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Helping Karl
American-Statesman
April 2008
"The same flaws in the criminal justice system that led to Thomas McGowan's wrongful conviction exist in countless cases where DNA testing is not an option — cases that sometimes end in death sentences," he said, referring to Wednesday's DNA exoneration of McGowan, convicted of a crime that took place in 1985 and got life sentences for rape and burglary.
In its decision, the high court seemed to leave the method of lethal injection open to future challenges if convicts can prove the process causes pain. But David Dow, a University of Houston law professor and litigation director for the Texas Defender Service that handles death-row appeals, said the court has set the bar for those future challenges "absolutely high.
"They will have to show a substantial risk of significant injury," he said. "They will have to show that mistakes were made ... and that was hard to do in the Kentucky case, because they've only executed one person."
Victim advocacy groups hailed the decision as another legal dodge removed.
"Even though I feel like this should settle the issue, I'm sure there will be other spurious attempts to do away with capital punishment." said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, an Austin attorney and vice president for Justice for All, a Houston-based victims advocacy group.
Noting that executions take about 90 days to schedule and carry out, he added, "look for August to be a very busy month in Huntsville."
Mike Ward
American-Statesman
17th April 2008
