USA - Texas. Prominent Texans Support Death Penalty Moratorium

Prominent Texans Support Death Penalty Moratorium Legislation. The Texas Criminal Jurisprudence Committee of the House of Representatives heard testimony today regarding HB 1641, a bill that would  establish a Texas Capital Punishment Commission and put a hold on executions while the death penalty was being studied. Charles Terrell, former Chairman of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, supported the moratorium in a statement to the committee, expressing concerns about: "fairness to those convicted on the limited testimony of witnesses, racial fairness in some areas of our state, the absence of DNA testing where it was possible to do so, and my belief that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole is far worse than a death sentence for young offenders." Former Texas Gov. Mark White (1983/1987) also wrote a statement to the Committee in favor of the bill. “As former Governor of Texas, I oversaw 19 executions. Before each execution, I painstakingly reviewed each individual’s case to be as certain as humanly possible that he had received a fair trial and was guilty of the crime for which he was sentenced to death. However there are more safeguards beyond careful gubernatorial review that the State of Texas should put in place to decrease the likelihood of executing an innocent individual and to increase fundamental fairness in our capital punishment system." White also wrote that "regardless of our views on the death penalty itself, we all have profound concerns that the administration of capital punishment is deeply flawed and believe that all persons facing the death penalty are entitled to the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution."