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On December 1, Texas governor Rick Perry granted Frances Newton a 120-day reprieve to allow her attorneys to investigate new claims of innocence. Perry’s decision came after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles agreed in a 5-1 vote the previous day to grant Newton a stay of execution. The Board, which is empowered to make a recommendation to the governor on clemency pleas, has only recommended to stay executions on a few rare occasions.

U.S.: Halt Execution of Texas Woman

Conviction Rests on Evidence Tested by Discredited Houston Crime Lab

(Washington, DC, November 29, 2004) The state of Texas should halt the execution of Frances Newton, scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday for a triple murder in 1987, Human Rights Watch said today. Newton, a 39-year-old African-American woman, was convicted largely on the basis of evidence tests conducted by the widely discredited Houston Police Department crime lab.

“Governor Perry and the Texas parole board should stay the execution to allow Ms. Newton’s attorneys to investigate new evidence that she may be innocent,” said Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Considering the controversy surrounding Houston’s crime lab, it is the only reasonable choice to avoid sending a possibly innocent woman to her death."

Earlier this month Houston’s chief of police, Harold Hurtt, called on the state to delay all executions in cases where the troubled lab’s evidence was used. The Houston Police Department crime lab has been surrounded by controversy since early 2003, when hundreds of missing boxes were found that pertained to 8,000 criminal cases. An independent audit also revealed alarming defects in the crime lab’s DNA analysis.

Houston Police are still reviewing the evidence uncovered in 2003. Recent cases have shown that the problems at the crime lab include missing evidence, defective DNA analysis and inaccurate ballistic analysis. Already one case has been overturned based on the prosecution’s use of incorrect DNA evidence and in a second case a weapons examiner from the lab admitted the wrong bullet was tested. Many other cases are under appeal or are being investigated by the district attorney’s office.

The case against Frances Newton rests largely on ballistic evidence tests conducted in Houston's crime lab. From the outset, Ms. Newton has maintained her innocence, and there were no eyewitnesses to the crime. Without the ballistic evidence, it is unlikely that Ms. Newton would have been convicted of these murders.

Ms. Newton, like so many on death row in the United States, suffered from ineffective assistance of counsel. Her state-appointed trial attorney failed to conduct even a basic investigation on her behalf and presented no witnesses at trial in Ms. Newton’s defense.

Texas state law gives the governor the power to grant a 30-day reprieve to those facing execution, regardless of the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Parole. The Board can also recommend clemency or, in exceptional circumstances, a longer period of reprieve. If the state grants the 120-day reprieve requested by Ms. Newton’s attorneys, they would have time to conduct a thorough investigation of her case, a right she has been denied thus far, including new ballistic testing in a reliable lab. If Newton’s death sentence is carried out, she would be the third woman put to death in Texas since the state resumed executions in 1982.

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances. The death penalty is a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and finality. The intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems assures that even when full due process of law is respected, innocent persons may be executed.

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