By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-718337.mp3
Dallas, TX – The execution is the first in Texas since a seven month moratorium was lifted. U.S. and Texas court decisions upholding lethal injection have cleared the way for Karl Eugene Chamberlain is to die for the 1991 rape and murder of his neighbor. On the Dallas County courthouse steps, Rick Halperin, president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, called for a debate about the death penalty in the 2009 Legislature.
Halperin: What Texas is getting ready to do tonight and in the weeks and months ahead should give us pause about serious reflection about what is happening in this state.
Which Halperin says is more DNA exoneration of wrongfully convicted inmates than anywhere else, with Dallas County in the lead. Toby Shook, former prosecutor on the Chamberlain case, says none of the exonerations involve death penalty cases.
Shook: I think a majority of Texans still agree with it, so I don't think we'll see an abolishment. I think they'll try to use the exonerations to try to make arguments.
But Shook says the system effectively guards against innocent people being executed.