ByMike Hashimoto/ Editorial Writer mhashimoto@dallasnews.com | Bio
4:04 PM on Wed., Dec. 28, 2011



I hope you didn't miss our Christmas Day story that revealed a Dallas County felony trial court judge had ruled the Texas death penalty "unconstitutional." The knee-jerk reaction would have been this was a gift to death penalty opponents everywhere, including many of my colleagues on your local editorial board.

Not true. Even this board, which has opposed the death penalty since April 2007, wasn't buying state District Judge Teresa Hawthorne's goofy play.

Jennifer Emily's detailed story was pegged to a transcript from a Dec. 19 hearing in the case of Roderick Harris, accused of killing brothers Alfredo and Carlos Gallardo during a March 2009 robbery and then getting into a shootout with police. Police say Harris netted $2 in the robbery at a southeast Dallas mobile home.


Hawthorne chose this occasion to reveal the death penalty was dead to her, calling it unconstitutional because it allows prosecutors to arbitrarily seek capital punishment. Furthermore, Hawthorne ruled that she believed:

-- The Legislature failed to define terms like "continuing threat" and "moral blameworthiness" for jurors deciding between a life or death sentence.

-- The Legislature's definition of mitigating evidence is vague.

-- State law prevents jurors from knowing that one vote for life can keep a defendant from receiving a death sentence.

-- The law allowing a judge to enter into evidence "any matter that the court deems relevant to sentence" means that each judge hearing a case has the power to influence a sentence.

The point, of course, isn't whether you agree with Hawthorne, as many death penalty opponents almost certainly do. The point is that a Dallas County courtroom isn't the place to legislate capital punishment in Texas. We have a Legislature for that, and if Hawthorne doesn't agree with this particular law, perhaps she should persuade some legislators to carry a bill to Austin that changes it.

Short of that, it's hard to take seriously her comment from that hearing:

"My decision is not an act of unabashed judicial activism," she said Monday from the bench. "I remember when women and blacks could not vote. I remember when so-called witches were burned. I remember when gays had to hide to be in the military. My decision is not to buck the system or stir the waters."


And if you expected your local anti-death-penalty editorial board to fall for her trick, you haven't been following along closely enough. In early 2010, a Harris County district judge, Kevin Fine, tried the same maneuver, only to reverse himself a few days later. Fine received no love from this board: "His shoot-from-the-hip ruling that capital punishment is unconstitutional seemed more like a stunt than the starting point for a significant legal debate." Still, we used the occasion to renew our call for a "moratorium" on death sentences so Texas could sort out "the legality and morality of executing people" with a "sober and deliberate approach."

My question about Hawthorne was whether we should have seen this coming. On her fourth try at a county bench, she finally won in November 2010. This board recommended Susan Anderson, felony supervisor for the Dallas County Public Defender Service, over Hawthorne and Davey Lamb in the Democratic primary. We stayed with Anderson for the runoff, which Hawthorne also won. In the general, we recommended voters choose Republican Jennifer Balido, a Rick Perry appointee to the 203rd District bench.


Our editorials had little to say about Hawthorne, positive or negative. I recall her from our interviews as a true-believer-liberal type but generally inoffensive. I also didn't give her much chance against Lamb, who had the lion's share of important endorsements, or the board-certified Anderson, more qualified and far better spoken. Shows what I know.

Here's how Hawthorne answered two important questions from our candidate questionnaire for that election:

What is your personal view of the death penalty and how will that view affect the way you handle cases in your court?

Teresa Hawthorne: Only jurors can now in the state of Texas render the Death Penalty. The rest of the cases in my court will have nothing to do with the death penalty. My personal view will not matter nor will it affect anything I do as a Judge. I must say, one wrong death is too many.

Which sitting judge do you hold up as a role model, and why?

Teresa Hawthorne: I hold up as a role model any sitting judge who will follow the law and will render decisions without thinking about who will contribute to their campaign or who will vote for them in the next election. I also hold up as a role model any sitting judge who knows that the courts belong to the people and that the judge is merely a public servant who is to follow the law and not make the law. I also hold up as a role model any sitting judge who is prepared every day to be a fair and impartial referee to both sides of the bench. I also hold up as a role model any sitting judge who not only wants to protect the public but who equally wants to help mentally ill defendants become productive members of society and who wants to take the time to help and encourage young non violent offenders to further their education.

Here's a distillation of the key quotes:

"My personal view will not matter nor will it affect anything I do as a Judge."

"I must say, one wrong death is too many."

"I hold up as a role model any sitting judge who will follow the law and will render decisions without thinking about who will contribute to their campaign or who will vote for them in the next election."

"I also hold up as a role model any sitting judge who is prepared every day to be a fair and impartial referee to both sides of the bench."

Should we have seen this strange and unsupportable ruling coming? Probably not, based on what Hawthorne wrote and said.

Here's hoping Dallas County prosecutors succeed in their motion to have Hawthorne recused from the Harris case and any other capital case in the future. I'm not sure how a reasonable person could see it any other way, given her ruling.

If she persists, is she not in violation of her oath to uphold the laws of the state of Texas? All of them, as I understand it, not just the ones she likes.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallas...y-death-p.html