- WASHINGTON, 27 DIC - Lo stato dell'Oklahoma ha
strappato quest'anno al Texas, lo Stato del presidente
George W. Bush, il record del maggiore numero di esecuzioni.
Il
Texas aveva mantenuto il titolo di 'capitale' delle esecuzioni dal 1996, ma il numero dei condannati messi
a morte e' sceso quest'anno del 57% rispetto al 2000, con 17
esecuzioni.
Nel vicino dell'Oklahoma, le esecuzioni sono state 18.
Circa
450 persone si trovano attualmente nel braccio della morte in attesa dell'esecuzione nel Texas. Su scala
nazionale, nel 2001 ci sono state 66 esecuzioni, a fronte delle
85 del 2000.
December
27
Texas
Loses Title To Oklahoma
The title of America's Number One death penalty state has moved across
the Texas state line to Oklahoma. Texas had held the title since 1996. But
the number of inmates put to death this year in Texas was down 57% compared
with last year. There were only 17 executions in Texas this year, compared
to Oklahoma's 18. While there has been a 22% national decline in death
penalty cases, the drop in Texas' numbers are just part of the usual ebb
and flow of death row appeals. There are some 450 inmates awaiting lethal
injection in Texas.
TEXAS:Texas
may reclaim death penalty record
The
prospects appear good for Texas reclaiming in 2002 the distinction as the
nation's most active death penalty state.
With
Oklahoma carrying out 18 executions in 2001, Texas for the 1st time since
1996 surrendered the title of America's execution capital.
"We
really don't have anything to do with the scheduling and timing and how
that pans out," says Jane Shepperd, a spokeswoman for the Texas
attorney general's office, which takes over death penalty cases from local
prosecutors once the cases hit the federal appellate courts. "The
office of attorney general is to represent the state of Texas in the final
appellate stages of capital cases."
State
district judges, usually in consultation with county district attorneys,
set execution dates.
The
impact of measures intended to accelerate appeals, an ambitious execution
schedule for early 2002 and the hindsight of history all point to a busier
year for lethal injections in Texas.
This
year's 17 executions represented a 57 % drop from 2000 and contributed to
the national year-to-year decline of 22 %, buoying hopes of death penalty
opponents.
"While
the past year had been a time of real progress in addressing the problem
areas of the death penalty, the crisis continues," said Richard Dieter,
executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information
Center.
Notably
absent from among the 17 killers who reached the Huntsville Unit gurney
were inmates sentenced out of Harris County. The county encompassing much
of the city of Houston accounts for 1/3 of the some 450 inmates awaiting
death in Texas, or more than the entire population of Oklahoma's condemned.
Gary
Graham, whose lengthy and contentious case culminated with his execution in
June 2000, was the last convicted murderer from Harris County to reach the
death chamber.
"You're
going to be seeing more rollout from Harris County," predicts Roe
Wilson, an assistant district attorney whose office handles capital case
appeals.
Nearly
60 Harris County cases are in the federal Southern District of Texas courts.
"In
the last few months, they've been breaking away," Wilson says.
"The huge lump of them were in federal court.
"I
liken it to a boa constrictor that has swallowed a pig for dinner. You
watch the pig progress down the boa constrictor and that pig is the big
glut that is in the federal courts right now."
Out
of the clogged federal district courts, the appeals go to the New
Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the nation's most
capital punishment-friendly appellate courts. In several current Harris
County cases there, briefings are finished and rulings are imminent.
U.S.
Supreme Court intervention is rare, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act of 1996 imposed new restrictions on the ability of
condemned prisoners to have their convictions reviewed by a federal court.
Thus, the landscape is clearer than ever for trial judges to set execution
dates.
Inmate
Michael Moore, reprieved from punishment in March, is the 1st scheduled for
injection in 2002 with a Jan. 9 date.
"I
hope it would be the last," says Moore of his execution. "But
being a realist, I know it's not going to be."
3
more inmates are set to follow Moore to the death chamber in January. 2
more are scheduled for February and another in early March.
In
addition, the so-called "railroad killer," Angel Maturino
Resendiz, is awaiting the results of psychological examinations that seek
to determine if he's competent to drop appeals and pave the way for his
demise.
"I
fear for those left behind," Vincent Edward Cooks said in an interview
weeks before he was put to death Dec. 12, becoming the 17th and final
condemned killer to be executed in Texas this year.
Historically,
recent slow years in the Texas death house have been followed by busy ones,
as cases backed up in the legal system burst to completion in a process not
unlike the prosecutor's boa constrictor analogy.
In
1996, 3 executions were carried out, followed by 37 the next year. In 1998,
there were 20; in 1999, 35. The aberration was 2000, when a record 40
inmates went to the gurney.
The
spurt, however, is what happened this year in Oklahoma, where Attorney
General Drew Edmondson expects 10 executions at the most in his state in
2002, a decline by nearly half.
"There
was such a backlog on death row and the cases were old," he said.
"We were working through the appeals process. At some point, the
number of executions should be equal to roughly the number of new arrivals,
less cases that are reversed."
That's
about what's happening in Texas, where 30 convicted murderers came to death
row in 2000 and 2001, 48 in 1999, and 42 in 1998.
There
may be no downturn in 2002.
With
the new year, at least 3 capital murder trials are set to get under way in
Harris County, including the trial of Andrea Yates, the mother accused of
drowning her 5 children.
In
Dallas County, 5 former prison escapees charged with capital murder in the
death of an Irving policeman face death sentences if convicted like their
ringleader, George Rivas, last August.
And
in Polk County, a new sentencing trial is set early in the year for Johnny
Paul Penry, whose claims of mental retardation prompted the U.S. Supreme
Court to halt his scheduled execution early this year.
