[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 4



TEXAS:

True Grits----The outspoken blogger Scott Henson is now the head of the 
Innocence Project of Texas - and he has a few opinions to share.


Scott Henson has been infuriating people since his college days at the 
University of Texas at Austin, when he co-published a magazine called 
Polemicist, which took university officials to task for various misdeeds. After 
graduation, he wrote for the Texas Observer and worked as a political 
consultant, in the process learning the ins and outs of the Legislature. In 
2004 Henson started the blog Grits for Breakfast, which rapidly became the 
go-to criminal justice forum in the state, in large part because of his 
no-holds-barred critiques of the criminal justice system. 7 years ago Henson 
was hired by the Lubbock-based Innocence Project of Texas (IPOT) as a policy 
director; in June he was named executive director of the organization, which is 
now moving to Austin.

Michael Hall: After a career chastising and criticizing those in power, it 
seems perfectly logical that you would wind up, at age 48, running the 
Innocence Project of Texas.

Scott Henson: That's definitely an accurate narrative, though I don't think 
it's the driving one. I certainly didn't decide "I want this job" and then go 
and build a resume for it.

MH: When you were first hired at the Innocence Project, your expertise was 
working the Legislature.

SH: Yes, and taking issues that defense lawyers were grappling with and 
figuring out some way to turn them into legislation. In 2009 we got the Lege to 
increase compensation for exonerees from $50,000 to $80,000 for every year they 
were behind bars, and we encouraged them to create the Timothy Cole Advisory 
Panel [named for a Texas man who died in prison 13 years into a sentence for a 
rape he didn't commit]. It studied all the exonerations in the state and made 
recommendations to prevent future wrongful convictions, from reforming 
eyewitness ID procedures to recording interrogations to clarifying the standard 
for using junk science as a basis for a writ of habeas corpus.

MH: The "junk science writ" was passed in 2013 and then strengthened this past 
session. Where did the idea come from?

SH: I asked defense attorneys, "What are the big issues that y'all see as a 
barrier to getting more innocent people out of prison?" And this issue of using 
flawed forensic testimony as a basis for a writ of habeas corpus came up.

MH: Most of those Cole panel recommendations have now become law.

SH: All of them have passed except for recording interrogations. Texas is the 
1st state to examine what reforms would help keep innocent people from being 
convicted, or get them out of prison if they???re already there.

MH: During the recent session, the Lege created an exoneration review 
commission, which you'll be advising. What exactly will that group do?

SH: It will study the 112 Texas exonerations that have happened since 2009.

MH: But didn't the Cole panel already examine wrongful convictions?

SH: Yes, but those were mostly DNA exonerations, which were usually sexual 
assault cases. We're seeing fewer DNA exonerations now, because the stored DNA 
evidence is running out. We're seeing a wider array of cases. There are a lot 
of drug cases, for example, where people have accepted pleas to get out of jail 
but it turns out they weren't actually in possession of drugs, and the DA's 
office didn't find out until the crime lab report arrived 6 months later. They 
pleaded guilty because they didn't want to lose their job or their apartment. 
If you can't make bail, then you're more likely to take the crappy deal. And it 
isn't just drug cases where this happens. I mean, how many people in Waco after 
the Twin Peaks massacre were rounded up and given $1 million bond, and a bunch 
of them had been just sitting there in the restaurant? That dynamic points to a 
whole different set of issues. We're starting to look at the front end of the 
process - at plea-bargaining issues and at pretrial detention. And I think 
other reforms will suggest themselves.

I'm really excited about the exoneration review commission - we have an 
opportunity to do some cutting-edge work that just hasn't been done yet, 
figuring out what's the next phase. It's one of the reasons I agreed to take 
this job, even though it's more of a managerial job than a policy one. I think 
we're well situated to keep doing important work. The innocence frame, which 
really is at root an accuracy frame, is a very interesting lens through which 
to view the justice system.

MH: What do you mean by an "accuracy frame"?

SH: "You got the wrong guy. Get it right."

MH: What are some of the specific things you want to do as executive director?

SH: In the past our litigation has mostly been handled by a handful of pro bono 
attorneys or law students at the Texas Tech clinic, and it's been almost 
episodic. We haven't been able to be proactive and strategic because we haven't 
had a full-time staff attorney. I'm hoping we can hire a topflight staff 
attorney whose sole job is working for IPOT, somebody who's a little older, has 
a little bit more experience.

MH: You're moving IPOT to Austin.

SH: It won't be based in Lubbock for long. That would have been a deal killer. 
Lubbock, we love you, but no.

MH: The Innocence Project has been working with the Texas Forensic Science 
Commission and the state fire marshal to review old arson cases. I'm guessing 
it's unusual for a state fire marshal to collaborate with an innocence project.

SH: Yeah. But we've done something similar before: in 2007 we worked with the 
Dallas County DA, vetting cases in which inmates had asked for post-conviction 
DNA testing. That's where we have, I think, found our niche: being a partner 
with unlikely allies. It doesn't all have to be adversarial.

MH: You've always been careful on Grits to note that you work for IPOT. Can you 
continue to writ Grits when you actually run IPOT?

SH: Everyone likes the blog, everyone likes me to do a lot of free labor. And 
for me the blog is more utilitarian than most people realize. It's not a public 
service; I know readers appreciate it, but it's not for y'all. It's mostly for 
me, so I can keep track of the issues I???m working on, so I can trot out 
arguments and new frameworks, new ways of looking at things, because my critics 
will be right there in the comments, telling me what I got wrong.

MH: What other criminal justice issues do you feel strongly about?

SH: Our incarceration rate is too high - we're the epicenter of mass 
incarceration worldwide. Our population is 70 % the size of California's, but 
we have 30,000 more prisoners than they do. We've closed 3 prisons; I'd like to 
see us close another 30. Also, police misconduct is a big problem, although a 
lot of it is kept secret, especially in the larger police departments that 
operate under the state civil service code - all their disciplinary files are 
secret. You can't manage what you can't measure.

MH: On Grits you've been critical of people who focus too much on the death 
penalty.

SH: I have an iconoclastic view of the death penalty, and it's one I certainly 
wouldn't attribute to the Innocence Project. I'm of the view that all of us 
die, but not everyone spends his life locked up in a small box - a lifetime in 
solitary confinement is a worse fate than death. I also think that we should 
worry about all the people the system kills - people shot by cops, people who 
die because of crappy health care in prison, like Tim Cole, who died because he 
couldn't get access to an asthma inhaler. My complaint to my friends who work 
on death penalty cases is that their debates suck all the oxygen out of the 
room. Death penalty cases are given outsized coverage by the press, and 
everyone wants to view the entire criminal justice system through that lens. 
That means you never get to talk about other important issues, like pretrial 
detention or mass incarceration. There are about 400 deaths a year in official 
custody, which is 40 times the number of people executed. There are plenty of 
people focused on those 10. I want to look at the other 390.

(source: Texas Monthly)