Cesar Fierro, convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of an El Paso cab driver, said he confessed to the crime only because police threatened to torture his parents if he refused. The prosecutor who put him on Death Row eventually decided Fierro was telling the truth. A Texas appeals court ruled that police had committed perjury and that his rights had been violated.
That’s the good news about how the capital punishment system works in Gov. George W. Bush’s home state. The bad news is that the same court refused to grant a new trial to Fierro, who is still on Death Row. And he’s not the only victim of a state criminal justice system that sometimes seems more intent on getting a death sentence than getting the right person.
Though many states are reviewing their administration of capital punishment, and though Illinois Gov. George Ryan has declared a moratorium on executions, Bush says the Texas system works just fine. None of the 131 executions that have occurred on his watch, he says, involved an innocent person.
A Tribune investigation published this week however, provides grounds for deep concern. In 40 of the cases examined, the defense lawyer presented no evidence or just one witness during the penalty phase of the trial. In 43 cases, the defense was handled by a lawyer who has been sanctioned for misconduct. Twenty-three convictions rested on testimony from jailhouse informants, who are regarded as the least trustworthy witnesses.
These and other shortcomings suggest that the nation’s busiest capital punishment system is severely flawed.
Not that the problems rife in Texas are unique: A new study by Columbia University law professor James Liebman looked at every death sentence handed down since 1976 and discovered that two out of three were overturned on appeal–which suggests that police, prosecutors and trial courts are making a lot of serious mistakes. Fully 7 percent of the defendants sentenced to die were eventually found not guilty. The existing system, concludes the study, is “persistently and systematically fraught with error.”
That creates a challenge for supporters of capital punishment, which includes most Americans. Some crimes are so savage and shocking that no other punishment can possibly do justice. But the death penalty must be imposed only in cases where a guilty party has been convicted in a fair trial based on sound evidence and testimony.
To assure that, states need to provide better representation for poor defendants, ban unscientific or otherwise dubious evidence and punish misconduct by police and prosecutors.
And yes, Gov. Bush, that includes Texas.
