Take On the Talking Heads
The Texas Massacre
by Garry Wills
May 18, 2000 -- The Texas Massacre is what we should call George Bush's terms in office. He has averaged one death every two weeks for his 5 1/2 years as governor. Jay Leno jokes that really hot weather is when Bush can fry criminals on the sidewalk. This is happening at a time when even conservative columnists such as George Will and Dorothy Rabinowitz are expressing doubts about the death penalty as it is exercised in America. Illinois Gov. George Ryan has put that concern into effect by imposing a moratorium on executions in his state.
These Republicans are not opposed to the death penalty as such. They are responding to cumulative evidence that innocent men are being convicted and put to death. On that subject, Bush is impervious to doubt. He says he has looked carefully at the convictions of all 127 people who have died under his scrutiny -- and he has not found a single case that merited his granting even a temporary reprieve.
And if there is one state where criminal procedure is likely to fail, it is Texas, not only because of the quantity of people "worked off," as the Dickens hangman puts it in "Barnaby Rudge." Admittedly, that quantity is staggering. Texas alone has executed almost three times as many convicts as the next highest state (Virginia) for executions. One county in Texas (Harris) has killed 62 prisoners, almost a match for the 69 killed by Oklahoma, Georgia and Arkansas put together.
But the quality of the criminal process is even more disturbing than the quantity of those killed. The incompetence of appointed defense lawyers has proved resistant to reform efforts, in part because Bush vetoed a bill meant to improve the situation. By contrast, he signed the bill that would make it even more difficult for defendants to get adequate counsel.
The incompetence or corruption of court-appointed defense lawyers in capital cases is documented in a striking piece of investigative journalism by Paul Duggan of The Washington Post. The record is a collection of horror stories.
To take just one of the many that Duggan supplies, consider the case of Henry Watkins Skinner, defended by Harold Lee Comer, who was appointed by Judge M. Kent Sims. Comer was appointed and mounted an unsuccessful defense. This is not surprising since:
(1) Comer had prosecuted Skinner himself when Comer was district attorney.
(2) Comer had been forced out as district attorney by charges of raking off seized drug monies.
(3) Comer plea-bargained to keep his law license.
(4) Comer was appointed to the case by a judge, Sims, who was a political ally and longtime friend.
(5) That judge did not give Skinner the option of seeking another lawyer, though that is guaranteed in the law.
(6) Comer, despite his failure to save Skinner, was given an unprecedented $86,000 for his effort -- almost exactly the amount that he owed in back taxes.
Yet George W. Bush sleeps soundly, trusting in the purity, professionalism and dedication of those who administer the Texas criminal system. Imagine what a new range of abuses he would be given to overlook if he were president.
Copyright © 2000 Universal Press Syndicate
