- Target:
- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA)
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.humanesentencing.org
The Texas Judicial System relies on individually appointed counsel for indigent felony defendants, unlike other States, and the Federal system, which usually have a central Public Defender's office staffing mitigation investigators for felony cases. A common phrase used to describe the scenario in Texas is "Meet them, greet them, and plead them" in reference to indigent, felony defendants.
This reliance on independent counsel has had the effect of reducing criminal mitigation investigations in Texas felony cases to the very few counsel willing to expend the time, money, and effort to conduct a proper mitigation investigation which will ensure the disadvantaged defendant (whether that be physical, mental, or otherwise) a humane sentencing process. This failure comes at the expense of the indigent felony defendant and also our society as a whole, as we all are the ones paying to incarcerate offenders for lengthy sentences far too often associated with non-violent crimes.
We, the undersigned, call on The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to establish rulings requiring mitigation investigations for all indigent, felony-level offenses as a means to ensure humane sentences are handed down within the Texas Judicial system per the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution requiring due process of law, fair and impartial trial, fundamental fairness, equal protection and effective assistance of counsel.
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The Advocate for Humane Sentencing petition to The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) was written by HumaneSentencing.org and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.