We are going to be very active in the race for Travis County District Attorney, as we attempt to ensure that the voters of Travis County elect a district attorney who will pledge not to seek the death penalty at least during the initial four-year term in office. So far, two people have officially filed for district attorney, Gary Cobb and Rick Reed. We haven’t yet seen if they have put up websites yet, but they provided contact information when they filed. We also don’t yet know any of their positions, but we will post more information as we learn it. We encourage people to send in any information they have on any announced or possible candidates in the race.

Here is Gary Cobb’s contact information:

P.O. Box 142416, Austin, TX 78714
512-854-9400 (O) 512-899-1765 (H)

Here is Rick Reed’s contact information:

512-854-9400 (O) 512-292-0313 (H)
11614 Anatole Court, Austin, TX 78748

Here is what the Austin American-Statesman said about the two in a recent profile on possible candidates in the race.

Rick Reed, 52

The first candidate to file for district attorney, submitting the paperwork Friday after Earle’s announcement.

Reed grew up in Dallas and attended UT before graduating from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. Reed worked as a Dallas County felony prosecutor from 1986 until 1998, when he ran for district attorney. After losing that race, Reed went to work for Earle.

He is one of the lawyers who has worked on the money-laundering case against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

If elected district attorney, Reed said, he wants to expand the use of drug courts to divert more people charged with possession charges into treatment, freeing up more prosecutors for other crimes. He also wants to decentralize decision-making in the office, giving front-line prosecutors more discretion over their cases.

The Austin Political Report says that Reed “once served under legendary Dallas DAs Henry Wade and John Vance.” Dallas County has been exonerating people regularly who were wrongfully prosecuted under Wade and Vance, so one question with his candidacy was what did he learn up there in Dallas under those two former DA’s and did he have a role in any cases where the person was wrongfully convicted.

Gary Cobb, 46

Grew up in Mississippi before attending the University of Texas School of Law from 1983 to 1986. He’s been a prosecutor at the Travis County district attorney’s office since 1990.

Among his many prosecutions, Cobb got a life sentence against George Weldon Smith, a Del Valle youth coach, for sexually abusing a young boy for four years. He also prosecuted Celeste Beard, who was sentenced to life for plotting to have her wealthy husband killed for his money.

Cobb said he would encourage prosecutors to get involved in the community to build trust.

“Ronnie Earle has established a tradition of responding to the community,” Cobb said. “We need to be more pro-active.”

Over on the Austin Political Report, a commenter said that Cobb “was the chief prosecutor against Lacresha Murray, an 11 year old girl charged with murder. Cobb used a coerced confession to convict. The case was later thrown out by a Republican appeals court. Murray is now suing in federal court. You can read Bob Herbert’s article in 11.22.98 NYT. My bet is Travis County voters aren’t going to forget that case. We insist that our elected officials be fair, especially when kids are involved.”

We don’t know if that commenter had it right about Cobb’s role in the Murray case, but when we meet him we will ask him what his role in that case was.

CNN’s headline says “Executions drop in ’07 as states rethink death penalty“. According to the article, 42 people were executed in 2007, a 13 year low. The drop is in part due due to the Baze decision that was accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. There was only one execution after the Court accepted that case, Michael Richard was the last person executed this year on Sept 25, although his execution likely could have been halted as well, if Sharon Keller had not said “We close at 5”.

“Texas continues to lead the nation, with 62 percent of executions nationwide this year. Overall, 86 percent this year were in the South”, says the report.

The question for Travis County voters in the upcoming election for District Attorney is whether they are ready to turn the page on this legacy of the Old South and elect a District Attorney who will pledge not to seek the death penalty. Texas Moratorium Network has submitted a Public Information Request to Ronnie Earle’s office asking for the number of death penalty prosecutions and convictions during his tenure. I expect to see a similar pattern to the national numbers showing a decline. The next district attorney should pledge to reduce the number of new death sentences from Travis County to zero and instead use life without the possibility of parole as an alternative.

In other death penalty news:

In 2007, the Texas Legislature expanded the death penalty to apply to second offenses of child sexual assault. Many people said that bill would probably be found to be unconstitutional. We will soon find out if they were right. “The U.S. Supreme Court on January 4 will decide whether to review an appeal from Louisiana inmate Patrick Kennedy, sentenced to death in 2003 for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.” says CNN.

The people of Texas are probably tired of seeing Texas legislators expand capital punishment while refusing to expand access to health care or higher education. Executing more people may have been high on the agenda of the Republicans who took control of the Texas House in 2003, but if the Democrats take back control in 2008, you can expect to see more action on health care and education and no more time wasted passing unconstitutional bills expanding the death penalty.

The upset by Democrat Dan Barrett yesterday in the race for a Texas House seat from a Fort Worth district that usually votes Republican is more evidence that 2008 is going to be a big year for Democrats, who could finally break the all-Republican hold on the Texas Court of Criminals Appeals, if they field some good candidates.

If well-qualified Democrats run for the three Texas Court of Criminal Appeals seats that are on the ballot in 2008, they might all win. This is the “Worst Court in Texas” according to Texas Monthly; it should be the easiest statewide race for a Democrat to win.

Where are the candidates? It is time to show yourselves.

Matt Glazer wrote a post on BOR about “What Dan Barrett’s Victory Means for Texas“, Excerpt:

In 2006, Democrats won 6 seats plus Donna Howard’s special election. In 2007 we welcomed Kirk England to the Democratic Party and now we have Dan Barrett as member of our caucus as well. We’ve not even yet had a single vote cast the 2008 primaries, and there are now 71 Democrats in Texas House- a stunning and speedy reversal based on the same map that was drawn to have only 42 Democratic seats.

Yesterday’s election in Fort Worth was a runoff between a Democrat and multiple Republicans even though only one Republican in name was on the ballot. It was a race between the Democrat fighting for fair representation and the Republican Speaker and his possible enabler. Dan Barrett vs. Tom Craddick and his crony Mark Shelton.

House District 97 was not drawn to be a Democratic seat. In 2006, Barrett had taken on the recently retired Anna Mowery and claimed only 40.82% of the vote. Tarrant County on the whole only gave Barbara Radnofsky, the U.S. Senate nominee, 34.80%, Chris Bell 31.07% in his bid for Governor, and the bell weather Texas Supreme Court candidate Bill Moody 42.79% of the vote. The Republican’s should have won this election based on the poor democratic performance index (DPI) of the district alone. During the special election yesterday, Barrett won with 52.2% of the vote.

There is a developing campaign in Austin to use the upcoming election of a new Travis County District Attorney to elect a district attorney who will pledge never to seek the death penalty and to use life without parole as an alternative. The current DA, Ronnie Earle, has just announced his retirement after 30 years in office.

Read more from Scott Cobb on Burnt Orange Report: “Next Travis County DA Should Take the Death Penalty Off the Table”:

The next DA in Travis County should reflect how the Travis County community’s feelings on the death penalty have evolved since 1976 and pledge that the death penalty is off the table within Travis County.

Last October when Paul Burka first reported that Earle may be retiring, Burka wrote that “a DA is supposed to be the conscience of the community”, which brings up the issue of to what extent the conscience of the community in Travis County has changed since 1976.

I expect it has changed enough that any person who seeks the Democratic nomination for Travis County District Attorney in 2008 is going to have to seek the support of voters within a community whose conscience does not include support for the Texas death penalty. Of course, there are voters here who support the death penalty in theory, but there are many more whose theoretical support is trumped by their disgust with how the death penalty operates in Texas. And in Travis County, there is also a substantial bloc of voters who reject the death penalty both in theory and as it is practiced.

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty, Sparks Talks Of Change In Texas
KXAN, Dec. 18, 2007

Link

Austin – New Jersey became the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty on Monday. Governor Jon Corzine signed the measure Monday, replacing executions with life in prison without parole.

“Now make no mistake,” Corzine said. “By this action, society is not forgiving these heinous crimes or acts that have caused immeasurable pain to these families and brought fear to society. The perpetrators of these actions deserve absolutely no sympathy and the criminals deserve the strictest punishment that can be imposed, without imposing death.”

Among the eight men on death row whose lives were spared by Monday’s action is the man whose murder of a 7-year-old girl inspired “Megan’s Law,” which helps people keep track of sex offenders living in their towns.

At least five other states are considering abolishing the death sentence. Texas is not among them.

Death penalty opponents in Austin believe Monday’s decision to abolish the death sentence in New Jersey is another indication that the tide is turning.

An announcement out of the Criminal Justice Complex last week seems to be rallying death penalty opponents in Travis County.

For the first time in three decades, a new district attorney will be prosecuting cases here.

“The death penalty system is broken in Texas, and we as voters in Travis County have an opportunity to say, ‘Because it’s broken, we’re not going to use it,'” said Scott Cobb, president of the Texas Moratorium Network.

Cobb said the announcement that District Attorney Ronnie Earle will not seek re-election was tantamount to a rallying cry for death penalty opponents in Travis County, who are now determined to hit the campaign trail.

“We think the people of Travis County are ready to abolish the death penalty in Travis County and that’s our challenge to whoever runs for District Attorney,” Cobb said.

Death penalty proponents, such as the group Justice For All, believe abolishing the death penalty would lead to higher murder rates in Texas.

There are 371 people on death row in Texas.

Seven inmates scheduled to be executed this year received last-minute stays due to concerns about their possible innocence, the fairness of their trials or issues related to the Supreme Court’s review of lethal injection.