If Texas had eyes enough for all the blackening it deserves, surely one of those myriad swollen and discolored orbits would be its lengthy and greedy love affair with capital punishment.

So far, between 1982 and 2009, 440 people have been put to death. So far, 17 this year (we peaked at 40 in 2000). And the Dallas Morning News has done a pretty good job this year of detailing some of the more worrisome recent issues - like Charles Dean Hood, who lost an appeal based on the fact that the judge trying his case was schtupping a DA. 

Now, Hood may very well - and evidence certainly is damning - have murdered two people in Plano. But guilty or not, he deserved to be tried by a judge who wasn't entangled - emotionally and physically - with the person prosecuting him. If nothing else, the family of his victims deserved it as well, because there will now always be people doubting his conviction - and using him as a case study in why Texas can't try death penalty cases because it's a bastion of bloodthirsty bastards.

And they will, in the same breath as these three troubling cases.  And that doesn't even count the many, many non-death penalty cases that were found to be wrongful convictions.

And I know people feel that for some scum-sucking, bottom feeding reprobates, death is the only just and fit punishment. And sure, I can see that.

But if we're gonna off 400 people, we need to do it right. So this is what I propose:

• An independent panel that automatically reviews all evidence and testimony within weeks of the set execution date. This panel will be comprised of forensic scientists, police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and their sole job will be to make sure that there were no improprieties, no ignored evidence, no questionable eye witness accounts.
• Power to grant reprieves and sentence commuting will be taken from the governor, and given to the aforementioned panel.
• And, more radically, we quit giving rights to these absolutely guilty folk that they didn't afford their victims. Did his victim know the day he was going to die? Did he get to pick a last meal? Did he get to talk to a priest and his family? No. So why do they get all that? If you raped a little girl and then choked her to death, well, expect to wake up one day in your cell with someone much, much larger than you, doing the very same thing.

Oh, is that last one wrong? I thought putting people to death was all about justice? If we're truly going to be just, don't we need to make it equal across the board? If we're doing that whole eye for an eye thing, that last scenario is the only way to do it, right?

No? Hmmm. Maybe this whole death penalty thing is not such a great idea, after all.