Mary Tuma has an article in the Community Impact Newspaper about Karen Sage’s impressive runoff victory over Mindy Montford in the race to replace retiring judge Charlie Baird (photo left with Karen at victory party) for Travis County District Court 299. Montford lost by a wide margin last night despite having come out ahead of Sage on primary day on March 2. The article notes that Montford had a lot of name ID because of her failed campaign in 2008 to become District Attorney in Travis County. During that earlier campaign she had received about $200,000 in donations from Dolph Briscoe and $1,000 from Republican Williamson County Attorney John Bradley, as well as a lot of other donations that allowed her name to become relatively well known to voters.

From Community Impact Newspaper:

 From the onset assistant district attorney Karen Sage’s primary runoff election night party in downtown Austin bustled with high spirits as early voting totals, which showed the candidate up 16 percent, were announced at around 7 p.m. Staff, volunteers and supporters trickled in throughout the night to congratulate Sage for her consistent lead over challenger Mindy Montford, a criminal defense lawyer, at campaign offices on 10th Street.

Former State Representative Ann Kitchen and Judge Charles Baird, whose position Sage will soon succeed, stopped by to join the party.

“Karen is smart, ethical and hard working. The quality I know she has that will be very important in the court is compassion,” said Baird.

Sage served as a state and federal prosecutor, civil litigation attorney, federal judicial clerk, assistant U.S. attorney and currently teaches ethics of criminal law at the University of Texas. As the sole mental health prosecutor for Travis County, she works to find alternatives to incarceration for patients who suffer from mental illness.

“We need to start to look at the root of the problem, find some innovative solutions and break the revolving door of criminal justice for these patients,” she said.

While Montford led in the primary election by roughly eight percent of the vote, Sage pointed to name ID (initiated by her opponent’s unsuccessful campaign for District Attorney in 2008) as a key reason voters may have initially opted for the fellow Democrat. This type of recognition, said Sage, carries a lot of weight in a down ballot race, as voters saw in March.

Sage attributes her win to the door-to-door grassroots campaigning led by her team since June, a method she said is an unconventional approach to judicial races. The candidate employed four full-time field operators, a manager, director and several volunteers.

“We took the campaign out of the courthouse, out of the hands of political consultants and into the community,” she said. “It’s really about taking the campaign directly to the voters, which is a little new for judicial elections. I think today we are starting to see that that’s a good idea.”

Campaign Manager Jim Wick noted the race produced no staff turnover and hired no major political or fundraising consultant. Sage said she has personally spoken with 10,000 voters over the course of the campaign, either in person or over the phone.

The Catholic News Service points out that retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is currently the court’s strongest death penalty critic, but that was not always true. In 1976, he co-wrote the 7-2 majority decision that reinstated the death penalty and ruled it again constitutional after it had been ruled unconstitutional in 1972. He had not been a member of the Court in 1972. He later joined decisions banning the death penalty for juveniles and people with mental retardation.

On the death penalty, in 1976, months after he joined the court, Stevens co-wrote the main opinion that allowed the reinstatement of capital punishment. But in 2008 in an opinion that ultimately upheld Kentucky’s method of lethal injection, Baze v. Rees, Stevens asked whether the time has come to reconsider “the justification for the death penalty itself.” 

He also wrote rulings or concurring opinions in cases that found the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles and for people who are mentally retarded. 

Stevens joined the court after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, but in subsequent cases he has consistently supported rulings to keep abortion legal and opposed efforts to regulate or limit the conditions for obtaining an abortion.

Harris County (Houston) today sent someone to death row for first time in two years. Death sentences have been declining for more than a decade across the country, but now there is one more. The last time Harris County sent someone to death row was November 2007. 


According to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center (PDF), in 1994, a total of 328 people were sentenced to death in the U.S., but in 2009 only 106 people were sentenced to death in the U.S. In Texas, only 9 people were sentenced to death in 2009. During the 1990s, Texas averaged 34 death sentences every year. 

Video from KTRK in Houston:

From the Houston Chronicle:

A Harris County jury has sentenced to death a man convicted of killing a Houston police officer.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours before deciding that Mabry Joseph Landor III should be put to death by lethal injection for killing officer Timothy Abernethy.

Landor was convicted last week of murdering Abernethy during a December 2008 footchase though a north Houston apartment complex. Landor told jurors he ran because was on parole and did not have a driver’s licence when Abernethy pulled him over for a traffic stop. He denied killing the veteran officer.

Witnesses testified Landor hid behind a wall and shot Abernethy as he ran by, then walked up to him and shot him though the head at close range.

After the punishment was announced, Abernethy’s son took the stand and addressed Landor.

“From the bottom of my heart and with all sincerity I do forgive you,” said Timothy Abernethy Jr.

The 21-year-old, his voice shaking at times, also said he was praying for Landor’s family and children.

“It sucks but I wish them the best.”

Abernethy’s widow also took the stand, first to express sympathy to Landor’s mother, then to address Landor.

“Mabry, like TJ said, we forgive you,” Stephanie Abernethy said. “So you don’t take that to prison with you.”

She also said she was going to be praying for him and his family, children and friends.

“I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

Stephanie Abernethy also thanked the jury.

“Thank you for doing the right thing today,” she said. “I believe the right thing was done, I do.”

Landor’s family could not be reached for comment immediately after the punishment was read.

His friends, however, said the jury’s decision was unfair.

“He was a good man, a very good man,” said Ray Gatlin, 33, one of Landor’s best friends. “He loves his kids. Even though they may gave him the death penalty, he is still going to be blessed.” He thought the punishment was unfair.

“He still looked good. They give to him what they gave him and he still looks good. He’s a strong man, just misunderstood.”

Qwana Singleton, 29, said he was also upset by the verdict.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like what happened either to the officer,” Singleton said. “But two wrongs don’t make a right.”

He said the way Landor was portrayed during the trial and by the media was misleading. “He’s a good dude, kind of quiet.

“If it was the truth, I wouldn’t be over here supporting him,” Singleton said. “But even if he did do it, you know, accidents happen. I don’t think they have the right to kill somebody.”

One juror said jurors could not find any mitigating circumstances to prevent Landor from getting the death penalty.

“The state’s evidence was overwhelming,” said juror No. 9, who did not want to identify himself.

He said the case was very emotional. The most difficult part, he said, was when the family of the slain police officer forgave Landor.

Landor’s defense attorney told jurors during closing arguments this morning that he was a controllable inmate who, if spared death, at 29 would spend the rest of his life being punished on a daily basis for what he did.

“He will never, ever, live as a free man again. He will never be able to be a father to his three children,” defense attorney Hattie Shannon said. “He will die in prison. … This 29 year old will never breathe free air again, that means Mabry Landor for the rest of his natural life will think about (this). … That is extreme punishment.”

Inmates added to Texas death row, by year: 

• 1974—8
• 1975—17
• 1976—23
• 1977—23
• 1978—39
• 1979—21
• 1980—23
• 1981—22
• 1982—28
• 1983—21
• 1984—21
• 1985—33
• 1986—40
• 1987—35
• 1988—32
• 1989—31
• 1990—28
• 1991—29
• 1992—31
• 1993—34
• 1994—42
• 1995—43
• 1996—37
• 1997—35
• 1998—43
• 1999—47
• 2000—28
• 2001—30
• 2002—35
• 2003—28
• 2004—25
• 2005—15
• 2006—11
• 2007—15
• 2008—9
• 2009—9

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that the Texas Forensic Science Commission will reopen discussion of the Todd Willingham case at its meeting April 23 in Irving. The meeting will be held at the:

Omni Mandalay Hotel at Las Colinas
221 E. Las Colinas Blvd.
Irving, TX 75039

From the Star-Telegram:

After months of delay and internal upheaval, the revamped Texas Forensic Science Commission is poised to reopen discussion of the Cameron Todd Willingham case when it meets April 23 in Irving.

Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani, appointed to the panel in December, is likely to play a central role in the inquiry to determine whether a flawed arson investigation led to Willingham’s execution in 2004.

The commission also includes two other members from Fort Worth: defense attorney Lance Evans and Jay Arthur Eisenberg, a professor and chairman of the department of forensic and investigative genetics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.

The meeting will mark the first time that the commission has revisited the Willingham case since a membership shake-up halted the inquiry more than six months ago.

“I think the commission is looking forward to being able to get down to work,” said Evans, who was appointed in October.

Willingham, an unemployed Corsicana mechanic, was convicted of setting a house fire in 1991 that killed his three daughters. But several fire experts, including one hired by the commission, have challenged the arson findings, raising the possibility that the fire may have been accidental.

Controversy, criticism

The case has drawn national attention, becoming a rallying point for anti-death penalty groups saying Texas may have executed an innocent man on Gov. Rick Perry’s watch. The controversy intensified in the fall when Perry replaced four of the nine commissioners.

Commission Chairman John Bradley told the Star-Telegram in e-mails last week that the commission will discuss the Willingham case and other pending complaints when it meets at the Omni Mandalay Hotel at Las Colinas. It is not known how long resolving the Willingham case will take.

Bradley, who is the Williamson County district attorney and was named by Perry to replace ousted Chairman Sam Bassett, came under fire at a legislative hearing last week for what critics suggested was a heavy-handed leadership style that stifles public discussion. Bradley, who was not at the hearing, later called the assertions unwarranted and his approach fair and inclusive.
“I’m not knocking their right to criticize,” Bradley said. “I’m just suggesting that it isn’t a balanced view of our work.”

A new approach

In a meeting in January, the restructured commission adopted policies and procedures that Bradley said were necessary before the commission can move forward on pending investigations, including the Willingham case.

The new policies call for creating separate panels to screen complaints and handle investigations, with recommendations ratified by the full commission. Panel members are appointed by the chairman, subject to approval by the commission.

Bradley declined to discuss the commission’s investigations, but three other commissioners said the Willingham inquiry has been tentatively assigned to a three-member investigation panel: Bradley, Peerwani and Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist and director of a regional crime lab at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.

Bradley, Peerwani and Eisenberg are also on a committee that will valuate complaints and recommend to the full commission whether they should be pursued. If the commission votes to go ahead, complaints are assigned to three-member investigative panels that will present their findings to the full commission.

‘Still up in the air’

Peerwani said that the screening committee has scheduled a meeting for Thursday in his Fort Worth office but that members of the second panel who were assigned to the Willingham case have yet to get together. It remains unclear to what extent the Willingham panel will rely on the previous work of the original commission, but Peerwani hopes that the panel won’t have to start from scratch.

“We do have a lot of material that the commission has collected,” said Peerwani, who has been Tarrant County’s medical examiner for 30 years. “I don’t think we have to go back and restart all those investigations.”

But “it’s still up in the air. I don’t know what the commission is going to do,” he said.
Eisenberg, a member of the commission since October 2006, said he is “pleased that we’re going to get back to the discussion.”

“We had invested a lot of time and effort in terms of the material,” Eisenberg said.

Renewed inquiry

One crucial element from the original inquiry was a report that was prepared for the commission by Baltimore fire expert Craig Beyler, who concluded that the arson investigation that led to Willingham’s conviction was based on outmoded techniques and could not sustain a finding of arson.

The commission agreed to look into the case after receiving a complaint from The Innocence Project, a New York-based advocacy group, in December 2006.

Beyler, whom the commission hired December 2008, submitted his report in August 2009 and was scheduled to appear at a commission hearing that was abruptly canceled after the membership shake-up in September. Beyler told the Star-Telegram late last week that he has not been invited to the upcoming meeting.

Under the new policies and procedures, the commission can find that a “forensic analysis met the standard of practice that an ordinary forensic analyst would have exercised at the time the analysis originally took place.”

Other options are concluding that the evidence did or did not sustain a finding that “professional negligence or misconduct” occurred in a forensic analysis and taking “such other action as appropriate.”

‘Quagmire of delays’

The restructured investigative approach — which may still have to be formally ratified at the upcoming meeting — has raised questions among Bradley’s critics, who believe that it may give him too much power over the Willingham case.

Bradley’s appointment by Perry-led accusations that the governor was trying to dictate the outcome of the Willingham case to avoid potentially embarrassing findings, assertions that Perry and Bradley have denied.

“The notion that he would be on this particular committee in light of everything that has gone on in the last year is particularly inappropriate,” said Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. “A suspicious mind would be concerned about nefarious activities.”

Below is an article in The Lamron, the student newspaper of SUNY-Geneseo, written by Colleen Farrell, one of the students who attended the 2010 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break organized by Students Against the Death Penalty and Texas Moratorium Network. Colleen is the student who introduced the six death row exonerees who spoke at the press conference that was held March 18 at the Texas Capitol (Watch video).

Student attends Anti-Death Penalty conference in Texas

Colleen Farrell

Media Credit: Submitted by Colleen Farrell Sophomore Colleen Farrell attended an Anti-Death Penalty conference in Austin, Texas over Spring Break, advocating for human rights.

Three flights after leaving New York, I arrived in an overcast Austin, Texas. I was literally and figuratively a bit lost. 

My decision to attend the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break was what some might call impulsive. I had booked my flights a mere three weeks earlier, despite the fact that I had never been to Austin and didn’t know anyone else going. I knew that the “traditional” college spring break didn’t really appeal to me though, and I wanted to do something with significance lasting beyond the pictures I would take to document it with. 

Over the course of the week, I spent time with six exonerated former death row inmates, family members of innocent men on death row and several experts and members of death penalty abolition groups. The strategic location of the conference – in a state notorious for its long record of capital punishment – reinforced the message of its organizers: Federal- and state-sanctioned killing is wrong, and must be opposed by regular citizens if there’s any hope of stopping it. 

I soon found out that my fellow attendees all resided in Texas, and many were surprised by my interest, perhaps because we treat the death penalty a little different “up here.” Despite the lack of diversity in terms of location though, everyone had compelling reasons for being there and came from very different backgrounds.

We wasted no time diving right into the heart of the issue, having received a call from a death row inmate just two hours into the conference. Though I knew what the program entailed, I was unprepared for how personal it became. 

Spending a week in the presence of those who are directly affected by the death penalty was quite emotional. Through them, I got a firsthand look at the injustice of the law of parties, the severe underfunding and poor organization of the mental health system and the healing journey that many murder victims’ families embark on, which often amazingly results in many of them deciding that the death penalty isn’t moral, with some even fighting for its abolition. 

The week culminated in a press conference, lobbying visits and rallying at the state capital and through downtown Austin. We received very mixed reactions from the general public. While some gave us strong support, others expressed their sentiments through generous use of some colorful words.

Though I have been involved in human rights activism since high school, it wasn’t until this trip that I directly immersed myself in a cause. I don’t know if capital punishment reform will be my main focus in the future, but I definitely came away from my trip with a newfound disrespect for the death penalty and awareness of the ways in which the capital punishment system is seriously flawed, particularly in Texas.

I encourage anyone who is looking for a truly unique experience to explore the many alternative spring break programs offered all over the country because, as I learned, Cabo can wait. Those biding their time on death row can’t afford to.