His name is Carl Buntion. He is 78 years old. He’s the oldest death row inmate in Texas. 32 years ago, in June 1990, he shot and killed a policeman during a traffic check. His judicial journey was chaotic: a first death sentence, then a reversal of the verdict, then a second death sentence, ten years ago. Since then, Buntion has been waiting on death row, isolated in his cell 23 hours a day. He does not dispute his guilt. The subject is not there.
The two objections raised by his lawyers are quite different. On the one hand, they feel that Buntion no longer poses a threat to society. Because he is ill, suffering from dizziness, osteoarthritis, hepatitis. However, the law in Texas specifies that the death penalty cannot be applied if the convicted person is not a danger to others. On the other hand, the lawyers raise a procedural question about the presence of a chaplain at the time of the execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole is due to rule on Tuesday, April 19. He can commute the sentence to life imprisonment, or decree a three-month reprieve, or even maintain the execution. In the latter case, it will therefore take place on Thursday, April 21.
The case of carl Buntion is emblematic, because he is very old. But in Texas, a total of 192 people are waiting on death row, starting with another case. This time it’s a woman. EHer name is Melissa Lucio and her Execution is scheduled for April 27. His case has generated a lot of media coverage. Melissa Lucio, 53, was convicted of the death of her two-year-old daughter in 2007 when she fell down a flight of stairs. But the circumstances of his confession are very controversial, after a very long interrogation by the police. And today, Lucio proclaims his innocence.
For her defenders, it is a manifest miscarriage of justice: the girl died by accident. She suffered from several disabilities that may explain her fall. And there is no history of violence from the mother on her daughter. During a new appeal examined on April 12, the Texas prosecutor seemed to change his mind in the middle of the hearing. He began by asking for confirmation of the sentence before saying, in front of the defense arguments, that he was finally ready to stay the execution. The Court must rule. If capital punishment stands, Melissa Lucio will be the first woman executed in Texas in eight years.
Texas is the most radical state in this area, while the death penalty is declining in the United States both in theory and in practice. In theory, 26 out of 50 states can no longer apply it. Either because there is an official moratorium or because they have abolished capital punishment. The last to do so was Virginia, in March 2021. An important symbol because it is the first of the former Southern Confederate states to have made this decision.
Then there is the practice. And here the decline is even more obvious. Eleven executions last year, the lowest level for 35 years in the United States. In 1999, the country had experienced 98 executions. In fact, the actual practice of capital punishment is no longer the fact of only a handful of southern states: Oklahoma, Alabama, and therefore especially Texas, nearly 600 executions in 30 years.