Thanks again, kat. That document certainly puts a different spin on the situation than Amnesty does, eh?

Interesting that Housel's guilty plea was part of a plea bargain (in return, the state dropped the charge for the sexual assault of Jeanne Drew). Interesting that the Court's opinion states that "Housel's post-murder behavior was not entirely consistent with uncontrollable intoxication."

Interesting that Housel told the police twice that he wanted to make a voluntary confession to the Texas murder, after which he was driven from the jail to the police station where he signed a waiver of his rights and restated that waiver on tape before confessing. Interesting that the description of the conditions of Housel's solitary confinement were based on (a) the testimony of a sheriff's deputy who wasn't employed there until after Housel confessed; and (b) affidavits from fellow inmates that did not explain how they could have personal knowledge of what was happening to Housel in solitary.

There's a lot of interesting detail in that opinion, actually, about the man and about the decisions of the defense attorney (whose performance at trial and sentencing was not deficient according to the Court's description).


If, as Bobert said in response to my rhetorical question (Should Tracy die, according to US law as it now stands?), this thread is not about written law but about the moral fabric of US society, I must point out that Housel is not a man of particularly high moral standards, from what that Court opinion describes. If the question is "Should anyone be put to death, no matter how immoral he is, when our moral standards are higher?" then I must point out that moral standards vary from person to person, even among those whose standards are the highest, and therefore the question can never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. This is why we have laws.