death penalty news----TEXAS

June 30

TEXAS:

Chaplain's past job propels new ministry

The transformation of Carroll Pickett has been literal in at least one
respect.

After the bulk of the filming was done for the recently debuted
documentary "At the Death House Door," to which Pickett's apostasy on the
death penalty is central, the 74-year-old former Huntsville chaplain
underwent some long-delayed surgery.

His right arm blasted by tennis and the years, doctors inserted into it a
titanium rod and ball. These add-ons, along with the wire used to stitch
him up after a previous triple-bypass surgery, tend to set off airport
metal detectors.

That wouldn't typically be a problem except that the Presbyterian minister
who stood beside 95 condemned Texas prisoners as they were executed
between 1982 and 1995 is at the airport a lot nowadays, riding a circuit
of celebrity in the movement to end the death penalty.

"Bud" Pickett began speaking against it in his soft South Texas twang soon
after his retirement, becoming pariah to some in the prison town of
Huntsville. Pickett throughout his career has undergone little bursts of
celebrity, appearing on "Nightline" and frequently interviewed. The
minister discussed his conversion in a 2002 memoir that subsequently went
into paperback.

But it is the documentary, which premiered to two standing ovations in
March at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin and on the IFC
cable network last month, that has propelled him into an entirely new
orbit.

Pickett shies away from talk about this blooming profile and curls his
lips at any suggestion that he's an "activist."

"That's just not me," he said on a recent day in a well-appointed office,
falconlike features framed by a head of white hair. "I'm not the kind of
guy that goes around carrying signs."

He may demur, but other death penalty abolitionists say there's no denying
the power of Pickett's message or the hopes they ascribe to him and his
ability to change hardened attitudes toward capital punishment and not
just among liberal lawmakers but here, in Texas, where the death penalty
is at its most prolific.

"He's the central casting character that you'd want to be carrying this
message," said David Dow, a University of Houston law professor and friend
of Pickett who frequently represents death row clients.

"The most important objective that death penalty opponents have to achieve
is to persuade death penalty supporters that the people that are being
executed in the United States are not really animals," Dow said. "I don't
think there's anybody who's better positioned to do that than Carroll
Pickett."

David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
admitted to being a little surprised at the attention accruing to the
Presbyterian minister he sought out at a speech more than a decade ago.

"The unique thing about Carroll Pickett is that he was part of the
system," Atwood said. "And I've always personally felt that people within
the system will be one of the most effective voices in stopping the death
penalty."

Execution chaplain

Son of a stern school superintendent, Pickett had typical ministries and a
thriving congregation in Huntsville at the time of the 1974 prison riot
and standoff that resulted in the death of 2 friends and members of his
church.

Another member of his congregation, W.J. Estelle, the prison director,
earlier had requested Pickett's help in ministering to family members of
the hostages. He vowed never to return to the Walls Unit, but assented in
1980, when Estelle asked Pickett to join the roster of chaplains.

In 1982, when Texas resumed executions, Pickett was thrust onto the
execution detail and thus was present for the state's first lethal
injection, of Charlie Brooks Jr. 94 times after that he presided,
including in the execution of Ignacio Cuevas, one of the men involved in
the 1974 standoff killings.

That execution, in 1991, placed Pickett's feelings for revenge against his
already-altering opinion that executions were wrong.

By this point, he said, he had arrived at one of his chief conclusions,
that the death penalty creates victims in almost the same way that the
executed victimized an innocent, radiating outward to fatherless sons or
wardens and guards diminished by the trauma of watching someone die.

Leaning back in his chair on a recent day, he spoke of his own
grandfather's murder that stemmed from a Lampasas pool hall fight. Pickett
didn't find out about it until he was a seminarian in his early 20s, a
private shame and burden borne by the family.

"(Execution) hurts people in so many ways," he said, scratching his
eyebrow.

Bill Turner, a longtime Brazos County district attorney and president of
the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, acknowledged a role
that DNA evidence and high-publicity wrongful convictions have had in
changing attitudes toward capital punishment.

"With DNA exonerating some people in the penitentiary system, I believe it
has caused some in the public to recognize that we are not an infallible
system," said Turner, who said he was speaking for himself and not his
association.

Turner said he would apply the death penalty as long as it was in the law
books and said that its practice was becoming more, not less, free from
error as a result of the technological advances. He said he still believed
in a role for the death penalty as a way not merely of making the
community safer, but also of making prisons safe for other prisoners.

A film campaign

A peek at Pickett's At-A-Glance day planner, painted over with
appointments in scrawls normally seen on prescription slips, provides
testimony to the way his and his wife's lives are changing.

"This is one of the fun things," he said, reaching to make a new entry
after agreeing to perform the wedding of a former tennis partner, fitting
it amid his public schedule.

Reared outside Victoria, Pickett is the father of four and remarried. His
wife of 18 years, Jane, a former physical education instructor and
jump-roping enthusiast, shuffled in, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned in
orange with the logo of Kartemquin Films, the Chicago nonprofit that
produced the documentary for IFC.

In the past months, the couple has logged thousands of airplane miles,
with trips to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and
Washington, jetted to and fro for a massive IFC marketing campaign for the
film.

Lauren Burack, a vice president at IFC, said that as the power of
Pickett's story and presence became apparent, the company decided to jump
in to back it with both feet, making it the biggest documentary promotion
in the history of the Cablevisions Systems-owned network.

The campaign included sending out free kits with the movie to dozens of
religious, school and advocacy groups, which then held viewings, from an
Alaskan anti-death penalty group to the Brooklyn Law School, from a
Congregationalist church in Oklahoma City to an American Civil Liberties
Union meeting in Pittsburgh.

The response has been stark, said Dow, the lawyer, who attended a Houston
screening.

"It was in a packed auditorium. I don't think there was a single person in
the room of a couple of hundred who was not powerfully affected," he said.

The film started out in 2005 with the thought of chronicling the work of 2
Chicago Tribune reporters who were reporting on the case of Carlos DeLuna,
executed in 1989 for the 1983 murder of a Corpus Christi gas station
clerk.

The co-directors, Steve James and Peter Gilbert, were then led to Pickett,
who was at DeLuna's side at the execution and who remains insistent that
he was innocent of the crime.

They ended up with about 250 hours of footage with Pickett in a process
that led to further transformation for Pickett, only part of which spilled
out into the finished product.

"You think about that job description. That's a pretty tough one. We were
amazed that someone would have the capability to sustain himself through
that and come out a whole person," Gilbert said.

Some of Pickett's rawest moments in the film come in audiotapes he kept
secret for years that he made of himself immediately after the executions.
The recordings describe the prisoners' last moments and Pickett's own
reflections.

His wife calls the tapes "his tears," a purging of the difficult hours he
had just spent.

In one of them, Pickett recalled the last moments of DeLuna, who asked if
he could call Pickett daddy. When the initial flow of chemicals failed to
render DeLuna unconscious, the prisoner looked up at Pickett with big
brown eyes, and Pickett, in the tape, wonders if it was a look of
reproach.

In another, after Cuevas was executed, Pickett spoke of his urge to punch
Cuevas in the face.

"This was a guy who struggled with this issue for his entire life and
that's why I think he connects to people," Gilbert said.

A new ministry

And so now Pickett has arrived at what he said is his new ministry, to
unburden himself of what he saw over those years and why he thought it was
wrong.

"I'll go anywhere and speak to anyone," Pickett said.

On this recent day, Pickett was readying for a trip to Washington to speak
to a membership conference of the ACLU, where Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia also was scheduled to appear.

Scalia, in his written opinions, has used strident language to support the
constitutionality of capital punishment, including in a recent opinion
that ended a de facto 9-month national moratorium on the practice.

Pickett shook his head at the justice and put Scalia in the class of
detached politicians and jurists whom he'd like to wheel to the death
house and put beside the gurney, as he had been, with their hand on the
leg of the prisoner, feeling the pulse slow and slip away.

Not many of the officials who speak so loudly for the death penalty ever
came to witness an execution, Pickett said.

"We had 2 attorneys general come by," he said, then assumed a bemused
grin. "Neither of 'em came back."

Pickett acknowledges that it is not Supreme Court justices or attorneys
general who need convincing, and neither is it the type of folks who will
listen to him interviewed on NPR or read his views in the New York Times
or watch his chronicle of doubt on IFC.

Pickett is sensitive to questions about his preaching to the choir. He
rattles off a litany of venues big and small where he's spoken in Texas as
well, from small Lions Club meetings and Methodist church gatherings to a
class at the University of the Incarnate Word.

An execution was scheduled in a few days and he acknowledged that these
would continue apace.

"I can just keep doing what I'm doing," he said, thumbing a paperback copy
of his memoir.

Will the words in his hands and the ones he speaks and are broadcast in
the movie have any effect?

"I live in hope," he said. "We all live in hope."

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

*********************

Save Jeff Wood Peter Rothberg

Many of you were among the more than 17,000 outraged citizens who
successfully petitioned Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles last year demanding the commutation of the death
sentence for Kenneth Foster.

Foster was convicted under Texas' notorious Law of Parties, under which
the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is
abolished. The law can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a
crime where a murder occurred whether a person had anything to do with the
murder or not. (Texas is the only state that applies this statute in
capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a
person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death
penalty.)

Now, Jeff Wood faces similar straits on Texas death row with an execution
date of August 21. Having no prior criminal record, Wood was convicted and
sentenced to die for killing a convenience store clerk during a January
1996 robbery in Kerrville, TX under the "Law of Parties." Wood was not the
shooter in this case and he can reasonably claim that he had no idea that
a murder would occur during what he says was meant to be a gas station
robbery. The actual shooter in this case -- Daniel Earl Reneau -- was
executed by the state of Texas more than 6 years ago.

Here are the facts:

At approximately 6:00 am on January 2, 1996, while Wood waited outside in
a car, Daniel Earl Reneau entered the gas station with a gun and pointed
it at Kris Keeran, the clerk standing behind the counter. At some point
for some reason Reneau fired 1 shot with a 22 caliber handgun that struck
Keeran between the eyes. Death was almost instantaneous. Continuing with
the robbery, Reneau went into the back office and took a safe. When
hearing the shot, Wood got out of the car to see what happened. Reneau
then ordered Wood, at gun point, to get the surveillance video and to
drive the getaway-car. Both men were arrested separately within 24 hours
and gave confessions to the police. Wood, however, was forced into
interrogation by the police with no attorney present and says he was kept
awake the entire time and eventually broke down saying it was a planned
robbery. He later revoked this statement.

Ask Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Wood's
sentence and sign an online petition to stop the execution. I happen to be
opposed to capital punishment in all instances but from any humane
perspective state-sponsored killing of people we know did not commit
murder should be way beyond the pale.

(source: Peter Rothberg, The Nation)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 29

TEXAS----impending execution

Days from execution, inmate pins hopes on woman's story

Lester Bower, at the Polunsky Unit in East Texas, has been on death row
since 1984. He acknowledges meeting 2 of the victims on the day they died
but has denied involvement in their slayings.

Witness says condemned man isn't responsible for 1983 slayings

Since 1984, Lester Leroy Bower Jr. has sat on Texas death row, convicted
for the 1983 massacre of 4 men in a Sherman airplane hangar.

The Arlington man now faces execution on July 22, and as time runs out,
his lawyers are fighting to save his life by trying to prove he was not
the killer after all.

One key witness, a woman who came forward years ago, says it was her
then-boyfriend and 3 other drug dealers who were responsible for the
slayings.

Though a prosecutor says she is certain that the right man has been
convicted, Bowers lawyers say their investigation has verified key details
of the woman's story.

But for Bower, will it be too late?

****************

Witness says condemned man isn't responsible for 1983 slayings

Just a few paragraphs into the Star-Telegram story, the woman knew
something was terribly wrong. A man named Lester Leroy Bower Jr. was on
death row for the 1983 massacre of four men in a Sherman airplane hangar,
she read that morning in 1989. But the woman, who asked to be identified
by the pseudonym "Pearl," had reason to believe that Bower wasn't the
killer at all that it was her ex-boyfriend and three others who had
committed the crime.

The woman showed the story to her sister, the one person she had told of
her suspicions about the old boyfriend.

"Theyre going to put that guy to death for that," she remembers her sister
saying.

"Yeah, I know," Pearl replied.

"But he didn't do it?"

"No," Pearl said.

"You've got to do something," the sister said.

After a day of struggling with fears for her own life, Pearl did. The next
day, she contacted Bower's lawyers from Washington, D.C., told them her
story and signed a legal affidavit attesting to it.

Now, 19 years later, information she related is at the heart of an
increasingly urgent effort to save Bower's life. On July 22, after 24
years on Texas death row, Bower is scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Bower's lawyers say they have identified the 4 men whom Pearl alleges to
be the killers, have documented their long criminal records and have
confirmed other key parts of her story. In recent months, a defense
investigator has also located another witness, the wife of one of alleged
accomplices who said she heard the 4 men discussing the killings. The
names of the new suspects, though known to defense lawyers, have remained
sealed by court order.

"I don't want Mr. Bower to die for something that he didn't do," said
Pearl, who broke up with her boyfriend shortly after the slayings and
remains fearful of him today. Since she signed the affidavit in 1989, her
identity has been concealed by court order. "I know in my heart that he
didn't do it. I just could not in my conscience sit back and just go, 'Oh
well, sorry.'

(source for both: Fort Worth Stgar-Telegram)

**********************

Garland murders

No remorse here either

Re: "Suspects say killings netted them 'just $2' In interview, they say
they were out to rob someone, targeted music producers," Tuesday Metro.

James Broadnax claims he was in a bind and needed money. Too bad he
couldn't do what any other self-respecting and law-abiding citizen does
get a job.

And when asked if he was remorseful, he had the audacity to respond with
"Do I look like I got remorse?"

Here's hoping you and your cousin get the death penalty. I'm sure the
executioner won't have any remorse, either.

Steven Rhodes, Garland

****

A message to parents

After reading the commentary by the 2 individuals who are murder suspects
in the killing of two Garland men, I am truly disgusted with them.

I hope that this sends a clear message to parents in regard to
responsibility for their childrens' actions.

I would very much like to hear from the parents of these youths and see
where it went wrong for all involved.

I see this trend continuing, though, with all the freedoms that teenagers
are allowed these days. It is a sad world we live in when we allow our
children to become animals.

Oscar Galicia, Mesquite

**

In cold blood

Pure disgust and outrage are the emotions I felt reading the jailhouse
interviews of the 2 who admitted the Garland murders. What kind of
backgrounds produced these 2 animals?

The death penalty was designed for jerks like these. If it's administered,
society will be better off. For any who bemoan capital punishment, I say
this crime was random and in cold blood.

The victims could have been members of anyone's family.

L.W. Campbell, Red Oak

**

They deserve death penalty

As I sat horrified watching the heartless comments of James Broadnax, I
wondered how many will jump to their defense. These 2 deserve the death
penalty. Their total disregard for human life is appalling.

David Fox, Richardson

(source: Letters to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 26

TEXAS:

DEATH PENALTY RULING'S IMPACT ON TEXAS----Most aspects of Jessica's Law
are untouched

Although they will not face execution, criminals who sexually assault
Texas children will serve longer sentences without the possibility of
parole under provisions of Jessica's Law not affected by Wednesday's U.S.
Supreme Court ruling.

No one in Texas has been sentenced to death under the provisions of the
law, which went into effect last September.

The death penalty provision reserved for a narrow category of repeat
child sex offenders received the most attention last year when state
lawmakers debated the high-profile bill.

But the bill also made other significant changes, including mandatory
minimum sentences and a new offense continuous sexual abuse designed to
let prosecutors present cases involving a series of victims in one trial.

"A lot of other things that are going to be used much more frequently are
untouched by this decision," said Shannon Edmonds, governmental affairs
director for the Texas District & County Attorneys Association.

A clause in the law provides that the rest of it will stand if the death
penalty portion was found unconstitutional.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst made Jessica's Law a centerpiece of his
legislative agenda. The law is named for Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old
Florida girl who was kidnapped and slain in 2005 by a convicted sex
offender living near her home.

During the 2007 legislative session, the death penalty provision faced
opposition from an unexpected group victims advocates who feared the bill
would result in fewer convictions.

The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault said in a statement on its
Web site Wednesday that it supports the Supreme Court's decision, handed
down in a Louisiana case involving a similar law.

"The issue of child sexual abuse is complex. Most child sexual abuse
victims are abused by a family member or close family friend. The reality
is that child victims and their families don't want to be responsible for
sending a grandparent, cousin or longtime family friend to death row," the
statement said.

The Texas law tailored its toughest provisions for a specific type of
offender, someone who raped a child under 6 or who used violence (such as
a weapon or drug) to rape a child under 14.

A 1st conviction under those circumstances would carry a minimum mandatory
sentence of 25 years.

A person who served a sentence, was released and offended again would have
been eligible for the death penalty. With the Supreme Court's ruling, a
repeat offender automatically would be sentenced to life without parole.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

*********************

Court sets 6th execution date for death row inmate

After a lengthy appeals process indirectly prevented the execution of
Charles Dean Hood last week, the 296th District Court in Collin County has
issued Hood his 6th execution date.

The order, which set 38-year-old Hoods execution date for Sept. 10, was
signed yesterday by presiding Judge John Nelms.

Hoods execution, originally scheduled for June 17, was postponed after the
Supreme Court rejected three appeals shortly after 11 p.m. that night.

With midnight approaching, Texas Department of Criminal Justice
administrators were weary of fitting the full lethal injection protocol
into the remaining time window, and decided instead to allow Hoods death
warrant to lapse.

"There were appeals filed throughout the evening, and ultimately, the
Supreme Court rejected 3 appeals shortly after 11 p.m.," said Michelle
Lyons, TDCJ public information officer. "After the Attorney General's
office let us know that no appeals were pending and the execution may
proceed, it was about 11:30 p.m. At that point, our concern was that we
would not be able to follow the execution protocol in the amount of time
that was left.

"We're certainly not going to jeopardize our protocol, so we allowed the
execution warrant to expire."

In Texas, Lyons said, executions can begin any time after 6 p.m. but must
be carried out by midnight because issued death warrants expire at that
time.

"I do not recall any scenario like this one ever taking place this is the
first time Im aware of that, in the end, appeals were exhausted but we
were left with insufficient time to carry out our protocol," she said.

The appeals which stood before the Supreme Court until late that night
were not the only complication which arose that day.

"Initially, prison officials received notification at about 5 p.m. that
[State District Judge Curt Henderson] had withdrawn the execution date,
and 10 minutes later we were notified by the Attorney Generals office that
prosecutors in Collin County intended to file appeals to overturn the
motion to withdraw," Lyons said. "Hood had been loaded into a vehicle to
return to death row in Livingston, but he did not make it past the back
gate of the Walls Unit.

"He was, however, transported back to the unit after his death warrant had
expired at midnight."

Once the June 17 warrant expired, Lyons said the case was returned to the
Collin County District Court where the judge would again have to order the
setting of an execution date.

The order issued Wednesday fulfilled that requirement and set Hood's 6th
execution date.

"Because this will not be his 1st date it's actually his 6th the court
has to give him at least 30 days notice prior to the execution," Lyons
said. "If it were his 1st date, for example, he would have to be given 90
days notice, instead."

Hood was convicted of capital murder in 1989 for the deaths of Ronald
Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's home near Dallas.

(source: Huntsville Item)

*****************************************

Judge sets execution date for Charles Hood

Presiding Judge John Nelms signed a death warrant today that set the
execution date for Charles Hood. Hood is scheduled to be executed
Wednesday, September 10, 2008. He was convicted of killing a Plano couple
in 1989.

According to court documents, Hood's conviction is now final because the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals convicted him, issued a mandate and the
United States Supreme Court denied Hood application for writ of
certiorari. Further, the court denied his request for additional
post-conviction forensic DNA testing and habeas corpus relief.

Yesterday, Texas Defender Services filed a motion to refrain from setting
an execution date, which was denied.

Hood will be kept in custody by the Director of the Institutional Division
of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Hunstville, Texas, until
his execution date.

(source: Plano Star)

*************************

see: http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/rules/miscruleexecution.pdf

**************************************

Teenage murder suspect to be tried as an adult

A judge ruled Wednesday that teenager Erin Caffey will be tried as an
adult in a family slaying in which her mother and 2 younger brothers were
killed earlier this year, Rains County officials said.

Caffey, who was 16 at the time of the deaths, was being held Thursday
morning in the Hopkins County Jail on 3 counts of capital murder, a jailer
who declined to give her name said.

No other details were immediately available on the court hearing. A
spokesman at the Rains County Jail said Caffey's bond was set at $1.5
million, Tyler television station KLTV reported.

Officials said Penny Caffey, 37; Tyler Caffey, 8; and Mathew Caffey 13,
were shot and stabbed multiple times on March 1 in a tiny East Texas town.
The lone survivor was Terry Caffey, the father. He was shot 5 times -
including twice in the back - before he dragged his bloodied body through
the woods in search of help.

Officials said Charlie Wilkinson, 19, Charles Allen Waid, 20, and Bobbi
Gale Johnson, 18, are each charged with 3 counts of capital murder in the
pre-dawn massacre at the Caffeys' secluded home. They are awaiting trial.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Wilkinson and Waid,
officials said.

The Rains County jail spokesman said he did not have the name of the
teenager's attorney.

The Caffeys' home is just outside Emory in Alba, about 60 miles northeast
of Dallas.

(source: Associated Press)

**************************************

Supreme Court tosses out death penalty for child rapists

When Texas' leading politicians called loudly for the death penalty for
repeat child rapists last year, they knew there was a good chance the U.S.
Supreme Court might find the provision unconstitutional. Legal experts
told them so repeatedly.

And on Wednesday the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in a Louisiana case,
did just that, ruling that "the death penalty is not a proportional
punishment for the rape of a child."

The decision didn't surprise many, said Shannon Edmonds, staff attorney
for government relations with the Texas District and County Attorneys
Association.

"A lot of legal experts had seen the writing on the wall from the Supreme
Court," he said. "Whether those people, on both sides, agree with what the
Supreme Court was going to do or not, didn't mean they didn't see it
coming."

The decision does not entirely overturn Jessica's Law in Texas, the
statute named after Jessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who was abducted and
killed in 2005. The ruling invalidates the Texas death provision, but
legislators created a fallback position in the statute: Life without
parole would apply if capital punishment for child rape was outlawed.

While the court ruling effectively ends the use of the death penalty for
child rape, the court left open its use for crimes such as "treason,
espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses
against the state," the ruling states. "As it relates to crimes against
individuals, though, the death penalty should not be expanded to instances
where the victim's life was not taken."

Mr. Edmonds said as far as he knows, no Texas prosecutor has sought the
death penalty for sexual assault of a child.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, one of several politicians who pushed for
Jessica's Law and became one of its most ardent supporters, said in a
prepared statement that he was disappointed by the decision. "The death
penalty is an appropriate form of punishment for repeat child molesters,"
he said.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott also was vocal in his support of the
law on the campaign trail. His office argued in support of the Louisiana
case before the Supreme Court in April.

The attorney general's spokesman, Jerry Strickland, said the decision
"marks a setback for Texas' efforts to punish repeat child rapists."

"Texas will continue to seek the toughest penalties for the most barbaric
child predators," he said.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, the Houston Democrat who was the Senate's lone
"no" vote against the death penalty for child sex offenders, said he's
pleased with the Supreme Court ruling.

"At some point we have to decide where to draw the line on something being
politically right but morally wrong," he said.

Politicians seeking to polish their tough-on-crime credentials may have
been disappointed by the decision, but some victims' rights advocates were
pleased.

"We join sexual assault coalitions across the country in applauding the
Supreme Court's step toward ensuring that prosecutions of child sexual
assault across our nation remain victim-centered and child-friendly in
their approach," said a prepared statement released by the Texas
Association Against Sexual Assault.

Some organizations had warned legislators the law could result in victims
being unwilling to prosecute or perpetrators less likely to leave their
victims alive.

"Most child sexual abuse victims are abused by a family member or close
family friend," the statement from the Texas association said. "The
reality is that child victims and their families don't want to be
responsible for sending a grandparent, cousin or long time family friend
to death row."

No one has been executed for rape in the United States since 1964,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In 1977, the Supreme
Court outlawed death for cases involving rape of an adult victim.

But in 1995, as public concern over sex offenders rose, Louisiana enacted
a law calling for death for child rapists. Initially, the Louisiana law
pertained to victims younger than 12 and first-time offenders. The law was
later amended to include victims younger than 13.

A handful of other states Montana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas
followed suit with similar laws. But those states limited the penalty to
repeat offenders. The Texas law applied to cases with victims younger than
14.

Louisiana is the only state to attempt to use the penalty since enacting
it. Two inmates are on death row at Angola for rape of a child.

The defendant in the case before the Supreme Court, Patrick Kennedy, was
condemned in 2004 for a sexual assault on his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, a victims' advocacy group,
thinks the death penalty is appropriate for such a heinous crime, but
isn't surprised by the court's decision.

"You can certainly say the Supreme Court once again has opted to favor
criminals," she said, but added that the decision is not a huge setback
for death penalty supporters.

"We don't want to execute for rape of a child," she said, summing up the
decision. "But really, if you read between the lines, [it] said we support
the death penalty for capital murder."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

**********************

Court rejects appeal for death row inmate who killed 2 in Richardson in
1992

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal Wednesday from a
death row inmate condemned for a robbery 15 years ago at a Richardson
sporting goods store where two employees were fatally bludgeoned with a
hammer and nearly decapitated.

The U.S. Supreme Court in February had returned the case of condemned
prisoner Joseph Lave, 43, to the state's highest criminal court for
additional review after his lawyers argued that his trial attorneys
weren't able to cross-examine a co-defendant and challenge damaging
statements the co-defendant made. The co-defendant, Timothy Bates, refused
to testify for Mr. Lave, and a police officer from the witness stand told
jurors at Mr. Lave's trial of his interview with Mr. Bates.

Mr. Lave's attorneys argued new procedures under a Supreme Court ruling
issued after Mr. Lave's conviction wouldn't allow such testimony now and
should be made retroactive. The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the
high court decision the appeal was based on does not require
retroactivity.

The 2 slaying victims, Justin Marquart and Frederick Banzhaf, both 18,
along with the store's assistant manager, Angie King, were surprised by 3
intruders who got into the store in Richardson just after it had closed
the night before Thanksgiving 1992. Mr. Marquart and Mr. Banzhaf were
killed, but Ms. King, then 22, survived.

(source: Associated Press)

*********************

San Angelo Concert Sparks Conversation on Death Penalty

At a concert inside the First United Methodist Church of San Angelo
Wednesday night, Singer-Songwriter Sara Hickman held her guitar onstage,
swaying, and singing a song called We are Each others Angels. The audience
gladly sang along, giving the impression of a Christian worship service or
youth rally.

But these concerts are bringing more than fellowship and music across the
State of Texas in their 12-month tour. They are bringing dialogue.

The Music for Life Concert Tour plans to visit 12 Texas cities in 12
months, with the goal of encouraging and facilitating dialogue on the
death penalty. It is sponsored by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty and was co-hosted by the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo Criminal
Justice Ministry. So far, they have visited Austin, Huntsville, San
Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston, Beaumont El Paso and Denton.

The concert, besides performances by Sara Hickman and Grammy nominated San
Angelo local artist Cindy Jordan, featured talks by Fr. Mark Miller
C.PP.S. of Odessa and Lupe and Emma Fabela. The Fabela family, also of
Odessa, spoke of their opposition to the death penalty, especially after
the killing of their teenage son 11 years ago.

Deacon Bob Leibrecht, of St. Stepens Church in Midland, is the San Angelo
Diocese Director for Criminal Justice Ministry. Leibrecht said he
ministers to all those who are incarcerated, and he feels that discussion
on the death penalty is particularly important in a Christian and
community setting.

"Only He gives life," Leibrecht said. "Only He takes life."

He said that the death penalty not only takes away the opportunity for
someone to make amends for what they had done but violated the true
meaning of Christian justice, which is to restore.

St. Ann's Church of Midland Director of Religious Education Carol Ann Hunt
also thought that the concert and discussion were an encouraging
experience.

"It's nice to know that there are other people in the San Angelo area that
feel the same way, she said.

(source: Midland Reporter-Telegram)

********************

Inmate found hanged in jail

A man facing 2 counts of murder for the shooting deaths of a boy and his
uncle was found Tuesday hanging dead in his cell at Potter County jail.

During a prisoner check, officers discovered Marcos Portillo, 21, hanging
from a light fixture in his cell around 10:40 p.m. Attempts to resuscitate
him failed, Amarillo police reported.

Portillo faced two murder charges in connection with the March 6 shooting
deaths of Severo Rodriguez, 11, and his uncle, Jesus Rubio, 44, in an
upstairs apartment at 308 N. Lincoln St. in Amarillo. Ricardo Rodriguez,
15, recovered from a gunshot wound to the lower leg.

Portillo made strips from a blanket he had been issued and fashioned a
rope from which he was found hanging, police said.

Amarillo police Lt. Gary Trupe of the Potter-Randall Special Crimes Unit
said Portillo's death remained under investigation Wednesday, but it
appears to be a suicide.

"I don't see anything that indicates anything but a hanging occurred,"
Trupe said. "I lean toward suicide, but I'm going to wait for the
pathologist to confirm that."

Potter County Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones ordered an
autopsy for Wednesday in Lubbock.

Trupe said he did not know if Portillo left a suicide note, but
investigators were combing through personal items found in his cell.

"He had a lot of papers in there," Trupe said. "We haven't had a chance to
go through them."

Acting Potter County Sheriff Ron Boyter said Portillo did not show any
signs that he had contemplated suicide.

"He gave no indication that he was in that kind of mood," Boyter said.
"These kind of things happen; it can't be avoided. When they're determined
like that, it's hard to stop them."

Capt. Roger Haney said many inmates have tried, but only one other
prisoner has committed suicide at the facility since it opened in November
1995. A male prisoner killed himself on Dec. 26, 2001, Haney said.

Randall Sims, 47th district attorney, said Portillo's murder case had not
gone before a grand jury and no hearing or trial dates had been set.

Sims said Portillo likely would have been tried for a capital offense
because he allegedly killed more than one person.

If convicted, Sims said, Portillo "was looking at the death penalty or
life without parole."

Sims said Portillo's motive for the shooting was unclear.

However, he said, "Law enforcement's theory is it's got to do with a
broken passenger window of a pickup truck that belonged to (Portillo's)
brother. He believed someone in the (victims') family had something to do
with it."

(source: Amarillo Globe-News)

death penalty news-----TEXAS, USA

June 25

TEXAS----new execution date

Charles Hood has been given a new execution date of September 10; it
should be considered serious.

(source: RH)

USA:

Obama disagrees with high court on child rape case

Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday he disagrees with the Supreme Court's
decision outlawing executions of people who rape children, a crime he said
states have the right to consider for capital punishment.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be
applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,"
Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child,
6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that
under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at
least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our
Constitution."

The court's 5-4 decision Wednesday struck down a Louisiana law that allows
capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12,
saying it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling spares the only people in the U.S. under sentence of death for
that crime -- 2 Louisiana men convicted of raping girls 5 and 8. It also
invalidates laws on the books in 5 other states that allowed executions
for child rape that does not result in the death of the victim.

Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said that had the court
"said we want to constrain the abilities of states to do this to make sure
that it's done in a careful and appropriate way, that would have been one
thing. But it basically had a blanket prohibition and I disagree with that
decision."

Obama has 2 daughters, ages 7 and 9.

He has long supported the death penalty while criticizing the way it is
sometimes applied.

As an Illinois legislator, he helped rewrite the state's death penalty
system to guard against innocent people being sentenced to die. The new
safeguards included requiring police to videotape interrogations and
giving the state Supreme Court more power to overturn unjust decisions.

He also opposed legislation making it easier to impose the death penalty
for murders committed as part of gang activity. Obama argued the language
was too vague and could be abused by authorities.

But Obama has never rejected the death penalty entirely. He supported
death sentences for killing volunteers in community policing programs and
for particularly cruel murders of elderly people.

"While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter
crime, I believe there are some crimes -- mass murder, the rape and murder
of a child -- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is
justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the
ultimate punishment," he wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope."

In 1988, a question about rape and capital punishment tripped up
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.

Dukakis was asked during a nationally televised debate with Republican
George H. W. Bush whether he'd still oppose the death penalty if his wife
were raped and murdered.

His unemotional, dispassionate answer was ridiculed, and gave Republicans
more material to paint him as an emotionless liberal.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS, USA

June 25

TEXAS:

Court overturns conviction in Ashley's Killer case

The state's highest criminal appeals court on Wednesday overturned the
conviction of a man sent to death row for a 1993 child slaying that became
known as the "Ashley's Killer" case.

The Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin set aside the guilty verdict and
death sentence given to Michael Blair, upholding a lower-court ruling made
last month.

Blair, now 38, was convicted in 1994 of strangling and molesting
7-year-old Ashley Estell in suburban Dallas. Ashley's body was found in a
remote area of Collin County on Sept. 5, 1993, a day after she disappeared
from a Plano park where her brother was playing soccer.

Ashley's death prompted state lawmakers to pass tough sexual-predator
measures called "Ashley's Laws" requiring longer prison terms and public
registration for sex offenders.

Prosecutors acknowledged last month that DNA evidence does not implicate
Blair and shows that another man, now deceased, is a viable suspect in the
girl's death.

Blair, however, will remain in prison. While behind bars, he confessed and
eventually pleaded guilty to sexual assaults of other children in the
early 1990s. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and a
4th to be served concurrently, according to court documents.

Blair is expected to be removed from death row and returned to the general
prison population, said his attorney, Roy Greenwood. Blair has been on
death row in Huntsville since his conviction 14 years ago.

It is also expected that Collin County prosecutors will drop the charges
against Blair. The district attorney's office did not immediately respond
to a request for comment on the court's ruling.

But in a filing last month, prosecutors agreed that "no reasonable juror
would have convicted him in light of newly discovered evidence."

"For all intents and purposes, they have admitted they can't retry him,"
Greenwood said. "So I expect they would dismiss the case against him."

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

Computer predicts who dies on death row: study

A computer program designed by U.S. researchers can predict with chilling
accuracy the very few men among the thousands on America's death row who
will actually be executed, according to a new study.

It says the chief factor that determines whether a man will die is neither
race nor poverty but education - the less schooling, the higher the
chances of a lethal outcome.

There are more than 3,200 men and women in U.S. prisons who have been
condemned to death. Some have been on death row for decades, but only a
relatively small percentage - 53 in 2006, for example - have been
executed.

Previous studies have argued that non-whites are disproportionately
sentenced to death in the United States. But with little research as to
whether there is any bias in deciding who will actually die, critics say
the choice seems arbitrary.

Stamos Karamouzis and Dee Wood Harper of Texas A&M University in Texarkana
used a computing tool modelled after the human brain, called artificial
neural networks (ANN), to search for patterns linked to executions.

They created profiles for 2000 death-row inmates - half of whom had been
put to death - and entered them into the program.

Each profile included information on race, sex, age number and type of
capital offences, prior convictions, marital status, and level of
schooling.

The researchers then fed in 300 profiles of other inmates from the same
period, and asked the neural network to predict what had happened to them.
It correctly predicted the fates of more than 90 % of this 2nd group.

To find out which of the 18 factors best matched these outcomes,
Karamouzis and Harper ran the analysis repeatedly, withholding one factor
each time.

Being a woman, it turned out, was the best guarantee against having one's
sentence carried out - women are rarely executed.

But the next most telling indicator was the number of years an inmate had
spent in high school.

"The results pose a serious challenge to the fairness of the
administration of the death penalty," the pair write.

The paper is published in a British-based journal, International Journal
of Law and Information Technology, and features in a report this week by
the British magazine New Scientist.

(source: Agence France Presse)

Supreme Court Rules 5-4 in Kennedy vs Louisianna Decision

The Court has released the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), on whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits states from imposing the death penalty for child rape, and, if not, whether Louisiana's statute fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty. The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for the crime of raping a child, when the victim does not die and death was not intended.The vote was 5 - 4 and the decision was witten by Justice Kennedy. Dissenting were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia.

Here is a link to the decision: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-343.pdf.

TAASA Statment on the Kennedy v. Louisiana Decision

"The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) supports the Supreme Court's decision, released this morning to overturn the death penalty for child sexual assault cases. Victim advocates have long been concerned that the death penalty for child sexual assault cases could backfire and result in fewer convictions of sex offenders. The issue of child sexual abuse is complex. Most child sexual abuse victims are abused by a family member or close family friend. The reality is that child victims and their families don't want to be responsible for sending a grandparent, cousin or long time family friend to death row. "Today we join sexual assault coalitions across the country in applauding the Supreme Court's step toward ensuring that prosecutions of child sexual assault across our nation remain victim-centered and child-friendly in their approach. Our work, however, is not yet complete. We remain dedicated to finding effective ways to increase reporting rates, support victims, and keep Texas communities and children safe."

The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) The Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) is the statewide organization committed to ending sexual violence in Texas. A non-profit educational and advocacy organization based in Austin, TAASA member agencies comprise a statewide network of more than 80 crisis centers that serve rural as well as metropolitan areas. Founded in 1982, the agency has a strong record of success in community education, youth outreach, law enforcement training, legislative advocacy, and curricula and materials development. Additional information about TAASA can be found at www.taasa.org

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 25

TEXAS:

Interview: Rob WIll----The death row resisters

The death penalty system is set up to hide the horrific conditions facing
prisoners--conditions that function to dehumanize prisoners, forcing them
to give in and accept the injustice being done to them.

Rob Will, an innocent man on Texas death row framed for the murder of a
police officer, has inspired activists throughout the world for standing
up to the system and fighting back. Along with Kenneth Foster Jr. and
Gabriel Gonzalez, Rob co-founded the Death Row Inter-communalist Vanguard
Engagement (DRIVE) Movement.

DRIVE members' nonviolent resistance within the heart of the death penalty
beast, in collaboration with the anti-death penalty movement on the
outside, won an amazing victory last August in stopping the execution of
Kenneth Foster.

Here, Ragina Johnson from Rob Will's defense committee interviews Rob
about his case and the founding of DRIVE.

WHAT ARE the details of your case? Do you feel they're unique?

BRIEFLY, ON December 4, 2000, in an area on the north side of Houston,
Texas, several others and myself were in the vicinity of 2 stolen cars
that were in the process of being stripped. Police came, and we all ran. A
Harris County Deputy Sheriff was shot and killed by another person. I was
the only one apprehended.

I was arrested later that day in a town outside of Houston. I refused to
work with detectives, and despite extremely harsh interrogation
techniques, I never gave a statement or "snitched" on the others who were
with me.

After a terribly unfair trial, I was convicted and sentenced to death,
despite evidence--which wasn't properly presented--proving my innocence,
including:

-- The fact that officer call-log transcripts confirm that I was
handcuffed when the shooting occurred.

-- The person who actually committed the murder--who happens to be the son
of a well-known and well-connected police officer--confessed to at least 5
different people.

-- My gloves, hands and clothes tested negative for gunpowder residue.

What you can do

For more information about Rob Will's case and how you can help with his
defense campaign, go to the Free Rob Will Web site. You can watch a video
of a direct action conducted by Rob in August 2006 and the vicious use of
force by prison guards in response.

To write to Rob, send letters to Robert G. Will #999402, Polunsky Unit,
3872 FM 350, South Livingston, TX 77351, or e-mail freerobwill@gmail.com.

To learn more about the politics and actions of the DRIVE Movement on
Texas' death row, visit the DRIVE Movement Web site.

For more information on the death penalty and the struggle to end it, see
the Campaign to End the Death Penalty Web site. Articles from the
Campaign's newsletter The New Abolitionist are available on the site.

In some ways, my case and trial are unique. For example, the head district
attorney, Chuck Rosenthal, prosecuted me himself, and the courtroom was
packed with police officers, creating such a mob atmosphere that the judge
had to order the doors locked. I should mention that Rosenthal was
recently forced to resign due to a scandal involving racist and sexist
e-mails, pornography and evidence of illegal campaign finance activity
found on his work computer.

However, my case and trial are symptomatic of larger problems with the
criminal justice system, the prison industrial complex and society as a
whole.

One only needs to look at prison, where 1 in 9 young Black males reside,
to see that racism is a reality. This system is inherently racist and does
not take kindly to white folks who are not.

Plus, this system, of course, is classist--my case highlights this fact,
but is by no means an exception to the way the criminal justice system
functions on a daily basis. From the point of arrest, through trial and on
into the appeals process, the cards are stacked against anyone who doesn't
have hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire an experienced legal team or
perhaps be lucky enough to get pro bono attorneys involved with their
case.

I've essentially had no appeals process. My court-appointed appeal
attorneys have filed nothing more than pitiful appeals. My state habeas
attorney merely copied the appeal of Angel Maturino "The Railroad Killer"
Resendez and turned it in as mine. It was, of course, quickly denied, and
I haven't been able to find any good pro bono attorneys willing to help
me.

WHY DID you co-found DRIVE?

MORE THAN anything, oppression and injustice founded DRIVE.

Kenneth Foster, Gabriel Gonzalez and myself were all moved to the same
housing section around the same time. We were all involved in various
forms of organizing and activism before, but when we got around each
other, we started discussing our individual world views and found that we
shared a deep burning desire to fight for a better world.

We quickly went from igniting a spark to creating a small and righteous
subterranean fire of resistance here on Texas death row. We all had
similar mindsets, we remained focused and came together to form DRIVE.

The direct material conditions of our environment also had a lot to do
with the forming of the movement. Things were getting worse and oppression
breeds resistance. Being locked in a small cage for 22 to 24 hours a day
(and only let out to a larger cage for "recreation"), constantly deprived
of sleep, unable to touch another human being, fed disgusting food, and
having to face a host of other means designed to break the human mind and
body is nothing less than torture, and we decided to take a dramatic stand
against this oppression.

Also, several of our friends who we knew were innocent had received
execution dates, harassment by individual officers was on the rise, and it
seemed that the anti-death penalty movement was stagnating.

It's important to note that the formation of DRIVE didn't just suddenly
happen; we put in a lot of work. Kenneth, Gabriel and myself were spending
10 to 12 hours some days coming up with a strategic plan, while keeping in
contact with others like Reginald Blanton (who was on another pod) and
getting their input.

It was like we were having a weeks-long "Resistance on Death Row
Conference" or something. We were literally having days-long discussions
and engaging in dialectics on how we could apply lessons learned from
everything from the Foco theory that grew out of the Cuban Revolution to
Gandhi's Satyagraha movement, to just about every other social justice
movement or theory one can imagine.

We realized that we had to reach out to organizations fighting the death
penalty on the outside as well as other political groups, and work in
tandem with them. This system likes to operate in the dark so we went
about creating the DRIVE Web site to shed light on the reality of the
death penalty and the conditions on Texas death row.

It would be counterproductive for me to expose our tactics and strategies
in an open forum that is subject to the prying eyes of prison officials,
but we have been very effective in improving the conditions here and
strengthening the abolition movement as a whole.

WHAT DID the victory for Kenneth Foster mean to you and your comrades on
Texas death row?

I CAN remember shedding deep tears of happiness only twice in my life.
Once was when my son was born, and I saw him breathe his first breath.
Second was when I heard that Kenneth's sentence was commuted.

Not only was I overwhelmed with a deep sense of inspiration, relief and
happiness because a personal friend and comrade of mine wasn't murdered by
the state, but also because Kenneth's commutation proved that grassroots
activism can and does work.

I was in consistent contact with main organizers of the Save Kenneth
Foster Coalition, hearing from them and/or meeting with them on a weekly
basis. I saw what they did. I witnessed firsthand how they built a solid
grassroots campaign from the ground up and showed that community
organizing works, even in the arch-conservative state of Texas.

The state is not omnipotent. We can be victorious. Kenneth's victory was
not his alone, it belongs to all of us on death row and everyone involved
in the abolitionist movement on the outside. Kenneth's commutation showed
us all that if we struggle, we can win.

YOU OFTEN talk about how struggles are interconnected. Can you explain
this more?

WE REALLY have to look at the intersections of oppression from not only a
state or national, but an international perspective. The parallels are
endless. The military, petrochemical and prison-industrial complex are
intimately intertwined--they are the health of the state that, through
foreign and domestic policy, is responsible for the social ills facing
working-class people worldwide. War funding is draining the community of
taxpayer money that could be used to build a strong and sustainable social
network that prevents the causes of crime. Billions go to Israel every
year to fund apartheid against the Palestinians. The poor in Iraq are
suffering the most. The poor in the U.S. are the ones in the prisons and
on death row. The death penalty and prison issues are working-class issues
just like the war in Iraq and the struggle for Palestinian liberation,
labor and immigrants' rights are. This is why Eugene Debs said that as
long as there's a lower class, he'd be in it, as long as there's a
criminal element he'd be of it, and while there is a soul in prison he'd
never be free.

Also, those on the right like to spew their rhetoric about this supposed
"culture war" we're in--and perhaps we are indeed in a culture war. But
our enemies, the enemies of the working class aren't "Islamofascists,"
"those pushing the homosexual agenda," the "illegals," or other favorite
fantastical enemies of the right. Our real enemies are those like the Bush
regime and their neo-con supporters who seem hell bent on shredding the
Constitution, fervently attacking civil liberties and human rights and
destroying the livelihood of everyone who isn't in their ruling class
worldwide.

We're also fighting against North America's thriving and ever-expanding
love affair with violence. In order to advance the process of healing
humanity, genocidal wars, and U.S. support of oppressive regimes, the
death penalty and all other forms of state-sponsored violence must be seen
as morally unacceptable by the masses, who do have the power to change
foreign and domestic policy.

WHERE IS your case at now and what can people do to support your struggle?

I'M AT the last stage of the appeals process, the federal level. My
federal habeas writ has already been filed.

For years I never really focused on my case. I always focused on
anti-death penalty, prisoner rights, and other activism as a whole. At
this point, I really need to publicize my case as well as the work we're
doing here on death row. I need all the solidarity I can get. An easy way
people can help out my campaign is to go to my Web site,
www.freerobwill.org, and download my 'zine to get the word out about my
case.

I need to live so I can continue to fight. My defense committee was only
formed about a year ago and consists of only a few people. They're
overwhelmed with work and could surely use help. They also run the DRIVE
site by themselves and need help with that as well.

As we've seen, the state has wasted no time in fervently pursuing
execution dates since the Supreme Court ruling on lethal injection. Now is
the time for increased action. Anyone interested can drop me a letter or
e-mail me and we can make change happen, not just for myself but for the
overall struggle that we're all engaged in.

(source: Socialist Worker)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 24

TEXAS:

Suspects say Garland killings netted them 'just $2'

'I feel regretful. I feel for the family, or whatever,' said Demarius
Cummings, 19, of Dallas, about the slayings of Matthew Butler and Stephen
Swan. That's how much Demarius Cummings said he found in the pockets of
two Christian-music producers whom his cousin James Broadnax, speaking in
a separate jailhouse interview, admitted gunning down early Thursday in
Garland.

The 19-year-old suspects gave interviews Monday at the Dallas County Jail,
where each is being held on $1 million bail.

Both are charged with capital murder.

"I murdered both of them," said Mr. Broadnax, of Texarkana, Ark.,
referring to Matthew Butler, 28, and Stephen Swan, 26. "No hesitation or
nothing."

Mr. Cummings, of Dallas, said he would not be surprised to get the death
penalty.

"If that's what it is, justice has to be served," he said. "It wasn't the
plan to kill them; it was just to rob them.

"I feel regretful. I feel for the family, or whatever."

The motive, both men said, was money.

On Wednesday evening, the cousins took a train from Dallas to downtown
Garland looking for people to rob, they said.

"Let's just say, I was in a bind," Mr. Broadnax said. "I needed money. I
needed a car.

"They were in the wrong spot at the wrong [expletive] time," he said of
the victims. "They should have had their [expletive] at home."

After watching Mr. Broadnax speak on the TV news Monday evening, David
Colunga, stepfather of Mr. Butler's wife, said he was "at a loss for
words."

"2 dollars. It's heartbreaking," Mr. Colunga said. "All I can say is that
hopefully Mr. Broadnax realizes he took a father away from his kids.
Hopefully, he can find some kind of peace within himself."

Mr. Butler left a 2-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. Mr. Swan was
single and had no children.

A bicyclist found their bodies just after 1 a.m. Thursday outside Mr.
Butler's studio in the 800 block of State Street in downtown Garland.

The day after the slayings, the 2 suspects visited the Dallas apartment of
Mr. Cummings' aunt, who overheard them bragging about "hitting a lick," or
committing a robbery.

She wrote down the license plate of Mr. Swan's 1995 Crown Victoria, which
they were driving.

She also picked up Mr. Swan's driver's license, which the men tossed as
they were leaving her apartment.

A few hours later, police in Texarkana, Texas, pulled over the Crown
Victoria for a traffic offense.

When they ran the car's tags, police realized that it belonged to a murder
victim.

Mr. Cummings has prior arrests on charges of vehicle and home burglary.
Public records show no criminal history for Mr. Broadnax.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Broadnax and Mr. Cummings were about to abandon
their hunt for someone to rob when they struck up a conversation with Mr.
Butler, owner of Zion Gate Records, and Mr. Swan, his sound engineer,
outside the studio.

The 2 victims talked for a half-hour or more about their studio and the
fact that they were Christians.

Finally, the cousins made their move. Mr. Broadnax said he asked one of
the men for a cigarette, then pulled out a gun.

Initially during Monday's interview, Mr. Broadnax said he "blanked out"
when he began shooting.

Later, he described the shootings in profanity-laced detail, recalling how
he fired multiple times to make "sure they were dead."

After driving off in Mr. Swan's car, Mr. Cummings said, he and his cousin
were disappointed in the small amount of money they had gotten.

"Like, 'Man, just $2!' " Mr. Cummings recalled Mr. Broadnax saying. "I
said the same thing: '2 dollars!'"

Mr. Cummings said they hoped to fetch more by taking the car to a chop
shop in Texarkana.

Mr. Broadnax said he began the night expecting to take a life.

"Somebody was going to get hit any way it went," he said.

He scoffed when asked if he was sorry. "Do it look like I got remorse?" he
said.

Elizabeth Colunga, Mr. Butler's mother-in-law, said she had no opinion on
whether the 2 suspects should face the death penalty.

"I'm hurting right now," she said. "My daughter is hurting right now. My
grandbabies are hurting. They cry every night for Daddy.

"I cannot take one ounce of energy in my body and waste it on thoughts on
these 2 men."

(source: TXCN News)

*****************

Jurors Hear From Convicted Killer's Family

The softer side of a convicted killer was detailed for a Bexar County jury
during the punishment phase of his trail Monday afternoon.

The sister of Jonathan Depue, convicted Friday in the death of 57-year-old
Alita Rose, said her brother were verbally abused by their father, but
that her brother tried to stay lighthearted with his siblings.

"If he decided to play video games, that's what we used to do all the
time," Margarita Depue said. "Just like a kid, that's all we did is be
like kids."

Depue is facing the death penalty as a maximum punishment for his role in
the September 2006 shooting death of Rose.

Jurors heard another side of Depue, including his criminal past, earlier
Monday. Closing arguments for the punishment phase are set for Tuesday.

(source:KSAT News)

********************

Appeal refused for condemned San Antonio man

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review the capital murder
conviction of a San Antonio man sent to death row for fatally stabbing a
woman after crawling through a window into her home.

The decision from the high court moves Luis Cervantes Salazar closer to
execution for the slaying more than a decade ago of Martha Denise Sanchez
at her northwest San Antonio home. He does not yet have a death date.

The woman's 10-year-old son was wounded in the attack, but survived to
identify Salazar in court as the killer.

Sanchez was stabbed 6 times, including once in the throat, in what
prosecutors said was an intended sexual attack. 2 other children were
asleep with her in bed at the time, a 6-month-old boy and 2-year-old girl,
but were not hurt. The victim's husband was at work.

The 10-year-old, who was awakened by his mother's screams, testified how
his mother called out Salazar's first name, asking him why he was
attacking her. The boy also testified he was stabbed in the chest as he
tried to fend off the attack on his mother and showed a jury at Salazar's
1998 trial the scar from his injuries.

The wounded child ran to a neighbor's house so police could be called.
Salazar fled but later called police and turned himself in.

Defense lawyers had urged a Bexar County jury to be compassionate with
Salazar and give him a life sentence because he had an abusive childhood.
The jury deliberated more than nine hours before deciding on the death
penalty.

Salazar testified he had been drinking and using drugs when he entered the
home, believing it was his, and thought Sanchez and her children were the
intruders. So he picked up a knife and stabbed her, he said.

Besides acknowledging he stabbed her to death, he testified "that he found
her attractive, he desired to have intercourse with her and he had
recently propositioned her," according to a December 2007 appeals court
ruling upholding his conviction.

"Salazar also admitted that he told his wife before the murder that
violence made him feel good and that he had dreams about killing people,"
the court documents said.

He had lived in the house next door for about three years until a month
before the slaying and testified he was too drunk to make it to his new
place. Salazar was known to his victim and her family. Court records
showed her husband had helped him get a job at a K mart store where he
worked.

Prosecutors, under cross examination, tried to discount Salazar's version
of the killing by saying police found the phone lines cut at the woman's
home. He denied cutting the wires.

In earlier appeals, Salazar argued unsuccessfully his trial lawyers were
deficient.

(source: Associated Press)

***********************

Father of slain children charged with capital murder

A man who led police to the charred remains of his 2 children was charged
with capital murder on Monday.

Randy Sylvester Sr., of Pasadena, has been held in the Harris County jail
without bond since he was arrested June 17 for assaulting the mother of
the children. On Monday, District Attorney Ken Magidson charged him with
killing the children.

No decision has been made on whether to pursue the death penalty, Magidson
said.

No motive was discussed. Sylvester told the Houston Chronicle in a
jailhouse interview Sunday that he didn't kill the children but said they
were killed because he owed someone money.

"I told Quanell (X), I told the police, I told everybody that it was about
the money," he told the newspaper. "They (alleged killers) used it to get
to my kids."

A call to Sylvester's attorney, Jimmy Ortiz, was not immediately returned
Monday afternoon.

Police found the remains of 7-year-old Randy Sylvester Jr. and his
3-year-old sister Denim Sylvester packed in a wooden chest and a suitcase
and left in a wooded area in Houston early Saturday morning. Their mother
had reported them missing last week.

Sylvester, 27, led searchers to the remains late Friday after a week of
misleading statements about where the children were located, Pasadena
police spokesperson Vance Mitchell said.

Police found the children's remains after community activist Quanell X
interceded with the father at the request of the children's mother,
Mitchell said.

The discovery of the bodies ended a week of turbulent emotions for police,
searchers and the children's family and friends.

"It's been very, very, very rough. I mean, we've had a lot of people;
we've dedicated a lot of officers and resources to this case," Mitchell
said. "It's been very emotional for a lot of people since we're dealing
with two young children."

Authorities said Quanell X and Sylvester led authorities to the site after
Sylvester talked with him for about an hour near a pond in Pasadena.
Police said Sylvester's previous statements had directed their search to
the pond, which was drained in the hope of finding the children, but the
remains were located 6 miles away, Mitchell said.

Tim Miller's volunteer search organization, Texas Equusearch, provided
more than 500 volunteers to the search effort.

The search was as grim an undertaking as the Dickinson-based mounted
search and recovery organization has ever undertaken, Miller said
Saturday. "I believe that when they were found, it was a huge relief to
all of us," he said.

(source: Associated Press)

**********************

Jury hears clashing images of killer

2 starkly different pictures of Jonathan Depue emerged in the punishment
phase of his capital murder trial Monday for the 2006 shooting death of
retired Edison High School teacher Aleta Rhodes.

One was that of a mentally slow, playful, affectionate child who hugged
and kissed his grandmother and who later teased his future wife in high
school by throwing water at her and was manipulated by his older brother
and younger cousin.

The other was of a cold-blooded man who allegedly raped a woman with the
barrel of a pistol and who put a bullet in Rhodes' head during a burglary
of her home Sept. 29, 2006.

Jurors on Thursday convicted Depue of killing Rhodes, 57. He now faces
either life in prison or the death penalty.

In the portrayal of the hardened criminal, Depue's older brother Eric
Depue, who also is charged in the slaying, testified that a cousin, Ruben
Daniel Montoya, told him about another burglary in which Jonathan Depue
allegedly sexually assaulted a woman.

Montoya, who is also charged with capital murder in Rhodes' death, did not
testify.

The alleged rape victim took the stand to tell what had happened that
night in the fall of 2006 when she heard her door kicked in, and rose to
face the barrel of a gun.

She couldn't identify her attacker because he wore a bandana over his
face. Jonathan Depue has never been charged with the crime.

The woman, who is not being identified because she is a sex assault
victim, thought of her 5-year-old daughter.

"At that point I was pleading that they not make any noise and wake up my
daughter in the other room," she said.

She could hear someone else walking across the wood floor. Her attacker
made her undress and lie down. She cried, her hands over her face. She
felt something cold inside her.

Jonathan Depue's wife, Martha Depue, who took the witness stand in his
defense Monday, said he was never violent with her. His grandmother, Linda
Depue, called Jonathan Depue a "loving child." He would shower her with
hugs and kisses and say, "Grandma, I love you."

The defendant's sister, Margarita Depue, testified he was the target of
hatred by their stepfather. She also described him as playful.

"He's like a little kid," she said in tears, "that's all we did, was be
like kids."

The trial continues today in Judge Philip Kazen's 227th District Court.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 23

TEXAS:

A trial untainted by kiss of death

Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, and Ronald Williamson, 46, were shot to death in
the home they shared in Plano in 1989. 19 years later, the man convicted
of killing them is still on death row and at the center of a case in which
the Texas judicial system is now on trial.

When Charles Hood, a former nightclub bouncer, was convicted of killing
the couple, the case received little notice outside of Collin County,
north of Dallas. Now, allegations that the judge who presided over the
case and the district attorney who prosecuted Hood were involved in a
romantic affair at the time of the trial once again cast the Texas justice
system in a negative light. Though the evidence in the case points to
Hoods guilt, the larger question of whether he received a fair trial is
troubling. It is a question that must be answered.

Hood received a 30-day stay of execution last week after a wild night of
legal maneuvering that kept Hood alive - not because it was justice but
because the executioner's clock ran out. As prosecutors and Hoods
appellate lawyers wrestled, the Court of Criminal Appeals went frantic in
an effort to make sure Hood was executed on Tuesday, as scheduled.

Citing insufficient time to prepare as the legal wrangling dragged on,
prison officials called off the execution just before midnight.

Though there are plenty of nuances to this case and certainly plenty of
salacious distraction, it really all boils down to whether Hood's trial
was a fair one.

Verla Sue Holland, the judge who presided over the trial, and Tom
OConnell, then the Collin County district attorney, were believed to be
involved romantically before and during the trial. Both were single.
Hood's attorneys presented a last-minute affidavit from a former Collin
County assistant district attorney who characterized the Holland-O'Connell
relationship as "common knowledge."

Anyone familiar with office gossip knows how thin "common knowledge" can
be. Yet, with a mans life at stake, the issue demands resolution. Holland
- a former judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals - and O'Connell aren't
talking. A court could compel them to answer questions, but Holland's
former colleagues on the Court of Criminal Appeals were reluctant to do
that. Instead, they hid behind procedural issues and chided the defense
lawyers for raising the 11th-hour allegation of an affair.

That's significant because there are rules and time lines that govern
raising issues on appeal. As we have noted, however, appeals courts
shouldn't hunker down in a valley of procedural technicalities and lock
out a real, imperfect and occasionally sordid world.

No doubt, answering questions about a supposed romance long ago will prove
embarrassing to Holland and O'Connell, who are no longer in public office.
But a man's life is at stake here.

Indeed, this is an issue that is larger than whether Hood is guilty or
innocent.

The credibility of a state that always seems so eager to impose the death
penalty is very much on the line. The process that leads to the ultimate
sanction should be above reproach. That starts with the fundamental right
to a fair and impartial trial.

The questions raised in this troubling case deserve answers.

(source: Editorial, Austin American-Statesman)

********************

Penalty phase of Albarran trial is Monday

The penalty phase of the trial for Benito Albarran, convicted of capital
murder, is scheduled to begin Monday in Madison County Circuit Court.

The mission of Albarran's defense attorneys will be to save his life, said
2 experienced trial lawyers, Mark McDaniel, who has been a defense lawyer
for his entire 30-year career, and Larry Morgan, with 34 years experience,
14 as a prosecutor.

The prosecutors in the Albarran case, Robert Broussard and Jay Town, are
seeking the death penalty. A 12-member jury convicted Albarran Thursday of
killing Huntsville police officer Daniel Golden on Aug. 29, 2005, at the
Jalisco Mexican restaurant on Jordan Lane. Golden was answering a domestic
violence call telephoned to the 911 center by Albarran's wife, Laura
Casternjo.

Albarran pleaded not guilty to the charge of capital murder because of
insanity. His attorneys, Bruce Gardner, Richard Jaffe and Derek Drennan,
said their client was too mentally impaired to understand that he was
doing wrong.

The jury, which deliberated less than 4 hours before convicting Albarran,
will hear more testimony from witnesses. The jurors will then deliberate
and return an advisory opinion asking Circuit Judge Karen Hall to impose a
sentence of either life in prison without parole or the death penalty. The
jurors must vote at least 10 to 2 to recommend the death penalty. Under
Alabama law, Hall can override the jury's advisory verdict.

If the jury deadlocks, the capital murder conviction still stands, but the
defense can ask for a new jury to consider mitigating and aggravating
circumstances.

In the penalty phase, the prosecutors present evidence of aggravating
circumstances to convince the jurors to recommend the death penalty.
Aggravating factors are any circumstances that make the death penalty
appropriate in the judgment of the jurors, Morgan said.

The law lists 10 aggravating circumstances, but the prosecutors will
immediately focus on the factor that made the crime a capital offense,
Morgan said.

"One factor is that he killed a police officer who was on duty," he said.

The prosecutors will also argue that the crime was especially heinous,
atrocious and cruel when compared to other capital murders, Morgan said.

"They will argue that Albarran shot Golden in the lower abdomen and, while
the officer was lying on the ground with his hands up in a gesture of
surrender, Albarran shot him twice in the face," he said.

To prove the cruelty of the crime, the prosecutors will call for testimony
from experienced police investigators, McDaniel said.

"The state has to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, and that calls for
testimony from homicide investigators who have worked on a lot of capital
murders," he said.

The defense has to prove the existence of mitigating circumstances to a
reasonable degree of certainty, McDaniel said.

"There is no list of mitigating circumstances that the defense must
follow," he said. "The defense can present any circumstance that might
convince the jury to recommend a sentence of life without parole."

(source: Huntsville Item)

*****************

Why I loved a death-row inmate

A Waikato woman has spoken of falling in love with a Texan murderer and
their emotional meeting days before his execution.

Viv Mason struck up a relationship with Karl Chamberlain and flew to the
US to meet him before his death by lethal injection two weeks ago.

"We were more than friends, I actually felt like I have lost my right
arm," Ms Mason, a Morrinsville postie, told the Piako Post. "He got me, he
understood me."

Ms Mason met Chamberlain on June 9, 2 days before his execution. She
describes the meeting as something "out of this world".

Her love story caught the attention of Waikato Times readers after she
placed a death notice last week.

Ms Mason, who had exchanged letters with Chamberlian for 2 years, was
photographed with him on the day he died, but did not attend the
execution. She describes the 1st time they met, when he was banging on a
prison glass wall. "I'm in here, I'm in here," he said.

"It felt amazing, it was wonderful," she said. "But at the same time it
was tinged with terror of a whole new set of circumstances.

"There were so many emotions going through, and knowing I had very little
time with him made for not exactly the meeting we had hoped for."

When the 2 meet face to face they stood looking at each other. Mr
Chamberlain said to Ms Mason "I love you".

Ms Mason said even in the worst instances Karl could turn matters around
and make them humorous.

She said her heart melted when a hand print arrived in the mail at her
Morrinsville home.

"He had managed to get some paint somehow and send me this hand print,"
she said. "And I sent back 'it is amazing I love it, I love you, thank you
so much'. He came back with `wow you really love me'."

The execution took 9 minutes.

"I don't approve of the death penalty," Ms Mason said. "He is free, he is
no longer living in a little cell, and he is gone. It is everyone else
left behind that are the ultimate victims of the system."

Chamberlain raped and shot a woman 17 years ago.

(source: Stuff.co.nz)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 22

TEXAS:

Texas gets off to slow restart on executions----Despite delays, experts
predict state will lead nation once again

Of the 3 inmates who had dates with death this year, only one was sent
into Texas' death chamber and executed, an uncharacteristic start for a
state that consistently leads the nation in executions.

Controversy swirled around the state's last execution in September and
re-emerged once the death chamber reopened after the lifting of a de facto
moratorium, imposed as the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to
the lethal injection process.

The Court of Criminal Appeals and the Attorney General's Office worked
until almost midnight Tuesday to ensure that Charles Dean Hood's execution
would be carried out. But in the end, after a volley of appeals, state
prison officials had to scrub the execution as the midnight expiration of
the death warrant neared.

On June 10, the state carried out its 12st execution of the year, putting
to death Karl Chamberlain. His attorneys later complained that they were
in the process of filing an appeal when he was executed.

The 1st inmate to face execution this year, Derrick Sonnier, received a
last-minute reprieve June 3. It came about 2 hours before he was set to
enter Texas' death house.

Despite the sluggish start, experts predict Texas likely will remain the
nation's death penalty capital.

"By the end of 2008, Texas will have the most executions of any state, as
it has for many other years," predicted Richard Dieter, director of the
Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. "It certainly overall
is a leader in executions."

Swift execution pace

To some, the state appears unchastened by last year's firestorm when
attorneys were unable to file appeals before Michael Richard was put to
death in September.

He was the last inmate executed before the hiatus began. In his case,
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused to
allow the court clerk's office to remain open after hours so attorneys
could file an appeal after experiencing computer problems.

In April, the high court upheld the lethal injection process, and
executions resumed.

Since then, 7 have been carried out across the nation.

Dieter believes Texas will ultimately resume its swift execution pace,
given an aggressive schedule that far outpaces other states'.

Fourteen inmates are set to be put to death through October, according to
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Web site.

Last year, Texas accounted for 26 of the 42 executions carried out across
the country.

Hood, whose execution had been scheduled for last week, had argued in his
appeal that the judge and prosecutor in his trial reportedly had a
romantic relationship. The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the appeal
on procedural grounds. His attorneys, however, persuaded a state district
judge to vacate his death warrant. The state appellate court subsequently
ruled that the judge had no authority to do so and ordered the warrant
reinstated. With the death warrant set to expire, the prison system took
the unprecedented step to stop the execution.

No such late-night legal wrangling occurred before Sonnier was granted a
stay. The following week, however, the Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed
his claims. He now has a July 23 execution date.

Another execution date has to be set for Hood.

"These last two cases or stays are unusual," said Dieter, of the Death
Penalty Information Center. "Generally, when dates are set in Texas, those
executions go forward."

Last-minute appeals

David Dow, an attorney in the Hood and Sonnier cases, said the state, more
than ever, appears to possess a "lust" for executions.

"The Court of Criminal Appeals couldn't have been more transparent in the
way they helped the state try to get an execution," he said, referring to
last week's maneuvering.

The Attorney General's Office, Dow said, has become less patient when it
comes to last-minute appeals. Attorneys typically notify officials when
appeals are in the works. State attorneys previously were willing to await
filings and delay executions.

Now, Dow said, it seems that if appeals have not been filed and none is
pending in any court, prison officials are allowed to begin the execution
process.

That is what happened in Chamberlain's case, Dow said.

The Attorney General's Office insists that no policy change has occurred.

Legal issues

"When the court-ordered execution time arrived," a spokesman for the
Attorney General's Office said, "Chamberlain's attorneys had yet to file
an additional last-minute appeal, nor had they provided any specific
information to the state or the courts about when any further appeals
might be filed."

Jim Marcus, a University of Texas law professor, said the state should
weigh the legal issues and not technicalities in Hood's and Sonnier's
cases.

In Sonnier's appeal, his attorneys argued that changes to the state's
death penalty protocol had not been reviewed by a court. Prison officials
said changes were made simply to clarify executioner training and other
issues raised in the Supreme Court case.

The Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the claim, citing the Supreme
Court's decision that upheld Kentucky's 3-drug protocol, the same used in
Texas and other states. The Texas court determined that the state's
procedure is substantially similar to Kentucky's.

But Marcus believes that a thorough review of the protocol should be
conducted.

"If the state courts continue to bury their heads in the sand, the federal
courts will probably step up," Marcus said.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 21

TEXAS:

Texas Death Row case might be right on the law but it doesnt seem fair

The case of In re Charles Dean Hood could only have come from a convoluted
TV script except that it came straight out of the Texas courts.

Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend Tracie Lynn Wallace are found fatally
shot at his Plano home. Police track his $70,000 Cadillac to Indiana,
driven there by the 20-year-old Hood, a bouncer who had been living with
Williamson. Hood claims innocence, but his bloody fingerprints were found
in the house.

Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell argues for the death
penalty, and jurors in Judge Verla Sue Holland's 296th District Court
agree.

Just as the state of Texas prepares to execute Hood 18 years later, his
lawyers furiously try to convince the courts that he was denied a fair
trial because, they argue, Holland and O'Connell were lovers and never
told anyone involved in the case.

During the legal maneuvering, the state runs out of time to conduct the
June 17 execution, and Gov. Rick Perry gives Hood a 30-day reprieve.

Now what?

If the 2 were, in fact, cavorting behind the scenes during a trial in
which both played key roles, Holland and O'Connell abdicated their ethical
duties as officers of the court and undermined the integrity of the
judicial system. But thats not the only factor that the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals had to consider when it turned down Hoods petition
seeking a new hearing.

Texas law bars a criminal defendant filing repeated constitutional
challenges to a conviction except under narrow circumstances. To get over
that hurdle this late in the process, Hood would have to show that his
claim about the amorous relationship couldnt have been raised earlier or
that "no rational juror" would have found him guilty if Holland had
recused herself from his trial.

But Hoods lawyers knew of suspicions about the judge and the prosecutor
years ago, well before they documented the claim this month with an
affidavit from a former prosecutor who called the relationship "common
knowledge" at the time.

An investigator who looked into the allegation in the mid-1990s wrote in a
separate affidavit that numerous lawyers in Collin County seemed to know
but wouldn't go on the record because they had to practice law in the
county. The investigator wrote that a paralegal for one of Hood's trial
lawyers said his attorneys didn't bring it up to avoid angering a judge
they'd have to appear before in other cases. Writer Alan Berlow also
raised the allegations on Salon.com in 2005.

It would take a hearing to establish whether the alleged relationship
occurred. But the law doesn't clearly provide for it unless it lies
within the parameters of basic due process. Hood might well be guilty of a
horrible crime, but if hed didn't get a fair trial before an impartial
tribunal, how can the public have confidence in the system?

Texas really doesn't need another of these self-inflicted black eyes.

(source: Editorial, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 20

TEXAS:

Death penalty defendant complains of Statesman coverage

Got a letter from Milton Dwayne Gobert this week. He's the Travis County
capital murder defendant facing the death penalty whose case will be heard
soon by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Gobert, 35, didn't like the Statesman coverage (read it here) of the
announcement by the state's highest court that it granted discretionary
review in the case.

"When you write about me, write the whole truth and not half truth and
implied guilt toward me," wrote Gobert in opening his 4-page letter.

Gobert has been locked up in the Travis County jail since 2003, when he
was arrested and charged with stabbing his ex-girlfriend's friend,
30-year-old Mel Cotton, in North Austin. Gobert was also accused of
stabbing Cottons then 5-year-old son, who survived.

His case has been held up on appeals centered around whether a confession
prosecutors say he gave to Austin police should be allowed at trial.

State District Judge Bob Perkins, the trial judge, ruled it should not be
allowed because Austin homicide detectives continued to question him after
Gobert invoked his right to an attorney. The 3rd Court of Appeals agreed
with Perkins, and then reversed course and ruled Goberts statement was
lawfully obtained.

Most of Gobert's letter quoted from 3rd Court Justice Jan Pattersons
dissenting opinion in the case.

"Police deceived me of why I was there to be questioned and there (sic)
manner of questioning," Gobert wrote. "Your facts were wrong, and implying
guilt on me through innuendo were (sic) wrong; so if you want to print
something print the truth."

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 20

TEXAS:

DNA testing in Darlie Routier case won't offer indisputable truth

Don't read too much into the court ruling that will allow DNA testing for
infamous death row inmate Darlie Routier. Don't hold your breath for
finally, at long last a definitive answer.

The dead-certain specificity with which improved genetic testing
techniques can identify DNA has been a lifesaving miracle to some prison
inmates. Some of them spent years unjustly incarcerated, until science
offered them a chance to prove the innocence they have claimed all along.

DNA can prove beyond even a calculable doubt whether a defendant is or is
not, say, the rapist who attacked a particular victim. It can prove
whether a pinprick-size dot of blood found on a suspect's shirtsleeve came
from a dead guy in a Dumpster on the other side of town.

But nobody, save Mrs. Routier's unyieldingly partisan family, believes DNA
will provide the certainty so many people seem to crave in her case. Even
her own attorney seems to be tempering expectations that test results
would win Ms. Routier the right to a new trial:

"It's not a long shot, but it's certainly not more likely than not," he
said. Which I took to mean: Don't place any bets on it.

Mrs. Routier, tried and convicted of stabbing her own little boy to death
(she was not tried in the death of a 2nd son, killed in the same 1996
attack), has an odd power to polarize public opinion.

For one, she never floated the only explanation many people can accept for
why an ostensibly devoted mother would butcher her own children: insanity.

Darlie Routier never claimed to be crazy, never said, like Andrea Yates or
Dena Schlosser, that God or Satan or Venutians on the Shopping Network
were feeding her instructions.

The only motive prosecutors had was unadulterated, megalomaniac greed. She
staged the killings, they argued, because she figured shrinking the
family's size by 2 members would stretch their dwindling income.

Could a cheery Rowlett housewife who made cupcakes for the neighborhood
kids really be such a monster?

That's a tough sell. But so is the defense theory, which is that a
mysterious rogue killer, for no reason anybody can fathom, silently broke
into the house, slaughtered the kids and vanished.

Over the years, the evidence at the bloody scene has been parsed, debated,
re-examined. In the end, you still have what we started with: a largely
circumstantial case, which ultimately comes down to which version of
events you believe.

The jury believed the prosecutors' contention (as do I), which rested
largely on the argument that Mrs. Routier's intruder tale was just too
far-fetched, and that the evidence available pointed to a staged effort to
invent a nonexistent mystery killer.

But plenty of people out there and not, by any means, just gullible fans
and conspiracy cranks genuinely believe Mrs. Routier is the victim of a
double tragedy almost beyond human endurance: the gory murders of her
little boys and a wrongful death sentence for killing them.

If and it's a big if DNA testing finds that minute hairs and bloodstains
found at the crime scene don't belong to anybody in the household, that's
still not definite proof of Mrs. Routier's innocence.

But it would raise fresh questions, lend weight to the doubt the defense
tried to raise in the case. If more than one of those little scraps came
from the same stranger, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said, it might
be enough to tip a jury the other way.

If, as prosecutors confidently predict, those samples came from somebody
in the Routier household, then their case is that much more solid, and
Mrs. Routier maintains her position in the execution line.

But it won't offer indisputable truth, not in the absolute, unquestionable
terms people seem to want in this sad case.

Nobody knows what happened with that degree of certainty. Except Darlie
Routier.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

***************************

Pace of Texas executions revives fairness disputes----Rejected appeals in
2 cases raise charges of rush to judgment by state appeals court

In September, the execution of Michael Richard in Texas was steeped in
controversy. The state's highest criminal court shut its doors at 5 p.m.
and Richard's attorneys were unable to file last-minute appeals, even
though the U.S. Supreme Court had halted executions earlier that day to
consider whether lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment.

That was Texas' last lethal injection before the de facto moratorium on
executions.

When Texas resumed executions last week, there was controversy again, with
lawyers for Karl Chamberlain saying the convicted murderer was executed
even though they were still taking appeals to the nation's highest court.

That the 8-month break in lethal injections in Texas was bookended by
controversy comes as no surprise to observers of the nation's busiest
death chamber. The state's Court of Criminal Appeals often has been
criticized for how it handles death penalty cases; indeed, it was met with
fresh criticism this week as it rebuffed claims from convicted killer
Charles Hood, who faced execution Tuesday.

On Monday, the court ruled that Hood, who claimed the judge and prosecutor
at his trial were having a romantic affairraising questions of a conflict
of interestcould not make that claim for procedural reasons.

Then on Tuesday the court ordered a judge to reinstate Hood's death
warrant after another judge had withdrawn it and recused himself from the
proceedings, part of a long evening of legal wrangling that ended when
prison officials decided they could not execute Hood before a midnight
deadline.

"Texas uniquely places a high value on volume and speed. When you care
about that more than anything else, you're going to make a lot of
mistakes," said David Dow, a professor at the University of Houston Law
Center who represents Death Row inmates. "And the [Court of Criminal
Appeals] ... behaves as if their job is to facilitate executions."

Others say the court merely follows the law and holds lawyers accountable
to tight deadlines and procedural rules while providing finality for the
families of victims. They suggest, too, that controversy is a natural
byproduct of a system that conducts more executions than any other state.

'Always controversy'

"There's always controversy with the death penalty," said Kent
Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a
group that supports the use of the death penalty. "Because Texas has the
largest number of executions, the opposition particularly has it in for
Texas."

The most recent string of controversies began with the Sept. 25, 2007,
execution of Richard, who was convicted of the 1986 shooting of Marguerite
Dixon, a nurse and mother of seven. Richard's attorneys told the court
they would be filing a last-minute appeal but were delayed when their
computers went down. Court of Criminal Appeals presiding Judge Sharon
Keller closed the court anyway.

In the Chamberlain case, the court was late in getting its denial to the
defense lawyers. Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law school professor
and attorney with the Texas Defender Service who was working on
Chamberlain's case, said that the delay of more than 30 minutes according
to a timeline provided by the court meant the lawyers could not file the
Supreme Court appeal.

Levin said the lawyers told the state attorney general's office they were
filing another appeal, and the practice has been that executions are not
carried out until all appeals are exhausted. In this case, she said, the
attorney general's office did not wait.

"The only interpretation of the events," Levin said, "is that they were so
keen to see him executed that they were willing to play games to make that
happen. None of it is about the merits of the case."

A spokesman for the attorney general's office said in a statement that
Chamberlain's lawyers never told the office or the Supreme Court that a
filing was imminent. But an e-mail to the clerk of the Supreme Court shows
Levin had told the court another filing was coming. That e-mail also
refers to a conversation with the attorney general's office.

Claims of an affair

In the case of Hood, who was convicted of the 1989 murders of Ronald
Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Wallace, the court said that the
claims of an affair were an abuse of the court system because they could
have been raised earlier.

Hood's lawyers said that while they suspected a romantic relationship
between the judge, Verla Sue Holland, and the prosecutor, Tom O'Connell,
it was just recently that they believed they had evidence to make a
good-faith claim the sworn affidavit from a former prosecutor who said
the relationship was "common knowledge" among lawyers.

John Rolater, chief of appeals in the Collin County district attorney's
office, said the office would seek another execution date for Hood.

(source: Chicago Tribune)

************************

Man Found Guilty of Murdering Former Teacher

A man could now face the death penalty for killing a retired school
teacher.

Jonathan Depue showed no emotion on Thursday as he was convicted of
killing Aleta Rhodes. Depue was found guilty of capital murder.

Rhodes, the former Edison High School teacher, was murdered during a
robbery back in 2006.

Depue's sentencing will begin Friday morning.

(source: WOAI News)

**********************

Verdict Reached in High Profile Capital Murder Trial

A verdict has been reached in a high profile capital murder trial out of
Coryell County.

25-year-old Stephan Dean Hogankamp is accused of killing, then torching
71-year old Kenneth Smith in his Copperas Cove home back in October of
2006, after he said Smith made unwanted sexual advances.

It took the jury less than 2 hours to reach a guilty verdict that was not
so pleasing to the prosecution.

That's because the jury found Hogankamp guilty on a lesser charge of
murder included in the indictment.

The prosecution, who alleged Hogankamp robbed Smith during the commission
of the murder, was hoping for a guilty verdict on the capital enhancement,
which would've meant the death penalty or an automatic life term in
prison.

When the verdict was read at about noon Thursday one of the only member's
of Hogankamp's family, allowed to sit in the courtroom during the trial,
came running outside the building to relay the decision.

His family members shed tears and hugged each other after they learned of
the verdict. His mother, Katrina Moore, told News Channel 25, she felt
relieved.

Jurors were still deliberating on a sentence as of late afternoon
Thursday. Hogankamp faces two to 99 years in prison.

(source: KXXV News)

deth penalty news- TEXAS... Darlie Routier, Charles Dean Hood, Cost of Wrongful Conviction, Ronnie Joe Neal

June 19

TEXAS:

Darlie Routier talks of new hope from death row

A Rowlett mother placed on death row for the murder of her 2 sons has
expressed hope that new DNA tests will clear her name.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday that Darlie Routier,
who has always claimed a home intruder was the true killer, will be
allowed to re-conduct DNA testing on items from the scene of the crime.

Routier's night shirt and a tube sock found in the alley are among the
items that have been cleared for testing.

In an original test on the blood-stained tube sock, blood was determined
to be from the boys. A third stain on the sock yielded no results.

Routier said she hopes the DNA tests will find another source of blood,
other than her's or her two sons'.

But Routier will not be allowed to test a bloody palm print that was found
on the coffee table, or the blood stains on the butcher knife
investigators have said was the murder weapon.

Routier was convicted more than 10 years ago.

Talking from jail, Routier said that new technology will prove that she is
not a killer.

"Well, do you have that much time?" said Routier when asked how so many
people, and the justice system, could have been wrong in her case.

When Rowlett police arrested Routier in 1996, they were certain they had
it right. The prosecution said Routier stabbed her children, Devon and
Damon, and then stabbed herself to cover it up. The jury agreed.

"I was there," she said. "I know that I didn't murder my children. I know
I did not attack myself."

Wednesday, a judge ruled Routier's legal team can take a fresh look at
hair and blood evidence. All that will be tested is evidence that, at the
time, could not be linked to anyone in the house.

"Everything that I've said is a truth," Routier said. "And it's right
there. It's just a matter of a person taking the time to really look at
it."

The judge denied a request to a bloody fingerprint that could not be
linked to anyone during original testing. Routier said there are 2 such
fingerprints.

"To me, when you have 2 bloody finger prints that are found at a crime
scene that don't belong to anybody that worked on the crime scene and
don't belong to anybody that lived in the home, it pretty much tells you
that somebody else was in the home that committed that crime," Routier
said. "And for me, why am I still here?"

The judge's ruling said the case against Routier is still strong. But if
new testing supports Routier's claim, it might be enough to sway a jury.

(source: WFAA News)

*************************

Rowlett mom on death row Darlie Routier granted DNA testing

Convicted child killer Darlie Lynn Routier won the right from the state's
highest criminal appeals court Wednesday to use DNA to test her contention
that an unidentified intruder murdered her young sons in their Rowlett
home.

Reversing a Dallas judge's decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
ruled unanimously that Mrs. Routier, 38, is entitled to have more
sophisticated genetic testing performed on a few pieces of hair and blood
evidence collected from the 1996 crime scene.

State District Judge Robert Francis denied Mrs. Routier's request for
testing last year after concluding it could not exonerate her. But the
Austin court said Judge Francis had misinterpreted the 2001 law that
permits genetic tests for inmates.

District Attorney Craig Watkins predicted the Austin court's ruling would
have no effect on Mrs. Routier's capital murder conviction and death
sentence.

"This administration has reviewed the case, and we have no doubt about
Mrs. Routier's guilt," Mr. Watkins said in a prepared statement. "We are
confident that the new testing will reaffirm the jury's decision."

Mr. Watkins, who inherited Mrs. Routier's case when he took office last
year, has made DNA testing a hallmark of his administration. His office
had been discussing an agreement to grant testing but this week rejected
it, Mrs. Routier's attorney said.

Mrs. Routier's family hailed the decision as a breakthrough in a 12-year
effort to prove her innocence in the stabbing death of her 5-year-old son,
Damon. She was also accused in the death of a 2nd son but never tried on
that charge.

"This is a 1st step and major win for Darlie and a major win for others,"
said Mrs. Routier's mother, Darlie Kee. "People have been exonerated
because of DNA, and we believe that will hold true for Darlie."

Steve Cooper, a Dallas attorney for Mrs. Routier, said he was pleased the
court agreed to order genetic testing but was cautious about his clients
chances of winning a new trial.

"It's not a long shot," he said, "but it's certainly not more likely than
not."

The outcome hinges on connecting at least 2 pieces of biological evidence
to the same person who is not a member of the Routier family, Mr. Cooper
said.

The appeals court said that while prosecutors presented sufficient
evidence to convict Mrs. Routier of stabbing her son to death, biological
evidence of an uninvited person in the home could have raised enough doubt
among jurors to acquit her.

The court did not grant Mrs. Routier all the tests sought by her attorney,
but it did declare that she had met the legal standard to test pubic and
facial hairs and bloodstains from clothing that was previously tested but
yielded no clear results.

"If we get, for instance, a bloodstain," Mr. Cooper said, "we know it had
to occur that night. And we get a facial hair from the same person and
it's not a Routier, then we as the court says have gone a long way to
proving the intruder theory."

The grisly murders of Damon Routier and his older brother, Devon, while
they slept inside their home the night of June 6, 1996, were headline
news. Their mother, who had knife wounds she blamed on an intruder, was
arrested in the killings 12 days later. She was tried and convicted only
in the murder of Damon.

The state's case against Mrs. Routier was circumstantial. Prosecutors
contended she murdered her boys to salvage a lavish lifestyle in decline.

The defense blamed the killings on an unidentified intruder who attacked
when he was discovered.

The jury deliberated nine hours before convicting Mrs. Routier of killing
Damon and another 4 hours before sentencing her to die by lethal
injection.

She remains on the state's death row for women in Gatesville.

Twice, the Austin court has rejected appeals to overturn her conviction.
The ruling on DNA tests did not state any conclusions about her guilt or
innocence.

The judges found that both the state's theory and the defense's version of
what occurred the night of the attacks had strengths and weaknesses.

We think that adding DNA evidence that would corroborate the appellants
account of an unknown intruder to the evidentiary mix could readily have
tipped the jurys verdict in the appellants favor, Judge Tom Price wrote
for the court

The court rejected defense requests for DNA analysis of untested evidence
or tests that had already yielded results. But it declared that the law
allowed for retesting with technology not available at the time of the
original trial.

Brian Wice, a Houston attorney who argues frequently before the Court of
Criminal Appeals, said its decision was notable but not extraordinary.
"It's certainly not something along the lines of Halley's Comet," he said.

Greg Davis, who was the lead prosecutor in Mrs. Routier's case, said the
Austin court was "bending over backward" to give Mrs. Routier a chance to
make her argument. But he said he was not concerned that testing would
alter the outcome.

"At this point," Mr. Davis said, "I favor the testing because it's going
to resolve any doubts that anyone has about this case."

Mrs. Kee said she believes the tests will ultimately free her daughter.

"I'm looking forward to the day that Darlie shakes hands with Craig
Watkins," she said. "I believe that day will come."

***

Timeline: Darlie Routier case

June 6, 1996: Routier brothers Damon, 5, and Devon, 6, are found stabbed
to death in the family's Rowlett home. Darlie Routier, 26, has cut and
stab wounds on her neck and upper body. Husband Darin Routier, 28, and son
Drake, 8 months, are unharmed.

June 18, 1996: Mrs. Routier is arrested on capital murder charges.

February 1997: After a change of venue, jurors in Kerrville convict Mrs.
Routier of capital murder and sentence her to death for killing Damon.

May 21, 2003: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upholds the conviction
and sentence.

Dec. 1, 2004: The Court of Criminal Appeals denies a writ of habeas
corpus.

Jan. 25, 2007: Dallas Judge Robert Francis denies Mrs. Routier's request
for DNA testing.

June 18, 2008: The Court of Criminal Appeals overrules Judge Francis and
grants limited DNA testing.

***********************

Execution delay in Collin County case started long night of legal
wrangling

The morning after the clock dramatically ran out on Charles Dean Hood's
death warrant, weary prosecutors and defense attorneys girded themselves
for more legal sparring as soon as they figure out the options in the
confusing case.

In the meantime, both sides are ratcheting up the rhetoric in an appeal
that is attracting national attention because of its sensational claims
that Mr. Hood, who was convicted of killing two people in Plano in 1989,
did not receive a fair trial because of an alleged intimate relationship
between the trial judge and the district attorney who prosecuted the case.

"What's important to know about yesterday was that we saw an unprecedented
level of aggression by the prosecutors in particular, but also endorsed by
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, to carry out this execution," said
Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, which is
representing Mr. Hood.

"It is outrageous that in the face of such clear and compelling evidence
of an improper relationship between the judge and the prosecutor that
there would be such relentless pushing for the execution to proceed," she
said.

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Chief Justice Sharon Keller denied there
was any rush to judgment or effort to avoid the issue. "Not at all," she
said of what she termed a "wild" night. "I can't say much more than that
because the case is still going to be pending."

The jab from the defense elicited a terse response from the normally
close-mouthed prosecutor, Collin County Assistant District Attorney John
Rolater.

"That's unworthy of response," he said.

Mr. Rolater said his office would file a motion with the clerk of the
trial court seeking a new execution date.

Tuesday afternoon, the judge sitting in the original court vacated the
death warrant less than two hours before the scheduled execution, then
abruptly recused himself from the case. He requested that the regional
administrative judge, John Ovard, assign a new judge.

When the prosecution appealed, the Court of Criminal Appeals initially
ruled it couldn't do anything because of the recusal. After the
prosecution appealed again, the court ordered Judge Ovard to reinstate the
death warrant.

Judge Ovard was at home watching a video with his wife when he was
surprised, first by a call from the prosecution, then from a staff
attorney at the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Because he didn't know the assistant district attorney or the court's
staff attorney, he asked "to speak with someone from the court that I know
... at which point they put me in contact with Chief Justice Sharon
Keller."

Judge Ovard also spoke with a defense attorney.

After reading the order from the Court of Criminal Appeals and researching
the issue, he said he didn't think he had any choice but to follow the
order, so he assigned himself to the case and reinstated the death
warrant.

He did not feel pressured by Justice Keller, he said, but "the order
stated bluntly they were ordering me to do this," he said. "It wasn't like
'we suggest' or 'consider doing' [this]."

Justice Keller said she did not pressure Judge Ovard. "He called me," she
said. "He wanted to make sure that he understood exactly what was going on
and that this was a valid order of the court."

While the prosecution prepared to reschedule Mr. Hood's execution, the
defense was pondering its next move.

The defense has a motion pending for discovery of evidence about the
relationship between the judge and prosecutor in the case. Although the
defense would like to find new evidence, Ms. Keilen said its current claim
of judicial bias, based on an affidavit from a former assistant district
attorney who said the relationship was "common knowledge," has not been to
the U.S. Supreme Court.

If an intimate relationship existed, she said, it should result in a
reversal of Mr. Hood's conviction and sentence.

Larry Fox, an expert on legal ethics who has joined the defense request
for a review of the issue, said the defense faces an uphill battle
"because of the procedural posture of the case."

While attorneys in McKinney, Austin and San Francisco furiously worked the
phones and fax machines to judges in Dallas, Austin and Washington, it was
the director of the state's prison system who stopped the execution.

"There were various appeals and rulings that were going on throughout the
night," said Jason Clark, public information officer for the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice. "After all the appeals were exhausted,
there simply wasn't enough time to follow the proper execution protocol."

Death row delay in Huntsville

The crime: Charles Dean Hood, now 38, was convicted in 1990 of robbing and
shooting Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Lynn Wallace, at Mr.
Williamson's home in Plano in 1989.

The punishment: Mr. Hood was set to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday in
Huntsville.

The delay: The execution was postponed as a flurry of last-minute appeals
kept attorneys and judges filing and responding to legal motions late into
the night.

The postponement: The way was finally cleared for his execution about 11
p.m., but "time became an issue," said Jason Clark of the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice. The execution has to be carried out by midnight, when
the death warrant expires, so prison officials decided to call it off. Mr.
Clark said it takes varying amounts of time to get the condemned man out
of his cell and into the death chamber or to find a vein for the needle.

The aftermath: Mr. Hood was returned to his cell on death row to await a
new sentencing date while legal wrangling continues. The relatives of
victims Mr. Williamson and Ms. Wallace could not be reached for comment.

(source for both: Dallas Morning News)

***************

Court's actions are 'outrageous,' Hood attorney says----Prosecutors to
seek new execution date for man guilty of double slaying.

Defense lawyers have accused Texas' highest criminal court of conducting
an unseemly if ultimately unsuccessful rush to execute Charles Dean
Hood, who was spared lethal injection when a chaotic flurry of court
filings and rulings led to the expiration of his death warrant at midnight
Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a ruling allowing
Hood's execution to proceed without hearing defense arguments. "In rapid
litigation like this, to act without getting input from both sides is
outrageous. It's not judicious," Hood lawyer Gregory Wiercioch, with the
nonprofit Texas Defender Service, said Wednesday.

But Judge Cheryl Johnson, who was in charge of Hood's case for the
nine-member appeals court, said defense lawyers were given ample
opportunity for input. "They said they needed one hour, but three hours
later we had no response," Johnson said. "We waited."

Lawrence Fox, former chairman of the American Bar Association's ethics
committee, is also troubled that the court issued its writ of mandamus
without hearing from Hood's defense. "The writ only issues to prevent
irreparable injury," he said. "There is no irreparable injury in not
executing him; you can always execute him tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Collin County prosecutors vowed Wednesday to seek a new
execution date for Hood, convicted of a double killing in Plano in 1990.
"I don't know when we'll file the motion seeking it," said John Rolater,
an assistant district attorney.

Defense lawyers vowed to pursue accusations that Hood's trial judge and
trial prosecutor were engaged in a secret romance the crux of Hood's
last-minute appeals.

The accusation strikes at the heart of American jurisprudence: the concept
that criminal trials must be conducted by an impartial judge who must make
dozens of decisions, from what evidence can be introduced to which
questions can be asked, untainted by bias. The standard is so important
that even the appearance of bias can force a judge off a case.

But appeals courts operate along narrowly defined avenues of state law,
and the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the appeal, saying accusations
of a relationship between former District Judge Verla Sue Holland and
then-District Attorney Tom O'Connell should have been raised in an appeal
filed in 1997. "We're always accused of being callous and bloodthirsty,
when what we are doing is what the Legislature requires us to do," Johnson
said.

Still, the relationship argument gained traction Tuesday about 2 hours
before Hood was to be executed at about 6 p.m. during a 15-minute hearing
by telephone with District Judge Curt Henderson.

Wiercioch asked the judge to withdraw Hood's death warrant to allow time
to investigate the alleged Holland-O'Connell relationship. Henderson
agreed, over prosecutors' objections.

Collin County prosecutors spent the next seven hours working to undo
Henderson's order finally prevailing when the Court of Criminal Appeals
ruled that Henderson did not have the authority to halt the execution.

But the appeals finished too late for prison officials, who determined
that there was not enough time to get the lethal chemicals flowing before
the death warrant expired at midnight.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

*******************************

CCA Jump-Starts the Death Machine

Tom PriceIn 2 opinions issued June 9, the state Court of Criminal Appeals
cleared the way for executions to resume in Texas, after an 8-month hiatus
imposed by federal legal challenges to lethal injection as an inhumane
method of execution. 2 days later, the state executed its 1st inmate since
September, Karl Chamberlain, for a 1991 murder in Dallas. Another dozen
inmates are currently scheduled for execution this year.

Ruling on challenges to the method of execution, filed by inmates John
Alba and Heliberto Chi, a plurality of the court, led by Judge Barbara
Hervey, ruled in Chi's case that Texas' tri-chemical method of lethal
injection is "materially indistinguishable" from that used by the state of
Kentucky, which the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled does not
violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. The issue
in that case (Baze v. Rees) was, in essence, whether "maladministration"
of 1 of the 3 chemicals that make up the lethal injection cocktail would
expose an inmate to unwarranted and excruciating pain. In that case based
on a full review of case and evidence record the Supremes concluded that
the "risks of maladministration [the inmates] have suggested such as
improper mixing of chemicals and improper setting of IVs by trained and
experienced personnel cannot remotely be characterized as 'objectively
intolerable.'" Without similarly reviewing any evidence that the Texas
experience with the tri-chem method of execution might be different from
that in Kentucky, a CCA plurality adopted the language of the Supremes,
opining that the Baze ruling applies equally in Texas. That allowed the
court to conclude that Chi's claim to the contrary "has no merit" and
therefore that he "cannot establish that he has a clear right to ...
relief."

In ruling against the challenges brought by both Alba and Chi, the court
also opined that inmates have no right to challenge the method of
execution using the state's habeas corpus law. A habeas claim "must
challenge the judgment against the applicant or seek to change his
sentence," Judge Lawrence Meyers wrote for a plurality of the court in
Alba's case and challenging lethal injection doesn't qualify. The court
agreed with the argument of the Texas attorney general that because
neither inmate is "contesting the validity of his conviction or his death
sentence" and instead seeks "only to challenge a circumstance of his
conviction, habeas corpus cannot provide a remedy." (The U.S. Supreme
Court in the past has allowed a challenge to execution method via a habeas
writ but in recent years has suggested such challenges should be brought
instead as civil rights claims.) Further, the CCA agreed with the state
argument that because the Legislature granted authority "to determine the
specific lethal-injection process" to the state's Department of Criminal
Justice, challenging the process is "outside the scope of habeas corpus,"
Meyers wrote.

The court's reasoning was rejected in 2 strongly worded dissents one
filed by Judge Cheryl Johnson (joined by Judge Charles Holcomb), the other
by Judge Tom Price. In her opinion, Johnson concluded that the plurality
was wrong to merely adopt the Supremes' ruling in Baze with no other
inquiry or review. "The federal courts have returned this case to us so
that [Alba] may exhaust his state remedies on a claim of an Eighth
Amendment violation," she wrote. "Our response is to close all avenues for
review. When a claim of constitutional dimension is raised, there simply
must be a mechanism for considering it on its merits."

In his even more scathing dissent, Price accused the plurality's rejection
of the use of habeas corpus to challenge lethal injection as effectively
"withholding the rudiments of due process." Price said the ruling reflects
an "unseemly haste to crank the machine back up" and declared, "I cannot
go along with this." State habeas should be available to an inmate seeking
to assert the "one substantive constitutional right he unquestionably
retains ... the right, when the time comes, to be executed in a humane
manner," Price wrote. "I cannot accept that the Great Writ should not be
an available remedy for the applicant to raise an Eighth Amendment
challenge ... on the ground that it does not impact the 'fact or length,'
of his confinement," Price continued. "Apparently the Court will not
tolerate actual litigation of the issue if that means the death machine
meanwhile must stand idle," he wrote. "But we cannot fix the machine while
the cogs are turning."

(source: Austin Chronicle)

*************

Wrongful convictions an expensive proposition

You can argue that it's morally outrageous when individuals lose days,
months or years of their lives in prison after being wrongly convicted of
committing a crime.

Imprisonment, after all, is meant to hold lawbreakers responsible for
their own actions and to deter other wrongdoing by demonstrating that
offenders will be caught and punished.

You can argue that it's legally absurd to lock up someone who didn't
actually do the deed.

The legal system exists, after all, to find the truth and to enforce the
rules fairly, accurately and appropriately. When the system fails, its
credibility suffers -- and public confidence is essential.

You can argue that it threatens public safety to consider a criminal case
closed when the accused who's been convicted and sentenced is not the real
culprit.

The public depends, after all, on the proper incarceration of dangerous
individuals. If the criminal justice system figuratively washes its hands
once someone is found guilty, actual offenders remain free or
unaccountable.

But for those who still aren't convinced by those worthy arguments that
Texas needs more safeguards against wrongful convictions, there's still
the bottom line.

And here's the black and white from the Texas comptroller's office: 45
people have been paid almost $8.5 million since 2001.

Under current law, a convicted individual who has been pardoned because of
a wrongful conviction or has been declared actually innocent can apply to
the Texas comptroller's office for compensation of $50,000 per year of
imprisonment, $100,000 per year if in on a death sentence. (Before last
year, it was $25,000 a year, up to $500,000.)

Among the 45 listed by the comptroller's office -- see the partial list
that accompanies this column -- are 19 of the 35 Tulia residents whom Gov.
Rick Perry pardoned in 2003 after an undercover agent whose testimony was
used against them on drug charges was discredited. Their payments range
from $14,500 to more than $106,000.

The problem with money is that it can't make up for lost time and the
other life disruptions that accompany being wrongly accused, convicted and
imprisoned. That's a whole other story.

Nor does the compensation that the state has paid account for what
taxpayers put in on the front end of those prosecutions or to house
prisoners who don't belong there.

You can make lots of arguments for improving the system. It's hard to
argue against it.

COSTLY RECOMPENSE

These are the top 10 amounts cited by the Texas comptroller's office:

$1,000,000 -- Larry Charles Fuller, Dallas County: Spent almost 20 years
in prison, convicted of a 1981 rape based on the victim's identification.
Exonerated through DNA testing in 2007.

$608,333 -- John Michael Harvey, Tarrant County: Served almost 13 years of
a 40-year sentence, convicted of molesting the 3-year-old daughter of a
former girlfriend. Found actually innocent by courts after the girl
recanted the accusation, released in 2004.

(Fuller and Harvey won't receive half their money until later this year
because the law requires payment in 2 installments.)

$500,000 -- Billy Wayne Miller, Dallas County: Served more than 22 years
of a life sentence, convicted of 1984 sexual assault. Exonerated through
DNA testing in 2006.

$452,083 -- Arthur Merle Mumphrey, Montgomery County: Served 18 years,
convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint in 1986.
Exonerated through DNA testing and pardoned in 2006.

$435,416 -- Carlos Lavernia, Travis County: Served 17 years of a 99-year
sentence, convicted of aggravated sexual abuse largely on the victim's
identification. Exonerated through DNA testing in 2000.

$429,166 -- Ernest Ray Willis, Pecos County: Served 17 years on death row,
convicted of deliberately setting a fire in which 2 women died. A federal
judge ruled that the state withheld evidence and improperly drugged Willis
and that his lawyer was ineffective. A new investigation found the fire
wasn't arson. Charges were dropped.

$391,666 -- Victor Larue Thomas, Ellis County: Served more than 15 years,
convicted of raping a store clerk at gunpoint in 1985. Exonerated through
DNA testing in 2001.

$387,499 -- Wiley Edward Fountain, Dallas County: Served 15 years,
convicted of aggravated sexual assault in 1986. Exonerated through DNA
testing in 2002. (CNN reported recently that he had become homeless and
could not be found.)

$385,416 -- David Shawn Pope, Dallas County: Served 15 years of a 45-year
sentence, convicted of raping a Garland woman at knifepoint in 1985.
Exonerated through DNA testing in 2001.

$374,999 -- Calvin Edward Washington, McLennan County: Served almost 15
years of a life sentence, convicted of raping and killing a woman in 1986.
Exonerated through DNA testing in 2001.

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

*****************

Court rejects appeal of man who killed Heights teacher

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday upheld the conviction and
death sentence of Ronnie Joe Neal, found guilty two years ago of raping,
robbing and killing a beloved Alamo Heights schoolteacher for whom he had
once worked.

In its ruling, the state's highest criminal court rejected Neal's 26
points of error, affirming the trial court's judgment that Neal was
responsible for fatally shooting Diane Tilly, whose disappearance during
the 2004 Thanksgiving holiday gripped the city until her body was found in
an empty Schertz field.

"We're pleased with this decision, First Assistant District Attorney Cliff
Herberg said. "The case against Neal was very strong and we expected it to
be upheld."

Neal's attorney for the appeals process did not return calls seeking
comment.

Neal, 35, had been a lawn man for Tilly, the founding teacher at Robbins
Academy. He introduced her to his daughter Pearl Cruz, 15 at the time, who
later was the 1st to enter Tilly's home, holding the teacher at gunpoint
as Cruz waited for her father.

Neal then raped Tilly as he held a sheet over her head, used her ATM card,
stole other valuable possessions, and eventually drove Tilly to the field
where she was shot.

In Neal's trial, Cruz testified against him, offering disturbing details
not only of Tilly's last hours but also of Neal's abusive relationship
with Cruz, which included a sexual relationship that led to the teen's
pregnancy. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison for her role in the
crime.

In its ruling Wednesday, the court rejected an array of issues raised by
Neal's attorneys, including whether testimony from a cellmate should have
been admitted, whether officers had enough probable cause to search his
car and his motel room, and whether jurors were properly instructed on how
to decide his guilt.

6 of his points related to a contentious issue raised during Neal's
punishment phase when he claimed he has mental retardation a condition
that would have made him ineligible for the death penalty after a 2002
U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned executions of those with mental
retardation.

It was the 1st time Bexar County jurors were forced to confront the
question.

Because Texas has no law dictating how to make that diagnosis, it's up to
each court to decide. In what he then called an abundance of caution,
District Judge Sid Harle elected to not only make his own ruling, but also
punted it to jurors. Both decided Neal does not have mental retardation.

Neal argued, in part, that the trial court erred when it did not order a
separate jury to determine whether he has mental retardation. Though the
court rejected that claim, Justice Lawrence E. Myers wrote in a concurring
opinion that a jury that has already convicted a defendant may not be in
the best position to decide whether he has mental retardation. He favored
a separate panel to decide the issue prior to the trial.

In Neal's case, however, he said he did not dispute the jury's findings.

(source: San Antonio Express-Mews)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 18

TEXAS:

Court grants Routier limited DNA testing

Darlie Routier, a homemaker sent to death row after her 2 young sons were
fatally stabbed in their upscale suburban house, on Wednesday was granted
new DNA testing she hopes will prove her claim that the true killer was an
intruder.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Routier should be allowed
to conduct new DNA testing on blood stains on clothing, hairs and dried
flakes of a substance found near the garage of the Routier home in the
Dallas suburb of Rowlett.

"This is an answer to a prayer," a tearful Darlie Kee, Routier's mother,
told The Associated Press. "I'm not a scientist. But I know my daughter is
innocent."

Routier's previous appeals to the court had been denied, but state law
allows for post-conviction DNA testing in some cases.

Routier's children, Damon, 5, and Devon, 6, were stabbed to death in their
home in 1996. Routier has maintained her innocence and claims an intruder
attacked her and the boys then fled through the garage.

She was arrested 2 weeks after the murders. Her 1997 trial was moved to
Kerrville because of publicity surrounding the case. She was convicted of
capital murder for Damon's slaying and sentenced to death by lethal
injection.

The items Routier can test were already tested for her trial. But her
attorneys argue new, improved DNA technology could produce evidence to
support her claim of an intruder.

The case now goes back to the trial court to set up the new testing.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said his office has "no
doubts about Ms. Routier's guilt. We are confident that the new testing
will reaffirm the jury's decision."

The items to be retested:

-Blood stains on her night shirt that previous tests showed to be soaked
in blood from her and the boys. She claims newer techniques may find
another source of blood.

-A blood stain on a tube sock found in an alley. The sock contained blood
from both boys and a 3rd blood stain that did not yield a result. The
court agreed that newer techniques might yield a DNA result.

-Dried flakes on a utility room door. Although the flakes were previously
tested and found not to include human DNA, Routier alleges they are dried
blood that should be re-examined.

-Pubic and facial hairs. The pubic hair yielded no result and the facial
hair was found to be from someone other than Routier or her husband. She
maintains the facial hair is from the alleged intruder and hopes to
connect it to the results from the other retested items.

The court denied retests of a bloody palm print on the coffee table and
blood stains on a butcher knife, which investigators said was the murder
weapon.

In granting the new testing, the court said the state's case against
Routier remains strong, but if the new testing shows the results Routier
alleges, there's a chance a jury would not convict her.

"There is at least a 51 % likelihood that the jury would have seen her as
a victim herself, or at least that it would have harbored a reasonable
doubt that she was not," the court wrote.

Even if the tests cannot exclude her as the killer, planting that
reasonable doubt to her guilt would be a key step, said Routier's attorney
Stephen Cooper.

"We don't have a home run ball here," he said. "We have to put together a
couple of doubles."

Prosecutors alleged the motive for the killings was money. Darlie and
Darin Routier were living an expensive lifestyle and financial pressures
of credit cards and late mortgage payments were mounting, prosecutors
said.

Darin Routier also acknowledged that a few months before the murders, he
talked about hiring someone to break into the family's house in an
insurance scam.

Kee said she and Routier's youngest son, 12-year-old Drake, visited her in
prison Tuesday.

"He knows his mother is innocent," Kee said.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

**************************

Rowlett mom on death row Darlie Routier granted DNA testing

Darlie Routier, the Rowlett mother sent to death row after the 1996
stabbing deaths of her 2 young sons, has been granted a chance to prove
her innocence through DNA testing.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday ruled that Routier should
be allowed to conduct DNA testing on blood stains, flakes of dried blood
and hairs found at the crime scene.

Routier's previously appeals to the court had been denied, but state law
allows for post-conviction DNA testing in some cases. Routier has
maintained that she is innocent of the murders.

Routier was accused in the slayings of the young boys, Damon and Devon,
but was only tried and convicted in the death of Damon. She has maintained
that an intruder at the family's home killed them.

(source: Associated Press)

*************************

Texas death penalty out of step with public attitudes in post-Baze America

Bryan McCann [member, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Austin, TX
Chapter]: "When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Baze v. Rees case that
Kentucky's lethal injection protocol did not constitute cruel and unusual
punishment, death penalty opponents everywhere braced for the resumption
of state-sanctioned killing. Those of us who organize against the death
penalty in Texas were particularly expecting our state government to
resume executions in earnest, given the Lone Star State's reputation for
the busiest death row in the nation. Following an 8-month de-facto
national moratorium on executions as states awaited the Baze decision,
Texas planned to resume its macabre style of frontier justice on June 3
with the execution of Derrick Sonnier.

Yet, as June 3 came and death penalty opponents gathered before the State
Capitol to protest, we learned that Mr. Sonnier would not die. His lawyers
successfully argued before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that that
states own changes in its lethal injection procedures had not undergone
sufficient judicial scrutiny. This fleeting moment of relief, however,
would change to an all-to-familiar sadness and outrage as Karl Chamberlain
entered the execution room in Huntsville, Texas as his mother stood
outside the infamous "Walls Unit" to protest her sons death.

Karl Chamberlain was sentenced to death for the 1991 rape and murder of
his neighbor. A white male, Chamberlain expressed remorse for his crime as
he lay on the gurney. The presence of protesters in Huntsville, Austin,
and other locations in Texas notwithstanding, his was not a high profile
execution. Yet, as Texas machinery of death appears once again to be fully
functional with fourteen scheduled executions through October, the
occasion of Mr. Chamberlains death requires analysis. Now that Texas has
ended its 406th life since 1982, how might we speculate on the future of
capital punishment in Texas and elsewhere?

As I stood at the rally for the scheduled execution of Derrick Sonnier,
having already heard the news of his stay, I spoke with Akwesi Evans of
the African American community newspaper Nokoa. He commented that he
doubted Texas would have treaded so carefully if Sonnier had faced the
needle several years earlier. While there is no telling whether Sonniers
lawyers' arguments would have been more or less successful in, say, 2005
than 2008, I believe there is an underlying truth to Evans remarks. Things
are changing in Texas, as they are throughout the nation. Public opinion
continues to turn against the death penalty. While a majority of Americans
continue to support the sanction, they represent a far smaller percentage
than in previous decades. Since former Governor George Ryan cleared
Illinois' death row in 2003, the public is acutely concerned about the
possibility of sending an innocent person to their death. Though the
Supreme Court appears to have affirmed the use of capital punishment
across the nation, other states have begun to question their use of the
sanction. Most notably, the New Jersey legislature passed and the governor
signed a bill abolishing the death penalty.

Even the Texas death penalty has shown signs of weakness. Last summer, a
small group of family members and anti-death penalty organizers waged an
unlikely battle against the impending execution of Kenneth Foster, Jr. We
captured international attention and won. Kenneth is now serving a life
term and may one day be paroled. The same Court of Criminal Appeals that
granted Derrick Sonnier a stay has been under intense national scrutiny,
especially after Presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused on September 25 to
keep the court open 20 minutes late to allow Michael Richard's attorneys
to recover from computer problems and file his last appeal. This appeal,
of course, was based on the pending Baze case that would temporarily halt
executions across the country. Richard would die at precisely the moment
when the rest of the nation was halting executions and awaiting the High
Courts decision on lethal injection. Individual high profile cases like
those of Rodney Reed - a black man sentenced to death [news report] for
murdering the white fianc of a notoriously violent white police officer,
and the so-called "Yogurt Shop Murders" - 2 men convicted for a quadruple
homicide after a reckless and politically-charged 8-year investigation, as
well as the disgraceful resignation of Houston's District Attorney Chuck
Rosenthal, continue to highlight deep flaws in the structures of criminal
justice in Texas.

Since receiving his stay, Derrick Sonnier learned his new execution date
is July 23. This chilling fact, the haunting image of Karl Chamberlain's
mother grieving her son just feet away from his ritualistic death, and the
unwavering pace at which Texas plans to reclaim its status as the "Belly
of the Beast" all seem causes for pessimism and defeat. Yet, embedded
within the obvious tragedies that take place as a matter of public policy
on Texas' death row and others are reasons to be hopeful. As I type this,
an email appeared in my inbox announcing that a State District Judge has
withdrawn the execution order for Charles Dean Hood, who was scheduled to
receive a lethal injection in about half an hour. The death penalty is on
the defensive in a way it has not been since it was ruled unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court amid the movements and struggles of the early 1970s.
Slowly but surely, ordinary people are recognizing the death penalty for
what it is: a barbaric, racist practice that almost always punishes the
poor, sentences the innocent to die, and fails to prevent crime. Though we
are right to mourn the loss of Karl Chamberlain and others that Texas will
poison in the name of justice, we should remain encouraged and motivated
by the fact that even the state that executes more than the rest of the
states combined is doing so with more caution and more fear of an
increasingly disapproving citizenry."

(source: Opinions expressed in JURIST's Hotline are the sole
responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of JURIST's editors, staff, or the University of Pittsburgh)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 18

TEXAS:

Collin County murderer not executed after day of legal wrangling

After hours of legal wrangling between attorneys and judges, including
protests from leading legal ethicists over an alleged relationship between
a judge and prosecutor in the trial of Charles Dean Hood, Tuesday passed
without the Collin County murderer's execution.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately green-lighted the execution
by ordering a local judge to reinstate a death warrant that had been
withdrawn by another judge. The death warrant was reinstated, but the
execution was called off shortly before midnight when prison officials
said they didn't have time to ensure it was conducted properly before the
midnight deadline for the death warrant was to expire.

The bizarre tug-of-war between the lower court and the state's highest
criminal court over whether Mr. Hood got a fair trial is likely to roil
death penalty advocates and opponents who keep a close eye on the nation's
busiest death penalty state.

Mr. Hood came within 90 minutes of his scheduled 6 p.m. execution which
was delayed after a judge vacated his death warrant. But he could hardly
draw a ragged breath of relief before prosecutors filed an appeal to have
his sentence for a Plano double-slaying carried out.

The merits of the issue were then lost in a maze of technicalities as
judges and attorneys debated whether Mr. Hood's death warrant could be
vacated and reinstated.

On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a stay to consider
the issue of the alleged improper relationship, saying the allegation was
unproved and not new.

Sequence of events

About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, without explaining his reasoning, a district
judge in Collin County ordered the death warrant vacated and immediately
recused himself from the case.

The prosecution then repeatedly appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals.
The appeals court initially ruled that the district judge had no authority
to act, but since he had recused himself, the appeals court also said it
could not order him to reinstate the death warrant.

After more appeals from prosecutors, about 9:15 p.m. the Court of Criminal
Appeals ordered Judge John Ovard, the regional presiding judge, to
reinstate the death warrant. He did so shortly before 11 p.m.

Defense reaction

The legal maneuvering dumbfounded defense attorneys.

"We've never been in this position before," said Andrea Keilen, executive
director of the Texas Defender Service, which is representing Mr. Hood.
"I've never seen anything like this."

"All of this is quibbling over technical issues in the case when what we
should be talking about is the trial judge and the trial prosecutor
engaged in an affair during a capital murder case," she said.

John Rolater, the assistant district attorney now handling the Hood case,
declined to comment.

Mr. Hood has been on death row since 1990 for the robbery and murders of
Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Lynn Wallace, in Plano the
year before.

When told Tuesday afternoon that his execution date had been withdrawn,
Mr. Hood, 38, cried, according to prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

"I just thank God," he said. "I just walk by my faith. If it didn't
happen, I was going home to the Lord."

Relatives of the victims at the death chamber waiting to witness the
execution could not be reached for comment.

Alleged affair

Rumors about the alleged intimate relationship between Judge Sue Holland
and then-District Attorney Tom O'Connell have circulated for years. They
have repeatedly declined to comment.

In a letter to The Dallas Morning News in 2000, Mr. Hood wrote, "During my
trial, the setting [sic] judge and district attorney were having a sexual
relationship, a huge ("conflict of interest")."

The allegations were publicized in 2005 in an article on Salon.com but had
not been raised at trial or during Mr. Hood's other appeals because
attorneys had no proof, only rumors.

But in early June, former Assistant District Attorney Matthew Goeller
swore in an affidavit saying the relationship was "common knowledge,"
lasting from 1987 until 1993.

Mr. Hood's attorneys felt that affidavit from a former prosecutor who
worked in the office during the time of the trial offered sufficient
reason to introduce the alleged relationship as a reason to reverse the
conviction and sentence.

"The absence of an impartial judge is a structural defect," they wrote.

But to the dismay of Mr. Hood's lawyers, and several leading legal
ethicists, the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to address the issue,
saying the information was not new.

The former assistant district attorney who filed the affidavit "does not
allege that he has any personal knowledge of such a relationship," Judge
Tom Price wrote in a concurring opinion denying the appeal and the stay of
execution.

Defense attorneys then turned to Judge Curt Henderson in the Collin County
district court, and he granted the execution date withdrawal.

Judge Henderson, who was an assistant district attorney in Collin County
from 1979 until 1986, then immediately recused himself. He asked the
presiding judge of the court's administrative region to appoint a new
judge.

Prosecutors respond

Collin County prosecutors responded with the Tuesday evening appeal to the
Court of Criminal Appeals that argued that the trial court had no
authority to modify the execution date, saying Mr. Hood was engaging in
"gamesmanship" and a "fishing expedition" to find more evidence after the
Court of Criminal Appeals had already ruled.

Earlier in the day, Larry Fox, former chairman of the American Bar
Association Ethics Committee, worried about the impact of Mr. Hood's
possible execution. Mr. Fox was one of several other legal experts calling
for review of the case.

"I was thinking the headlines tomorrow for us around the world would be a
black mark on our system of justice," he said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

************************

Austin judge finds inmate sane enough for execution----More appeals are
likely in the landmark case

For 15 years, Scott Panetti has been Example No. 1 of the problems that
result when mental illness crosses paths with the criminal justice system.

They were evident at his capital murder trial, when he represented himself
and dressed up in a purple cowboy suit, making a bad joke of sober
proceedings when he subpoenaed JFK and Jesus Christ. And they were just as
apparent years later when the state tried to execute Panetti, only to see
appeals courts step in and grapple with the question of whether he was too
crazy to kill.

Now an Austin federal judge has decided that Panetti, convicted by a Kerr
County jury of killing his in-laws in 1992, may not be quite as sick as
advertised and likely has tried to manipulate doctors assigned to
investigate his mental state.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who conducted a hearing on Panetti's
sanity in February, concluded that he does not deserve the protection of
the courts at least not in his current state.

"If any mentally ill person is competent to be executed for his crime,
this record establishes it is Scott Panetti," Sparks concluded in his
62-page opinion.

A year ago, Panetti's lawyers were celebrating a decision by the U.S.
Supreme Court that declared Texas' standard for deciding competency for
execution was so narrow as to be almost meaningless.

Expanding on its 1986 ruling in Ford v. Wainwright, which made it unlawful
to execute the incompetent, the high court said a defendant had to have a
"rational understanding" of why he was going to be put to death.

Panetti's lead counsel, Greg Wiercioch, all but said his death row days
were numbered.

"Today the Supreme Court recognized that executing Scott Panetti would be
a mindless, meaningless and miserable spectacle," Wiercioch said.

His assumption was that any court ordered to review Panetti's case in
light of the Supreme Court's ruling which required that defendants have
more than just a technical understanding why they were being put to death
would see how sick he is and spare him the needle.

Malingering suspected

Sparks, however, did nothing of the sort.

While acknowledging that Panetti is seriously mentally ill, Sparks,
however, seized on the opinion of three doctors hired by the state who
suspected malingering and found behavior inconsistent with previous
diagnoses of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

Sparks was also persuaded by tape recordings of conversations between
Panetti and his parents. They indicate he had a good grasp of his legal
case, and that he had adjusted his attitude and his level of cooperation
with doctors depending on which side was paying them.

To Sparks, Panetti's words suggested a rational appreciation of his
predicament.

"It is not seriously disputable that Panetti suffers from paranoid
delusions of some type, and these delusions may well have contributed to
his murder of Joe and Amanda Alvarado," Sparks wrote. "However, it is
equally apparent from his recorded conversations with his parents that
these delusions do not prevent him from having both a factual and rational
understanding that he committed those murders, was tried and convicted,
and is sentenced to die for them."

Wiercioch said Sparks essentially ignored 30 years of medical evidence and
relied on a small amount of recorded conversation that did not mean
anything when viewed in light of Panetti's system of delusions.

Wiercioch insists Sparks missed the point of the Supreme Court's decision:
A condemned inmate's competency has to be considered in light of his
broader understanding of the crime, why he committed it and why he is
being punished for it.

Careful examination

In its review of the Panetti case, the Supreme Court acknowledged that
"rational understanding" is a difficult concept to define. It also pointed
out that some offenders might be so callous, unrepentant or lacking in
compassion that they might seem out of touch with reality, which does not
mean they cannot be executed.

But the high court said that defendants who are seriously mentally ill
need to be carefully examined to see that what they believe and understand
has some connection to the truth.

"Gross delusions stemming from a severe mental disorder may put an
awareness of a link between crime and its punishment in a context so far
removed from reality that the punishment can serve no proper purpose," the
majority opinion stated. "A prisoner's awareness of the State's rationale
for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it."

Sparks' opinion took a limited view of what that means. Panetti's illness
and belief system are largely irrelevant now if he can talk reasonably
about his appeals and understands he is engaged in an adversarial process
that could end with his execution, the judge said.

Understanding matters

Under Sparks' interpretation, even the most bizarre delusional system
would matter little say, Panetti believing he killed his in-laws because
he had been anointed by God to stop an alien invasion of Earth because
the only matter relevant for execution competency would be a rational
understanding of the legal process involved in obtaining it.

"The tapes of Panetti's conversations with his parents establish that
Panetti has a fairly sophisticated understanding of his case, up to and
including the legal intricacies presented by Ford and the Supreme Court's
remand opinion," Sparks wrote.

Sparks also wrote that Panetti's unwillingness to engage mental health
experts equally regardless of which side was employing them also worked
against the claim that he is too ill to understand what is going on.

"This suggests nothing more exotic than a rational understanding that
Panetti's legal defense is an adversarial process and the State is on the
other side," the judge stated.

The case will be appealed and ultimately could end up back with the
Supreme Court for justices to determine whether Sparks followed the intent
of their previous ruling.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

************************************

2 in toddler death case given bond

A couple charged with capital murder in the April death of a toddler in
their care while her soldier parents were stationed overseas were allowed
bond on Tuesday.

Judge David Guaderrama of the 243rd District Court presided over the
arraignment and bond hearings for Nakia Dawkins and Shawntrell Dawkins,
who were arrested and charged with capital murder in the death of
2-year-old Milanya Harris. They are also charged with injury to a child --
Milanya's 4-year-old brother, Jailen Harris.

Bond was set at $500,000 each for the capital murder charge, and the
previously set bond of $50,000 each for the injury-to-a-child charge was
allowed to stand.

Assistant District Attorney Beto Acosta told the court the couple had
admitted corporal punishment, giving the children "a whooping" with a belt
as discipline. He said both children had multiple bruises from a belt
buckle.

Acosta said an autopsy report showed Milanya died from blunt force trauma
with nine subdural hematomas on her head. Subdural hematomas are tumorlike
blood clots on the brain. He said that more than 40 % of her body was
covered with bruises, and that the medical examiner's office determined
her bruising was not consistent with a fall down the stairs, as the couple
had stated.

Nakia and Shawntrell Dawkins had cared for the children for about 6
months.

Stuart Leeds, Shawntrell Dawkins' lawyer, told the court the couple would
be allowed Army housing if they were released on bond.

"She's never been arrested in her life, judge, for anything," Leeds said.
He emphasized her family support system and said she would not be a flight
risk.

"My client cooperated with the police all the way," he said. "She's a very
honest person. She does what she says she's going to do."

Theresa Caballero, Nakia Dawkins' lawyer, said the couple denied killing
the toddler.

"Our clients called 911 right away when they saw the child wasn't
breathing," she told the court.

Acosta then argued that the couple had no ties to El Paso and are a flight
risk, particularly since the death penalty may be on the table.

The district attorney's office has not yet decided whether to seek the
death penalty.

Shawntrell and Nakia Dawkins remained jailed Tuesday afternoon.

(source: El Paso Times)

*******************************

Courts grant go-ahead in Sonnier execution, date set

Following a ruling by the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, the clock is
once again ticking for convicted killer Derrick Sonnier. He was scheduled
to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. June 3 at the Huntsville
"Walls" Unit when the execution was stopped. A few days later, June 9, the
TCCA lifted the stay of execution.

The execution of convicted killer Derrick Sonnier, 40, received a green
light once again less than a week after his scheduled death by lethal
injection was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

According to Roe Wilson, Harris County assistant district attorney, the
execution is set for July 23 in Huntsville. The new date was set June 13
after the stay imposed by the TCCA was lifted.

The states highest court stopped Sonniers execution June 3 only an hour
prior to the event after attorneys filed a last-minute appeal, maintaining
that lethal injection would violate their clients Eighth Amendment right
against cruel and unusual punishment.

After reviewing Sonnier's claim, the TCCA ruled that Sonnier has not made
a "showing of a constitutional violation." Of the 9 TCAA judges, 2 voted
against the lift on the stay of execution for Sonnier.

TCCA documents further show that judges argued that the Texas lethal
injection process is very similar to the Kentucky protocol which was just
recently upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, in respect to
both the chemicals used during lethal injection as well as in the training
of those individuals administering the drugs.

Judges J. Cochran and J. Womack, proposed to lifting the stay of
execution, opined that recent changes in the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice Execution Procedure manual, effective May 30, were designed to
mirror Kentucky's procedures even more closely.

Sonnier was convicted of the 1991 murder of Humble resident Melody Flowers
and her 2-year-old son, Patrick. He was convicted and sentenced to death
by a Harris County jury and was received on death row in March 1993.

Sonnier has been scheduled for execution 3 times - originally in October
2007, February of this year and again most recently in June.

The stay of execution granted June 3 was greeted by the victim's family
with emotional outbursts in front of the Huntsville "Walls" Unit death
chamber. Now, the clock is once again ticking for Sonnier.

"The train to justice unfortunately moves at a snail's pace and sometimes
you get hit by unexpected barricades like what happened last Tuesday with
Sonnier's stay of execution," said crime victims advocate Andy Kahan. "For
the victims family its one emotional roller coaster after another and
hopefully now the train is back on its path toward justice. There is no
issue of guilt or innocence. This family has waited long enough."

(source: The Humble Observerf)

death penalty news------TEXAS

June 18

TEXAS----state misses execution deadline; Hood is spared

Texas halts inmate's execution for 1989 double slaying

Texas halted the scheduled execution of a former topless club bouncer for
a double slaying almost 20 years ago as time ran out.

Prison officials were faced with a midnight CDT deadline Tuesday to
administer the lethal drugs to Charles Dean Hood but feared they could not
follow the proper procedures in time after lengthy appeals delayed the
scheduled punishment.

Hood would have been the 2nd Texas prisoner executed in as many weeks.

Hood was arrested in his native Indiana the day after the 1989 slayings of
Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's home in the
Dallas suburb of Plano.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 17

TEXAS:

Court orders execution warrant reinstated

A Texas appeals court ordered the reinstatement of an execution warrant
for condemned killer Charles Dean Hood.

The Court of Criminal Appeals said state District Judge Curt Henderson did
not have its permission to act to spare Hood from lethal injection for a
double slaying in suburban Dallas in 1989.

They ordered a supervisory judge to rescind Henderson's reprieve and
"immediately reinstate the death warrant."

Hood's attorneys had 3 unresolved appeals still before the U.S. Supreme
Court.

The warrant is scheduled to expire at midnight CDT.

(source: Associated Press)

************************************

Execution delayed for Texas death row inmate convicted for Plano murders

After a bizarre day of legal wrangling between attorneys and judges,
including protests from leading legal ethicists over an alleged
relationship between a judge and prosecutor in the trial of Charles Dean
Hood, the Collin County murderers execution was put on hold Tuesday.

The flurry of activity is likely to catapult Texas' death row machinery
back into the center of the capital punishment debate.

Mr. Hood came within 90 minutes of his scheduled 6 p.m. execution. But he
could hardly draw a ragged breath of relief before prosecutors filed an
appeal to have his sentence for a Plano double-slaying carried out. It was
one of many motions and rulings that played out until midnight when his
death warrant was to expire.

Now, The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which rejected a stay to
consider the issue on Monday, is again faced with the issue because of an
unusual move by a lower court judge the order to halt Mr. Hoods date with
the needle came from Collin Countys 296th district court.

The tug-of-war between the lower court and the state's highest criminal
court over whether Mr. Hood got a fair trial and should die is likely to
roil death penalty advocates and opponents who keep a close eye on the
nations busiest death penalty state.

For now, Mr. Hood is spared.

"Oh, my god, I'm so gratified," Larry Fox, former chairman of the American
Bar Association Ethics Committee, who joined other legal experts in
calling for review of the case. I was thinking the headlines tomorrow for
us around the world would be a black mark on our system of justice."

But the legal maneuvering is far from over.

Late Tuesday, The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that lower court Judge
Curt Henderson had no authority to withdraw Mr. Hoods death warrant. But
since Judge Henderson immediately recused himself from further action on
the case, the Texas high court also ruled that it could not immediately
order him to vacate his order.

Instead, a new judge yet to be named would become subject of any order by
the high court to reinstate the death warrant.

John Rolater, the assistant district attorney now handling the Hood case,
declined to comment.

When told Tuesday that his execution date had been withdrawn, Mr. Hood,
38, cried, according to prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

"I just thank God," he said. "I just walk by my faith. If it didn't
happen, I was going home to the Lord."

Mr. Hood has been on death row since 1990 for the robbery and double
murder of Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Lynn Wallace, in
Plano the year before.

Relatives of the victims at the death chamber waiting to witness the
execution could not be reached for comment.

The brouhaha that left Mr. Hood alive for another day was a relief, if
only briefly, for Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender
Service, which is representing Mr. Hood.

"We're glad that it seems like finally this issue might get some serious
attention," she said.

Rumors about the alleged intimate relationship between Ms. Holland and Mr.
OConnell have circulated for years. They have repeatedly declined to
comment.

In a letter to The Dallas Morning News in 2000, Mr. Hood wrote, "During my
trial, the setting (sic) judge and district attorney were having a sexual
relationship, a huge ("conflict of interest") yet trial counsel was too
afraid to do anything about it."

The allegations were publicized in 2005 in an article on Salon.com but had
not been raised at trial or during Mr. Hoods other appeals because
attorneys had no proof, only rumors.

But in early June, former assistant district attorney Matthew Goeller
swore in an affidavit saying the relationship was "common knowledge,"
lasting from 1987 till 1993.

Mr. Hoods attorneys felt that affidavit from a former prosecutor who
worked in the office during the time of the trial offered sufficient
reason to introduce the alleged relationship as a reason to reverse the
conviction and sentence.

"The absence of an impartial judge is a structural defect," they wrote.

But to the dismay of Mr. Hoods lawyers, and several leading legal
ethicists, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to address the
issue, saying the information was not new.

The former assistant district attorney who filed the affidavit "does not
allege that he has any personal knowledge of such a relationship," Judge
Tom Price wrote in a concurring opinion denying the appeal and the stay of
execution.

Defense attorneys then turned to Judge Henderson in the district court,
which granted the execution date withdrawal.

Judge Henderson, who was an assistant district attorney in Collin County
from 1979 until 1986, then immediately recused himself.

He asked the presiding judge of the court's administrative region to
appoint a new judge.

Collin County prosecutors responded with the Tuesday evening appeal to the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that argued that the trial court had no
authority to modify the execution date, saying Mr. Hood was engaging in
"gamesmanship" and a "fishing expedition" to find more evidence after the
Court of Criminal Appeals had already ruled.

After the Texas high court seemed to agree but said a new judge needed to
have the case so that Judge Henderson's order could be withdrawn,
prosecutors filed another round of motions asking the Court of Criminal
Appeals to itself set aside Judge Hendersons order and proceed with the
execution.

The court had not acted on that motion by about 9 p.m.

"We've never been in this position before," Ms. Keilen said. "I've never
seen anything like this."

"We don't know what's going to happen next but what is equally important
to say is that all of this is quibbling over technical issues in the case
when what we should be talking about is the trial judge and the trial
prosecutor engaged in an affair during a capital murder case."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

***************************

stay of execution----EXECUTION DELAYED FOR TEXAS DEATH ROW INMATE
CONVICTED FOR PLANO MURDERS

A Collin County state district judge has put off the scheduled execution
of Charles Dean Hood for a double slaying in suburban Dallas almost 20
years ago.

In an order signed just over an hour before Hood could have gone to the
death chamber Tuesday night, state District Judge Curt Henderson withdrew
the execution warrant after defense attorneys for the inmate had sought
any correspondence in the Collin County district attorney's office that
could be related to accusations of a long-standing romantic relationship
between one of Hood's prosecutors and the judge who presided over his
trial in 1990.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had refused to consider arguments
about the alleged affair, citing technical reasons that disqualified the
appeal.

Charles Dean Hood, 38, was arrested in his native Indiana the day after
the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at
Williamson's home in the Dallas suburb of Plano.

Hood would have been the second Texas inmate executed in as many weeks as
prosecutors in the nation's most active death penalty state worked to trim
an execution backlog created after all capital punishments in the nation
were stalled for some 8 months by a U.S. Supreme Court review of the
constitutionality of lethal injection procedures. At least 13 other
inmates are scheduled to die in the coming months in Texas, where 26 were
executed last year, more than any other state.

When arrested, the then 20-year-old Hood was driving Williamson's $70,000
Cadillac but insisted he had permission from the victim. Hood said he met
Williamson at the club where Wallace danced, then was hired to do odd jobs
and allowed to live at the computer software firm owner's home.

Hood maintained he was innocent of the murders of Williamson, 46, and
Wallace, 26.

"I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I'm not what they say
I am," he said from death row, where he was known to fellow inmates as
"Hoodlum."

"It doesn't take a biochemist to figure out somebody else commited this
crime," Hood said.

Lawyers argued in appeals that Hood didn't receive a fair trial. His trial
judge and one of his prosecutors at the time of Hood's 1990 trial were
engaged in an improper and legally unethical years-long romantic
relationship they tried to keep hidden, attorneys contended in an appeal
rejected by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court contended jurors received improper
instructions when they decided Hood should be put to death because they
were unable to properly consider his poor childhood and physical and
mental problems. Another appeal questioned whether Hood should have been
entitled to a state-provided lawyer to prepare a clemency request.

Hood said his fingerprints were at Williamson's home because he was living
there.

Evidence showed his prints were on plastic bags taped to Wallace's body,
which had been stuffed into a water heater closet. His bloody prints were
on a weight machine used to block the closet door.

Other evidence showed he used Williamson's credit card to order flowers
for a woman in Vincennes, Ind., where he was arrested, that he had pawned
a diamond ring belonging to Williamson and tried cashing checks from
Williamson's business by forging the victim's signature on the checks.

Hood's prints also were on a note left for Williamson, presumably from
Wallace, when he came home for lunch. But Williamson called police,
worried that his girlfriend had been abducted, because Wallace's name was
misspelled on the note. An officer responding to his call found the
bodies. Both victims had been shot in the head.

"If you murder, you kill, you deserve the same thing," said Julie Wallace,
whose sister was murdered. "For a long time I was very angry. All I know
is that from the day my mother said my sister was dead, I said whoever did
it will pay for it when they stand before God and our justice system. It
may roll slow, but I think justice always is served."

She said her sister, known to her as Sissy, had told her Hood made her
"very uncomfortable, that he did not want to improve his life and was just
there to get what he could get."

"He was being asked to leave, and this is what happened," she said.

During the punishment phase of his trial, prosecution witnesses told of
Hood's rape of a 15-year-old girl, that he had a juvenile and adult
criminal record that included a two-year prison term in Indiana for
passing bad checks. He violated his parole for that conviction by running
off to Texas with an underage girl.

Hood came within two days of execution three years ago before winning a
court reprieve. This was his 5th execution date.

Scheduled for execution next in Texas is Carlton Turner, set to die July
10 for murdering his parents 10 years ago at their suburban Dallas home.

(source: Associated Press)

************************************

Texas death row inmate granted reprieve

A former topless-club bouncer condemned for a double slaying almost 20
years ago won a reprieve Tuesday just over an hour before he could have
been put to death, while Oklahoma executed its first death row inmate
since last August.

Charles Dean Hood cried Tuesday when informed he could live.

"I just thank God," he said. "I just walk by my faith. If it didn't
happen, I was going home to the Lord."

State District Judge Curt Henderson did not give a reason for lifting the
death warrant. He later recused himself from the case.

Hood's attorneys lost several last-day appeals, including one in the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals in which they claimed the now retired judge who
oversaw Hood's 1990 trial, Verla Sue Holland, was having an affair at the
time with the prosecutor assigned to the case, then-Collin County District
Attorney Tom O'Connell.

After that appeal was rejected, lawyers from the Texas Defender Service
filed a motion in Henderson's court seeking all correspondence from the
prosecutor's office that may be related to the alleged affair.

Holland and O'Connell have declined to address the allegations.

Hood, 38, was convicted of murder for the 1989 slayings of Ronald
Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's home in the Dallas
suburb of Plano.

When arrested in Indiana, Hood was driving Williamson's $70,000 Cadillac
but insisted he had Williamson's permission. Hood says he's innocent.
Tuesday's was his 5th execution date.

A de facto moratorium on executions was lifted when the U.S. Supreme Court
upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures in April.
********************************

new execution date

Leon Dorsey has been given an execution date of August 12; it should be
considered serious.

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 17

TEXAS----impending execution

Texas death row inmate set to die for Plano murders after appeal denied

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied an appeal Monday afternoon from
death row inmate Charles Dean Hood, who said his sentence should be set
aside because there were rumors the judge in his case was romantically
involved with the district attorney.

Charles Dean Hood Judges denied the appeal on procedural grounds, not the
merit of the issue, without dissent, saying it was an abuse of the system
because it had not been raised earlier.

Mr. Hood, 38, who was convicted in the 1989 murders of Ronald Williamson
and Tracie Lynn Wallace in Plano, is scheduled for execution this evening.

"I'm flabbergasted," said David Dow, director of litigation for the Texas
Defender Service, which is helping with Mr. Hood's case.

"I'm never confident in these cases, but I was confident we were going to
get a stay based on this claim," he said. "It's the most appalling sort of
relationship between a judge and a prosecutor that's imaginable."

John Rolater, assistant district attorney for Collin County, declined to
comment because "it is a matter of pending litigation."

Mr. Hood's appeal alleged that Judge Sue Holland, then a district court
judge in Collin County, presided over Mr. Hood's trial while she was
involved in a long-term intimate relationship with then-district attorney
Tom O'Connell.

Mr. O'Connell was 1 of 2 prosecutors on the case.

Though rumors of the relationship had circulated for years, including in a
2005 article at Salon.com, the issue had not been raised in court by Mr.
Hood's defense team until late last week.

It was introduced at that time after a former assistant district attorney
filed an affidavit saying the relationship was "common knowledge." That
former prosecutor questioned whether the relationship violated judicial
ethics.

Judge Holland, who has retired, and Mr. O'Connell, who is now in private
practice, could not be reached for comment.

The Court of Criminal Appeals, where Judge Holland later served for
several years, ruled that Mr. Hood was not entitled to raise the claim
because it was "old news," Mr. Dow said.

"In one sense that's correct," he said. "It was old news in the sense that
obviously the people having the affair at the time knew they were having
it and there are other people, too. But we postponed raising this claim
until we had some credible third-party assertion rather than just rumor
and innuendo. ... I just think that's a very peculiar and really unsound
basis for denying this claim."

In addition to denying the appeal on the basis of no new evidence, the
court noted that the Defender Service was not listed as Mr. Hood's lead
attorney, so another motion raising the same issue was not acted upon.

Greg Wiercioch, a staff attorney with the Texas Defender Service, said he
planned to refile today and hoped the court would then address the merits
of the case.

If the court still refuses to take it up, Mr. Hood's attorneys hope Gov.
Rick Perry will step in by ordering a 30-day reprieve. If that effort
fails, attorneys hope to find an avenue into federal court.

Last fall, the Court of Criminal Appeals was criticized harshly nationwide
when Chief Justice Sharon Keller declined to keep the court open past 5
o'clock so attorneys having technological difficulties could file a
last-minute appeal.

The condemned man, Michael Richard, was executed even though the U.S.
Supreme Court had agreed earlier that day to hear a Kentucky case on
whether lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

****************************

Stay the execution of Charles Dean Hood

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals failed to uphold the integrity of the
justice system yesterday by refusing to stay the execution of murderer
Charles Dean Hood.

There is no hint that Mr. Hood is innocent of the grisly double slaying in
Plano that he was convicted of 18 years ago. Rather, the issue is whether
anyone should be tried in a Texas court that resembles a stacked deck.

Questions have been raised about the impartiality of the trial judge, Sue
Holland, because of a hush-hush romantic involvement she purportedly was
having with the district attorney at the time, Tom O'Connell. Mr.
O'Connell was active in the trial, questioning witnesses and delivering
part of the closing arguments.

If he did so in front of his secret lover, it would not only offend the
sense of fair play, it would appear to offend the Texas Constitution.
Article 5, Section 11 offers protections against court proceedings in
which a lawyer has things wired with the judge. It says:

No judge shall sit in any case wherein the judge may be interested, or
where either of the parties may be connected with the judge, either by
affinity or consanguinity.

In petitioning the appeals court last week, Mr. Hood's attorneys offered
only innuendo about, not proof of, a secret affair. Nor did they provide
proof that a close relationship affected the judge's decision-making.

But considering the gravity of the charges, the appeals court was
duty-bound to stay Mr. Hood's execution today in Huntsville and to sort
out the facts.

The case involves the ghastly slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie
Lynn Wallace. They must not be forgotten, and their loved ones deserve
swift resolution of the killer's fate. The execution date has been
postponed before. To some, another delay might have seemed like a cruel
joke.

But public confidence in the justice system is essential. The appeals
court needed to send a signal that Texas courts demand the highest
standards when people's lives are at stake. It's beyond disappointing that
wasn't the case.

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)

*******************************

TCRP URGES COURTS TO GRANT NEW TRIAL -- AND GOVERNOR TO GRANT 30-DAY
REPRIEVE -- FOR DEATH ROW PRISONER BECAUSE OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN TRIAL JUDGE AND PROSECUTOR

The Texas Civil Rights Project today joined renewed calls to the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals and to the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a new
trial -- and to the Governor to grant a 30-day reprieve -- to death-row
inmate Charles Dean Hood, because of the recently disclosed romantic
relationship between the trial judge Sue Holland and the prosecuting
district attorney Tom O'Connell at the time. Hood is scheduled to be
executed this evening.

"Texas has more than its share of questionable conduct in its appetite to
sentence people to death, and this previously undisclosed intimate
relationship between the trial judge and prosecutor drops to new depths,"
said TCRP Director Jim Harrington.

"Not only did the judge and prosecutor not disclose this to the defense
attorneys or the judge recuse herself, as the rules of professional
conduct require, but they both deliberately hid this information. Their
deception casts irrefutable doubt on the integrity of the trial. They
preferred to hide their embarrassment and risk a man be sentenced to
death. How could there possibly be a fair trial under those circumstances?
It is grossly unconscionable to offer up a person's life to protect a
secret affair," said Harrington.

This is not the first time the Texas Civil Rights Project has called into
question judicial misconduct regarding capital punishment. TCRP has filed
a federal lawsuit against Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Court of
Criminal Appeals for closing the courthouse doors on September 24, 2008,
which prevented the last minute appeal Michael Richard in light of a
ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that morning. Richard was then executed.

Subsequently, TCRP helped organize a successful effort, supported by more
than 325 influential and respected attorneys in Texas, to convince the
Court of Criminal Appeals to accept e-filed pleadings in death penalty
cases.

Today's edition of the Austin American-Statesman reports that the judge
who presided over Hood's trial, "was on the Court of Criminal Appeals from
1997 to 2001 and served with eight of the nine current judges." In a
Monday decision denying a new trial for Brooks, all nine judges took part.

In early June, TCRP praised the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the
long overdue creation of a 'Criminal Justice Integrity Unit,' to make
recommendations -- and hopefully changes -- to reform the state's criminal
justice system.

------------------------------

Nation's Leading Legal Ethicists Say Court Must Stay Hood's Execution
Texas and National Ethics Experts Say Judge's Affair with District
Attorney Makes Death Sentence Null and Void

10 of the nation's leading experts on legal ethics filed a statement with
the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas today testifying that the romantic
relationship between the district attorney and the judge presiding over
Charles Dean Hood's capital trial and sentence renders the proceedings
"invalid per se." Mr. Hood is scheduled for execution today, unless the
Court or Governor Rick Perry grants a stay. The statement was also filed
as an addendum to the reprieve request with the Governor's office today.

The statement of Hofstra University Law School Professor Monroe H.
Freedman was endorsed by 9 legal ethics scholars and attorneys from Texas
and around the country. It states:

"An impartial judge is an essential component of the American adversary
system. If a judge's impartiality is subject to reasonable question, there
is a "structural defect" in the trial, meaning that vacation of the
conviction is required."

Freedman, a nationally-renowned expert on judicial ethics, is the author
of the 2 seminal books on legal ethics that are required reading in the
nation's law schools, including Understanding Lawyers' Ethics (2004).

The legal ethics scholars and attorneys who endorsed Prof. Freedman's
opinion that Mr. Hood's sentence must be stayed, include a former chair of
the ABA Ethics Committee, law professors who have authored dozens of
articles and books on legal ethics, and a Texas ethicist who served on the
committee that drafted the "Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional
Conduct."

"Texans are fair. They will not stand for a man's execution when the judge
and the prosecutor were in a romantic relationship or there was even an
appearance of bias," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas
Defender Service. "The U.S. and Texas constitutions guarantee an unbiased
judge, and Mr. Hood was denied that fundamental right."

On June 3, 2008, Matthew Goeller, who was an assistant district attorney
in the Collin County District Attorney's Office from 1987 to 1996 filed an
affidavit testifying that "[i]t was common knowledge" that Judge Verla Sue
Holland and District Attorney Tom O'Connell "had a romantic relationship"
for several years, including the time of Mr. Hood's trial and death
sentence.

(source: Texas Civil Rights Project)

*********************

Defendant testifies that others held, killed Dallas restaurateur

Edgar "Richie" Acevedo told jurors Monday that he neither kidnapped nor
killed Dallas restaurateur Oscar Sanchez.

Mr. Acevedo testified during his capital murder trial that his roommate
and a stranger brought Mr. Sanchez to their Duncanville house, beat him
and killed him in January 2005. Then, Mr. Acevedo, 28, said, he was
kidnapped by the men and forced to flee to Mexico.

Through an interpreter, Mr. Acevedo said his roommate, Jose Felix, and the
other man dressed in black walked into the house and dragged Mr.
Sanchez, 30, into Mr. Acevedo's bedroom.

"They brought a man in and had his face covered," Mr. Acevedo said. "I
thought it was a joke or something. But I saw they had weapons."

Mr. Acevedo said that when they came into the house, the unidentified man
took him to another room and tied him up.

From there, he said, he heard noises that sounded like someone was being
beaten and heard Mr. Sanchez scream.

When he was taken back to see Mr. Sanchez, the restaurant owner's face was
uncovered and his head was bloody, Mr. Acevedo testified. He was ordered
to bind Mr. Sanchez's hands, he said.

Then the other man took Mr. Acevedo out of the room, and he heard
gunshots, Mr. Acevedo testified.

The men then blindfolded and bound Mr. Acevedo and forced him into the
back of a truck, he said.

They drove to another house where Mr. Acevedo said Mr. Felix threatened to
kill his sister if he didn't do what he said.

"He said, 'If you don't obey me, you don't love your sister,' " Mr.
Acevedo said. "I was sure at that moment he would do it. I was very
scared. I knew he could do something to my family, basically my sister."

The two drove to Chicago, where Mr. Acevedo's sister, Gabriela Acevedo,
lives.

Mr. Acevedo was the first to leave, catching a flight to Guadalajara,
Mexico, the next day.

Mr. Felix tried to catch a flight a day later but was arrested at the
airport. Mr. Acevedo was arrested in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in October
2005.

Mr. Felix was convicted in September of capital murder in Mr. Sanchez's
death and sentenced to life in prison.

During Mr. Felix's trial, his defense team placed the blame for the
kidnapping and murder on Mr. Acevedo.

Both sides rested their cases Monday in Mr. Acevedo's trial, and closing
arguments are scheduled to begin this morning.

Before resting Monday, prosecutor Fred Burns questioned Mr. Acevedo about
why the killers would show him their faces, then keep him alive after
killing Mr. Sanchez.

"They let the witness, who could put them on death row, walk out? They let
you get on a plane by yourself?" Mr. Burns asked.

A seemingly frustrated Mr. Acevedo huffed a bit and replied, "I'm telling
you, that I'm telling you what happened."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

*****************

Killer of Kennewick college student eludes death penalty for 3rd time

A Kennewick woman who has spent the past 33 years grieving her son's
murder and praying for his killer's execution was devastated to learn...

A Kennewick woman who has spent the past 33 years grieving her son's
murder and praying for his killer's execution was devastated to learn
Monday that the man who beat and shot her son has eluded the death penalty
for the third time.

Bennie McMahan, 84, said she is frustrated that the state of Texas has
executed more than 400 people since Michael McMahan's April 1975 slaying,
while his killer, Ronald Chambers, has become the longest-serving prisoner
on Texas' death row.

"It seems to me he's getting all the benefits and Mike didn't get any,"
McMahan said. "We have already been through three trials, we don't know
how much more we can take."

On Monday, the Texas Supreme Court declined without comment to review a
federal appeals-court's decision to send the case back to a Dallas trial
court because questions used by jurors to decide his death sentence were
improper.

"The next step is for Dallas County to decide what to do, whether they
will retry him, have a reduced sentence or a plea bargain," said Michael
McMahan's sister, Janna McMahan, 51, of West Richland.

Chambers, 53, who arrived on Texas' death row on Jan. 8, 1976, 3 days
before his 21st birthday, has now seen his conviction and death sentence
overturned 3 times.

"We're pretty disappointed, but we prepared for the worst," Janna McMahan
said. "My mom is 84 years old and it's hard on her. We just lost my father
in October and this compounded everything."

The case wound up before the state Supreme Court after the Texas Attorney
General's Office had appealed an appellate-court ruling involving jury
instructions given to other condemned Texas prisoners. In April 2007, the
Texas Supreme Court ruled that jurors in three cases were not allowed to
give sufficient weight to factors that might cause them to impose a life
sentence other than death.

Chambers' first conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals because a state-appointed psychiatrist who questioned him failed
to warn Chambers that his responses would be used against him.

He was retried in 1985 and convicted and again sentenced to die. The
Supreme Court threw out that conviction 4 years later, ruling prosecutors
improperly excluded three black people from his jury. Chambers is black.

In January 2007, Chambers was set to die for the punishment reached at his
third trial. The lethal injection, however, was stopped until the justices
ruled on the cases of the 3 other inmates who were challenging the jury
instructions.

"I hoped there would have been an execution back when it was scheduled,"
Janna McMahan said. "Not that I relish in somebody dying, but that's his
punishment. My brother certainly didn't want to die."

On the night of April 11, 1975, Michael McMahan, 22, a student at Texas
Tech University, was leaving a Dallas nightclub with classmate Deia Sutton
when they were kidnapped from the parking lot by Chambers and his friend,
Clarence Williams.

McMahan and Sutton were driven to a levee on the Trinity River and pushed
down an embankment. Chambers fired five shots at them, then bludgeoned
McMahan in the head with the barrel of the shotgun. Williams choked Sutton
and tried to drown her; Chambers also beat her with the shotgun. Sutton
survived the attack.

Williams pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and murder and received two
life sentences and remains in prison. Janna McMahan said that when
Williams' case is reviewed by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles every
few years her family fights to have him remain behind bars.

"You put your trust in the justice system and put your faith in them to do
what's right. It hasn't worked yet," Janna McMahan said.

Michael McMahan was a Kennewick High School graduate who loved tennis and
dreamed of following in his father's footsteps by earning a degree in
mechanical engineering from Texas Tech, his sister said.

(source: Seattle Times)

****************************

The longest-serving prisoner on Texas' death row won a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling Monday that his case must go back to his trial court in Dallas.

Ronald Chambers, 53, has been on death row for 32 years, sent there in
1976 for the abduction and fatal shooting of 22-year-old Mike McMahan, a
Texas Tech University student from Washington state.

Without comment, the high court declined to review a federal appeals
court's decision to send back Mr. Chambers' case because questions used by
jurors to decide his death sentence were improper.

The Texas attorney general's office had appealed a ruling from the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was based on a Supreme Court decision
last year involving jury instructions given to three other condemned Texas
prisoners. The same questions no longer used given in those cases were
part of the instructions used by the jury in Mr. Chambers' case.

Dallas County prosecutors will have to decide whether to seek the death
penalty at a new punishment trial.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 16

TEXAS:

Execution date set for Wood

After losing a U.S. Supreme Court appeal earlier this year, a Kerrville
man has been scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Jeffery Lee Wood is expected to enter Texas' Death Chamber on Aug. 21,
according to Lucy Wilke, assistant district attorney for the 216th
Judicial District.

In January, Supreme Court justices refused to hear the case of Wood, who
was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Kriss Keeran, 31, during
a 1996 robbery in Kerrville.

Wood's roommate, Daniel Reneau, also was convicted in Keerans death and
was executed in 2002.

Evidence showed that Reneau entered the store at Texas 16 and Interstate
10 just before dawn on Jan. 2, 1996, and shot Keeran.

Records show Wood was waiting outside the store and came in after Keeran
was shot.

Wood and Reneau then robbed the store of a video recorder with a tape
showing the incident, a safe and more than $11,000 in cash and checks,
according to reports.

Keeran's body was found lying behind the counter with a single shot in the
face from a .22-caliber pistol.

Kerrville police linked the 2 men to the murder, and both were arrested
within 24 hours.

During his trial, Wood refused to allow any evidence on his behalf at the
punishment phase. During his appeal, Wood claimed his trial attorneys were
incompetent and that the trial judge violated his rights by not letting
him represent himself.

The appellate court upheld his conviction and sentencing in 2000, and in
2007, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

The setting of Wood's execution date was delayed when all executions were
put on hold last September as the U.S. Supreme Court considered challenges
to the lethal injection method. In April, the high court cleared the way
for lethal injections to continue.

(source: Kerrville Daily Times)

**********************

Inmate facing lethal injection for double slaying

Condemned inmate Charles Dean Hood doesn't dispute he drove from Texas to
his native Indiana in a $70,000 car that belonged to the man he's
convicted of killing.

But Hood, a former topless bar bouncer set to die Tuesday for fatally
shooting Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace almost 19 years ago in
suburban Dallas, insists he had Williamson's permission to use the
Cadillac for the 800-mile trip.

Hood also insists he didn't kill the couple, and that his fingerprints
throughout the Plano home where they were shot in 1989 can easily be
explained because Hood was living there and doing odd jobs for Williamson.

"He took care of me for almost two months," Hood said from Texas' death
row, where a Collin County jury sent him in 1990.

Wallace, 26, had danced at the bar where Williamson, 46, was a customer.
Hood said he had also worked at the club.

Hood, 38, would be the 2nd Texas inmate executed this year in Huntsville
and the 2nd in as many weeks. Executions around the country and in the
nation's busiest capital punishment state - where 26 executions occurred
last year - were on hold from September until mid-April. That's when the
U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for resumption of executions by
rejecting an appeal from 2 Kentucky death row prisoners who argued lethal
injection was unconstitutionally cruel. Lawyers for Hood were in state
courts trying to void his conviction and death sentence, accusing a
prosecutor from his trial and the trial judge of having a years-long
romantic relationship that included the time of Hood's trial. Such an
undisclosed relationship would be improper and legally unethical.

Other appeals in federal courts questioned whether instructions given to
jurors who decided he should be executed failed to take into consideration
what his lawyers argued were physical and mental problems and an abusive
childhood, and whether the state should have provided him a lawyer to
prepare a clemency request.

Hood said he wasn't responsible for the murders.

"I did not kill those people," he told The Associated Press. "There was no
evidence saying I killed those folks."

Hood's prints, however, were found on plastic bags taped to Wallace's
body. Other evidence showed he used Williamson's credit card to order
flowers for a woman in Indiana and that he told people at the flower shop
he was Williamson, showing off a gold watch that belonged to the victim.
He also had pawned a diamond ring belonging to Williamson and tried
cashing checks from Williamson's business by forging the victim's
signature on the checks.

A jury deliberated less than 2 1/2 hours before convicting him of capital
murder.

When Williamson came home for lunch Nov. 1, 1989, he called Plano police
to report a burglary. 4 minutes later, an officer responding to the call
got no answer at the door, looked in a window and spotted Williamson's
body on the floor. Then Wallace's body, partially wrapped in plastic
garbage bags, was found stuffed in a water heater closet.

"I forgive his soul but I'll never forgive what he did," said Julie
Wallace, whose youngest sister, known as Sissy, was killed. "It's
important for me to forgive to have peace. And that's the only reason."

She planned to travel from her home in Michigan to watch Hood die.

"It's a sad situation for all involved - his family as well as ours," she
said. "Sissy has been gone for almost 20 years now. She is no longer with
us. Even though his life hasn't been the greatest, he's still able to
breathe and feel and see the sunrise and sunset, all which my sister will
never be able to do."

Prosecutors said Hood, a seventh-grade dropout who was 20 at the time,
shot the couple and stole money, jewelry and Williamson's Cadillac, then
drove to Vincennes, Ind., hoping to impress a woman he considered his
girlfriend.

When he called the woman from the car, she called police. Officers were
waiting for him when he showed up at the business where she worked.

"I had permission to drive all the vehicles he had," Hood said from
prison.

During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecution witnesses told of
Hood's previous instances of violence, including the rape of a 15-year-old
girl, and that he had a juvenile and adult criminal record that included a
2-year prison term in Indiana for passing bad checks.

"I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life," Hood said. "But I have never
killed nobody."

Hood came within two days of execution three years ago. The Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals, however, gave him a reprieve so his claims of mental
retardation could be examined.

He's among at least 13 Texas death row inmates with executions dates in
the coming months. 4 are set for July, beginning with Carlton Turner,
scheduled for injection July 10 for killing his parents 10 years ago at
their suburban Dallas home.

(source: Associated Press)

***********************************

Texas death row inmate from Dallas wins at Supreme Court

The longest-serving prisoner on Texas' death row won a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling Monday that his case must go back to his trial court in Dallas.

Ronald Chambers, 53, has been on death row for more than 32 years, sent
there in 1976 for the abduction and fatal shooting of 22-year-old Mike
McMahan, a Texas Tech University student from Washington state.

Without comment, the high court Monday declined to review a federal
appeals court's decision to send back Chambers' case because questions
used by jurors to decide his death sentence were improper.

The Texas attorney general's office had appealed a ruling from the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was based on a Supreme Court decision
last year involving jury instructions given to three other condemned Texas
prisoners.

"The 5th Circuit had reversed his death sentence," Jordan Steiker, one of
Chambers' lawyers, said Monday. "The state appealed and the state lost.
Now it goes back for resentencing.

"This is very good for him."

Dallas County prosecutors will have to decide whether to seek the death
penalty at a new punishment trial.

In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that jurors in 3 Texas cases
were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that might cause
them to impose a life sentence rather than death.

In those cases, condemned prisoner LaRoyce Lathair Smith, convicted of the
1991 torture-slaying of a fast-food worker in Dallas, won a punishment
reversal from the high court. In a similar ruling, the justices also
overturned the death sentences of Brent Ray Brewer, convicted of fatally
stabbing an Amarillo man during a robbery in 1990, and Jalil Abdul-Kabir,
convicted in 1988 of strangling a San Angelo man during a robbery.

The same questions -- no longer used -- were part of jury instructions
used by a Dallas County jury in 1992 that decided Chambers should die.

That trial was Chambers' 3rd for the abduction and fatal shooting of
McMahan. Each trial resulted in a death sentence.

His 1st conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
because a state-appointed psychiatrist who questioned him failed to warn
Chambers his responses would be used against him.

He was retried in 1985 and convicted again. The Supreme Court threw out
that conviction 4 years later, ruling prosecutors improperly excluded
three black people from his jury. Chambers is black.

In January 2007, Chambers was set to die for the punishment reached at his
third trial. The lethal injection, however, was stopped until the justices
ruled on the cases of the three other inmates who were challenging the
jury instructions.

Chambers, from Dallas, arrived on death row Jan. 8, 1976, three days
before his 21st birthday.

He and a friend, Clarence Ray Williams, confronted McMahan on April 11,
1975, as McMahan and his date, Deia Sutton, were leaving a Dallas club.

At gunpoint, the couple was driven to a levee on the Trinity River south
of downtown Dallas, where their captors pushed them down an embankment.
Testimony showed Chambers fired five shots at them, then pounded McMahan
in the back of the head 10 to 20 times with a shotgun as Williams choked
Sutton and tried to drown her in the muddy water. Chambers also struck
Sutton three times with the shotgun before both attackers left.

Sutton, however, survived and within days both Chambers and Williams were
under arrest. Williams, from Dallas, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery
and murder, accepted 2 life sentences and remains in prison. Sutton has
testified at each of Chambers' trials.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 17

TEXAS:

Bid to halt execution rejected----Allegations of relationship between
judge, prosecutor raised too late, court rules.

Allegations that Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death while his judge
and prosecutor secretly dated should not halt tonight's scheduled
execution of the convicted double murderer, Texas' highest criminal court
ruled Monday.

Hood raised the accusation of a secret relationship too late in the
appeals process to be considered, a unanimous Court of Criminal Appeals
ruled.

"The Legislature has made it clear that we are not at liberty to entertain
the merits of the claim," Judge Tom Price wrote in a concurring statement
joined by 3 judges.

Last week, Hood filed two nearly identical appeals saying that then-state
DistrictJudge Verla Sue Holland, now retired, could not have provided Hood
with a fair trial while involved in a long-term intimate relationship with
then-Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell.

O'Connell, now a private lawyer, played an active role in prosecuting Hood
at his 1990 trial.

In his latest appeals, Hood argued that Holland had a duty to step aside
or inform defense lawyers about the potential conflict of interest.

The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected 1 appeal, known as a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus, citing problems with the appellate lawyers'
signatures.

The second appeal was rejected because Texas law limits death row inmates
to one habeas petition unless lawyers uncover new information that was not
previously available.

Gregory Wiercioch, Hood's appellate lawyer, criticized the court for
dismissing the claims "on 2 very hyper-technical procedural grounds."

"The court is not grappling with the merits of the claim. They are not
discussing whether or not the relationship existed, and if it did exist,
what the impact of it was in Judge Holland's ability to remain impartial,"
Wiercioch said.

Holland was on the Court of Criminal Appeals from 1997 to 2001 and served
with 8 of the 9 current judges. All 9 judges took part in Monday's
decision.

The court's unsigned opinion did not elaborate on reasons for denying the
appeals, but Price's concurring statement said Hood should have raised
allegations of the relationship in his first habeas petition, filed in
1997.

Hood's lawyers hired a private investigator who tried, unsuccessfully, to
track down rumors of the Holland-O'Connell relationship in the mid-1990s.
Hood's latest appeals said lawyers did not want to repeat unsubstantiated
rumors in court documents and only raised the issue after obtaining an
affidavit from a former assistant district attorney, Matthew Goeller, on
June 3.

Goeller's sworn statement said the Holland-O'Connell relationship was
"common knowledge" in the prosecutor's office when Hood was convicted and
sentenced to death.

But Price said Goeller's statement did not qualify as new information
because lawyers knew about the relationship rumors in the 1990s.

Price's statement was joined by Judges Cathy Cochran, Charles Holcomb and
Cheryl Johnson.

Wiercioch said he will refile one appeal today with the lawyers'
signatures corrected in hopes that the court will consider the merits of
its relationship argument. But he also will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
halt tonight's execution based on allegations of the Holland-O'Connell
relationship.

Hood was sentenced to die in the 1989 shooting deaths of his boss, Ronald
Williamson, and Williamson's girlfriend Tracie Wallace in their Plano
home.

Hood's bloody fingerprints were found inside the home.

When he was arrested a day after the killings, in Indiana, Hood had the
victims' car, clothes, jewelry, camera and credit cards.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

Jeff Wood - innocent man to be executed (law of parties). Please help!

Dear all, please read Terri's letter about her brother Jeff Wood and take
a time to sign the petition to save his life.
He is sentenced to die for a crime he did NOT commit and just like
Kenneth Foster he was sentenced under the law of parties.

Please help us!

************************

Please help Jeff Wood

Please sign petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-jeff-wood-from-the-texas-executioner

Hello.

My name is Terri Been and I am a Texas republican who is AGAINST the
death penalty. I am sorry to say that it was not always this way as I
was raised to believe in the death penalty; BUT my views changed over
10 years ago when I was thrust unwillingly into the Texas Judicial
system; at which time my eyes were opened to the complete injustice of
our whole system.

See, I am the sister of a man wrongfully convicted under the law of
parties in Texas. This man's name is Jeffery Wood and he is set to die
on August 21st, 2008 for a murder he did NOT commit.

I am writing to you because I am feeling helpless, and I do not know
what I can do. These days, I find myself slave to the computer...at
first I was a slave to the computer waiting for the worst...to see my
brother's name upon the list of those waiting to be executed. That time
has come and gone, but I find myself still a slave to the computer in
hopes of finding people who can help us in our fight against the Texas
Judicial System.

With the execution date set less than 3 months from now, we are running
out of time. We are desperate for exposure with people who have some
kind of influence on the public, or people who know other people who
may be able to help. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or just anything
that may help...please feel free to get in touch with me.
We now have a homepage for Jeff in addition to the online petition that
is circulating, (which can be found on his homepage at the following
web address: www.freewebs.com/savejeffwood under the how to help section). I humbly ask you to help my family by
taking a few minutes of your time to read a few facts regarding Jeff's
case and to sign his petition that we will be sending the governor!
While you are on Jeff's Web Page, I also ask that you take an extra
minute or two to look at the other information we have in the how you
can help section. For those of you who are familiar with Kenneth
Foster's case (which is very similar to Jeff's case) it took their
family over 17,000 messages to the Governor and the Board of Pardons
and Paroles to get his sentence commuted to Life. This was accomplished
by sending petitions, faxes, letters, and by making phone calls. At
this point, I am getting a little worried because we only have 353
signatures on the petition, and while I am eternally grateful for every
single signature.I need more. I need calls, letters and faxes to go
along with the petition signatures.

I humbly ask that you help my family. Jeff is my baby brother and he
did not kill anybody! Please ask yourselves what you would do if you
were in my situation.

While I am trying to save my brother because he is innocent of murder,
I am fighting to abolish the death penalty completely. In addition to
the protesting and campaigning my family and I have been doing with
Capital X lately (not only for my brother, but for all who face the
Death Penalty), I wrote an editorial about the death penalty and had it
published in the Lampasas and Killeen newspapers. This is posted as a
bulletin on my page and is entitled.Are we a leader in Human Rights.
(It is not about Jeff, but the death penalty in general. Please feel
free to repost this document if you feel compelled to do so.) Also,
please take a few minutes to look at the few videos I have on my
page.they are very powerful clips and will make you think...maybe even
cry.

If you do decide that you are interested in helping us save my
brother's life; please forward this to as many people as you know. I
need at least 1000 signatures on the petition before we can send it in.
And again, I am also desperate for letters, and faxes to be sent to the
governor and the Texas Pardons and Parole Board as well.

I feel that the more who know about this and participate in it, the
better it will be for all inmates who face death, not just my brother.
Up until this point, we have done what we have been told to do...'sit
back, and let the system work.' BUT the system has failed my brother,
failed his daughter, and failed those of us who love him.Now we are
just desperate!

Your help, guidance, and consideration to this matter will be greatly
appreciated. ..more than you will ever know!

Please feel free to contact me if you need to, but if you could pass on
that info I would be extremely appreciative!

I thank you in advance for your time and attention to this matter!
Again, your help will be greatly appreciated! God Bless You All and
thank you for all that you do!!!!

In struggle,

Terri Been B.S., M. Ed

Athletic Director

mystrus@hotmail.com

210-887-2190 or 512-556-5674

P.S. I am very tired and worn out, so please forgive any grammatical or
spelling errors as I just cannot seem to think these days!

Here is one of the comments from the on-line petition:

(This comment comes from a man whom I do do not know, and he is
pro-death penalty, but he was interested enough to do the research on
it before he signed it...please read...)

Jun 9, 2008, Jack Kelley, Texas

Yes, I am very much in favor of the death penalty. But this case does
not warrant execution. This man was outside of the store in the car,
when his partner committed murder inside the store. I researched the
case, including Wood's appeal, on official State of Texas websites. I
showed it to an excellent attorney who told me that Wood's
representation was lacking, and on the merits, this man should not have
gotten the death penalty, nor should the death penalty have been upheld
on appeal.

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 16

TEXAS:

Death Penalty Sought In Triple Murder Of Alba Family

The 3 adult suspects charged with murdering an Alba woman and her 2 sons
after her daughter was forbidden to date one of the killers pleaded not
guilty in a short hearing last month at the Rains County court annex.

The county attorney is seeking the death penalty in the murder trial of
Charles Allen Waid, 20, and 19-year-old Charlie James Wilkinson who was
forbidden to date 16-year-old Erin Caffey the night before her mother and
2 younger brothers were brutally killed.

The death penalty will not be sought in the case of Bobbi Gale Johnson,
18, who was described as an accomplice who didn't use a weapon in the
arrest affidavit. Or in the case of Erin Caffey, a minor who was also
charged with 3 counts of capital murder and is detained at the juvenile
detention center in Greenville.

The trials could begin as early as this winter and will likely require a
change of venue after a media storm descended upon this town of 1,500,
said Justice of the Peace Don Smith on Friday.

"Our town is too small for people not to know these folks personally," he
said.

Waid, Wilkinson and Johnson pled not guilty despite an arrest affidavit
obtained by the Tyler Paper 2 days after the March 1 murders that
described the 3 confessing to the murders.

"Wilkinson stated that he and Erin were in love and the only way they
could be together is to kill the parents," the affidavit stated.

Her father, Terry Caffey, 41, was shot 5 times but got out of his burning
house and reached a neighbor, still conscious enough to tell them he
recognized Wilkinson shooting him and his wife in their bed, sheriffs
officials said.

Family friends said Terry Caffey has recovered from his gunshot wounds and
is receiving immense support from his church and family. Penny Caffey, 37,
a church pianist, and sons Mathew, 13, and Tyler, 8, were shot and stabbed
to death. Their bodies were removed once firefighters doused the flames of
their home that burned to the ground, officials said.

Wilkinson, Waid and Johnson are being held on $50,000 bonds in the Rains
County jail.

(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)

death penalty news----USA

June 15

USA:

Last meal is irrelevant

Re: "Dallas woman's killer is executed 'I am so terribly sorry,' he tells
victim's relatives," Thursday news story.

I never cease to be amazed and repulsed by the media's incessant
fascination with the last meal of a condemned inmate. What relevance does
this have to anything related to the horrors of the crime or the
sufferings of the family members of both the victim and the inmate?

Reporting the content of a condemned inmate's last meal does nothing to
move society forward toward a healthy dialogue that is so necessary when
confronting the great social justice issues of our times.

Rick Halperin, president, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
Dallas

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 13

TEXAS:

Killer's new execution date is July 23

Condemned double killer Derrick Juan Sonnier, who was spared from death
last week by a last-minute court reprieve, has been scheduled to die by
injection July 23.

State District Judge Michael Wilkinson signed a court document Friday
resetting Sonnier's execution date, said Roe Wilson, a Harris County
assistant district attorney.

Sonnier was set to die by injection June 3 when the Court of Criminal
Appeals granted a stay of execution following 11th-hour appeals. The next
week, the court rejected his appeals.

His 1st execution date was waived to await a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
a Kentucky case that questioned the constitutionality of the lethal
injection process. In April, the high court upheld the practice.

Sonnier was sentenced to die for the 1991 murders of single mother Melody
Flowers, 27, and her son Patrick, who was 2.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

********************************

Convicted killer of mom and child gets new death date

Convicted killer Derrick Sonnier, spared a trip to the Texas death chamber
a week ago by a late reprieve from the state's top criminal court, was
reset on Friday to die July 23.

Sonnier's lethal injection June 3 was blocked by the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals about 90 minutes before he was scheduled to die for the
1991 slayings of a suburban Houston woman and her 2-year-old son.

Attorneys for Sonnier, 40, cited then-unresolved cases before the appeals
court that had raised questions about the constitutionality of lethal
injection procedures used by Texas Department of Criminal Justice
officials at a Huntsville prison.

The court this week rejected appeals in those cases and lifted the
reprieve given to Sonnier, clearing the way for executions to continue in
the state.

Texas on Wednesday evening carried out its 1st execution in nearly 9
months. Similar arguments brought by 2 condemned Kentucky inmates to the
U.S. Supreme Court had halted all executions in the nation from last
September, when the high court agreed to consider their appeal. The
justices rejected the appeal in mid-April.

With Sonnier's reprieve dissolved, Harris County prosecutors on Friday
obtained the new execution date from State District Judge Michael
Wilkinson.

Sonnier is among at least 13 Texas inmates with execution dates in the
coming months, including one next week and now 4 for next month. Last year
26 convicted killers were put to death in Texas, the most of any state.

Sonnier was condemned for the fatal shootings of Melody Flowers, 27, and
her son, Patrick, at their apartment in the Houston suburb of Humble.
Flowers had been stabbed, beaten with a hammer and strangled. Her child
was stabbed eight times. Both were found floating in a bathtub.

Sonnier initially was scheduled to die in February. That execution date,
however, was withdrawn by prosecutors pending the outcome of the Kentucky
case before the Supreme Court.

(source: The Associated Press)

**********************

Attorneys seek reversal of execution, saying judge and district attorney
were romantically involved

In the 18 years since Charles Dean Hood was condemned for a double murder
in Collin County, his execution has been scheduled five times including
next Tuesday. On Thursday, his attorneys filed an unusual appeal, claiming
Mr. Hood's conviction should be reversed, alleging the trial judge was
intimately involved with the district attorney, creating an appearance of
impropriety.

"It's very serious," said Mr. Hood's attorney, Greg Wiercioch of the Texas
Defender Service. "It's not a delaying tactic."

Mr. Hood's attorneys don't point to any specific impact on the case, but
they say the impression of possible bias was unfair. Collin County
prosecutors declined to comment, but a prosecution expert says the defense
must prove actual damage to the case and not rely on mere "rumors."

The former judge, Sue Holland, did not return calls for comment. Neither
did the former prosecutor, Tom O'Connell.

Rumors about a romantic relationship between the two have circulated for
years, including in a Salon.com article in 2005. But Mr. Wiercioch says
the issue is being raised officially for the first time five days before
Mr. Hood's scheduled execution because a former assistant district
attorney filed an affidavit about the alleged conflict.

The former prosecutor, Matthew Goeller, said in an affidavit filed with
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that the relationship was "common
knowledge" and casts "a reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act
impartially."

Mr. Goeller, who worked at the district attorney's office from 1987-96,
and is now in private practice, could not be reached for comment.

"We had tried to get information that went beyond just speculation," Mr.
Wiercioch said. "This is the first time that we were able to get somebody
from the district attorney's office, who worked in that office with
District Attorney Tom O'Connell, who was in that office at the time
Charles Hood's trial took place, somebody who's obviously very credible."

John Rolater, assistant district attorney for Collin County, declined to
comment on the case, citing the pending litigation.

But Rob Kepple, executive director of the Texas District and County
Attorneys Association, said the appeal with Mr. Goeller's affidavit "sure
sounds like a 'Hail Mary' to me."

"Mr. Goeller said what everyone else did ... there are rumors of a
romantic relationship," Mr. Kepple said. "He doesn't say 'firsthand
knowledge.' He doesn't say 'I saw it' or 'I know it's true.' All he says
is 'It's common knowledge.'... I don't think that's very impressive."

The appeal is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals where
Judge Holland served for several years after leaving the district court in
Collin County. She retired in 2001. Mr. O'Connell left the district
attorney's post after 30 years in 2002.

Robert Schuwerk, professor at the University of Houston Law Center and
co-author of a book on legal ethics, said the allegations, if true, are
serious. But removing a judge at trial is easier than winning a reversal.
On appeal, judges generally look for actual bias rather than just the
appearance of impropriety, he said.

The impact of an affidavit from a former prosecutor is "somewhat damning,"
he said. And it may be enough "to get you to the intermediate ground of
saying, 'This needs to be looked into.' "

Mr. Hood, now 38, was convicted in 1990 of robbing and shooting Ronald
Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Lynn Wallace, at Mr. Williamson's
home in Plano in 1989. Mr. Hood was living at the house and working for
Mr. Williamson at the time.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

***************************

Texas Inmate Says Judge and Prosecutor Had Affair

Lawyers for a Texas inmate facing execution next week filed court papers
on Thursday accusing the judge at his double-murder trial of having an
affair with the prosecutor.

The papers, filed in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, argue that the
relationship between the judge, Verla Sue Holland, and the man who was
district attorney of Collin County, Tom O'Connell, should nullify the
conviction of the inmate, Charles Hood, in 1990.

The filing says that Judge Holland had a "personal and direct interest in
the outcome of the case" and that "the wall of silence that has long
protected Judge Holland must now come down."

"Under these circumstances," Gregory Wiercioch, Mr. Hoods lead lawyer,
said in an interview, "Judge Holland had a clear duty to let the parties
know about her relationship and to recuse herself, because anybody knowing
these facts would be shocked that she presided over this capital murder
trial."

Neither Mr. O'Connell, 66, who has practiced law in Plano after retiring
as a prosecutor in 2001, nor Ms. Holland, also 66, responded to phone
messages.

The petitions include an affidavit from a former assistant district
attorney, Matthew Goeller, who said that the 6-year relationship between
Judge Holland and Mr. O'Connell was "common knowledge" and that it raised
"reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act impartially."

The relationship was reported by Salon.com in 2005.

Mr. Goeller was past president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
in Collin County, near Dallas, and a former director of the Collin County
Bar Association. He is currently out of the country, Mr. Hood's other
lawyers said.

The relationship between the judge and prosecutor, Mr. Hood's lawyers
said, violated his right to a fair trial under the United States and Texas
Constitutions. The Texas Constitution says that the judiciary must be
extremely diligent in avoiding any appearance of impropriety and must hold
itself to exacting standards lest it lose its legitimacy and suffer a loss
of public confidence."

Mr. Hood's lawyers also filed an amendment on Thursday to a reprieve
request with Gov. Rick Perry.

Judge Holland was on the Criminal Court of Appeals from 1997 to 2001, not
completing her full 6-year term. At least 7 of the 9 current judges who
will decide Mr. Hood's case served with her. Mr. Hood was convicted in the
murders in 1989 of his supervisor, Ronald Williamson, and Mr. Williamson's
girlfriend, Traci L. Wallace. They were found shot to death in Mr.
Williamson's house in Plano.

Shortly after the killings, Mr. Hood was arrested with some belongings of
Mr. Williamson. He pleaded not guilty and continues to maintain his
innocence.

His execution is scheduled for Tuesday.

(source: New York Times)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 12

TEXAS:

Voice of death testifies for life----Ex-spokesman on execution aids
defense

For 8 years and 219 executions, Larry Fitzgerald was the face of the
nation's busiest execution chamber, a man who watched as men and women
were put to death and then, often in the face of tough questions and
controversy, explained what had happened.

Now he is on the other side. Retired from the Texas prison system, where
he was chief spokesman based at the death chamber in Huntsville,
Fitzgerald helps death penalty attorneys trying to keep their clients
alive by testifying about life in the state prison system.

Fitzgerald's turnabout does not mean he is a capital punishment foe;
indeed, he favors the death penalty in some cases. Yet his new role has
prompted criticism from some, including a former warden who called him a
traitor.

"My testimony isn't for or against the death penalty. It's to show the
prison system works. No matter how bad this person is, the Texas prison
system can handle him," Fitzgerald said.

1/3 of U.S. executions are in Texas Graphic Still, because the death
penalty in Texas has come under such withering scrutiny and is the subject
of much criticism, "there's an 'either you're for us or against us'
mentality," he said.

As the spokesman at the prison in Huntsville, Fitzgerald was known for his
straight-talking mannera byproduct, perhaps, of his years as a radio
reporter in small towns across Texas and a stint as the news director at a
station in Ft. Worth. Even after the most controversial executions, he
stepped forward to provide an account of a prisoner's last hours and
death.

A 'PhD in prison life'

Fitzgerald, who supervised reporters' interviews with inmates at the
state's death row in Livingston, often got to know the condemned. Then
"they'd be on a gurney getting executed."

"That," he added, "was always difficult."

Nonetheless, he said, "I handled it the way reporters are supposed to
handle it. You're an observer." His job, he added, was merely to help the
news media get the story from the execution.

Fitzgerald retired in August 2003, leaving with what he calls a "PhD in
prison life." Not long after, a defense lawyer asked him to testify in a
death penalty retrial. Although the prisoner received another death
sentence, other attorneys began to call Fitzgerald, and he started
testifying. Since that first case, he has consulted in some 2 dozen
trials.

"He relates well to people. He has that intangible quality," said Ft.
Worth lawyer David Pearson, who called Fitzgerald to the witness stand
during the 2006 murder trial of a man charged with killing his parents.
"He doesn't come across like he's selling something."

Fitzgerald appears during the highly charged punishment phase of a death
penalty trial, after a defendant has been found guilty but before the jury
has decided whether he should live or die. He describes inmate life, talks
about education opportunities in prisons and, most of all, how secure they
are.

"People," he said, "just don't understand all of what goes on inside a
prison."

Pearson sought Fitzgerald to testify for Andrew Wamsley, who was tried for
plotting the shooting and stabbing murders of his parents in December 2003
to inherit their $1.65 million estate.

Prosecutors were seeking death. Pearson and attorney Larry Moore were
trying to persuade the jury to spare the 21-year-old Wamsley and give him
a life sentence. Jurors voted for life; under Texas law, Wamsley has to
serve 40 years before he can be considered for parole.

"I needed somebody [who] could speak with firsthand information about how
someone convicted of capital murder and sentenced to a life sentence would
be handled," Pearson said. "So the jury would be assured the security
system could handle someone like that. It was his business as spokesman to
make sure he knew what was going on all over the prison system."

Expertise disputed

Prosecutors and others say Fitzgerald's experience does not qualify him as
an expert, and increasingly, Fitzgerald said, prosecutors are subjecting
him to tougher cross-examination.

Allison Wetzel, a prosecutor in Austin, had to contend with Fitzgerald's
testimony at the trial of Guy Allen, who was convicted of the stabbing
murders in 2002 of his girlfriend and her daughter.

Allen was sentenced to death.

"I guess by the verdict, jurors rejected Larry Fitzgerald's view of
things," Wetzel said.

A.P. Merillat, who investigates prison crimes for the state and has
testified for prosecutors at death penalty trials, said his work is more
relevant than Fitzgerald's prison experience.

"I don't like that he tries to portray himself as more knowledgeable than
we are, when it's our business," Merillat said of himself and colleagues
who investigate crimes committed in prison.

Fitzgerald, though, is deeply knowledgeable about the death penalty in
Texas. He was in the spotlight frequently during George W. Bush's first
presidential campaign.

At the time, Fitzgerald didn't offer a personal opinion. Now he
acknowledges that he favors the death penalty. But, he says, he has come
to believe Texas uses it "way too much."

(source: Chicago Tribune)

*************************

Inmate's family, friends protest execution

The family of Felecia Prechtl watched Karl Eugene Chamberlain become the
first Texas death row inmate to be executed since late September 2007.

Chamberlain, who raped and killed Prechtl 17 years ago in Dallas, was
pronounced dead at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday after he was given the lethal
injection at 6:21.

While Chamberlain's half-sister and 5 friends witnessed his execution from
behind another glass window, his mother stood in front of the Texas
Department of Criminal Justices Walls Unit protesting the death penalty.

Muina Arthur of Las Vegas, N.M., chose not to see her son executed a short
distance away.

She was among 20 protesters waving signs in opposition of the death
penalty or voicing their viewpoint verbally.

Chamberlain became the 406th person executed in Texas.

"This country is a fascist country," Arthur said, using a megaphone. "This
is not a compassionate America. We have to stand on God's law. Jesus was a
pacifist. Jesus was a pacifist."

"How many men has the state of Texas murdered who were innocent?" she
cried out. "Many. They're dead, they're gone, they're martyrs."

"Let all the countries around the world put the pressure on The United
States of America," Arthur said with Ron Carlson standing next to her.
"The leader of killing. The leader of mayhem. We're talking about human
beings, we're talking about my son.

"He's a jewel; he's a teddy bear; and yeah, he messed up. He didn't have a
criminal record, and he's not a bad man. He's a good man. He's a jewel
compared to most. Compare him to Bush. God, oh Jesus save us.

"God is truth. My son is a believer, you're gonna, hey ... he ain't dead
yet."

"This is not the 1st time I've stood with an inmate's family," said
Carlson, brother of Deborah Thornton Carlson, who was killed by Karla Faye
Tucker.

"Not only are the people that were murdered, their families, are victims,
but every time an execution takes place the family of the inmate is being
victimized, too," Carlson said. "And that's something that the media needs
to report.

"I'm sure you've heard her sobs; I'm sure you took photographs; you know
she's hurting. That's the reality of the death penalty. Nothing is going
to change by killing Karl Chamberlain.

"The victim's family may think that now this is over, but in the end, it
never ends. If it did, I wouldn't be here today."

When asked why she would not bear witness to the end of her son's life,
Arthur said, "My daughter is there. I've been with people who've died. Its
a real special reality; murder is a different thing. They're murdering my
son; he's not dying."

To the family of Felecia Carol Prechtl, Arthur had a solitary message.

"I love ... I just love," she said. "I wish that moment had never
happened. There aren't any words when you lose a child. I love them."

Standing in front of Arthur was Capital "X" best known for his work with
Walk 4 Life.

He was videotaping her message for his own use to help demonstrate the
pain felt by the families of the executed, a view he felt was not
appropriately covered by today's media.

"It really hurts me to see all these people hurting, all these people with
love and compassion, and then you've got these jokers over here (gestures
to TDCJ guards standing close by) smirking and laughing," he said. "I'm
not saying they're all bad, there's some of them who don't believe in the
death penalty.

"But to stand there and smirk while this woman is getting her heart torn
out to me is like disrespect. There's not even a word for it. But if you
put the camera on them they're quick to turn their faces."

As the news reached Arthur that her son had been executed, she hugged Lamp
of Hope member Karen Sebung, and cried out in agony.

(source: Huntsville Item)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 12

TEXAS:

Top Texas appeals court to hear Austin death penalty case----At issue is
whether police properly questioned Milton Gobert in 2003 stabbing.

A man facing the death penalty in Travis County in the 2003 stabbing death
of his ex-girlfriend's friend will have his case heard by the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals, the court announced Wednesday.

The state's highest criminal court will determine whether Milton Dwayne
Gobert's recorded confession to the stabbing of 30-year-old Mel Cotton in
North Austin should be admissible at trial.

At issue is what Gobert said to Austin homicide Detective Michael Burgh
the day after Cotton was found dead.

"I don't want to give up any right, though, if I don't got no lawyer,"
Gobert said, according to court documents.

Burgh and Detective Kerry Scanlon then both asked: "You don't want to
talk?" Gobert then agreed to talk to them and signed a card saying he
understood the rights he was waiving. After a few questions, Scanlon again
asked Gobert if he was sure he wanted to give up his right to a lawyer.
Gobert said he was sure.

During an interview, Gobert said he wrestled a knife away from Cotton and
stabbed her with it, court documents show. Her 5-year-old son also was
stabbed but survived.

Defense lawyers say that Gobert clearly asserted his right to a lawyer and
that police should have ceased questioning him. Prosecutors say Gobert's
statement about a lawyer was not clear.

In 2006, state District Judge Bob Perkins sided with Gobert's defense
lawyers and ruled that nothing Gobert said could be used at his capital
murder trial.

A three-judge panel of the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals in April 2007
affirmed Perkins' ruling. Chief Justice Kenneth Law and Justice Jan
Patterson agreed with Perkins, and Justice David Puryear dissented.

Prosecutors asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to take the case, but
before the 3rd Court forwarded the case up the ladder for review, the
justices took another look.

In October, Law changed his mind and sided with Puryear. The court then
ordered that Gobert's statements could be used during his trial.

Gobert's lawyers then asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to take the
case. With its ruling Wednesday, the court said it would entertain oral
arguments in the case. The date has not been set.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 11

TEXAS----execution

Killer put to death in Texas' 1st execution in 9 months----He apologizes
to Dallas single mom's family, including her son, who found her body after
1991 attack

A remorseful convicted killer was executed Wednesday night for the rape
and slaying of a woman in Dallas 17 years ago, the first Texas prisoner in
nearly nine months put to death in the nation's most active capital
punishment state.

Karl Eugene Chamberlain, with a big smile on his face, addressed relatives
of his victim, staring directly at the son, parents and brother of Felecia
Prechtl as they stood just a few feet away, looking through a glass
window.

"I want you all to know I love you with all my heart. I want to thank you
for being here," he said. Prechtl's son was 5 when he found his mother's
body in their bathroom.

"We are here to honor the life of Felecia Prechtl, a woman I didn't even
know, and celebrate my death," he said. "I am so terribly sorry. I wish I
could die more than once."

Chamberlain said he understood if his victim's relatives would like to
hurt him, but he wanted them to know it was his memories of her and her
life that contributed to his remorse.

"I love you. God have mercy on us all," he said as the drugs began taking
effect. Still grinning, he blurted out: "Please do not hate anybody
because ... "

He was unable to finish as he slipped into unconsciousness. 9 minutes
later at 6:30 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

"One question I ask myself every day. Why does it take so long for justice
to be served?" Prechtl's mother, Ina, said after watching Chamberlain die.

Chamberlain lived upstairs in the same apartment complex as his victim but
denied any knowledge of the crime when questioned by police the day of the
1991 slaying. He was arrested 5 years later after his fingerprint was
matched to a print on a roll of duct tape used to bind Prechtl.
Chamberlain's prints had been entered into a database after he went on
probation for an attempted robbery and abduction in Houston.

When he was arrested in Euless in suburban Dallas, he confessed.

"It was just total terrible bad luck," Chamberlain said, describing the
slaying in a recent interview on death row. "Not that my actions were
luck, but bad luck that I didn't get interrupted and stop."

"I'm not trying to justify my crime," he added.

After 26 executions in Texas last year, far more than any other state,
Chamberlain's was the 1st in the state since September. Executions
throughout the country were on hold after the Supreme Court agreed in
September to consider a challenge from 2 Kentucky prisoners who questioned
the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures. When the court in
April upheld the method, the de facto moratorium was lifted and executions
resumed.

Chamberlain was the 6th prisoner executed nationally this year, all in
recent weeks. He was among at least 13 Texas inmates with execution dates
in the coming months.

The Supreme Court rejected Chamberlain's request for a reprieve and a
review of his case about 30 minutes before he was scheduled to die. The
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals also rejected an appeal related to lethal
injection procedures within a half-hour of his execution time.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Chamberlain contended
his initial appeals attorney a lawyer paid for by the state was inept
and Chamberlain was denied due process. The Texas Attorney General's
Office argued Chamberlain was not denied a right that other inmates
received.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had also refused late Monday to stop
Chamberlain's punishment.

Reprieve for Houston-area killer lifted

The court also lifted a reprieve it gave a week ago to another Texas
inmate, Derrick Sonnier, just 90 minutes before he was to be executed for
killing a suburban Houston woman and her young son. Sonnier, like
Chamberlain, had argued the Texas lethal injection procedures were
unconstitutionally cruel.

Lawyers for both condemned inmates had cited unresolved cases before the
Court of Criminal Appeals that raised the same issues. The appeals court
on Monday also rejected those cases, clearing the way for executions in
Texas to resume.

Chamberlain's crime began after Prechtl's brother and his girlfriend had
taken her son to a store for some food and a video while she got ready to
go out with friends.

While they were gone, Chamberlain knocked on Prechtl's door and asked to
borrow some sugar. After she filled the request, he returned with a rifle
and the roll of duct tape, attacked the single mother and shot her in the
head.

Her son found her body.

After his arrest, Chamberlain told police they could find the murder
weapon, a .30-caliber M-1 rifle, at his father's house. DNA evidence, plus
the fingerprint evidence and confession, tied him to the crime scene.

Another execution is set for next week. Charles Hood faces injection
Tuesday for the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace
at Williamson's suburban Dallas home.

Chamberlain becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year
and the 403rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec.
7, 1982. Chamberlain becomes the 167th condemned inmate to be put to death
in Texas since Rick Perry became Governor in 2001.

Chamberlain becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year
in the USA and the 1105th overall since the nation resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & RIck Halperin)

*******************

New Call for Death Penalty Debate

The execution is the 1st in Texas since a 7 month moratorium was lifted.
U.S. and Texas court decisions upholding lethal injection have cleared the
way for Karl Eugene Chamberlain is to die for the 1991 rape and murder of
his neighbor. On the Dallas County courthouse steps, Rick Halperin,
president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, called for
a debate about the death penalty in the 2009 Legislature.

Halperin: What Texas is getting ready to do tonight and in the weeks and
months ahead should give us pause about serious reflection about what is
happening in this state.

Which Halperin says is more DNA exoneration of wrongfully convicted
inmates than anywhere else, with Dallas County in the lead. Toby Shook,
former prosecutor on the Chamberlain case, says none of the exonerations
involve death penalty cases.

Shook: I think a majority of Texans still agree with it, so I don't think
we'll see an abolishment. I think they'll try to use the exonerations to
try to make arguments.

But Shook says the system effectively guards against innocent people being
executed.

(source: KERA/PBS)

**********************************

Hours Before Texas Gets Back in the Execution Business, a Small Protest

Ex-con Andres Latallade, also known as Capitol X, at the protest in front
of the Crowley todayHours before Karl Eugene Chamberlain is scheduled to
be executed for the rape and murder of Felecia Prechtl in Dallas in 1991,
a small group of protesters gathered on the steps of the Frank Crowley
Courts Building to condemn the practice of putting people to death as a
matter of public policy. Chamberlain will be the 1st execution in the
state since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal
injections in April.

Dr. Rick Halperin, director of SMU's Human Rights Education Program, went
so far as to voice optimism about the end of executions in the state
that's most fond of them. "I tell you as sure as the sun comes up
tomorrow," he said. "We are going to live to see the end of this horror in
Texas."

How might that happen? Halperin said his hope lies with legislators, such
as Houston State Senator Rodney Ellis, who fought to end executions of the
mentally retarded, as well as with the Dallas County District Attorneys
Office and the Innocence Project of Texas.

"The D.A. here has set a healthier tone," Halperin says, referring to
Craig Watkins' relationship with the Innocence Project and its efforts to
use DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly convicted. We have people on
Death Row in this county who have strong claims of innocence."

He also pointed out that juries in Texas and nationwide are becoming less
likely to endorse death sentences. The number of annual death sentences
issued across the country dropped from more than 300 4 years ago to 114
last year, Halperin said. Juries -- and Americans in general -- he
insists, are coming around to the idea that lengthy sentences are an
effective means of securing public safety without taking a life. Besides,
he adds, it's widely accepted knowledge that it costs taxpayers roughly
half the money -- $1 million -- to house a prisoner for life than it does
to execute him (including appeals, the price tag is around $2.3 million).

Also rallying this morning was Andres Latallade, a New York man who served
some 13 years in prisons in the Northeast and recently walked from New
Jersey to Austin to protest the death penalty on behalf of a group called
Journey of Hope.

"I woke up one day and thought, 'I'm walking to Texas," he said. "I felt
like the opinion of the death penalty was tipping in our favor, so maybe
if I could educate a couple thousand people we could really tip it." The
trek took him 55 days -- about 35 miles per day, he said, showing the
bulging calves he developed along the way.

His next stop is Huntsville, where Karl Chamberlain is scheduled to be put
to death before sunrise.

(source: Dallas Observer)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 11

TEXAS:

Hours Before Texas Gets Back in the Execution Business, a Small Protest

Ex-con Andres Latallade, also known as Capitol X, at the protest in front
of the Crowley todayHours before Karl Eugene Chamberlain is scheduled to
be executed for the rape and murder of Felecia Prechtl in Dallas in 1991,
a small group of protesters gathered on the steps of the Frank Crowley
Courts Building to condemn the practice of putting people to death as a
matter of public policy. Chamberlain will be the 1st execution in the
state since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal
injections in April.

Dr. Rick Halperin, director of SMU's Human Rights Education Program, went
so far as to voice optimism about the end of executions in the state
that's most fond of them. "I tell you as sure as the sun comes up
tomorrow," he said. "We are going to live to see the end of this horror in
Texas."

How might that happen? Halperin said his hope lies with legislators, such
as Houston State Senator Rodney Ellis, who fought to end executions of the
mentally retarded, as well as with the Dallas County District Attorneys
Office and the Innocence Project of Texas.

"The D.A. here has set a healthier tone," Halperin says, referring to
Craig Watkins' relationship with the Innocence Project and its efforts to
use DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly convicted. We have people on
Death Row in this county who have strong claims of innocence."

He also pointed out that juries in Texas and nationwide are becoming less
likely to endorse death sentences. The number of annual death sentences
issued across the country dropped from more than 300 4 years ago to 114
last year, Halperin said. Juries -- and Americans in general -- he
insists, are coming around to the idea that lengthy sentences are an
effective means of securing public safety without taking a life. Besides,
he adds, it's widely accepted knowledge that it costs taxpayers roughly
half the money -- $1 million -- to house a prisoner for life than it does
to execute him (including appeals, the price tag is around $2.3 million).

Also rallying this morning was Andres Latallade, a New York man who served
some 13 years in prisons in the Northeast and recently walked from New
Jersey to Austin to protest the death penalty on behalf of a group called
Journey of Hope.

"I woke up one day and thought, 'I'm walking to Texas," he said. "I felt
like the opinion of the death penalty was tipping in our favor, so maybe
if I could educate a couple thousand people we could really tip it." The
trek took him 55 days -- about 35 miles per day, he said, showing the
bulging calves he developed along the way.

His next stop is Huntsville, where Karl Chamberlain is scheduled to be put
to death before sunrise.

(source: Dallas Observer)

****************

Accused Serial Killer Paul Devoe Appears In Texas Court

A man accused of killing a Greencastle woman during a killing spree was in
court Monday.

Prosecutors say Paul Devoe killed Betty Dehart of Greencastle, then stole
her car and was caught by police in New York. Investigators also say he
killed 5 people in Texas prior to that.

A Texas judge said he will allow statements Devoe made after his arrest in
New York in Devoe's death penalty trial.

Prosecutors said Devoe made a written confession to police saying he found
Dehart in her Greencastle home hiding under her bed covers where he killed
her.

His Texas trial is scheduled to begin in September.

(source: Your4State)

***********************

Blair granted retrial after DNA analysis

Collin County granted convicted killer Michael Blair a retrial after new
DNA evidence showed no link between him and 7-year-old Ashley Estell.

"Although Mr. Blair has not been exonerated, I believe the evidence as it
now stands meets the criteria for relief under the law, said John R.
Roach, Collin county criminal district attorney. "There is no good faith
argument to support the current conviction in light of the facts and the
law as they now exist. Therefore, under my duty to not only uphold the
law, but to see that justice is done, the State is joining today with the
defense team in its request for relief."

Blair was convicted with the abduction and killing of 7-year-old Ashley
Estell in 1993.

Philip Wischkaemper, a Lubbock district attorney who represented Blair in
the appellate courts, said he believes law enforcement was under
tremendous pressure to solve this high-profile case quickly.

"Collin County's case against Michael Blair is no better than before, it's
worse" Wischkaemper said. "They've admitted and stipulated there is no DNA
evidence to link Michael Blair to Ashley Estell."

Wischkaemper could not speculate when Blair's re-trial will take place,
but said he hopes something will happen soon. "DNA evidence not linking
Michael Blair to the crime has been coming back for 10 years,"
Wischkaemper said. "DNA evidence was around at the time of the trial, but
it was not what we needed. The mitochondrial DNA used now is more accurate
compared to the microscopic DNA that convicted Michael Blair of the
crime."

Roach said the expert hair comparison testimony in trial that connected
Ashley Estell and Blair has been disproved by DNA testing of a type that
was not available at the time of the trial in 1994.

"None of the hairs belong to either Ashley Estell or Mr. Blair," Roach
said. "No other credible, individualized forensic evidence connects Ashley
Estell and Mr. Blair."

Roach said in November 2006, he assembled a select group of investigators
and prosecutors from his office and assigned them the task of
re-investigating the Blair capital murder case.

Since then, the team has expended more than 5,000 hours, interviewed more
than 50 witnesses and spent more than $47,000 on its investigation.

"They exhaustively reviewed records, files and evidence related to the
case as well as tracking down new leads and information, Roach said. DNA
testing was performed on a number of items of evidence that had never
before been DNA tested. The result: the team discovered no new evidence
connecting Mr. Blair to Ashley Estell as well as no new evidence
demonstrating Mr. Blair's guilt."

He said the team identified at least one other person of interest during
their investigation.

"This person not only exhibited suspicious activity after the murder, much
as Mr. Blair did, but this person cannot be scientifically excluded as a
contributor to a piece of DNA evidence in the case, Roach said.
"Unfortunately, despite strenuous efforts, the team has been unable to
eliminate or conclusively connect this person to the offenses."

Even if the courts decide to overturn Blair's murder charge, Wischkaemper
said he will still serve his 3 consecutive life sentences for child sex
crimes he admitted to in 2004.

"The most important part of this case is getting Michael Blair off death
row and this new evidence could do that," Wischkaemper said.

(source: Plano Star)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 10

TEXAS:

Texas death row inmate set for execution in Dallas woman's death

5 years after Felecia Prechtl was raped and fatally shot at her East
Dallas apartment, a thumbprint lifted from a roll of duct tape used to
bind the 30-year-old single mom led detectives to her killer, a former
neighbor on probation for an attempted robbery in Houston.

"I've never said I was innocent," Karl Eugene Chamberlain, now 37, said
recently from death row, where he was sent following his conviction for
Prechtl's slaying. "I've never denied my guilt. I don't want to say the
jury was wrong, that the prosecutors were wrong.

"My greatest regret is that I went down there in the 1st place and didn't
have the courage to kill myself instead."

But Chamberlain, set for execution in Huntsville Wednesday for the 1991
murder, insisted prosecutors, jurors and his trial lawyers ignored the
fact that for most of those five years - while on probation - he managed
to stay out of trouble. And that, combined with what he said was their
failure to consider his abusive childhood, should have defused prosecution
arguments that he posed a future danger - one of the questions jurors
consider when deciding whether to impose the death penalty.

"There was so much from my childhood and my life the jury never heard," he
said, saying he was molested repeatedly, raped at age 5 and frequented
hippie camps and communes with his mother, who later married a strict
Muslim who berated him as a "son of Satan."

He said after his arrest and while jailed in Houston, "I realized the
horror I was causing in my life. I was blaming others. I had blamed my
mom... It was my own stupidity."

Prosecutors characterized the Plano East High School graduate as a sexual
predator. Prechtl's slaying was an example of his continuing danger, they
told jurors.

"That's what the jury caught - the predatory nature of the crime," said
Toby Shook, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who
prosecuted the case. "He waited and watched and pounced on the victim."

Relatives had taken Prechtl's 5-year-old son to a video store to get a
movie while she got ready to go out with friends. Chamberlain knocked on
her door and asked to borrow some sugar. She gave him some sugar, but then
he returned with a rifle and the roll of duct tape, attacked her and shot
her in the head.

When Prechtl's son and babysitters returned home, they found her body in a
bathroom.

"It was a highly planned crime," Shook said. "There was cruelty involved
in the murder itself. And the fact that this poor 5-year-old boy had to
find his mother. That image is hard to forget."

"I had kind of like a slip into delusion," Chamberlain said. "It makes
absolutely no sense... It was like I lost all control."

Chamberlain's lethal injection would be the first in Texas in nearly 9
months.

Executions in the state and elsewhere in the nation were on hold since
late last September after two Kentucky prisoners challenged the
constitutionality of lethal injection procedures. The U.S. Supreme Court
agreed to take the case last Sept. 25, the same day Michael Richard became
the 26th inmate put to death in 2007 in Texas, far more than any other
state.

When the U.S. Supreme Court in April upheld the lethal injection method,
the de facto moratorium was lifted and executions resumed.

Chamberlain would be the sixth prisoner executed nationally. He's among at
least 13 Texas inmates with execution dates in the coming months.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals late Monday refused to stop
Chamberlain's punishment while also lifting a reprieve it gave a week ago
to another Texas inmate, Derrick Sonnier, just 90 minutes before he was
supposed to be executed for killing a suburban Houston woman and her young
son. Sonnier, like Chamberlain, had argued the Texas lethal injection
procedures were unconstitutionally cruel.

Lawyers for both condemned inmates had cited unresolved cases before the
Court of Criminal Appeals that raised the same issues. The appeals court
Monday also dispensed with those cases, clearing the way for executions in
Texas to resume.

By then, Chamberlain's attorneys already had gone to the Supreme Court
seeking a reprieve and a review of his case. In their arguments, lawyers
contended Chamberlain's initial appeals attorney was inept. Since indigent
capital murder convicts have a right to lawyers, the state should "provide
counsel who are both competent and who provide effective legal assistance
to their clients," the appeal to the Supreme Court said.

Meanwhile, Harris County prosecutors said Tuesday they would be returning
to court soon to seek a new execution date for Sonnier.

Another execution is set for next week. Charles Hood is scheduled to die
June 17 for the slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at
Williamson's suburban Dallas home in 1989.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

*******************

Texas court OKs execution for killer of stalked woman -- Court lifts stay
of execution for Sonnier

The Court of Criminal Appeals has lifted a stay of execution for a man who
was to be the 1st executed in Texas this year.

Derrick Juan Sonnier, 40, was almost 2 hours away from entering Texas'
death chamber a week ago when the state's highest criminal court issued a
stay.

A new execution date must be scheduled in light of the court's decision to
lift the stay, which was handed down late Monday. The date must be
requested by the Harris County District Attorney. A spokesperson for the
district attorney's office could not be reached immediately for comment.

Sonnier's attorney filed appeals late last Tuesday arguing that the issue
of whether death by lethal injection results in cruel and unusual
punishment had not been determined by the state court.

In a related opinion, the Texas court concluded that another death row
inmate's claim that the lethal injection process would violate his Eighth
Amendment rights had no legal merit. The court found that the U.S. Supreme
Court's 7-2 ruling which upheld Kentucky's lethal injection procedure is
"materially indistinguishable from Texas' lethal injection protocol."

David Dow, one of the lawyers who sought the last-minute stay for Sonnier,
could not be reached immediately for comment.

Sonnier was sentenced to die for the 1991 murders of Melody Flowers, 27,
and her son Patrick, 2. Authorities said Sonnier had stalked the single
mother of 5 for months before the slayings.

Tameka Traylor, one of Flowers' daughters, wept last week as she spoke
about the court delay for her mother and brother's killer last week.

"We found out as soon as it happened," Traylor said today, referring to
the court's decision. "The main thing is for us to go on with our lives."

(source: Houston Chronicle)

*******************

Texas high court creates a judicial integrity unit

The mandate is to identify problems behind state's sorry record of
wrongful convictions Last month, 9 men stood on the floor of the Texas
Senate and described how they spent years behind bars even though they
were innocent. All were wrongfully convicted. "I'm here to tell you I lost
everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who
spent 10 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. "We can do better in
the justice system. The system failed us."

The system also failed James Waller. He was identified by a rape victim by
his eyes and the sound of his voice. The victim described her rapist as
5-foot-8; Waller is 6-foot-4. He also spent 10 years behind bars. Waller
spoke of his wife, eight months pregnant, who was killed in a car accident
on the way to one of his hearings. "I'm 52 years old and I have no kids,"
he said. "Texas took that away from me."

If the Giles and Waller cases were just rare mistakes, there would still
be cause to be concerned about the state's criminal justice system. But,
sadly and tragically, these mistakes are not rare. Since 1994, 33 men have
been exonerated in Texas after DNA testing. They had served, collectively,
427 years in prison.

Think about that -- 427 years lost because of miscarriages of justice. The
state can't restore those lost years and those ruined lives. What it can
do is to try to insure that whatever is wrong with the criminal justice
system be fixed so that there will be no more morally repugnant and
criminally negligent wrongful convictions. Some progress is being made.

Last week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said it was creating a
Criminal Justice Integrity Unit to study the criminal justice system and
make recommendations. "This is a call to action to address the growing
concerns with our criminal justice system," said Court of Criminal Appeals
Justice Barbara Hervey. "Although we applaud all previous studies and
dialogue, it is now time to act and move for reform."

We applaud the court's action, though the court itself has often been a
parody of justice. In one infamous case, that of Roy Wayne Criner, the
court refused to overturn his rape conviction even though DNA evidence
showed it was not his semen in the woman's body. He was pardoned by former
Gov. Bush "for actual innocence." More recently, Sharon Keller, chief
justice of the Court of Criminal Appeals, refused to keep the court open
for a half hour after the 5 p.m. closing time so Michael Richard's
attorneys could file an appeal. Richard was executed even though the U.S.
Supreme Court had put executions on hold until it could review the
constitutionality of lethal injections.

So Texas' highest court for criminal matters has not been overly concerned
about the rights of the accused. That makes it all the more striking that
this court is taking the lead on the issue of whether the state's criminal
justice system is badly out of whack. The creation of the integrity unit
follows a call by state leaders to create a statewide innocence
commission. The creation of the integrity unit does not take away the need
for a statewide innocence commission. There is enough work here for both.

We anticipate that the integrity panel, when it gets to work, will find a
combination of problems ranging from sloppy police work, criminally
negligent lab work, overzealous if not unethical prosecution, and often
inadequate court-appointed legal counsel.

That 33 men were wrongfully convicted and spent 427 years in prison is a
terrible indictment of Texas' criminal justice system, a system more
concerned about getting an arrest and a conviction than getting the right
man. More frightening is the possibility that this may be the tip of a
very large iceberg. Many of these 33 cases only came to light because of
the outstanding work of Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins. If other
district attorneys in Texas were as diligent about reviewing old
convictions, how many other miscarriages of justice might be revealed?

It's encouraging that Watkins is one of the members of the Court of
Criminal Appeals' integrity unit, along with state Sen. Rodney Ellis,
D-Houston, long a crusader in the Legislature on this issue. Their
appearance on the panel gives it substance and a good measure of integrity
of its own.

(source: Editorial, Corpus-Christi Caller-Times)

****************

Executions back on for Texas

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday cleared the way for
executions to resume in the nation's most active death penalty state when
it turned aside an appeal that challenged the constitutionality of lethal
injection procedures.

In a ruling late Monday, the state's highest criminal court refused to
stop the scheduled execution of Karl Eugene Chamberlain, set to die
Wednesday for the rape-slaying of a woman in Dallas in 1991. The same
issues successfully worked last week for another condemned Texas inmate,
Derrick Sonnier, who avoided the death chamber about 90 minutes before he
would have become the 1st prisoner in Texas executed in nearly 9 months.

In his appeal, Chamberlain argued the chemicals used by Texas prison
officials during lethal injections "would violate his Eighth Amendment
right against cruel and unusual punishment," according to the court
ruling.

"We have reviewed (Chamberlain's) subsequent application and find that it
should be dismissed," the court said.

2 of the court's 9 judges dissented.

Similarly, the court denied at least 2 other appeals and a motion for a
stay of execution.

David Schulman, an attorney for Chamberlain, said Monday evening he hoped
the issue could be pursued in the federal courts but was uncertain whether
he would file such an appeal. "We'll see what happens (Tuesday)," he said.

Other lawyers for Chamberlain already had appeals raising other issues
before the U.S. Supreme Court even before the Texas court ruled on the
lethal injection claim.

Monday's ruling also would appear to clear the way for a new execution
date to be set for Sonnier, condemned for the slaying of a suburban
Houston woman and her young son some 17 years ago. Chamberlain was
arrested 5 years after Felicia Prechtl was raped and fatally shot at her
East Dallas apartment after his thumbprint was lifted from a roll of duct
tape used to bind the 30-year-old single mom. He lived in the same
apartment complex at the time. Chamberlain's fingerprints got into a
police database after he was arrested for a robbery in Houston and wound
up on probation.

Chamberlain, whose confession to police was part of the evidence against
him, has not denied his involvement in the woman's death.

"I'm not trying to excuse my crime or justify my actions," Chamberlain,
who would turn 38 later this month, said recently from death row. "It was
a horrible mistake.

"My greatest regret is going down there and not killing myself."

Prechtl's brother and his girlfriend had taken her 5-year-old son to a
video store to get a movie while she got ready to go out on a date.
Chamberlain knocked on her door to borrow some sugar. Then he returned
with a rifle and attacked and shot her. When Prechtl's son and babysitters
returned home, they found her body.

Executions in Texas and elsewhere in the nation were on hold since late
September after two Kentucky prisoners challenged the constitutionality of
lethal injection procedures. Then when the Supreme Court in April upheld
the method, the de facto moratorium was lifted and executions were allowed
to resum, although Sonnier's set for last week in Texas was halted with a
reprieve from the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Sonnier's appeal cited a then-unresolved case before the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals in seeking his reprieve.

Chamberlain's execution would be the 6th this year nationally. He's among
at least 13 condemned Texas prisoners with execution dates in the coming
few months.

(source: Associated Press)

**************************

Dallas County's chief public defender resigns amid questions over
management

Dallas County Chief Public Defender Brad Lollar resigned early this
afternoon in the wake of concerns from county officials about the
management of his office.

County officials declined to say whether Mr. Lollar was asked to resign.

But Commissioner John Wiley Price said the office was not being managed
efficiently. He said he has been accumulating data during the past 8
months about all aspects of the office and was not pleased with the
numbers.

The office provides legal representation to criminal defendants who cant
afford their own lawyers.

The review included a look at the number of cases public defenders
received, the kind of cases they were getting, and how long it took for
them to contact a defendant. Some lawyers in the office were not pulling
their weight, Mr. Price said.

"The Public Defenders Office is not a retirement home for lawyers who dont
want to work," Mr. Price said. "You can't treat it as if it's a part-time
job."

Mr. Lollar could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mr. Price said he expects additional personnel changes in the office. He
said there are no immediate plans to dissolve the office but didnt rule it
out as a future measure if results dont improve. Its also possible the
office could be scaled down, he said. Commissioners have already agreed to
dissolve the offices appeals division as a cost saving measure.

Lynn Richardson, Mr. Lollar's chief deputy, was appointed interim public
defender and will be a given a chance to turn the office around and become
the permanent replacement, Mr. Price said.

During the past several weeks, commissioners have focused on the public
defenders office while looking for cost savings to close a $34 million
budget gap. Mr. Lollar has spent considerable time in closed session
discussions after regular commissioner meetings.

Mr. Price said that when Mr. Lollar was being questioned about the
management of his office, Mr. Lollar said 90 % of the defendants are
guilty. "That mentality got us in trouble in the first place," Mr. Price
said.

Mr. Price also said he pulled a years worth of emails generated by the
office, which he said indicated Mr. Lollar had been notified about
performance issues and failed to fix them.

Dallas County formed the state's 1st public defender's office more than 2
decades ago to offer inexpensive and efficient representation for the
poor.

During the past several years, Dallas Countys criminal court judges had
been using public defenders less than before, relying more on
court-appointed lawyers, who generally cost the county more money per
case.

In 2006, criminal district judges assigned just 38 % of cases to public
defenders. Misdemeanor court judges, however, used them more.

But in the past year, many of the new judges have requested more public
defenders for their courts.

When some of the judges complained about their public defenders, the
lawyers were simply moved to another court, Mr. Price said. That's perhaps
why some judges relied more heavily on court-appointed lawyers, he said.

"It doesn't matter if you are a medical examiner or a lawyer, you have to
perform," Mr. Price said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS, USA

June 9

TEXAS:

Top Texas court won't block execution this week

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday cleared the way for
executions to resume in the nation's most active death penalty state when
it turned aside an appeal that challenged the constitutionality of lethal
injection procedures.

In a ruling late Monday, the state's highest criminal court refused to
stop the scheduled execution of Karl Eugene Chamberlain, set to die
Wednesday for the rape-slaying of a woman in Dallas in 1991.

The same issues successfully worked last week for another condemned Texas
inmate, Derrick Sonnier, who avoided the death chamber about 90 minutes
before he would have become the first prisoner in Texas executed in nearly
9 months.

In his appeal, Chamberlain argued the chemicals used by Texas prison
officials during lethal injections "would violate his Eighth Amendment
right against cruel and unusual punishment," according to the court
ruling.

"We have reviewed (Chamberlain's) subsequent application and find that it
should be dismissed," the court said.

2 of the court's 9 judges dissented.

Similarly, the court denied at least two other appeals and a motion for a
stay of execution.

David Schulman, an attorney for Chamberlain, said Monday evening he hoped
the issue could be pursued in the federal courts but was uncertain whether
he would file such an appeal. "We'll see what happens (Tuesday)," he said.

Other lawyers for Chamberlain already had appeals raising other issues
before the U.S. Supreme Court even before the Texas court ruled on the
lethal injection claim.

Monday's ruling also would appear to clear the way for a new execution
date to be set for Sonnier, condemned for the slaying of a suburban
Houston woman and her young son some 17 years ago.

Chamberlain was arrested five years after Felicia Prechtl was raped and
fatally shot at her East Dallas apartment after his thumbprint was lifted
from a roll of duct tape used to bind the 30-year-old single mom. He lived
in the same apartment complex at the time. Chamberlain's fingerprints got
into a police database after he was arrested for a robbery in Houston and
wound up on probation.

Chamberlain, whose confession to police was part of the evidence against
him, has not denied his involvement in the woman's death.

"I'm not trying to excuse my crime or justify my actions," Chamberlain,
who would turn 38 later this month, said recently from death row. "It was
a horrible mistake.

"My greatest regret is going down there and not killing myself."

Prechtl's brother and his girlfriend had taken her 5-year-old son to a
video store to get a movie while she got ready to go out on a date.
Chamberlain knocked on her door to borrow some sugar. Then he returned
with a rifle and attacked and shot her. When Prechtl's son and babysitters
returned home, they found her body.

Executions in Texas and elsewhere in the nation were on hold since late
September after 2 Kentucky prisoners challenged the constitutionality of
lethal injection procedures. Then when the Supreme Court in April upheld
the method, the de facto moratorium was lifted and executions were allowed
to resum, although Sonnier's set for last week in Texas was halted with a
reprieve from the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Sonnier's appeal cited a then-unresolved case before the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals in seeking his reprieve.

Chamberlain's execution would be the 6th this year nationally. He's among
at least 13 condemned Texas prisoners with execution dates in the coming
few months.

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

Ethical implications of modifying lethal injection protocols

A team of medical, ethical, and legal scholars argues in this week's PLoS
Medicine that in some US states the modification of lethal injection
protocols is tantamount to experimentation upon prisoners without the
prisoners' consent and without any ethical safeguards.

Drs. Leonidas Koniaris and Teresa Zimmers (University of Miami Miller
School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA) and colleagues lay out evidence
obtained in litigation and from Freedom of Information act requests that
suggests that at least 10 states are performing regimens that may be akin
to human experimentation.

"The collective practice of lethal injection," say the authors, "has
employed invasive testing of different drug protocols and devices, data
collection and monitoring, and systematic review with outcome data being
used to revise practice." Certain lethal injection inquiries, they say,
may therefore constitute human subjects research.

While death row inmates have been stripped of the right to freedom and to
life, say the authors, they maintain the right to bodily integrity and the
right to refuse to be experimented upon. And yet in these 10 states,
Koniaris and Zimmer's analysis finds that inmates were not asked for their
consent to be included in lethal injection practices, which are
essentially experimental in nature.

Guidelines for the ethical conduct of research involving humans, such as
the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki, were developed at
least partially as a way of ensuring that medical researchers would not
exploit vulnerable prisoner populations. In the US, researchers who
conduct studies on humans are required to follow the "Common Rule" (the
Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects)., which provides
protection for research participants by requiring institutional assurance
of compliance with federal regulations, institutional review board (IRB)
review, approval, and oversight, and informed consent of the participants.
In Koniaris and Zimmers' analysis, none of the ten states undertaking
regimens with prisoners being executed followed the Common Rulefor
example, prisoners had not given consent to be experimented upon and
institutional review boards had not approved the use of what is
essentially a n experiment protocol.

Lethal injection for execution has largely replaced other execution
methods in the US, in part due to the appearance of a peaceful death. But
evidence suggests that some inmates suffer extreme paintriggering legal
challenges against lethal injection on the grounds that it violates the
United States' constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment. (see, for example, a previous PLoS Medicine paper, by Dr
Zimmers and colleagues in 2007: Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical
Asphyxiation? PLoS Med 4(4): e156 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040156).

Jurists are now demanding that lethal injection protocols be amended, say
Dr Zimmers and colleagues, to comply with this constitutional prohibition.
However, even as jurists demand lethal injection protocol changes, say the
authors, "corrections officials, governors, and their medical
collaborators are left in a legal and ethical quandaryin order to comply
with the law and carry out their duties, they are employing the tools and
methods of biomedical inquiry without its ethical safeguards."

Given the current guidelines for human experimentation, they say, "it is
difficult to conceive of circumstances in which lethal injection research
activities could be carried out in a fashion consistent with these ethical
norms, and yet those engaged in such research would seem to be required to
do so."

###

Citation: Koniaris LG, Goodman KW, Sugarman J, Ozomaro U, Sheldon J, et
al. (2008) Ethical implications of modifying lethal injection protocols.
PLoS Med 5(6): e126.

(source: About PLoS Medicine ----Public Library of Science

PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical
journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of
human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of
important global health issues. For more information, visit
http://www.plosmedicine.org

About the Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of
scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and
medical literature a freely available public resource. For more
information, visit http://www.plos.org )

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 9

TEXAS:

Church's death penalty stance singles out Texas

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' stay of execution for a death row
inmate on June 3 answered the prayers of many United Methodists keeping a
close watch on the case.

Derrick Sonnier received his reprieve 90 minutes before he was scheduled
to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. The convicted killer would have
been the 406th person executed by the state and the first executed in
Texas after The United Methodist Church called for an end to the death
penalty in the state that leads the United States in executions.

The denomination passed its latest resolution against the death penalty on
May 2 during the 2008 General Conference, which convened this year in Fort
Worth, Texas. The church's top legislative body, which meets once every 4
years, has passed resolutions opposing the death penalty at every assembly
since 1956.

Sonnier's execution date was scheduled after the U.S. Supreme Court in
April upheld lethal injection as a proper method of capital punishment.

Lawyers for the Texas Defender Service filed a last-minute appeal in
behalf of Sonnier on his scheduled execution day, arguing that the
procedure would cause him unconstitutional pain and suffering. The appeal
also said Texas' procedure had not been reviewed legally and that
officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had changed their
written execution protocols within the past week without review by the
courts.

Sanctioning violence?

General Conference, the only body that can speak in behalf of the entire
denomination, stated in its most recently approved resolution that "there
can be no assertion that human life can be taken humanely by the state."
The assembly said the death penalty "will increase the acceptance of
revenge in our society and will give official sanction to a climate of
violence."

A new resolution singles out the state of Texas, expressing the church's
"deepest appreciation to all those organizations and individuals in Texas
who have valiantly struggled and continue to struggle for a more humane
society in which the death penalty is rare or non-existent."

"It is the ultimate Christian belief that no matter what sins a person has
committed, no person is beyond redemption."The Rev. Bill MartinWatching
General Conference proceedings online from her home in Austin, Texas,
Vicki McCuistion cried when the resolution passed. McCuistion is program
director for the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and a member
of Wimberley United Methodist Church.

"It felt so good for General Conference to pass the resolution; it was so
affirming to all involved in the battle in Texas," she said.

A task force from St. John's United Methodist Church, Lubbock, brought the
petition before the denomination.

"We felt it was appropriate for a group from Texas to ask General
Conference to pass the resolution," said the Rev. Bill Martin, retired
pastor and a member of St. John's. "It is the ultimate Christian belief
that no matter what sins a person has committed, no person is beyond
redemption."

Why Texas?

The petition almost died in subcommittee, where some delegates argued that
the church already has a resolution calling for the abolition of capital
punishment "from all criminal codes." The Rev. Mike McKee argued for the
petition, noting that General Conference was meeting in Texas, the state
that leads the nation in the number of executions.

"I have lived in Texas all my life, and Texas puts to death more people
than any other state," said McKee, pastor of First United Methodist Church
in Hurst. "There are so many concerns about African Americans and Latinos
being unfairly sentenced to death and concerns about innocent people being
executed that there should at the very least be a moratorium on all cases.
Execution prevents the possibility of redemption and once it is carried
out, it is final. If we find we made a mistake and convicted an innocent
person, it is too late."

The resolution noted that Texas has executed more than 400 people since
1982, including 6 who were mentally retarded, 20 who suffered from mental
illness and 13 who were juveniles when their crimes were committed.

Notice of the General Conference action was sent to the Texas Legislature,
the Texas Pardon and Parole Board, Gov. Rick Perry, the Texas Conference
of Churches and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The resolution also has been shared with other faith groups and has been
helpful in starting conversations about a difficult subject, according to
McCuistion.

"If you can't talk about the tough stuff in church, where can you talk
about it?" she said. Executions just bring "more pain," said McCuistion,
who has spoken with family members of both Sonnier and the victims in his
case.

Sonnier, now 40, was sentenced to die for the 1991 beating and stabbing
deaths of Melody Flowers and her toddler in Houston.

"Society can be protected when people are sentenced to life in prison
without parole," McCuistion said. "Sitting and thinking about their crime
day after day can be beneficial."

(source: United Methodist Church News)

********************

Court's integrity proposal

The weaknesses of Texas' much-maligned criminal justice system will be
getting an examination from the very court that has endured and deserved
much of the maligning: the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The court was right last week to announce its own "integrity unit."
Breakdowns in justice have been documented at an embarrassing level in
Texas, highlighted by Dallas County's nation-leading parade of 17 DNA
exonerations. One appeals court judge, Barbara Hervey, was on hand in the
state Capitol last month to hear heart-rending stories from nine former
state prisoners who proved their innocence after years behind bars.

Failures in justice were many, resulting from faulty witness
identification, shoddy or bogus crime forensics, prosecutorial misconduct
and weak legal representation. The list goes on so much so that Judge
Hervey said last week that it's "time to act and move for reform."

Of course it is, and Texans who care about justice should appreciate Judge
Hervey's leadership. The experts she has assembled including Dallas
County District Attorney Craig Watkins are capable of analyzing problems
and suggesting solutions.

Lasting reform, though, requires legislative action, and that's why an
effort by Sen. Rodney Ellis should continue to muster political support.
Mr. Ellis, a Houston Democrat who organized the Capitol conference, wants
to create an innocence commission that could help set criminal justice
standards by re-examining wrongful convictions.

The appeals court, meanwhile, regains some credibility in stopping an
execution last week to examine an appeal of Texas' lethal injection
procedure. The court made a mockery of justice in September when Presiding
Judge Sharon Keller issued her infamous "we close at 5" edict, refusing to
consider a similar appeal from a Houston killer that came in minutes late.
The ensuing execution appeared to flaunt the U.S. Supreme Court's move to
halt capital punishment nationwide because of the injection question.

With states now cleared to start up again, Texas' highest criminal court
has decided that Huntsville's death chamber should not cut short due
process before resuming its lethal work. Nothing less should be expected
from a court that sets the tone for the nation's leading capital
punishment state.

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News, June 8)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 8

TEXAS:

My son's on death row

My son, Karl Chamberlain, has been on death row in Texas for 11 years. I
thank The Dallas Morning News for coming out against the death penalty and
challenging the citizens of Dallas to come forward and insist the state of
Texas change its laws in a positive, evolved move forward and abolish the
death penalty forever.

Karl has been an incredible gift in my life and always will be. I live to
survive his death. Make his death impossible by writing to Texas Gov. Rick
Perry. This is not only about my son, but also about all of our great
country's sons and daughters.

Donna Chamberlain Arthur, Las Vegas, N.M.

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 7

TEXAS:

AG says injection question settled----Supreme Court in April upheld
execution method killer is contesting

The Texas Attorney General's office filed its response to appeals that led
to this week's last-minute stay of execution of a convicted capital
murderer, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court already upheld the lethal
injection process.

The attorney general also said 11th-hour legal filings to the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals, like the one that halted Tuesday's execution of
Derrick Juan Sonnier, should be discouraged.

A Texas Defender Service lawyer filed appeals hours before Sonnier was to
be put to death, arguing that death by lethal injection violates Eight
Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The Court of
Criminal Appeals has not yet ruled in two cases making similar claims.
Sonnier's lawyers also argued that Texas prison officials had made changes
to its execution protocol that have not been reviewed by any court.

The Court of Criminal Appeals halted Sonnier's execution about two hours
before he was to enter Texas' death chamber. He would have been the
state's first inmate executed since the Supreme Court upheld the lethal
injection process in a Kentucky case in April.

Sonnier was condemned for the 1991 rape and stabbing death of Melody
Flowers, 27, and her son Patrick, 2.

The Eighth Amendment argument Sonnier raised was "fully disposed" of by
the Supreme Court when it upheld the 3-drug procedure used in Kentucky,
the Attorney General's Office argued in its response.

The only issue left is whether Texas' execution protocol mirrors
Kentucky's, the attorney general argues. A chart included in the filing
indicates similar doses of the lethal drugs are administered in both
states.

David Dow, Sonnier's appellate attorney, said Friday that the issue is not
that clear-cut.

"It's a misstatement that Kentucky's protocol is exactly like Texas',"
said Dow, of the Texas Defender Service.

A spokeswoman for the AG's office declined comment.

Sonnier was returned to death row in Livingston soon after he received
word of the court's stay.

*************************

10 years later, Byrd tragedy still haunts Jasper----While some residents
want to move on and erase the scar left by the heinous, racial attack, his
family works to keep the black man's memory alive

The faded Ford pickup sits like a pale gray ghost in a shady corner of the
impound lot. Shoved between a chain-link fence and a carport, it has been
quietly tucked away for 10 years.

The tires, the rims, the infamous chain all stained with blood and human
flesh were removed long ago and are stored in a security vault. The
evidence.

An old barrel of motor oil sits atop the truck's rusty hood, its body
entangled in vines and dead branches.

"I don't like to go near it. I never even opened the door of that truck,"
said Leon Clark, 57, who owns the lot. "I've got to get it out of here for
all the trouble it has caused Jasper, Texas."

In the early-morning hours of June 7, 1998, that truck dragged James Byrd
Jr., an African-American, to his agonizing death, adding another sordid
page to America's painful racial history. 3 white men used a logging chain
to tie Byrd's ankles to the truck's rear bumper, zigzagging him along
bucolic Huff Creek Road for 3.08 miles.

By the time the grisly ride came to a halt, Byrd's head and his right
shoulder and arm had been severed. The 49-year-old man's dentures, his
apartment keys and his wallet were found strewn along the bloodied path.

The event is something that some in this small East Texas town, shrouded
in thick pines, sweet gum, oak and hickory trees, want to forget: It was a
modern-day lynching.

But like the pickup truck, the memory of this heinous hate crime is still
here, festering in a corner. Jasper is haunted by what happened 10 years
ago today. It is here, thick in the air, like the scent of the pine trees
that cling to Huff Creek Road, persistent.

There is no memorial along the road to mark Byrd's passing, not even a
makeshift cross. But a small park in the black section of town, dotted
with wood-frame and trailer homes, bears his name: James Byrd Jr. Memorial
Park. Today that park will be the gathering spot for a commemoration.

Fear of association

Depending on who is doing the talking, some Jasper residents want to
forget Byrd, who in life was a jovial man known for his love of a drink
and the piano and as a doting son, but for not much more.

Now they fear that because of his death, their beloved small town, known
as the Jewel of the Forest, will forever be synonymous with Byrd being
dragged by that truck.

"We're trying to move on if people would let us and stop associating us
for this morbid display," said Liz Street, executive director for the
Jasper/Lake Sam Rayburn Area Chamber of Commerce, which also serves as the
tourist office. Among the visitors is a trickle of college students
researching racial violence, inquiring about directions to Byrd's grave.

"It makes me more defensive of Jasper," Street said.

Yet there are others who want to remember the lynching, to heal and learn
from it.

"He died because he was black not because of the things he did and
people want to coat that, bury that," said Betty Boatner, one of Byrd's
sisters, who is one of several siblings working to raise awareness of hate
crimes. "But as long as we are alive, the world will always know."

A haunted conscience

The memories torture Steven Scott, the key witness in the 3 murder trials
of John William King, Lawrence Russell Brewer Jr. and Shawn Allen Berry
that sent 2 of them to death row and 1 to life in prison.

Only 18 at the time, with a love for hip-hop and Master P, Scott was
driving home on Martin Luther King Boulevard about 2 that morning 10 years
ago when he spotted Byrd stumbling along the street.

Scott had been out dancing at a club in Beaumont. He thought about
offering Byrd a ride, but he changed his mind. Byrd appeared to be drunk,
and the teen just wanted to get home after the hourlong drive.

When Scott got home, he saw Byrd pass by, sitting in the bed of that
primer-gray pickup, slumped over, heading to his death. Scott told police
what he saw and was later pivotal in helping authorities crack the case
within 48 hours.

"My conscience told me to stop, and the other conscience told me to keep
going, and I listened to the devil," said Scott, now 28, unemployed and
living in Arkansas. "I could have saved that man's life."

In and out of college with 2 associate's degrees to his name, Scott said
he is waiting to move on from that morning. So far, he can't. After
authorities released his name and address on the affidavit of probable
cause, the black teen starting getting hate mail laced with death threats,
he said. Scott had asked the sheriff's deputies to keep him anonymous.

"I still feel like I'm being watched," Scott said. "I just want to live a
normal life."

What happened to Byrd was an extreme act of violence that horrified the
world, but what happened after the funeral and during the murder trials
shattered Jasper. Media from as far away as Japan descended on this town,
population 8,200.

Members of the white-clad Ku Klux Klan and the black-outfitted New Black
Panther Party held dueling demonstrations outside the Jasper County
Courthouse, where 2 of the 3 trials were held.

King and Brewer now sit on death row. Berry is up for parole when he turns
63 in 2038 and is segregated from the general prison population.

Byrd's grave was desecrated twice. In 2004, his family erected a
4-foot-tall iron fence around the grave in the once-segregated Jasper City
Cemetery.

"Even in death, James is still in chains," said another sister, Louvon
Harris of Houston.

Signs of healing

For all the turmoil, Jasper has made strides to heal its image. An
alliance of black and white ministers was formed and is active in town.
Billy Rowles, who was the town's sheriff at the time, realized he didn't
have a diverse police force. So he hired 6 black deputies and dispatchers.

"They portrayed me as a snuff dippin', beer drinkin', redneck East Texas
sheriff, and they had it all right but I wasn't a bigot," said Rowles,
62, who retired 4 years ago.

The local Wal-Mart, known as the town's mall, reflects the demography of
Jasper's working-class residents, almost equally split between black and
white, with a growing Latino population. Recently, a white man shopped for
groceries with a black woman, their interracial child sitting on the
shopping cart.

During an afternoon on Huff Creek Road, an interracial teenage couple sped
by on an all-terrain vehicle.

"People are becoming more open-minded," Scott said. "But the problem with
Jasper is there are no jobs, no opportunities. Where you going to work?
The Jack In The Box?"

Boatner, who never left town, said Jasper is sweet home for her and her
parents, Stella Mae Byrd and James Byrd Sr. Several years ago, Stella
Byrd, who declined to be interviewed for this article, erected a small
museum in the front of her brown wood-framed house on Broad Street, its
yard dotted with rosebushes.

Enclosed in a glass case, the museum, which is the size of a closet,
contains her son's images and gifts of artwork, plaques and letters from
strangers and dignitaries. She wrote a self-published memoir in 2002. She
wants the neighbors to be reminded of James Byrd Jr., every day.

Fading memories

In that same house, however, the family's patriarch, James Byrd Sr., can't
remember a thing.

A mainstay during the trials, he has suffered from Alzheimer's disease for
5 years. He passes the time sitting in a wheelchair in the garage out
front just a few yards away from the small glass museum.

"You can't interview him because he doesn't remember," Boatner said. "If
he could, I think he would love to remember, because he was our strength
when this was all going on."

But that was a long time ago, and many of Jasper's next generation, its
youth, don't know the legacy of James Byrd Jr.

Children playing games at the Boys & Girl's Clubs a stone's throw from
the county courthouse said they knew his name but weren't sure why.

"I heard he was a pretty good person, and he also lived in an apartment,"
said Dayzha Southwell, 11, who wore a T-shirt that read: The World Needs
More Love.

"And then he died."

(source for both: Houston Chronicle)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 6

TEXAS:

Man convicted in 2007 slaying of Dallas police officer

Wesley Lynn Ruiz is a cop killer, a Dallas County jury decided Thursday
when it took about 3 hours to find him guilty of the 2007 capital murder
of Dallas police Senior Cpl. Mark Nix.

The same jury that convicted Mr. Ruiz, 28, will consider whether he should
be sentenced to death or life in prison without the opportunity for
parole. The sentencing hearing is scheduled to start on June 24.

Cpl. Nix, 33, was gunned down a year ago after a chase. Mr. Ruiz testified
during his trial that he believed officers fired at him first and that he
was simply firing back in self-defense. But the jury rejected that notion.

Cpl. Nix's mother and sister smiled, hugged each another and wiped away
tears after the verdict. They exchanged hugs with the officers who have
surrounded them throughout the nearly two-week trial. Most of the
spectators that filled the courtroom to overflowing were officers, many of
whom were wearing their uniforms.

Across the courtroom aisle, sorrow slowly bubbled from Mr. Ruiz's family.
As others filed past them out of the courtroom, one woman sobbed as she
hugged Mr. Ruiz's grandmother.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys commented on the jury's
decision, citing the upcoming sentencing hearing as the reason.

A few miles away at Dallas police headquarters, Dallas Police Interim 1st
Assistant Chief of Police Charles Cato said joyful text messages and
e-mails came from the courtroom after the decision was announced about 3
p.m.

"It was a sense of relief," Chief Cato said. "It means the jury looked at
the evidence and decided to uphold the community standards that law
enforcement officers will be defended and protected when they are
assaulted by the criminal element."

In March 2007, Mr. Ruiz led Cpl. Nix and other Dallas officers on a short
car chase through West Dallas. After Mr. Ruiz spun out and crashed in
front of a house, Cpl. Nix got out of his police car and tried to beat the
front passenger window of the car Mr. Ruiz was driving.

Mr. Ruiz shot Cpl. Nix in the chest as he used two hands to swing his
baton at the window.

Video footage from two police car dash cameras were played in court that
showed the chase, shooting, and Cpl. Nix falling to the ground grabbing
his face and neck after being shot.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagreed about whether that video
showed gunshots being fired at the car window before or after Cpl. Nix was
shot.

Prosecutor Kevin Brooks told the jury during closing argument that people
can be mistaken when recalling events, but it's difficult to argue with
the evidence of video and audio recordings.

The jury watched the recording of the shooting again during their
deliberations.

"Human beings are fallible. We perceive things differently. Sometimes
those perceptions are wrong," Mr. Brooks said. "Science has led us to know
that certain things are infallible," like the recordings that were
evidence in the trial. he said.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Paul Brauchle pointed to the
spent shells from the barrage of gunfire that Dallas police officers fired
at the car Mr. Ruiz was hiding in. Then he picked up the one bullet that
killed Cpl. Nix.

"They shot all of this in self-defense, until the foreseeable danger went
away," Mr. Brauchle said. "Mr. Ruiz fired one shot in self-defense."

Andrea Handley, another prosecutor who shared closing arguments told the
jury that they should not trust Mr. Ruiz's story because he did everything
he could to escape police the day of the shooting. In the courtroom, he
was doing the same in an effort to stay out of prison, she said.

"While this defendant is presumed innocent," Ms. Handley said, "he is not
presumed truthful."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 5

TEXAS:

Notorious 'Texas 7' Try to Save One of Their Own By Insulting Him

The last time the Texas 7 were together, their crime spree claimed a life.
Last week, members of the group came together to try to save one.

Randy Halprin was one of the 7 escaped convicts who robbed an Irving
Oshman's SuperSports store on Christmas Eve 2000. Halprin carried a gun,
had a codename and carried stolen rifles to the getaway car.

Around 6:30 p.m., toward the end of the heist, Irving police Officer
Aubrey Hawkins arrived on the scene after responding to a "suspicious
activity" call. He was then shot 11 times before his lifeless body was
dragged from his patrol car and run over by the fugitives as they fled in
a Ford Explorer.

That is what we know for sure.

What remains in dispute, at least in the eyes of Dallas criminal defense
attorneys Bruce Anton and Gary Udashen, is just how culpable Halprin was
in Hawkins' death.

The Texas Seven had escaped from Connally Unit near Kenedy, on December
13, 2000. They proceeded to carry out 3 robberies in Texas, including the
Oshman's, before being apprehended near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in
late January 2001.

The six surviving members (Larry Harper committed suicide just before
capture) were found guilty of murdering Hawkins and were sentenced to
death by Dallas County juries. Halprin, the fifth to be tried, was
convicted of capital murder and sentenced on June 12, 2003.

Anton and Udashen recently filed an application for a writ of habeas
corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Halprin's behalf. The
writ, filed after Halprin's capital murder conviction was affirmed on
direct appeal, states that "no reasonable juror could find that [Halprin]
killed, attempted to kill, or intended to kill Officer Hawkins..." They
argue that the imposition of the death penalty in Halprin's case violates
the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

On May 22, Judge Rick Magnis of the 283rd District Court of Dallas County
began hearing testimony to determine whether, based on new evidence
presented by Halprin's attorneys, Magnis should recommend to the appeals
court that it grant the writ and spare Halprin's life.

"We have strong mitigating evidence about his involvement and about the
kind of person he is, compared to the other guys. If a jury heard it, it
would be hard for them to give the death penalty," Udashen said.

Some of the new evidence is based on the testimony of three ex-Texas 7
members: Michael Rodriguez, Patrick Murphy and the mastermind of the
group, George Rivas. None of the 3 were approached by Halprin's 1st trial
team to testify on his behalf. Under direct examination by the defense,
his three ex-cohorts described Halprin as the embodiment of uselessness.
All 3 stated that Halprin's contribution to the escape was minimal with
him mostly serving as a lookout. During the three robberies, Halprin
bungled whatever assignment he was given.

Rodriguez referred to Halprin as a "180-pound child." Rivas called him an
"unnecessary weight." Murphy described him as the "low man on the totem
pole."

Each witness testified that he examined Halprin's pistol after the
shootout at Oshman's and found it had not been fired. Rivas said he
clearly remembers this because, after receiving two gunshot wounds during
the altercation, he initially believed that Halprin had shot him. He
ordered a weapons check and examined Halprin's .357 pistol. There was no
stench of gunpowder, and the smell of the gun-cleaner used on the weapon
prior to the robbery was still pungent.

Halprin also was shot during the Oshman's robbery and became so
uncooperative and lethargic, according to the testimony of the men, that
some of the gang thought about killing him. Rodriguez recalled telling
Rivas while they were hiding out in Colorado that Halprin's death might be
necessary because he was such a "nuisance and he was useless."

Rodriguez said if he could have spoken with Donald Newberry (another Texas
Seven member) before the group's capture, they would have "distributed
[Halprin] in dumpsters all around Colorado Springs."

During cross-examination, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office
attempted to portray Halprin as an integral cog in the felons' escape. The
prosecution brought up prior testimony that Halprin verbally and
physically abused Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees whom the
group had captured during its break out.

Only Rodriguez remembered Halprin physically assaulting any employees,
when Halprin tackled a field officer who entered a maintenance shed.
Prosecutors also gained admissions from the witnesses that Halprin had, in
fact, been active during at least two of the robberies, had carried a gun
during the Oshman's theft and had received an equal share of the proceeds
from each of the perpetrated crimes .

"[Halprin] was convicted as a party," Assistant District Attorney Lisa
Smith said. "You can get the death penalty as a party, so he didn't have
to shoot the weapons to get the death penalty."

The prosecution strengthened its case by undermining the credibility of
the three testifying death row inmates. Murphy admitted that he was
Halprin's father-in-law. Rodriguez first told the prosecution that he did
not want to come to Dallas to testify, that he didn't enjoy the process.
But then Smith showed him an entry from Halprin's online diary. The entry
described a meeting between Halprin and Rodriguez in which Rodriguez had
told the defendant about a prior time he testified in Dallas. He raved
about being able to see trees and people on the van ride north. Rodriguez
then told the court that Halprin's lawyers had assured him that testifying
for Halprin would result in another trip to Dallas. That has not yet
proven to be the case.

Rivas, responding to questions posed by Judge Magnis, admitted to feeling
responsible and guilty for Halprin being condemned to death. "They showed
their true colors, who they really are," Smith said. "They're a team;
they'll always be a team. Together until the end." Last week's hearing
marked the 1st stage in what is typically a prolonged post-conviction
process in capital cases. The court continued the hearing without setting
a new date in order to give lawyers an opportunity to further investigate
the case and present testimony.

(source: Dallas Observer)

*******************

Defendant argues self-defense on the stand in cop killing trial

Wesley Lynn Ruiz said Wednesday that he believed Dallas police Senior Cpl.
Mark Nix was going to kill him, so he "fired in his direction" out of fear
for his own life.

That single shot killed Cpl. Nix, 33, making him the 77th Dallas police
officer killed in the line of duty.

Mr. Ruiz, 28, faces the death penalty if convicted of capital murder for
gunning down Cpl. Nix. Closing arguments in the case are expected today.

Until Mr. Ruiz's testimony during the defense phase of his capital murder
trial, Cpl. Nix's family, jurors and others in the courtroom had only the
perspective of police officers about what happened that night in March
2007 when the officer was killed.

Mr. Ruiz was on probation for possession of a controlled substance and had
not been reporting to his probation officer. The gun and methamphetamine
in the back seat of the gray and red Chevrolet Caprice he was driving were
probation violations that could have sent him to prison.

So when officers tried to pull him over, he fled. After a short chase
through West Dallas, Mr. Ruiz spun out, and the Caprice was blocked in by
police cars.

There in the retelling, Mr. Ruiz lost his calm. His voice broke, and he
choked out the words.

"I saw a cop car pull up. He jumped out of the car, and he had his gun
pulled out," Mr. Ruiz said. "He started yelling and threatening me. He
said, 'You tried to run from me, [expletive]. I'm going to shoot you.'

"He ran at my car with his gun, and then I heard gunshots. I figured they
came from him. I saw glass flying in my car," said Mr. Ruiz, as his face
crumbled but no tears showed.

So, Mr. Ruiz said, he reached into his back seat and pulled a
semi-automatic gun out of a gym bag.

"I pulled the gun out of the seat. I pointed it in his direction, and I
fired the gun," Mr. Ruiz said, claiming self-defense.

Mr. Ruiz said he saw Cpl. Nix fall down. Then another bullet came into the
car, hit him in the face and knocked him out, he said. In court, Mr. Ruiz
pointed to his right cheek to show where he was hit.

Mr. Ruiz was shot 9 times, all superficial wounds, according to testimony
heard earlier this week. Both of his arms were broken, and he had a broken
bone in his hand.

Dallas police officers have testified that no one fired a shot at the
Caprice until after Cpl. Nix was shot.

Video from a camera on the police car's dash played in court showed the
shooting. But there is a dispute between the prosecutors and defense
attorneys about whether a blemish in the front windshield of the Caprice
is a gunshot or a shadow from an overhead tree.

When prosecutor Kevin Brooks asked Mr. Ruiz about his actions that day,
Mr. Ruiz's calm returned.

"So you confessed to shooting and killing a Dallas police officer?" Mr.
Brooks asked.

"I don't know if I killed him," Mr. Ruiz said.

"You knew when Cpl. Nix got out of his vehicle that he was a Dallas police
officer?" Mr. Brooks asked.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Ruiz said.

"You knew when you pulled that trigger that you were shooting at a Dallas
police officer?" Mr. Brooks asked.

"Yes, sir." But it was in self-defense, Mr. Ruiz said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 4

TEXAS:

With 90 minutes to spare, Texas death row inmate granted a reprieve

A Texas death row inmate received a reprieve from execution about 90
minutes before he could have been put to death Tuesday after lawyers
questioned the legality of the state's lethal injection procedures.

Derrick Sonnier, convicted of killing a suburban Houston woman and her
2-year-old son, would have been the 1st Texas inmate put to death in the
nation's busiest capital punishment state in nearly 9 months.

Executions had been on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a
similar challenge to injection procedures in a Kentucky case.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution in October of
condemned inmate Heliberto Chi on the same issues, that lethal injection
procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. And although the Supreme Court
ruled 6 weeks ago the Kentucky injection method was constitutional and
cleared the way for executions to resume nationally, Texas' highest
criminal court hasn't ruled in the Chi case, 1 of 2 Texas capital cases
with similar claims.

"If they've got these cases up there, it really just kind of violates
basic legal principles" to hold executions, said David Dow, one of the
lawyers who filed the late appeal in Mr. Sonnier's case.

Mr. Sonnier, 40, declined to comment from a small holding cell just a few
feet from the death chamber. He was returned to death row, about 45 miles
to the east at a prison near Livingston.

"I respect the court's decision," said Roe Wilson, a Harris County
assistant district attorney who was handling Mr. Sonnier's case and sought
the execution. "This is a terrible offense. I feel for the victims'
relatives, and I hope this is an issue that is resolved soon."

It was not immediately clear how Tuesday's outcome will affect the other
13 executions scheduled in Texas in the coming months. Those include 2
from the Dallas area: Karl Chamberlain, who is set to die next week for
the 1991 rape-slaying of a Dallas woman, and Charles Hood the following
week for the 1989 slayings of 2 people in Plano.

********************************

Texas high court creates integrity unit

An appeals court in the state that leads the nation in both executions and
wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence said Wednesday it will
create a new integrity unit to examine and correct problems in the justice
system.

The study group was announced by Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge
Barbara Hervey, whose court handles death penalty appeals and other
criminal cases.

Hervey will be a member of the Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit and
said its creation is "a call to action" for reform. Since 2001, 33 Texas
inmates have been exonerated using DNA testing, including 17 in Dallas
County.

Key issues to be considered include:

- Improving eyewitness testimony. Experts say unreliable testimony is the
No. 1 problem in wrongful convictions.

- Reforming standards for collecting, preserving and storing evidence,
which may be needed for future testing during an appeal.

- Eliminating improper interrogations and protect against false
confessions.

- Improving crime lab reliability.

- Improving the qualify of lawyers appointed to poor defendants.

One issue not listed was use of the death penalty. Of the 42 executions in
the United States last year, Texas accounted for 26. Texas has executed
405 inmates since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1982. Hervey said
the integrity unit is not a suggestion that she and the other judges on
the court believe an innocent person may have been executed in the past.
>{? While some appeals from death row cases may involve the same issues,
"I don't want to treat death row claims about innocence any different that
somebody else's claims," Hervey said.

The integrity unit could meet for the 1st time next month, Hervey said.
Some of the reforms may need an act of the Legislature.

Although all 9 members of the court are Republicans, Hervey said the
integrity unit is not a forum for a particular group or political party.

Initial members include state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who
has long advocated criminal justice reforms; district attorneys from
Dallas and El Paso; law enforcement; defense attorneys; a district judge;
and a member of Gov. Rick Perry's staff.

"We've reached a tipping point in Texas in terms of wrongful convictions,"
Ellis said. "We have to make sure the mistakes that have happened don't
continue to happen."

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who was elected in 2006,
said the integrity unit could put Texas at the forefront of reforms
nationally. The panel probably will discuss use of the death penalty in
the context of how to make sure someone isn't wrongfully executed.

"What safeguards can we put in place from an appeals standpoint to make
sure we've done everything before that ultimate decision is made?" Watkins
said.

David Dow, law professor at the University of Houston and director of the
Texas Innocence Network, said two areas that must be addressed are how to
use eyewitness accounts as evidence and how to preserve evidence for
future testing.

If police discard or destroy physical evidence after trial, wrongly
convicted inmates could lose their chance at appeal if new, better tests
are developed later, Dow said.

(source for both: Associated Press)

************************

Victims family reacts to delay

Protesters arrived outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justices Walls
Unit shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday to rally against the execution of
Derrick Sonnier.

Sonnier, convicted of the 1991 murder of his neighbor, Melody Flowers, 27,
and her 2-year-old son, Patrick, was scheduled to become the 1st Texas
inmate to be executed since September 2007.

But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave Sonnier a reprieve from
execution less than 2 hours before he would have received the lethal
injection at 6 p.m.

His lawyers questioned whether the states lethal injection procedures were
legal.

While protesters waved signs outside the Walls Unit, the victims family
members were present, but they stayed far from the group.

"He is a cancer to our family," said Celma Mcellan, sister of Melody
Flowers, of Sonnier. "We wanted to hear him appolgize for her kids and her
family.

"We wanted to hear him say 'I'm sorry for what I did and Im sorry for the
pain I have caused y'all.' We don't even know what kind of kid Patrick
would have been. He might have been the president for all we know or the
mayor of this city.

"We don't know, he never had that chance he was only a baby. I can't
believe he's still breathing and they're not."

Gwen Price, Melody Flowers' cousin, was also devastated by the news of
Sonnier's stay.

"He had no right to go in and do what he did to her and my nephew," Price
said. "Now they're going to let him stay? We lost."

At the other end of the street, a group of protesters quietly stood or sat
on folding chairs holding up signs.

One of the 15 protesters Tuesday afternoon was David Atwood of Houston, a
member of The Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

"I've been up here quite a few times," Atwood said. "We're just here as a
protest against the death penalty. We don't think that we need it.

"There's life without parole now, and you can have a safe society without
executing people. It just doesn't make sense to do it anymore. I think
there are a lot of people even here in Huntsville who are against the
death penalty, even though you have the execution chambers here and you
have all these prisions around."

"We have 370 people on death row now, and a lot of us feel that the death
penalty is being driven now more by the politicians instead of the people,
because most people want safety but theyre not into killing people,"
Atwood said. "The majority of people would choose life without parole
instead of the death penalty, according to polls done by Stephen Klineberg
who's a professor of Sociology at Rice University."

Andre Latallade, better known nationally as Capital "X," left his home in
New Jersey and walked more than 1,700 miles to date in support of the
abolition of the death penalty.

He is the visionary behind the WALK 4 Life campaign. He was also present
for the protest.

"This is my 1st time to acutally be at an execution, but I definitely feel
I need to be here," Latallade said.

Kristin Wood, wife of death row inmate Jeff Wood, was also present during
the prostest.

Currently a Norwegian citizen, Wood splits her time between the States and
Norway, so she can fight the death penalty on her husband's behalf.

"I really feel for the victims and the victims' families," Wood said. "I
wish that these things would never happen, but it doesn't do any good, you
know. Murder doesnt justify murder.

All it does is create more victims. They want to take away a father, a
brother, a son; the whole law of parties has got to go. Over here in
Texas, they all go by 'n eye for an eye,'but how many eyes are going to
take for one pair of eyes? I don' get it."

On Feb. 3, 1998, after then-Gov. George W. Bush denied her request for
clemency, Karla Faye Tucker became the 1st woman to be executed in Texas
since the American Civil War.

Tuesday, her victim's brother, Ronald Carlson, stood outside the
courthouse protesting the death penalty.

"We as human beings do not have the right to destroy what God has
created," Carlson said. "A lot of the pro-death penalty people look to the
Old Testament, and say 'eye for an eye,' and Im like, 'that's what God
said.' But we live in the New Testament days.

"The day that Daniel Ryan Garrett got the death penalty, my words to the
prosecutor were, 'I guess they got what they deserved.' But at that point
I was for it; as time went on I had to really decide where I stood because
I found that all the anger and hatred I felt wasnt going away, it was
getting worse.

"Before all this it wasnt an issue for me; it was just news. But when it
happens in your own backyard, you have to live with in you have to
decide.

"I witnessed the execution of Karla Faye Tucker here at the Walls Unit;
she was pronounced dead at 6:45. I made that walk, and actually saw the
execution it's the real deal."

(source: Huntsville Item)

*****************************

Defense testimony in police shooting trial contradicts video

Defense attorneys began presenting testimony Tuesday in the capital murder
trial of a 28-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a Dallas police
officer.

Wesley Lynn Ruiz led police on a short chase through West Dallas in March
2007 then shot Senior Cpl. Mark Nix through the car window, according to
prosecutors and police.

Defense attorney Paul Brauchle called one witness Tuesday afternoon, who
testified she saw the chase and shootout that followed.

Maria Carrera, 38, walked into her back yard, where she said she saw
police shooting at the car Mr. Ruiz had been driving. Then she said she
saw Cpl. Nix fall down and officers continued shooting.

That contradicts evidence that prosecutors Kevin Brooks and Andy Beach
have presented, including video from 2 police car dash cameras that showed
Dallas police officers firing into the car only after Cpl. Nix was shot
and fell to the ground.

If Mr. Ruiz is convicted, he faces the death penalty. Testimony is
scheduled to resume this morning.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

*******************

Texas death row inmate tries to void sentence

Attorneys for a former University of Texas student on death row for
killing an Austin police officer again asked an appeals court to throw out
his sentence.

David Lee Powell, 57, was sentenced to death 3 times for the 1978 killing
of Ralph Albanedo.

The officer had pulled over Powell's girlfriend for not having a proper
license plate on her car. Powell was a passenger in the car.

Albanedo was shot 10 times by an automatic assault weapon.

Powell's attorneys told a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals Tuesday that prosecutors did not timely deliver documents in the
case. The documents showed Powell's girlfriend, Sheila Meinert, may have
tossed a hand grenade and fired during a standoff after Albanedo's
shooting.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 4

TEXAS:

Court grants stay of execution for Sonnier

A motion to stay the execution of 40-year-old Derrick Sonnier was granted
late Tuesday afternoon by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

According to the court order, the motion was filed by Sonnier's attorneys
on the grounds that the chemicals used according to Texas law during
execution by lethal injection would violate his Eighth Amendment right
against cruel and unusual punishment.

Michelle Lyons, Texas Department of Criminal Justice public information
officer, said the order the court issued did not identify the reasons upon
which the stay was granted.

"The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Sonnier a stay of execution,
and the stay is indefinite at this time," Lyons said. "Once a ruling is
decided in Sonnier's case and if the court rules against him, we would
proceed accordingly, and the district court he was originally tried in
would assign him his 3rd execution date."

Following the court's grant of the stay, Sonnier was returned to the
Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where Lyons said he would be housed on death
row until further notice.

Sonnier, who was convicted of the 1991 murders of 27-year-old Melody
Flowers and her 2-year-old son Patrick, would have been the 1st person to
be executed in Texas since September 2007.

Lethal injections were temporarily halted in September after the Supreme
Court agreed to review a Kentucky case questioning whether or not the
method could be more humane.

The April 16 ruling by the court in favor of the method allowed executions
to resume across the country, and had Sonnier's execution been carried
out, it would have been the 4th in the country since the temporary halt
went into effect.

"At around 4:50 p.m., Walls Unit senior warden Charles O'Reilly informed
Sonnier that his stay had been granted," said Jason Clark, TDCJ spokesman.
"Sonnier was very surprised, but he remained quiet and reserved and
declined to make a public comment.

"Soon after hearing the news, he called his family and friends to let them
know."

According to Lyons, Sonniers attorneys Maurie Levin and David Dow
requested a stay because of a case still pending in the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals questioning the constitutionality of lethal injection.

The request, filed Tuesday, claimed Sonnier was entitled to a stay
"because there was a substantial risk that he would suffer irreparable
injury and cruel and unusual punishment if a stay of execution" was
denied.

Additionally, Sonnier's attorneys presented information which indicated
that the Texas prison system had adopted changes to its execution protocol
which went into effect May 30.

The request included information about revisions made in reference to the
training and qualifications of the executioner, and said that the new
protocol had not been examined by any court.

According to Lyons, the only changes made to the written protocol which
is not a public document were revisions to provide more clarity to the
protocol already in place.

"The only changes made to the written protocol were revisions to clarify
that protocol," she said. "The chemicals used, the amounts of those
chemicals used and the protocol itself remains the same.

"Basically, we put into writing some of the things we were already doing
but didn't have in writing."

(source: Huntsville Item)

*********************

Texas death row inmate tries to void sentence

Attorneys for a former University of Texas honors student who has been on
death row for 3 decades for killing an Austin police officer again asked
an appeals court Tuesday to throw out his sentence.

David Lee Powell, 57, has been sentenced to death 3 times for the 1978
killing of Ralph Albanedo, who had pulled over Powell's girlfriend for not
having a proper license plate on her car. Powell was a passenger in the
car.

Albanedo was shot 10 times by an automatic assault weapon.

Powell has been on death row since October 1978, the month following his
conviction. Only five other Texas inmates have spent more time there.

His case has wound through a long path in the courts.

His original conviction was vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court and returned
to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. After the state court reaffirmed
his conviction and death sentence, the Supreme Court tossed the sentence.
In 1991, he was convicted again and sentenced to death, but the second
sentence was thrown out by the Court of Criminal Appeals because of
improper jury instructions.

By then, Texas law required only a retrial of the punishment phase, which
resulted in a 3rd death sentence in 1999.

Powell's attorneys told a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals on Tuesday that prosecutors did not timely deliver documents that
showed Powell's girlfriend, Sheila Meinert, may have tossed a hand grenade
and fired during a standoff after Albanedo's shooting.

During the 3rd trial, defense attorneys were trying to show that Powell
did not pose a future danger, one of the conditions jurors must decide
before issuing a death sentence.

Attorney Richard Burr said that when prosecutors tried to prove a future
danger, they contended Powell threw the grenade. But he said 11 police
officers, in a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, opposed
Meinert's later parole on the grounds that she had thrown the explosive.
Meinert served four years of a 15-year sentence for being a party to
capital murder.

Assistant Texas Attorney General Tina Miranda said most letters opposing
parole are signed by people who don't know many of the facts of a case.
She also said the death sentence "hinged on the atrociousness of killing
an officer with a fully automatic weapon and then going to another scene
and shooting again."

Another attorney for Powell, Eric Albritton, said a full new trial should
be ordered because prosecutors did not submit all the needed elements to
the jury for a death sentence to be returned.

But Miranda said Texas law calls for a capital murder charge when a
killing is committed under one of a set of aggravating circumstances such
as the slaying of a police officer.

The panel did not indicate when it would rule.

A number of Austin police officers and family members of Albanedo attended
the hearing.

The slain officer's sister, Irene Albanedo, said it had been a long 30
years.

"3 trials, over 30 years," she said. "I don't understand why we're back
here in New Orleans."

Albenado's partner on the night of the shooting, Bruce Mills, said the
case had taken up his entire career. He said he was about to retire from
the Austin Police Department.

"Now, we're hanging out with grandkids," Mills said.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 3

TEXAS----stay of execution

Appeals court stays execution for Harris County killer----Sonnier murdered
Humble woman and toddle

2 last-minute appeals filed today halted Texas' first planned execution
after a nine-month hiatus.

The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the stay after attorneys for the
Texas Defender Service took up Derrick Juan Sonnier's case in the last few
days. The length of the stay has not been determined.

The 40-year-old was sentenced to die for the 1991 stabbing deaths of
Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son Patrick.

The Texas Defender Service submitted an appeal arguing that the state
recently made changes to its 3-drug cocktail protocol. The changes have
not been reviewed by any court. The 2nd appeal also contends the lethal
injection protocol violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishment. That contention has not been addressed by Texas courts
following the Kentucky decision.

Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, said the protocol had not changed. Prison officials, however,
made changes to internal written procedures in light of the Supreme
Court's ruling on lethal injection in April, which upheld the procedure
used in Texas and dozens of other states.

The state, for example, added the minimum amount of training executioners
receive.

"We clarified in writing what we were already doing," Lyons said, "The
protocol remains the same."

If the execution had occurred, Sonnier would have been the first Texan to
be put to death since September, when the Supreme Court took up a Kentucky
case that challenged the constitutionality of the lethal injection
process. Sonnier had been scheduled to die in February, but prosecutors
set aside that date to await the high court's ruling.

2 of her Melody Flowers' daughters and other family members had planned to
witness Tuesday's execution.

On Sept. 16, 1991, police found Melody Flowers in the tub of her Humble
apartment.

The single mother of five had been bludgeoned with a claw hammer, raped,
strangled and stabbed. Her body was dumped in the partially filled
bathtub. The stabbed body of her toddler, Patrick, was on top of her.

Sonnier was dating one of Melody Flowers' close friends and lived near
Flowers and her children. Authorities said Sonnier had stalked Flowers for
months, once even slipping into her apartment when she was not home.

The day of the murders, neighbors reported seeing Sonnier with a wounded
hand wrapped in a towel. In his apartment, where Sonnier lived with his
girlfriend, police found Melody Flowers' bloody blouse and a blood-soaked
towel that also belonged to her.

Police later found a grocery bag stashed in a field near the complex that
had his bloody socks, shoes, and other items that connected him to the
crime.

Sonnier has maintained his innocence in the case.

********************

Read the appeals in today's stay of execution

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution for
Derrick Sonnier this afternoon.

The stay was requested by Texas Defender Service lawyers, including Maurie
Levin in Austin.

The request for a stay is here.

The organization also filed a 2nd petition that goes into greater detail.

Both petitions argued that the Texas court has not reviewed the way the
state administers lethal injection despite requesting briefs on 2
challenges. The motions also noted that Texas recently changed its
execution protocol, but no court has reviewed the change.

The court halted tonight's execution without elaborating.

Sonnier, 40, was sentenced to die for the 1991 killing of a suburban
Houston woman and her son. Melody Flowers and her 2-year-old son, Patrick,
were stabbed. She also was beaten with a hammer and strangled. He has
maintained his innocence.

(source: Austin Legal)

************************

AP's Mike Graczyk reports, "Appeals court grants stay for Texas inmate."

The appeal says the Texas procedure would cause Sonnier unconstitutional
pain and suffering. It also says the Texas procedure specifically had not
been reviewed legally in light of the Kentucky case.

Additionally, according to the appeal, Texas Department of Criminal
Justice officials changed their written execution protocols within the
past week, and those changes haven't been reviewed by courts.

(source: Associated Press)

**************************

Harris County killer set for execution today----Sonnier murdered Humble
woman and toddler

Derrick Juan Sonnier is expected to enter Texas' death chamber this
evening and, unless a late court order halts his execution, will become
the first condemned killer put to death in the state in about 9 months.

Sonnier was sentenced to die for the 1991 stabbing deaths of an Humble
woman and her young son.

Michael Richard, 48, the most recent Texas killer to be executed, was put
to death Sept. 25 the same day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider
a Kentucky challenge of the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Texas, and other states across the country that use the same 3-drug
procedure, postponed all executions to await the high court's ruling.

Sonnier, 40, had been set to die Feb. 26, but Harris County prosecutors
voluntarily set aside the date. In April, after the Supreme Court upheld
lethal injections, Sonnier's execution date was rescheduled for today.

Jani Maselli, Sonnier's attorney, said she had exhausted all issues in his
case. Other attorneys took interest in the case a few days ago, however,
and may file a last-minute appeal today, she said.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's Office said no filing had
been made as of 1 p.m.

On Sept. 16, 1991, police found Melody Flowers, 27, in the bathtub of her
Humble apartment.

The single mother of 5 had been bludgeoned with a claw hammer, raped,
strangled and stabbed. Her body was dumped in the partially filled bathtub
and the body of her toddler, Patrick, also stabbed, was on top of her.

Sonnier was dating one of Flowers' friends and lived just 2 doors away
from her apartment. Authorities said he stalked Flowers for months,
sometimes slipping into her apartment when she was away.

One time, she found him hiding in her bedroom closet, authorities said.

The day of the murders, neighbors reported seeing Sonnier with a wounded
hand wrapped in a bloody towel. In his apartment, where he lived with his
girlfriend, police found Flowers' bloody blouse and a blood-soaked towel
that also belonged to her.

Police said they later found a grocery bag stashed in a field near the
complex that had his bloody socks, shoes and other items that linked him
to the crime.

"He took everything from us," Flowers' eldest daughter, Tameka Traylor,
recently told the Chronicle. "When he gave them the death sentence, he
took the only person that loved us away from us ... and my brother didn't
even have a chance to live his life."

(source: Houston Chronicle)

*************

Cop killer's case appealed to 5th U.S. Circuit

The case of David Lee Powell, convicted for the 1978 machine-gun killing
of an Austin police officer, will be appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The 56-year-old Powell, who was convicted of killing Officer Ralph
Ablanedo, a 6-year veteran of the Austin Police Department, is currently
the longest-serving resident of Texas' death row. He was 27 at the time of
the crime.

Texas jurors convicted Powell and sentenced him to death months after the
killing.

The U.S. Supreme Court vacated his sentence in 1989. In a 2nd trial in
1991, Powell was again sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals vacated the sentence, but jurors in 1999 upheld the death penalty
decision.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 3

TEXAS:

Speedy Executions Unlikely for Area Death Row Inmates

Despite the State of Texas resuming executions Tuesday, it could be a
while before any of the Brazos Valley's four death row inmates are put to
death.

Carl Henry Blue was sentenced to death in Brazos County after he doused a
pair of people with gasoline and set the on fire in 1994. One of those
victims died from her injuries.

Blue's case is currently being argued in Federal Court where his
attorney's claim he is mentally retarded. Should his appeals fail, his
execution date would be set by Judge Travis Bryan III, 272nd District
Court.

Marcus Druery was convicted in Brazos County of shooting fellow Texas
State Technical College student, Skyyler Browne on Halloween, 2002. Druery
then set Browne's body on fire.

Druery's case is also still working its way through the appeals process.
If nothing changes, his execution would be set by Judge J.D. Langley, 85th
District Court.

Lawrence Russell Brewer was sentenced to die for the 1999 dragging death
of Jasper resident James Byrd. Brewer's trial was moved from Jasper County
to Brazos County on a change of venue. Brewer's date of execution would be
set by Jasper County Judge Joe Bob Golden, 1st District Court.

Ronnie Hyde was convicted in Grimes County of murdering a resident with a
hammer. Hyde's case is still under appeal.

(source: KBTX News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

June 2

TEXAS:

Human Rights

The annual Amnesty International global report on human rights was just
released, challenging world leaders to apologize for 6 decades of human
rights failure and re-commit themselves to deliver concrete improvements.

Amnesty International's Report 2008, shows that 60 years after the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations,
people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face
unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely
in at least 77 countries. And sadly, the USA remains as one of the leading
execution jurisdictions in the world today.

While it is perhaps easy and expedient to higlight flashpoints like
Darfur, Iraq and Myanmar, let us not forget that the death penalty is a
human rights violation, and that Texas remains the leading execution
jurisdiction in the free world. With numerous execution dates already set
and many more yet to come, this state and country remain a major barrier
to the global advancement of human rights. Human rights begin at home; we
must begin our global responsibility by abolishing the death penaly
immediately.

Rick Halperin--Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty//Amnesty
International

(source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News)

******************

When it comes to capital punishment, Texas is guilty of failing to protect
the innocent

'I want to say that I hold no grudges.'

These were the final words of my brother Carlos De Luna before he was
executed by the state of Texas in 1989 for a crime he did not commit. His
last words express remarkable forgiveness from an innocent man facing the
ultimate miscarriage of justice. Unfortunately, in the 19 years since his
execution, the numerous problems that led to his wrongful conviction have
never been addressed and continue to plague the Texas capital punishment
system. With executions in the state about to resume, I hope that
legislators and the courts will learn lessons from my brother's story.

Carlos was convicted, sentenced to death and executed in six short years,
despite overwhelming problems with the case. In 1983, convenience store
clerk Wanda Lopez was stabbed to death, and Carlos became a suspect when
he was found near the scene shortly after the crime took place. But the
crime had all the hallmarks of a violent felon who had a history of knife
attacks against women in the area. This individual had repeatedly bragged
to friends and family members that he committed the crime and that his
"stupid tocayo," or namesake, had taken the fall. Police and prosecutors
ignored the information and refused to look into the alternate suspect who
many in the community believe committed the crime.

Instead, prosecutors convicted my brother on the basis of faulty
eyewitness testimony and no supporting forensic evidence. The main
eyewitness told the Chicago Tribune, in the newspaper's re-investigation
of the case, that he has serious doubts about Carlos' guilt. The
identification was made while Carlos was in the backseat of a police car
and after the police told the witness they had arrested Carlos near the
scene, giving the witness a false sense of certainty that Carlos was
guilty.

Unfortunately, my brother's story is not unique. Far from it. The
well-documented problems in his case are unacceptably common. The nature
of eyewitness identification, for instance, is often flawed. It plays a
role in 75 % of all DNA exonerations nationwide.

Faulty eyewitness identification was a contributing factor in another
well-documented case of the execution of an innocent person in Texas.
Ruben Cantu was a teenager from San Antonio at the time of the crime for
which he was wrongfully convicted. He was convicted by a single eyewitness
who has since recanted his testimony, saying he only identified Ruben
under tremendous pressure from police. Despite his protestations of
innocence, Ruben was executed in 2003. The judge, prosecutor, head juror
and defense attorney involved in the case now acknowledge that Ruben's
conviction and ultimate execution were a grave mistake.

In another case, Cameron "Todd" Willingham was sentenced to death on the
basis of faulty science after being convicted of setting a fire that
killed his three daughters. Supposed expert testimony was used at trial to
establish that the fire was arson. He was convicted and put to death in
2004. Four of the nation's top fire experts have since come forward and
said that his conviction was based on scientifically invalid evidence.

The problem of wrongful convictions in Texas has reached crisis
proportions (the state leads the nation in the number of DNA
exonerations), prompting a state senator to convene a hearing at the
Capitol to examine the issue. At the recent hearing, nine innocent men
stood up one by one and recounted their stories. James Giles, who spent 10
years behind bars for a rape he did not commit, remarked, "We can do
better in the justice system."

We can do better and we must. Despite the calamitous failings that their
cases speak to, the Texas Legislature has taken little action to ensure
that such tragedies don't happen again. Reforms such as improving
eyewitness identification procedures and strengthening forensic oversight
are relatively easy to implement and have helped improve the accuracy of
the criminal justice systems in other states. Additional reforms are
urgently needed to prevent ineffective counsel and prosecutorial
misconduct.

If a miracle happened and I was given a second chance, I would fight
harder to prove Carlos' innocence before it was too late. But the reality
is that executions are final, and there is no going back even if the truth
is uncovered years later.

By not reforming its capital punishment system, Texas will continue to
recklessly gamble with a broken system that risks the execution of more
innocent people and others who do not deserve death.

It is unconscionable for a broken system that cannot protect the innocent
to move forward with executions. I know firsthand the tragedy that
results.

(source: Commentary, Rose Rhoton, who lives in Houston, is an advocate for
death penalty reform in Texas; Austin American-Statesman)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

June 1

TEXAS:

Texas set to resume executions this week

The nation's busiest death chamber reopens this week after a nearly
9-month hiatus with the scheduled lethal injection of a former part-time
car-wash worker for killing a suburban Houston woman and her young son 17
years ago.

The execution Tuesday of Derrick Sonnier, 40, would make him the fourth
prisoner put to death in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court in April
upheld lethal injection as a proper method of capital punishment but the
first in Texas since last Sept. 25. That's when convicted killer Michael
Richard was executed in Huntsville the same day the high court decided to
consider a challenge from 2 condemned inmates in Kentucky who contended
lethal injection was unconstitutionally cruel.

The Kentucky case effectively stalled all executions around the nation.
For Texas, where 405 convicted killers have received lethal injection
since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982, the
execution lull has been the lengthiest in 2 decades.

"I pretty much figured ... it was just a delay," said convicted murderer
Karl Chamberlain, set to die a week after Sonnier for a slaying in Dallas
County. "So after they (the Supreme Court) made that ruling, I was
expecting a date any time."

"It's going to be a bloodbath with the state of Texas, like old day
lynchings," said Kevin Watts, who has an execution date of Oct. 16 for a
triple killing in San Antonio.

He and Sonnier are among at least 14 Texas inmates with execution dates as
Texas is poised to quickly reassume its notoriety as the country's most
active state in carrying out the death penalty. Of the 42 executions in
the United States last year, 26 were in Texas. The next busiest states
were Alabama and Oklahoma, each with 3.

Statistics kept by the Death Penalty Information Center list only 9 other
inmates from elsewhere in the nation with active execution dates. Sonnier
is the 1st of 3 Texas prisoners scheduled to be taken to the death chamber
over 14 days in June.

Sonnier, taken to court in Houston to hear a state district judge deliver
the news, declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his
death date.

The U.S. Supreme Court last October refused to review Sonnier's case and
his attorney had no plans to raise additional appeals.

"There's just not a lot to work with," lawyer Jani Maselli said. "It's
horribly frustrating."

Sonnier, born in Sulphur, La., and raised in Houston, was condemned for
the slayings of a neighbor, Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son,
Patrick, at their apartment in Humble, a northeast Houston suburb. Flowers
had been stabbed, beaten with a hammer until the tool's handle broke, and
strangled. Her child was stabbed 8 times. Both victims were found floating
in a bathtub.

Evidence showed he had been obsessed with the woman and had stalked her.
Witnesses testified how they repeatedly chased him away from her place
where he peered through her windows and even hid in her apartment.

Sonnier's defense was that someone else was responsible for the murders.
Neighbors pointed him out to police shortly after the bodies were
discovered. Flowers' blouse and a towel belonging to her were found in a
trash can in Sonnier's apartment and his DNA was identified on hair and
blood found in her apartment.

"To this day, it still hurts," Sebrina Flowers, 23, who was 7 when her
mother was killed, told the Houston Chronicle. She and an older sister and
younger brother returned from school to find their home a crime scene.

Sonnier initially was scheduled to die in February. His execution date,
however, was withdrawn by Harris County prosecutors because of the Supreme
Court's pending review of lethal injection procedures, subsequently upheld
by the justices in a 7-2 vote.

Chamberlain is set to die on June 11 for the rape-slaying of a Dallas
woman, Felicia Prechtl, at the apartment complex where they both lived.
Her death occurred in August 1991, 1 month before Sonnier's crime.
Chamberlain acknowledges the killing, blaming drugs and alcohol for his
violence.

Then the following week, Charles Hood is to die June 17 for a double
slaying in the Dallas suburb of Plano in 1989. He insists he is innocent
of the deaths of Ronald Williamson and Traci Lynn Wallace.

At least 3 executions already are on the Texas schedule for July, 4 more
for August, three for September and Watts in October.

Among the inmates with dates is Michael Rodriguez, who has ordered his
appeals dropped and is volunteering to die for his role in the murder of a
suburban Dallas police officer on Christmas Eve 2000. Rodriguez was one of
the infamous "Texas 7" convicts who escaped from a prison south of San
Antonio and were caught five weeks later in Colorado, but not before
fatally shooting Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins during the robbery
of a sporting goods store. His date is Aug. 14.

On the Net: Derrick Sonnier http://www.deathrow-usa.us/TXfriendsneeded.htm

Texas Department of Criminal Justice execution schedule
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm

(source: Associated Press)

**********************************

Feds won't seek inmates' executions----5 reportedly became members of
Texas Syndicate gang in prison

The U.S. attorney general has declined to seek the death penalty against
five alleged Texas Syndicate prison gang members charged last year with
murders, armed robberies and drug trafficking.

Francisco Nuncio Jr., Roberto Garza, Rene Gonzales Jr., Johnny Perez Jr.
and Willie Valdez are accused of death-eligible offenses in an 11-count
indictment unsealed in February 2007.

They are among 17 purported gang members charged in a racketeering
conspiracy, followed by allegations of three murders and five armed
robberies along with marijuana and cocaine trafficking charges. Penalties
range from 10 years to life in prison and possibly death.

The decision comes a year after a Houston federal jury chose to punish
truck driver Tyrone Williams with a life sentence instead of death for his
conviction in the smuggling deaths of 19 undocumented immigrants. In 2004,
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to seek the death penalty
against Williams, the only one among 14 defendants to face a capital case.

U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle, who oversees federal prosecutions in South
Texas, declined to comment on an "internal deliberative process" in the
Texas Syndicate matter.

Lawyers representing the defendants said they are pleased that the Justice
Department decided against the harshest potential punishment.

Richard Kuniansky, who represents Nuncio, the lead defendant, said the
case clearly did not warrant the death penalty.

"The defendants became members of the Texas Syndicate while in prison for
self-preservation," he said. "If you refuse to carry out an order, such as
a murder, you yourself will be murdered."

Ali Fazel, a Houston lawyer defending Gonzales, agreed that federal
prosecutors made the right decision.

"They would not be able to obtain the death penalty in this case," he
said.

Cases that include death-eligible offenses are examined by a Justice
Department capital review committee. The process includes consulting with
the victim's family, a prosecution memo and documents provided by defense
attorneys.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey made the decision not to seek the death
penalty against the Texas Syndicate defendants. The complex case is set
for trial in May 2009.

The charges resulted from a five-year probe by federal, state and local
law enforcement.

The Texas Syndicate originated in the California state prison system in
the 1970s to protect Texas inmates from attacks. The Hispanic gang soon
surfaced in Texas prisons.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, members are
primarily Mexican-American. Though the prison system tracks the number of
gang members, officials don't release estimates to the public because of
security concerns.

(source: Houston Chronicle)