Bump and Update: The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to recommend a stay. What will Gov. Rick Perry do?

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Frances Newton is not going to the texecution chamber Wednesday without a fight. She's been claiming her innocence for 17 years.

Questions have been raised, however, about the quality of her legal defense and the reliability of forensic testing by the Houston Police Department crime lab, both of which have come under scrutiny in recent years, her attorneys said.

We wrote about Frances here, quoting the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty :

Frances Newton faces execution in Texas Dec. 1, despite resounding doubts about her guilt. Newton's case is a witches' brew of death penalty dysfunctions. Her trial counsel was egregiously incompetent, she has a strong innocence claim and her conviction rests largely on dubious tests conducted by the now-discredited Houston Police Department crime lab.

She will be the first African-American woman to be executed in modern Texas history. Take action here in support of her lawyers' request for a 120 day reprieve.

It might be the hardest lawyer's job in the country--soliciting lawyers to represent death row inmates for free. But it's a full time job for the head of the ABA's Death Penalty Representation Project.

Robin Maher is a traveling saleswoman whose wares are condemned prisoners. From Boston to Albuquerque, from Denver to New Orleans, she pulls out their pictures and histories and makes her pitch. They have been sentenced for sometimes gruesome crimes, she acknowledges. Many may be guilty as convicted; others have circumstances that could save their lives. A few could be innocent.

Not one has an attorney.

And therein lies the rub. In an age when hundreds of inmates have been found innocent by DNA testing not available or provided at the time of trial, there are even fewer lawyers who are willing to devote the hundreds or thousands of hours necessary to represent someone who they think probably is guilty.

The American Civil Liberties Union has released the first-ever national report on women on death row. It finds the women live in harsh conditions, in virtual isolation, and many are sentenced for crimes that don't result in a death sentence for men.

"For the first time, we have a snapshot of the experience of women on Death Row - and the picture is grim," said Rachel King, a staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project and one of the authors of the report. "Women who have been condemned to death are put into isolation and forced to endure abusive and degrading conditions that simply have no place in our criminal justice system."

The report, The Forgotten Population: A Look at Death Row in the United States Through the Experiences of Women, details the experiences of 56 women living on death row, and also reviews the case files of 10 women who have been executed since 1976. The report found that women on Death Row face similar problems as men, such as inadequate defense counsel and struggles with drug and alcohol addictions, but that women are subjected to harsher living conditions because of their small numbers.

Nine days and counting down to the scheduled texecution of Frances Newton. She may be innocent. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty writes:

Frances Newton faces execution in Texas Dec. 1, despite resounding doubts about her guilt. Newton's case is a witches' brew of death penalty dysfunctions. Her trial counsel was egregiously incompetent, she has a strong innocence claim and her conviction rests largely on dubious tests conducted by the now-discredited Houston Police Department crime lab.

She will be the first African-American woman to be executed in modern Texas history. Take action here.

by TChris

Should Charles Walker die?

Never in North Carolina, and perhaps not in the United States, has the state executed a convicted murderer when there is no body or even a trace of blood indicating a crime was committed. In modern times the state has not executed a defendant without a confession of guilt or some sort of physical evidence, or at least testimony from a witness who had nothing to gain from testifying.

But unless Gov. Mike Easley commutes Charles Walker's death sentence to life imprisonment, the state will execute a man who a jury concluded did not fire the fatal shot -- an outrageous injustice since one of the two men who admitted doing the killing is now out of prison and the other is eligible for parole.

Troy Kunkle won a stay tonight from the U.S. Supreme Court. It's the second time he's received a stay, both times while in the execution chamber. Tonight's stay came 40 minutes after the scheduled start of his execution. At least they waited.

Kunkle has been dubbed by the press as the "Metallica" killer.

According to testimony at his capital murder trial, Kunkle was 18 when he fatally shot Stephen Horton, 31, then chanted: "Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath" -- the refrain from the Metallica song "No Remorse" on an album called "Kill 'Em All." A pool of blood is depicted on the album cover....Prosecutors also remembered him at one point playing an air guitar in the courtroom at his trial as lawyers discussed whether the Metallica song could be admitted into evidence.

Like the stay granted to another Texas inmate this week, the Court found that the Texas court improperly prevented the jury from considering mitigating evidence.

"Plainly, Mr. Kunkle's sentencing hearing was marred by the same constitutional flaw," attorney Robert McGlasson said. "The jury heard evidence that could have persuaded it to spare Mr. Kunkle's life, but was limited to instructions that gave it no vehicle for expressing that conclusion."

The Supreme Court today threw out a Texas death sentence in the case of Smith v. Texas, 04-5323. There were two dissenters: Anton Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The problem in the case was that under Texas law at the time, the jury was not allowed to consider all of the evidence in determining a life or death sentence. The Supreme Court ruled that the jury should have been allowed to consider Smith's learning disability and other mitigating evidence.

Smith argued that jurors weren't allowed to consider evidence including that he was 19 at the time of the Taco Bell robbery, that he had a troubled home life and that he had a low IQ and learning disabilities. A Texas court rejected the claim, saying that wasn't relevant because there was no link between the murder and his diminished capacity.

... "There is no question that a jury might well have considered (Smith's) IQ scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the court wrote in Monday's decision

Texas has since modified its statute and now allows for juries to consider such evidence. But, we're told, over 100 prisoners were executed under the old, now unconstitutional statute. [we'll try and find a link to support this.]

In September, we wrote about a report by the Death Penalty Information Center that found death penalty sentences in the U.S. had fallen for the fourth straight year. (Report here, pdf) Now, the Department of Justice has issued its own statistics, with the same findings. The Justice Department reports finds that death penalty sentences are at the lowest rate in 30 years. The statistics were compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Death penalty opponents say the report shows how wary the public is of executions, heightened by concerns about whether the punishment is administered fairly and publicity about those wrongly convicted.

....Opponents also point to other possible reasons, including continuing fallout from Supreme Court decisions requiring that juries be told that life in prison without parole is an alternative to death.

47 states now offer a lwop (life without parole) option. In 1993 only 3 states provided the option.

Despite the good news of a reduction, there is a long way to go. In 2003, there were 144 persons sentenced to death in 25 states. Currently, there are 3,374 prisoners on death row in the U.S. 65 were executed in 2003. Texas again topped the charts at 24, with Oklahoma and North Carolina on its heels. No other state executed more than three prisoners. 38 states and the federal system still allow the death penalty. When the number gets reduced to zero, that's the time to cheer.

Some more stats from the report:

The Ohio House has passed a bill, sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, to conduct an in-depth review of the state's death penalty system. Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy has the details, including links to a Cincinnati Inquirer article and one in the Toledo Blade discussing the bill.

The governor and legislature would appoint an 18-member commission to look at whether those on death row received adequate legal counsel, whether capital cases are resolved fairly, and how delays in the system can be overcome.

TalkLeft has noted a few times the hypocrisy of pro-lifers who don't oppose the death penalty. So this comment by the Republican sponsor was particlularly heartening to read:

"I am 100 percent pro-life," Brinkman said, noting that applies to abortion and the death penalty. "I told my wife that the first time I get a sentencing bill, I'm going to move this. I'd like to abolish (the death penalty) or have a moratorium, but you've got to start somewhere."

Maybe soon we'll finally see a license plate that says, "Choose Life. End the Death Penalty."

The text of the Ohio bill is here. It now moves to the Ohio Senate. From there, let's hope it goes to Texas, California, Florida, Pennyslvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, to name a few.

For up to date death penalty news, check out the blog Abolish the Death Penalty by David Elliott. It is the official blog of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) .

Demarco McCullum was a star quarterback on one of Houston's high school teams. Now he's awaiting his execution tonight in Texas. His appeals have been exhausted. According to NCADP,

McCullum was sentenced to death based on the notion that he would continue to be a future threat to society in or out of prison. He has been in prison for 10 years and has been a model prisoner. McCullum accepts full responsibility for his actions and is truly remorseful for the crimes he has committed. There is every reason to believe McCullum could continue to live peacefully in a structured environment. McCullum’s attorney was quick to express his concern that the state was executing a reformed law abiding man who is very different today than he was at 19 when the crime was committed.

Tommorrow it will be Frederick McWilliams turn to die.

In Kentucky, Governor Ernie Fletcher just signed his first death warrant, for Clyde Bowling. The Governor is also a doctor. Groups contend he should not have signed the death warrant because he is bound by the Hippocratic oath. In additon,

Crime and Federalism has put together this chart of Supreme Court death penalty cases, by issue, case and year, that shows how each Justice voted - whether for death or against it. The chart was in excel format, and at our suggestion, the author graciously converted it to html.

by TChris

The dilapidated condition of San Quentin's death row is sparking renewed debate about the death penalty in California.

The current death row consists of 629 inmates housed in three ramshackle brick-and-stone buildings, two of them dating to 1934 and 1927. The 1927 building looks like something out of a Jimmy Cagney movie, with five tiers of cells with open bars, and catwalks that run right up close to the cells, and lots of blind corners.

Prison officials want to build a modern, secure complex at San Quentin, but many local residents "believe the new death row building will be a brightly lit eyesore that some say resembles a concentration camp." Others question the need to spend $220 million to house inmates on death row when the state has executed only ten people since 1977. And some ask whether the death penalty should remain an option in California.

Recently, a coalition of California prosecutors and defense attorneys called for a moratorium on the death penalty while an inquiry is held on whether the system is fair. Prison officials say the politics of capital punishment are outside their scope.

Construction is expected to start next year.