| Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project |
| Working to Obtain a Nationwide Moratorium on Executions |
Texas
| Texas Assessment Team | Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Texas |
Professor Sandra Guerra Thompson, Chair of the Texas Assessment
Team, is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Criminal Justice Institute
at the University of Houston Law Center. She specializes in criminal law
and procedure, prisoners' rights, sentencing, and evidence. Professor
Thompson has taught at the Houston Law Center since 1990 and was the Director
of the Mexican Legal Studies Program in 2000. Prior to joining the faculty
at the Houston Law Center, Professor Thompson served as an Assistant District
Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1988-1990.
She has published extensively including: Did the War on Drugs Die After
9/11?, 14 Federal Sentencing Reporter 147 (2002), Between a Rock
and a Hard Place: Invoking the Fifth Amendment in Civil Asset Forfeiture
Cases, 15 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 555 (1999), and Family Values? The
Family as an Innocent Victim of Civil Drug Asset Forfeiture, 81 Cornell
L. Rev. 343 (1996). Professor Thompson is an elected member to the Board
of Advisors for the American Law Institute's project entitled "Model
Penal Code: Sentencing" and a member of the Board of Directors of
the Hispanic Bar Association. She received her B.A. and J.D. from Yale
University.
Professor David R. Dow is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law, and serves as Director of the Innocence Project. He also has handled over fifty appeals, including over twenty-five death penalty appeals. He served as a clerk to Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. His published works include, but are not limited to: Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime (Routledge, 2002), Can Constitutional Error be Harmless?, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 878 (2002), and The Relevance of Legal Scholarship, 37 Hous. L. Rev. 329 (2000). Professor Dow received his B.A. from Rice University and both his M.A. and J.D. from Yale University.
Professor John Jay Doughlass is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches criminal, election, and military law. Prior to joining the University of Houston Law Center, Professor Douglass served for thirty years in the United States Army as a member of the Judge Advocate Generals Corps and completed his service as Commandant of the Judge Advocate Generals School at the University of Virginia. He also was Dean of the National College of District Attorneys for twenty years. Professor Douglass has published works on military law, international law, and prosecutorial ethics, including: Charging Crime in England and America, 26 J. Nat'l District Att'ys Assoc. 27 (1992) and Posttrial Public Statements, 5 Crim. Just. 46 (1991). He served seventeen years in the American Bar Association's House of Delegates and chaired the Standing Committee on Election Law. Professor Douglass received his B.A. from the University of Nebraska, M.A. from George Washington University, J.D. from the University of Michigan, and L.L.M from the University of Virginia.
Professor Catherine Greene Burnett is Vice President and Associate Dean of the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches criminal procedure, international criminal law, and death penalty law. Professor Burnett writes and lectures extensively on capital punishment. Some of her works include: Criminal Consequences of Commotio Cordis, 89 Am. J. Cardiology 210 (2002), In Pursuit of Independent, Qualified, and Effective Counsel: The Past and Future of Indigent Criminal Defense in Texas, 42 S. Tex. L. Rev. 595 (2001), and Ethical Dilemmas Confronting a Felony Trial Judge: To Remove or Not to Remove Deficient Counsel, 41 S. Tex. L. Rev. 1315 (2000). Professor Burnett received her B.A. and J.D from the University of Texas.
Councilwoman Ada Edwards is a Council Member of the City of Houston, Texas. Councilwoman Edwards was first elected in 2001 and chairs the State of Emergency HIV/AIDS Task Force and the Flooding and Draining Issues Committee. She currently hosts a weekly news and public affairs radio show and owns a production and distribution company that makes educational video and audiotapes on African culture, history, and economics. She is a pastor at the Pan Africa Orthodox Christian Church, the founder of the Ida Delaney/Byron Gillum Justice Committee, and the founder of the Houston chapter of "The Free South Africa Movement." Councilwoman Edwards is active in the Harris County Democratic Party and a popular lecturer.
Senator Rodney Ellis is a State Senator from District 13 of Texas, where he has represented the greater Houston area since 1990. He is the Chair of the Government Organization Committee and a member of the committees on Criminal Justice, State Affairs, and Infrastructure Development and Security. . He is the author of the James Byrd, Jr. Act, an anti-hate crimes bill, and is fighting to ban the execution of the mentally retarded. He is also co-founder of Apex Securities, Inc., an investment-banking firm. Senator Ellis received his B.A. from Texas Southern University and his M.P.A. and J.D. from the University of Texas.
Matthew F. Wymer has been an associate with Jones, Kurth, Andrews & Ortiz since 2002. His areas of practice include civil appeals and insurance defense. Previously, he was a clerk for the Federal District Court Magistrate in San Antonio, Texas and served as an Assistant Attorney General of the State of Texas in the Capital Litigation Section. He served in the United States Army before attending law school. Mr. Wymer received his B.A. from St. Edward's University and his J.D. from St. Mary's Law School.
Andrea Keilen joined the Texas Defender Service (TDS), a non-profit law firm that works on all levels of death penalty cases, as a staff attorney in 2001. Ms. Keilen litigation experience includes motions practice, jury trials, and post-conviction relief. Ms. Keilen is the 2003 recipient of a Soros Justice Fellowship for which she researched prosecutorial misconduct in the Texas criminal justice system. Prior to joining TDS, she worked for three and a half years for the Office of the Legal Defender handling serious felony and homicide cases. She also spent three years as a deputy public defender in Colorado and spent one year at a criminal defense firm. Ms. Keilen received her J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law.
Representative Pete P. Gallego is a State Representative for District 74, which is the largest district in Texas representing several communities on the Mexico-United States border. Rep. Gallego began serving in 1990 and is the Vice-Chair of the Government Reform Committee. He is the Chair of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus and serves on the Insurance Committee. Rep. Gallego is in private practice in the southwest Texas law office of Davis & Wilkerson, where he concentrates on medical malpractice and insurance defense. He is a member of the Board of Directors for both the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. He was the recipient of the Henry Toll Fellowship by the National Council of State Governments. In 2000, an elementary school in the Eagle Pass Independent School District was named after him. He received a B.A. from Sul Ross State University and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.
Judge Morris Overstreet is the Director of the Clinical Legal Studies Program and a Professor of Law at the Texas Southern University-Thurgood Marshall School of Law, where he teaches evidence and criminal procedure. Prior to joining the faculty at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Judge Overstreet served eight years on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He also served four years as a trial judge at the Potter County Court, six years as a private practice attorney, and five years as a prosecutor in the 47th Judicial District. He is a member of the National and American Bar Associations, the NAACP, and Phi Beta Sigma. Judge Overstreet serves as Auxiliary Chair to the Judicial Council Division of the American Medical Association. Judge Overstreet received his B.A. from Angelo State University and his J.D. from Texas Southern University-Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Texas
· National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Memorandum Regarding Alberto
Gonzales's Involvement in the Texas Clemency Process, Jan. 5, 2005.
(some of Gonzales's Memos have been attached )
· Should Texas Do More to Regulate Crime Labs?, House Research Organization, Dec. 20, 2004.
· Jordan Smith, No Mercy, Austin Chron., Aug. 20, 2004.
· Jordan Smith, Mitigating Circumstances, Austin Chron., Aug. 20, 2004.
· Jeff Bleich and Anne Voigts, Messin' with Texas?, 64 Or. St. B. Bull 9 (2004).
· Michael M. Gallagher, Abolishing the Texas Jury Shuffle, 35 St. Mary's L.J. 303 (2004).
· Holland Sergent, Can Death Row Inmates Just Say No?: The Forced Administration Of Drugs To Render Inmates Competent For Execution In The United States And Texas, 35 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1299 (2004).
· Deadly Speculation: Misleading Texas Capital Juries with False Predictions of Future Dangerousness, Texas Defender Service, April 2004.
· Lowering the Bar: Lawyers Keep Texas Appeals Judges on Retainer, Texans for Public Justice, May 2003.
· Alan Berlow, The Texas Clemency Memos, Atlantic Monthly, July/Aug. 2003.
· John Quigley, International Attention to the Death Penalty: Texas as a Lighting Rod, 8 Tx. J. Civ. Lib. & Civ. Rts. 175 (2003).
· Daryl E. Harris, By Any Means Necessary: Evaluating the Effectiveness
of Texas' DNA
Testing Law in the Adjudication of Free-Standing Claims of Actual Innocence,
6 Scholar 121 (2003).
· Texas Death Penalty Practices: Quality of Regional Standards and County Plans Governing Indigent Defense in Capital Cases (Report #2), Equal Justice Center and Texas Defender Service, Nov. 2003.
· Death and Texas, Tex. Law., Sept. 8, 2003.
· Julie B. Richardson-Stewart, One Full Bite at the Apple: Defining Competent Counsel in Texas Capital Post-Conviction Review, 9 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 221 (2003).
· Christians and Capital Punishment, Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Jan. 10, 2003.
· Texas Fair Defense Act Implementation: Quality of Initial County Plans Governing Indigent Defense in Adult Criminal Cases (Report #1), Equal Justice Center and Texas Appleseed, March 2002.
· Michael Hall, Death Isn't Fair, Tex. Monthly, Dec. 2002
· SB 7 Update: How Counties Provide Indigent Defense, House Research Organization, Oct. 16, 2002
· Criminal Justice: Capital Punishment, League of Women Voters of Texas Education Fund, 2002.
· Lethal Indifference, Texas Defender Service, 2002.
· Anthony Champagne and Kyle Cheek, The Cycle of Judicial Elections: Texas As A Case Study, 29 Fordham Urb. L.J. 907 (2002).
· Too Young to Vote, Old Enough to be Executed: Texas Set to Kill Another Child Offender, Amnesty International, 2001, available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGAMR511052001.
· Natasha L. Brooks, Texas, Step Up to the Plate and Compensate: Face to Face with Joyce Ann Brown, Wrongfully Convicted Never to Receive Compensation, 4 Scholar 45 (2001).
· Rebecca Copeland, Getting it Right from the Beginning: A Critical Examination of Current Criminal Defense in Texas and Proposal for a Statewide Public Defender System, 32 St. Mary's L. J. 493 (2001).
· Catherine Greene Burnett, Michael K. Moore, Allan K. Butcher, In Pursuit of Independent, Qualified, and Effective Counsel: The Past and Future of Indigent Criminal Defense in Texas, 42 S. Tex. L. Rev. 595 (2001).
· Steve Woods, A System Under Siege: Clemency and the Texas Death Penalty After the Execution of Gary Graham, 32 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1145 (2001).
· Houston Chronicle Series, Feb. 2001
Allan Turner, Bloodthirsty image at odds with local poll, Feb.
3, 2001
Steve Brewer, DA can afford to prosecute with a vengeance, Feb.
3, 2001
James Kimberly, Case that revived death penalty ended ironically,
Feb. 3, 2001
Mike Tolson, A Deadly Distinction, Feb. 5, 2001
Mike Tolson, Between life and death, Feb. 5, 2001
Mike Tolson, Capital punishment deeply rooted in the South, Feb.
5, 2001
Steve Brewer, Debate fervent in mental cases, Feb. 5, 2001
James Kimberly, Parole Board often deaf to claims of innocence,
Feb. 5, 2001
James Kimberly, One capital case tests the threshold of proof,
Feb. 6, 2001
James Kimberly, Once on death row, it might not matter, Feb. 6,
2001
Steve Brewer, Juvenile cases: Just 1in 4 county thinks death appropriate,
Feb. 6, 2001.
Steve Brewer and Mike Tolson, Court-appointed defense: Critics charge
the system is unfair, Feb. 6, 2001
Mike Tolson, Death penalty reforms sought, Feb. 7, 2001.
Houston Chronicle Poll
Death sentences not carried out (original source for series)
· Sara Rimer and Raymond Bonner, Texas Lawyer's Death Row Record a Concern, N.Y. Times, June 11, 2000.
· James Liebman, Jeffrey Fagan, Valerie West, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases State Report Card Arizona, 1975-1995, 2000.
· The Fair Defense Report: Analysis of Indigent Defense Practices in Texas, Texas Appleseed Fair Defense Project, Dec. 2000.
· Guy Goldberg and Gena Bunn, Balancing Fairness & Finality: A Comprehensive Review of the Texas Death Penalty, 5 Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 49 (2000).
· Charles M. Mallin, Death Penalty: Texas Law-Subsequent Writs and Abuse of the Writ Doctrine in Texas, 6 Tx. Wesleyan L. Rev. 151 (2000).
· The Death Penalty in Texas: Due Process and Equal Justice . . . or Rush to Execution?, The Texas Civil Rights Project, Sept. 2000.
· Muting Gideon's Trumpet: The Crisis in Indigent Criminal Defense in Texas, Committee on Legal Services to the Poor in Criminal Matters, Sept. 22, 2000.
· Stephen B. Bright, Elected Judges and the Death Penalty in Texas: Why Full Habeas Corpus Review by Independent Federal Judges is Indispensable to Protecting Constitutional Rights, 78 Tex. L. Rev. 1806 (2000).
· Deon Brock, Nigel Cohen, Jonathan Sorensen, Arbitrariness in the Imposition of Death Sentences in Texas: An Analysis of Four Countries by Offense Seriousness, Race of Victim, and Race of Offender, 28 Am. J. Crim. L. 43 (2000).
· A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty, Texas Defender Service, 2000.
· Allen L. Williamson, Clemency in Texas- A Question of Mercy?, 6 Tx. Wesleyan L. Rev. 131 (1999).
· Killing Without Mercy: Clemency Proceedings in Texas, Amnesty International, June 1999.
· Stephen B. Bright, Death in Texas, Champion, July 1999, available at www.schr.org/reports/docs/champion/index.htm.
· Erica C. Barnett, Death Row Dilemma, Austin Chron., 1998, available at http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol18/issue21/pols.clemency.html.
· Texas Death Row Biased, Morales Says, Corpus Christi Caller Times, Dec. 21, 1998.
· Amanda Dowlen, An Analysis of Texas Capital Sentencing Procedure: Is Texas Denying Its Capital Defendants Due Process By Keeping Jurors Uninformed of Parole Eligibility?, 29 Tx. Tech. L. Rev. 1111 (1998).
· The Death Penalty in Texas: Lethal Injustice, Amnesty International, 1998.
· An Overview of the Indigent Defense System in Cameron County, Texas, The Spangenberg, June 1996.
· Eric J. Fritsch and Craig Hemmens, An Assessment of Legislative Approaches to the Problem of Serious Juvenile Crime: A Case Study of Texas 1973-1995, 23 Am. J. Crim. L. 563 (1996).
· Beth Wilbourn, Waiver of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction: National Trends and the Inadequacy of the Texas Response, 23 Am. J. Crim. L. 633 (1996).
· Douglas A. Hager, Does the Texas Juvenile Waiver Statute Comport with the Requirements of Due Process?, 26 Tx. Tech. L. Rev. 813 (1995).
· James C. Harrington and Anne More Burnham, Texas' New Habeas Corpus Procedure for Death Row-Inmates: Kafkaesque-And Probably Unconstitutional, 27 St. Mary's L. J. 69 (1995).
· S. Adele Shank and John Quigley, Foreigners on Texas' Death Row and the Right of Access to a Consul, 26 St. Mary's L. J. 719 (1995).
· Stephen E. Silverman, There is Nothing Certain Like Death in Texas: State Executive Clemency Boards Turn a Deaf Ear to Death Row Inmates' Last Appeals, 37 Ariz. L. Rev. 375 (1995).
· Brent E. Newton, A Case Study in Systemic Unfairness: The Texas Death Penalty, 1973-1994, 1 Tex. F. C.L. & C.R. 1 (1994).
· Richard C. Dieter, The Future of the Death Penalty in the U.S.: A Texas-Sized Crisis, Death Penalty Information Center, May 1994.
· Jonathan R. Sorensen and James W. Marquart, Prosecutorial and Jury Decision-making in Post-Furman Texas Capital Cases, 18 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 743 (1990/1991).
· Marianne Lavelle, Fatal Defense: Close-Up: Texas, Strong Law Thwarts Lone Star Counsel, 12 Nat'l L. J. 34, June 11, 1990.
· Robert O. Dawson, The Third Justice System: The New Juvenile-Criminal System of Determinate Sentencing for the Youthful Violent Offender in Texas, 19 St. Mary's L. J. 943 (1988).
· Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Structural Discretion, Racial Bias, and the Death Penalty: The First Decade after Furman in Texas, 68 Soc. Sci. Q. 853 (1987).
· Dallas Rate of Conviction in Black Victim Crimes, Dallas Times Herald, Nov. 17, 1985, A17.
