Justice for All?: Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty will be exhibited in Houston at Gallery M² from February 10 – 18, 2007 with an opening night reception at 7 PM on Feb. 10th.

There will be a gallery talk Friday, Feb 16, at 7 PM with Mary Mikel Stump, Gallery Director of the JCM gallery at Texas State University.

The Austin Chronicle says “the show is nothing short of powerful.”

Gallery M²
325 W. 19th Street
Houston, Texas 77008

The show is sponsored by Texas Moratorium Network.

The exhibit first ran May 6-22, 2006 in Austin’s Gallery Lombardi. It will be in Houston February 10-18 at Gallery M2.

There are 55 pieces in the show, selected by three jurors: Annette Carlozzi, senior curator at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Lora Reynolds of the Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, and Malaquias Montoya, an artist and professor of art at the University of California, Davis.

The works on exhibition were selected from more than 700 submissions from more than 300 artists from 19 countries. The show includes artists from Texas, as well as other U.S. states and Canada, France, Germany and The Netherlands. The exhibit contains mostly work by professional artists, but it also includes 13 works from people currently on Texas death row. The exhibit includes paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, videos and installation art.

We are organizing this international, all-media, juried art show to foster the creation of new artwork on the death penalty and to encourage and enhance civic engagement and dialogue about the death penalty.

Please help us bring the art show to Houston by making a donation. We need to raise another $250 to cover all the expenses associated with bringing the exhibit to Houston. Also, if you have any food or drinks to donate to the opening night reception, please let us know.

You can donate online with a credit card or send a check made out to “Texas Moratorium Network” to:

Texas Moratorium Network
3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251
Austin, Texas 78731

The New York Times reports that

A 50-year-old Dallas man whose conviction of raping a boy in 1982 cost him nearly half his life in prison and on parole won a court ruling Wednesday declaring him innocent. He said he was not angry, “because the Lord has given me so much.”

The parolee, James Waller, was exonerated by DNA testing, the 12th person since 2001 whose conviction in Dallas County has been overturned long after the fact as a result of genetic evidence, lawyers said.

“Nowhere else in the nation have so many individual wrongful convictions been proven in one county in such a short span,” said Barry C. Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, the legal clinic that championed Mr. Waller’s case. In fact, Mr. Scheck said, those 12 such instances are more than have occurred anywhere else except the entire states of New York and Illinois since the nation’s first DNA exoneration, in 1989.

It was just last week that the 11th exoneration prompted The Dallas Morning News to call for a moratorium on executions. Andrew Gossett was the 11th Dallas County man granted his freedom after DNA confirmed what he had been saying for seven years: He didn’t do it.

Now is the time for the new Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins to join the call for a moratorium on executions.

How to Enact a Moratorium

The Texas Legislature can enact a moratorium on executions by amending the Code of Criminal Procedure to revise the parameters around which convicting courts can set execution dates, for example by prohibiting courts from setting execution dates over the next two years, which is the time it would take for a blue ribbon commission to study the death penalty system in Texas. Under such a bill, courts could still sentence people to death during the moratorium, they just could not set any execution dates until after the moratorium. Of course, Governor Perry would have to refrain from vetoing such a bill.

Another route to a moratorium would be for the Legislature to pass a constitutional amendment that would enact a moratorium immediately upon approval by the voters in November of this year. Such a route would bypass the governor and put the decision in the hands of the voters of whether to stop executions temporarily while a commission studies the death penalty. This is the route that was endorsed by the El Paso Times in 2001 in its editorial “Let the people decide: Moratorium on executions should go to voters”.

A third and far less desirable method would be to pass a constitutional amendment giving the governor the power to enact a moratorium, but such a route would require a governor willing to call a moratorium. The Texas Constitution only allows the Governor to grant one 30-day stay of execution on his own. The Governor may grant a longer stay with the written recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Theoretically, the Governor could ask the BPP to recommend staying each execution. This would allow a moratorium to be enacted, however it would require some cooperation between the Governor and the BPP. The Governor can not enact a moratorium acting alone under the current Texas constitution.

The judiciary could enact a moratorium on its own by not setting any execution dates, but in Texas execution dates are set by the convicting courts and they all act independently. It would be theoretically possible for all judges to voluntarily not set any execution dates for two years, although that is unlikely to happen without guidance from the Legislature and the Governor. The ideal situation would be for the Governor and the Legislature to agree that we should take a time-out on executions. Then the Legislature could pass a bill prohibiting the convicting courts from setting any execution dates for two years and the Governor could agree by not vetoing the bill.

Below is the section of the Code of Criminal Procedure that could be amended to enact a moratorium.

Sec. 8. MORATORIUM. Chapter 43.141, Code of Criminal Procedure, is amended by adding Subsection (f) to read as follows:
Art. 43.141. Scheduling of execution date; withdrawal; modification

(a) If an initial application under Article 11.071 is timely filed, the convicting court may not set an execution date before:

(1) the court of criminal appeals denies relief; or

(2) if the case is filed and set for submission, the court of criminal appeals issues a mandate.

(b) If an original application is not timely filed under Article 11.071 or good cause is not shown for an untimely application under Article 11.071, the convicting court may set an execution date.

(c) The first execution date may not be earlier than the 91st day after the date the convicting court enters the order setting the execution date. A subsequent execution date may not be earlier than the 31st day after the date the convicting court enters the order setting the execution date.

(d) The convicting court may modify or withdraw the order of the court setting a date for execution in a death penalty case if the court determines that additional proceedings are necessary on a subsequent or untimely application for a writ of habeas corpus filed under Article 11.071.

(e) If the convicting court withdraws the order of the court setting the execution date, the court shall recall the warrant of execution. If the court modifies the order of the court setting the execution date, the court shall recall the previous warrant of execution, and the clerk of the court shall issue a new warrant.

(f) The convicting court may not set an execution date that falls on or after September 1, 2007 and on or before September 1, 2009, in order to allow time for the 81st Texas Legislature to consider recommendations contained in the report of the Texas Capital Punishment Commission created by the 80th Legislature.

Below is an example of language for a proposed constitutional amendment which would enact a moratorium directly upon approval of the voters:

A JOINT RESOLUTION

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

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 11, Article IV, Texas Constitution, is
amended by adding Subsection (c) to read as follows:

c) The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is prohibited
from performing executions until September 1, 2009. The Governor may extend or re-establish the moratorium on executions by executive order or the 81st Legislature or a subsequent Legislature may enact a statute that extends or re-establishes the moratorium on executions established by this subsection.

SECTION 2. This proposed constitutional amendment shall be
submitted to the voters at an election to be held on November 6,
2007. The ballot shall be printed to permit voting for or against
the proposition: “The constitutional amendment establishing a
moratorium on executions of persons convicted of capital offenses”.

On Jan 10, the Dallas Morning News renewed its call for a halt to executions and a review of the system to ensure that innocent people are not being executed. This is at least the sixth time since 2001 that the DMN has called for a moratorium. You can read the other editorials on the TMN site, along with endorsements from every other major city newspaper in Texas. Everybody writing newspaper editorials seems to want Texas to take a time-out on executions in order to make sure we aren’t executing innocent people.

The DMN says:

Last week, Andrew Gossett became the 11th Dallas County man granted his freedom after DNA confirmed what he had been saying for seven years: He didn’t do it. Mr. Gossett had been sentenced to 50 years in prison for a sexual assault he did not commit.

That juries and judges are fallible is not a revelation. Human error is an inherent part of the system. Thank goodness that in the case of Mr. Gossett a terrible wrong has been corrected.

At the same time that this 46-year-old Garland man begins to rebuild his life, newspaper headlines note that January will be a particularly deadly month for Texas prisoners. The state is poised to execute five death row inmates during a 20-day stretch.

Against a backdrop of overturned convictions and DNA advances, these planned executions also should give us pause. For the condemned, evidence of an error could come too late. Lethal injections don’t allow those second chances.

And while improved technology and new evidence have cleared only a tiny fraction of prisoners, those cases serve notice that even the remote possibility of a mistake is unacceptable in death penalty cases.

At least 10 other states are reviewing their capital punishment laws. Two have declared a moratorium.

But Texas has pressed on, accounting for nearly half of the executions in the country last year.

Lawmakers have dismissed our calls for a death penalty moratorium. But the frailties in the justice system that have been exposed suggest that it’s time to revisit this issue.

When Mr. Gossett was set free last week, newly elected District Attorney Craig Watkins was in the courtroom. He thought it was important to tell Mr. Gossett, “We’re sorry.”

State officials won’t have that opportunity if capital punishment is meted out incorrectly.

We won’t know for sure who the new chair of the House Committee on Criminal Justice will be until the official announcement from Speaker Craddick, but there is a list going around the blogosphere posted by a conservative blogger, that is supposed to be a leaked list of the new chairs. According to this list, the new Chair of the House Committee on Criminal Justice will be Aaron Peña (D-Edinburg) .from South Texas. He was first elected to the House in 2003. Two of the three recent reports of possible cases of innocent people having been wrongfully executed were cases involving people from South Texas, Ruben Cantu from San Antonio and Carlos De Luna from Corpus Christi.

Rep Peña runs his own blog.

Register now for the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break. It is March 12-16 in Austin. There is no participation fee for the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break except for those people who need housing. It is being organized by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty.

MTV is planning to send a camera crew to this year’s spring break. They will follow around the participants documenting their activities for a segment on MTV.

If you do not need housing, because you live in Austin or you are making your own housing arrangements, then your participation is free, but please register so we know how many people to expect.

Housing is available for a fee of $25 that covers five overnights. That’s right! $25 for five nights. Where are you going to find a better housing deal? That’s $5 a night. We will house participants in double rooms at a dormitory near the University of Texas at Austin. Most students will be at The Goodall Wooten, a few people will stay in a dorm near the Wooten. You will share the room with one or two other students. Participants are expected to travel to Austin at their own expense and pay for most of their meals and incidental expenses while in Austin.

Alternative Spring Breaks are designed to give students something more meaningful to do during their week off, rather than just spending time at the beach or sitting at home catching up on school work. The specific purpose of this Alternative Spring Break is to bring students to Austin for five days of anti-death penalty activism, education and entertainment.

We will provide participants with workshops that will teach them skills they can use to go back home and set up new anti-death penalty student organizations or improve ones that may already exist. The skills participants will learn can also be used in other issues besides the death penalty. Activities include a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day and a direct action day.

Students will gain valuable training and experience in grassroots organizing, lobbying, preparing a direct action and media relations. They can apply what they learn against the death penalty or in their activities involving other issues.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Twenty-four people were executed in Texas 2006. There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1058 executions in the United States. Texas has performed 380 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation’s entire population.

Although the majority of the participants will be students, this program is also a good opportunity for young people who are not students to become active. There are after all lots of young people who for various reasons don’t go to college, but who want to do something against the death penalty. The events and workshops are also open to the general public of any age, although the housing is reserved for young people.

Quotes About Spring Break

“This is an historical echo to what happened in the 1960s when people came down to the South during the Civil Rights Movement to help people register to vote, what they called freedom summers. This is very similar to what was going on back then, but here the issue is the death penalty.”

Scott Cobb, president Texas Moratorium Network

“I wanted to do something more meaningful during my Spring Break. I figured this would be the place where I could do that.”

Chaunte Sterling, graduate of Sam Houston State University, who attended the 2005 alternative spring break in her senior year.

“We all had a simple understanding of the problems with the death penalty and after coming here, we’ve learned so much in detail about what goes on with capital punishment,” Martellaro said. “It’s just been so educational, because we all are in agreement that it is wrong and there are problems with the system, and this has been so specific, with so much information, that it really strengthened my beliefs.”

Angela Martellaro, high school student from Shawnee, Kansas, who attended the 2006 alternative spring break.

“Students and youth have played a critical role in every major struggle for civil and human rights in this nation. Ending the abomination of capital punishment is the calling of this generation. Just as before, student activists will likely determine the future of this issue. You must be part of the debate and the action.”

Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

“Participants will have plenty of free time to meet new friends, see the sights of Austin, and take in a couple of SXSW events if they want to. At the same time they’re having fun, they’re doing something positive by taking action on one of the major human rights issues of our time”

Hooman Hedayati, sophomore at UT-Austin and president of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, who attended alternative spring break in 2005 as a high school senior.