The Death Penalty

Let's just roll right into the big issues, shall we?

There is a song by Robert Earl Keen that runs something like this:

I don't wear no Stetson,

But I'm willin' to bet, son

That I'm as big a Texan as you are

Being Texan runs through the fabric of the lives of Texans in ways that are difficult for the non-Texan to understand.  I don't mean that we're so different in speech, mannerisms, or even politics.  Urban Texans by and large aren't, at least not any more.  But we do largely maintain a refreshingly uncomplicated view of life.

If only everything in life were as uncomplicated as we make it.  The case of John Thompson happened in Louisiana, but it would be enough to introduce nuance to a Texas boy like me, had I not already developed it.

I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine.

Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today.

I am cognizant of the fact that the wheels of justice already grind exceedingly slowly and not particularly fine.  But I think in this case they ground to a halt.  A system that enables wholesale prosecutorial misconduct can't be a just system.

I believe that the death penalty (like abortion - might as well double down on my hate mail) should be safe, legal, and exceedingly rare.  For an innocent person to die would be a tragedy that would undermine the entire system.  For an innocent person to die because the prosecutor deliberately witheld evidence is something that neither the English nor Texan language has the words for.