Houston, Texas: Death Factory
one girl’s life was the only slightly relevant blog I found on feedster discussing the death penalty. For that reason, I’m doing a trackback to the entry I found there. I guess this has become a non-issue in the United States?
What caught my eye was a story in today’s LA Times (registration required) about a man whose state-appointed attorney slept during his murder trial. Remarkably, no court in the state of Texas had a problem with the fact that this guy’s attorney was asleep during his death penalty trial. Even a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court) didn’t have a problem with the sleeping attorney. Fortunately, the full panel of judges on the 5th Circuit decided to re-hear the appeal and decided that, indeed, you did not have a fair trial if your attorney was asleep. So what happened? The Hollywood ending would have the guy exonerated at a new trial. In the real-world ending, the guy pleaded guilty to the murder charges and will serve three consecutive life sentences. He won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 70!
It’s an interesting enough story as it is. What really interests me though is where this all happened: Houston Texas. Houston is in Harris County, where the sleeping attorney practiced law (at one time he had 10 clients on death row – some have been executed).
This is also George Bush’s Texas. In the 2000 election George Bush was asked about “sleeping lawyers” during a debate. Bush defended the death penalty and his state’s procedures. Harris County leads America in the number of its citizens who are executed. Of the 104 put to death in Texas from 1976 to 1996, Harris County proudly claimed 33. As of December, 1995, there were 404 people on death row in Texas, at least 111 of whom were tried in Houston. Check out this website for more information on Harris County and the death penalty.
Even though I’m philosophically troubled by the death penalty (does the government killing people to make people stop killing people make any sense?) I’m not anti-death penalty (used to be, am not currently, might be in the future). However, I’m sure as hell not going to visit Houston (also home to Enron) anytime soon. Michael Moore, where are you? I sense a documentary here!
The Houston, Texas: Death Factory by SharedThought, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.