January 30
TEXAS----execution
Texas inmate executed for Houston officer's death during adult bookstore
robbery
A 61-year-old Texas inmate was executed Wednesday evening for killing a Houston
police officer more than 3 decades ago.
Robert Jennings received lethal injection for the July 1988 fatal shooting of
Officer Elston Howard during a robbery at an adult bookstore that authorities
said was part of a crime spree.
As witnesses filed into the death chamber, Jennings asked a chaplain standing
next to him if he knew the name of the slain officer. The chaplain didn't
respond, and a prison official then told the warden to proceed with the
punishment.
"To my friends and family, it was a nice journey," Jennings said in his final
statement. "To the family of the police officer, I hope y'all find peace. Be
well and be safe and try to enjoy life's moments, because we never get those
back."
Outside the prison, more than 100 officers stood vigil. And a motorcycle club
that supports police revved their engines, with the roar from the bikes audible
in the chamber.
Jennings was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m., 18 minutes after the drug started.
He became the 1st inmate put to death this year both in the U.S. and in Texas,
the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
His attorneys had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution, arguing
Jennings' trial attorneys failed to ask jurors to fully consider evidence -
including details of his remorse for the officer's shooting and possible brain
damage - that might have spared him a death sentence.
Jennings had received an execution stay in 2016. But the high court and lower
appeals courts rejected his request to delay Wednesday's execution and the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down Jennings' request to commute his
sentence.
A twice convicted robber, Jennings had been on parole for about two months when
prosecutors say he entered Mr. Peeper's Bookstore with the intention of robbing
the business. Since being paroled, Jennings had gone on a crime spree,
committing about 10 robberies, including having already robbed the same adult
bookstore 12 days before Howard's slaying.
Officer Howard, 24, was in the middle of arresting the store clerk for
operating a pornographic video arcade without a permit when Jennings shot the
officer twice in the head.
Howard, who had been wearing a jacket with the words "Houston Police" on it,
staggered for a few feet before falling to the ground, where he was shot twice
more by Jennings. The clerk later testified the shooting was so quick, Howard
never had a chance to unholster his gun.
Jennings was arrested hours later when he went to a Houston hospital after
being shot in the hand by his accomplice, who got angry at Jennings for
shooting the officer.
Joe Gamaldi, the president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, said Jennings
has spent more time on death row than Howard was alive.
Howard "was an honorable man full of integrity who did his job. He was
absolutely one of the best and he was just taken entirely too soon by this
animal who murdered him in cold blood," Gamaldi said.
After his arrest, Jennings confessed to killing Howard, telling police in a
tape-recorded statement he was remorseful about what happened and would "face
whatever punishment (he had) coming."
Edward Mallett, one of Jennings' current appellate attorneys, said the inmate's
trial attorneys failed to present sufficient evidence of his remorse as well as
his history of brain damage, being abused as a child and drug addiction. He
said the trial attorneys also failed to provide an instruction to jurors that
would have allowed them to give sufficient weight to these aspects of Jennings'
life when they deliberated.
Mallett said a prior appellate attorney also failed to argue these issues in
earlier appeals.
"There has not been an adequate presentation of his circumstances including
mental illness and mental limitations," Mallett said.
Jennings' trial in 1989 took place just as the Supreme Court issued a ruling
that faulted Texas' capital sentencing statute for not allowing jurors to
consider evidence supporting a sentence less than death.
The Texas Legislature changed the statute to address the high court's concerns
but that took place after Jennings was convicted.
The Texas Attorney General's Office called Jennings' claim he had ineffective
lawyers at his trial and during earlier appeals "specious," and said appeals
courts have previously rejected allegations his personal history was not
adequately investigated and presented at his trial.
"My hope is that on Wednesday (Howard's family gets) the closure that they've
been searching for 30 years," Gamaldi said.
Jennings becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas
and the 559th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7,
1982.
Jennings becomes the 41st condemned inmate to be put to death since Greg Abbott
became Governor of Texas in 2015.
Jennings becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the
USA and the 1,491st overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17,
1977.
(sources: ABC News & Rick Halperin)
************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----41
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----559
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
42---------Feb. 28----------------Billy Wayne Coble-------560
43---------Mar. 28----------------Patrick Murphy----------561
44---------Apr. 11----------------Mark Robertson----------562
45---------Apr. 24----------------John King---------------563
46---------May 2------------------Dexter Johnson----------564
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)<P><P><P>
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