[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

May 27



MAY 27, 2019:





TEXAS:

Despite bipartisan support, Texas bill tackling intellectual disability in 
death penalty cases fails----Negotiators in the House and Senate couldn't come 
to an agreement on a bill addressing how Texas handles capital murder 
defendants who may be intellectually disabled. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court 
ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities amounts to cruel and 
unusual punishment.



A bill aimed at ending Texas' years of legal troubles around ensuring it is not 
administering the death penalty on people with intellectual disabilities died 
in the Texas Legislature this weekend after negotiators in the Senate and House 
failed to find common ground. The legislative session ends Monday.

House Bill 1139, by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, was originally 
written to allow capital murder defendants to request pretrial hearings to 
determine if they are intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the 
death penalty. If the trial judges found they were intellectually disabled, 
they would be ineligible for a death sentence and instead receive an automatic 
sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

As the bill moved through the Senate, however, it was largely gutted, instead 
only stating that a defendant who has an intellectual disability can’t receive 
the death penalty and such determinations must be made using current medical 
standards. That language would have codified existing U.S. Supreme Court 
rulings but offered no direction on how to follow them.

Earlier this week, when the bill came back from the Senate amended, Thompson 
requested a conference committee in which members from both chambers could iron 
out the differences between the two versions. The committees had until midnight 
Sunday to file a report with a compromise version. The deadline passed without 
a report.

Thompson’s original version of HB 1139 passed out of the Texas House in an 
102-37 vote and was supported by members of both parties. She could not be 
reached for comment Saturday night.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual 
disabilities amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, but left it up to states 
to determine the definition of such disabilities. Texas has never passed 
legislation to regulate the process, leaving it up to courts to decide if a 
defendant is eligible for the death penalty.

However, Texas courts have still run into trouble with the higher court because 
of a test some judges have implemented to determine if a defendant is eligible 
for the death penalty. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas 
Court of Criminal Appeals’ process as unconstitutional in a case involving 
Bobby Moore, ruling that it used outdated medical standards and non-clinical 
factors that advanced stereotypes, like how well a defendant could lie. The 
Texas court was asked to re-evaluate Moore using different methods. The court’s 
revised method, which still rejected Moore’s claim of intellectual disability, 
was again knocked down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

“There’s a disconnect between the U.S. Supreme Court and our court down here,” 
Thompson told the Tribune earlier this year. “We just want to make sure that 
we’re doing justice, that we’re following the law.”

State Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who is vice-chair of the Senate's 
Criminal Justice Committee, opposed the version of the bill that passed the 
House, questioning whether the pretrial process would allow “activist judges” 
who were against the death penalty to use it as a way to limit capital 
punishment. State Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat who carried the bill in 
the Senate, later presented the much more limited version of the bill, which 
passed out of that chamber.

“As the legislation moved, I worked with my fellow members in the Senate 
Criminal Justice Committee and passed a version of the bill to continue the 
discussion in a conference committee where we could craft language that would 
respect the US Supreme Court rulings,” Miles said in a statement Saturday 
night. “Unfortunately, the leadership would not allow HB 1139 to move forward, 
dooming the bill.”

A spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not immediately respond to 
questions on the bill.

State Rep. Joe Moody D-El Paso, a member of the conference committee, said that 
the House members on the committee attempted to use the report to advance two 
other death penalty-related bills when it became clear that the Senate was not 
going to support addressing the issue of ensuring that Texas isn't executing 
people with intellectual disabilities.

The 1st, House Bill 1030, would clarify instructions to a jury when they are 
deciding whether to give a defendant the death penalty of life in prison. The 
2nd, House Bill 464, would allow evidence appeals that could lessen 
punishments, like a death sentence, instead of just overruling a conviction.

“The attempt of the conference was if they were going to zero out the base 
effort of (House Bill) 1139, then, let's see what other movement we can make on 
the death penalty as a whole, which included two bills that were voted out of 
the House with over 130 votes apiece,” Moody told The Texas Tribune Saturday 
night before the midnight deadline.

As the session is scheduled to wrap up another session on Monday with no 
resolution on the issue, Moody said he think Texas will continue to struggle 
with court cases involving individuals with intellectual disabilities until the 
Legislature takes the burden off the courts.

“The courts have been there, sitting there, making their best effort to get a 
system in place, but it keeps getting thrown out by the Supreme Court,” Moody 
said. “So this is our job. Our job is to legislate and not force this job on 
the judges and the courts.”

(source: Texas Tribune)