Death Row cases 4441A' 114*thl-e44' White wants &I quicker justice By DAVE McNEELY American-Statesman Staff Texas Attorney General Mark White says he wants appeals of death sentences speeded up so that inmates are executed or get new trials. White said he has had a study under way for sev- eral months to analyze each Texas death penalty case to see if the Supreme Court has. ruled on other, similar cases. "We take those where we think we do not have significant legal problems with the trial, and we'll be asking the court to expedite those," White said. "Either carry out the judgement of the court, or provide for a new trial," White said. "I think that's fair to three parties: the victim, the state, and the defendant." There are now 156 inmates in Texas waiting death. The last person to have the death penalty carried out in Texas was Joseph Johnson of Hous- ton, who was electrocuted July 30, 1964. Since then, the Texas death-penalty statute has been ruled unconstitutional: the Texas Legisla- ture has passed a new one that has been approved by the Supreme Court; the method of execution has been changed from the electric chair to injec- tion; and Texas juries have continued to send murderers to Death Row. The attorney general does not get involved in the process until after a case has cleared the state Court of Criminal Appeals. Up to that point, any appeal from a trial court is contested by the prose- cutor who handled the case at the trial level. But when the case goes to the U. S. Supreme Court on direct appeal, or when it is heard in fed- eral courts on efforts by prisoners to win release, the attorney general's office represents the state. John Duncan, executive director of the Texas Civil Liberties Union, an organization that op- poses the death penalty, said he believes the only way to expedite the process is for the attorney general and governor to take an aggressive effort to prevent stays of execution. "We have been fortunate in Texas up to this point in that the attorney general has not aggres- sively fought stays of execution. That was the policy under John Hill and it appears to have been continued by White up to this point," said Duncan. Duncan also said there may be no more execu- tions until a Supreme Court case involving the use of psychiatric testimony at the sentencing stage of a trial is decided. White said the state came within two days of carrying out an execution earlier this year. Rudy Esquivel, a 45-year-old Houston murderer, was scheduled to die on March 20, but was granted a stay of execution on March 18 by a Houston judge. The next scheduled execution, according to offi- cials at the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, is June 10, when John Quinones, 22, an- other Houston murderer, will die unless he is granted a stay. In 1978, Quinones hijacked an Ice-cream truck, abducted its male driver, pistol-whipped him and sexually assaulted him before fatally shooting him in the head. An assistant attorney general said Quinones, like Esquivel, has barely begun his habeas corpus appeals process, and most likely would be granted a stay of execution if he requested it.
