Court Opinion

ID: 9778956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:28:16.337213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.707914
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
dissenting.
This habeas application presents a question of first impression, namely: whether a death row inmate has a due process right to meaningful consideration of a commutation request in the clemency process. For the following reasons, I believe the question should be answered in the affirmative.
I.
In its finality, death is different from any other punishment.1 Because of the gravity of capital punishment, Texas has both constitutional and statutory provisions for clemency.2 Tex. Const., art. IV, § 11; Tex.Code Crim. Proe. Ann. art. 48.01; Tex. Admin. Code, Title 37, Chapter 143 et. seq. (Executive Clemency; Reprieve of Execution). Under the present clemency scheme, the Board of Pardons and Paroles (hereafter, the Board) has the authority to either conduct a hearing or summarily recommend or deny commutation. 37 TAC § 143.43. Upon the Board’s recommendation, the Governor may commute a death sentence to life imprisonment. Tex. Const, art. IV, § 11; 37 TAC § 143.41(b).
Even though procedures are in place to request commutation, applicant asserts the clemency process, as applied, does not provide meaningful consideration of such a request. In support of her argument, applicant has supplemented her application with the 1997 records of the Board. Of the 37 inmates executed in 1997, 16 sought commutation and requested a clemency hearing. Yet no hearings were held and no board member voted for commutation in any case.3 And despite the Constitutional mandate that *953the Board “keep records of its actions and the reason for its actions,” Tex. Const, art. IV, § 11(a), applicant contends the Board keeps no such records.4 Consequently, applicant fears there will be no meaningful consideration of her commutation request because the “board has no guidelines stipulating the factors that must be used in reviewing clemency requests” and “each member decides individually on what basis to recommend or deny action.” (Stephanie Asin and Kathy Walt, Execution of Tucker Scheduled for Feb. 3, Houston Chronicle, December 19, 1997, at A1).
II.
Since our Constitution and statutes provide for clemency, there must be, at the very least, a modicum of due process. The United States Constitution guarantees that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const, amend XIV. This constitutional guarantee applies to the inmate population. Therefore, inmates “may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” subject though they may be “to restrictions imposed by the nature of the regime to which they have been lawfully committed.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 589, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974-75, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). In Ex parte Patterson, 740 S.W.2d 766 (Tex.Cr.App.1987),5 this Court adopted the entitlement doctrine of an inmate’s liberty interest which Justice Stevens expressed in his dissent in Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 230, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2541, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976):
... neither the Bill of Rights nor the laws of sovereign States create the liberty which the Due Process Clause protects. The relevant constitutional provisions are limitations on the power of the sovereign to infringe on the liberty of the citizen. The relevant state laws either create property rights, or they curtail the freedom of the citizen who must live in an ordered society. Of course, law is essential to the exercise and enjoyment of individual liberty in a complex society. But it is not the source of liberty, and surely not the exclusive source.
I had thought it self-evident that all men were endowed by their Creator with liberty as one of the cardinal unalienable rights. It is that basic freedom which the Due Process Clause protects, rather than the particular rights or privileges conferred by specific laws or regulations.
Patterson, 740 S.W.2d at 771. In light of that liberty interest, the role of the State to extend and enforce the guarantees of due process is inherent and “[ojnce the State established the baseline of how it customarily treats the prison population, whether by statute, administrative rule, or simply unwritten policy or practice, any substantial deviation from that line in a particular ease will impact a liberty interest.” Patterson, 740 S.W.2d at 772 (internal quotations and citations omitted).
*954In Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 465, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 2465, 69 L.Ed.2d 158 (1981), the Supreme Court held that the liberty interest in clemency review as a ground for a constitutional claim “must be found in statutes or other rules defining the obligations of the authority charged with exercising clemency.” In our clemency scheme:
The Executive Department is constitutionally required to adopt and follow rules that comport with due process and due course of law. Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has spoken in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 113 S.Ct. 853, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993), concerning the role of the executive clemency in providing a forum for testing claims of “actual innocence,” this Court has the power, duty and responsibility to assure that due process and due course requirements are met. (Emphasis added.)
Ex parte Graham, 853 S.W.2d 565, 570 (Tex.Cr.App.1993) (Clinton, J. concurring).6
Because clemency provides the “fail safe” in our criminal justice system, Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. at 414-15, 113 S.Ct. at 867-68, our clemency process must provide meaningful consideration of a commutation request. Therefore, even though the power of commutation is vested in the Executive Branch, this Court has an appropriate and important role to ensure the clemency process comports with due process and due course of law. U.S. Const, amend. XIV; and, Tex. Const, art I, § 19.
III.
Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1972, Texas has executed 144 inmates but not a single death sentence has been commuted solely by request of the condemned. Presently 444 inmates await their execution. If those inmates are constitutionally guaranteed the right to seek commutation, due process commands they know what criteria is examined in the clemency process, otherwise there can be no meaningful consideration of their commutation requests.7
The instant application raises questions sufficient to warrant further review. Therefore, I would stay applicant’s imminent execution and remand this matter to the habeas court to conduct a hearing to determine whether the procedures and policies in the clemency process, if any, comport with the requirements of due process and due course of law. Because the majority does not, I dissent.

. As the Supreme Court held in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976): "... the penalty of death is qualitatively different from a sentence of imprisonment, however long. Death, in its finality, differs more from life imprisonment than a 100-year prison term differs from one of only a year or two."

. Clemency is the act of considering mercy or leniency; commutation is the reduction of sentence, for example, reducing a death sentence to a life sentence.

. According to applicant, since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), the Board has held only one live clemency hearing. Application/petition for post conviction writ of habeas corpus, pg. 57.
Additionally, applicant has provided an affidavit from Debbie Crosby, sister of David Stoker, who was executed in June 1997 after his commutation request was denied. Crosby called members of the Board and states the following:
... After I learned of the denial of my brother’s commutation request, I attempted to call the board members to learn of their reasons for denying commutation. I was only able to reach two of the eighteen board members: Charles Shipman of Abilene and Thomas Moss of Amarillo. As I recall, I had a lengthy conversation with Shipman (about eight minutes), who told me that he did not read my brother’s commutation request, and gave me the sense *953that he generally did not read the commutation requests. He said he did not put a lot of stock into reading about the capital cases. He said he did not see any reason to give these cases further review, because they had gone through the court appellate process.

. The Texas Constitution mandates the Board of Pardons and Paroles "keep records of its actions and the reason for its actions." Tex. Const, art. IV, § 11(a).
Regarding the workload of the Board, applicant submits the following:
According to statistics published by the Texas Sunset Commission in its 1996 report, each of the eighteen board members votes in an average of 14,900 non-death penalty cases, as follows: Consideration of parole (8,400), Revocation of parole (4,300), Conditions of mandatory supervision (2,200). Averaging 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, this meant that each board member voted on 7.45 cases per hour, or one every eight minutes. Bill Habern, in his article in the 1997 Advanced Criminal Law Course, estimated an average of one vote every 5.13 minutes. Id. at Chapter Z-5. Of course, the board members have far more duties than just voting.

. Overruled on other grounds by Ex parte Beck, 769 S.W.2d 525 (Tex.Cr.App.1989), where the Court held the indictment provided sufficient notice that the use of a deadly weapon would be a fact issue.

. The Texas Constitution does not limit the clemency process to claims of actual innocence. Tex. Const, art. IV, § 11.

. This does not seem too much to ask for in a process that is constitutionally guaranteed and statutorily mandated. Indeed, it is this guarantee and this mandate that impose upon us the duty to ensure that commutation requests are meaningfully considered. Is it wrong for the judiciary to insist that such a process be more than a pretext or sham?
The concurring judges seem to either readily embrace or bemoan the proposition that the clemency process, as inadequate as it may be, is beyond the reach of the judiciary. Would the concurring judges be so sanguine if the Board implemented policies that denied commutation to all African-Americans, or to all women, or to all Catholics? Would the judges of this Court be willing to turn a blind eye to such invidious discrimination? The people of Texas would expect this Court to do more than sit on its hands. Similarly, the people of Texas deserve a Court willing to ensure that a condemned inmate’s Constitutional right to seek commutation is meaningful.