Texas's death penalty on trial

In a hearing due to start today Judge Kevin Fine will be asked to rule on whether the risk of executing an innocent person makes the death penalty in Texas unconstitutional.

Judge Fine, state District Judge of Harris County (the county which sends more people to death row than any other in the United States) will examine the arguments put forward by the lawyers of John Edward Green, 25, who says he is innocent of a 2008 shooting in Houston.

John Edward Green’s lawyers argue that "capital punishment schemes that create a 'substantial risk' that innocent people are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death are constitutionally unacceptable."

Just some of the issues included in the lawyers’ motion are serious concerns in the Texas system over eyewitness identification procedures, forensic science and the reliability of "snitch" testimony – all three of which play a part in John Edward Green’s case.

John Edward Green’s lawyers have not had to look too far to find examples of how flawed the Texas death penalty system is. The tragic stories of Claude Jones and Cameron Todd Willingham underline the desperate nature of the Texas system.

Some have been more fortunate; since 1976 twelve prisoners on death row in Texas (and 139 nationally ) have been exonerated, which some defenders of the death penalty bizarrely say proves the system works. Try telling that to the ones who weren’t so lucky…