December 29, 2002 1:26 PM

Unequal justice

Study: Texas leads in executions

We're #1! We're #1!! While exections in other states are declining, Texas is demonstrating how just smooth and efficient state-sanctioned killing can be. Or not.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Texas executed 33 people this year, the most of any U.S. state and almost double the number put to death in Texas last year, a study showed.

Since resuming executions 20 years ago, 298 Texas inmates have been executed, far more than in any other state. The 17 executions in Texas in 2001 represented a sharp drop for the state, which executed a record 40 people in 2000 and has executed an average of 22 inmates annually since 1992.

"What we are finding is that the use of the death penalty is becoming more and more concentrated in Texas and a few other states in the South," said Richard Dieter, who heads the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death-penalty group that published the study.

"And increasingly, Texas is finding itself standing alone in its increasing application of the death penalty," Dieter said.

Frankly, I'm growing rather tired of the "If you don't want to be executed, commit your murders somewhere else" argument. The unspoken reality behind this state's death penalty is that whether or not the death penalty is sought depends on which county a murder is committed in, and the amount of funding available to the prosecuting attorney. Harris County, por ejemplo, is an execution machine, with an available budget and staff that dwarfs any county in the state. The Harris County DA's office has attorneys that do nothing but prosecute capitol murder crimes. The money and the wherewithal is available here in a way that isn't in, say, rural west Texas.

Does this means that the level and/or quality of justice meted out varies from county to county within Texas? That would seem to be the case, and that, frankly, is just plain wrong. I'm not going to turn this into an anti-death penalty screed, although I do have some issues with it. All I'm saying is that we need a system in which a capitol murder committed in Harris County is just as likely to bring the death penalty as one is Hidalgo or Wharton or Comal counties. That the level of justice available is dependent on the amount of money available to local prosecutors is not seen as a problem IS a problem.

Texas deserves better from it's justice system. The question is whether any politician in this state has the moral courage to stand up and say so. My money, what little of it there is, is on "no".

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 29, 2002 1:26 PM.

Liberals could learn a few things as well was the previous entry in this blog.

So who IS crazier?? is the next entry in this blog.

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