The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) recent­ly ordered relief for two death row inmates, acknowl­edg­ing that a U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing from last year affect­ed a series of cas­es that were tried before the state changed its death penal­ty statute. The Texas CCA reversed the death sen­tence of Jose Angel Moreno, whose exe­cu­tion was stayed just hours before it was to occur last May. He may now have a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present a range of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that the jury did not prop­er­ly con­sid­er at his first tri­al. Moreno’s attor­ney, Scott Sullivan, said, ​“It’s a thought­ful deci­sion. They took the time to rec­og­nize a wrong and correct it.” 

The appeals court also ordered fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of a sim­i­lar appeal from death row inmate Ricky Eugene Kerr. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed three Texas death sen­tences last year because of the prob­lem with the old­er Texas statute.
(J. Vertuno, Associated Press, in San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 6, 2008). See the Texas deci­sion and Supreme Court.

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