There's more than one person sentenced to death in Texas: it's thus mathematically impossible for the governor to spend 100% of his time on each capital case.

There's more than one person sentenced to death in Texas: it's thus mathematically impossible for the governor to spend 100% of his time on each capital case. There's more than one person in prison in Texas: surely those prisoners deserve some thought too. Is the governor to personally rehear every case? And then there are all of the other things a governor is elected to do on behalf of the other 25 million Texans. It's just not possible to devote oneself 100% to everything. Heck, a system in which the executive rehears every judicial case personally would almost certainly involve quite a bit of injustice as well. Willingham was convicted by a jury (presumably of his peers, although that guarantee has become ever more worthless over time); his conviction was upheld by numerous courts; the techniques which produced evidence against him were supported by the state forensics review board. He wasn't executed by a man: he was executed by an entire system. So, if he was indeed innocent, then we should focus on the entire system. Do forensics techniques need to be improved? Do police investigating techniques need to be improved? Do judicial procedures need to be improved? Do board nomination procedures need to be improved? A commenter upthread notes that Governor Perry's nominees were reflexively pro-prosecution: were they; are there reasons why he felt he ought to nominate those people, or reasons why he felt he ought not nominate other people? Which of these things could be improved? Would those improvements themselves have negative side effects? Would the side effects outweigh the improvements? Some folks say that our adversarial court system has problems, but I can easily see that non-adversarial systems have problems as well. Nothing's perfect, but can we be better?