state district judge in Houston has set an execution date for Jose Medellin, the Mexican citizen on Texas death row whose case has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court twice. In today's Houston...

Commentary on Georgia's Lethal Injection Case

Posted on May 06, 2008
Jurist carries commentary from Clifford Chance attorney Michael Siem, who represents death row inmate Jack Alderman, "Georgia lethal injection procedures still flawed despite post-Baze ruling." Here's an excerpt: Specifically, Georgia's Procedures are flawed even after Baze because they do not...

Lethal Injection Round-Up

Posted on May 06, 2008
I'll be putting the Medellin case in the next post because of different tags, but here is a round-up of other lethal injection news from Georgia, Ohio, South Dakota, and Mississippi. First, from Georgia, AP reports, "Ga. execution would be...

The Rodney Reed Case

Posted on May 06, 2008
Emily Ramshaw revisits the Rodney Reed case in today's Dallas Morning News, "Central Texas man on death row maintains innocence as many believe his trial was unfair." Jurors sentenced Rodney Reed to death after DNA evidence showed he'd had sex...

Missouri Study on Geographic Disparity and Race

Posted on May 05, 2008
The study, "Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri," at SSRN, is now available in Adobe.pdf format at this LINK, thanks to Prof. Sloss. Earlier coverage of the Missouri death penalty study is in this post.

Lethal Injection Round-Up

Posted on May 05, 2008
Let's start with syndicated columnist Nat Hentoff's latest, Death-penalty folly," via the Washington Times. That the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court continues by contrast with most civilized nations to justify the death penalty brings me inexorably to Justice Harry Blackmun's dissenting...

United Methodist Church Calls for Texas Death Penalty Abolition

Posted on May 05, 2008
The United Methodist Church's General Conference was held in Fort Worth last week. Vickie McCuistion of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty reports on a resolution adopted by the Conference. TCADP has this, which is also available at...

Fiscal Pressures Lead Some States to Free Inmates Early

Posted on May 05, 2008
That's the title of a front page article in today's Washington Post reported by Keith Richburg and Ashley Surdin. LINK Reversing decades of tough-on-crime policies, including mandatory minimum prison sentences for some drug offenders, many cash-strapped states are embracing a...

60 Minutes on Dallas County Exonerations

Posted on May 05, 2008
Last night, the CBS News program 60 Minutes reported on James Lee Woodard's exoneration last week. His is the 17th post-conviction DNA exoneration in the county -- more than any other county in America. Video is here for the report,...

'To Ensure Humane Capital Punishment'

Posted on May 04, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. LINK Even though the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection, the 7-2 ruling wasn't an endorsement of that method of capital punishment -- or of the...

The Latest from Craig Watkins

Posted on May 04, 2008
Jennifer Emily and Steve McGonigle report, "Dallas County district attorney wants unethical prosecutors punished. The Dallas County district attorney who has built a national reputation on freeing the wrongfully convicted says prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence should themselves face harsh...

Body of Evidence

Posted on May 04, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Houston Chronicle. It's subtitled, "Defendant's race appears to sway Harris County death sentencing." One point forty-nine times. That's the increased likelihood of getting a death sentence in Harris County if you are...

Liptak on Attorney-Client Privilege

Posted on May 04, 2008
In today's New York Times, Adam Liptak writes, "When Law Prevents Righting a Wrong." The attorney-client privilege has been involved in two recent high visibility cases. STAPLES HUGHES, a North Carolina lawyer, was on the witness stand and about to...

After Hiatus, States Set Wave of Executions

Posted on May 04, 2008
That's the title of Ralph Blumenthal's report in the Saturday New York Times. It's datelined from Huntsville, Texas, home of TDCJ's Walls Unit and the state's execution chamber. LINK Here in the nation?s leading death-penalty state, and some of the...

Continuing Coverage of Dallas Exonerations

Posted on May 02, 2008
Thursday's Dallas Morning News carried the editorial, "Even non-DNA cases merit scrutiny." James Lee Woodard walked out of a Dallas County courthouse this week as the second local man to be cleared of a murder thanks to DNA evidence. Miscarriages...

America's Death Penalty - The View From Abroad

Posted on May 02, 2008
Oxford Analytica has, "Death of capital punishment?" The United States and Japan are the only industrialised democracies where the death penalty is still enforced. Governments in Poland and Peru have floated the idea of reintroducing the death penalty for certain...

Lethal Injection Round-Up

Posted on May 02, 2008
Arkansas is set to modify its lethal injection procedure. Noel Oman reports, "Arkansas to proceed with executions," in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. The state will resume executing death-row inmates by lethal injection after making protocol changes to better conform with...

North Carolina's Eighth Exoneration from Death Row

Posted on May 02, 2008
Mandy Locke reports, "Man whose murder conviction was overturned going free," in the Raleigh News & Observer. Levon ?Bo? Jones of Duplin County spent 13 years on death row, convicted of robbing and shooting a well-liked bootlegger. In 2006, a...

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