Category: prosecutorial misconduct

90 year-old jurist gives up on the death penalty

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Justice John Paul Stevens

By Alan Bean

Retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens was never enthusiastic about the death penalty.  Like a lot of Americans, he believed that some violent crimes are so horrific that capital punishment is the only appropriate response.  This abstract support for ultimate penalty was rooted in the assumption that the American criminal justice system is capable, first, of restricting capital prosecution to the very worst sort of crime, and, second, that with a man’s life at stake, jurors would hold prosecutors to the highest evidentiary standard: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Justice Stevens is still outraged by egregious acts of wanton violence, but he no longer trusts prosecutors to single out the very worst crimes for capital prosecution.  Moreover, he realizes that, in far too many cases, the more shocking the details of a crime, the lower the evidentiary standard becomes.  The intense desire to see justice done in a particular case easily trumps human reason and the principle of equal justice under law.  This is particularly true, Stevens discovered, when the defendant is black and the murder victim is white. (more…)

Challenging the New Jim Crow, Part 3

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By Alan Bean

This is the third excerpt from a speech delivered on the campus of the University of Chicago.  Part one can be found here two can be found here.

The New Jim Crow comes to Jena, Louisiana

In 1991, the same year Larry Stewart was elected Sheriff of Swisher County, Texas,  J. Reed Walters became District Attorney of LaSalle Parish in north central Louisiana, winning 52% of the vote.  David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon who ran for governor that year, carried 70% of the vote in the parish, his best showing in Louisiana.  Since the LaSalle Parish electorate is 86% white, this suggests that an unapologetic racist won over 80% of the white vote that year. 

In 2008, 85.5% of LaSalle Parish voters supported John McCain; a likely indication that Barack Obama received zero support from white voters. 

When Reed Walters passed his bar exams in 1980, Speedy O. Long was still District Attorney.  Long took the young attorney under his wing and taught him the ropes.  When Speedy went to his reward in 2005, Reed Walters called him a friend and mentor. (more…)

Challenging the new Jim Crow, part 2

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This is the second excerpt from a speech recently delivered at the Campaign to End the Death Penalty conference on the campus of the University of Chicago.  The introduction can be found here. AGB

The new Jim Crow comes to Tulia, Texas

By Alan Bean

Sheriff Larry P. Stewart

To understand how radically our society has changed it is helpful to trace the life stories of the folks running the new Jim Crow machinery in small southern towns. The stories you are about to hear are taken from cases investigated by Friends of Justice, but they are symptomatic of a national disease.

I started talking about the new Jim Crow in Tulia, Texas when I realized that a drug bust that swept up half the adult black males in town was standard operating procedure.

There is a picture of Larry Stewart in an old copy of the Tulia Herald. It was Cowboy Day at the Tulia High School, circa 1960, and Larry came dressed as an old-time Texas Sheriff, badge and all. But Larry wasn’t supposed to grow up to be a lawman; like most local boys he wanted to farm like his daddy did before him. (more…)

Goodwyn: Civil Rights, Judicial Bias Surround Texas Drug Case

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Wade Goodwyn does his usual impeccable job of bringing an utterly outrageous story to national awareness.  If you follow this blog you are already familiar with the basic outline of this story, but Goodwyn inserts the human element that is typically missed by the mainstream media.  You can hear the original audio version at the All Things Considered Site.

At the end of the Richardsons’ story you will find brief summaries of three related Texas narcotics cases Wade Goodwyn has covered over the years, stories that provide some of the best New Jim Crow illustrations available anywhere in America.  Friends of Justice didn’t just bring the Richardson fiasco to public attention, we were also involved in the other three cases (see my comments below at the end of the NPR piece).

One last word.  Without the dogged determination and courage of the defendants (particularly Vergil and Mark Richardson) and attorney Mark Lesher, justice would never have been served in this case.

Alan Bean (more…)

The Claude Jones saga: Did Texas execute an(other) innocent man?

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Claude Jones

By Alan Bean

Note: Dave Mann has written a well-researched feature story on this case for the Texas Observer.

Not that most Americans would care, but it appears that Texas executed another innocent man in 2000.  This story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram relates the sad fate of Claude Jones, a St. Jacinto man convicted of killing a liquor store clerk in the course of an armed robbery in 1989. 

Prosecutors showed the jury a single hair that they claimed belonged to Jones.  They couldn’t be sure, mind you, and no DNA test was conducted, but they were pretty sure. 

But that wasn’t enough for a conviction, corroborating testimony was required.  Enter Timothy Jordan.  In exchange for a lenient sentence, he testified that he had served as an accomplice and that Jones was the trigger man.

Three years after Jones was executed, Jordan recanted his testimony. Need you ask why?  He was threatened with dire consequences if he refused to cooperate with prosecutors.  We’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we?

George W. Bush was fixin’ to leave the governor’s mansion for bigger and better things when he gave Jones’ execution the thumbs up.  No one on his staff mentioned that the hair that so impressed jurors had not been tested.

Now it has and we know for a fact that the hair did not belong to Jones. (more…)

Anthony Graves freed after eighteen years in prison

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Anthony Graves

By Alan Bean

Anthony Graves is back in the free world after eighteen years of hell. 

Charles Sebesta, the prosecutor who sent Graves to death row, still thinks he nailed the right man.  If you asked the Texas Rangers who conducted the “investigation” they would probably agree with Sebesta.
 
According to the state’s theory of the crime, Graves teamed up with Robert Earl Carter to brutally murder Bobbie Davis, 45; her 16-year-old daughter, Nicole; and four of Davis’ grandchildren in August of 1992.  The victims died from hammer blows, repeated stabbings, and bullet wounds.   Their house was then torched in a clumsy attempt to conceal evidence.  It was the most brutal crime in the history of Burleson County. (more…)

Frontline’s “Death by Fire” is superb television

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The Frontline treatment of the Cameron Todd Willingham saga is gripping, balanced and provocative.  Don’t worry if you missed it; you can watch the entire program online.

Hour-long documentaries are frequently crammed with fluff and filler, but the Willingham case demands in-depth treatment to be understood and “Death by Fire” delivers.  Here are some of the conclusions: (more…)

“Death by Fire”: Frontline tackles the Willingham Case

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Cameron Todd Willingham and Governor Rick Perry

The PBS program Frontline will be airing a program on the Cameron Todd Willingham story, “Death by Fire“, beginning October 19.  Click on the link to watch a 30 second promo.  I have pasted the text version of the teaser below.

Did Texas execute an innocent man?

Several controversial death penalty cases are currently under examination in Texas and in other states, but it’s the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham — convicted for the arson deaths of his three young children — that’s now at the center of the national debate.

In Death by Fire, FRONTLINE’s season premiere, airing Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE gains unique access to those closest to the Willingham case — meticulously examining the evidence used to convict Willingham, offering an in-depth portrait of those most impacted by the case, and exploring the explosive implications of the execution of a possibly innocent man. (more…)

Legal nightmare ends for the Richardson family

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Mark and Vergil Richardson

District Judge Robert Mohoney has dropped all criminal charges against Mark Richardson, Vergil Richardson, Jermichole Richardson and Xavier Richardson, bringing a three-year legal nightmare to an end. 

This ruling comes as no surprise.  Once Judge John McCraw Jr. forced the presiding judge, John Miller, to recuse himself, the outcome was virtually automatic.  Judge Mahoney was appointed to replace Miller and it didn’t take him long to make the only sensible call available to him.

The big surprise in this case is that charges were filed against these defendants in the first place.  No one has ever accused the Texas Attorney General’s office of being soft on drug crime, but when Nicole Habersang reviewed the facts she knew what she had to do.  That’s when things got really strange.   When Ms. habersang filed a motion requesting that charges against all but one defendant be dropped, Judge Miller refused to cooperate.  (more…)