Audio By Carbonatix
The Associated Press this morning directs our attention to this year-in-review: The Death Penalty in 2010, released at midnight by the D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. Says the report, Texas is still executing more inmates than any other state — 17 in 2010, the lowest in almost a decade — but far fewer than in years past (24 prisoners had their final meals last year). So, why the decline? Well, writes Richard Dieter, the center’s executive director:
Texas, the country’s perennial leader in executions, experienced a 29% drop in executions in
2010 as fewer dates were set and several cases were sent back for further review. The state’s
adoption of a sentence of life without parole in 2005, changes in the District Attorneys in prominent
jurisdictions such as Houston and Dallas, and the ongoing residue of past mistakes have led to a
sharp decline in the use of the death penalty in the state that drives national death penalty statistics. For the second year in a row new death sentences in Texas (8, as of mid-December) were 80% less
than the peak experienced in 1999, when there were 48.Evidence of critical errors made in cases where an execution has
occurred continued to mount in Texas. A special court of inquiry
examined whether Texas executed an innocent man in 2004 when
Cameron Willingham was put to death for arson. Experts now
believe the evidence used to convict him was highly unreliable. In
another Texas case, new DNA tests have shown that misleading
evidence was presented at the trial of Claude Jones, who was
executed in 2000, just before then-governor George Bush left office. A
strand of hair, the sole physical evidence placing Jones at the murder
scene, has now been shown to have no connection to him and
belonged to the victim instead.Such examples have caused deep concerns about the death
penalty not only in Texas but across the country. In the above
national poll, the public found concerns about innocence to be the
most convincing reason for replacing the death penalty (71% found
this to be a convincing reason for repeal). There also was strong bipartisan
support for doing everything possible to prevent the
execution of innocent people. At least 80% of Republicans,
Democrats, Conservatives, Moderates and Liberals all supported that
premise.
