Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Candidates' Debate

From Earl Musick:

The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association feels that the election of the next Harris County District Attorney is extremely important to our organization and to the citizens of Harris County.

Because of the importance of this race, HCCLA has organized a debate involving candidates seeking this important position.

The debate is sponsored by HCCLA, the South Texas College of Law and KHOU-TV. It will be held at South Texas College of Law on February 19, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. and will be one hour from start to finish.

KHOU-TV will webcast the debate.

If you have questions that you think the candidates should be asked, please leave them in the comments and I'll pass them on to Earl.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know what the candidates' positions are on innocence projects and how open they will be to accommodating requests for access to evidence and forensic testing post-conviction.

Relatedly, I would like to know if they would support a policy that precludes seeking the death penalty in cases that materially rely on types of evidence that studies have demonstrated to be unreliable, e.g., eyewitness identifications, informants/jail house snitches, confessions, etc. (It'd be good to see some kind of guidelines or restrictions with respect to this kind of evidence in non-capital cases as well, but I'm not holding my breath for that.)

Murray Newman said...

I'm highly disappointed that the candidates debate won't be televised (other than on a webcast). I think it's important, and I also think it will be a good opportunity for Jim and Kelly to show why they are the two best candidates in the race.

I can't wait to see Perry.

Any chance that a letter writing campaign might get this real airtime? I'm afraid that nobody other than CJC devotees will tune into the webcast.

Mark Bennett said...

PJ,

Thanks for the comment. I'll pass the questions on.

AHCL,

Earl worked his butt off to get what we got. I suspect that KTRK will not find "nobody other than CJC devotees will tune in if you don't broadcast it" a compelling argument for broadcasting it . . . if you see what I mean. But I'm willing to try anyway.

Murray Newman said...

I appreciate the job that Earl did to get this organized. He's a good man. I'm just wondering if a petition was circulated of some sort and presented to the station that they might take notice and change their mind. Or at least air it at another time.

I'm pretty sure that a non-partisan type petition circulated around the CJC would probably get a lot of signatures. Even if it was drafted by a former-pony-tailed, ultra-radical defense attorney.

Hell, even the protestors would probably sign it.