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	<title>CRIMINAL JURISDICTION &#187; death penalty</title>
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	<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog</link>
	<description>CRIMINAL JURISDICTION: Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair</description>
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		<title>REQUESTS FOR DNA TESTING PRESENT ENORMOUS CHALLENGES</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/31/requests-for-dna-testing-present-enormous-challenges/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/31/requests-for-dna-testing-present-enormous-challenges/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 May 2011 19:23:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA exoneration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Murder]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=609</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Right to Appointed Counsel Not Absolute: Courts Only Required to Appoint Counsel if Reasonable Grounds Exist for DNA Testing

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Ruben Gutierrez was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the September 5, 1998 robbery/murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville. The elderly woman owned a mobile home park and the trailer in which she lived doubled as an office. Gutierrez was a friend of Harrison’s nephew. He and the nephew, with other neighbors, frequently gathered behind the Harrison trailer to drink and socialize. Through this relationship Gutierrez got to know a lot about how Harrison conducted her business affairs; specifically, that she did not trust banks and kept all of her money in her trailer/office. Gutierrez was one of the few people who knew Harrison kept large sums of money in the trailer. ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/31/requests-for-dna-testing-present-enormous-challenges/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>ACTUAL INNOCENCE-PUTTING A CAMEL THROUGH EYE OF A NEEDLE</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/23/actual-innocence-putting-a-camel-through-eye-of-a-needle/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/23/actual-innocence-putting-a-camel-through-eye-of-a-needle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 May 2011 14:44:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Houston Criminal Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Habeas Corpus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innocence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robbery]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=600</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Habeas Claims of Actual Innocence Require “Herculean” Burden by Clear and Convincing Evidence

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

It was March 22, 1987. Near midnight. The Dallas Police Department received a report that a man was lying face down in the street. The man was Jeffery Young who was transported to an area hospital, unconscious and bleeding. Before regaining consciousness, Young died and a subsequent autopsy revealed he had died from what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said was “severe skull fractures that were the result of multiple blows to the head.” The Dallas police then received another report about a BMW parked in an alley near where Young had been found mortally injured. The police quickly determined the BMW belong to Young.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/05/23/actual-innocence-putting-a-camel-through-eye-of-a-needle/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>TEXAS DEATH PENALTY INQUIRY SHUT DOWN</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/01/22/texas-death-penalty-inquiry-shut-down/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/01/22/texas-death-penalty-inquiry-shut-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:09:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital murderer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cruel and unusual]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death sentences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guilty murderer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=533</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Real Reason for Abolition: Texas Poses Greatest Risk of Executing an Innocent

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

For two days in December of last year Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Kevin Fine allowed attorneys representing accused capital murderer John Edward Green to present evidence that the process for carrying out the death penalty in this state is so flawed that it creates an unconstitutional risk that an innocent person could be executed. The two-day hearing in the Green case drew national and international media attention because it involved a challenge to the death penalty in the very State which has executed more people than any other since the executions resumed in this country on January 17, 1977.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/01/22/texas-death-penalty-inquiry-shut-down/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>THE TEXAS DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM BROKEN</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/12/11/the-texas-death-penalty-system-broken/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/12/11/the-texas-death-penalty-system-broken/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:59:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Homicide Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exonerations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[judicial activism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robbery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snitch testimony]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wrongful convictions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=517</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nationally Recognized Experts, Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Cite Risk of Innocents Being Put to Death, State of Texas Replies “No Comment”

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

That question could reasonably be asked of any state that maintains the death penalty. Every system of punishment is cracked in one way or another. The fact that 138 condemned inmates in 26 death penalty states have been exonerated since 1973, and the fact that there have been 261 DNA exonerations in this country since 1989, and the fact that our law books are filled with reversals of criminal convictions and death sentences offers compelling evidence that our entire criminal justice system, and, in particular, our death penalty systems is if not broken, certainly flawed. Earlier this year Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Kevin Fine stirred considerable legal and political controversy when he declared from the bench that Texas’ death penalty procedures were unconstitutional. The backlash was so intense, from the state’s attorney general to its governor, that Judge Fine clarified his ruling the next day by saying he had not actually declared the death penalty process unconstitutional and ordered attorneys in the case to submit additional legal arguments detailing how the process was so flawed that it violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” provisions of the Eighth Amendment.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/12/11/the-texas-death-penalty-system-broken/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>ACTUAL INNOCENCE IN POST-CONVICTION PROCEEDINGS</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/09/28/actual-innocence-in-post-conviction-proceedings/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/09/28/actual-innocence-in-post-conviction-proceedings/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:30:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Houston Criminal Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[actual innocence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA exonerations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Habeas Corpus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wrongful Conviction]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=488</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions Recommends Expanded Post-Conviction DNA Testing, Habeas Corpus Based on Changing Science

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore, Jr., who presides in the Southern District of Georgia, recently observed in the death penalty case of Troy Davis (here and here) that only one state of the 35 states that have the death penalty does not have any post-conviction avenue for inmates to either secure or offer evidence of innocence. That lone state is Oklahoma. Altogether, 47 states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes which provide varying degrees of access to remedies to establish innocence in a post-conviction setting. Massachusetts, Alaska, and Oklahoma are the only three hold-out states which have elected not to enact reform legislation in the critical area of establishing “actual innocence” despite the ever-increasing number of DNA exonerations.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/09/28/actual-innocence-in-post-conviction-proceedings/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>TEXAS DEATH PENALTY PROCEDURE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/03/09/texas-death-penalty-procedure-unconstitutional/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/03/09/texas-death-penalty-procedure-unconstitutional/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:37:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital punishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death row]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Texas justice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=373</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Judge Acknowledges Innocent People Have Likely been Executed

Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Kevin Fine on Thursday, March 4, 2010, created a tsunami of controversy in the Texas legal community when he reportedly made a comment that he was declaring the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The comment was made during a hearing on a motion filed by defense attorneys in the case of John Edward Green Jr. who is facing a capital murder charge. What Judge Fine actually did was to declare Article 37.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure unconstitutional which is the statute that outlines the procedures for imposing the death sentence in this state.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2010/03/09/texas-death-penalty-procedure-unconstitutional/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>TEXAS ATTORNEY DISCREDITS SPIRIT OF LEGAL PROFESSION</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/30/texas-attorney-discredits-spirit-of-legal-profession/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/30/texas-attorney-discredits-spirit-of-legal-profession/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:09:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Homicide Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital crimes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homicide]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=303</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Flagrant Exhibit of Unprofessionalism, Disloyalty to Executed Client Adds to Nationwide Scrutiny of Willingham Execution

By Houston Criminal Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

We’re not in the habit of criticizing fellow criminal defense attorneys, but, and unfortunately, we feel compelled to discuss the antics of Mr. David Martin, of Corsicana, Texas, recently displayed on nationwide television. Martin was Cameron Todd Willingham’s defense attorney during Willingham’s August 1992 capital murder trial. Willingham had been charged with intentionally setting fire to his Corsicana, Texas house in December 1991 which killed his three small children. Martin was appointed to defend Willingham who maintained from the outset that he was innocent of starting the fire that killed the three children.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/30/texas-attorney-discredits-spirit-of-legal-profession/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>TEXAS GOV RICK PERRY IMPEDES INQUIRY ABOUT WHETHER TEXAS EXECUTED AN INNOCENT MAN</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/05/texas-gov-rick-perry-impedes-inquiry-about-whether-texas-executed-an-innocent-man/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/05/texas-gov-rick-perry-impedes-inquiry-about-whether-texas-executed-an-innocent-man/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:46:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death row]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Texas justice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wrongful Conviction]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Governor’s abrupt Dismissal of Chairman, Two Members of Texas Forensic Science Commission on Eve of Hearing Smacks of Political Cover-up

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

It is one thing for a governor to have possibly presided over the execution of an innocent man but quite another for that governor to effectively shut down an official investigation into whether the forensic evidence used convict the man was reliable.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/10/05/texas-gov-rick-perry-impedes-inquiry-about-whether-texas-executed-an-innocent-man/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/15/capital-punishment/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/15/capital-punishment/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital punishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death row]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Texas justice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[AN INDICTMENT BY A DEATH ROW SURVIVOR

By: Billy Sinclair

I am pleased to announce, through the website of the John T. Floyd Law Firm, that my wife, Jodie, and I have recently released our second book, Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor. Released by the prestigious publishing house Arcade Publishing (New York), Capital Punishment is a collection of fourteen essays that examines the entire spectrum of the subject of the death penalty: its methods of executions, its Southern regional phenomenon, its racism, its tortuous botched executions, and its impact on our society.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/15/capital-punishment/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>BOOK RELEASE</title>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/13/book-release/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/13/book-release/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:05:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>johntfloyd</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capital punishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death row]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/?p=141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:
AN INDICTMENT BY A DEATH ROW SURVIVOR

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd

I am happy to announce the release of another book by my good friends Billy and Jodie Sinclair entitled Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor, released by Arcade Publishing (New York). The book is a compelling collection of essays commenting on the death penalty from many different perspectives about this controversial and, in my opinion, most despicable, inhumane and arcane of punishments that continues to thrive in this so called modern world. ]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2009/03/13/book-release/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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