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32 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1145 (2000-2001)
A System under Siege: Clemency and the Texas Death Penalty after the Execution of Gary Graham

handle is hein.journals/text32 and id is 1161 raw text is: A SYSTEM UNDER SIEGE: CLEMENCY AND THE TEXAS DEATH PENALTY AFTER THE EXECUTION OF GARY GRAHAM I. INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1145 I. DEFINING CLEMENCY ................................. 1147 III. CURRENT STATUS OF THE CLEMENCY PROCESS FOR A CONDEMNED PRISONER IN TEXAS ........................ 1149 A. Overview of the Texas Death Penalty and Appeals Process 1149 B. Overview of the Habeas Corpus Process .............. 1154 C. US. Constitutional Mandates for the Clemency Process .. 1157 D. Legal Authority of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Governor ................................. 1160 1. Texas Constitutional and Statutory Authority ....... 1160 2. Agency Rules in the Texas Administrative Code ..... .1163 IV. HISTORY OF THE CLEMENCY PROCESS N TEXAS ............ 1169 A. Executive Clemency Prior to 1936 ................... 1169 B. The 1936 Constitutional Amendment .................. 1170 C. Post-1936 Amendment Developments ................. 1171 V. THE GARY GRAHAM CASE .............................. 1172 VI. ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF THE PROCESS ................ 1178 A. Legal Challenges to the Clemency Process ............. 1178 1. Synthesis of U.S. Supreme Court Rulings on Clemency ................................... 1178 2. Procedures and Methods of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles ................................. 1179 B. Direction of Future Challenges ...................... 1185 VII. CONCLUSION ........................................ 1188 I. INTRODUCTION For decades, a great debate has raged throughout Texas, the United States, and, indeed, throughout the world, on the moral, philosophical, and legal issues surrounding this country's modem use of the death penalty as a form of retributive and deterrent punishment.' This comment does not attempt to look at or judge the constitutionality or morality of the punishment itself. Whether ethically or legally right or wrong, the death penalty is in widespread use by many states and the federal government.2 Rather, this 1. See, e.g., Norman L. Greene, The Context of Executive Clemency: Reflections on the Literature of Capital Punishment, 28 CAP. U. L. REv. 513, 514-15 (2000); James J. Megivem, Our National Shame: The Death Penalty and the Disuse of Clemency, 28 CAP. U. L. REV. 595, 595 (2000). 2. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 207 (1976); see also, e.g., Clifford Dome & Kenneth 1145

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