Lawyers who represent the state's death row inmates this week joined civil rights groups and some politicians in calling for a halt to executions because of what they says are widespread abuses in the system, including racial bias and incompetent attorneys.

In a report released Monday, the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit group of lawyers who represent condemned inmates, also accused police and prosecutors of misconduct and criticized the use of testimony from so-called "killer shrinks" to persuade juries to issue death sentences.

The service said in its report, A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty, that the capital punishment process "raises profound questions about the fairness of how and when the death penalty is applied."

But a spokeswoman for Gov. George W. Bush defended capital punishment, saying the system ensured that no innocent defendants were executed.

"In Texas, there are multiple checks and balances, including years and years of reviews by 22 judges in at least eight separate appeals, to ensure that an innocent person is not put to death," said Linda Edwards, a spokeswoman for Bush.

'Biased' arguments

The study paints an ugly picture of the capital punishment system in Texas -- a system allegedly filled with psychiatrists specializing in the prediction of the future dangerousness of convicted killers, scheming prosecutors and racial bias that sends more blacks to the death house than whites. Despite the almost constant condemnations from human rights groups and defense lawyers over the years, executions in Texas show no sign of slackening. Courts so far have found the arguments lacking. With six more executions scheduled this year, Texas could set a new record for the number of condemned inmates put to death. The pro-death penalty criminal justice group, Justice for All, said it was not buying the claims by the Texas Defender Service, arguing that these are the same old and "biased" arguments that have been consistently rejected by the courts.

"From my perspective, we've degraded the issue from guilt or innocence into 'Is your attorney slick enough to get you off,'" Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, told APBnews.com. "So, if they don't get you off, you had an attorney that was not competent."

But Jim Marcus, executive director of the Defender Service, said that while those in favor of the death penalty are attacking the report because defense lawyers wrote it, no one is questioning the facts. "The report has verified, objective information," Marcus said. "People keep referring to the checks and balances in the system. The facts speak for themselves. There are too many instances of misconduct, too much racial bias and too many instances where the safety value is broken."

 Report findings

Highlights of the Defenders Service report include:

In 41 cases reviewed by the service, prosecutors or police allegedly provided false or misleading testimony, hid evidence or used unreliable evidence through sources such as a "jailhouse snitch." The report also cites several examples of alleged misconduct and states that police and prosecutors are caught in a "vice of political pressure" to solve capital cases, sometimes using flimsy evidence and fabricated testimony to gain convictions.

The report claims a common prosecution tactic is to fool juries by using phony experts. In 121 death penalty cases it reviewed, the Defender Service said "expert psychiatrists testified at the penalty phase of the trial that the convicted killer would be a danger in the future."

But according to the report, the testimony of these psychiatrists, or "killer shrinks," was based on hypothetical questions regarding "future dangerousness." The Defender Service accuses these psychiatrists of either not interviewing the defendant or talking with him or her for a short time. According to Texas law, future dangerousness must be proved to determine whether a convicted killer receives a death sentence.

In 79 percent of post-conviction death penalty appeals, initial appellate judges affirmed the death sentences without bothering to conduct hearings.

More death sentences are given to blacks convicted of killing whites than are given to whites convicted of slaying blacks. The Defender Service said there was a "clear pattern of disparity" between the two groups, but that more data must be analyzed.

The study found that the death penalty is used most often to punish those convicted of murdering white women -- a group the report calls the least likely to be killed.

The study cites some cases in which lawyers slept through capital murder trials, ignored obvious exculpatory evidence, were disciplined for ethical lapses or used drugs or alcohol while representing a poor capital defendant at trial.

In one case, a lawyer allegedly took cocaine and drank during his client's trial for capital murder, and in another, the attorney only put in 85 hours of work on the entire capital murder case. The American Bar Association reports preparation for a capital case should take a lawyer at least 1,000 hours.

The report also cited surveys done by the state bar association indicating that trial court judges routinely appoint attorneys who are their personal friends or contribute to the judge's re-election campaign to represent capital defendants.

A system under attack

In recent years, the death penalty process in Texas has come under constant attack. The State Bar of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit group that works to protect civil rights issue in Texas, have called for a moratorium.

But pro-death penalty groups say the system is working fine.

Dudley Sharp, of Justice for All, said with only about 15 percent of death penalty verdicts in Texas overturned by the state and federal courts, it proves that arguments of racial bias, incompetence by attorneys or innocence are not holding water.

He said the study is "laughable" because it represents the views of criminal defense lawyers, not objective observers.

"They are totally overblown and do not reflect the reality of the system. ... Are there individual cases where Texas could have done a better job? Of course. That exists in every state. ... Attorneys don't like their claims being rejected. That's when they go to the court of public opinion," Sharp said.

But Marcus counters that "Draconian" limitations on federal review of death penalty sentences and elected state judges who do not want to overturn the cases are the real reasons so few convictions are reversed in Texas.

He said that most death penalty cases -- including the ones in which lawyers have slept through the trial -- are overturned at the federal court level.

Congressman calls for moratorium

The barrage of criticism leveled at the Texas death penalty system has even led some its supporters to demand a moratorium on executions so the process could be studied.

U.S. Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez, who favors the death penalty, is backing legislation in Congress calling for national moratorium on executions.

"We don't see a problem with taking a break to make sure the system is done right," Rodriguez, a Democrat, told APBnews.com.

A 'runaway train'

Sam Millsap, a former district attorney in Bexar County who sent several men to death row in the mid 1980s, also is asking for a moratorium, calling the system a "runaway train."

"The situation that exits today in Texas can only be described as embarrassing," he said.

Before another person is sent to death row or executed, the state must make the post-trial review process fairer for poor defendants, he said.

Record-setting pace

Under the Bush administration, 145 people have been executed in Texas. Since 1982, the state has executed 232 people -- by far the highest number in the nation.

Texas sent 37 people to its death house at Huntsville State Prison in 1997, the most in the state's history. But with 33 convicted killers executed so far in 2000 and six others scheduled before the end of the year, Texas could break its own record. The state has 446 convicted murderers on death row.  Millsap said he doubted that things would change quickly in Texas, or that the latest report would suddenly shift public opinion.

"The attitude among far too many people is that maybe the guy didn't commit the crime, but he's a bad son of a bitch and ought to be executed, anyway," Millsap said.