TX Prosecutor Cites Execution Moratorium

Death Penalty

Posted Oct 31, 2007, 05:28 pm CST
By Martha Neil

In the latest example of an apparent death penalty moratorium being voluntarily imposed in states throughout the country, a Texas prosecutor in the county with the highest number of death sentences in the nation says she will not seek further executions until the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in an upcoming case.

Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson, who handles capital appeals in Harris County, says she is asking that a scheduled February execution date be postponed and will not seek any additional executions until the Supreme Court has decided a Kentucky case challenging lethal injections, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Noting that the Supreme Court decision may well not be forthcoming until the summer of 2008, Wilson says Harris County, like others throughout the country, is "just waiting to see what the Supreme Court is going to do."

As discussed earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court literally called off a scheduled execution in Mississippi yesterday 15 minutes before it was to take place. This was the third time in the five weeks since it agreed to hear a Kentucky case on the constitutionality of lethal injections that the court has canceled an execution.

State courts also have recently postponed scheduled executions, and observers say there appears to be an effective national moratorium on imposing the death penalty, at least in the 37 states that use the lethal injection method.

Meanwhile, the ABA called this week for a national moratorium on executions, saying that the death penalty is unfairly applied.

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