Salon.com politics | Bush's death penalty dodge

Search About Salon Table Talk Newsletters Advertise in Salon Investor Relations


	Search Articles by date All of Salon.com



	Arts & Entertainment Books Business Comics Health Mothers Who Think News People Politics Sex Technology - Free Software Project Letters Columnists Table Talk Salon Plus Salon Shop Salon Radio



	Table Talk [Freewheeling Salon forums] Nader's Raiders go Green! Can this fledgling party shake up the electorate? She's hateful but legal Are special interests limiting Dr. Laura's First Amendment rights? Farm fresh frankenberries, anyone? Should the USDA approve genetically engineered food? Posts of the week The Well [Pioneering members-only discussions] Burning for books Remembering the Oakland firestorm Sound Off E-mail Salon Send us a Letter to the Editor Today's letters


	Newsletter Sign up to receive free e-mail updates from Salon -- now in 12 different varieties! Downloads Get Salon.com on your PDA Salon.com headlines from My Netscape More ways to get Salon

Bush's death penalty dodge | 1, 2, 3

Bush and his aides say that in reviewing death sentences he takes into account an individual's personal history -- including evidence of sexual abuse and family violence -- as well as whether there was a fair trial. But Beets' attorney failed to present evidence of a long history of sexual abuse, including her rape by her father when she was 5 years old, at the sentencing phase of the trial, which might have convinced a jury to impose a sentence other than death. Although the jury never heard this evidence, it was laid out for Bush in Beets' clemency appeal. Apparently, he was not impressed.

Bush has consistently maintained that he applies two standards in considering clemency appeals. One is evidence of innocence, the other whether a condemned prisoner had full access to the courts or due process. But Beets is not the only case that calls those standards into doubt.

Print story

E-mail story

Backflip this article to find it again

Earlier this year, Bush approved the execution of Odell Barnes, whose court-appointed lawyers failed to interview witnesses who might have helped their client, and conducted no scientific investigation of blood and semen evidence the state said linked Barnes to the crime. (Texas is notorious for appointing poorly paid and unqualified lawyers in capital cases.)

Last year the governor signed off on the execution of Canadian Joseph Stanley Faulder, convicted of murdering a wealthy oil heiress, despite the fact that the prosecutor had been hired and paid for by the victim's family, and that the state had withheld evidence that its principal witness was paid more than $10,000 to testify against Faulder. The state's chief psychiatric witness, whose testimony was essential to securing a death sentence, was later expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for presenting unprofessional testimony in Texas death penalty cases.

Bush refused to stop the execution of James Beathard, whose co-defendant, Gene Hathorn Jr., recanted his testimony following Beathard's conviction and said he, not Beathard, had been solely responsible for the murder of three members of Hathorn's family. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to grant Beathard a new trial because state law requires that new evidence be presented within 30 days after a judgment is entered. Hathorn's recantation came 11 months too late.

Bush also failed to intercede last year on behalf of Andrew Cantu, who ended up representing himself after two lawyers assigned to his case withdrew and a third never even interviewed the defendant, claiming he didn't know where to find him. (He apparently didn't try death row.) Cantu was executed without either state or federal habeas corpus review of his claims.

In 1997, Bush approved the execution of David Spence for the grisly stabbing deaths of three teenagers, despite evidence that Spence may have been framed by police and the lack of physical evidence linking him to the crime.

As these cases make clear, the complex issues the governor has been asked to consider in weighing the possibility of clemency often have little or nothing to do with DNA. And Bush's assent to a single DNA test does little to suggest a serious appreciation for the pitfalls in capital cases.

Certainly, there is understandable enthusiasm for DNA testing in law enforcement circles. (Legislation before Congress would allow any convicted murderer access to DNA testing to establish innocence, a right now provided to inmates in only two states. Neither Bush nor Democrat Al Gore has endorsed it.) But DNA has been totally irrelevant in most cases where innocent people have been condemned to death. Of the 87 released from death row nationwide as a result of evidence of innocence, only eight relied on DNA. Others were released after the actual murderers confessed; because evidence emerged that police or prosecutors had framed the suspects; because police informants and other witnesses lied; because police made simple mistakes or exacted false confessions; and because attorneys, private investigators and journalism students finally dug up the truth.

Maurie Levin, an attorney representing McGinn, says DNA is involved in only a "fraction of the cases" she's seen in Texas and argues that, for all the value of DNA testing, there are a multitude of other problems with the way capital cases are handled in Texas. "Yes, we need procedures to allow for DNA testing, but we also need funding for quality counsel; time to file appeals; money for investigations; an end to the use of jailhouse-snitch testimony without any procedural safeguards; and an end to the entrenched system of greased-lightning, move-'em-quickly-and-cheaply lawyers."

That is not to disparage DNA. Kirk Bloodsworth, a former Marine with no arrest record who was condemned to death in 1984 (his sentence was later commuted to life) for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl, would probably be rotting on Maryland's death row today had it not been for DNA evidence. Several eyewitnesses who said they saw Bloodsworth with the girl on the day of the murder convinced the jury that he should die for the crime. Had the actual assailant murdered the child but not raped her, there would have been no DNA and the innocent Bloodsworth might have been executed.

As the Bloodsworth case makes clear, jurors make mistakes. They do it all the time. So do police and prosecutors and defense lawyers and judges. And they don't just make mistakes in cases where DNA is conveniently left behind to prove them right or wrong.

Next page | "Serious, reversible errors"
1, 2, 3

	Need a gift? Visit Salon Shop for inspiration. More great offers in Salon Plus






	Current Stories A presidential aura With the crowds growing, the campaign money flowing and the media swarming, John Kerry is looking more and more like the front-runner. By Tim Grieve Among the Democrats On a big night for the sitting president, his Democratic challengers gather together to rally the faithful -- and crack Bush jokes. By Jake Tapper Drunken sailor economics Bush's bloated budget will likely put the U.S. over $1 trillion in debt. But criticize it, and the White House calls you soft on terror. By Jake Tapper Poisoned fairways Among the big winners in Bush's proposed rollback of pesticide restrictions? The politically untouchable golf industry, where dangerous chemicals are par for the course. By Jake Tapper

Salon News A Salon-eye view of the day's news, with investigative reports, analysis and interviews with newsmakers.