Bush and the Texas Death Machine
No state executes as many people as Texas, and no American governor has put more people to death than the state’s current governor, George W. Bush, who on August 3rd will be nominated as the GOP’s presidential candidate. Bush has signed off on 135 executions since he took office in 1995, about one death every two weeks. In his first term of four years, 79 people died. By contrast, Bush’s predecessor, Ann Richards, approved 50 executions in her term as governor. Knowing that Texas voters like to see convicts pay the ultimate price, Bush has made a priority of cutting out some of the red tape involved in actually killing a condemned prisoner. On the campaign trail in 1994, he promised to shorten the time taken for death-row appeals, and he followed up as soon as he took office. He has since gone out of his way to oppose bills that might have slowed the pace of executions, and he has given a reprieve or a commutation only twice, proof of his deep faith in the system in Texas that finds alleged murderers and sends them to their deaths.
One might expect Bush’s zeal for capital punishment to derive from some well-considered philosophy. But in fact the governor just says the same line over and over: If it is administered swiftly and justly, the death penalty will deter future violence. It seems clear that Bush’s actions are inspired by the popularity of capital punishment in Texas. Support cuts across party lines – up to 80 percent of Texans strongly favor it – and Bush has exploited that enthusiasm for political benefit, making the system even harsher. “Before Bush, what we meant by ‘tough on crime’ was increasing the severity of penalties,” says Keith S. Hampton, a defense lawyer who works on criminal-justice issues. “After Bush, ‘tough on crime’ means doing away with the basic procedural safeguards that get in the way of convictions. That’s a lot different.”
But what plays well in Texas may hurt Bush on the national stage: Approval of capital punishment has declined from 80 percent nationwide in 1981 to 66 percent today. New revelations about innocent people going to prison and to death row have caused further alarm. In February, after an investigation by college students proved the innocence of a man about to die in Illinois – the 13th exoneration there in 23 years – Republican Gov. George Ryan halted all executions in the state. The governors of Maryland and Indiana then ordered studies to see whether their death-row convictions were as unreliable, and President Clinton has ordered a review of federal death-row cases. Legislatures in Pennsylvania, Alabama, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington and Oklahoma are considering imposing moratoriums. Meanwhile, a best-selling book, Actual Innocence, by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer, argues that thousands of people in prison could be found innocent with modern DNA testing. While even Democrats in Texas frequently emphasize their strong support for the death penalty, Republicans across the nation are competing to show their concern about executing the innocent. Powerful senators such as Utah Republican Orrin Hatch are backing a bill in Congress to compel DNA testing in capital cases, and Texas legislators have introduced a similar bill with bipartisan support.
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