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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (555161)	3/15/2010 4:17:38 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576711

Critics lash Texas judge for refusing death penalty A Texas judge in the county that sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation is apparently taking a stand. By JUAN A. LOZANO The Associated Press HOUSTON — A Texas judge in the county that sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation is apparently taking a stand. Saying he could assume that innocent people have been executed, state District Judge Kevin Fine ruled in a pretrial motion in a capital murder case Thursday that the death penalty was unconstitutional. On Friday, he was the target of criticism from a string of high-profile Texans, including Gov. Rick Perry. Fine, a Democrat who is heavily tattooed and says he is a recovering alcoholic and former cocaine user, answered some of the criticism during a hearing Friday. "To say that I am ignoring precedent or legislating from the bench I think is slightly overreaching," he said. Fine said there was no precedent to guide him in resolving the issues raised by defense attorneys in a case involving a man accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister during a robbery in June 2008. Attorneys for John Edward Green Jr. argued that Texas' death-penalty statute is unconstitutional because it violates their client's right to due process of law under the 5th Amendment, since hundreds of innocent people nationwide have been convicted and sent to death row and later exonerated. Fine said in his ruling Thursday that it is safe to assume innocent people have been executed. "Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?" he asked. "I don't think society's mindset is that way now." Fine said Friday he was focusing only on the due-process issue the motion brought up and the only guidance on that issue is what has been provided by the U.S. Supreme Court "that places a duty on trial courts to act as gatekeepers in interpreting the due-process claim in light of evolving standards of fairness and ordered liberty." "So I am now charged with interpreting such evolving standards and I'm called upon to assess the current state of our society's standards of fairness and ordered liberty in light of what we as a society now know. And that is that we execute innocent people." At a news conference Friday, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos said the defense team's legal arguments are not new and have been previously ruled upon by state and federal courts. "The Texas death-penalty statute is constitutional. We have had executions this year with due process raised," she said. "I see this as unnecessarily delaying justice." read more......... seattletimes.nwsource.com