Juan Melendez, an innocent man who spent more than 17 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, will be coming to Corpus Christi, Texas June 25-26 to attend the 2010 Texas Democratic Party State Convention and to speak at the meeting of “Democrats Against the Death Penalty” at 1 PM on Friday, June 25. The meeting will be in room 225 D-E of the American Bank Center. The party is expecting more than 5,000 delegates, alternates and guests to attend the state convention.

Juan is traveling to Texas with the assistance of Witness to Innocence, which is the nation’s only organization composed of, by and for exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones. These individuals are actively engaged in the struggle to end the death penalty, challenging the American public to grapple with the problem of a fatally flawed criminal justice system that sends innocent people to death row.

Members of Texas Moratorium Network started the “Democrats Against the Death Penalty” caucus in 2004. In 2008, more than 300 people attended the caucus meeting at the state convention. In 2004, the Texas Democratic Party endorsed a moratorium on executions in the party platform. In 2008, the Resolutions Committee at the state convention approved a resolution in support of abolishing the death penalty in Texas, but the resolution was not voted on by the floor of the convention before adjournment.

Raised in Puerto Rico, Juan Melendez was working in Polk County as a fruit picker before he was sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1983 killing of an Auburndale beauty salon owner named Delbert Baker. A police informant implicated Melendez and another man. The second man cut a deal with prosecutors and testified against Melendez, but 12 years later, he recanted, saying he was coerced.

From the Texas Tribune: “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Mr. Skinner’s appeal,” Skinner attorney Rob Owen, co-director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Capital Punishment Clinic. “That decision represents the necessary first step to our eventually obtaining the DNA testing that Mr. Skinner has long sought. We look forward to the opportunity to persuade the Court that if a state official arbitrarily denies a prisoner access to evidence for DNA testing, the prisoner should be allowed to challenge that decision in a federal civil rights lawsuit.”

From Reuters:

The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether a Texas death row inmate can use a civil rights law to require that the state test DNA evidence he says could prove his innocence in a triple murder.

The justices agreed to hear Henry Skinner’s appeal. On March 24, they granted him a stay about an hour before his scheduled execution to give them more time to decide whether to take up his case.

In an order issued Monday, the Supreme Court said it decided to rule on the issue presented by his case. Arguments are expected to be heard in the upcoming term that begins in October.

Skinner’s lawyers maintain that his rights under the civil rights law were violated by authorities’ refusal to grant DNA testing after his conviction.

In the United States, post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 people, including 17 prisoners who served time on death row, according to a group called the Innocence Project.

Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of his girlfriend and her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve in 1993 in the small town of Pampa, Texas. He has always maintained his innocence.

Skinner’s attorneys are seeking DNA testing of key evidence from the crime scene, including a bloody towel, two knives and a man’s windbreaker, and swabs from a rape kit.

Skinner’s lawyer at trial did not seek the DNA testing. His attorneys who have been handling his appeals have sought the DNA tests for 10 years, but the state has refused to grant the request.

U.S. courts rejected Skinner’s request for the DNA tests on the grounds it cannot be pursued under the federal civil rights law, but must be brought under what is known as a federal habeas challenge.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that convicted criminals do not have a constitutional right to demand that the state conduct DNA testing of evidence. But that case did not involve a death row inmate seeking to prove his innocence.

Here is a link to a new video testimonial from Sissy Farenthold about why David Powell should not be executed. His execution has been scheduled for June 15, 2010 after 32 years on death row. She has been visiting David Powell on death row for 20 years. For more information, visit letdavidlive.org.

Click here to send an email to Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg urging her to ask the judge to withdraw the June 15 execution date for David Powell.

Monday, we wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on life without parole for juvenile offenders and how Texas was actually more progressive on that issue than the Court. 


Today’s Rick Casey column in the Houston Chronicle, which is also about Texas being ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of life without parole for juvenile offenders, has a couple of interesting quotes. 


One is by Justice Clarence Thomas and the other by Williamson County DA John Bradley. Thomas comes across sounding not quite of sound mind, while John “The Wolf” Bradley sheds his persona as Rick Perry’s “cleaner” and actually sounds reasonable.

Casey’s Thomas Quote:

In his dissent to the Supreme Court’s ruling banning life without parole for juvenile offenders who do not kill, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote that life without parole “would not have offended the standards that prevailed at the founding” of our nation, and we are bound by the standards. At that time, as Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out, a 7-year-old could be sentenced to death for stealing $50.

Casey’s Bradley quote:

The bill (banning LWOP for juveniles) made its way through a very difficult legislative session with surprising ease. At a Senate committee hearing it was supported not only by the ACLU, but by Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, one of the state’s most aggressive prosecutors who has made a name for himself as the controversial new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

“I was not a big supporter of life without parole,” Bradley testified. “I think even people who commit some of the most horrible crimes need an incentive to behave (in prison) and to rehabilitate and develop over a long period of time. I think that applies even greater when that person is a juvenile.”

Casey finishes up with a nice quote of his own making:

The majority, however, continued a long-standing practice of applying evolving societal norms.

Defense lawyers are already talking about asking the Supreme Court to bar life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder.

It’s not hard to imagine them arguing that if the Texas Legislature bans it, then it must be outside of societal norms.