Bush Approves His 1st Reprieve in a Texas Execution

Gov. George W. Bush, campaigning for president as a “compassionate conservative,” blocked Thursday evening’s scheduled execution of a convicted killer by approving his first reprieve in a Texas death penalty case.

Bush said he approved a 30-day reprieve for Ricky Nolen McGinn so that potential DNA evidence that might exonerate him could be reviewed, although the U.S. Supreme Court had earlier denied McGinn’s appeals.

“Any time DNA evidence used in this context can be relevant as to the guilt or innocence of a person on death row we need to use it,” Bush told reporters in Sacramento during a hastily arranged news conference.

“I expect the courts and all relevant parties to act expeditiously to review the evidence and finally determine his guilt as to the charge of rape in this case,” added the governor, who took no questions.

The reprieve came less than a half-hour before McGinn was set to die. He was convicted of murder in the death of his 12-year-old stepdaughter seven years ago.

Bush, a conservative Republican who has been trying to appeal to moderate voters, has allowed 131 lethal injections during his 5 1/2 years as governor of the nation’s busiest execution state.

McGinn and his attorneys want additional DNA testing, which they say will exonerate him. Although DNA evidence was used by prosecutors to help convict McGinn of the May 1993 rape and ax slaying of Stephanie Flanary, his lawyers contend more sophisticated testing now exists to aid his case.

“Thank you for the chance. It came so close,” McGinn told prison officials after receiving the word 18 minutes before he could have been taken to the death chamber. “I’m glad. Maybe they’ll see what I’ve been telling them all these years.”

Because Bush was campaigning out of state, the reprieve actually was issued by state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Democrat from Houston.

McGinn’s attorney, Richard Alley, said he felt “intense relief” when the reprieve came down.

“We had planned for this contingency, and we expect to have a working agreement within 48 hours as to how we’re going to get the evidence and how we’re going to get the testing done,” Alley said.

The McGinn case illustrates a heightened national debate over the death penalty. Illinois Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican, imposed a moratorium on executions in January amid concern that innocent people were on death row.

Bush, however, has rebuffed calls for a moratorium in Texas, where the 218 executions since 1982 account for more than one-third of all executions in the country since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in the mid-1970s.

During his tenure as governor, Bush refused in 1998 to block the lethal injection of Karla Faye Tucker, the first execution of a Texas woman since the Civil War era. A second woman, Betty Lou Beets, was executed in February, with Bush abandoning his presidential primary campaign to return to Texas to sign off on her punishment.

That return was not without precedent.

In 1992, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton at least twice pulled off the Democratic presidential campaign trail to review the cases of condemned inmates. In each case, the convicts were executed, allowing Clinton to put forth a tough-on-crime image.

For Bush, a reprieve could be perceived as the opposite, allowing him to soften his image.

Bush’s likely Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore, said Thursday that Bush had a difficult decision but that it should not be viewed in terms of politics.

“I don’t know the facts of the Texas case, but I think that DNA and DNA testing is a valuable new tool that can provide new evidence in a lot of cases,” Gore said.