Texas kills innocent people


TEXAS:

Take pains to spare innocent

Re: "Restoring Justice -- Lawmakers move urgent reform closer to reality,"
Sunday Editorials. I join you in thanking and congratulating state Sen.
Royce West and Sen. Rodney Ellis for their leadership in helping innocent
people who may have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit,
and for establishing an innocence commission to lessen the chances of an
innocent person being sent to prison -- or worse, to death row.

If our district attorney, Craig Watkins, has already brought about the
exoneration of 19 innocent men from just the Dallas area, how many more
innocent are among the hundreds on death row? How do we expect previously
incarcerated people to succeed without help?

We get 500 of them monthly returning to Dallas to look for jobs and
housing. If we refuse to help them, crime due to recidivism puts all
citizens at risk.

I reluctantly still believe we must resort to the death penalty in certain
horrible criminal cases, but we must use every possible methodology to
avoid putting innocent people to death.

We have killed innocent people and will do more if we don't follow the
lead of West, Ellis and Watkins. I know this because I was there. All of
us want a safer Texas, but not at the expense of innocent people.

Charles T. Terrell, former chairman of the board, Texas Criminal Justice
Department, Addison

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)