NEW VOICES: Texas DA Sees ​“Beginning of the End of the Death Penalty”

In Texas, Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness recent­ly not­ed that the time-con­sum­ing and cost­ly nature of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment may lead to its demise. ​“I think this is the begin­ning of the end of the death penal­ty,” said Maness after a Criminal District Court Judge rec­om­mend­ed that the Court of Criminal Appeals com­mute the death sen­tence of Walter Bell to life in prison. On three occas­sions, Jefferson County spent count­less hours of work and hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to pros­e­cute Bell, who is men­tal­ly retard­ed, a diag­no­sis that makes him inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty accord­ing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia. Maness added that if Texas juries had the option to sen­tence those con­vict­ed of mur­der to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole and the state were to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, protest from the state’s pros­e­cu­tors would be lit­tle more than a grum­ble. ​“It’s so dif­fi­cult. It gets more dif­fi­cult all of the time,” said Maness of the time-con­sum­ing and stress­ful work asso­ci­at­ed with seek­ing death sen­tences. Texas is one of two states that has the death penal­ty and does not offer the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life with­out parole. (The Beaumont Enterprise, July 24, 2004) See New Voices. See also, Life Without Parole.