"By the grace of God, having not been executed, I have the opportunity to stand before you today," Adams told the House State Affairs Committee.

He used his story to plead with committee members to approve a bill by Rep. Harold Dutton that would halt executions in this state for two years while a committee is created to study the Texas death penalty.

"We are killing innocent people," Adams said. "Cease this railroad train that we've got rolling down the track. Just pull it into the station for a little bit."

Texans supporting the moratorium flooded the committee room to tell lawmakers why they should vote for it.

Only one man told lawmakers why they should not.

"You would be denying closure and solace to the victims. You would be denying the belief in due process and you would be denying the application of a mandated justice," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, vice president for legislative affairs for Justice For All, a Houston-based victims advocacy group.

Arguing that there aren't mistakes in the "vast majority of cases," Hubbarth said he believes no innocent inmate has been executed in Texas.

The committee was expected to leave the bill pending.

Several lawmakers have set out this session to repair specific aspects of the death penalty -- such as executing retarded inmates and providing fair defense for the poor -- but Dutton's bill orders the entire system shut down until 2003 until it can be investigated by a nine-member committee. Three members each would be chosen by the governor, lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House.

After their study, focusing on topics such as legal representation, certainty of guilt and appellate review, the members would make recommendations to lawmakers on how to fix the system's problems next session.

"Our system is broken," said Dutton, D-Houston. "We shouldn't execute people while we study the problem."

He said the committee is needed because lawmakers won't have the time this session to adequately study and reform the system.

This is the first bill calling for a moratorium that people close to the issue can remember, but even the lawmakers who support it philosophically have said they can't support it politically for fear that constituents would consider their actions light on crime.

Critics of the Texas death penalty have argued that appointed attorneys, who are often underpaid and inexperienced, don't provide adequate defense for poor clients in capital murder cases. Texas has also been criticized for permitting the execution of 17-year-old minors and the mentally retarded and for not having a life without parole sentence.

High profile cases in which innocent men have been set free through DNA evidence, a defense lawyer slept through parts of his client's trial, and a man was sentenced based partially on his race have drawn support for reforming the system.

Since Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on capital punishment last year, five other states are closely reviewing the penalty, including studying proposals to limit it.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)