Texas death row and the recent Rodney Reed Reprieve

When District 109 State Representative Carl Sherman said he was “grateful to God” the parole board unanimously voted to recommend the governor delay the execution of Rodney Reed, I was grateful too.

Whether you believe in the death penalty or not in Texas, no one wants to see an innocent man or woman executed for a crime that he or she did not commit.

This death row issue is especially sensitive to me, because several years ago myself and then Police Chief Mike Moon of Ovilla decided we were going to write a book about Texas’ death row.

The idea was to write letters for about a year to five inmates on death row and personalize who they were to us. We were hoping to better understand how these men ended up where they were.

We wrote letters for a year, and eventually went to Huntsville to the Walls Unit, which houses the execution chamber for the State of Texas, and met with the five inmates who we had begun the letter writing with months before.

For Moon, he was pro-death penalty. For me, I took the stand of “waiting to have an opinion.”

The letters from Moon to the inmates and the inmates to Moon and from me to the inmates and their return letters to me were to be turned into a book. We had a publisher who decided at the last minute they were not interested. We could not even get a self-publisher to agree to publish the book.

Seems that Texas, death row and the entire topic is not a subject many people want to openly talk about pro or con – particularly from a book perspective like we were offering.

My idea had been to turn these men into human beings, and then make a determination about putting them to death.

Moon later said he did change a few of his beliefs about Texas’ death row, although he still supported it.

I admit I am still undecided.

I believe it is a case by case decision, and I’m glad I do not have to make a final verdict regarding another person’s life.

Today, Texas has the most used execution chamber in the United States. As of Nov. 6 of this year, there have been 566 executions since 1982 – the year when the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.

One of the men I wrote to was eventually put to death, the other four are still waiting. Several of these men have been on death row for many years.

I will tell you, even though the man who was executed did admit to the murder of his baby mama and one other, I was still a bit unnerved when I found out he was going to be executed. My last letter to him was about his thoughts on being put to death and he wrote back and told it was okay, he was ready for it. I remember crying for him, sad because I had personalized him and shared thoughts and words with him and he was a human being.

And, this is where it becomes the issue – should a person who has taken the life of another have his or her life taken too.

I do not know. I am aware many of you will disagree with that answer. I know he was regretful, and I know he was ready to die for his crime – or at least that is what he told me.

One of the five men, the youngest Moon and I corresponded with, told me he would not have committed the crime of murder had he known it was the death penalty versus life in prison.

Once I began writing these men, I learned about what was going on in there. I learned that sometimes, as in the Reed case, the evidence is not correct. Sometimes too, the accused is not given a fair trial if he can’t afford proper attorney representation.

Recently, I received an email about one of the men I had been writing to named Charles Mamou. I remembered Mr. Mamou very well because there was doubt as to his guilt, and I was not the only one who thought that to be true.

The email was from a woman named Kim Carter, who has a blog called www.walkinthoseshoes.com. She told me he was out of appeals and she began to look into his case with a belief there were, “A lot of legal missteps, and unethical people who have worked on his case – his current attorney who is working pro bono – practically has his hands tied.”

I plan to look at Mamou’s case again myself especially considering the Rodney Reed case.

As we all know by now, there was a reprieve in Reed’s case, and there will be a new trial.

Representative Sherman, from this part of Texas, was one of several state representatives who signed a letter several weeks ago asking Texas Governor, Greg Abbott and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Chair, David Gutierrez to grant Rodney Reed a temporary reprieve

Reed had been found guilty of a 1996 murder, that the letter to Abbott and Gutierrez stated, “has been questioned for decades” and was scheduled to die Nov. 20.

I don’t know what is right or wrong regarding the death penalty in Texas. Greater men and women than me have to answer that question and make those decisions.

I do know I agree with what Rep. Sherman pointed out with other state representatives – and I agree 100% there needs to be not one question if a person could be innocent before they are executed.

Rita Cook is the News Editor of The Ellis County Press.