Death and Texas: the Unevolved Model of Decency

• Publication year: 2021
• Citation: Vol. 90

90 Nebraska L. Rev. 240. Death and Texas: The Unevolved Model of Decency

Patrick S. Metze(fn*)

Death and Texas: The Unevolved Model of Decency

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.Introduction........................................241

II.History of Modern Death Penalty Law...............242

III.Texas Penal Code Section 19.03 Capital Murder.....246

IV.Mens Rea in the Capital Murder Context............247

V.Diminished Capacity................................ 251

VI. Party Responsibility................................ 258

VII. Section 19.03(a)(1) Penal Code: Murder of a Peace Officer or a Fireman ................................ 263

VIII. Section 19.03(a)(2) Penal Code: Murder in the Course of Committing or Attempting to Commit Certain Crimes ............................................. 264
A. Nexus between the Murder and the Underlying Crime .....................................................................265
1. Robbery .......................................................................................................................................................265
2. Aggravated Sexual Assault .........................................................................................................................272
3. Kidnapping...................................................................................................................................................273
4. Burglary ......................................................................................................................................................274
5. Arson ..........................................................................................................................................................276
6. Obstruction or Retaliation ......................................................................................................................... 277
7. Terroristic Threat........................... ...........................................................................................................279

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IX. Section 19.03(a)(3) Penal Code: Murder for Remuneration ...................................... ................280

X. Section 19.03(a)(4) Penal Code: Murder while Escaping or Attempting to Escape From a Penal Institution .......................................... ............................................................................................................................282

XI. Section 19.03(a)(5) Penal Code: Murder while Incarcerated in a Penal Institution .................. .283
A. Penal Institution Employee ...................... ................................................................................................283
1. Combination ............................................................................................................................................284

XII. Section 19.03(a)(6) Penal Code: Murder while Serving
a Sentence for Certain Crimes ...................... ............................................................................................287

XIII.Section 19.03(a)(7) Penal Code: Murder of more than One Person ........................................291

XIV.Section 19.03(a)(8) Penal Code: Murder of a Child Under Six Years of Age ..........................298
A.Constitutionality ................................ ....................................................................................................298
B.Murder of a Fetus ............................... .................................................................................................299

XV.Section 19.03(a)(9) Penal Code: Murder of a Judge ..............................................................306

XVI. Capital Punishment for Non-Murder Crimes ........................................................................306

XVII. The Legislature's Expansion of Section 19.03.....................................................................310

XVIII. The Court of Criminal Appeals' Complicity.........................................................................313

XIX. Evolving Standards of Decency............................................................................................318

XX. Conclusion............................................................................................................................329

XXI. Appendix A...........................................................................................................................335

XXII. Appendix B...........................................................................................................................338

"One murder made a Villain,

Millions a hero-Princes were privileg'd

To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime."*

*BeilbyPorteus, Death: A Poetical Essay, 12 (1759)

"Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope.

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence.

The life o' the building!"

William Shakespeare, Macbeth act 2, sc. 3.

I. INTRODUCTION

Capital punishment practice in recent years has diverged from emphasis on guilt-innocence to dedicate virtually all resources to punishment issues. This Article attempts to avoid this myopic approach by taking stock of the current state of substantive capital law at its very foundation. After a brief history of modern death penalty jurisprudence and a restatement of the current rendition of Texas's capital murder statute, this Article will focus first on two troubling themes in capital representation. First, how mens rea issues can address the

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lack of "diminished capacity" in Texas capital punishment law while suggesting a seldom used or understood legal strategy. A second reoc-curring problem in the application of the Texas capital statutes and the cases interpreting those statutes is the use of "party responsibility" to qualify a defendant other than the "trigger man" for the death penalty.

Following a detailed review of section 19.03 of the Texas Penal Code (the Code), with its history and current advancements in the law, I make the argument that the current statute is unconstitutional, that it has "unevoled" once again into a vehicle which drove previous capital statutes to be stricken as capricious, arbitrary, racist, and vio-lative of the Eighth Amendment. Finally, I argue that rather than reintroduce the constitutional limits that once made the statute palatable the statute should be scrapped altogether. The current statute is incomprehensible to the ordinary person, subject to the capricious whims of prosecution and appellate review, and disproportionate in its application to minorities. As evidence continues to mount of the probability that innocent people are being executed, of the overbearing financial burden this remedy places upon society, and of the growing disfavor by which the death penalty is viewed, justice calls for the end to this transgression upon the human condition consistent with the evolving standards of decency in our maturing society.

II. history of modern death penalty law

A brief history of modern capital punishment jurisprudence will put this discussion into context. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court struck down the application of the existing capital sentencing schemes finding them unconstitutional in the manner applied as in violation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.(fn1) The unfettered discretion to arbitrarily(fn2) and capriciously(fn3) impose a death sentence was labeled "freakish[]" and "wanton[]."(fn4) The Court further noted the role of racism in the arbitrary administration of state statutes, as well as the disproportionate number of African American defendants in capital cases.(fn5) State statutes that provided for automatic death sentences for all capital murders or first-degree murders were struck down as

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violations of not only the Eighth but also the Fourteenth Amendment.(fn6)

Responding to Furman, thirty-five states came forward with new statutes.(fn7) In 1976 the Supreme Court reviewed five of the new statutes, approving three and rejecting two.(fn8) In striking down North Carolina's mandatory death sentence for murder, the Court said such a mandatory statute failed to consider the character and record of the defendant or the circumstances of the offense and violated the "fundamental respect for humanity" which supports the Eighth Amend-ment.(fn9) This is the genesis of mitigation in modern death penalty jurisprudence.(fn10)

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The new generation of capital sentencing statutes contain three fundamental concepts: (1) Guided Discretion, (2) Individualized Sentencing, and (3) Heightened Reliability.(fn11) The sentencing jury in a capital trial must be guided by "objective standards to guide, regularize, and make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death."(fn12) The sentencer must be focused "on the particularized circumstances of the crime and the defendant."(fn13) Finally, capital procedures must be more reliable than sentencing procedures in ordinary criminal trials because the death penalty is "unique in its total irrevocability[,] ... in its rejection of rehabilitation of the convict as a basic purpose of criminal justice[,] ... [and] in its absolute renunciation of all that is embodied in our...