The big news this past week in the campaign for Travis County District Attorney is that there is now one candidate in the race who publicly opposes the death penalty.

Rick Reed has said:

“I have decided to publicly support a moratorium on the death penalty in Travis County. If I am elected District Attorney of Travis County I will not authorize the office to seek the death penalty during my tenure.”

Rick Reed’s opposition to the death penalty makes him stand out as the most progressive candidate in a race with three other candidates who all support the death penalty. A stance against the death penalty in a race for District Attorney in Travis County is a perfect fit of issue, office and location.

The next district attorney can unilateraly end the use of the death penalty within Travis County by not seeking the death penalty and instead using life without parole as an alternative.

If Reed remains the only candidate in the race who will not seek the death penalty, then it is likely that one of the pro-death penalty candidates will miss the runoff because of their support for the death penalty.

A campaign is a two-way learning process. It is a way for the community to get to know the candidates and it is a way for the candidates to learn about the community. Most of the people who will vote in the Democratic primary in Travis County on March 4th either believe that the death penalty system in Texas is broken and should not be used until steps are taken to address the problems, or they oppose the death penalty on principle in all cases and believe it should be abolished. Either way, there is likely to be a large amount of support in Austin for candidates who take principled stands against the death penalty in a race where the winner has the power to unilaterally end the use of the death penalty within Travis County.

It is not too late for the other candidates to take postitions on the death penalty that reflect the values and priorities of the progressive community from which they are seeking votes. All the candidates for Travis County District Attorney should follow Rick Reed’s example and say that they will not seek the death penalty.

Texas Moratorium Network & ACLU-TX Central TX Chapter
invite all interested members of the community to a

PUBLIC FORUM with the
CANDIDATES for TRAVIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Monday, February 4th, 6pm at
Gene’s Po Boys
1209 E. 11th St. (at the Rosewood “Y”)
(parking behind building)

There are four candidates* running – all in the Democratic primary (no Republicans are running, so the winner of the Democratic primary on March 4 will be the next DA) – to replace Ronnie Earle, generally a well-received prosecutor, even a hero to some, especially for the Public Integrity Unit’s indictment of Tom Delay.

But there are some areas in which Earle and his office were lacking, including continuing to seek the death penalty instead of exclusively using life without parole as an alternative and believing police officers are categorically above the law by commonly withholding evidence from grand juries that would likely lead to their prosecution such as with APD’s Julie Schroeder (shooting death, Daniel Rocha) and Michael Olsen, who, despite videotaped evidence of wrongdoing in 2003 (excessive force, Jeffrey Thornton), was cleared and put back on the force just to again be cleared again after the shooting death of Kevin Brown last summer. (Both Schroeder and Olsen were fired nonetheless).

Come find out what the candidates believe the DA’s priorities should be in matters regarding criminal justice and public safety. This 90-minute forum will attempt to get the candidates on record on a range of important issues, including the death penalty, police misconduct, political corruption, juvenile justice, drug laws and other issues. During one segment of the forum, attendees will be given the opportunity to pose their own questions to the candidates. People may also send suggestions for questions to the contacts below.

*CANDIDATE WEBSITES:
http://www.garycobb4da.com
http://rosemarylehmberg.com
http://www.montfordforda.com
http://www.electrickreed.com

For event info contact: Scott Cobb scottcobb99@gmail.com 512-689-1544 or
Debbie Russell debmocracy@yahoo.com, 512-573-6194.

Dave Maass, who used to work for the San Antonio Current and now is at the Santa Fe Reporter, has an article on Karl Chamberlain in this week’s edition of the SFR. Chamberlain is the only person in Texas who currently has a scheduled execution date. All the other scheduled executions in Texas have been stayed pending a decision in the Baze case.

Across the country, death-row inmates have filed for, and uniformly received, stays of execution as the US Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the three-chemical lethal injection method employed in 37 states. Yet, no lawyer has so far filed for a stay for Chamberlain.

The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office tells SFR via e-mail that it will withdraw the execution date if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule before Feb. 21. However, the prosecutor’s promise contravenes Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has indicated publicly that the state will not halt executions while the Supreme Court deliberates.

Meanwhile, criminal defense attorneys David Schulman and John Jasuta are fighting to reopen Chamberlain’s case. Schulman tells SFR they expect the Supreme Court to return a ruling on lethal injection as early as March, but more likely June. A stay would give Chamberlain at least another six months more to appeal.

To vacate the execution date, the Dallas prosecutor needs to make a single phone call, one that Schulman says would take only slightly longer than it would to administer the lethal injection.

Maass also conducted a video interview with Mu’ina Arthur, the mother of Karl Chamberlain.

Everyone should head over to The Texas Observer and read their long article on the Travis County DA race: “Replacing Ronnie Earle: The Race to Become the Most Important Prosecutor in Texas”The article focuses on the Public Integrity Unit. Rick Reed comes out in the article looking like a real fighter within the DA’s office for the indictment against Tom Delay. In fact, according to the article, if it were not for Reed, there may not have even been an indictment against Delay.

In an interview, Reed publicly revealed bitter dissention that seized Earle’s office before the DeLay indictment. He says his colleagues, including Lehmberg, wilted at the prospect of seeking an indictment against one of the nation’s most powerful politicians. “Everyone felt the pressure. Different people reacted differently to it,” Reed said. “I was the only person pushing to present the case to the grand jury.”By fall 2005, the grand jury had already indicted two of DeLay’s associates from the controversial 2002 campaign-John Colyandro and Jim Ellis. Everyone in the DA’s office seemed to agree on the Ellis and Colyandro cases, Reed said, adding that much of the same convincing evidence also implicated DeLay.

“Yet when it came to Mr. DeLay, the suggestion was that he’s a very powerful man, therefore we ought to be more careful in making this decision, and we ought to be reluctant to do it because of the fact he’s so powerful,” Reed said. “The issue that motivated the argument was political: he’s a powerful man, and the sky’s going to fall if we present this to the grand jury. … I’ll tell you quite candidly, that offended me. It offended me then, and it offends me now. In the American judicial system, I think every person ought to be treated equally. Whether or not a person holds a political office just shouldn’t be a consideration.”

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.

The Dallas Observer has a long front page article this week entitled “Sharon Keller is Texas’ Judge Dread“. It contains a quote from the daughter of Marguerite Dixon, the woman Michael Richard was convicted of murdering 20 years ago: “It sounded to me like she was just being arbitrary,” says Celeste Dixon. “She had a chance to at least hear the arguments, and she chose to take her powers as a judge and make a decision without any thought.”

More:

Keller’s decision to close her court at 5 p.m.—a move that has since been blasted by even her Republican colleagues—violated the court’s unwritten policies for handling executions. It also broke sharply from tradition. In Texas, it’s not unusual for judges and clerks to take last-minute pleadings at their homes. On execution day, the courts don’t have a strict closing time.

Keller’s actions also defied the Supreme Court decision from that day, which has resulted in an unofficial nationwide moratorium on capital punishment. Maybe she didn’t make an intentional end run around the highest court in the land, but that was the effect. To be more blunt, the effect was to kill a man months before his execution would have proceeded, assuming the Supreme Court would have allowed it at all. To date, Richard is the last U.S. inmate put to death.

A collection of activists have since decried Keller’s actions. Protesters have gathered outside her North Austin mansion carrying clocks set to 5:00. A band called Possumhead, fronted by an Austin lawyer, recorded a grungy song with the blunt refrain “Sharon is a killer, a really lethal killer.” Meanwhile, a like-minded blog named Sharonkiller.com, already in operation after some of the judge’s past mishaps, includes a series of fake personal entries: “Maybe I should sell and move back to Dallas and help out at Dad’s hamburger stand before my house becomes a stop on one of those Duck bus tours of Austin,” the fake judge writes. “Tomorrow is Halloween and I’m going as myself, boo.”

While the real Keller has made other baffling decisions and public statements over the years, her latest actions have stirred an epic backlash that extends far beyond the protests of anti-death-penalty activists. She’s been mocked in Newsweek, scolded by The Dallas Morning News and asked to step down by the Houston Chronicle and Texas Monthly. Powerful, prominent attorneys, including a former head of the State Bar of Texas, have filed official complaints against her and lambasted the judge to anyone with a notebook or microphone.

“It’s hard to imagine anything she could have done that could have been worse than this,” says Michol O’Connor, a retired appellate judge in Houston. “I think she should be removed. I wouldn’t trust any decision she could make after this. This is such a fundamental issue—the right to get a piece of paper in court—how can we trust her on more complicated issues?”

Texas Moratorium Network has filed a complaint against Keller co-signed by more than 1800 people. We have received two letters from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct acknowledging that they received our complaint and some additional materials we sent them, including a copy of the newly written down rules of execution day procedures of the Court of Criminal Appeals that we obtained through a public information request.

One well-qualified Democrat is running for a seat on the Court of Criminal Appeals this year. Keller is not on the ballot, but Susan Strawn is running for Place 3 on the Court of Criminal Appeals. Capitol Annex has a mini profile of Susan Strawn:

From 1997-1999, Strawn served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Denver, Colorado, where she handled complex economic crimes, including mail and wire fraud and money laundering.

During her litigation career, Strawn received nine awards from the Department of Justice, including two Special Commendation Awards, four Special Achievement Awards and three award promotions.

In 2002, Ms. Strawn was selected to be the U.S. Department of Justice Resident Legal Advisor in post-conflict Kosovo. In that capacity, she was the lead on-the-ground coordinator and implementer of the U.S. government’s judicial and prosecutorial training and reform efforts. She also worked as the Justice liaison to U.S. military intelligence and to a special NATO and international police task force to target ethnic extremism, terrorism, organized crime, corruption, and money laundering. She received the United Nations Peacekeeping medal for her work with the United Nations Civilian Police.

We will see if Keller’s unethical conduct provides campaign fodder for Strawn’s attempt to become the only Democrat on the CCA.