More Coverage Of HB 8 Before Criminal Jurisprudence
By Vince Leibowitz on Feb 21, 2007 in 80th Legislature
The San Antonio Express-News has up a story on HB 8’s committee hearing yesterday. This is the House’s version of the Senate’s “Jessica’s Law” Legislation. We liveblogged a little of the committee hearing here.
I wanted to point out something from the story, though, that I didn’t liveblog but listened to, that the SAExN somewhat mischaraterizes:
Defense attorneys said the U.S. Supreme Court likely would object to the death penalty for second-time sexual assaults on children, since executions are normally reserved for the worst forms of homicide.
While someone from the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association did speak on HB 8 and brought this up, the person who spoke on it at length was actually a University of Texas School of Law professor who registered a “neutral” position on the bill but nonetheless explained to lawmakers why the death penalty language would be a problem. There was by no means, at least as I saw, a parade of criminal defense attorneys lined up before the committee.
And, Committee Vice Chairman Allen Vaught (D-Dallas) also brought up this up, but also noted that there are some federal laws, including treason and one for possession of very large amounts of narcotics, that allow for the death penalty in cases not involving murder.
The bottom line, however, is that neither the Committee, nor the SAExN, knows what the Supreme Court could decide on this. Louisiana has a similar law to the one under consideration in Texas and has one person on its death row as a result. Until that case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, this area of the law is still technically in constitutional limbo.
That is also a good reason that, perhaps, the death penalty should be omitted from the law at this time in favor of life in prison without the possibility of parole. After all, should the court rule on this later, it can be added.
The Express-News also didn’t mention that the committee heard testimony from the ACLU pointing out that the death penalty isn’t flawless and that the law could end up trapping innocent individuals.
Also possibilities of unintended consequences, such as unreported crimes because somebody can’t bring themself to send Uncle Ernie to the deathhouse, or murdered victims, because perpetrator fears leaving a living witness to the capitol crime.