San Antonio Express-News
Sadly, the Texas Legislature has failed for the third time to pass important legislation regarding the wrongfully convicted.
A bill authored by Sen. Rodney Ellis would have created a nine-member commission to review cases in which felons are exonerated through DNA testing or some other means.
There is ample need for such a commission.
So far in Texas, 28 men have been exonerated since 2001 through DNA testing. Nationwide, that number is 200.
Rep. Aaron Peña, chairman of the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, said the bill failed due to a lack of votes. Four members, including Peña, voted for it and two voted against it. The bill needed five ayes to pass.
Three House committee members — Barbara Mallory Caraway, Terri Hodge and Paul Moreno — were absent during that vote.
All three have expressed support for the bill, and it's likely they would have voted in favor of it had the hearing been held in a timely fashion, according to the bill's House sponsor, Rep. Senfronia Thompson.
The committee has had the bill since April 24. It should not have languished as it did, and that is Peña's responsibility.
An innocence commission is imperative, particularly in a state like Texas, where the death penalty is supported and applied with fervor. If there are cases where prisoners have been wrongfully executed, shouldn't there be a commission tasked with determining how?
Serious questions have arisen, for example, in the case of Ruben Cantu, a San Antonio man who was executed in 1993. The key eyewitness, Juan Moreno, has recanted his testimony. There is speculation that he was pressured into fingering Cantu after claiming Cantu was not the burglar who shot him and murdered his companion.
If Cantu was innocent, it's too late for him. But it's not too late to learn how that case may have taken a wrong turn.
It's bad enough that people are serving years in prison or possibly being executed for crimes they did not commit.
That this state doesn't care enough to determine how or why is just as appalling.
Thompson told the Guardian she had six votes for Ellis’s bill and told Peña that on Thursday. She said that at different times during Friday’s hearing the votes were there to pass the bill out but Peña would not bring it up for a vote. She said it was clear he was waiting for members to drift away.
“I had enough votes for a significant period of time during the hearing,” Thompson said. “If you look at Chairman Peña’s actions this session, it is clear he sent the Innocent Commission bills on a slow boat to China.”
What people are saying about Republican Aaron Pena!
Don't you know? Aaron Pena is a mutt, a Cradick cronie who thinks he did well but only got a chairmanship on a committee with no real legislation coming to it this past session.
He used to be president of Tejano Democrats, now he gives speeches endorsing his own uncle tom. aaron is the worst legislature there is. Why he does not even live in his own district, his campaign finance report looks like a District Attorneys evidence package against a compulsive hot check writer. And his best friend is Hidalgo County Democratic chair Jaun "Spuds" Maldonado! What a pair.
