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Texas set for 300th executionBobby Glen Cook, #299, executed Tuesday
HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -- Texas plans Wednesday to carry out its 300th execution since resuming capital punishment 21 years ago in a case that critics say highlights nearly all of the problems in the state's justice system. Delma Banks, 44, would be the 300th inmate executed in the modern era of Texas executions, which began when the state put to death Charlie Brooks in 1982. Brooks was executed six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a nationwide death penalty ban. Texas is the U.S. death penalty leader. The 299th person to be executed, Bobby Glen Cook, was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville Tuesday for the 1993 robbery and shooting murder of Edwin Holder of Buffalo, Texas. Cook, in his last statement, apologized to the victim's family, none of whom was present, and claimed the shooting was in self-defense. Cook had claimed Holder pulled a gun on him and that he took it away and shot Holder in self-defense. But physical evidence suggested Holder was asleep in a sleeping bag in the bed of his pickup truck when he was shot at close range. Banks, a black man with no prior criminal record, was sentenced for robbing and shooting to death Richard Whitehead, a white 16-year-old, on April 14, 1980, in the east Texas town of Nash. Prosecutorial misconduct claimedSupporters of Banks say his right to a fair trial was marred by alleged prosecutorial misconduct, bad defense lawyering and the elimination of blacks from the jury pool. "These are the problems that have plagued death penalty cases for a long time," said Banks' lawyer George Kendall. "Not just in Texas, but in many other places as well."
Death penalty opponents including the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, with whom Kendall works, and Amnesty International have asked Texas to stop Banks' execution. In a rare move, three former federal judges, including former FBI director William Sessions, joined Banks' defense with a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Banks has filed two petitions with the court. On Monday the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to hear Banks' request for clemency, saying it had been submitted nearly a week past a deadline for appeal. The two key witnesses that prosecutors brought against Banks were drug addicts with criminal records. They have since recanted. One was a longtime police informant who was paid for his services and the other was facing a Dallas arson charge that could have led to a long prison sentence unless he performed "well" on the witness stand. The latter witness, Charles Cook, told jurors that Banks confessed to "shooting a white boy." His arson case was dropped after Banks was convicted. Black jurors excludedAfter his trial Banks showed that from 1975 through 1980, Bowie County prosecutors had accepted 80 percent of qualified white jurors while eliminating 90 percent of black jurors in felony cases. They also used a code, writing "b" or "n" next to the names of black jurors on jury lists. Prosecutors argued they had race-neutral reasons to remove the four potential black jurors in Banks' jury pool. Banks' lawyer never objected during the trial. Banks' argument might sway the U.S. Supreme Court. Last month it granted Texas death row inmate Thomas Miller-El a chance to present similar evidence of racial bias in his jury selection. Texas has a long history of independence and resistance to interference in its affairs, and its death penalty stance has strained relations among the United States and its allies. Most recently, Texas said it would not heed a World Court order demanding it stay the executions of two Mexicans. Mexico had accused U.S. police of violating an international treaty that requires them to notify foreign criminal suspects of their right to consular assistance. Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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