| Texas executions: Is a stay in store? Senate panel urges vote on new study 04/12/2001 By Christy Hoppe / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN – Executions could be halted for two years while a study is conducted of the death penalty process in Texas, under a proposal a Senate committee passed on Wednesday.
Under the bill, voters would decide in November whether to allow the two-year moratorium. If approved, a Texas Capital Punishment Commission would be created to study the legal system.
Lawmakers said the commission likely would include diverse viewpoints, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, law professors and victim-rights representatives.
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said his proposal is needed to re-establish faith in the Texas justice system, which has been rocked by reports of wrongful convictions, poor legal representation and slap-dash appeals.
The moratorium until September 2003 would give a blue-ribbon commission time, "to fix what we now recognize as flaws," Mr. Shapleigh said.
The proposal narrowly passed the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and will have a difficult time getting enough support to be debated by the full Senate.
Mr. Shapleigh acknowledged as much, saying, "By passing this committee, we have cleared one hurdle. We have many more."
Similar proposals are stalled in House committee.
In earlier public testimony on the bill, opponents have said it would provide more delays in a system already replete with reviews, appeals and safeguards.
Crime-victim groups have said the legislation is a ploy by death penalty opponents to end capital punishment in Texas.
Dianne Clements, president of the victim-rights group Justice For All in Houston, said she was deeply disappointed that the bill was voted out of committee.
"In the call for a moratorium on the death penalty, opponents of capital punishment use the risk of executing the innocent as their rally cry," she said. "There is no proof of an innocent executed within the U.S. since 1900."
She said she believes impressions that innocent people are being executed are propaganda, and this bill would allow murderous criminals to continue to pose a threat.
"Clearly, the overwhelming proof is that living murderers harm and murder again, in prisons, after improper release and, as we so recently experienced, after escape," Ms. Clements said in a reference to the seven convicts who staged an escape from a South Texas prison unit in December 2000.
Mr. Shapleigh said he is motivated by a desire to assure a fair and just system.
"No Texan wants to be a party to the execution of an innocent man or woman," he said.
Those who support the moratorium said the measure shows that lawmakers understand that the criminal justice system is broken.
"Many Texans, including legislators, are concerned that Texas' death penalty system is not providing justice for every accused person," said Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, a statewide coalition of religious groups.
Bishop Michael Pfeiffer of San Angelo, president of the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, "Our Texas capital punishment system is a broken legal-social system."
In other action, the Criminal Justice Committee also declined to endorse, at least for the time being, a bill that would provide life without parole as a punishment in capital murder cases.
Current law provides two punishments for those convicted: either execution or a life sentence to last at least 40 years before parole can be considered.
Some lawmakers want to give juries a third option of life without possibility of parole. The proposal has been opposed for various reasons, including prosecutors' fears that juries will be reluctant to impose the death sentence if given the no parole option, and criminal justice experts' contentions that the state would be burdened by financing expensive prison space for geriatric inmates.
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