The 2008 platform of the Texas Republican Party endorses the death penalty for people convicted of rape.

In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 7-2 Coker v. Georgia decision that applying the death penalty in rape cases was forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as cruel and unusual punishment because the sentence was disproportionate to the crime. Coker resulted in the removal of twenty inmates — three whites and 17 blacks — awaiting execution on rape convictions from death rows around the country.

The GOP platform says that “all innocent human life must be protected”, but it does not address how to protect innocent people from being sentenced to death or executed.

Parts of the Texas GOP platform that address the death penalty are:

Sexual Assault – Punishment options for rape should include death.

Capital Punishment – Properly applied capital punishment is legitimate, is an effective deterrent, and should be swift and unencumbered.

We believe that human life is sacred, created in the image of God. Life begins at the moment of fertilization and ends at the point of natural death. All innocent human life must be protected.

We support enactment of a homicide-by-abuse statute that provides punishment for abusing a child to death without intent of killing.

The 2008 Texas Democratic Party platform endorses the creation of a Texas Capital Punishment Commission to study the Texas death penalty system and a moratorium on executions pending action on the Commission’s findings. It also endorses the creation of an Innocence Commission, among other reforms.

According to the latest campaign filing reports covering Jan 1 to June 30, 2008, Susan Strawn raised almost 5 times as much in contributions than her opponent Tom Price.

Susan Strawn raised $11,650.

Tom Price raised $2,425.

The low levels being raised by both of these campaigns means that the winner is likely to depend on the closeness of the presidential race in Texas. If Obama does better than expected in Texas while winning the national election, then Strawn could do well in her race. Strawn has already been endorsed by the Dallas Morning News, which criticized her opponent’s work ethic, frequent absences and deteriorating reputation. If more newspapers endorse Strawn, that will likely help her pick up votes from independent voters making informed decisions. She may be able to pull off a win, as long as the presidential race is not a blowout in Texas.

Tom Price’s report.

Susan Strawn’s report.

Above, Susan on the campaign trail doing an informal interview.

At the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in June 2008

As the election nears, we want to bring readers’ attention to the Dallas Morning News’ endorsement of Democrat Susan Strawn for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The endorsement starts off by saying “the judgment of the state’s highest criminal court rightly has been called into question in recent years. Too often, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the rulings of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. And Presiding Judge Sharon Keller disgraced the court last year with her life-or-death decision to refuse a condemned man’s request for a stay because the office closed at 5.”

Then the editorial continues with:

Democratic challenger Susan Strawn fits the bill. The Houston lawyer, who also teaches at the University of Houston Law Center, recognizes the court’s shortcomings and offers innovative ideas for improvement. She strikes us as smart, measured, hard working and insightful.

The DMN website has answers from both candidates on a questionnaire. To the question, “What changes, if any, would you like to see made to the administration of the death penalty in Texas?”, Strawn responds:

Susan Strawn: First, I would like to see death penalty cases handled from start to finish in compliance with the Constitution and all applicable law. The reason the Founding Fathers gave criminal defendants Constitutional rights was not because the Founders were soft on crime, but to make sure that the power of the State was exercised fairly against the guilty. Additionally, evidentiary and procedural rules have evolved over a thousand years of Anglo-American tradition, and continue to evolve. These rules exist to ensure that our criminal process is efficient and fair, and that the innocent are not convicted based on unreliable evidence. The most fundamental job of the Court is to ensure that the law is applied and the rules are enforced. The current Court has given short shrift to the law, with the result that there have been too many wrongful convictions and reversals by the federal courts.

Second, we need to improve the quality of counsel for both the prosecution and the defense. We have an adversarial system. In the basic task of fact-finding, the system relies on competent counsel on both sides to investigate the case, and present and cross-examine witnesses at trial. Similarly, the process depends on attorneys – prosecuting and defense – to object to errors and argue those points on appeal. Without a vigorous presentation of the case, neither the jury nor the judge can adequately do its job. Our system simply does not work if one side is not well represented.

On the prosecutorial side, the Court has a key role to play in assuring that prosecutorial misconduct is not rewarded. This does not mean reversing convictions where the integrity of the conviction is not at issue, but rather ensuring that the attorneys involved in egregious conduct are appropriately sanctioned. As a federal prosecutor, I was told on Day One that I was held to a higher standard in court, and that our job was not to win, but to ensure that justice was done. Cutting corners to win undermined your credibility with the court, and jeopardized your career. Maintaining the credibility of law enforcement is critical to our system, and the Court must be willing to hold prosecutors to high standards.

On the defense side, the Court must also ensure quality counsel. Most capital defendants are indigent, and we should extend and hasten ongoing reforms in indigent defense. Inadequate or non-existent defense counsel is a problem in all cases, but it is even more significant in capital cases.

We need to appoint defense counsel in a timely manner, ensure that counsel are appointed at all stages of the proceedings, and police the quality of appointed counsel with meaningful sanctions for inadequate work. As a former prosecutor, I know that having competent defense counsel on the other side of a case meant that the system worked more effectively and efficiently. In addition to improving the quality of justice, I believe that proving competent counsel, far from costing additional state funds, will save the State money by reducing trial time and appeals.

Lastly, we should accelerate the examination and, where appropriate, adoption of the reforms being somewhat belatedly considered by the Criminal Justice Integrity Unit formed in May. There are a number of areas where studies have demonstrated the need for reform, or where best practices have been developed by other states that Texas has yet to review. Texas should use the experience of other states, where relevant, and not waste time and money reinventing the wheel.

Name: Susan Strawn
Street Address: 5615 Morningside Drive, Box 219
City/Town: Houston
State: Texas 77005
Education/Degrees: J.D., University of Texas School of Law, with honors A.B., Princeton University, magna cum laude
Date of Birth: 12/29/1961
Work or Campaign Office Phone Number: 713-447-4360
Fax Number: n/a
E-mail Address: campaign@susanstrawn.com
Campaign Web Site Address: www.susanstrawn.com

The Dallas Morning News reported on Oct 3

The Tarrant County district attorney’s office admitted Thursday that it withheld favorable evidence in the trial of Michael Roy Toney, who was convicted of killing three people with a bomb on Thanksgiving Day 1985.

Lawyers on both sides said they now expect Mr. Toney to be granted a new trial. He has been on death row since 1999.

“I want a new trial so that the truth can be exposed,” Mr. Toney said in an e-mailed statement distributed by supporters. “I need for my children, grandchildren and remaining family to know that I have been wronged and that I am innocent.”

Debra Windsor, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, said prosecutors still believe Mr. Toney is guilty despite their admission that “we failed to turn over documents we should have turned over.”

The bomb killed Joe Blount, 44; his daughter, Angela Blount, 15; and a visiting relative, Michael Columbus, 18. It had been packed into a briefcase and left on the steps of Mr. Blount’s trailer at the Hilltop Mobile Home Park, near Lake Worth. Robert Blount, Mr. Blount’s 13-year-old son, was badly burned but survived.

Police never established a motive for the bombing and finally came to believe it was meant for someone else.

The crime remained unsolved for 12 years. Then Mr. Toney, in jail on an unrelated charge, told another inmate about it. The inmate informed authorities. Mr. Toney later said he was only engaging in a ruse to help the other inmate get out of jail.

No physical evidence connected Mr. Toney to the crime. But his ex-wife and his former best friend testified they had seen Mr. Toney with a briefcase near the mobile home park on the night of the bombing.

The best friend, Chris Meeks, has since recanted – and reaffirmed – his testimony. The ex-wife, Kim Toney, has stuck to her story but has admitted to memory loss caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during military service in the Persian Gulf War.

Defense attorneys say the documents the district attorney failed to produce show that prosecutors were aware of inconsistencies in the stories of Ms. Toney and Mr. Meeks.

“And those were the only two witnesses tying Michael to the crime,” said Jared Tyler, a lawyer for the Texas Innocence Network.

Mr. Tyler and Ms. Windsor jointly filed “agreed proposed findings of fact” with State District Judge Everett Young on Thursday.

“The State failed to turn over to the defense no less than 14 documents containing exculpatory or impeaching evidence,” the proposed findings said. “Those documents included evidence of prior inconsistent statements of trial witnesses … and evidence corroborating Mr. Toney’s testimony at trial.”

The suppression of this evidence favorable to Mr. Toney, the district attorney now acknowledges, “violated his due process rights.”

The lead prosecutor in the original case, Mike Parrish, has retired from the district attorney’s office. Efforts to reach him for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Judge Young, who presided over Mr. Toney’s trial, must now rule on the findings. The case then goes to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which could overturn Mr. Toney’s conviction.

Mr. Toney, 42, has long proclaimed his innocence.

“Today is the biggest win we could have hoped for, but I don’t feel like we have ‘won’ anything,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “Justice is supposed to be an inalienable right.”