Flawed process leads to executions in Texas despite Bush’s vows of confidence in the system. The Chicago Tribune conducted the first comprehensive investigation of all 131 executions in Texas under Bush’s tenure and concludes that scandalous flaws undermine the process of capital convictions there. As a psychiatrist, I’m particularly appalled by the abuse of psychiatric expert testimony:

In at least 29 cases, the prosecution presented

damaging testimony from a psychiatrist who,

based upon a hypothetical question describing

the defendant’s past, predicted the defendant

would commit future violence. In most of

these cases, the psychiatrist offered this

opinion without ever examining the

defendant. Although this kind of testimony is

sometimes used in other states, the American

Psychiatric Association has condemned it as

unethical and untrustworthy.

Other failings included representation in one-third of the cases by an attorney later disbarred, suspended or otherwise sanctioned; and the frequent use of jailhouse informants (“a form of testimony so unreliable

that some states warn jurors to view it with

skepticism. The prevalent use of jailhouse

informants in capital cases was one of the

central problems Gov. George Ryan cited when

he declared the moratorium in Illinois”). Witnesses, experts and lawyers on whose contributions capital convictions have turned have included

a forensic scientist who was

temporarily released from a psychiatric ward

to provide incriminating testimony in a capital

case; a pathologist who has admitted faking

autopsies; a psychiatrist, nicknamed “Dr.

Death,” who was expelled from the American

Psychiatric Association; a judge on the state’s

highest criminal court who has been

reprimanded for lying about his background;

and a defense attorney infamous for sleeping

during trials.

This all ought to be disturbing regardless of whether one supports the death penalty or not in the abstract. Let’s elect George W. to the presidency just to get him out of the role of signing death warrants in Texas, for God’s sake!