A Slate piece spoke about five executions that took place in a week. The sixth one in two weeks is somewhat harder to challenge. You can. It just is harder to do the work.
Garcia Glen White was sentenced to death by Texas for stabbing two sixteen-year-old twin girls. The murders were related to a drug-induced dispute, which also resulted in the death of their mother.
White was connected to five different murders. The two murders that led to his execution came out connected to a robbery/homicide of a store clerk. He also was connected to a fifth murder of a prostitute.
White was sentenced to death in 1995. A series of challenges led to an extended period of appeals and waiting. There should be a way to have a final judgment in these cases before nearly thirty years.
Yes, we have another problem of a death sentence a long, long time after the person was prosecuted. I remain concerned (along with Justice Breyer in Glossip v. Gross) about this.
After being removed from his drug habit and put in state custody, White has had a clean prison record. His lawyers also cite possible intellectual disability and childhood trauma. Nonetheless:
“The district attorney did give him the courtesy of the meeting, but at the end of the day, it’s difficult to overlook five dead bodies — two were teenage girls,” Reiss said.
For people concerned about the criminal justice system being tainted by racism, this point might also be a concern:
If White is killed he will be the fifth person put to death this year, four of them Black or Hispanic.
The best argument is not that the person does not objectively warrant the death penalty. It is that there is systematic racism in the system that leads non-whites overall to be more likely -- all things being equal -- to be executed. Also, overall, society is more stacked against some people.
Where this comes down for Garcia Glen White is unclear. His death toll over a less-than-decade span was more than most. What do most states and developed nations do with people like this? They don't execute them.
A person need not cry too much for Garcia Glen White to decide that executing someone for crimes committed in 1989 in 2024 does not advance public safety too much. Also, a tainted system will have a range of problems. If you allow this, other more problematic cases will come out.
And, yes, there is a case for pure opposition to the government taking a life via the death penalty.
There were also some last minute appeals:
White has three petitions for review pending at the U.S. Supreme Court, primarily related to a claim of intellectual disability — specifically how Texas considers such claims, the Eighth Amendment implications of an intellectual disability claim filed after the one-year statute of limitations under federal law, and whether lower courts addressed potential lawyer conflict questions in White’s case properly.
They were denied without comment though it took until the early evening to officially dispose of them.