[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA.
August 22 TEXAS:execution Texas death row inmate Larry Ray Swearingen maintains innocence until his execution A Texas death row inmate continued to maintain his innocence up until he was executed Wednesday. Larry Ray Swearingen was executed at 6:47 p.m. for the death of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. "Lord forgive them. They don't know what they are doing," he said in his last words. Swearingen was sentenced to death in July 2000 for Trotter's abduction, rape and murder. The Montgomery College student was last seen alive on December 8, 1998. Her body was found in the Sam Houston National Forest on January 2, 1999, with a torn pair of pantyhose tied around her neck. Swearingen repeatedly challenged his conviction and sentence over the years, and his execution was postponed 5 times. Over the years, he argued that the case against him was built on circumstantial evidence and questionable forensics. Prosecutors contended that Swearingen killed Trotter after she rejected his sexual advances. Witnesses testified they saw Trotter leave campus with Swearingen on December 8, according to court documents. The state also pointed to the fact that Swearingen's wife found a lighter and a pack of cigarettes matching Trotter's preferred brand in the couple's trailer, although they did not smoke, and a detective found a pair of pantyhose in the trash outside the trailer with one leg missing. In a prepared statement his lawyer released after his death, Swearingen said he had proved his "innocence beyond any shadow of doubt," although it was not enough to stop his execution. "Today the State of Texas murdered an innocent man. Sadly, so many people have suffered from all this. Melissa's family and friends were denied the opportunity for closure. My family was torn apart," the statement said. "I want everyone to know I'm not angry about my execution. Sure I would've liked to live and go free. But I feel certain that my death can be a catalyst to change the insane legal system of Texas which could allow this to happen. I am now one of God's sacrificial lambs, and hopefully people will use my example to help keep others from experiencing this dreadful and wrongful persecution." One last appeal The week before his execution, Swearingen requested another stay based on two claims, according to court documents. He argued that the state allowed "false and misleading" trial testimony regarding blood flecks found under Trotter's fingernails. He also claimed the state knew that a criminologist had "manufactured" evidence that the torn pantyhose used to strangle Trotter matched pantyhose found at Swearingen's house. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request on August 16, saying the evidence he presented to support his claims was not strong enough to have made a difference to the outcome of his trial. On Wednesday night, the Supreme Court turned down Swearingen's final appeal. Swearingen nevertheless continued to maintain his innocence in an interview with the Houston Chronicle published Wednesday, and questioned if his scheduled execution would come to pass. But the slain teen's mother told the Chronicle she is still convinced of his guilt. "The overwhelming evidence is not just a coincidence," Sandy Trotter said. "There was a trial; he was found guilty, and they agreed on a sentence." (source: CNN) Today the State of Texas murdered an innocent man. Many people participated in my demise, beginning with the Montgomery County police who falsely arrested me without a warrant and particularly officer Leo Mock who planted the pantyhose in my home that was used to convict me. Harris County medical examiner Joye Carter then lied about the length of time Melissa Trotter's corpse laid in the woods. Judge Fred Edwards and the Montgomery County district attorney's office refused to give me a fair shake in legal proceedings, while the Houston Chronicle with other local media shared the same lack of fair play when it came to the court of public opinion. The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals rejected my filings without even looking at them, and finally governor Greg Abbott pulled the trigger. I also have to include myself in this accounting. Not because I had anything to do with Melissa's murder. She was my friend. But in my youth, I made a lot of stupid mistakes. When I was abducted by Montgomery County police in December 1998, I had been driving a stolen vehicle and was trying to commit insurance fraud. I was philandering with Melissa and other women instead of taking care of my wife and kids. I had been violent with both women and men. I put myself in a perfect position to be framed for murder. Sadly, so many people have suffered from all this. Melissa's family and friends were denied the opportunity for closure. My family was torn apart. My mother was ostracized and harassed to the point she had to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., TENN.
August 9 TEXASnew execution date Local death row inmate set with execution date District Attorney Randall Sims came forward with an official execution date for the ongoing death penalty case for Travis Runnels. Runnels has been on death row for 13 years for the murder of a prison supervisor of a shoe-making shop in Amarillo’s Clements unit. Thursday, the 47th District Attorney announced the date of his execution is set for December 11, 2019. Travis Runnels Criminal History Timeline: Runnels criminal history started in 1993, where he was convicted of 2nd-degree felony of burglary. He would go on the accumulate 2 more felony charges. His 2nd felony charge of aggravated robbery included carrying a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison and would be eligible for parole in 2025. His final felony charge while in prison in Amarillo would later lead to his death penalty. In 2003, Runnels was working on the cleaning staff in the Clements unit boot shop, and had disputes because he wanted to work in the prison’s barbershop. On the day of the murder, Runnels asked another inmate for his boot knife where he would later walk behind the shop’s supervisor, Stanley Wiley, and slit his throat. He was charged with murder after pleading guilty. In 2005, the charge then turned into a Capital murder conviction, and 2 days later he was sentenced with the death penalty. After many appeals were denied, on August 8th 2019, the 47th District Attorney announced Runnels execution date is set for December 11, 2019. At the news conference, NewsChannel10 asked the District Attorney why the courts decided to pursue the death penalty when many prosecutors have been shying away due to expense. “I’m not going to let expense or politics ever interfere with the decision about what I’m going to do on that. I’ve got office policies, I’ve got 5 things in it, the very first one is always do the right thing,” explained 47th District Attorney Randall C. Sims. The District Attorney also explained how inmates came forward with no reward on behalf of Wiley. “There were 8 inmates that testified against Travis Runnels and the reason they did it, I’ll sum it up as 'he’s the nicest man out there, he treated us as equals and was very nice to everybody out there, including the inmates. The inmate that gave the boot knife to Mr. Runnels, while he was the stand, he cried just nearly the whole time,” said Sims. There are 219 inmates currently on Texas’ death row. Texas, which reinstated the death penalty in 1976, has the most active execution chamber in the nation. (source: KFDA news) * Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present43 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-561 Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. # 44-Aug. 15Dexter Johnson--562 45-Aug. 21Larry Swearingen563 46-Sept. 4Billy Crutsinger564 47-Sept. 10---Mark Anthony Soliz--565 48-Sept. 25---Robert Sparks---566 49-Oct. 2-Stephen Barbee--567 50-Oct. 10Randy Halprin---568 51-Oct. 16Randall Mays569 52-Oct. 30Ruben Gutierrez-570 53-Nov. 6-Justen Hall-571 54-Nov. 20Rodney Reed-572 55-Dec. 11---Travis Runnels---573 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) USAimpending/scheduled executions With the execution of Marion Wilson Jr. in Georgia on June 20, the USA has now executed 1,500 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision. Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful practice of state-sponsored killings. NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution dates are added and possible stays of execution occur. 1501--Aug. 15-Dexter Johnson---Texas 1502---Aug. 15Stephen West-Tennessee 1503---Aug. 21Larry Swearingen-Texas 1504---Aug. 22Gary Ray Bowles--Florida 1505---Sept. 4Billy Crutsinger-Texas 1506---Sept. 10---Mark Anthony Soliz---Texas 1507---Sept 25Robert SparksTexas 1508---Oct. 1-Russell Bucklew--Missouri 1509---Oct. 2-Stephen Barbee---Texas 1510---Oct. 10Randy HalprinTexas 1511---Oct. 16Randall Mays-Texas
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO
January 8 TEXAS: 2020 trial in county death penalty case A 19-year-old Houston man will stand trial in a brutal Texas County murder in August 2020, it was decided during a conference call Friday. Andrew J. Vrba is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed criminal action and abandonment of the corpse of Joseph M. Steinfeld, 17, who was transitioning to a female and killed in September 2017 north of Cabool. Steinfield went by the name, “Ally.” Vrba could face the death penalty. Prosecutors said they are ready to hold the trial, but Vrba’s lawyers say their workload is so heavy they wouldn’t be able to mount a defense under the summer of 2020. Vrba is represented the Missouri Public Defenders Office. 2 attorneys who specialize in capital cases, Thomas Jacquinot and Patrick Berrigan, both of Kansas City, are assigned to the Vrba case. They also represented Craig Wood, who was convicted of killing 10-year-old Hailey Owens in Springfield, in a high-profile Missouri case. Holden set Vrba's trial to begin Aug. 3, 2020, in Greene County. He set aside 3 weeks: 1 week for jury selection and 2 weeks for the trial, according to court records. The case had been set to be heard in Steelville on a change of venue, but the judge assigned to the case was defeated in an election last year. Holden will next meet with attorneys on May 6 for a pre-trial conference. 3 others were also charged with murdering Steinfeld north of Cabool at a trailer. Isis Schauer, 19, of Houston, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement, the charge against Schauer was lowered from 1st-degree murder to 2nd-degree murder. She is appealing the sentence. She cites ineffective counsel and that her plea was not voluntary or knowledgeable. Briana Calderas, 25, of Cabool, will stand trial the week of Feb. 25 in Pulaski County Circuit Court at Waynesville. She is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed criminal action and abandonment of a corpse at her residence where authorities said the crime occurred. She could face life in prison without a chance of probation or parole. A 4th person, James T. Grigsby, 26, of Thayer, pleaded guilty to abandonment of a corpse and was sentenced to 4 years in prison in July 2018. Texas County Prosecutor Parke Stevens Jr. said the lengthy incarceration for Vrba raises concerns about the cost of housing the suspect in Greene County. Vrba will likely be held in Texas County unless the county agrees to pay board bill to Greene County. At the conference, Stevens and Judge Calvin Holden also agreed that the county prosecutor could talk to the Texas County sheriff about possibly arranging some sort of deal in which Greene County inmates could be housed in Texas County while Vrba is in Springfield to offset costs. (source: Houston Herald) PENNSYLVANIA: Holly Grim homicide: Michael Horvath trial pushed back to October Jury selection in the case of Michael Horvath, the Monroe County man accused of kidnapping and killing Holly Grim of Lower Macungie Township, will not begin until October, prosecutors confirmed Monday. Horvath, 51, was in Monroe County Court Monday morning for a pretrial hearing. His attorneys are challenging the science behind cellphone data collection, which police say shows Horvath was near Grim’s home on the day she disappeared. Monroe County Judge Margherita Patti Worthington said she will rule on the motion before Horvath’s trial. Grim’s disappearance is one of the most closely watched missing person cases in Lehigh Valley history. Police say that in November 2013, Horvath kidnapped Grim from her trailer in the Red Maples Mobile Home Park, then took her to his Ross Township home where he killed her and disposed of her body. Police say they found evidence that Horvath was stalking Grim, his coworker at Allen Organ Co. in Macungie, and that he had books and videos on “hunting humans” in his home. Horvath was arrested on Oct. 13, 2016. He's charged with homicide, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and obstruction of the administration of law. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Horvath is being held in the Monroe County Correctional Facility without bail. Michael Horvath is charged with homicide in connection with the death of Holly Grim, a Lower Macungie woman who went missing in 2013. Although investigators believe Grim was kidnapped in Lower Macungie, they say evidence points to Horvath killing her and burying her body on his property. That’s why the trial is being held in Monroe County. Police in October 2016 announced that Grim's skeletal remains were discovered in a 4-by-4-foot area at the bottom of an embankment behind Horvath's house, covered by about a foot of dirt. In court Monday, defense attorney Chandra Bleice argued that she needed more information about how police gathered cellphone evidence in the case so that she could call an expert at trial to dispute
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, TENN.
November 29 TEXASimpending execution "Texas 7" Escapee Set for ExecutionInmate challenges original conviction, post-escape “law of parties” verdict Joseph Garcia is infamous for his role in the biggest prison escape in Texas history. For that crime and a murder that followed, Garcia is facing an execution date of Tuesday, Dec. 4, where he would become the fourth of the "Texas 7" to be put to death. But with 2 appeals and a stay pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a clemency petition before the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Garcia's placement on death row remains controversial. On Dec. 13, 2000, the Texas 7 broke out of a maximum-security prison near San Antonio with stolen weapons in a prison truck. Once free, the men committed several robberies across the state, including at a sporting goods store near Dallas on Christmas Eve, where they ran into police officer Aubrey Hawkins and fatally shot him 11 times. A month later, after making national news, the men were captured in Colorado. All, save 1 who killed himself, were sentenced to death under the Texas "law of parties," though Garcia maintains he never fired his weapon that night. State statute allows accomplices to another crime - such as robbery - that results in murder to be held responsible even if they were not involved in the slaying, and Garcia's lawyer Dale Baich said, "Joseph was sentenced to death even though the state could not prove that Joseph killed, intended to kill, or was even present when the co-defendants killed Officer Hawkins." Garcia's concurrent appeals touch on more than the law of parties. Before his escape, Garcia was serving out a murder sentence from Bexar County; the 1st matter pending before the CCA argues he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel in that case. Garcia insists he acted in self-defense, but his trial attorney failed to investigate or present that claim to the court, and the filings allege Garcia continued to receive shoddy counsel through his appeals. A subsequent petition at the CCA argues Garcia's death sentence in the Hawkins case was a result of "misleading evidence" presented by the state, ineffective counsel, and a "racially prejudiced judge" who tainted the case, in addition to its challenge to the law of parties. Via email, Baich stressed that there remain "significant legal issues before the courts that have not been presented until now because of procedural technicalities and bad lawyering." Garcia has been fighting his sentence for nearly 2 decades. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last appeal and he was scheduled for lethal injection in August, but was spared due to a technical issue. If a stay or clemency is not granted, Garcia will be the 12th Texas inmate executed in 2018. Before the year is up, 1 more - Alvin Braziel Jr. - is scheduled to die, on Dec. 11. (source: Austin Chronicle) ** Inmates Said The Drug Burned As They Died. This Is How Texas Gets Its Execution Drugs.Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy gave kids the wrong medicine. It forged documents. Its employees didn’t wash their hands adequately. So why did the state with the most executions hire it to make lethal injection drugs? The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which has carried out more executions than any other state, has for the last 3 1/2 years bought drugs for lethal injections from a pharmacy that regulators have repeatedly cited for dangerous practices. The source of the state's execution drugs has until now been a closely guarded secret. Texas, like other death penalty states, has a law that prevents the disclosure of that information, making it impossible for the public to learn about the manufacturer's safety record. But documents obtained by BuzzFeed News indicate that one source is Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy in Houston, which has been cited for scores of safety violations in recent years. Its license has been on probation since November 2016, when the Texas State Board of Pharmacy found that it had compounded the wrong drug for 3 children, sending 1 to the emergency room, and forged quality control documents. Questions about the source and quality of Texas's execution drugs have been particularly acute in the past year, since in their final moments of life, 5 of the 11 inmates who Texas put to death in 2018 said the drug they were injected with, which is supposed to be painless, felt like it was burning as it coursed through their bodies. "I can feel that it does burn. Burning!" Anthony Shore said, his voice rising, as he died in January. 4 months later, Juan Castillo swore and said the drug burned and that he could taste it in his throat. In the next few months, inmates Troy Clark, Christopher Young, and Danny Bible all made similar statements as they were dying. A 6th inmate, William Rayford, writhed and shook on the gurney after the drug began to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, ILL., NEB., CALIF.
May 25 TEXASnew execution date Convicted killer from infamous "Texas 7" prison escape gets execution date Joseph Garcia is scheduled for execution in August. On December 13, 2000, 7 desperate inmates pulled off the biggest prison break-out in Texas history. They busted into the prison armory, stole weapons and stormed out of the Connally Unit in a prison truck. After orchestrating 2 robberies in Houston, they headed up to the Dallas area. There, on Christmas Eve, the men held up a store in Irving and made off with $70,000 and 44 guns. But on the way out, they ran into a cop. The escapees surrounded the Officer Aubrey Hawkins' patrol vehicle and shot him 11 times before running over his body with an SUV on the way out, according to court records They were finally captured in Colorado a month later. One of the escapees killed himself before police could get him. But the rest were sent to death row, where 3 have since been executed. And now, a 4th, Joseph Garcia, has a date with death. The Bexar County killer - originally sent to prison for stabbing a man more than a dozen times - is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Aug. 30, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel. "We are exploring several issues in this case that have not been considered by the courts in the past," said Mridula Raman, one of Garcia's attorneys. "We intend to raise these matters with the courts in the near future." For Toby Shook, a former prosecutor who handled the case, news of the date was a welcome relief. "It's been almost 18 years," Shook said. "It's satisfying that the actual sentence will be carried out." George Rivas, who was already serving 17 life sentences, was the ringleader who planned the escape from the unit just 60 miles south of San Antonio. With his 6 co-conspirators, Rivas masterminded the plan to overpower a supervisor and tie up civilian workers as hostages. 2 of the gang dressed up as prison workers to sneak into the armory where they overpowered another employee and took control of the guard tower. Then, 3 of the men took the keys to a maintenance truck and loaded it with provisions and guns before they all fled the prison near Kenedy. After their murder and robbery spree across Texas, they holed up near Colorado Springs before police caught them. Larry Harper killed himself rather than face a return to Texas prisons. Rivas, Michael Rodriguez and Donald Newbury have already been executed, while Patrick Murphy and Randy Halprin remain on death row with Garcia. "He was one of the more violent ones during the prison breakout," Shook said. "The hostages described him as one of the more violent ones, who made threats and went out of his way to frighten them." At one point some of the other men said he was the one who'd fired the fatal shot, Shook said. In the years since his conviction, Garcia has raised a number of appeals based on claims of bad lawyering. His attorneys didn't specify what appeals they plan to raise moving forward. Texas has already executed 6 men this year. Including Garcia, another 9 are scheduled to die - which means the state has exactly as many doses of its death drug left as it does executions on the calendar. (source: Houston Chronicle) ** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present33 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-551 Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. # 34-June 21Clifton Williams552 35-June 27Danny Bible-553 36-July 17Christopher Young---554 37-Aug. 30Joseph Garcia---555 38-Sept. 12---Ruben Gutierrez-556 39-Sept. 26---Troy Clark--557 40-Sept. 27---Daniel Acker558 41-Oct. 10Juan Segundo559 42-Oct. 24Kwame Rockwell---560 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) PENNSYLVANIAnew death sentence York County jury gives death sentence to man who 'deliberately and purposely' took 2 lives A man who fatally shot 2 people during a home invasion in Fawn Township deserves to be executed for his crimes, a York County jury decided on Thursday. Paul Henry III, 41, of East Manchester Township, declined to make a statement before the death sentence was imposed. He was previously found guilty of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of robbery for bursting into a house with his wife, Veronique, and killing Foday Cheeks, 31, of Fawn Township, and Danielle Taylor, 26, of Spring Grove, on Sept. 13, 2016. "I sentence you to be handed over to the Department of Corrections, and that you be confined until proper date for execution can be scheduled, and at that time, for you to suffer the death penalty,"
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA.
Jan. 30 TEXASimpending execution Texas man set for execution hopes Supreme Court cases will stop his deathWilliam Rayford, a 64-year-old death row inmate convicted in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend, is hoping 2 previous U.S. Supreme Court cases will be the key to stopping his execution Tuesday. William Rayford's lawyers are hoping 2 recent U.S. Supreme Court cases will stop his execution set for Tuesday night. In multiple last-minute appeals, the 64-year-old death row inmate claims his sentencing trial in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend was tainted by racial prejudice and that he was wrongly denied federal funding to further investigate evidence that could have persuaded a jury to give him a lighter sentence. His legal team said these issues "mirror" those of the recent cases the high court heard of fellow death row inmates Duane Buck and Carlos Ayestas and should therefore serve as reasons to put off his death. Rayford has been on death row for 17 years. He was convicted in Dallas County for the kidnapping and death of 44-year-old Carol Hall. In November 1999, Rayford entered Hall's house and the 2 began arguing, according to court documents. Hall's 12-year-old son came into the room, and Rayford stabbed him in the back before chasing Hall as she ran out of the house. When the cops found her body in a nearby culvert later that day, she had been strangled, beaten and stabbed. Rayford had previously pleaded guilty and served 8 years of a 23-year sentence in the 1986 murder of his ex-wife, records show. "Statistically, you lose more than you win," said Bruce Anton, Rayford's lawyer, when asked about his hope for a stay of execution. But he said he is optimistic based on the two Supreme Court cases. Last February, justices ruled that Buck's case was prejudiced by an expert trial witness who claimed Buck was more likely to be a future danger because he is black. To sentence someone to death in Texas, the jury must unanimously agree that the person would likely be a future danger to society. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's majority opinion that the defense attorney was ineffective by bringing forth the psychologist who made the racial remarks. Buck has since been re-sentenced to life in prison. "When a jury hears expert testimony that expressly makes a defendant's race directly pertinent on the question of life or death, the impact of that evidence cannot be measured simply by how much air time it received at trial or how many pages it occupies in the record," Roberts said in the opinion. "Some toxins can be deadly in small doses." Rayford, who is also black, presented what he claims is a similar situation in his petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals earlier this month. During his sentencing trial, Rayford's defense lawyer asked the state's expert on prison violence if the racial makeup of the unit is something that relates to the number of prison assaults. "It has a factor on it," said the Royce Smithey, chief investigator of the state unit that prosecutes crimes in prison, according to court records. The state appellate court rejected Rayford's appeal Friday, with Judge Barbara Hervey writing in the majority opinion that the Buck decision was based partially on the specific psychologist who had made the remark, since his testimony on race and danger had been knocked down by the high court in another case involving a Hispanic inmate. She also said that Smithey did not give any opinions about a particular race or how race factored into prison violence, unlike in Buck's case. "I do not read Buck as holding that defense counsel is ineffective for merely allowing a witness to use the word "race" in his or her testimony about future dangerousness," Hervey wrote in her concurring opinion, which was joined by Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and judges Michael Keasler and David Newell. Judge Elsa Alcala, known death penalty critic on the all-Republican court, said in a dissent that she would stop the execution until the court could fully examine the claim that Rayford's attorney was ineffective for evoking race-based testimony in the trial, pointing to Roberts' statement about the power of small doses. "It is unconstitutional to carry out a death sentence that was imposed on the basis of a powerful racial stereotype - that of black men as 'violence prone,'" she wrote, joined by Judge Scott Walker. Rayford has appealed the court's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had not yet ruled in the case Monday. In federal district court, Anton is putting more weight into the argument that he claims matches that of Carlos Ayestas, whose case was heard by the high court in October but has yet to see a ruling. Ayestas' lawyers argued that he was wrongfully denied funding from the federal courts during later appeals to investigate previously unexplored evidence that could sway a jury to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, CALIF., USA
Dec. 14 TEXAS: Texas leads the nation in executions, but its death row population is droppingTexas executed more people than any other state this year, but fewer new death sentences has led to a shrinking death row population. The number of inmates on Texas' death row dropped again this year, continuing a decades-long trend. The decline is caused largely by fewer new death sentences and more reduced punishments in recent years, according to end-of-year reports released Thursday by groups critical of the death penalty in Texas and across the country. But Texas still held more executions than any other state. "Prosecutors, juries, judges, and the public are subjecting our state's death penalty practices to unprecedented scrutiny," said Kristin Houle, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, in the release of the group's annual report. "In an increasing number of cases, they are accepting alternatives to this flawed and irreversible punishment." Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which has supported death penalty practices in legal cases throughout the country, said he agrees that the decline is partially due to shifting attitudes among jurors and prosecutors, but added that death sentences are also down because there has been a drop in the murder rate nationwide. "The support for the death penalty for the worst crimes remains strong," he said. There are currently 234 inmates living with death sentences in Texas, according to the state's prison system. That number has been dropping since 2003. The death row population peaked at 460 in 1999, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Here's how the death row population has changed over the last year: 7 men were executed. The same number of men were put to death this year as in 2016, which had the fewest executions in 2 decades. But even with its relatively low number, Texas was still the state with the most executions in the country. This isn't unusual given that the state has put to death nearly 5 times more individuals than any other state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Texas accounted for 30 % of the nation's 23 executions in 2017. Arkansas was 2nd in the country with 4. Last year, Georgia put more people to death than Texas - the 1st time Texas hasn't been responsible for the most executions since 2001. 4 more men got cells on death row. 1 more person was sentenced to death this year than in 2015 and 2016, when only 3 men were handed the death penalty in each of those years. The number of new sentences, which ranged in the 20s and 30s each year in the early 2000s, dropped in 2005 after jurors were given the option to sentence convicts to life without the possibility of parole as an alternative to the death penalty. Before then, if a capital murder convict wasn't sentenced to death, he or she would be eligible for parole after 40 years. About 10 people in Texas were sentenced each year after that until the additional decrease in 2015. 2 men died while awaiting execution. Joseph Lave and Raymond Martinez both died this year before they were taken to the death chamber, even though they had had extended stays in prison. Lave passed away more than 22 years after his murder conviction, and Martinez had lived more than 30 years with a death sentence. 4 men had their sentences changed from death to life in prison. 2 U.S. Supreme Court decisions this year have so far resulted in the reduction of 3 death sentences to life in prison. The high court ruled against Texas in the death penalty cases of Duane Buck and Bobby Moore. Buck reached a plea agreement with Harris County prosecutors to change his death sentence to life in October after a February ruling by the court said his case was prejudiced by an expert trial witness who claimed Buck was more likely to be a future danger because he is black. In Moore's case, the justices invalidated Texas' method for determining if a death-sentenced inmate was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Though Moore's case has yet to be resolved (Harris County has asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reduce his sentence to life), 2 other men on death row with intellectual disability claims received life sentences after the ruling. Another man this April received a new punishment hearing in a 1991 murder and pled guilty, landing four consecutive life sentences over the death penalty, according to the Texas death penalty report. 9 men narrowly escaped execution - for now. Executions were scheduled - then canceled - for 9 men this year. 6 were stopped by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in light of pending appeals, and one was stopped by a federal court, the report said. 1 man, Larry Swearingen, evaded execution in November because of a clerical error,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, NEB.
Dec. 8 TEXAS: Texas district attorney who prosecuted Jeff Wood now wants him off death row The prosecutor in the death penalty case of a man who didn't kill anyone has asked the parole board and Gov. Greg Abbott to change his sentence to life in prison. Now the Kerr County district attorney, Lucy Wilke was the prosecutor in the 1998 murder trial of Jeff Wood - a man whose scheduled execution last year prompted lawmakers to question when the state should put accomplices to death. Although she originally decided to seek the death penalty for Wood, she said in a letter to the prison parole board that "the penalty now appears to be excessive." Wilke asked the board to recommend Gov. Greg Abbott grant clemency and change Wood's sentence to life in prison. The letter was sent in August, but The Texas Tribune received a copy from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Thursday after a Wednesday court order referred to it. "While I am aware that requests for clemency in Death Penalty Capital Murder cases are normally considered when there is an execution date pending, I respectfully ask that you consider this request for commutation of sentence and act on it now, in the absence of such an execution date, in the interest of justice and judicial economy," she wrote. The letter was co-signed by Kerrville Police Chief David Knight, who was an officer at the time of the murder, and the district judge who is handling Wood's current appeal, Keith Williams. A spokeswoman for Abbott did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the letter, but the governor has not changed a death-sentenced individual's sentence since he took office in 2015. A spokesman for the parole board did not say whether members have voted on the request. Jeff Wood's case gained national attention in August 2016, as his execution date neared. Wood, now 44, was convicted and sentenced to death in a 1996 Kerrville convenience store murder - he was sitting outside in the truck when his friend, Daniel Reneau, pulled the trigger that killed clerk Kriss Keeran. As an accomplice, he was sentenced under Texas' felony murder statute, commonly known as the law of parties, which holds that anyone involved in a crime resulting in death is equally responsible, even if they weren't directly involved in the killing. Wood's attorneys claimed he didn???t go to the store with the intention of having Keeran killed and didn't even know Reneau brought a gun. Prosecutors disputed that fact, saying Wood knew Reneau would kill Keeran if he didn't cooperate. In the months before his scheduled death, Wood's case drew the spotlight on Texas' law of parties, and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers sought to stop the execution. Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, said more than 50 House members signed onto a letter he wrote asking Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to reduce Wood's sentence. In this year's legislative session, lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to limit death sentences for those convicted under the law of parties. 6 days before his execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped it and sent the case back to the trial court in Kerr County to review Wood's claim that a jury was improperly persuaded to hand down a death sentence because of testimony from a highly criticized psychiatrist nicknamed "Dr. Death." Wood's lawyers claimed the psychiatrist, Dr. James Grigson, lied to jurors about how many cases he had testified in and how often he found a defendant would be a future danger. The lawyers claimed he almost always found they would be. A person can only be sentenced to death if a jury unanimously agrees that he or she would present a danger. In her letter, Wilke cites the issues with Grigson's testimony as reason for requesting a change of sentence. She claims she was unaware at the time of the trial that he had been expelled from the American Psychiatric Association and Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians. "Had I known about Dr. Grigson's issues with said organizations, I would not have used him as the State's expert witness in this case on the issue of future dangerousness," she wrote. Wilke said she wants clemency for Wood because of Grigson's testimony and other factors including: the fact that he wasn't the shooter, his documented history of low intelligence and his nonviolent history in and out of prison. She mentioned that 3 jurors have submitted affidavits saying they would not have agreed Wood presented a future danger if they'd been aware of Grigson's issues. In April, the Kerr County court paused its review of the Grigson claims after Wood's lawyers said they and the state???s lawyers were in discussions about a "possible settlement," according to a Wednesday court order by the Court of Criminal Appeals. The order directed the trial court to resume its review regardless of the prosecution's request to leadership that Wood's sentence
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May 25 TEXAS: Was a convicted murderer incompetent to stand trial - 6 years ago?Fort Bend County jurors wrestle with a rare retrospective question Albert James Turner was convicted in 2011 of murder in the deaths of his mother-in-law and wife. The jury sentenced him to death - a choice made only every few years in Fort Bend. The case returned last week to the same courtroom with the same judge, the 268th District Court with Judge Brady Elliott, to take on an issue Turner's defense argued should have been addressed in the first place. The question before the jury was not whether he committed the crimes, cutting the throats of his relatives. Rather, the issue at hand was dubbed "retrospective competency," meaning jurors had to decide whether evidence showed Turner had not been mentally fit for trial. It was "a case that's not normally one we take up," the judge told the jurors. Judge Elliott had denied a request for a competency trial 6 years ago. A state appellate court had now granted it to Turner, allowing a chance at a totally new trial if jurors found him incompetent. Stakes were high. Turner's appellate defense attorney, Amy Martin, believed Turner was delusional. Turner felt convinced his attorneys had conspired against him, Martin said. And this illness might have affected his decision to testify originally, a fateful choice that perhaps influenced the jury to sentence him to death, rather than life in prison. That possibility, Martin said, was "not something we could stomach." Competency refers to one's ability rationally to understand proceedings in court. It is a different question altogether from whether someone was insane at the time of the crime. It deals instead with whether defendants can reasonably consult with their attorneys and understand the charges being brought against them. Evaluating a defendant for competency before a trial begins is fairly standard procedure. Doing so retrospectively is not. Several mental health professionals evaluated Turner before his trial began, court records show. One conducted an evaluation in May 2010, and the other in June. Both found him competent. If they had not, he could have been sent to a hospital for rehabilitation. Still, the question of his mental faculties didn't stop there. Turner became a detriment to his own defense, said Patrick McCann, his attorney at the time. "Time dragged on," McCann said. "He got worse." On April 15, 2011, defense attorneys filed a request for a trial on Turner's competency. 3 days later, on the 1st day of jury selection, the judge denied it. But the defense persisted, and on May 6, the judge ordered 1 more evaluation, this time by the county's director of behavioral health services. After a 30-minute conversation during which Turner remained standing, she concluded his functioning had not significantly changed. The case went to trial. Turner testified. The jury sentenced him. An appeal followed, and the higher court decided he deserved the competency trial after all - leading to last weeks' proceedings. Testimony continued to midday Thursday, when the 12-person jury heard closing arguments. Proesecutor Fred Felcman painted the case as woefully lacking in the expected indicators, such as family speaking of his illness or physicians having treated him. He said a defendant didn't have to help his attorneys. "This is not what you thought it was going to be, was it?," Felcman said. Martin argued that even though Turner wasn't curled up in a corner or foaming at the mouth, he still had a mental illness. She insisted he had a delusional disorder, which could be hard to detect. "He didn't have a disagreement with his attorneys," she said. "He had a break with reality." Turner refused to be in the courtroom. A video camera allowed him to watch proceedings from jail. The jurors made a decision in 2 hours. Members of the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office sat in the room, as did Darren Frank, whose sister and mother were the people Turner killed. Frank had cared for his sister's 4 children since the murders. He said he felt a little surprised to see Turner's case return to Fort Bend and had prepared for whatever the outcome would be. His main priority, he said, was supporting the children. "Even one day, if [Turner] dies, it can't bring back what we've lost," Frank said. "I have to remove myself from the situation and just really focus on them and how I can help them." Cases like these didn't come around every day. Martin, who wrote the appellate brief, said she knew of only one other, from 2012 in Harris County. The judge read Turner's verdict. They jury said Turner had been competent. His appeal will continue. (source: Houston Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: Prosecutor seeking death penalty against man accused in 4-year-old's death A Butler County man accused in the death of his girlfriend's young son was in
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May 18 TEXAS: Court lifts reprieve for Nicaraguan man on Texas death row The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday lifted a reprieve it gave a Nicaraguan man a day before he was to be executed 2 years ago for killing a Houston high school teacher during a 1997 robbery. The state's highest criminal appeals court had halted the scheduled August 2015 lethal injection of Bernardo Tercero after his attorneys contended Harris County prosecutors unknowingly presented false testimony from a witness at his trial in 2000 for the death of 38-year-old Robert Berger. Wednesday's ruling affirms the findings of Tercero's trial court that last year held a hearing on the claim and determined the testimony was proper. Berger was a customer in a Houston dry cleaners shop in March 1997 and was with his 3-year-old daughter when records show Tercero came in to rob the store. Berger was fatally shot and the store was robbed of about $400. Prosecutors said Tercero was in the U.S. illegally at the time. Tercero, now 40, argued the shooting was accidental. He testified Berger confronted him and tried to thwart the robbery, and the gun went off as they struggled. He was arrested in Hidalgo County near the Texas-Mexico border more than 2 years after the slaying. A second man sought in the case never has been found. Tercero's case has attracted attention in his home country, where a clemency plea from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in 2015 was forwarded to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. (source: Associated Press) ** Appeals court hears arguments in Williamson County death penalty case A defense lawyer for a man given the death penalty for a Williamson County killing argued before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday that the evidence used to convict Steven Alan Thomas did not prove he committed the crime. A Williamson County jury convicted Thomas of capital murder in October 2014 and sentenced him to death for the sexual assault and strangulation of 73-year-old Mildred McKinney in 1980. Defense lawyer Ariel Payan said Wednesday that Thomas' fingerprint, which was found on the back of a clock in McKinney???s bedroom, could have been there because Thomas worked for a pesticide company that had been to her house. Payan also said Thomas' sperm was found on a piece of medical tape wrapped around one of McKinney's thumbs but that did not prove he sexually assaulted her. McKinney also had DNA inside of her from 3 other unknown men, he said. The same arguments about how the evidence could not prove Thomas' guilt were made by his lawyers during his trial. Payan also said Wednesday the testimony of a jailhouse snitch during Thomas' trial could not be confirmed and should have been inadmissible. The inmate, Steven Shockey, told a jury that Thomas told him about being high on cocaine, breaking into a house, having to restrain a woman before she got out of bed and taking money and jewelry. Williamson County Assistant District Attorney John Prezas, who was representing the state on the appeal, said the physical evidence alone was enough to convict Thomas without Shockey's testimony. The clock that had Thomas' fingerprint on it was found in the middle of McKinney's bed near some of the cord used to tie her up, Prezas said. He also said Thomas' sperm was found not on medical tape but on a ribbon tied around McKinney's thumb that was used to restrain her hands. Prezas also questioned whether Thomas had been to McKinney's house when he worked for his brother's pesticide company. Thomas' brother testified during the trial that McKinney was one of their clients but he didn't have records that showed Thomas made a service call to her house, Prezas said. By state law, every death penalty case is automatically sent to the Court of Criminal Appeals. "The litigants can request oral argument or not," Payan said after the hearing. "I almost always do, and it is usually granted but not always." It was unclear Wednesday when the judges would make a decision. (source: Austin American-Statesman) PENNSYLVANIA: The slowly-shifting status of capital punishment in PA Anti-establishment lawyer Larry Krasner's win in the Philadelphia District Attorney Democratic primary Tuesday put him on track for a probable victory in November. Krasner has made a name for himself as a longtime defense lawyer in civil rights cases, but he is perhaps best-known for his ardent opposition to the death penalty. His election dredged up a recurring discussion Pennsylvania has been grappling with for decades: what does the future of capital punishment in the commonwealth look like? Pennsylvania is 1 of only 2 states in the northeast that still allows the death penalty. It has the 5th most inmates on death row in the nation, but in the last 40 years, has only executed 3 people. Why the disparity? Marc Bookman, with the Atlantic Center for Capital
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Feb. 17 TEXAS: Lining Up a ConvictionA suggestive photo lineup put Juan Balderas on death row. Experts say he may have been wrongfully convicted, but will he get a new trial in time? At first glance, the photo lineup that helped send Juan Balderas to death row doesn't look too unusual. It shows 6 young Latino men staring blankly ahead. Balderas, in the bottom middle position, looks calm, almost as if he's daydreaming. But according to judges and experts, this lineup is deeply prejudicial. 2 small details - the black hoodie Balderas is wearing and the mark on his left cheek - may have singled him out to the witness who viewed this lineup. Balderas was sentenced to death for a 2005 Houston murder based on the testimony of a single eyewitness, and he???s maintained his innocence ever since. The witness identification procedure in Balderas' case gained the attention of the state's highest criminal court, with a majority of judges ruling in November that it was suggestive, and 1 judge arguing it was so prejudicial that Balderas deserved a new trial. Combined with allegations that prosecutors hid evidence from the defense during the trial, and that another witness has recanted his account of the shooting, the identification raises the troubling question of whether Balderas was wrongfully convicted. Meanwhile, a panel of experts formed to cut down on wrongful convictions is urging state legislators to beef up rules for witness identifications. Balderas' case is one example of how small errors in police treatment of eyewitnesses can lead to serious problems with a conviction. On December 6, 2005, 16-year-old Eduardo Hernandez was hanging out with friends at an apartment in Alief, a suburb in sprawling southwest Houston. A man in a black hoodie barged in, circled the room, and shot Hernandez 9 times in the back and head. Hernandez was part of a local street gang called La Tercera Crips. He had angered his fellow members by snitching and throwing hand signs for a rival gang, several would later testify. The only witness who saw the shooter's face was Wendy Bardales, the sister of Hernandez's girlfriend. She described the shooter as someone she had never seen before, a young Latino man about 5 feet 6 inches tall, skinny and clean-shaven. He had short black hair in a fade haircut and was wearing a black hoodie. And he had a dark mark on his cheek, she said. The night after the shooting, officers showed her a photo lineup, but she told them the shooter wasn't in it. Over the next few days, Houston police received anonymous tips suggesting that Balderas, another member of the gang, was involved. The week after the murder, an officer went back to Wendy with a new lineup of 6 photos, which the Observer obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request. Wendy recognized Balderas - the 2 had lived in the same apartment complex and had known each other for about a year. She told the officer that Balderas "could be the shooter," and that he "looked like the shooter," even though on the night of the murder she had told police that the shooter was someone she had never seen before. The officer returned to her house the next day, trying to pin her down on whether Balderas was the shooter, but she still didn't say she was sure. Finally, the officer told her to place her hands over the top of the face of each subject, in order to simulate the shooter's hoodie. When she did, the officer later testified, her eyes "grew wide" and "began to water." Wendy said she was positive that Balderas was the shooter. "A witness's actual memory can be forever changed if suggestive procedures are used." Experts who study witness identification procedures say it's a textbook example of an identification gone wrong. The 1st problem is the lineup itself. It includes only 1 person - Balderas - who matches the description Wendy gave police. None of the other 5 men are wearing a black hoodie or have any marks on their faces. They also don't match her description in other ways: Some are heavier, others not clean-shaven, others not wearing a fade haircut. "Given the witness's description, this photo array is extremely suggestive and creates enormous potential for a wrongful conviction," said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a University of Houston law professor who studies witness identification. "The suspect should not stand out, and given that he is the only person with those distinctive features, this is highly suggestive." Large police departments typically have huge databases of booking photos, so it shouldn't be a problem to find "filler" photos that better match a witness's description. The process is also an issue. Research over the past few years has made clear that even small, unintentionally leading statements by officers can make witnesses feel pressured to choose someone. Coaching, such as when the officer urged Wendy to cover parts of the faces, can
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May 9 TEXAS: Bluntson's attorney speaks on death penalty Death penalties are rare, but they could become a thing of the past believes one of the attorneys who represented Demond Bluntson. For nearly 25 years, Webb County had not seen a death penalty case, but that changed on Thursday when the jury condemned Demond Bluntson to death. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a state grassroots advocacy organization, estimates about 537 people have been executed in the state since 1982. They report that new death sentence have dropped nearly 80 % since 1999. Attorney Eduardo Pena who represented Bluntson says he thinks the decline is part of a trend that would mirror eastern countries. "Public opinion is changing away from the death penalty. Most of Europe has already prohibited the death penalty. And, I think eventually that's what we will do in the United States. I think that is the direction in which we are headed", said Pena. Pena says death penalty cases can be costly and lengthy because of the years they can be delayed in the appeal process. Demond Bluntson will be appealing his sentence. (source: KGNS news) PENNSYLVANIA: DA finishes 1st week in Allen Wade death penalty trial Highlights of week 1 include surveillance video of a man who prosecutors say is Allen Wade withdrawing $600 from Sarah's Wolfe's bank account from an ATM, and also using Susan Wolfe's debit card to buy cigarettes hours after the 2 were shot to death. Pittsburgh homicide detective Wade Sarver testified he spent over 40 hours reviewing and compiling surveillance videos from businesses near the East Liberty branch of the Carnegie Library, where police found Sarah Wolfe's green Ford Fiesta on February 8, 2014, the day after their bodies were discovered by Sarah's boyfriend. Wade is charged with the Feb. 6, 2014 beating and shooting-death of Sarah and Susan Wolfe. In a March 5, 2014 statement Wade said, "I am 100 % innocent," and added that allegations by police that his DNA was found on a pair of gray sweatpants "is a bunch of bull." Most of the footage shows a figure dressed in a red jacket with a blue long-sleeve shirt underneath, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes that have a distinctive flap, walking in the area of the Carnegie Library and the Citizens Bank ATM where the withdrawal attempts were made. The Citizen Bank's ATM camera shows a male figure with his face obscured, making repeated withdrawal attempts between 12:44 and 12:53 a.m. on Feb. 7, 2014. A glove covered the man's right hand, but he could be seen putting a receipt into his left hand. Justin Hanna an investigator with Citizens Bank told the jury that after several attempts a $600 withdrawal was completed at 12:46 a.m. from Sarah Wolfe's bank account, and several unsuccessful attempts at withdrawing $300 from Susan Wolfe's bank account were made during the same time period at the ATM. Video from cameras at a nearby apartment complex and a Target department store show the same figure walking near the library, a Midas Muffler and in front of the ATM. A video from an East Liberty Sunoco gas station shows a man wearing a pair of white tennis shoes with what appears to be the same flap, walk into the store shortly after 1:00 a.m. and purchase 2 packs of Newport cigarettes. Prosecutors allege that Wade made the purchase with Susan Wolfe's PNC Bank debit card. Pittsburgh police officer Gregory McGee told the jury Wednesday how he decided to search the area near where Sarah Wolfe's car was found. "I felt it was a strange area to leave a car and that someone may have fled on foot leavingevidence," he said. Walking down South Whitfield Street near the library, Officer McGee noticed a black knit cap lying on top of some mulch off the sidewalk and about 60 feet down the street he saw a pair of gray sweatpants. Prosecutors allege that Wade was wearing a red jacket, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes when he killed Sarah and Susan Wolfe. Officer McGee told the jury that as he picked up the sweatpants a white business card fell out of a pocket that belonged to Cameron Mager, a social worker who prosecutors allege had been treating Susan. Mr. Mager told jurors Thursday the business card was his and testified that he is "100 % certain" Wade was never his client. He also told the jury that his office phone number and email, which are listed on his business cards, are not publicly available. Police also recovered a pair of socks from a trash can near the sweatpants, that prosecutors say has both Wade and Sarah Wolfe's DNA on them. Wade's DNA was also found on the sweatpants prosecutors say. Pittsburgh homicide detective George Satler told jurors that Sarah Wolfe's boyfriend was "extremely cooperative" when he was questioned shortly after he found the bodies of Sarah and Susan Wolfe in the basement of their Pittsburgh home on February 7, 2014. Public
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April 25 TEXAS: Man Sentenced To Die After 'Expert' Testified That Black People Are Dangerous Duane Edward Buck's lawyers were a disaster. After Buck was convicted of murder, his own attorneys retained a now-discredited psychologist who testified that Mr. Buck is more likely to be a danger to society in the future because he is black. This testimony then went unchallenged at a later, crucial state court proceeding even though Buck was then represented by a new lawyer. The only new claim that lawyer raised at this proceeding was "based on a non-existent provision of the penal code." Now, nearly 2 decades after his conviction, no court has considered whether the racist testimony elicited at Buck's trial caused him to be sentenced to death. Moreover, thanks to errors committed by his previous lawyers and an array of laws and legal doctrines that often elevate the finality of convictions ahead of the need to ensure that innocents are not punished and that the death penalty is not doled out unnecessarily, it is far from clear that any court will examine the impact of this racist testimony before Mr. Buck is put to death. The specific legal issue in Buck v. Stephens is complex enough to make a lawyer's brain bleed. Specifically, Mr. Buck is seeking permission to seek a determination of whether "extraordinary circumstances" exist that would permit a lower court to determine whether the racist testimony elicited by his own counsel prejudiced the outcome of his sentencing proceeding. If he somehow succeeds in navigating this maze, he wins a new sentencing hearing - which could very well determine that he should be re-sentenced to death. It's a giant procedural mess. And it's a mess that Texas, at one point, appeared willing to set aside. In 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (now a U.S. Senator) determined that Dr. Walter Quijano, the psychologist who testified in Buck's case, had a record of appearing in capital sentencing proceedings and offering racist testimony. In Buck's case, Quijano testified that African-Americans and Hispanics are especially likely to be dangerous as they are "over represented in the Criminal Justice System." This is not simply a case of ineffective assistance of counsel, this is a case of ineffective assistance of counsel aggravated by even more ineffective assistance of counsel. Cornyn's office found 6 additional cases where Dr. Quijano offered similar testimony, and it announced that it "will not object" if the inmates sentenced to die in these cases "seek to overturn the death sentences based on Mr. Quijano's testimony." As Cornyn's office admitted in a brief filed in one of these cases "infusion of race as a factor for the jury to weigh in making its determination violated [a defendant's] constitutional right to be sentenced without regard to the color of his skin." Nevertheless, when Buck sought relief from his death sentence four years later in federal court, the state did not keep its promise. Texas now claims that Buck's case differs from the other 6 cases specifically because Dr. Quijano's racist conclusions were placed before the jury by Buck's own counsel. As Justice Samuel Alito argued in a 2011 opinion explaining why he did not believe that the Supreme Court should have heard a previous iteration of Buck's case, "only in Buck's case did defense counsel elicit the race-related testimony on direct examination. Thus, this is the only case in which it can be said that the responsibility for eliciting the offensive testimony lay squarely with the defense." That may very well be true, but it is an odd conclusion for a judge charged with interpreting a Constitution that not only forbids race discrimination in sentencing, but that also forbids sentencing someone to die without adequate assistance of counsel. Buck argues that he is the victim to 2 overlapping constitutional violations - he did not receive adequate assistance of counsel and, for that very reason, his own lawyer introduced unconstitutional evidence against him. Justice Alito, by contrast, appears to claim that the 1st of these 2 constitutional violations excuses the 2nd. In fairness, the real reason why Buck has previously been unable to assert his claim that he received ineffective legal assistance is a bit more complicated. For this is not simply a case of ineffective assistance of counsel, this is a case of ineffective assistance of counsel aggravated by even more ineffective assistance of counsel. In 1999, some time after Buck received a death sentence, a new lawyer was appointed to represent the inmate in state habeas proceedings - a round of proceedings Texas state law permits for individuals seeking to challenge a death sentence. That lawyer, according to the petition now pending before the Supreme Court, "had a history of deficient representation of death-sentenced prisoners," including one case where he "threw
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Sept. 2 TEXAS: Oklahoma Chases the Texas Political Homicide Record The question is not whether you will execute an innocent person in a state that executes criminals. Oklahoma and Texas are engaged in a competition right now, a sort of Red River Shootout off the football field, to address the real question. For context, remember that Texas has the 4th largest Indian population among the states in the 2010 Census. Oklahoma is number 2. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 16 Indians have been executed, a percentage of executions over twice the percentage of Indians in the general population. Of those, Oklahoma killed one and Texas killed 2, which would put Texas ahead if the competition were simply how many Indians do you kill. There are currently 31 Indians on death row. 12 are from California and the rest are distributed among Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, and there is 1 federal prisoner under sentence of death. There are no identified Indians currently on the Texas death row. Can an innocent man be convicted of capital murder in these United States? Since 1973, 155 people have been exonerated off of death row after an average stay of 11.3 years. Only 20 were exonerated by DNA, but to make the list, the defendant must have been (1) acquitted after a new trial or (2) had all charges dropped or (3) gotten an absolute pardon based on new evidence of innocence. No American Indians appear among the 155 exonerations, but since only 60 of the innocent death row residents were white, the dearth of Indians is a combination of luck and the fact that only 1 tribe has opted in to the federal death penalty. Texas Texas is gearing up for Mark Norwood's capital murder trial. If that name is too obscure, try Michael Morton, the man who got life in prison for the murder of his wife and served 25 years before DNA evidence that exonerated him pointed to Norwood, who has been convicted and is serving the sentence he put off on Michael Morton. 6 of those years were served during the legal battle to get the DNA testing. Besides the tragedy of an innocent man serving 25 years, another woman, Debra Baker, was killed with the same modus operandi, leading to speculation that Baker died because of a now-deceased sheriff and a district attorney named Ken Anderson too lazy to follow the evidence beyond the obvious suspect in a criminal homicide, the spouse. DA Anderson was later appointed a district judge by Governor (and presidential candidate) Rick Perry, but after the Morton exoneration Anderson lost his judgeship, his law license, and did 10 days in jail, reduced to 5 for good behavior. While this pales before the 25 years his victim served, the fact that Anderson's misconduct caught up with him and destroyed his career is an exceedingly rare and therefore welcome result. Anderson's protege John Bradley, the district attorney appointed by Perry to replace Anderson and who opposed the DNA testing that freed an innocent man for 6 years, was defeated in the next election. Besides keeping Michael Morton behind bars for an extra 6 years, John Bradley made history when Gov. Perry replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission with Bradley just 2 days before it was scheduled to review an expert report on Cameron Todd Willingham's case. Willingham was executed for homicide by arson after Perry refused to stay the execution on the ground that the 1st real expert investigation showed there was no arson. The expert Perry ignored would not be the last to opine on the Willingham evidence. Huffpost published the narrative that is the Willingham story: Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004. Yet the efforts to exonerate Willingham only intensified, and in 2005, the Texas Forensic Science Commission decided to re-examine the case. The commission hired a nationally known fire scientist, Craig Beyler, to evaluate the evidence, and in his report, he came down on the same side as the scientists who had evaluated the case prior to Willingham's execution: there was no credible scientific basis for the conclusion that arson had been committed. Beyler was eventually scheduled to testify before the commission on Oct. 2, 2009. 2 days before Beyler's appearance, however, Rick Perry put a stop to it. There was speculation at the time that Perry did not wish to grant a stay of Willingham???s execution because he was locked in a serious battle for reelection against former Senator Kay Baily Hutchinson. Perry???s appointee Bradley called off the review, but in spite of their best efforts, the Willingham case has come to represent a political execution of an innocent man, since the science did not go away when Bradley stopped the hearing. Governor Perry, to be fair, was elected in a state that has been rabid about killing killers. Former Gov. Ann Richards took a political bath when she gave a man on
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July 11 TEXASimpending execution Death Watch: Mental Illness Claims Fail; Death AwaitsAfter a 2005 murder, Clifton Williams is set to be executed East Texan Clifton Williams heads to the gurney next Thursday, July 16, after 9 years spent on death row for the murder of Cecelia Schneider. Williams, 31, was 21 years old at the time of Schneider's murder, July 9, 2005. Court records show that he broke into the 93-year-old's Tyler home, stabbed, strangled, and beat her, then laid her body on her bed and set her bed on fire. He left Schneider's house with her car and her purse, which contained $40. He argued at trial that his friend, Jamarist Paxton, forced him to break into the house with him, and coerced him into cutting his hand so as to leave his DNA on-scene. But police weren't able to find any evidence that would substantiate Williams' claims about accomplices, and Paxton denied involvement. In Oct. 2006, Williams was found guilty of capital murder (in addition to a number of other offenses) and sentenced to death. Williams' attorneys have argued in state and federal petitions for relief (as well as a petition for a Certificate of Appealability) that Williams suffers from a wide range of mental illnesses, including paranoid schizophrenia, with which he was diagnosed when he was 20. They have tried to argue that his mother suffered from mental illness, and that Williams had trouble functioning from an early age. They also claim Williams was the victim of incompetent counsel, as attorneys at trial failed both to establish Williams as the victim of mental illness and to mitigate his standing as a future danger to society. Most notably, his petitions for relief note, trial counsel erred by stating their intent to establish mental illness before Williams received a court-ordered psych exam, giving prosecutors the ability to refute counsel's claims without any established medical standing. Last September, attorneys Seth Kretzer and James Volberding presented Williams' case to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes that the Justices would hear Williams' mental illness claims. Specifically, records note, they wanted to prove that one ruling - ex parte Briseno, which lays out 3 basic conditions to determine competence - blocks Williams from arguing mental retardation on the basis of Atkins v. Virginia (which placed a categorical ban on executing the mentally ill, and was previously rejected by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals). The Supreme Court denied that petition in early April, however, without comment or explanation. Williams' attorneys do not plan to file any last-minute appeals. Williams will be the 10th Texan executed this year, and 528th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976. However, his execution coincides with emerging reports that indicate the number of Texans being sent to death row has now significantly decreased. In fact, jurors around the state have yet to sentence anyone to death in 2015. The last person to receive such a sentence was former Kaufman County attorney Eric Williams (no relation), who shot and killed Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on Jan. 31, 2013, before killing County D.A. Michael McLelland and his wife Cynthia 2 months later. He was sentenced to death last December. It's the 1st time in more than 20 years that the state has made it to July without issuing a new death sentence. (source: The Austin Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: New Jersey man charged with 7 murders in 'horrific' shooting spree A 22-year-old New Jersey man has been charged with 7 murders and 1 attempted murder in what authorities have called a horrific two-month-long shooting spree that kept police in pursuit but always left them one step behind until the end. They still don't have a motive. Todd West, from Elizabeth, N.J., allegedly fired his 1st bullet in May in his hometown and his last earlier this week some 80 miles away in Pennsylvania. This is an unprecedented, horrific event here in Union County, Union County (N.J.) prosecutor Grace Park said earlier this week at a news conference, according to U.S. News and World Report. This doesn't appear to be part of some gang warfare, retaliation or initiation. Prosecutors said that on May 18 West shot and killed his 1st victim, his cousin. A month later, he led police on a chase, killing 3 more, police said. In the early morning on June 25 in Elizabeth, authorities said West shot 28-year-old Dennis Vega. By the time police arrived at the scene, Vega lay dying from numerous gunshot wounds, according to the Associated Press. Late that night while investigators were still trying to piece together the details of Vega's death, authorities said, West allegedly struck again, fatally shooting 29-year-old Jamil Payne in the same town. West's cousin and Payne were the only 2 victims he knew, according to the New York Times. Police swarmed the scene. While
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Sept. 26 TEXAS: Judge admonishes media covering Williams jury selection The media was put on notice on Monday during the Eric Williams jury selection after at least 1 Dallas-area TV reporter was found to be tweeting during the morning's proceedings. Williams and his wife, Kim, have been charged with capital murder for the slayings of Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on Jan. 31, 2013, and Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, on March 30, 2013. After the morning questioning of 1 prospective juror in Auxiliary Court at the Rockwall County Courthouse, the court proceeding adjourned unto 1 p.m. When a member of the media returned for the beginning of the afternoon jury selection process, members of the prosecution and defense teams were at the judge's bench and the reporter was told by Judge Webb Baird of Paris - sitting in for visiting Judge Michael Snipes who is overseeing the Williams murder case - that it had been brought to his attention that some members of the media had been tweeting the morning's proceedings. Baird warned the media person present and said if anyone was caught tweeting, he or she would be removed from the court. Bailiffs were instructed to watch for any members of the media that may be tweeting during the proceedings. 3 prospective jurors were interviewed on Monday by members of the prosecution and defense teams, 2 men and 1 woman. The process to seat 12 people is slated to take weeks with the trial set to begin on Dec. 1. The trial itself may take between 2 and 3 weeks with the possibility of jurors being sequestered once deliberations begin. Dallas County Criminal Court No. 7 Judge Michael Snipes is overseeing the case but had to step aside on Monday to attend to cases on his docket back in Dallas. Snipes was appointed to hear the case in 2013 after 422nd District Court Judge B. Michael Chitty recused himself. Snipes was replaced by Baird of Paris who handled the rest of the day's proceedings. The prospective jurors were questioned about their views on the death penalty, as well as should a defendant be given life without parole, and whether they had seen news of the killings in the media. Philosophically, I believe in the death penalty, but I would not want to pull the switch, the 1st prospective juror said. When pressed further about pulling the switch by prosecutor Jerri Sims, he said it was a hard question to answer because of his Christian beliefs. Can you do it or not? Sims asked. He said he could. He also was asked about news of the killings in the media. I don't pay attention to local news, he said. I think [I heard about] a judge and his wife being killed in Kaufman County. I don't know their names. Sims also asked him about his thoughts on gun control. I think it is unconstitutional, he said. The Constitution is clear in my opinion. Sims asked him if he owned guns, and he said he had rifles, shotguns and handguns. Does that make me a gun nut? he asked. Maybe. He also said law enforcement is becoming too militarized, and that police have too much power. Williams defense attorney Matthew Seymour questioned the 1st prospective juror, first keying in on media coverage. Seymour, based on publicity surrounding the case - which was moved to Rockwall County from Kaufman County after Snipes granted a change of venue - asked the juror if he had formed an opinion. No sir, he said. Seymour then questioned him about the death penalty as the only form of punishment in a capital murder case. If [a defendant] committed a murder and continues to be a threat to the public ... I would have some questions, he said. I am not sure how you would judge that with certainty. I don't think the death penalty should be the only appropriate punishment. The prospective juror said Timothy McVeigh deserved the death penalty because of the women and children he murdered in Oklahoma in 1995. That rises to a different level, he said. He planned it and it took a long time. It seemed evil. It is hard to reconcile in my mind how he could do that. It is an intentional act of evil that consumed his mind. That appears to be different than a normal murder. Prosecutor Tom D'Amore and defense attorney Doug Parks questioned the 2nd prospective juror. That juror did not hesitate when questioned about the death penalty. He said he strongly believes in it as a form of punishment and has no problem with lethal injection as the method. The 2nd prospective juror also said he can be fair and listen to both sides of the case because he has the ability to listen to the facts. I could not say guilty if not proven beyond reasonable doubt, he said. The candidate said he had heard about the case through the media. Parks asked him whether he recognized anyone on the list of witnesses set to testify during the Williams murder trial. The prospective juror said he
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Aug. 19 TEXAS: Randy Ertman, father of slain teen, has died Randy Ertman, whose daughter and a friend were raped and killed by gang members, has died of lung cancer. The 61-year-old died Monday, said Andy Kahan, a Houston crime victims advocate. Ertman's daughter Jennifer, 14, and her friend, 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena, were attacked June 24, 1993, by gang members as they walked home along White Oak Bayou. The girls were Waltrip High School students. 6 gang members were charged in their deaths, which shocked the city. One of them, Peter Cantu, was tried in 1994. A major precedent was set at the end of his trial, when state District Judge Bill Harmon allowed Ertman to address the convicted murderer. Among his blistering comments, Ertman shouted at him, You're not even an animal. It shocked many onlookers and outraged a few. Harmon was criticized by fellow judges and newspaper editorials for allowing the display. In 2008, when convicted murderer Jose Medillin, a Mexican national, was facing execution, Ertman said he didn't care about international opposition. It's just a last-ditch effort to keep the scumbag breathing, Ertman said. He never should have been breathing in the first place. Another change that resulted from the Ertman-Pena case was the decision to allow victims' relatives to witness executions. After Cantu's trial, Ertman asked to witness his execution but was told it was not allowed. Over the years, he lobbied for the right, along with Pena's parents, Kahan and the group Justice for All. Eventually, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice voted to change the policy. (source: Houston Chronicle) * Texas Governor's REAL crimes For the 14 years that Rick Perry has been governor, he has committed crimes against the people of Texas with impunity. So it was almost laughable when he was indicted on Aug. 15 for 2 felony charges that most of the people in Texas have never heard of and are not impacted by. What a grand jury has never investigated are Perry's closure of almost every women's health clinic in the state, his refusal to use federal money to expand Medicaid and his brazen authorization of 276 death row executions. These are his serious crimes that directly affect the lives of millions, causing immeasurable pain, physical and psychological suffering and death. These crimes that Perry has committed against working-class people and particularly African Americans, Latinos/as and women of all nationalities in Texas are not on the Sunday news shows or any bourgeois national news programs. Last summer, an ethics complaint was filed against Perry saying he had improperly vetoed state funding for the Travis County [Austin's] District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit which focuses on government corruption and tax fraud. The charges in this case are abuse of official capacity, a 1st-degree felony, and coercion of a public servant, a 3rd-degree felony. If ever convicted, he could receive a maximum sentence of 109 years in state prison. Perry threatened the Austin DA with a veto of funding for her office if she refused to resign after being convicted of drunk driving. Legal experts say that Perry had the right to veto funding but not to publicly threaten the DA into resigning. The Travis County PIU was conducting a potentially damaging investigation into a medical research institute that has been one of Perry's favorite avenues for grants and jobs. Since Perry signed into law last year a bill that severely restricts a woman's right to abortion as well as other medical care dealing with women's reproductive health, Perry has used this reactionary feat to bolster his ratings among conservatives. He has stated that his goal is to make abortion, at any stage, a thing of the past. The last provisions of Texas' anti-choice legislation go into effect in September. If legal challenges fail, Texas may have only 6 clinics left where women can have an abortion. Over 12 million women living in 268,000 square miles in Texas and they will have 6 clinics! This is criminal. Perry has made clear that he will go to great lengths to protect an unborn fetus, but he cares little about the real children born in the state. 1 in 4 (6.2 million) Texans are uninsured, the highest rate of any state, yet Perry has refused to accept federal money to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion would cover more than one million new low-income Texans by 2017, according to the state Health and Human Services Commission. Perry refuses to expand Medicaid despite the federal government covering 100 % of the costs for the 1st 3 years and 90 % after that. But Perry has chosen his political aspirations over people???s lives. Mass murderer If anyone else ever authorized the killing of 276 people, they would be indicted for mass murder. Perry has presided over more executions than any governor in the history of the United States. Texas
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July 1 TEXAS: Death row inmate loses latest appeal The man who shot and killed 2 Henderson County deputies in 2007 has lost another appeal, pushing him closer to a scheduled spring 2015 date in the execution chamber. Henderson County District Attorney Scott McKee said he hopes the case now can move forward. We want a defendant to exhaust all of their appeals, and I think in this case everything has moved through the courts about the average speed for a death penalty case, he said. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused arguments last week from attorneys for 54-year-old Randall Wayne Mays, a former welder and oilfield worker who claimed he had deficient legal help at his 2008 trial. Mays was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the deaths of Tony Price Ogburn, 61, a 5-year veteran from Log Cabin, and Paul Steven Habelt, 63, a 13-year-veteran from Eustace, after they came to the aid of a fellow officer. Mays also shot and injured deputy Kevin Harris during the ordeal, which began as a domestic dispute between Mays and his wife. The court late Friday also turned down contentions that sentencing Mays to death was unconstitutionally cruel because he's mentally ill. The court's ruling stated a defendant can be both mentally ill and competent to stand trial. Citing testimony from Mays; trial in 2008, the court stated, The defense submitted mitigating evidence of Mays' violent and abusive childhood and a 'psychotic disorder not otherwise specified,' which was possibly linked to permanent brain damage from his chronic methamphetamine use. The judges also stated that Mays failed to show mental retardation under Texas law. They said Mays also failed to show the state court's decision to be contrary to, or involving an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. McKee said he will now seek an execution date. We are ready to move forward, and we will now ask the court to set the date. In speaking with the Texas Attorney General's Office, I believe the date might be sometime in the spring 2015, he said. Mckee said his office stays in contact with the families of the 2 deputies. Patricia Ogburn said she has asked God to forgive Mays, but it was difficult. I mean he killed my husband, so it is hard, the 65-year-old widow said. I just want this all to be over. This has been going on for 7 years. Mrs. Ogburn said she will continue to pray about the situation, but though she might forgive, she said she would never forget. (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) *** Houston-area man sent to death row for fatal shooting in $8 robbery loses federal appeal A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal from a Harris County man sentenced to die for fatally shooting a 36-year-old Houston-area man during an $8 robbery nearly 16 years ago. Attorneys for 34-year-old Juan Martin Garcia contend he had poor legal help during his trial in 2000 and that he's mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday rejected the arguments. Evidence showed 36-year-old Hugo Solano was shot three times in the head while he was in his van at his Harris County apartment complex. When Garcia was pulled over for a traffic stop 11 days after the slaying, a gun fell to his car's floorboard as he got out. It was matched to the weapon used in Solano's murder. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIAnew execution date Corbett signs death warrant for man who murdered Upper St. Clair woman Gov. Tom Corbett on Monday signed the execution warrant for a Washington County man who killed an Upper St. Clair grandmother more than a decade ago. An Allegheny County jury convicted Patrick Jason Stollar, now 36, of 1st-degree murder for beating and stabbing Jean Heck, 78, during a robbery in her home on June 4, 2003. Stollar is scheduled to die by lethal injection in the state prison in Greene County on Aug. 20. Prosecutors said Stollar drove to Heck's home, lured her outside and threw her on the ground, where he kicked her and stomped on her head. After rummaging through her house, Stollar stabbed Heck 8 times. Stollar, who represented himself in the guilt phase of his trial, claimed he was mentally ill at the time of the killing. Downtown lawyer James Depasquale, who represented Stollar during the penalty phase of his trial, could not be reached. Although Corbett and former Gov. Ed Rendell signed a combined total of more than 150 death warrants during their terms, the state has not executed an inmate since 1999, when Gary Heidnik of Philadelphia was put to death for kidnapping and torturing 6 women, 2 of whom he killed. State law requires the governor to sign execution warrants after certain stages of the appeals process. More than 200 people sit on Pennsylvania's death row, the 4th most of any state in the country. Pennsylvania reinstated the death
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Dec. 17 TEXAS: Baby's mother might testify -- Attorneys prep for Velez retrial A Cameron County assistant district attorney said Monday that officials know where to find the mother of a child killed in 2005 and intend to call her to the witness stand in September. ADA Ismael Hinojosa said in the 404th state District Court that he knows Acela Moreno, the mother of Angel Gabriel Moreno, is in Mexico and wants her to testify in the new trial of Manuel Velez, whose conviction and death sentence for killing the 1-year-old child in 2005 have been thrown out. Our goal is to get her to testify, Hinojosa said, during motion hearings. Acela Moreno testified against Velez during his 2008 trial. She was convicted in 2007 of injury to a child and sentenced to 10 years in prison after reaching a plea deal with the state. Acela Moreno was released and deported to Mexico after serving 5 years. She escaped capital murder charges in return for her testimony against Velez. Velez was convicted in 2008 of killing Angel Gabriel Moreno and sentenced to death. In the past 2 years, Velez's death sentence was first thrown out; his conviction later was thrown out and a new trial ordered. The death sentence was thrown out because of false testimony by a state witness during the sentencing phase. His conviction was set aside because of ineffective legal assistance during his 2008 trial. A new trial is scheduled for September. Velez is accused of capital murder and his is the only active death penalty case south of Corpus Christi, his lawyer Reynaldo G. Garza III said Monday morning. During motion hearings Monday, Velez's defense asked the judge to sign an order requiring the state to videotape any interviews of a 12-year-old potential witness, who was 4 and in the house when authorities responded to reports that Angel Gabriel Moreno wasn't breathing on Oct. 31, 2005. Garza also asked that the state be limited in the type of questioning used in any interviews, and require a member of Velez's defense to be present during any questioning. That request was denied by 404th state District Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez. I don't have the legal power to interfere with the defense or the state, she said. I can't tell them how to do their job. The denial of the motion came with an attempt to subpoena the Cameron County District Attorney???s Office for any notes or video recordings related to the now-12-year-old potential witness. It also was denied, but Cornejo-Lopez ordered Hinojosa to compile a list of all of the evidence it has in the case. Much of the evidence was already turned over to Velez's attorneys during habeas corpus proceedings in late 2012. The judge said she made that ruling because Velez faces a capital murder charge and a possible death sentence. Garza maintained that the District Attorney's Office has a videotape recorded by Child Protective Services of an interview with the then-4-year-old potential witness. Garza said the potential for suggestive questioning exists and that further suggestive questioning could mar what he called an already tainted memory of events that he said the child has. According to court testimony, the child told a CPS worker that Manny threw the baby. However, James Wood, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who researches the effects of suggestive questioning on young children, testified that when he reviewed the CPS notes and affidavits, it was clear a caseworker interviewed the child in unknown circumstances and that the statement might not have come from a taped interview. We don't know what she said that in response to or if other adults talked to her or if it's taken out of context with statements not put in the transcript, Wood said, adding that if the child were called to the stand and confirmed what she said when she was 4 years old, it couldn't be trusted because people ordinarily cannot accurately remember things from the time they were between infancy and 4 years of age. Furthermore, because of many years of an emotional situation within the family, Wood said it's likely that the minor has probably heard other things that might influence her testimony. The child's caregiver to far has denied access to both the state and the defense, testimony showed. As for the videotape Garza wants the District Attorney's Office to turn over, Hinojosa said the court record indicates it exists, but the prosecution hasn't yet found it among the many boxes of evidence it has from the case. Velez remains in jail on $500,000 bail he received last month. His family hasn't raised the $15,000 needed to secure his release on bond while the state and defense prepare for a new trial. (source: The Brownsville Herald) *** Deadly Statistics38, 55, 500 -- TCADP recounts the grim toll of capital punishment While Harris County retains its rank as the county that has sent the most
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., MISS., MO., CALIF., USA
Nov. 30 TEXAS: Conservatives vs. the death penalty Opposition to the death penalty is not just the province of the political left. This year has seen the emergence of a new national group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which has been assembling a network of like-minded activists since its debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March in National Harbor, Md. This month, the conservative group announced a partnership with a Ron Paul-inspired, campus-centered organization, the Young Americans for Liberty. The driving principles are capital punishment's incompatibility with the conservative ideals of restraining government, protecting life and maintaining fiscal responsibility. The political right has teamed up with the left to push smart on crime reforms in sentencing and incarceration, among other issues. From the standpoint of this newspaper and our opposition to the death penalty, that same political axis could be key to making further inroads as more states consider joining the 18 that have already abolished the practice. Texas, it is clear, is a stronghold of death-penalty support. A University of Texas-Texas Tribune poll this fall showed 74 % of Texans in favor - about 14 points above national support expressed to a similar death-penalty question in a Gallup Poll last month. The Texas poll showed that about 13 % of the registered voters who opposed the death penalty identified themselves as conservatives. One such Texan is criminal defense attorney Pat Monks of Houston, a Republican precinct chairman in Harris County. Monks said he once was a fervent supporter of capital punishment, a position that hardened after a friend was murdered. He said he would attend social justice seminars to press his point, once even heckling noted capital punishment opponent Sister Helen Prejean, who came to speak. Ultimately, Monks said, the futility of seeking justice through the death chamber hit home to him. The impossibility of eradicating human error from the system hit home to him. Monks said he came to see no deterrent value for a punishment that's imposed unevenly at an intolerable expense to the public. Monks asserts that a more suitable punishment is sending a killer to a 4-by-8 cell, 23 hours a day for the rest of his life. Monks joined the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; he says he's 1 of 3 conservative board members. This year, he was asked to help staff the booth that the Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty set up at the Maryland CPAC convention. It was a surprise, Monks said, to see how many conservative activists at the convention stopped by to discuss the death penalty. People would come up and say, 'Man, I'm with you on that.' That's not where most Texans are, not by a long shot. Most hold the same pro-death-penalty position Monks once held. We hope more will do the inquiry he did and have that same transformation. Supporters of new conservative group I believe that support for the death penalty is inconsistent with libertarianism and traditional conservatism. So I am pleased with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty's efforts to form a coalition of libertarians and conservatives to work to end capital punishment.--Ron Paul, former Texas member of Congress and Republican presidential candidate I'm opposed to the death penalty not because I think it's unconstitutional per se - although I think it's been applied in ways that are unconstitutional - but it really is a moral view, and that is that the taking of life is not the way to handle even the most significant of crimes. Who amongst anyone is not above redemption?--Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the religious-liberty advocates American Center for Law and Justice Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation, which we conservatives know are rife with injustice. But here the end result is the end of someone's life.--Richard Viguerie, direct-mail mogul and major funder of conservative causes [sources: Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty; Religion News Service; Sojourners] (source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News) Faith briefsDeath penalty vigil to be held Tuesday The People of Faith Against the Death Penalty will hold a public vigil Tuesday, Dec. 3, to pray during the execution of Jerry Martin by the State of Texas for the murder of Susan Canfield. If you have moral reservations about the use of the death penalty, join the vigil at the corner of University Avenue and 15th Street in front of St. John's United Methodist Church across from Texas Tech. (source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal) PENNSYLVANIA: Prosecutors seek death penalty for mother who gave birth in bar bathroom and stuffed baby in toilet. Amanda Hein of Allentown,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., MISS., ARK.
Nov. 22 TEXAS: In Texas, Prosecutors Add Twitter Insult to Capital PunishmentA few hours after the state once again turned its back on death row inmate Duane Buck, prosecutors accused his lawyers of unprofessional conduct. Twice, as we've recounted here at The Atlantic, Texas has deprived convicted murderer Duane Buck of his constitutional right to equal protection. The first time came in 1997 when a now-notorious expert unlawfully told jurors under prosecution questioning that Buck would be more dangerous in the future because he was black. Future danger was an aggravating factor Buck's jury had to consider in imposing the death penalty on him, which those jurors quickly did after that explosive testimony. The 2nd time the law failed Buck came in 2000, when each of the 5 other men whose capital trials were similarly tainted by that expert testimony were given new sentencing hearings. Even though Texas appropriately conceded that mistakes had been made in all of those original trials, Buck alone was blocked from getting that new sentencing trial because, Texas officials said, it was his witness who had introduced the improper testimony (even though prosecutors had elicited it). Inexplicably, Texas did not make this same assertion in the case of 2 other men who used this expert as a defense witness; they were each given new sentencing trials. For the past 13 years, over and over again in many different venues, Buck and his attorneys have tried to square that disparate treatment with constitutional commands - and with state and federal procedural hurdles designed to make it harder for defendants like Buck to get help. In 2011, Buck came within hours of execution when the United States Supreme Court halted the process (though the justices in Washington refused to review the substance of his case at that time). Buck then filed another appeal in Texas and on Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, by a vote of 6-3, ended that review. The 6 judges on the Texas court who voted against Buck, including the infamous Justice Sharon Keller, were unwilling to address his claims on the merits - and were unwilling even to put their names behind what they had done. Instead, in a brief, unsigned opinion void of any substantive analysis, they wrote: We dismiss the application as an abuse of the writ without considering the merits of the claims. Duane Buck ought to be executed regardless of whether there are inequalities in his case, these justices concluded, because Texas procedures bar his claims. The 3 justices who dissented, however, had a great deal to say about why Duane Buck deserves more from the Texas courts. In a lengthy and detailed analysis, they offered this to start: The record in this case reveals a chronicle of inadequate representation at every stage of the proceedings, the integrity of which is further called into question by the admission of racist and inflammatory testimony from an expert witness at the punishment phase. ... and went on from there. In the view of the dissenters, Duane Buck deserves a review of the substance of his claims regardless of any procedural deficiencies that may exist in his case. Such a review, they suggest, would likely result in his sentence being reduced to life in prison without parole because of the many mitigating factors present in his case. Once again, the justices in Washington will be asked to intercede on his behalf. Once again, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity, at least, to rectify a manifest injustice. But none of that is the necessarily galling stuff. By now, America is used to this brand of justice in Texas, where black capital defendants still are routinely treated in fashions that beggar belief. After all, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the court of last resort for all criminal matters in Texas, is populated by judges who campaign like politicians promising their constituents that they will aggressively endorse capital punishment. No, what is particularly galling here is that just a few hours after the court issued its ruling against Buck, just a few hours after the state again stamped its approval for this patently unconstitutional result, Texas prosecutors got into a silly Twitter spat with his lawyers, accusing them of unprofessional conduct: There has indeed been a great deal of unprofessional conduct in the Duane Buck case. It started with that now-discredited expert and, as the dissent says, terrible defense work at trial and on the initial appeal of Buck's conviction. It continued years later with a broken promise by Texas officials to Buck that, like the others similarly situated, he would get a new sentencing hearing void of unlawful racial undertones. And it continues to this day in the effort by state attorneys, and these six judges, to diminish the import of what happened to Buck by precluding even a review of his case on its merits.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA.
Oct. 9 TEXASexecution Texas executes Lubbock man who killed parents A Texas man was put to death Wednesday evening for killing his parents at their Lubbock home 15 years ago during a drug-influenced rampage that also left his 89-year-old grandmother dead. Michael Yowell, 43, told witnesses, including his daughters and his ex-wife, that he loved them. Punch the button, he told the warden. He took several deep breaths, then began snoring. Within about 30 seconds, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 19 minutes later at 7:11 p.m. CDT. Yowell tried to delay his execution, the 14th this year in the nation's most active death penalty state, by joining a lawsuit with 2 other condemned prisoners that challenged Texas prison officials' recent purchase of a new supply of pentobarbital for his scheduled lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal minutes before Yowell was taken to the Texas death chamber Wednesday evening. The prisoners argued use of the sedative could cause unconstitutional pain and suffering because the drug, replacing a similar inventory that expired at the end of September, was made by a compounding pharmacy not subjected to strict federal scrutiny. Texas, like other death penalty states, has turned to compounding pharmacies that custom-make drugs for customers after traditional suppliers declined to sell to prison agencies or bowed to pressure from execution opponents. The lawsuit sought an injunction to delay the execution and gain more time to ensure the integrity and legality of the drug and be certain its use was within constitutional protections. Attorneys for the inmates took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court after lower federal courts ruled that the drug appeared adequate and that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did nothing wrong in acquiring it. Our baseline contention is we, the public, have to be concerned about transparency and accountability by a state agency that's carrying out the gravest of all possible duties, Maurie Levin, one of the inmates' attorneys, said. Yowell's parents, John, 55, and Carol, 53, were found dead in the wreckage of their home following an explosion on Mother's Day weekend in 1998. Yowell's 89-year-old grandmother, Viola Davis, who was staying there, died days later of injuries suffered in the blast. Yowell already was on probation for burglary and drug convictions. He was arrested on federal firearms charges and charged with his parents' slayings after authorities determined his mother had been beaten and strangled and his father was shot. Prosecutors showed John Yowell was killed when he caught his son stealing his wallet. Yowell then attacked his mother, opened a gas valve and fled. The home blew up. At some point he's looking his mom in the face, beating her and wrapping a lamp cord around her neck, Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Powell, who prosecuted the case, recalled Tuesday. I think always there are some unanswered questions. You want to know how somebody is capable of doing that to their parents. Evidence showed Yowell had a $200-a-day drug habit he supported by stealing. Evidence also showed he burned some of his bloody clothes and hid a blood-stained jacket and the murder weapon in the crawl space of a friend's house. Defense attorneys unsuccessfully tried to show Yowell was insane. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review appeals that contended Yowell received shoddy legal help at his 1999 trial and in the early stages of his appeals. Yowell becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 506th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Yowell becomes the 267th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001. Yowell becomes the 30th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1350th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. There are 8 more scheduled executions in the USA during the remainder of the year, including 3 more later this month, 4 in November and 1 set for December. In 2012, the USA carried out a total of 43 executions. (sources: Associated Press Rick Halperin) Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-267 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present506 Perry #scheduled execution date-name-Tx. # 268Oct. 29Arthur Brown--508 269Nov. 12-Jamie McCoskey-509 270Dec. 3--Jerry Martin510 271Jan. 16Edgardo Cubas-511 272Jan. 22Edgar Tamayo---512 273---Feb. 5---Suzanne Basso---513 (sources for both: TDCJ Rick Halperin) PENNSYLVANIA: Jurors Spare Life of Philly-Area Musician's
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., ARK.
July 24 TEXASnew execution datefemale Execution Date Set For Texas Women's Death Row Inmate State District Judge Mary Lou Keel has set a Feb. 5, 2014 execution date for Suzanne Basso, 59, who's held on women's death row in Gatesville. Basso was convicted of capital murder in the death in 1998 of Louis Musso, 59, a mentally impaired man in Harris County who was beaten with belts, baseball bats and hands and kicked with steel-toed boots. He was also bathed in a solution of beach and pine cleaner and scrubbed with a wire brush. His body was unrecognizable after the attack, authorities said. Basso led the group of 6 attackers, records show. The motive for the murder was an insurance policy in which she was named the beneficiary. Evidence showed she had promised to marry Musso, convincing him to leave family and friends in New Jersey and moving to Texas. (source: KWTX news) ** Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-263 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present502 Perry #scheduled execution date-name-Tx. # 264-July 31---Douglas Feldman-503 265-Sept. 19--Robert Garza504 266-Sept. 26--Arturo Diaz505 267-Oct. 9-Michael Yowell-506 268Oct. 16Larry Hatten---507 268Nov. 12-Jamie McCoskey-508 269Jan. 15-Rigoberto Avila, Jr.509 270---Feb. 5---Suzanne Basso---510 (sources for both: TDCJ Rick Halperin) PENNSYLVANIA: Harve Johnson seeks stay of execution Scheduled for execution on Sept. 10, the man who killed 2-year-old Darisabel Baez filed for a stay Tuesday in York County Common Pleas Court. Harve Johnson, 32, was convicted of 1st-degree murder on Nov. 13, 2009 for the fatal April 2008 beating of his girlfriend's daughter. Gov. Tom Corbett signed his death warrant on July 18. This is Johnson's 1st death warrant and avenues of appeal remain open to him. This request for an emergency stay of execution also includes a motion for a post-conviction review of his trial and death sentence. The motion does not identify any alleged trial errors. According to court documents, Johnson does not at this time have an attorney but is requesting Michael Wiseman, a Philadelphia capital defense attorney, to represent him. Wiseman represented Johnson on his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence on April 26, 2012. Wiseman also signed the documents filed Tuesday in York County court. Much of the filing requesting the stay of execution and a post-conviction review is a boilerplate outline of a condemned inmate's constitutional rights. A Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearing focuses on the actions of the defense leading up to and during trial, and challenges whether the defense provided to the defendant was zealous and effective in its representation. A finding of ineffectiveness of counsel results in a new trial. In his concluding paragraph in the request for a stay, Wiseman states, This court should not allow Mr. Johnson to be executed without a meaningful opportunity to investigate and develop claims for relief, and for those claims to be fully and fairly heard. Johnson's week-long trial ended with 2 hours of deliberation before the jury found him guilty of 1st-degree murder. The timeline April 6, 2008 - York City Police officers rush to a second-floor apartment at 710 W. Philadelphia St. after county control sends out a dispatch for a 2-year-old in cardiac arrest. April 7, 2008 - Darisabel Baez, 2, dies at Hershey Medical Center from multiple blunt force trauma. Her mother's boyfriend, Harve Johnson, is arrested on murder charges and jailed without bail. Aug. 8, 2008 - The York County District Attorney's Office files an intent to seek the death penalty. Nov. 9, 2009 - Johnson is prosecuted for capital murder. Nov. 13, 2009 - A jury convicts Johnson of 1st-degree murder. Nov. 16, 2009 - The jury agrees on a sentence of death. April. 26, 2012 - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirms Johnson's conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. July 18, 2013 - Gov. Tom Corbett signs Johnson's 1st death warrant, scheduling execution for Sept. 10. July 23, 2013 - Johnson, through an attorney not yet appointed to represent him, files an emergency motion for a stay of execution and a post-conviction relief hearing. (source: York Daily Record) * Court denies killer's appeal in North Hanover triple slaying An admitted killer, who fatally shot three people in their North Hanover trailer in 2002, lost his latest bid to have his conviction and life sentences overturned. In a decision released
