Word: bassett
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...well-placed source has confirmed to TIME that Perry ignored the written pleas from several members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including two of his own appointees, to reappoint the board's well-respected chairman, Austin lawyer Sam Bassett. Bassett's departure has resulted in a delay in an important investigation of evidence in a death-penalty case that critics say will prove an innocent man was executed on Perry's watch. (Read 10 stories of wrongfully imprisoned men exonerated by DNA evidence...
...Forensic Science Commission evaluates forensics standards in a state that too frequently has been in an unwelcome spotlight on issues of crime and punishment. Recently, Texas has been working to show that it is not all frontier justice and, indeed, the day Perry's office announced he was dropping Bassett and appointing a new commission chairman, the governor also issued a "pardon for innocence" for James Lee Woodard, released last year after serving 27 years in prison for a murder and rape he did not commit. Woodard was exonerated on the basis of DNA testing urged by the New York...
...apparent cusp of the forensics board's re-examination of the evidence in the Willingham case, Perry has not only dropped forensics chairman Bassett but two other members of the body, Fort Worth prosecutor Alan Levy and forensics expert Aliece Watts, both of whom had written letters to Perry in support of Bassett continuing as commission head so their work could continue without interruption. Scheck compared Perry's failure to reappoint the three to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre of 1973 when President Nixon fired the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. But Perry's office said the changes were...
...Bassett isn't just talking about neglected gym memberships and people who sit on the couch all day. Physical activity can be something as simple as walking to the bus stop. That's another problem, by the way: the South doesn't have many bus stops. Public transportation is paltry, and for most people, the best way to get around is by car. "You don't really think of riding the train as exercise, but at least you have to walk a few blocks to get to the stop," says Bassett. States like Mississippi and Tennessee also have a surprising...
...wants to exercise when it's 100 degrees outside? The South is really hot and humid. Nobody in Mississippi goes running in the summer - at least, nobody sane. Bassett points out that Colorado, the state with the lowest obesity rate (18.9%), is relatively affluent and has a temperate climate and plenty of trails that lend themselves to outdoor activities. (See a special report on the science of appetite...