Texas Moratorium Network & ACLU-TX Central TX Chapter held a community forum with the candidates for TRAVIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY on Monday, February 4th, at Gene’s Po Boys in East Austin. The candidates covered a broad range of issues.

The next day the Austin American Statesman headline was “One Candidate: I Wouldn’t Seek Death Penalty“. At the forum Rick Reed said that if he was elected he would not seek the death penalty under any circumstances. The other three candidates all said they are pro-death penalty.

The video below runs about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Jordan Smith is in the midst of a series of articles in The Austin Chronicle on the race for Travis County District Attorney. This week’s edition has part two in which she has a quote from Rosemary Lehmberg saying, “I question the judgment of anyone, especially a prosecutor, who discusses a pending case. That’s about all I could say.” Actually, what she could say is that she has no business questioning anyone on this issue because she has done the exact same thing.

Lehmberg’s questioning of judgment is directed at Rick Reed for his comments to a reporter for the Texas Observer in the article “Replacing Ronnie Earle: The Race to Become the Most Important Prosecutor in Texas“:

Reed said Lehmberg opposed seeking an indictment, as did several of the other prosecutors. He said he believes Lehmberg wouldn’t have indicted DeLay had she been DA at the time. Reed said he convinced Earle through a series of conversations and memos, besting the three other veteran prosecutors.

It seems hypocritical that Rosemary Lehmberg is questioning “the judgement of anyone, especially a prosecutor, who discusses a pending case”, when, according to this 2005 article in the Washington Post, she herself discussed the Delay case, long before Reed ever did, to the people making a documentary called “The Big Buy”:

In “The Big Buy,” an assistant district attorney in Earle’s office, Rosemary Lehmberg, says that Earle has pursued the DeLay case despite objections within the office. “Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate,” she says.

Lehmberg says in that quote that, at that time, Earle was the only one who wanted to go ahead with the investigation, meaning obviously that she did not think the investigation should go forward. Later, as we know from what Reed is quoted as saying in this Texas Observer article, that after the investigation was complete and it came time to make a decision whether to present the case to the grand jury and to seek an indictment, Lehmberg was still against going forward.

I am glad that Rick Reed was in the office when the time came for Earle to make a decision on seeking an indictment against Delay. I give Earle great credit for beginning the investigation when, as Lehmberg told the press in 2005, he was the only one who wanted to go ahead and investigate. I also give great credit to Rick Reed for his sound judgement in persuading Earle to take the case to the grand jury.

Reed wrote in this comment on The Texas Observer site that he:

was not brought into the DeLay investigation until after the decision had been made to investigate the complaint.

However, as Dave Mann reported last week in “Replacing Ronnie Earle: The Race to Become the Most Important Prosecutor in Texas,” as the statute of limitations’ clock was about to toll on the DeLay case, I was the only person, including Ms. Lehmberg, who pushed Mr. Earle to present the case to the grand jury.

I have no idea why Lehmberg thinks it was ok for her to discuss the Delay case with the press back in 2005, but it is not ok for Reed to have done it now.

Next year, Earle will no longer be around to make the hard decisions on whether to indict powerful people for wrongdoing even when others in the DA’s office, including Lehmberg, wilt at the prospect.

We need to continue to have a Travis County DA who will stand up to the powerful, even if it means at first standing alone. Rick Reed has shown that he will not shrink when it comes time to make the tough decisions required to protect the public, which makes him the most qualified candidate in the race to become the most important prosecutor in Texas.

This post was written by Scott Cobb.

At the Death House Door, a film on the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was an innocent person executed by Texas, will have its world premiere at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. We will also be having our annual Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break during the week of SXSW, so we are hoping that the film will be scheduled at a time and date that the spring break participants can attend. They haven’t announced what days the films will run, just which films are in the festival.

The film focuses on death house chaplain, Rev. Carroll Pickett, who spent the last day of DeLuna’s life with him. During the 2006 Alternative Spring Break, we traveled to Huntsville and the students heard a talk by Rev Pickett. Carlos’ sister, Mary Arredondo, attended the 2006 March to Stop Executions and delivered a letter to Governor Perry that said, “It is too late to save my brother’s life, but it is not too late to take steps to prevent other innocent people from being executed. I am writing to ask that you provide the leadership to make sure that Texas never executes another innocent person.”.

At the Death House Door
Director: Steve James & Peter Gilbert.
An investigation of the wrongful death of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in Texas on December 7, 1989, after prosecutors ignored evidence inculpating a man, who bragged to friends about committing the crimes of which DeLuna was convicted. (World Premiere)

In production for The Independent Film Channel…At the Death House Door is the story of the wrongful execution of Carlos DeLuna and the Death House Chaplain, Pastor Carroll Pickett, who spent the last day of DeLuna’s life with him. The feature documentary, currently in production, follows the remarkable career journey of Pickett, culminating in the story of DeLuna, a convict whose execution bothered Pickett more than any other. He firmly believed the man was innocent, and the film will track the investigative efforts of a team of Chicago Tribune reporters who have turned up evidence that strongly suggests he was. The documentary takes a very personal and intimate look at the death penalty in Texas, the first state to do lethal injection. Pickett was present for the first lethal injection in 1982. At the Death House Door is a Kartemquin Films Production in association with the Chicago Tribune.

The room was packed for last night’s forum with the candidates for Travis County District Attorney, co-hosted by Texas Moratorium Network and the ACLU-TX Central Texas chapter.

Below is the media coverage, which largely focused on the candidates responses to the death penalty question. Three of the candidates gave pro death penalty answers, but one, Rick Reed, said he would not authorize the DA’s office to seek the death penalty if he is elected and would not ask for execution dates to be set for anyone from Travis County already on death row.

KUT has an audio report by Ben Philpott.

The Austin-American Statesman’s article, “4 Travis candidates lay out their views on death penalty” says in part:

Three of the four candidates for Travis County district attorney told a packed room of potential voters in East Austin on Monday that, if elected, they would continue to seek the death penalty for the worst killers.

Outgoing District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s assistants Gary Cobb and Rosemary Lehmberg, who are hoping to replace him, said that some people’s crimes are so heinous that the public’s safety is served by seeking their execution. Candidate Mindy Montford, another Earle assistant, said that because the death penalty is on the books in Texas, she must consider it if elected.

Candidate Rick Reed, who resigned from Earle’s office last week, said he would not seek the death penalty under any circumstances. Reed also said he wouldn’t seek death warrants for the five condemned killers already on death row from Travis County. Death warrants, issued by a trial court at a prosecutor’s request when the killer’s appeals have run out, set dates of execution.

“I believe it is a mistake … to seek the death penalty,” said Reed, citing his moral opposition and the cost of prosecuting such cases.

Keye, Channel 42, the local CBS affiliate, also reported on the event and has their video report online here.

The Statesman has an article on the race for Place 4 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The incumbent, Paul Womack, is being challenged in the Republican primary by Robert Francis.

The article contains a quote from Womack on the Sharon Keller fiasco, which was when Keller claimed the court closed at 5pm and refused to accept an appeal by a man set for execution at 6pm on Sept 25.

“The court should’ve received that petition as long as he was alive and able to bring it,” Womack said. “Nobody’s ever told me about 5 o’clock deadlines.”

Keller’s 5pm closing rule apparently only existed in her own mind.