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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!

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From: epicure12/5/2004 10:31:26 AM
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Equal protection under the laws? Not in Texas, for sure (and you know the Supreme Court isn't seeing every sucky case, so people are being killed in Texas, who would not have been killed in other states, and whose cases have not been fully and fairly tried. Should make anyone worry about their support of the death penalty:

The Supreme Court agrees to hear only about 80 cases each year. It seldom accepts cases to correct errors in the lower courts and concentrates instead on resolving conflicts among appeals courts and announcing broad legal principles. But in recent years the court has often found itself fixing problems in specific Texas death penalty cases. Over the last decade, it has ruled against prosecutors in all six appeals brought by inmates on death row in Texas.

The cases all involved challenges to the fairness of the procedures used to convict and sentence the defendants rather than arguments about their innocence.

The two appeals courts handle an enormous number of capital cases and grant relief in very few. Between 1995 and 2000, the Court of Criminal Appeals heard direct appeals in 270 death sentences and reversed eight times, according to a report by the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit law firm that represents death row inmates. The reversal rate - 3 percent - is the lowest of any state. California, which has a much larger death row, at 635, has executed only 10 people since 1976, to Texas's 336.

Make sure you read the full article:

nytimes.com
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