Claude! said:

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On the one hand, I agree that procedural delays and endless appeals feel like justice delayed. On the other hand, if the state is going to kill someone, they had better get it right.

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there was little doubt he did it. Most of the TWENTY YEARS was arguing about whether he was ******ed or not.

This is one area (along with theft) where Sharia law has it right.

Swift beheadings are a great deterrent and lower recidivism for the perpetrator.

A lot of lowlife murders wouldn't be so "brave" if their neck was on the line.

It provides an whole new meaning to the phrase: slow death.

Appeals and motions and hearings... Everything gets scheduled 6+ months out. Nothing should take that long. It only takes that long because the system lets it take that long. No defense attorney, prosecutor, or DA is actively working on something for that long. It gets back burnered and pulled to the front as time gets closer.

You've got new evidence or a new argument, share it with the class and let's be ready to dance next week.

fc2112 said:

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Claude! said:

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On the one hand, I agree that procedural delays and endless appeals feel like justice delayed. On the other hand, if the state is going to kill someone, they had better get it right.

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there was little doubt he did it. Most of the TWENTY YEARS was arguing about whether he was ******ed or not.

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That is the always the play the lawyers make to keep someone from being executed.

Every killer suddenly has an IQ of 30 after being convicted and sent to death row.

Not only do the lawyers make $$$ from the taxpayers and anti-death penalty groups, but it means years to decades of steady income because of the almost endless appeals they can file.

As An L of an Ag said, justice delayed is justice denied.

It costs that taxpayers more money to execute a person than it does to lock him up forever. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am against the death penalty.

The only fathomable good to come from the death penalty is the closure experienced by the families. I think that state money to kill someone is not really worth that.

If the family really wants the guy dead, hire someone to kill him in prison. No way they get convicted for that in Texas. Easy no-bill for me.

I'm torn on this. It's frustrating to see people sit on death row for 20-30 years, but you also don't want to get it wrong. One aspect of the death penalty that isn't captured here is the number of confessions and guilty pleas that happen so the defendant can avoid the death penalty. There are many that will plead instead of risking it at trial. The psycho in Idaho is a recent example.

BusterAg said:

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It costs that taxpayers more money to execute a person than it does to lock him up forever. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am against the death penalty.

The only fathomable good to come from the death penalty is the closure experienced by the families. I think that state money to kill someone is not really worth that.

If the family really wants the guy dead, hire someone to kill him in prison. No way they get convicted for that in Texas. Easy no-bill for me.

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The cost is so high because of the way we've structured the appeals process.
Life w/o parole sentences don't cost "that much" because they generally just go to prison and stay there. There's medical care and such involved at the end, but ultimately that's it. They don't go appeal crazy on the taxpayer dime.
Death cases on the other hand get teams of lawyers billing the state/taxpayer on their clients behalf over every single detail.

It's very similar to our treatment of DWI. The cost of one is so great people will spend massive dollars to make it go away in any way possible. Guy/gal could be undoubtedly guilty as hell (murder or DWI) and they'll use anything they can to make it go away. I've heard of DWI's 3x the legal limit tossed because the county had moved to a new form and the cop used the old version. Look at Luigi Mangione, trying to get the gun tossed out because the cops found it while inventorying his backpack (that's not a 4th A issue).

I like the idea presented a few posts up. Appeal is immediate to a judiciary panel that reviews the facts and merits of the case. Was the defendant adequately and competently defended? Do the jury findings match the evidence presented? What evidence was tossed or withheld and were the grounds for doing so legally sound?

Those questions should not be allowed to be dragged out for 20 years of single issue appeals. The dragging it back out, bringing the victims family back to court, month after month, year after year... That's not justice.

I've changed my position on the death penalty because I don't trust the government to get it right. If you take a look at the Texas Death Row exonerations (there's been 18 of them), several spent at least nine years in prison before they were exonerated. If you shortened the time frame to five years, those people would be dead. I can't live with executing innocent people.

By your own admission, giving someone life without parole would reduce the number of appeals, and families could get their piece of mind knowing a person will never see the outside of those gray bars. I think most people would take that.

Kenneth_2003 said:

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BusterAg said:

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It costs that taxpayers more money to execute a person than it does to lock him up forever. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am against the death penalty.

The only fathomable good to come from the death penalty is the closure experienced by the families. I think that state money to kill someone is not really worth that.

If the family really wants the guy dead, hire someone to kill him in prison. No way they get convicted for that in Texas. Easy no-bill for me.

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The cost is so high because of the way we've structured the appeals process.
Life w/o parole sentences don't cost "that much" because they generally just go to prison and stay there. There's medical care and such involved at the end, but ultimately that's it. They don't go appeal crazy on the taxpayer dime.
Death cases on the other hand get teams of lawyers billing the state/taxpayer on their clients behalf over every single detail.

It's very similar to our treatment of DWI. The cost of one is so great people will spend massive dollars to make it go away in any way possible. Guy/gal could be undoubtedly guilty as hell (murder or DWI) and they'll use anything they can to make it go away. I've heard of DWI's 3x the legal limit tossed because the county had moved to a new form and the cop used the old version. Look at Luigi Mangione, trying to get the gun tossed out because the cops found it while inventorying his backpack (that's not a 4th A issue).

I like the idea presented a few posts up. Appeal is immediate to a judiciary panel that reviews the facts and merits of the case. Was the defendant adequately and competently defended? Do the jury findings match the evidence presented? What evidence was tossed or withheld and were the grounds for doing so legally sound?

Those questions should not be allowed to be dragged out for 20 years of single issue appeals. The dragging it back out, bringing the victims family back to court, month after month, year after year... That's not justice.

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Agreed. I've seen court reporters take 2 years to produce a certified transcript. This is one area where AI can bring significant efficiencies.

BusterAg said:

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The only fathomable good to come from the death penalty is the closure experienced by the families.

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Not true. If the death penalty were swiftly and publicly delivered, it would serve as a strong deterrent to capital murder. See Exhibit A, The Kingdom, for proof.

Kenneth_2003 said:

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Those questions should not be allowed to be dragged out for 20 years of single issue appeals. The dragging it back out, bringing the victims family back to court, month after month, year after year... That's not justice.

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I was in a San Antonio court this past summer for the appeal of the ******* that raped and beat my daughter to death. The woke jury only convicted on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and 8 years after her passing, we're still in and out of courtrooms. There is no justice in our system.

BusterAg said:

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It costs that taxpayers more money to execute a person than it does to lock him up forever. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am against the death penalty.

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That costing more to execute someone is solely because they sit on death row for 20 to 30 years with the killer and his or her attorneys filing appeals. Give them six months to appeal and then kill them. If an attorney files an appeal and loses, he or she should lose their license for five or ten years. That would prevent silly delays.

HTownAg98 said:

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By your own admission, giving someone life without parole would reduce the number of appeals, and families could get their piece of mind knowing a person will never see the outside of those gray bars. I think most people would take that.

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That wasn't the point. The point was a critique on the appeals process. A capital sentence should be carried out swiftly enough that it should be far cheaper than 40,50, or 60+ years of incarceration.

Kenneth_2003 said:

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Appeals and motions and hearings... Everything gets scheduled 6+ months out. Nothing should take that long. It only takes that long because the system lets it take that long. No defense attorney, prosecutor, or DA is actively working on something for that long. It gets back burnered and pulled to the front as time gets closer.

You've got new evidence or a new argument, share it with the class and let's be ready to dance next week.

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Agree on the nothing need take that long. Many judges and DAs are notoriously lazy, at least most of those I have known are.

I got in an argument with a judge during voir dire, stemming from my contention that I could not afford to sit on a jury for weeks, when I was not in my office, I did not get paid. At one point he commented on how backed up they were with cases and I told him that is due to lack of effort. I said you (and other judges) have reserved parking spaces and I drive by the courthouse every day, my office being 3 blocks away. I told him I don't think I have seen that parking space occupied after hours or on weekends and that they should research the meaning of overtime to deal with the backlog, just like people in the real world do.

There are 51 people who have been on Death Row in Texas for more than 25 years.
https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_offenders_on_dr.html

Harvey Earvin has been on Death Row since October 26, 1977. You can't convince me his appeals could not have been exhausted over the course of the last 48 years.

I am OK with delays when there are questions regarding the decision of guilty and the death penalty, whether it was something procedural, witness testimony, etc…however, if we have the DNA of suspect, multiple witness testimony that confirm the murderer as the guilty, and video proof, I am all for lining them up and putting them out of their misery…yes, I know that will never happen given our justice system and processes.

Wait till OP finds out that 25 years is nothing.

https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_offenders_on_dr.html

As someone who had someone close murdered, testified at trial, and partly because of that testimony the killer put on death row, I will say that his eventual death does not "feel" like it will matter that much at the end of things. Justice is important, but the truth is, it doesn't at all feel equal. The death of a criminal doesn't make up for the death of the innocent.

This is not a statement of the merit of the death penalty, but rather on the idea of proper justice administered. Its much more complicated when up close to the situation.

Crime
Investigation
Arrest
Trial
Conviction
365 days for new evidence to appear
Automatic appeal on day 366
Day 367 execution if upheld
367+ all the time it takes to actually begin the trial. That's long enough!

Like some of the earlier posters, I at one time was a huge proponent of capital punishment, but as I have observed over the decades, innocent people ending up on death row (sometimes because of corruption within the system) and the cost of the entire process (which will never go away), I'm now mostly against it.

TxSquarebody said:

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Crime
Investigation
Arrest
Trial
Conviction
365 days for new evidence to appear
Automatic appeal on day 366
Day 367 execution if upheld
367+ all the time it takes to actually begin the trial. That's long enough!

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Your policy would have resulted in the execution of factually innocent people. You cool with that?

HTownAg98 said:

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I've changed my position on the death penalty because I don't trust the government to get it right. If you take a look at the Texas Death Row exonerations (there's been 18 of them), several spent at least nine years in prison before they were exonerated. If you shortened the time frame to five years, those people would be dead. I can't live with executing innocent people.

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I think that you can take the lack of trust out of the equation fairly easily. First, automatic disbarment of any prosecutor who INTENTIONALLY withholds or conceals evidence. Termination for those that do it negligently or unintentionally -- put these things in a statute. Have similar offenses/sanctions for peace officers. Second, start adding jail time for more egregious offenses. Third, allow the defense to petition the court in capital cases for funds to investigate further to prove defenses or disprove essential elements of the case when credible evidence is shown that further investigation is warranted. Retired peace officers or staff investigators could be used or, at a lower reimburse rate, private investigators.

When you go read the Texas Penal Code, you'll find out that in order for the death penalty to actually attach, it has to be more than just a murder -- more than even just a first degree murder. There are conditions that must first be met before the prosecution can even advance a capital case. So we shouldn't act like the punishment gets handed out for almost anything. In terms of appeals, I think one problem is that capital cases get automatic appeals to the Court of Criminal Appeals (Texas' criminal Supreme Court). Allowing cases to filter through the district COAs may actually be better. If there is clear error and the Dallas COA, for example, rules 3-0 within a year that the defendant's rights were violated or that evidence should be excluded, a new trial can be held almost immediately without waiting 3-5 years. Or, the CCA gets the case and you have at least 12 judges (3 COA and 9 CCA) who have reviewed the case.

I propose a new execution method: we lock you a small box until you die.

But to extend your suffering, we give you food and water, and let you maintain basic hygiene so you don't immediately die of infection. And since being in there 24/7 would drive you to madness and dull the suffering, we let you out of the box to see the outside for brief moments each day, just to taunt you with glimpses of the outside world you know you will never get to enjoy again.

This could be deemed too cruel an execution method by the courts, but I think the conservative courts we have now would let it slide.

Ryan the Temp said:

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There are 51 people who have been on Death Row in Texas for more than 25 years.
https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_offenders_on_dr.html

Harvey Earvin has been on Death Row since October 26, 1977. You can't convince me his appeals could not have been exhausted over the course of the last 48 years.

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Some of them are due to federal law at the time of their crime.

In the 90s Congress limited access to the federal courts for state death penalty appeals. Anyone who's crime occurred before the law took effect are covered by the previous law and basically have unlimited, never ending federal appeals. This makes it nearly impossible to execute them.

Leaving them on death row, despite little chance of the execution being carried out, makes it defacto life in prison without parole so they can just sit in prison and rot.

Thanks for the info about the changes in law. It's a real shame, though.

Way too long, they should never take more than a year. But they do need to have absolute 100% verifiable truth. No question. Any doubt they should be life sentences.