In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent reversal of Delma Banks’ death sentence in Texas because of prosecutorial misconduct, the Dallas Morning News has called for a halt to executions while state officials review serious problems in the system:

It’s hard to imagine a clearer message. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision lifting Texas inmate Delma Banks’ death sentence paints as bright a line as jurists paint. The governor, Texas legislators and law enforcement officials should absorb the ruling and change the state’s ways.

The court’s decision Tuesday said Texas prosecutors concealed information that could have helped Mr. Banks, who has been on death row for 23 years after being convicted of killing a 16-year-old. Informants got paid, testimony was coerced, and prosecutors cut deals. That kind of misconduct is bad. It’s particularly bad when it almost leads to a man’s execution.

The fact that public servants played fast and loose with the law should outrage the most ardent death-penalty advocates. It’s noteworthy that former FBI Director William Sessions of San Antonio spoke out fervently against the shoddy way the state handled the case. So did a solid seven-member majority on the Supreme Court, which sent the case back to the lower courts.

Texas, of course, has had other Supreme Court reprimands about the way it administers the death penalty. The best answer is to suspend all of the state’s executions until officials review all cases for various procedural errors. To cite one more example, Harris County got hit last year with a wave of criminal cases that called police lab work into question.

The state also needs to come up with a way to keep mentally retarded offenders from death row. The Supreme Court said no more of this horrible practice but left it to the states to screen the cases. So far, Texas hasn’t figured out how.

Texas also has to open its clemency process. The Board of Pardons and Paroles largely conducts its meetings about granting clemency to inmates away from the public light. That approach - we know best, you don’t - has gotten the state into trouble with its death penalty.

Plenty of trouble. The state needs to rethink its executions. A pause could help do that. Texas doesn’t need any more Delma Banks-like embarrassments.

(Dallas Morning News, February 27, 2004) (emphasis added). See Supreme Court. See Editorials.