overnor George W. Bush's declaration Wednesday night that the three men convicted in the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. would be put to death drew outcries from defense lawyers who said the comments might interfere with legal appeals now underway in the case.
Bush's comments, in his second debate with Vice President Al Gore, were also seized on by a Harvard Law School professor, Laurence H. Tribe. The Gore campaign issued a statement from Tribe arguing that Bush's call for the death penalty was ''truly shocking'' because it could upend the due process rights of the three men seeking the appeals.
Some lawyers yesterday were skeptical that Bush could sway the process, since the appeals will be handled by judges, not juries. Moreover, most of the judges in Texas are elected, instead of appointed by the governor, and would be less likely to be swayed by Bush's comments.
Nevertheless, Douglas M. Barlow, the lawyer for Lawrence Russell Brewer, one of those sentenced to death, said yesterday that Bush had trampled his client's civil liberties and had biased himself if an appeal for clemency, based on new information or errors in the case, ever reached the governor.
''Mr. Brewer hasn't even been finally convicted, since there's currently a direct appeal pending,'' Barlow said. ''I would want anyone who would exercise that power to reserve judgment until they've actually reviewed the evidence and the facts.''
The Byrd case became an issue in Wednesday's debate during a question about hate crimes. The three men, all white, were convicted of murdering Byrd, a black man, in 1998 by chaining him to a truck and dragging his body.
Byrd's death fueled a campaign in Texas to stiffen penalties for certain crimes motivated by the bias or prejudice of the offender. Members of the Byrd family asked Bush to support legislation last year that would have toughened sanctions, but he did not take a position, and the bill ultimately died.
Yet Bush said Wednesday night that hate crimes penalties were not necessary in the Byrd case because, he argued, the three men would be put to death. (His campaign quickly acknowledged that only two actually faced capital punishment.)
''The crime is hate. And they got the ultimate punishment. I'm not exactly sure you enhance the penalty any more than the death penalty,'' Bush said. He later added: ''[In] this case, we can't enhance the penalty any more than putting those three thugs to death, and that's what's going to happen in the state of Texas.''
While other lawyers blasted Bush as well, Harvey Silverglate, a civil liberties attorney in Boston, said the Texas Republican's opinion wasn't so shocking.
''It's better than what you typically get from governors and politicians who say such things before trials,'' he said.
