Tuesday, June 24, 2003
I have often heard that you are judged by the company you keep. It is one of those time worn phrases that almost every parent uses at one time or another. You are also judged by the people you hire. Like it or not, they are a reflection of you your biases. your values.
Alberto R. Gonzales is a Harvard-educated lawyer that went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court. He became the legal counsel to then-Texas Governor George W. Bush. He is now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee.
One of the legal counsel's major responsibilities was to prepared very important memorandums for Governor Bush prior to each scheduled execution of an inmate from death row. These summaries were Bush's primary source of information in deciding whether someone would live or die.
Each summary was only three to seven pages long and generally consists of little more than a brief description of the crime, a paragraph or two on the defendant's personal background, and a condensed legal history. Governor George W. Bush signs his name to the confidential memorandum, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY when the execution was ordered to take place.
A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.
Gonzales never intended his summaries to be made public. Almost all are marked CONFIDENTIAL and state, "The privileges claimed include, but are not limited to, claims of Attorney-Client Privilege, Attorney Work-Product Privilege, and the Internal Memorandum exception to the Texas Public Information Act." Summaries and related documents were obtained, which have never been published. They were made public after the Texas attorney general ruled that they were not exempt from the disclosure requirements of the Public Information Act.
The Gonzales's summaries all seem to assume that if an appeals court rejected one or another of a defendant's claims, then there is no conceivable rationale for the governor to revisit that claim. This assumption ignores one of the most basic reasons for clemency: the fact that the justice system makes mistakes.
The recent release of 12 inmates from Tulia a town about 65 miles north of Lubbock seems to contradict all of that.
These 12 people were arrested and accused of possessing cocaine following an 18-month undercover operation by Tom Coleman. Coleman claimed he bought drugs from the defendants during the investigation in which he worked alone and used no audio or video surveillance. No drugs or money were found during the arrests. His word was the sole reason for all of the convictions. The bust drew national attention and led to investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office. Swisher County Jail released the 12 pending a ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In late April, Coleman was indicted on three charges of aggravated perjury stemming from his testimony during the hearings, which Chapman oversaw. I guess it could be said that Coleman was not a credible witness under oath. The appeals court are looking into overturning the convictions of all 38 people prosecuted and new trials were ordered. The fault goes beyond just one rogue cop. The issue also involves the district attorney and Coleman's supervisors in the Swisher County Sheriff's Department and the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force. They should be thankful that Bush and Gonzales have moved on.
Back to death row executions by Gonzales and Bush in Texas
There were many questionable expert medical witnesses which some Texas prosecutors used in these cases. Take the example of Stoker, Ralph Erdmann, a doctor who had relinquished his medical license in 1994 after pleading no contest to seven felonies tied to falsified evidence and botched autopsies. A special prosecutor's investigation of Erdmann concluded that he falsified evidence in at least thirty cases in support of prosecutors. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandum to Bush.
James Grigson, a psychiatrist who often testified for the prosecution, had on occasion even failed to examine patients and claimed they were sociopaths without even examining them. His expert testimony has helped send dozens of men to death row, earning him the nickname Dr. Death. He had been expelled from the American Psychiatric Association two years before the Stoker case was reviewed by Gonzales and Bush. His testimony had repeatedly been found to be unethical. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandums to Bush.
Stephen Latimer, who represented one death row inmate received a call from Gonzales's office about a week to ten days before the execution, advising him that there would be no reprieve. The timing is significant, because Gonzales's execution summary is dated June 16, 1997, the day of his client's execution. The decision had been made a week or more before Bush even read the summary,
The handling of this clemency appeal was not unusual. Consider the case of Billy Conn Gardner, whose death-penalty case was plagued by issues of incompetent counsel, dubious witness testimony, and unheard mitigating evidence. Gonzales's report to Bush gave no sense of these circumstances. And there were some pretty significant facts missing from Gonzales's memo on his case as well. Critical information, was received, only after the prosecutors threatened to bring other charges against one Melvin Sanders, who then fingered Gardner as the murderer in the case. In exchange for this testimony Sanders received complete immunity from prosecution for the murder and probation for pending forgery and firearms charges. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandums to Bush.
During Bush's six years as governor, he placed many bold black check marks on those summaries and 150 men and women went to their deaths. Bush set an american record for executions, ordered by a governor.
Gonzales and Bush did not consider mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination in jury selection, the competence of the legal defense, or disparities in sentences between co-defendants or among defendants convicted of similar crimes.
Compassion and mercy are critical to the idea of clemency, and it has been central to the Supreme court which goes back to 1855. Neither compassion or mercy, are acknowledged as being of any account in Bush and Gonzales's review of summaries.
In his autobiography,"A Charge to Keep" George Bush says, that everyone had "a fair hearing and full access to the courts". This apparently means nothing more than that a case had received some sort of legal attention at all state and federal levels
Well, a lot of people don't seem to care and Americans still support the death penalty in large numbers despite an awareness that innocent people are executed. Gallup's most recent polls also find that seventy-three percent of Americans "believe an innocent person has been executed under the death penalty in the last five years.
So, the question of how many innocent people did Bush and Gonzalez kill is mute, but the process they followed is very telling, especially when you apply those same traits when it comes to Guantanimo prisoners, people being held without counsel, secret government court trials, domestic and foreign policy decisions. Hang em high George, let Jesus sort them out.
Sources Cited:
The Atlantic Monthly
Alan Berlow
JOHN W. DEAN
Alberto R. Gonzales is a Harvard-educated lawyer that went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court. He became the legal counsel to then-Texas Governor George W. Bush. He is now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee.
One of the legal counsel's major responsibilities was to prepared very important memorandums for Governor Bush prior to each scheduled execution of an inmate from death row. These summaries were Bush's primary source of information in deciding whether someone would live or die.
Each summary was only three to seven pages long and generally consists of little more than a brief description of the crime, a paragraph or two on the defendant's personal background, and a condensed legal history. Governor George W. Bush signs his name to the confidential memorandum, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY when the execution was ordered to take place.
A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.
Gonzales never intended his summaries to be made public. Almost all are marked CONFIDENTIAL and state, "The privileges claimed include, but are not limited to, claims of Attorney-Client Privilege, Attorney Work-Product Privilege, and the Internal Memorandum exception to the Texas Public Information Act." Summaries and related documents were obtained, which have never been published. They were made public after the Texas attorney general ruled that they were not exempt from the disclosure requirements of the Public Information Act.
The Gonzales's summaries all seem to assume that if an appeals court rejected one or another of a defendant's claims, then there is no conceivable rationale for the governor to revisit that claim. This assumption ignores one of the most basic reasons for clemency: the fact that the justice system makes mistakes.
The recent release of 12 inmates from Tulia a town about 65 miles north of Lubbock seems to contradict all of that.
These 12 people were arrested and accused of possessing cocaine following an 18-month undercover operation by Tom Coleman. Coleman claimed he bought drugs from the defendants during the investigation in which he worked alone and used no audio or video surveillance. No drugs or money were found during the arrests. His word was the sole reason for all of the convictions. The bust drew national attention and led to investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office. Swisher County Jail released the 12 pending a ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In late April, Coleman was indicted on three charges of aggravated perjury stemming from his testimony during the hearings, which Chapman oversaw. I guess it could be said that Coleman was not a credible witness under oath. The appeals court are looking into overturning the convictions of all 38 people prosecuted and new trials were ordered. The fault goes beyond just one rogue cop. The issue also involves the district attorney and Coleman's supervisors in the Swisher County Sheriff's Department and the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force. They should be thankful that Bush and Gonzales have moved on.
Back to death row executions by Gonzales and Bush in Texas
There were many questionable expert medical witnesses which some Texas prosecutors used in these cases. Take the example of Stoker, Ralph Erdmann, a doctor who had relinquished his medical license in 1994 after pleading no contest to seven felonies tied to falsified evidence and botched autopsies. A special prosecutor's investigation of Erdmann concluded that he falsified evidence in at least thirty cases in support of prosecutors. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandum to Bush.
James Grigson, a psychiatrist who often testified for the prosecution, had on occasion even failed to examine patients and claimed they were sociopaths without even examining them. His expert testimony has helped send dozens of men to death row, earning him the nickname Dr. Death. He had been expelled from the American Psychiatric Association two years before the Stoker case was reviewed by Gonzales and Bush. His testimony had repeatedly been found to be unethical. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandums to Bush.
Stephen Latimer, who represented one death row inmate received a call from Gonzales's office about a week to ten days before the execution, advising him that there would be no reprieve. The timing is significant, because Gonzales's execution summary is dated June 16, 1997, the day of his client's execution. The decision had been made a week or more before Bush even read the summary,
The handling of this clemency appeal was not unusual. Consider the case of Billy Conn Gardner, whose death-penalty case was plagued by issues of incompetent counsel, dubious witness testimony, and unheard mitigating evidence. Gonzales's report to Bush gave no sense of these circumstances. And there were some pretty significant facts missing from Gonzales's memo on his case as well. Critical information, was received, only after the prosecutors threatened to bring other charges against one Melvin Sanders, who then fingered Gardner as the murderer in the case. In exchange for this testimony Sanders received complete immunity from prosecution for the murder and probation for pending forgery and firearms charges. All this information was in the public record, yet Gonzales mentioned none of it in his memorandums to Bush.
During Bush's six years as governor, he placed many bold black check marks on those summaries and 150 men and women went to their deaths. Bush set an american record for executions, ordered by a governor.
Gonzales and Bush did not consider mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination in jury selection, the competence of the legal defense, or disparities in sentences between co-defendants or among defendants convicted of similar crimes.
Compassion and mercy are critical to the idea of clemency, and it has been central to the Supreme court which goes back to 1855. Neither compassion or mercy, are acknowledged as being of any account in Bush and Gonzales's review of summaries.
In his autobiography,"A Charge to Keep" George Bush says, that everyone had "a fair hearing and full access to the courts". This apparently means nothing more than that a case had received some sort of legal attention at all state and federal levels
Well, a lot of people don't seem to care and Americans still support the death penalty in large numbers despite an awareness that innocent people are executed. Gallup's most recent polls also find that seventy-three percent of Americans "believe an innocent person has been executed under the death penalty in the last five years.
So, the question of how many innocent people did Bush and Gonzalez kill is mute, but the process they followed is very telling, especially when you apply those same traits when it comes to Guantanimo prisoners, people being held without counsel, secret government court trials, domestic and foreign policy decisions. Hang em high George, let Jesus sort them out.
Sources Cited:
The Atlantic Monthly
Alan Berlow
JOHN W. DEAN
# posted by Thomas @ 10:40 PM 
