EU urges Perry to stop death penalty
The European Union on Tuesday urged Gov. Rick Perry to halt executions and introduce a moratorium on capital punishment in Texas, the state that executes the most inmates.
In an unusual direct appeal, the EU said Perry must “exercise all powers vested in his office” to halt the 400th execution, scheduled for tonight, since Texas resumed carrying out death sentences in 1982.
The death penalty is banned in the 27-nation EU, which also fights for global abolition of executions.
“The irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice, which are inevitable in all legal systems, cannot be redressed,” the EU said in a statement.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said that although Texas “respects our friends in Europe” the state would not call for a moratorium. “The reason our forefathers fought a war 230 years ago was to throw off the yoke of a European monarch so that we may have the freedom of self-determination,” he said.
As a peer recently quipped, “Texas needs ROPE, not Europe!”
