UA study urges clemency for Texas death-row inmate

Arizona Daily Wildcat Karla Faye Tucker

Gary Schwartz sent the survey to the Texas Board of Parole and Pardons and Gov. George Bush Wednesday to try to halt the execution of death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. She is scheduled to be executed Tuesday.

Tucker is Texas' first female death-row inmate scheduled to be executed since the Civil War.

Tucker's crime shocked Houston in 1983 when Jerry Dean and Debora Thorton were found hacked to death, a pickax left imbedded in Thorton's chest.

But people who know Tucker insist she has changed. The former drug abuser and prostitute is a born-again Christian and now counsels others on death row. Tucker also married the prison minister.

Although the study warrants further investigation, Schwartz said the preliminary results suggest a controversial conclusion.

Society can be partly blamed for Tucker's situation, he said. She came from an unloving family that fostered her early violent behavior, he said.

"The available research strongly suggests that people who are raised in unloving families - homes that provide little compassion or justice - are more likely to engage in all kinds of anti-social acts, including killing," Schwartz said. "The root motivation for killing may be similar for illegal murder and legal execution - a focus on vengeance rather than compassion."

Schwartz, along with colleagues Linda Russek, an associate research professor of psychology, David Weinstock, a lawyer and UA graduate student in psychology, and nine others, compiled their study by surveying students in several University of Arizona classes.

Schwartz, director of the UA's Human Energy Systems Laboratory, gave 407 students a survey asking if criminals should be executed. It also asked students to rate themselves and their parents on levels of compassion and fairness.

About 55 percent of those surveyed said they were unwilling to execute a person who has probably been rehabilitated.

Forty-four percent of the subjects willing to execute a rehabilitated person rated themselves less just and less fair than those unwilling to kill behaviorally changed inmates.

The study indicated that death penalty supporters believed less in the ability of personal change, in themselves and other people, and also rated themselves as less compassionate.

Schwartz said the survey was replicated in a University of Texas psychology class, with almost identical results.

Schwartz and his colleagues, as well as many people across the nation, have questioned if Tucker still fills the criteria to be executed.

"If she doesn't deserve clemency, then no one does," he said. "If we cannot find in our hearts to give Tucker clemency, then the word 'clemency' should be struck from our vocabulary and our legal system altogether."

The UA survey also suggests a large portion of the nation may support the idea that clemency boards should have more structure to ensure a fair procedure, Weinstock, the lawyer and psychology student, said.

The survey indicated that 77 percent of subjects believed the clemency board could not make just decisions without guidelines. Nearly 90 percent said boards should be required to explain their decisions, follow national guidelines and make their decision as a group.

Schwartz said Texas' 18-member clemency board has no guidelines, does not meet as a group or consider new evidence during its review of a case, nor does it explain its decisions.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has never commuted a death sentence. Texas has executed 144 people since it reinstated the death penalty in 1982.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Wednesday rejected Tucker's hopes to avoid execution. Her attorneys said they will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.