One of the most (in)famous failures in Bush-speak was our President's inability to recognize any mistakes he might have made in his career. In 2004, he couldn't think of anything he had ever done wrong. This year, (coached to sound "humble"), he mouthed the famous "mistakes were made" line, but in the end still didn't tell us where they were buried. But it's slowly becoming clear that at least some of the mistakes are buried in Texas.
As Governor of Texas, Bush oversaw the executions of 152 prisoners and thus became the most-killing governor in the history of the United States. Today, DNA evidence is showing us that the Texas judicial system may be the most error-prone in the nation. Yet neither Bush, nor his "religious base" have suggested that the "culture of life" should look at the issues.
Little by little, all across the nation, judges and prosecutors are beginning to suspect that there are very serious problems with our system of justice. In one study ( J. Liebman, S. Rifkind, J. Fagan & V. West, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995 (2000), Executive Summary)the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was found to be 68 percent. And that was before DNA evidence became the norm.
In a dramatic move, former Illinois governor Jim Ryan commuted 167 death sentences just before he left office. He did so not because of some personal objection to the concept of the death penalty, but because he was convinced that there were so many errors in the system that it wasn't sustainable in its current form. Now, a new wave of re-hearings has demonstrated that Bush's Texas may have an even higher error rate than other areas of the country.
In a case that has renewed questions about the quality of Texas justice, a man who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy has become the 12th person in [a single] Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.
So far, about 3% of the convicted prisoners have been exhonerated in that county, with many more investigations pending.
"These are appalling mistakes, and in the case of Dallas County, there have been so many," said Democratic state Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who is sponsoring a bill to create Texas Innocence Commission to scrutinize the state's criminal justice system.
This new information becomes evident at a time when Bush is probably readying his pen for the second veto of his Presidency--saving the life of a few of the 400,000 embryos that will be discarded in the next few months. His action will be lauded by Roman Catholics (among others) whose theology condemns capital punishment, but whose heirarchy often suggest that abortion and other reproductive issues should be prioritized as the only litmus tests for politicians.
For what? Advocates claim that capital punishment deters crime, but the evidence says otherwise.
The results of the more than 200 studies done on capital punishment are either inconclusive or adverse to the claim that it is an effective deterrent to murder. The typical research design compares murder rates in state that have and use the death penalty with (1) those that either have not used it, although the law permits its use and (2) states that have abolished it. In general, these studies tend to show no difference in homicide rates for comparable states that with and without capital punishment. Nor is there evidence that homicide rates decline or increase as states decide to reinstate or abolish the death penalty.
Experts say capital punishment doesn't work because murderers don't have the sense of "fate control" that others do, and our system doesn't make such penalties certain or prompt. Advocates quote the gospel, but opponents quote it back (Mark 10)[Old Testament laws were written] "because of your hardness of heart." Scientists offer a third argument: "Too many mistakes are made."
But George Bush doesn't admit mistakes--even those that haunt the death rows of Texas.