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Frances Newton is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, December 1, 2004. Her conviction is based largely on ballistic analysis conducted by the widely discredited Houston Police Department crime lab. Ms. Newton also did not receive effective assistance of counsel. Texas should take immediate steps to stay the execution of Frances Newton.

November 30, 2004

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Executive Clemency Section
P.O. Box 13401
Capital Station
Austin, TX 78711

Dear Board Members:

We are writing to urge you to stay the execution of Frances Newton. Ms. Newton was sentenced to death for the 1987 murders of Adrian, Alton, and Farah Newton. Her execution is scheduled for December 1, 2004.

Ms. Newton was prosecuted in Harris County, where there have been very troubling reports of mishandling of evidence in the Houston Police Department's crime lab. These problems range from missing evidence to defective DNA analysis to inaccurate ballistic evidence. In early 2003, the police department's lab was closed after hundreds of missing boxes were found that pertain to 8,000 criminal cases. The Houston Police Department is still reviewing the evidence uncovered in these boxes. An independent audit also revealed alarming defects in the crime lab’s DNA analysis. Already one Harris County case has been overturned based on the prosecution’s use of incorrect DNA evidence and in a second case a weapons examiner from the lab admitted the wrong bullet was tested. Many other cases are under appeal or are being investigated by the district attorney’s office.

Reports show that the case against Frances Newton rests largely on ballistic evidence conducted in Houston's crime lab. Without the ballistic evidence, it is unlikely that Ms. Newton would have been convicted of these murders.

In recent weeks, several prominent individuals, including Houston’s chief of police and a criminal appeals court judge, have called on the state to halt all executions in Harris County until all the evidence contained in the missing boxes can be reviewed. Given the serious problems of unreliable evidence and analysis in Houston's crime lab, Texas should take immediate steps to stay the execution of Frances Newton. If your state moves forward with executions in the face of these problems, it will undermine justice and erode public confidence in the fundamental fairness of the criminal justice system in Texas.

We are also concerned by reports that Ms. Newton did not receive effective assistance of counsel. Ms. Newton’s attorney failed to present any witnesses in her defense and failed to conduct any investigations on her behalf. According to the Houston Chronicle, Ms. Newton’s attorney has frequently been cited for providing ineffective counsel in capital cases and has been barred from accepting court-appointed death penalty cases since 2001.

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances. The death penalty is a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and is inevitably carried out in an arbitrary manner, inflicted primarily on the most vulnerable – the poor, the mentally ill, and persons of color. The intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems assures that even when full due process of law is respected, innocent persons may be executed.

We urge you to stay the execution of Frances Newton.

Sincerely,

Wendy Patten
U.S. Advocacy Director

cc: Governor Rick Perry

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