On Thursday, 177th District Judge Kevin Fine of Houston declared the death penalty unconstitutional. Fine granted a motion filed by defense attorneys in a capital murder case seeking to have the court find that Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 37.071 “violates the protections afforded to the Accused by the 8th and 14th Amendments … and that the option to sentence the Accused to die for a crime that he did not commit should be precluded as a sentencing option.”
“What he’s saying, and what the motion is saying, is that you can’t administer the Texas death penalty fairly in Texas,” says John P. Keirnan, a lawyer for the defendant. “Kevin Fine has taken a courageous stance, finally. This is the beginning of the end of the death penalty in Texas.”
