What should we have learned from Suzanna Basso legal lynching inTexas
In the State of Texas Suzanna Basso was convicted of a single murder with intent to collect the disability payments making herself the beneficiary of life insurance policies of a mentally retarded man Louis “Buddy” Musso from New Jersey. Basso’s and five others were convicted of this crime. According to the record of the case Basso and others tortured the man to death. At some point while Basso’s was held in a Texas prison she got into a fight with guards leaving her paralyzed from the Chest down. Because her attorneys done a poor job at proving that she suffered from mental disabilities herself and the mitigation specialist not being hired by the court that could have shown that she suffered from a long history of mental illness and the fact that she was raped no court would permit the evidence in years after the fact.
What we should learn is that the State of Texas hinders and block’s attempts of death row inmates from proving their mental illness. We should also have learned that the State of Texas do not have any moral integrity to save the life of someone that is paralyzed on death row. Basso was deemed to be guilty, however should guilty inmates not be afforded with their constitutional rights? We witness Wednesday night in the State of Texas that constitutional rights do not matter and that our U.S. Supreme court will kill someone despite being absent of the clear facts of a case.
Had Basso attorneys been able to establish on the trial level that their client was delusional would she be the 14th woman put to death since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 and execution 1,366 being the 506 execution carried out in Texas. While it is true that a doctor for the State examined Basso and allegedly found no evidence of mental illness to block her execution what was highly ignored was the State’s attorney that tried the case in 1999 stated the following to media recently.
Coleen Barnett, who prosecuted Basso, says, “She would pretend to be different things.” She continues, “[In] one setting she would pretend to be blind. One setting she would pretend she couldn’t walk. One setting she had the voice of a little girl.” At a competency hearing, Basso acknowledged that representations about her background were fabricated — that she was a triplet, worked in the New York governor’s office, and had a relationship with Nelson Rockefeller.
Many believed that this would be the evidence Basso was missing to finally have her execution stopped!, however in the State of Texas it was not as doctors for the State were relied on by the court to help them reach a decision in the 5th circuit court of appeals.
The State of Texas have carried out questionable executions and is without any doubt a State in which will require a mess movement to address issue’s of the death penalty. Harris County where Basso was tried just recently implemented a office of Public Defender. At which time Basso was tired a pool of attorneys were selected from judges of approximately 100 names. Approximately 30 lawyers were only selected from the pool list of 100 attorneys by judges to represent needy defendants who had favorable influence by the court.
Texas next execution is set for late next month to Ray Jasper a rap artist who killed his business partner.
Mark A. Clements
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