Texas Monthly December 2002: Death Isn't Fair

Cops who threaten torture. Prosecutors who go too far. Defense lawyers who sleep on the job. And an appellate court that rubber-stamps it all. Let's be tough on crime, but let's also see that justice is done. It's time to fix the capital punishment system in Texas.

It is the combination of unfairness and persistence that has put Texas under national and international scrutiny. We have been criticized for executing people who are mentally retarded, for executing people who were juveniles at the time of their offense, for trying to execute—before the federal courts stepped in to prevent it—people whose lawyers slumbered in court. These are the kinds of cases that get national attention, but there are many more that go unnoticed.

Every Texan who has walked free from death row has done so with outside help—filmmakers, TV stars, preachers, activists, and pro bono lawyers, not the attorneys appointed by the state to represent them. They got out in spite of the system, not because of it.


A must read article if you live in Texas on our death penalty system - the worst in the nation. The main problem is criminally overzealous prosecutors and police officers and judges as well as the defense attorneys who are willing to take $12 an hour to defend a man from the death penalty. Right now on death row is a person who was overdosed with drugs in his trial - the jury convicted him mostly because he didn't react and he looked weird. Another man confessed because the lead detective had his parents brought in by Mexican police and the man was told an electric generator would be applied to his parents genitals unless he signed the confession.