Terri Hodge’s Law of Parties bill that would end the death penalty under the Law of Parties will be heard in the Capital Punishment Subcommittee at the Texas Legislature next Thursday, March 19. Also they will hear one of the moratorium related bills that would give the governor the power to call a moratorium.

We need as many people as possible to show up for the subcommittee meeting and sign in in favor of HB 2267, the Law of Parties bill. While you are there, you can also sign in to support the other bills on that day’s agenda, including the one to give the governor the power to call a moratorium and the one to create a commission to study the death penalty in Texas.

Criminal Jurisprudence

Capital Punishment

8:00 AM, Thursday, March 19, 2009

E2.016

Rep. Robert Miklos

Bills on Next Thursday’s Agenda

HB 111

Pena

Relating to the joint or separate prosecution of a capital felony charged against two or more defendants.

HB 298

Dutton | et al.

Relating to the admissibility of certain evidence in capital cases in which the state seeks the death penalty.

HB 493

Zerwas

Relating to the eligibility for judge-ordered community supervision or for mandatory supervision of a defendant convicted of criminal solicitation of capital murder.

HB 877

Naishtat | et al.

Relating to the creation of a commission to study capital punishment in Texas.

HB 2058

Gallego

Relating to the standards for attorneys representing indigent defendants in capital cases.

HB 2267

Hodge

Relating to the joint or separate prosecution of a capital felony charged against two or more defendants and the extent of a defendant’s criminal responsibility for the conduct of a coconspirator in capital felony cases.

HJR 24

Naishtat | et al.

Proposing a constitutional amendment relating to a moratorium on the execution of persons convicted of capital offenses.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Legislature voted Friday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The state Senate voted 24-18 for the repeal bill, sending it to Gov. Bill Richardson for his signature.

Richardson has opposed repeal in the past but now says he would consider signing it.

“I have met with many people and will continue to consider all sides of the issue before making a decision,” the second-term Democratic governor said in a statement issued after the vote.

He would have three days — excluding Sunday — to make a decision once the bill reaches his desk.

The House approved the legislation a month ago.

“The tide is turning across the country, and we are part of that tide,” said Ruth Hoffman, director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry and a longtime lobbyist against the death penalty.

The vote capped a decade of repeal efforts in New Mexico, one of 36 states with capital punishment.

“For a state to look ahead and say the death penalty is not serving the people’s needs is a very courageous thing to do,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.

The vote also was hailed by Amnesty International USA, with executive director Larry Cox calling New Mexico “a trailblazer and a beacon of hope for everyone who believes in human rights and justice.”

There are two men on New Mexico’s death row. Their sentences would not be affected by repeal.

The state has executed one man in the past 49 years, convicted child killer Terry Clark in 2001.

New Jersey banned executions in 2007, the first state to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

New Mexico was one of several states considering banning executions this year.

Repeal legislation has passed the state Senate in Montana and awaits a House hearing. The state Senate in Kansas is expected to debate a repeal bill on Monday.

The Santa Fe Reporter is live blogging and live streaming video from the debate on the floor of the New Mexico Senate on repeal of the death penalty

They’ve got everything set up there, where you can participate in the discussion and listen to the live feed.

http://www.sfreeper.com/2009/03/12/live-blog-senate-debates-death-penalty/

Today Texas executed Luis Salazar. He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. Salazar was the 13th person executed in Texas so far this year.

Salazar was the 196th person executed since Rick Perry assumed the office of governor of Texas in December 2000. Overall, 435 people have been executed in Texas since 1982. There were zero executions in Texas between 1964 and 1982. Virginia, with 103 executions, comes in a distant second to Texas in number of executions.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Luis Salazar thanked friends and relatives for their friendship and fellowship and expressed love to his mother, brothers, sister and his children.

“I’m going to miss them and take them with me in my heart,” he said from the death chamber gurney. “Thanks to everyone praying for me.”

Salazar never acknowledged the family of Martha Sanchez or her murder. Sanchez’s oldest child, Erick, was among the witnesses. Her mother and sisters clutched tissues in their hands as they clasped each other’s hands.

“My heart is going ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump,” Salazar said and then laughed. He asked for forgiveness and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When the drugs began taking effect, he asked for forgiveness for the “sins that I can remember.” He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. CDT, nine minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow.

Salazar, 38, was the second condemned murderer put to death in Texas in as many nights and the 12th this year in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Salazar testified at his trial that after a night of marijuana, cocaine and drinking he thought he was in his own house just before dawn Oct. 11, 1997, and that Martha Sanchez, 28, and her three children were intruders.

Today Texas executed James Edward Martinez. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. Martinez was the 11th person executed in Texas so far this year. On Wednesday night, Luis Salazar, is scheduled for execution in Texas.

Martinez was the 195th person executed since Rick Perry assumed the office of governor of Texas in December 2000. Overall, 434 people have been executed in Texas since 1982. There were zero executions in Texas between 1964 and 1982. Virginia, with 103 executions, comes in a distant second to Texas in number of executions.

From the Fort Worth Star telegram:

In 2008, the state executed only two convicted killers from Tarrant County. But if the execution of James Edward Martinez is carried out tonight as planned, he would be the fourth inmate from Tarrant County to receive lethal injection this year. A fifth is scheduled in June.

Martinez, 34, of Fort Worth, was convicted for the ambush-style slaying of his ex-girlfriend, Sandra Walton, and her friend Michael Humphreys on Sept. 21, 2000. For Humphreys’ father, Brad Humphreys, today will be the second time he’s witnessed the execution of someone who killed a close family member.

In 2001, he watched Jeffery Tucker die for the 1988 shooting death of his father, Wilton Humphreys.

“It’s not rewarding or a joy to go watch a man die,” Brad Humphreys said Monday at his Arlington home. “When one [slaying] happens, you think the worst can’t happen again. But when your own child is killed … your child is not supposed to die before you.”

Humphreys said that Martinez and other killers should understand it’s a fate they brought on themselves.

“If you kill someone in Texas, you’re pretty much committing suicide,” he said. “If you commit these crimes, you know what the ultimate price is.”

Death penalty opponent Scott Cobb of Austin acknowledges that most Texans support the sentence. But he said it is costly and unnecessary for defendants facing life sentences with no chance of parole.

“You’ve had people on death row who didn’t even kill anyone,” said Cobb, who heads the Texas Moratorium Network. “States that have the death penalty spend much more money on prosecution. You have to do certain things during the trial including more investigations, expert witnesses. The costs are front-loaded.”