Texas legislature to review bills filed to make changes to death penalty

This is the first week of the legislative session in Texas and discussion for proposed bills are just getting started.

State representative Joe Moody, (D) El Paso, said there are some bills filed to make changes to the death penalty in Texas.

The U.S. Supreme Court states it is unconstitutional to implement the death penalty on someone with an intellectual disability.

The court left it up to the states that carry the death penalty to decide how to implement the law and to create its own evaluation system.

Moody said recent court ruling in Texas have found that there is no evaluation system to determine if someone has an intellectual disability.

In the past, the Supreme Court has chastised Texas for not having a proper law.

Moody said there are several bills filed this legislative session.

“The recommendation we’re going to make is to create a uniform policy at the state, maybe even lean on a specialty court to make these determinations so we’re not running the risk of executing someone who is unconstitutional to execute.” Moody said.

He added that the Texas legislature has never taken up the issue.

Current guidelines are not based on medical standards.

Moody said there will likely be some changes approved, but it also likely sets the stage for some strong arguments on both sides of the aisle.

“There’s growing bipartisan, not just to fix these issues with the death penalty, but I think there’s a growing bipartisan consensus that maybe we need to do away with the death penalty in Texas,” Moody.

That is a discussion Moody said could come up in the future, but not necessarily during the current legislative session.