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: Grits for Breakfast

Responding to unanswered questions on Rodney Ellis' innocence legislation: "How much of an innocence problem do we really have in this state?"

The Houston Chronicle published a feature on Friday ("Ellis works to halt false convictions," Feb. 4) discussing legislation in state Sen. Rodney Ellis' "Innocence Protection Package": "Ellis' bills include many of the [Timothy Cole Advisory] panel's suggestions, including uniform procedures for eyewitness identification, requiring investigators to record interrogations in serious felonies, streamlining defendants' appeals for DNA testing, and reorganizing Texas' indigent defense task force." The story by Bobby Cervantes gave a great deal of space to pro-death penalty zealot Dudley Sharp, who issued some ignorant criticisms of the bills that the article left unanswered:Dudley Sharp, a death penalty advocate and founder of Justice Matters, said anti-death penalty activists inflate the number of innocence claims to create a sense of urgency to pass the bills...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 06, 2011 (boomark / email).