The high and mighty courts in the State of TX are interpreting law again to suit themselves. This time it involves DNA testing and the stonewalling they are doing to prevent convicted persons from accessing the tests.
This is a request for persons to contact the authors of the new law to make them aware that their intent is not being followed. It is rather lengthy so have posted under "TEXAS".
Please read and respond whether you are in TX or not. The lives of two men who's execution dates are pending soon depend on it!

Thank you

CHEENA, I HAVE READ WHAT YOU PUT IN THE TEXAS FILE, AND GIRLFRIEND I HAVE GOT LETTERS BEING WRITTEN AND SENT OUT. I HAVE FAMILY IN TEXAS AND THEY HAD NO PROBLEM IN DOING THIS. THEY FEEL THE PRISON SYSTEM IS A TOTAL CROCK OF HORSE POOPY. HOPE THIS HELPS, KEPP US POSTED.

Thanks Tigger

And your assessment of this great state is accurate, and then some!

cheenna ~ i've been keeping up with this myself. the entire texas judicial system is a crock and i think the feds (which will never happen, considering who the damn president is!) need to go in and revamp the whole mess. before he become president, george w. exported one of his TDOJ cronies to florida to help his little bro "clean up" florida's doc. i just get mad as hell every time i think about the whole situation. if you want to get a prisoner's view on the correuption, check out http://www.deathrow.at/polunsky/index.html pretty interesting stuff there as well.

This just goes to show that they aren't interested in right & wrong, or justice. They are worried about lawsuits from someone imprisoned wrongfully. They also have a pathological aversion to admitting they were wrong. They are also afraid of what the public will think when they see how many people are incarcerated wrongfully, & what that might do to their precious death penalty. These fools need to be voted out of office. The people I feel bad for are the ones wrongfully convicted & there is no DNA to prove their innocense. -----------Ken

Ms. Cheenna:
A person can have their DNA tested in a private lab with credibility. The state of Texas can not block the test for any reason. The defense for having it reviewed at such a late notice is because of the fact that DNA testing just began, "Declaration of new evidence." The courts have ruled on many murder cases with as much as thirty years old evidence. Look at the recent cases in my state: "Blanton v. Alabama" and "Cherry v. Alabama ". Both men were convicted under the "No statue law" for murder. They were part of the many no goods that killed those four innocent and sweet black children in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. [Cherry ran to the state of Texas in refuge for over twenty-five years.] I am sad to say they did not get the Death Penalty, but should have been hung at high noon in front of the church. Their cases were prosecuted under the old Alabama law of "No Death Penalty" because of the time of the crime.[You commit a murder in a certain time frame, but prosecuted many years later; you are sentenced ,upon conviction, under the laws of the time of the crime.]

I know, I said I would not talk pro..... anymore, but I get mad everytime I think about the mistreatment those black people suffered during the sixties. NOONE SHOULD BE PERSECUTED BECAUSE OF THEIR COLOR, religion, or any other reason especially during a church service. I believe, the families of those people inside the church should have decided Cherry and Blanton's punishment. Sorry, here
I go again, write your prisoners and tell them their defense is the "Declaration of New Evidence" law.
Everyone should "nickel up" and sponsor their testing. I have ten on it, does anyone else?
Testing for all when DNA exist,
"Beyond a shadow of a doubt"
38 Special

.38 ~ private dna testing is all well and good IF the inmate has that kind of $$$. often, they don't which is how they end up on death row in the first place. i would think that the state would want to do all it could to INSURE the guilt of someone on death row 110%, even if it involves the use of public funds to do so.

ken ~ amen to what you said regarding the poor souls that don't even have the option of dna testing, because there was not any physical evidence involved in the case in the first place. as you know, that's the situation with my friend in florida. i think a lot of people forget that there are those guys on death row that don't have a dna test as an option...we need to remember these guys and become more active in trying to help them through other methods....

.38 I have to agree with april that sure there is DNA testing for the rich, but in my short time in getting to know the legal system(crash course that is) I have come to but one and almighty conclusion, testing and innocent are for the RICH...not for the average person.

Ken I agree also wholly with what you said.

Ooh, I have an idea...

Do the darned DNA test BEFORE you sentence someone to death row. Wouldn't that save time and money?

Of course, as April pointed out, many many crimes leave no DNA material to test...

I think the U.S. would have a vested interest in preventing DNA testing, because once it creeps into the national psyche that MAYBE some people were executed who were innocent, well, damn, there goes the whole "justice system"'s reputation.

I think that's why, we in Canada are more likely to appoint commissions to investigate a wrongful conviction etc. Since we don't have the death penalty, we have the luxury to say "Oops, maybe we were wrong. Let's try looking at this again." because we still have the guy ALIVE, to make amends to.

Ask David Milgaard. 22 hellish years in prison, then we let him go and paid him 10 million dollars! And we all breathed a great sigh of relief that we hadn't executed him!

Now had he been in Texas...

**shudder**

Menolly

Menolly,

Your so right. If they did DNA testing earlier then they wouldn't be paying out 10 million dollar awards. They would save a lot of money. Anyone doing a cost /benefit analysis would advise them to do it ASAP, to minimize the law suits. That 10 mill would have paid for all the DNA test they needed to do. I even heard one guy try to put a spin on it saying "see the sysytem works this guy was exonerated, it shows the appeals process is working the way it's supposed too." How do you fight that kind of convoluted thinking. That goes beyond ignorance. The fact that not everyone gets the opportunity to get DNA testing, or that there is no DNA evidence, or if the person is executed before they can be proven innocent, doesn't dawn on this guy. Or the fact that with all the cases being over turned shows something is wrong with the system, or that the appeals process isn't perfect & that it's possible for an innocent person not to be cleared by the appeals process, seems to be something people like this clown don't want to face.-----Ken

Of course Ken! I agree totally.

That's why people like you and I MUST keep on talking, and talking, and talking...

I won't get tired, if you don't!

Menolly

...and then there are the ones who don't qualify for the testing because their aledged crime was commited prior to the timing "they" are apparently putting on some of the cases.
apalling...