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Top Texas Death Penalty Stories in 2009

By "Persian Cowboy"

Two stories dominated death penalty news in Texas in 2009, Todd Willingham and Sharon Keller. We will call it a tie for top Texas death penalty story in 2009, at least according to amount of media coverage. Well, the Willingham case received more media coverage, but we still call it a tie for top story.Other important Texas death penalty stories of 2009 in no particular order were:the 200th execution under Governor Rick Perry;the fact that only nine people were sentenced to death in Texas in 2009;the approval of the Law of Parties bill in the Texas House only for it to be killed in the Senate by a veto threat from Rick Perry;the Charles Dean Hood case, in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that it was ok for the judge and prosecutor to sleep together without biasing the outcome of the trial enough to warrant a retrial;the Texas Legislature passed and Rick Perry signed into law a bill to create a new capital writs office to handle indigent habeas appeals in death penalty cases;all charges were dropped against Robert Springsteen and Michael Toney and both were released from prison after having been sentenced to death in Texas in 2001 (Springsteen) and 1999 (Toney)...continue to full post

Full post as published by Texas Death Penalty Blog on January 11, 2010 (boomark / email).