So, you think it’s impossible to feel any more rage towards Bush and Gonzales? Inspired by cadmium’s comment in yesterday’s thread on the Libby commutation, I decided to do a quick look at Bush’s propensity for leaniancy as Govenor of Texas. Within a minute, I learned something long forgotten about corruption’s dynamic duo from this 2003 Atlantic Monthly article:
On the morning of May 6, 1997, Governor George W. Bush signed his name to a confidential three-page memorandum from his legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY. It was the twenty-ninth time a death-row inmate’s plea for clemency had been denied in the twenty-eight months since Bush had been sworn in. In this case Bush’s signature led, shortly after 6:00 P.M. on the very same day, to the execution of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded thirty-three-year-old man with the communication skills of a seven-year-old.
Disgusting. But what role did Gonzales play in all this?
During Bush’s six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas – a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one. The first fifty-seven of these summaries were prepared by Gonzales, a Harvard-educated lawyer who went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court.
Gonzales’s memos were cruelly biased. If this isn’t criminal, it should be:
A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence….Most important, Gonzales failed to mention that Washington’s mental limitations, and the fact that he and his ten siblings were regularly beaten with whips, water hoses, extension cords, wire hangers, and fan belts, were never made known to the jury, although both the district attorney and Washington’s trial lawyer knew of this potentially mitigating evidence. (Washington did not testify at his trial or his sentencing.)
I offer no further comment other than I am truly appalled. More so than ever.
I am sorry that you were foursed to avouw that you were truly appauled by the Guv’nur and his Atternie. But tell me; does being appauled make you a new convert to discipleship under the apostle Paul?
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Best,
Chuck
My bad.