Texas Moratorium Network PAC » travis DA race

Political change is in the air

admin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:16:17 +0000

Political change is in the air.All indicators point to a record number of voters turning out when the Texas primaries are held next month.Texas Democrats are especially energized at the historic prospect of helping determine whether we will elect our first female President or our first African American President.

It’s an exciting time in America — a keepsake snapshot in history that has been framed by the messages of change and hope.

On March 4, Travis County Democrats have another opportunity for change … and another reason to hope:

Travis County Democrats will either support a “coronation” that cements the status quo into the chair of our county’s top prosecutor … or they will elect Rick Reed as Travis County’s next District Attorney.
Travis County Democrats will either choose cozy political relationships and compromised objectivity in the Public Integrity Office … or they will elect Rick Reed as Travis County’s next District Attorney.
Travis County Democrats will either opt to continue the barbaric practice of the death penalty … or they will elect Rick Reed as Travis County’s next District Attorney.

In the District Attorney’s race, only one candidate has the courage, judgment, experience and integrity needed for the job. Only one candidate has pledged to end death penalty prosecutions in Travis County.That candidate is Rick Reed.

Let’s change the way we do justice. Elect Rick Reed as Travis County’s next District Attorney.

Please take these steps to support Rick Reed’s campaign:

Lend Rick your good name and endorse him.
Make an online campaign contribution.
Vote for Rick in the March 4 Democratic primary.

See early and mobile voting locations in Travis County

Media Coverage of Travis County DA Candidates Forum

admin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:25:56 +0000

The room was packed for last night’s forum with the candidates for Travis County District Attorney, co-hosted by Texas Moratorium Network and the ACLU-TX Central Texas chapter.

Below is the media coverage, which largely focused on the candidates responses to the death penalty question. Three of the candidates gave pro death penalty answers, but one, Rick Reed, said he would not authorize the DA’s office to seek the death penalty if he is elected and would not ask for execution dates to be set for anyone from Travis County already on death row.

KUT has an audio report by Ben Philpott.

The Austin-American Statesman’s article, “4 Travis candidates lay out their views on death penalty” says in part:

Three of the four candidates for Travis County district attorney told a packed room of potential voters in East Austin on Monday that, if elected, they would continue to seek the death penalty for the worst killers.

Outgoing District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s assistants Gary Cobb and Rosemary Lehmberg, who are hoping to replace him, said that some people’s crimes are so heinous that the public’s safety is served by seeking their execution. Candidate Mindy Montford, another Earle assistant, said that because the death penalty is on the books in Texas, she must consider it if elected.

Candidate Rick Reed, who resigned from Earle’s office last week, said he would not seek the death penalty under any circumstances. Reed also said he wouldn’t seek death warrants for the five condemned killers already on death row from Travis County. Death warrants, issued by a trial court at a prosecutor’s request when the killer’s appeals have run out, set dates of execution.

“I believe it is a mistake … to seek the death penalty,” said Reed, citing his moral opposition and the cost of prosecuting such cases.

Keye, Channel 42, the local CBS affiliate, also reported on the event and has their video report online here.

Texas DAs to Blame for High Execution Rate

admin — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:32:06 +0000

The New York Times has an article today “Executions Decline Elsewhere, but Texas Holds Steady“. Some of the information in the article explains why the district attorney elections in 2008 in Travis County and Harris County, as well as other Texas counties, are so important in the effort to slow down or stop executions in a flawed Texas capital punishment system that puts innocent people at risk of execution.

Unlike other states where the number of executions have declined, in Texas execution dates are set by aggressive district attorneys asking convicting courts to set the date. If we want to slow down the number of executions in Texas, we need to elect district attorneys who will pledge to impose a moratorium on seeking new death sentences and a moratorium on setting execution dates for existing death sentences. Certainly a DA candidate in Travis County who makes such a pledge will find a rich reward of votes in the Democratic primary.

Adam Liptak writes in today’s NYT:

This year’s death-penalty bombshells — a federal moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas.

Over the past three decades, the proportion of executions nationwide performed in Texas has held relatively steady, averaging 37 percent. Only once before, in 1986, has the state accounted for even a slight majority of the executions, and that was in a year with only 18 executions nationwide.

But this year, enthusiasm for executions outside of Texas dropped sharply. Of last year’s 42 executions, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people. Many legal experts say that trend is likely to continue.

Indeed, said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who has represented death row inmates, the day is not far off when essentially all executions in the United States will take place in Texas.

“The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions,” he said, “is because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or de facto, as other states have.”

The article goes on to point out that even while an ever greater percentage of all U.S. executions now take place in Texas, the numbers of new death sentences are declining here in Texas as they have been across the country:

In the 10 years ending in 2004, Texas condemned an average of 34 prisoners each year — about 15 percent of the national total. In the last three years, as the number of death sentences nationwide dropped significantly, from almost 300 in 1998 to about 110 in 2007, the number in Texas has dropped along with it, to 13 — or 12 percent.

The big difference though is that in Texas execution dates are set by convicting courts at the request of district attorneys and in Texas there are some DAs who have lots of execution dates set, such as Chuck Rosenthal in Harris County.

“Any sane prosecutor who is involved in capital litigation will really be ambivalent about it,” said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore., and a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. He said the families of murder victims suffer needless anguish during what can be decades of litigation and multiple retrials.

“We’re seeing fewer executions,” Mr. Marquis added. “We’re seeing fewer people sentenced to death. People really do question capital punishment. The whole idea of exoneration has really penetrated popular culture.”

As a consequence, Mr. Dieter said, “we’re simply not regularly using the death penalty as a country.”

So while the number of executions in Texas been relatively constant, averaging 23, the state’s share of total executions nationwide has steadily increased: from 32 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2006 to 62 percent in 2007.

Next Travis County DA Should Impose A Moratorium on Death Penalty Prosecutions

admin — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:10:28 +0000

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is retiring. He was first elected in 1976. The next DA in Travis County should reflect how the Travis County community’s feelings on the death penalty have evolved since 1976 and pledge that the death penalty is off the table within Travis County.

Last October when Paul Burka first reported that Earle may be retiring, Burka wrote that “a DA is supposed to be the conscience of the community”, which brings up the issue of to what extent the conscience of the community in Travis County has changed since 1976.

We expect it has changed enough that any person who seeks the Democratic nomination for Travis County District Attorney in 2008 is going to have to seek the support of voters within a community whose conscience does not include support for the Texas death penalty. Of course, there are voters here who support the death penalty in theory, but there are many more whose theoretical support is trumped by their disgust with how the death penalty operates in Texas. And in Travis County, there is also a substantial bloc of voters who reject the death penalty both in theory and as it is practiced.

We are certain that a big majority of Democratic voters, if not all voters, in Travis County believe that the death penalty system in Texas is broken.

There is a precedent already in Texas for a district attorney to declare a county-wide moratorium on death penalty prosecutions. The Nueces County District Attorney’s Office put a hold on seeking the death penalty in capital murder cases last October in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case that questions whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

But we expect the people of Travis County know that the problems with the death penalty system are bigger and deeper than just the issue of how a lethal injection is administered. The Texas death penalty system is riddled with problems from start to finish, from the initial investigation and arrest, the process used to decide whether to seek the death penalty, the actual prosecution and defense of a capital trial, the appeals process and the manner in which an execution is finally carried out.

The most fundamental problem is perhaps an inability to distinguish with certainty whether a person is guilty or innocent. If a system can not ensure that the guilty are convicted and the innocent protected, then the death penalty should be off the table. The need for local prosecutors to impose a moratorium on death penalty prosecutions is particularly great because of the failure of state leaders to enact a moratorium and create a commission to study the death penalty. In fact, the state legislature would not even create an innocence commission.

We are sure that the people of Travis County are very comfortable with life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty. Any candidate who seeks to become district attorney in Travis County should pledge not to seek the death penalty. Life without parole is a valid alternative. In a contested Democratic primary in Travis County, a candidate who acknowledges that the death penalty system in Texas is riddled with problems and puts innocent people at risk of execution is likely to be rewarded with votes.