death penalty news----TEXAS

April 30

TEXAS----execution

Dallas man executed for rape-slaying

A Dallas man was executed Thursday evening for the rape-slaying of a woman
abducted while she was trying to make a call at a pay phone 10 years ago.

Derrick Lamone Johnson's mother became emotional as she entered the
witness chamber and saw her son strapped to the gurney. In a
matter-of-fact voice, Johnson told her, "Don't cry. It's my situation. I
got it. Hold tight. It's going to shine on the golden child." After
telling her he loved her, Johnson said, "That concludes the statement."

The victim's father and 2 sisters also were among witnesses. Johnson did
not acknowledge them.

9 minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow, he was pronounced dead at
6:23 p.m.

LaTausha Curry, 25, of Dallas, was robbed of less than $10, was driven
away in her car, raped, beaten with a 2-by-4 and suffocated with her own
blouse. Authorities determined the 1999 slaying was part of a 2-week crime
spree involving Johnson and a companion that left numerous women robbed or
raped from Dallas to south of Waco, some 100 miles away.

Lawyers for Johnson went to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the
punishment, contending Johnson was mentally disabled and ineligible for
execution under high court guidelines. About an hour before Johnson could
be taken to the death chamber, the high court turned down his request for
a reprieve and a review of his case.

In their appeals, attorneys argued Johnson's sentence should be commuted
to life, that he was the product of a difficult childhood where both his
parents were imprisoned for drug convictions, that he was beaten by
relatives who raised him, that he had a history of school suspensions and
expulsions beginning with the 6th grade and that IQ testing put him within
the range of what the courts have defined as mental retardation.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument earlier
Thursday, a day after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals turned Johnson
down.

Greg Davis, a former Dallas County assistant district attorney who
prosecuted Johnson for capital murder, said he remembered the grief of
Curry's mother, who died not long after the trial.

"I remember her mother coming in and saying how she lost more than a
daughter," Davis said. "She said, 'I lost my best friend.' It did break
the mother's heart. I think this case ultimately killed her as well."

Several women who survived attacks from Johnson and a partner, Marcus
Maxwell, then 15, testified at Johnson's trial.

Maxwell, who was set to be tried as an adult, took a plea deal and is
serving 40 years in prison.

Johnson declined an interview request from The Associated Press but said
he was wrongly convicted and complained about his court-appointed defense
attorneys on a Web site devoted to death row inmates.

"That's a real shock," Wayne Huff, one of Johnson's trial lawyers, said
sarcastically.

"The system is corrupt and there is no 'Justice' if you are of the low
class," Johnson wrote. "It is sad that if you are a poor man in the system
there is no justice for you."

In a confession to police, Johnson said he and Maxwell raped and killed
Curry, who worked as a security guard and had a 4-year-old child. He told
officers where to find her body in an overgrown part of a park in Dallas'
Oak Cliff area. His fingerprints were in her car and DNA tied him to her
rape.

After they killed Curry, records show the pair robbed a woman at a gas
station. Later, driving Curry's car, they rammed into another woman's car
in a carjacking attempt. That woman called police but Johnson and Maxwell
ran off.

Johnson was arrested 4 days later at his mother's apartment, Police found
bags of cocaine inside a hollowed-out pager he was carrying.

His mother was the only defense witness at his capital murder trial. She
testified he'd been raised by family members after she was sent to prison
with a 15-year drug sentence.

Records showed Johnson was arrested 2 years earlier for robbery, pleaded
guilty and received 10 years probation that included a stint in a boot
camp. He was released from the camp after 65 days for good behavior.

Johnson was among at least 6 Texas inmates with execution dates extending
into the summer. Scheduled to die next, on May 19, was Michael Lynn Riley,
50, condemned for the slaying of Winona Harris. The victim was stabbed
more than 23 years ago during the robbery of a convenience store in
Quitman, about 80 miles east of Dallas.

Capital punishment opponents from Amnesty International USA and the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty planned to gather for a 200-minute
vigil outside the criminal courthouse in Houston Thursday to mark what
soon will be the 200th execution of Perry's tenure. During Bush's 6 years
as governor, 157 executions were carried out in Texas.

On the Net: Derrick Johnson http://www.lampofhope.org/999339.html

Johnson becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas and the 437th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982. Johnson becomes the 198th condemned inmate to be put to
death in Texas since Rick Perry became Governor in 2001.

Johnson becomes the 24th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 1160th overall since the nation resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

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

Amnesty International Begins 200-Minute Vigil Against The Death Penalty

Amnesty International has just begun a 200-minute vigil outside the Harris
County Criminal Courthouse to protest the upcoming 200th execution under
Governor Rick Perry.

The original rally title, "Help Rick Perry Win The GOP Primary," was
apparently discarded.

But holding an anti-death-penalty vigil in Harris County? Why? We don't
execute people anymore. Well, at least not as much as we used to.

AI will also be issuing a report calling for Perry to commute the death
penalties of 2 inmates scheduled to die who they say are schizophrenic,
including one who ate his own eyeball in jail. (We don't want to guess
what his last meal request will be.)

Expect Perry to jump right on that.

But AI does make a good case that much of the rest of the country is
moving beyond the death penalty, for whatever reason.

"The state's cavalier attitude toward capital punishment is fast becoming
an anachronism in the rest of the United States," said Sue
Gunawardena-Vaughn, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign director for AIUSA.
"At a time when Texas' neighbor to the west has demonstrated considerable
leadership in abolishing the death penalty, Texas continues to execute
without mercy. The 200th execution is a macabre milestone that should give
pause to Gov. Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, who have
the power to chart a new course, rather than mindlessly following standard
operating procedure."

As to whether a "macarbe milestone" will ever affect Rick
Perry....probably not. But points for trying, AI.

(source: Richard Connelly, Houston Press)

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

Amnesty International USA Press Release

As Gov. Perry's 200th Execution Approaches, Amnesty International Report
Cites "Future Dangerousness" of Texas Capital Punishment

---- Racial Disparities, Inadequate Representation Revealed in Report; 200
the Largest Number of Executions Under One Governor in Modern U.S. History

As the 200th execution under Texas Gov. Rick Perry approaches - the
largest number of executions under one governor in modern U.S. history -
the state's death penalty system remains one that is fatally flawed and
not reserved for the so-called "worst of the worst," charged Amnesty
International (AI). This is in part due to "future dangerousness," a
capricious sentencing scheme that leaves "experts" and jurors to predict
whether a defendant will remain criminally violent, the human rights
organization reported today. The 200th execution is scheduled for June 2.

"Future dangerousness allows junk science and irrational fears based on
race, youth or mental illness to affect the outcome of death penalty
cases," said Jared Feuer, southern regional director for Amnesty
International USA (AIUSA). "Texas state leadership has made no effort to
reform the deep flaws in the system unless mandated by the U.S. Supreme
Court, and even then only reluctantly. With no sign of remorse or real
efforts to reform, Texas capital punishment clearly represents an affront
to justice."

In its report, Too Much Cruelty, Too Little Clemency, released today at a
200-minute vigil and rally co-sponsored by the Texas Coalition to Abolish
the Death Penalty (TCADP), AI noted that "future dangerousness," rarely
used outside of Texas, has contributed to dubious prosecutorial tactics.
The personal biases of the witnesses and the jury can have an irrevocable
impact on the outcome of a case; for example, that of Carlos Granados, who
was put to death on January 10, 2007, after the trial testimony of a
clinical psychologist included race and ethnicity in his list of factors
predicative of "future dangerousness."

Texas, where about 7% of the U.S. population resides, and where fewer than
10 % of murders occur, has accounted for 37 % of the country's executions
since 1977, and 41 % since 2001, when Gov. Perry came into office. The
human rights organization noted that Texas lags behind other states when
it comes to taking seriously the flaws in the application of the death
penalty. At the report launch, AIUSA called on Texas leaders to revamp
their approach by granting clemency in cases involving mental illness and
borderline mental retardation, those with compelling claims of innocence
that have not been adequately reviewed by the courts, and offenders under
the age of 20 at the time of the crime.

Such a move would be in keeping with an evolving national understanding of
juvenile development. In 1993, in the case of a Texas death row prisoner
who was 19 at the time of the crime, the U.S. Supreme Court emphasized
that "youth is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition
of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to
psychological damage." 4 years earlier, 4 Supreme Court justices noted
that, "Many of the psychological and emotional changes that an adolescent
experiences in maturing do not actually occur until the early 20s." In
2005 the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the practice of executing juvenile
offenders.

Despite the court's clear decisions, Gov. Perry reluctantly commuted the
death sentences of 28 Texas prisoners for crimes committed when they were
17 years old, emphasizing that his hand had been forced by the Supreme
Court ruling. Equally as disturbing, there is some indication that race
may play a role when teenagers are given death sentences; of the 46
prisoners who are currently on death row for crimes committed at ages 18
or 19, only 8 are white, while 27 are black, 10 are Hispanic and one is a
Cambodian national.

There have been indications that this type of sentencing is more than
coincidence. John Luttig, a white man, and Ivan Holland, a black man, were
both 63 when they were gunned down in Tyler, Texas, 2 years apart. While
Holland's assailants, white youth in their early 20s described as having a
"Hitler fetish," were both eligible for parole within 23 years, Luttig's
shooter, a black 17-year-old Napoleon Beazley, has already been executed.
Beazley's co-defendants, who later said Beazley was so remorseful after
the shooting that they had to stop him from committing suicide, were
sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the crime. They will be
eligible for parole about 6 decades after Holland's white assailants. Thus
far, in 2009, every person executed in the state of Texas has been black
or Hispanic.

AI is also concerned that Texas has failed to implement a mental
retardation statute, seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared it
unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. Gov. Perry also has a
disturbing track record with the severely mentally ill; in 2004 he
rejected a rare recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles that
Kelsey Patterson's sentence be commuted or, at minimum, that he be granted
a 120-day reprieve due to paranoid schizophrenia.

AI called on Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to take
charge and grant clemency, before execution dates are set, in 2 highly
publicized cases: that of Andre Thomas, a schizophrenic who recently ate
his own eyeball, and Scott Panetti, another schizophrenic who was allowed
to represent himself in court dressed as a cowboy. Both men were
delusional, heard voices and had multiple indications of severe mental
illness before they committed their crimes. In 2005, the Texas affiliate
of the National Mental Health Association revealed that Texas ranked 49th
out of 50 in terms of its per client spending on mental health care; on
several occasions family members of Texas defendants recounted their
futile struggles to obtain help before it was too late.

"The state's cavalier attitude toward capital punishment is fast becoming
an anachronism in the rest of the United States," said Sue
Gunawardena-Vaughn, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign director for AIUSA.
"At a time when Texas" neighbor to the west has demonstrated considerable
leadership in abolishing the death penalty, Texas continues to execute
without mercy. The 200th execution is a macabre milestone that should give
pause to Gov. Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, who have
the power to chart a new course, rather than mindlessly following standard
operating procedure."

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots
organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and
volunteers in more than 150 countries who campaign for human rights
worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and
mobilizes the public and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

# # #

For more information, please visit www.amnestyusa.org/deathpenalty

(source: Amnesty International)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 30

TEXAS----impending execution

Dallas man set to die for woman's rape-slaying

A 2-week crime spree that included the rape-slaying of a Dallas woman
abducted while making a call at a pay phone a decade ago has a 28-year-old
man set for a trip to the Texas death chamber.

Attorneys for convicted killer Derrick Lamone Johnson were in the federal
courts trying to put off his lethal injection scheduled for Thursday
evening.

Johnson would be the 14th Texas death row inmate executed this year. The
total is the highest in the nation.

A half-dozen women testified before a Dallas jury how they were forced off
the road as they drove alone at night, were robbed at gunpoint or abducted
or raped by Johnson and a companion.

Evidence showed LaTausha Curry, 25, was abducted after getting out of her
car to make a nighttime call, then was beaten with a 2-by-4 and suffocated
with her blouse when she fought back against her attackers. She was robbed
of less than $10.

The jury at his capital murder trial decided Johnson should die.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday rejected an appeal that
Johnson was mentally disabled and not eligible for execution and Johnson's
lawyers took their appeal to the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court
has ruled mentally disabled people may not be executed.

Johnson, who declined an interview request from The Associated Press, said
on a Web site devoted to death row inmates that he was wrongly convicted.

"Without proper funds to retain my own lawyer, I was appointed counsel to
represent me," he wrote. "I stood vulnerable, being crucified. I was young
and ignorant of the law, and thus this system victimized me."

Curry's slaying was part of a binge involving Johnson and a companion,
Marcus Maxwell, who was 15 at the time. Police suspected them of as many
as two dozen offenses from Dallas more than 100 miles south to Eddy, just
south of Waco, and included one spree of 6 robberies over 8 hours.

"Heartless, ruthless, unremorseful," former Dallas County Assistant
District Attorney Greg Davis, who prosecuted Johnson, described him. "I
think of a cold-blooded killer that killed an innocent young girl."

In a confession to police, Johnson said he and Maxwell raped and killed
Curry, who worked as a security guard and had a 4-year-old child. He told
officers where to find her body in an overgrown part of a park in Dallas'
Oak Cliff area. His fingerprints were found in her car and DNA tied him to
her rape.

The same night, after Curry was killed, records show the pair robbed a
woman at a gas station. Then, driving Curry's car, they rammed into
another woman's car in an attempt to carjack her. The victim in that
incident called police but Johnson and Maxwell ran away and managed to
elude police.

When he was arrested four days later at his mother's apartment, police
found Johnson carrying a hollowed-out pager containing cocaine.

His mother was the only defense witness at his capital murder trial. She
testified he'd been raised by family members after she was sent to prison
with a 15-year term for a drug conviction.

Records showed Johnson was arrested 2 years before Curry's slaying for
breaking into the home of a disabled woman and demanding money. The victim
in that robbery said when he told her she didn't have any money, he began
unzipping his pants and warned she would have to do other things. She
grabbed a phone to dial 911 and he hit her in the head, she said. Johnson
pleaded guilty to robbery, received 10 years probation and was sent to a
boot camp. After 65 days there, he was released on good behavior.

Davis said Johnson was a would-be rapper who had adopted the name Mr.
Pimp.

His partner, Maxwell, now 25, agreed to a plea deal on 2 counts of robbery
and 2 counts of sexual assault and is serving four concurrent 40-year
prison terms.

Also Thursday evening, capital punishment opponents from Amnesty
International USA and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
planned what they said would be a 200-minute vigil outside the criminal
courthouse in Houston to mark what soon will be the 200th execution of
Gov. Rick Perry's tenure. Johnson would be the 198th Texas inmate put to
death since Perry succeeded Gov. George W. Bush when Bush became president
in the 2000 election. During Bush's 6 years as governor, 157 executions
were carried out in Texas.

Johnson was among at least 6 Texas inmates with execution dates extending
into the summer. Scheduled to die next, on May 19, was Michael Lynn Riley,
50, condemned for the slaying of Winona Harris. The victim was stabbed
more than 23 years ago during the robbery of a convenience store in
Quitman, about 80 miles east of Dallas.

On the Net: Derrick Johnson http://www.lampofhope.org/999339.html

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 29

TEXAS:

Houston man condemned for killing 2 loses appeal

A Houston man convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her
9-year-old daughter lost an appeal that contended he was ineligible for
execution because he was mentally disabled, moving him closer to his
punishment for the slayings more than 16 years ago.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday turned down Gerald
Cornelius Eldridge, 45, convicted of the fatal shootings of Cynthia
Bogany, 28, and her daughter, Chirissa. The two were gunned down at a
north Houston apartment where Bogany and Eldridge's son, Terrell, 9, and
Bogany's boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson, also were shot but survived.

The New Orleans-based court specifically refused to grant permission for
Eldridge to move forward with his appeal that contended an IQ test given
to him showed his score was 72, making him mildly disabled.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that mentally disabled people may not be
executed.

A federal district judge had rejected his appeal, finding the results were
unreliable because the defense expert hired to conduct the test failed to
consider or test for the possibility that Eldridge deliberately performed
poorly on the test. Earlier tests showed his IQ to be higher and school
records supported prosecution arguments that he was not mentally disabled.

Bogany and her daughter were killed Jan. 4, 1993, at their Houston
apartment. Terrell Bogany testified at Eldridge's capital murder trial and
told jurors his father shot his sister between the eyes at close range
after he'd kicked in the door. He also described the shooting of Dotson
and his own shooting, how his father stood over him and shot at his head.
He said he turned his head and the bullet wound up in his shoulder. He
also said he saw his mother run from the apartment as Eldridge pursued
her.

She was shot outside as she ran to another apartment.

At his 1994 trial, Eldridge refused to sit through the punishment phase. A
Harris County jury deliberated about 30 minutes before deciding on the
death sentence.

Records showed Eldridge was sentenced in 1985 to 8 years in prison for
attempted murder for shooting a man 8 times. He was released 3 years
later, then was returned to prison in 1990 for beating his son. After his
parole 4 months later, records showed he tried to kill the boy.

Eldridge does not have an execution date.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 28

TEXAS:

Rep. Lon Burnam calls for vote on whether to impeach Court of Criminal
Appeals Justice Sharon Keller

Rep. Lon Burnam said he will call for a House vote before the end of the
legislative session on whether to impeach Court of Criminal Appeal Chief
Justice Sharon Keller, who has been accused of ordering the court closed
as a death-penalty appeal was being prepared.

Rep. Lon Burnam, speaking at a news conference in Austin, said he will try
to force a House vote on whether to impeach Court of Criminal Appeals
Justice Sharon Keller. A House committee began a hearing late Monday on
Burnam's resolution that establishes procedures for articles of
impeachment to be created and voted upon. Burnam, D-Fort Worth, said that
Keller's "gross neglect of duty and willing disregard for human life"
warrants her immediate removal from the bench.

In September 2007, lawyers for condemned inmate Michael Richard called the
court clerk, cited computer problems and asked the court to stay open a
little later to receive his appeal. The brief was based on the same issue
that the U.S. Supreme Court had just decided to hear that day.

Keller was consulted about keeping the court open, although she was not
the judge assigned to handle the expected appeal, and said that the office
should close at 5 p.m.

Richard was executed that night, although subsequent requests to stop
executions by other inmates raising the same issues were all granted by
the U.S. Supreme Court.

Keller's attorney, Chip Babcock, could not be reached for comment, but he
has previously denied that the judge did anything wrong. He has
emphatically argued that attorneys for the condemned inmate caused
problems by failing to follow procedures and meet deadlines.

Keller's case is under review by the Commission on Judicial Conduct, but
Burnam said Monday that the Legislature should not wait months before the
commission rules.

"The only way to get Judge Keller off the bench promptly is through the
impeachment process," he said.

The House committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence is weighing a
resolution of impeachment where testimony from lawyers and others is
expected to help outline the procedure to remove a sitting judge.

Burnam said one of his witnesses, ethics lawyer Charles Herring of Austin,
will testify that Keller's actions were tantamount to "judicial homicide,"
he said.

The last time a judge was impeached by the Legislature was state district
Judge Oscar Carrillo in 1975. Carrillo was found guilty by the Senate of
corruption charges and removed from his Duval County office.

Burnam said he believes that a resolution of impeachment is a "privileged
motion," which if raised, must be considered by the House. If a majority
votes for the impeachment, a trial would be held by the Senate, which
could convene itself without the governor calling a special session, he
said.

Currently, no articles of impeachment, the specific charges raised against
Keller, have been written. The Monday night hearing on his resolution
would to create a seven-member committee to create the charges and present
them to the House. But if that doesn't happen, Burnam said he will present
the question of impeachment to the full House before the end of the
session.

"I'd rather lose the vote than not call it," he said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Representative initiates efforts for impeachment of Sharon
Keller----Judge's decision to close court before execution sparked
controversy

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, outlines impeachment allegations
against Judge Sharon Keller, including a charge of "judicial homicide" for
Keller's decision to deny an appeal in a controversial death-sentence
case. "She's an embarrassment to the Republican Party and to the court,"
said Burnam, who plans to put the motion to impeach Keller to a vote once
he is sure he has enough votes to win.

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, called for the impeachment of Sharon
Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, on Monday
afternoon at the Capitol.

Burnam is spearheading the calls for impeachment after Keller made the
controversial decision in September 2007 to close the doors of her court
at 5 p.m., refusing to keep them open an extra 20 minutes to receive a
last-minute filing from the attorneys of death row inmate Michael Richard.

The attorneys claim they were having computer issues that prevented them
from turning in the motion on time.

Richard was executed just hours after Keller shut her doors, which
violated the 49-year-old convicted killer's Fifth Amendment rights, Burnam
said. The execution came just before a 9-month moratorium on executions in
Texas while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to the
constitutionality of lethal injection.

"We cannot allow a judge with a self-declared bias against capital
defendants to continue deciding execution appeals," Burnam said. "I
believe this represents a gross neglect of duty and willing disregard for
human life."

Burnam said the only alternative to the impeachment process is an 18-month
deliberation by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which is likely
to lead to "a slap on the wrist" rather than immediate removal from
office.

"Because death-penalty cases exemplify the state at the zenith of its
power over the individual, those who do page these decisions must be held
to the highest ethical standards," Burnam said. "It's an embarrassment to
the state of Texas. It's an embarrassment to the Republican Party that she
represents in this division, and it's an embarrassment to her legal
profession."

Gloria Rubac, a member of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement,
applauded Burnam's comments and said Richard's execution was wrong.

"It's unbelievable that somebody in [Keller's] position would allow a man
to be executed when she knew, like I knew, a few hours earlier in the day
the U.S. Supreme Court had in effect overturned executions."

Daniel Hagood, a Dallas defense lawyer who has known Keller since the late
1980s and served as her campaign treasurer when she first ran for office
in 1994, said that Burnam would find that there is no basis for
impeachment because Richard's attorneys had every opportunity to stay the
execution.

"Nothing prevented those lawyers from filing a motion before 5 o'clock,"
Hagood said. "There's nothing magical about a hand-written motion. Any
competent lawyer would [know that]. Hagood also said that even if the
doors were closed, the attorneys could have handed the motion to any of
the 9 judges on the court, including Keller.

Burnam said that he would move as quickly as he could with the impeachment
of Keller, putting the motion to a vote by the House as soon as he was
sure he had enough votes to win.

(source: The (Univ. Texas) Daily Texan)

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

Texas death row inmate from Carrollton closer to execution

A Carrollton man condemned for an attack that left 3 people dead during
the robbery of their home in San Antonio more than 15 years ago moved a
step closer to execution with the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to
review his case.

Arnold Prieto, 35, is 1 of 3 men convicted in the fatal stabbings of
Rudolfo Rodriguez, 72, his wife, Virginia, 62, and Paula Moran, 90, a
family friend of the San Antonio couple.

In another death row case, among four Texas cases turned down Monday by
the high court, the justices refused to review the case of Yosvanis Valle,
33, a Cuban native and alleged gang member. He was condemned for the fatal
shooting 10 years ago of a drug dealer in Pasadena, just outside Houston.

2 other condemned Texas murderers both convicted of fatally shooting
Houston police officers also lost appeals though their cases are earlier
in the legal process following their convictions.

They included Robert Jennings, 51, convicted of killing Elston Howard, an
undercover Houston vice officer, in 1988; and Alfred Brown, 27, condemned
for the slaying of Charles Clark, who was shot after responding to a
robbery in progress at Houston check-cashing store.

None of the 4 inmates has an execution date.

In Prieto's case, 2 of the murder victims, the Rodriguez couple, were the
great-uncle and great-aunt of his 2 companions, brothers Guadalupe and
Jessie Hernandez, also of Carrollton. Jessie Hernandez, 1 day short of his
17th birthday on the day of the killings and ineligible for the death
penalty, received a life prison term for his involvement in the 1993
robbery-slayings. Charges were dropped against Guadalupe Hernandez because
prosecutors said they had insufficient evidence.

Rodriguez and his wife operated a check-cashing business from their San
Antonio home. The couple and Moran, who had been a nanny to their children
and lived with them, were fatally stabbed with a knife, a screwdriver and
possibly an ice pick. Rodriguez had 17 stab wounds. His wife had 31
wounds. Moran was stabbed 8 times.

Prieto told police in a confession he and his friends, high on cocaine,
intended on robbing the business when they traveled from Carrollton to San
Antonio.

In Valle's case, a Harris County jury deliberated about 6 hours in 2001
before deciding he should be executed for the 1999 slaying of 28-year-old
Jose Martin Junco.

Prosecutors described Valle as a member of La Raza Unida A Race United a
prison gang, and contended he assassinated other gang members to move up
in the ranks. Records indicate at the time of the Junco slaying Valle had
been released on mandatory supervision after receiving an eight-year
sentence for possession a sawed-off shotgun.

Known as "El Cubano," he also was linked by authorities to a slaying at a
convenience store and to the killing of 2 other gang members.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 27

TEXAS:

Supreme Court refuses 4 Texas death row appeals

A Dallas-area man condemned for an attack that left 3 people dead during
the robbery of their home in San Antonio more than 15 years ago moved a
step closer to execution with the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to
review his case.

Arnold Prieto, 35, of Carrollton, is 1 of 3 men convicted in the fatal
stabbings of Rudolfo Rodriguez, 72, his wife, Virginia, 62, and Paula
Moran, 90, a family friend of the San Antonio couple.

In another death row case, among 4 Texas cases turned down Monday by the
high court, the justices refused to review the case of Yosvanis Valle, 33,
a Cuban native and alleged gang member. He was condemned for the fatal
shooting 10 years ago of a drug dealer in Pasadena, just outside Houston.

2 other condemned Texas murderers both convicted of fatally shooting
Houston police officers also lost appeals although their cases are
earlier in the legal process following their convictions.

They included Robert Jennings, 51, convicted of killing Elston Howard, an
undercover Houston vice cop, in 1988; and Alfred Brown, 27, condemned for
the slaying of Charles Clark, who was shot after responding to a robbery
in progress at Houston check-cashing store.

None of the 4 inmates has an execution date.

In Prieto's case, 2 of the murder victims, the Rodriguez couple, were the
great-uncle and great-aunt of his two companions, brothers Guadalupe and
Jessie Hernandez, also of Carrollton. Jessie Hernandez, 1 day short of his
17th birthday on the day of the killings and ineligible for the death
penalty, received a life prison term for his involvement in the 1993
robbery-slayings. Charges were dropped against Guadalupe Hernandez because
prosecutors said they had insufficient evidence.

Rodriguez and his wife operated a check-cashing business from their San
Antonio home. The couple and Moran, who had been a nanny to their children
and lived with them, were fatally stabbed with a knife, a screwdriver and
possibly an ice pick. Rodriguez had 17 stab wounds. His wife had 31
wounds. Moran was stabbed 8 times.

Prieto told police in a confession he and his friends, high on cocaine,
intended on robbing the business when they traveled from Carrollton to San
Antonio.

In Valle's case, a Harris County jury deliberated about 6 hours in 2001
before deciding he should be executed for the 1999 slaying of 28-year-old
Jose Martin Junco.

Prosecutors described Valle as a member of La Raza Unida A Race United a
prison gang, and contended he assassinated other gang members to move up
in the ranks. Records indicate at the time of the Junco slaying Valle had
been released on mandatory supervision after receiving an eight-year
sentence for possession a sawed-off shotgun.

Known as "El Cubano," he also was linked by authorities to a slaying at a
convenience store and to the killing of 2 other gang members.

In his appeals, attorneys argued he had been abused while growing up in
Cuba and that his poverty led to his aggressive behavior later in life.
Court documents did not address how he arrived in the United States.

Jennings, whose criminal record goes back to age 14, first served prison
time in 1975 at age 17 for robbery. He was paroled from a 30-year term in
1988 and Howard was gunned down 2 months later at a Houston book store
where he was arresting the store clerk for showing movies without a city
permit. Jennings had walked in with the intention of holding up the place,
shot the officer twice, then shot him 2 more times after a struggle.

An appeal of his case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals inexplicably
languished in that court for nearly 11 years.

In Brown's case, besides the killing of Clark, 45, also gunned down was a
clerk at the check-cashing store, Alfredia Jones, 27. One of Brown's
friends, Elijah Dwayne Joubert, was sent to death row for her slaying.

Clark died one day short of his 20th anniversary with the Houston
department.

Evidence showed Joubert approached Jones as she arrived to open the store
for the day, then allowed her to make a telephone call to another store
that would tell them she was open for business. Instead, she used a code
word that alerted the 2nd store to the robbery Clark responded to the
robbery call and was shot when he went inside.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS, USA

April 27

TEXAS----book reveiw

A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green -- by Thomas Cahill

Some might say that Dominique Green was born under a bad sign. Certainly
he had harder luck than most people in the U.S. could possibly imagine.
His mother described by author Thomas Cahill in A Saint on Death Row as
"a mother from hell" was an alcoholic and a sometime prostitute who
exercised her trade in front of Dominique and his 2 younger brothers. At
7, a Catholic-school priest raped him. At 8, he was dealing drugs on the
street. At 9, his father an addict gave him a gun to protect himself. It
is not clear whether the armor was most needed on the street or at home,
where his mother had taken to burning his hands over a gas stove as
punishment. By the age of 15, he had been raped repeatedly in juvenile
detention. Born Dominic, he changed his name to Dominique, perhaps hoping
that the adjustment to his tag might signify a transformation of his life.
Regrettably, it didn't.

Dominique's worst luck was to have been born in Houston, Texas, the
principal city of Harris County. Since 1976, Texas has executed more than
4 times as many prisoners as any other state, and beginning with George W.
Bushs term as governor, it became the death penalty capital of the
country. Harris County has committed more people to death than any other
in Texas they're slap-happy about vengeance.

It is almost inevitable that someone with a background such as Dominique's
will go to jail soon after reaching adulthood. In his case, at the age of
18 in 1992, it was due to a botched robbery outside a convenience store.
The victim, Andrew Lastrapes, was shot to death after pulling a knife in
self-defense. Along with Dominique, 2 other black youths were arrested.
The lone white boy in their group made a deal with the district attorney,
and after giving a statement, was set free. Fingered by his accomplices as
the shooter, Dominique was the only one of the group to be charged with
capital murder, and hence eligible for the death penalty.

In his book, Cahill describes Dominiques prosecution as a nightmare.
Matters were certainly not helped by the fact that, although still in his
teens, this was Dominiques fourth arrest. His court-appointed lawyer was
inexperienced and had only tangentially assisted in one other
death-penalty case. As an "expert witness," the lawyer hired a
psychologist who believed that blacks and Latinos were more likely to be
violent than whites. Although he kept this opinion to himself on the
stand, he did offer his assurance to the jury that Dominique would be a
danger to society if he were allowed to live. Dominique's own mother slept
through much of the trial, but remained awake long enough to tell the jury
that she believed her flesh and blood to be capable of the crime.

Dominique made mistakes of his own. He refused to point fingers at his
cohorts, although he did insist during the trial and for the subsequent
twelve years of his life that if the prosecution would obtain the
videotape from the convenience store they would see he was not guilty of
murder. (In all those years, they never did.) He certainly did himself no
good when, in a letter he sent to a friend from jail, he referred to
himself as a "trigga happy nigga." Although his defense team explained it
was an ironic quotation of hip-hop lyrics by a Houston group called the
Geto Boys, the assertion was not of the sort to arouse empathy among a
Harris County prosecutor. Or for that matter a Houston jury (which, in the
trial of Dominique, was composed entirely of white people).

Thomas Cahill, the author of A Saint on Death Row, never mentions it in
his book, but for 6 years in the 1990s, he was the Director of Religious
Publishing at Doubleday. After leaving that job, he went on to write such
best-selling titles as How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the
Jews, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, which have collectively sold
millions of copies. Perhaps as a result of his interest in religion, A
Saint on Death Row, which purports to tell Dominique Green's story, hinges
on the conceit inherent in the title that the young man, who was given a
lethal injection in 2004 at the age of 30, after spending nearly 1/2 his
life in jail, was a saint.

On Cahill's web site, you can see a video of Dominique Green. He appears
to be a sweet-faced young man, articulate and charming, with a notable,
visible inner strength. Given the evidence in Cahills book, it seems
unlikely to me that Green would have considered himself a saint, although
the author struggles mightily to convince us. You can see where Cahill is
going from the first overwrought pages of the book, when he describes a
visit with Dominique in jail. I wondered whether it even occurred to
Cahill that it might be patronizing to write that a young black man had
"the dignity of a Benin bronze," or whether it might raise an eyebrow or 2
among readers when he casually imagines Dominique as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Secretary General of
the U.N.

In a similarly breathless fashion, Cahill continues to mount his evidence
petitioning Dominique for canonization. He developed convincing writing
skills in prison. He organized a football pool among the death row
prisoners. He put together a manuscript of their testimonies. He studied
law for his own case and offered advice to others. He helped an inmate get
a hot pot for cooking. He wore a rosary with 101 beads, each representing
a prisoner who had been put to death while the years passed on death row.

The sons of Lastrapes, the murder victim, visited Dominique in jail and
publicly pleaded that he be spared from execution. When his death appeared
inevitable, he gave the brothers his copy of An African Prayer Book,
autographed by its author, Archbishop Desmond Tutu one of the volumes
that Cahill had published during his tenure at Doubleday. (Cahill was even
able to pull some strings and arrange for Tutu to visit Dominique in jail
alas, to no benefit in the prisoner's case.) The National Catholic
Reporter published an essay by Dominique, and before he was put to death,
he gave the money he earned to the Lastrapes brothers.

Much of this is commendable, stirring, even heartbreaking. But does any of
it qualify him for sainthood? Throughout the book I had the uncomfortable
feeling that it was hardly about Dominique at all, who remains an elusive
and sketchy figure to the end. Between the lines it strikes me that the
book is about Cahill, and what a marvelous, compassionate and loving man
he believes himself to be for writing about Dominique this way.

There are more than 3000 people on death row in the United States today.
Perhaps none of them are saints, although I would hardly presume to be the
one to make that judgment. Probably each of them, in one way or another,
is deserving of our sympathy. In all probability, on a rational basis none
of them deserves to be put to death.

In his quest to convince us of Dominique's sainthood, I believe that
Cahill entirely misses the point. If I were facing the death penalty, I
certainly wouldn't want anyone as smooth-talking and hyperbolic as Cahill
to be my attorney. I would hardly want a lawyer to try to convince a jury
that I was a saint. Id prefer them to simply see me as an innocent man.
Failing that, if they found me guilty, I would like them to believe that I
was nonetheless deserving of their sympathy and that my life should be
spared.

It is only toward the end of the book that Cahill hints at what I believe
are the important issues of the death penalty. In a press conference after
his visit with Dominique, Bishop Tutu says, "You are a very generous
people, Americans, and it is very difficult to square with your remarkable
vindictiveness."

I believe it is indisputable when Cahill writes about Dominique that, "
the 1st question an inquiring American should ask is not 'Did he do it'
but 'Did he receive a fair trial?' And the 2nd question is like it: 'Were
his subsequent encounters with the law fair?' To both these questions the
answer must be a resounding no."

Sadly, this is true in the case of poor Dominique Green, who deserves to
be remembered with respect and compassion, pity and comprehension, even if
he wasn't a saint. Worse still, the lack of justice and fairness is true
for the cases of myriad death penalty defendants, who are most often black
and with no access to skilled lawyers. Regardless of whether they read
Cahill's book, those interested in the topic would do well to visit the
web site of the Death Penalty Information Center.

(source: California LIeterary Review----David Lida is the author of First
Stop in the New World: Mexico City, Capital of the 21st Century. As a
mitigation specialist, he conducts investigations for defense attorneys on
death-penalty cases.)

USA:

In a reversal, Justice Stevens calls the death penalty
'anachronistic'----Part of the Supreme Court majority that reinstated
capital punishment in the U.S. in 1976, he says it no longer serves any
purpose.

The nation's longest-serving Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, on
Wednesday declared his formal opposition to capital punishment.

Stevens, 87, was part of the court majority that reinstated the death
penalty in America in 1976. But in a concurring opinion to Wednesday's
ruling that Kentucky's use of lethal injection is constitutional, Stevens
wrote that the death penalty no longer served a legitimate social
function. He is the 1st justice to openly oppose capital punishment since
Harry Blackmun in 1994.

His words came as some comfort to death penalty opponents on a day when
they suffered a setback at the hands of the justices. Within hours of the
7-2 ruling, Virginia and Florida announced their intention to lift a
moratorium on executions, and several other states were expected to follow
suit. In California, executions could begin again by the end of the year.

But Elisabeth Semel, a law professor and director of the Death Penalty
Clinic at UC Berkeley who helped bring the challenge to Kentucky's
lethal-injection procedures, said the court's opinion made it clear that
states can be forced to institute alternative lethal-injection procedures
if they can be proven to alleviate a substantial risk of severe pain to
the inmate.

That may have been one reason that Stevens, in a sense, threw up his hands
and said "enough" even as he concurred with the majority in the Kentucky
case. Stevens wrote that when the court agreed to hear the Kentucky
challenge, he "assumed that our decision would bring the debate about
lethal injection as a method of execution to a close. It now seems clear
that it will not."

Then he went further, saying the death penalty was no longer meeting any
of the societal aims the court laid out when it reinstated the sanction in
1976 after a 4-year pause. "State-sanctioned killing," he said, is
becoming "more and more anachronistic."

The Chicago native, who was named to the court by President Ford in 1975,
wrote that modern, lengthy prison sentences had achieved the goal of
preventing the offender from committing further crimes and said that
researchers had yet to prove to his satisfaction that the death penalty
deterred others from committing crimes.

That left retribution as the sole rationale for capital punishment, and
there Stevens found a paradox. Noting that the court is now working to
make executions as painless as possible, he wrote: "By requiring that an
execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from
enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on
his victim."

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a special concurrence to criticize Stevens,
saying that his reversal on the issue was "astounding" and that he was
substituting his own views for those of state legislatures elected by the
people.

"It is Justice Stevens' experience that reigns over all," he wrote
mockingly.

Notwithstanding Stevens' stance, states were gearing up to put a pair of
killers to death. Florida officials said that the high court's decision
paved the way for the execution of Mark Dean Schwab, convicted of raping
and killing an 11-year-old boy in 1991.

And in Virginia, Gov. Tim Kaine cleared the way for the execution of
Edward Bell, who killed a police officer in 1999. His execution was
scheduled for April 8, but Kaine had postponed it until July in advance of
the Supreme Court ruling.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 25

TEXAS----new execution date

Execution Date Set for Man Who Killed Tylerite

A state district judge set the date of execution Thursday for Clifton
Lamar Williams, who has been condemned for killing a 93-year-old Tyler
woman in 2005.

Williams, 25, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced Oct. 13, 2006,
to death by lethal injection for killing Cecilia Schneider and setting her
on fire.

Judge Christi Kennedy, of the 114th District Court, ordered that the
defendant be put to death on July 28.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Williams appeal in March and
upheld the conviction and sentence.

However, Williams does have federal appeals he will pursue. Defense
attorney Jeff Haas told Judge Kennedy that a stay of execution would be
filed in federal court.

Evidence showed that Williams beat, strangled and stabbed Ms. Schneider to
death in her Tyler home on July 9, 2005, before setting her body and her
bed on fire and stealing her purse and car.

With their verdict, jurors found Williams was not mentally retarded and
there were no miti-gating circumstances that warranted a life sentence
instead of the death penalty.

2 mental health experts hired by the state said Williams was not mentally
retarded.

Defense attorney Melvin Thompson said Thursday that they raised the issue
of mental retardation during the trial and they continue to assert that
issue.

During the trial, Thompson said evidence showed that the defendant was
mentally retarded. A mental health expert who examined Williams in early
adulthood for Social Security benefits diagnosed Williams with mental
retardation and paranoid schizophrenia. Another expert hired by the
defense examined Williams and found him to be mentally retarded.

Haas and Thompson appeared in court with Williams Thursday, as well as
First Assistant Smith County District Attorney April Sikes.

(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 23

TEXAS:

Hearing on Keller Impeachment set for April 27th

The Texas House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence announced
today that it would hear public testimony regarding the impeachment of
Chief Justice Sharon Keller of the Court of Criminal Appeals on April
27th.

The impeachment resolution was introduced by Rep. Lon Burnam (D - Fort
Worth).

"It is important that the committee be made aware of the public's desire
for impeachment," Mr. Burnam said. "I encourage anyone who wishes to see
justice done in this matter to come to room E2.010 in the capitol on
Monday afternoon and register 'for' House Resolution 480."

The impeachment resolution stems from Judge Keller's alleged violation of
the Court's practice of remaining open on scheduled execution nights. On
September 25, 2007, the judge instructed court staff to refuse appeal
filings from lawyers for death row inmate, Michael Richard.

Richard's appeal was based on announcements made by the United States
Supreme Court the morning of they scheduled execution. Although Richard
was executed that night, the Court of Criminal Appeals (over which Judge
Keller presides) later granted 2 stays of execution based on the same
arguments Richard's lawyers attempted to present.

If passed, HR 480 calls on the House of Representatives to form a
committee to investigate Judge Keller for "gross neglect of duty and
willing disregard for human life." If the House finds cause for
impeachment, a trial would then be held in the State Senate.

The State Ethics Commission is also currently investigating Judge Keller;
a hearing has been scheduled for August 16th to investigate the judge's
actions in the Richard Case. In addition, the Ethics Commission is
investigating Judge Keller's omission of 20 million dollars in Dallas area
real estate holdings from mandatory disclosure forms filed with the
Commission.

(source: Press Release, Lon Burnam, Texas House of Representatives)

Petition to Remove Judge Sharon Keller from Office

To: Members of the Texas Legislature, Governor Perry and the People of Texas

Judge Sharon Keller should be removed as a judge on the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals either through impeachment, resignation or at the end
of her trial on misconduct charges brought by the State Commission on
Judicial Conduct. Keller's unethical conduct has brought discredit on
the Texas judiciary. As longs as Keller is in office, the quality of
justice in Texas remains discredited.

Keller has violated the public trust placed in her to dispense justice
fairly and impartially. She broke the rules of her own court when she
refused to accept an appeal 20 minutes after 5 PM from a person on the
day set for his execution. In addition, she has asked the people of
Texas to pay for her legal expenses to defend herself while she failed
to report millions of dollars in assets to the Texas Ethics Commission.

Online petition:
http://sharonkiller.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=62&Itemid=76

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 22

TEXAS:

Scripture cited, upheld in Texas murder case

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge from a Texas death row
inmate who claimed his constitutional rights were violated by jurors who
consulted a Bible during deliberations.

The case involves Khristian Oliver, who shot and then bludgeoned his
victim with the barrel of a gun. Jury members read Numbers 35:16, which
calls for the death penalty if the victim is killed with an instrument of
iron. Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel is pleased with the high court's
decision.

"I think what we don't want to do is to force prosecutors to censor all of
their words from any kind of religious content or from even quoting or
referencing the Bible," he contends.

Staver admits there are rules of conduct in the jury room, but found no
harm in the Bible reference. "Obviously jurors need to make their decision
based on the facts before them and the evidence that's presented, or in
fact, not presented," Staver notes, "but merely referencing the Bible --
by either the prosecutor or by a juror -- is not something that undermines
the jury system."

He adds that "to cleanse those kinds of discussions or words from any kind
of courtroom would be an anathema to our Christian and religious heritage.
It would ultimately set the government on a collision course against
religion."

(source: OneNewsNow)

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

Local attorney wins round for client on death row

A longtime death row inmate represented by a San Marcos attorney has been
granted a new punishment phase after the state's highest criminal appeals
court ruled that jurors at his 1985 trial were not told they could
consider childhood abuse as cause to spare his life.

Gene Hathorn Jr., now 48, was convicted 24 years ago of killing his
father, Gene Hathorn Sr., with a shotgun at his family's home in Trinity
County. Hathorn's stepmother and half-brother were also killed, crimes for
which Hathorn was charged but never tried. An accomplice and former
co-worker at Rusk State Hospital, James Lee Beathard, was executed in 1999
for his role in the murders.

In an April 8 ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said the
original trial judge's instruction to jurors were not flawed by legal
standards of the time but are inadequate in light of subsequent case law
established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Rather than characterize this as a jury charge error, we interpret the
Supreme Court cases related to this particular issue to have broader due
process implications," Judge Lawrence Meyer wrote. "It is likely that the
jury believed that all they needed to decide was whether he had acted
deliberately and would likely be dangerous in the future, disregarding any
concern they may feel that, given [Hathorne's] troubled childhood, he may
not deserve a death sentence."

According to court records, Hathorn testified that his father regularly
beat him and at one point shot his dog which Hawthorn then had to bury.
Prosecutors said Hathorn sought to plant hairs and cigarette butts to
implicate black people and intended to inherit his fathers $150,000
estate, not knowing he had been cut out the will weeks before.

Hathorne could receive another death sentence in his new punishment phase
but his case will be helped, attorney David Sergi said, because "he has an
almost perfect record while he's been in prison."

Sergi, who has 4 other death row clients, said, "I'm frankly opposed to
the death penalty on moral grounds, but we've seen so many mistakes made
in prosecutions. Once you've executed somebody, its hard to make things
right."

One of the longest-serving of 350 prisoners on Texas' death row, Hathorn
achieved international notoriety last fall when he agreed, should he lose
his appeals, to let goldfish eat his corpse as part of a death penalty
protest by Danish artist Marco Evaristti.

(source: San Marcos Mercury)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

April 20

TEXAS----federal death penalty trial

Murder trial of federal inmate facing death penalty begins

The trial of a federal inmate accused of assisting with the murder of
another inmate while both were incarcerated at the United States
Penitentiary in Beaumont began this morning.

Joseph Ebron faces a possible death sentence if jurors determine that he
played a role in the May, 7, 2005 murder of Keith Barnes.

Federal prosecutor John Craft told jurors in his opening statements that
he believes testimony will show that Barnes was a marked man the day he
stepped off the bus that transferred him to the Beaumont prison.

Barnes, craft said, had cooperated in the investigation of a prison gang
member and was stabbed 106 times in the chest for being a "snitch."

Ebron is accused of holding Barnes while another inmate killed him.

Katherine Scardino, 1 of Ebron's 2 Houston-based attorneys, countered in
her opening statements that jurors will have to weigh the evidence and
testimony that emerge over the next week or 2 and decide whether there is
any indication that Ebron helped plan or participate in Barnes' murder.

(source: Beaumont Enterprise)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 20

TEXAS:

Death row lawyers get paid while messing up---- Attorneys who continue to
miss appeal dates are still getting cases

Texas lawyers have repeatedly missed deadlines for appeals on behalf of
more than a dozen death row inmates in the last 2 years yet judges
continue to assign life-or-death capital cases and pay hundreds of
thousands in fees to those attorneys, a Chronicle records review shows.

Missing deadlines means their clients can be automatically denied
constitutionally mandated reviews before their execution. Houston lawyer
Jerome Godinich missed 3 recent federal deadlines, the Chronicle reported
in March. One client was executed in February after the federal appeal was
filed too late. In March, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals chastened
Godinich for using the same excuse a malfunctioning after-hours filing
machine for missing another deadline for a man still on death row.

A recent review of the Harris County Auditor's billing records and
district court records shows Godinich remains one of the county's busiest
appointed criminal attorneys, billing for $713,248, including fees for 21
capital cases. He was appointed to handle 1,638 Harris County cases
involving 1,400 different defendants from 2006-March 2009, court records
show.

He refused comment.

Godinich is not the only attorney to miss death row deadlines. A San
Antonio lawyer failed to file 4 state appeals on time, according to
opinions last year by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A Fort Worth
lawyer has missed both state and federal deadlines in at least 5 recent
cases, though he sought and was granted more time to prepare on 4 of them,
according to court records reviewed by the Chronicle.

The failure to file such appeals, called writs of habeas corpus, means
death row inmates risk missing their last chance to submit new claims of
innocence or evidence that could alter their conviction or death
sentence. State judges can be flexible, but federal judges follow tight
and sometimes confusing deadlines.

Only one of three Texas lawyers who repeatedly missed such death row
deadlines has faced fines or been forced to forgo fees by judges.

Suzanne Kramer, of San Antonio, was removed in October 2008 from 3 state
appeals she failed to file on time and was fined $750 by the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals. She is handling a fourth case over protests.

"I know if this lawyer stays on my case I'll definitely get executed,"
death row inmate Juan Castillo wrote the Chronicle. "She's refused to
respond to any of my letters she's never come to see me to discuss my
case (and) my writ was due Dec. 11, 2006 and she never filed it."

Appeal filed incorrectly

The CCA allowed Kramer to continue representing Castillo after criticizing
her claim that she mailed in his appeal on a Saturday to the office of a
Bexar County judge. The appeal was never filed with the county clerk, as
required. "Judges don't file lawsuits. I guess that would go on her
credibility as a lawyer," said Gerry Rickhoff, district court clerk in
Bexar County.

Kramer, who did not return phone calls to her office, has been paid
$86,577 in fees by Bexar County since 2007, but went unpaid for the 3 late
appeals by CCA order.

Jack V. Strickland Jr., a Fort Worth lawyer who specializes in capital
case law, also has repeatedly missed death row deadlines. However, judges
accepted his explanations and allowed late filings for 4 of 5 appeals.<>P>
Being overwhelmed on capital cases was the excuse for 2 late 2008 filings.

Strickland told the court that hed been hospitalized several months before
the appeals were due, then "began a new death penalty trial right after
his recuperation period, was in the process of preparing another death
penalty writ application which was due mid-September, was preparing for
trial in another case, and had presented 5 lectures and papers in the
previous 60 days," according to a CCA opinion.

In another case, Strickland missed both state and then federal deadlines
for the death row inmate, Quintin Jones. Before losing his federal appeal
due to lateness, Jones repeatedly tried to get another attorney.

Strickland said he "almost begged the magistrate judge to appoint someone
else. Jones and I had a very unpleasant relationship." He was left on the
case anyway.

Strickland blamed the deadline error on miscalculating the due date .

He earned $428,850.62 in court-appointed fees in Tarrant County from
2006-2009 . More than a quarter were bills for late appeals , auditor's
records show.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 19

TEXAS:

Ex-nurse denies murdering 5 dialysis patients

A former nurse has pleaded not guilty to murdering 5 patients at a Lufkin
dialysis clinic with bleach injections and injuring 5 others.<>P> The
Lufkin Daily News reported in Saturday's editions that 35-year-old
Kimberly Saenz remains free on $500,000 bond after her Friday arraignment
in Lufkin. She's charged with 5 capital murder counts and 5 of aggravated
assault with a deadly weapons. The indictment alleged she injected 10
patients with bleach last April at the Lufkin DaVita Dialysis clinic. 5
died.

Federal records show 34 patients were taken by ambulance from the clinic
that month, more than three times the March total.

DaVita fired Saenz a day after temporarily closing the Lufkin clinic on
April 28. The facility later reopened.

No trial date has been set.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 16

TEXAS:

New details uncovered in Rosales murder investigation

The man convicted of brutally stabbing an elderly Lubbock woman to death
died by lethal injection Wednesday evening. Authorities pronounced
35-year-old Michael Rosales dead at 6:17 p.m.

Rosales final words were, "I love you all. May the Lord be with you.
Peace. I'm done." Rosales killed Mary Felder, 67, in the summer of 1997.
None of her friends or relatives watched the execution.

NewsChannel 11 spoke with detectives who helped solved this case, and we
learned new details never heard about the investigation until now. Lubbock
Police Detective Ray Martinez tells us that Rosales asked for the death
penalty before he admitted to killing Felder. "She was an elderly lady,
minding her own business, in her own home, and for somebody to come in and
do that to her," Martinez said.

As a homicide detective for Lubbock Police, Martinez has seen a lot, but
says the death of Felder is one of the worst. "That really stands out as
one of the most violent, brutal deaths that I've worked," Martinez said.

Martinez says Rosales was one of the first people who approached him at
the crime scene back in 1997. "He kept following me throughout the
investigation at the complex that day," Martinez said. Still,
investigators say Rosales seemed to be more of a concerned by-stander than
anything else. They brought him in for questioning the following day, and
that's when Martinez discovered Rosales was a suspect.

Authorities discovered his blood soaked clothes in the apartment next door
to Felder's. "I was actually interviewing him when I obtained the phone
call and got the information that I was actually talking to the suspect,"
Martinez said. He says Rosales eventually told him what happened, but not
before he made a request. "His one request was that he get the death
penalty as soon as possible for what he had done," Martinez said.

"I present the facts, and if the court decides that it's the death penalty
that's required, then I'm in agreement with that," Martinez said. He says
Rosales seemed to know what he was doing, despite arguments that he was
mentally challenged, which led to his stay of execution back in 2004.

Rosales is the 13th Texas inmate to be put to death this year.

(source: KCBD News)

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

Death row inmate's story broadcasted live at UT

Nashville, Tenn., inmate Timothy McKinney's voice broadcasted through a UT
classroom holding a crowd of nearly 90 people "Live From Death Row."

Students, activists and family members of death row inmates listened in
the University Teaching Center as McKinney shared his story for the "Live
From Death Row" national tour, sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death
Penalty.

"In 1997, I was accused of killing a police officer," he said. "Within 2
days of my trial, I was convicted of murder. There was no evidence that
linked me to the crime.:

McKinney said his trial was unfair, racially biased and that he was the
victim of an unjust, corrupt system. Unable to afford a lawyer himself,
McKinney said the court appointed an attorney who did no investigation
into his case.

"My case in particular is politically motivated and race has a lot to do
with it," McKinney said. "We're always looked at, pointed at. We're always
stereotyped. Someone with money wouldnt be here."

Family members of death row prisoners also spoke out against the death
penalty system and the Texas law of parties, which states that if a person
with someone when they commit a crime, he or she can be held accountable.

"I don't understand how Texas can convict someone who didn't murder
anyone," said Terri Been, whose brother sits on death row.

Been said her brother was not long out of high school when he and his
roommate decided to rob a convenience store in Kerrville on Jan. 1, 1996.
Her brother changed his mind and backed out of the plan, she said.

The next day the 2 stopped by the same store for some "driving munchies."
While her brother waited in the car, his roommate shot the clerk and began
to rob the store, she said.

Been said her brother had been unaware of his roommate's intentions, was
not present in the store when the murder was committed and was threatened
by his roommate at gunpoint.

"My brother's family and his daughter were also threatened," Been said.
"[The roommate] said he would kill her if he ever turned him in. The state
wants to know why he didn't call 911. Would you? If you had a daughter
that was threatened, If you saw that your roommate just cold-bloodedly
murdered someone and threatened your child at gunpoint?"

Been said her family was gag-ordered by the court and not allowed to
attend his trial, where her brother was convicted under the law of
parties.

"It practically makes you have to be a mind reader," she said, citing her
brother did not have prior knowledge of the crime. "I don't know about you
but I don't have ESP. And neither does my brother."

Brittany Watson, a member of the UT chapter of Amnesty International, also
spoke out against the law of parties and said she wanted to create
awareness about the "evils of the death penalty."

"It is the ultimate form of violation of humans rights, the ultimate form
of torture and it is the ultimate form of cruel and unusual punishment,"
she said.

But Eryn Baugh disagrees.

Nearly 15 years ago, his 3-month-old son Brandon was murdered by his
baby-sitter, Cathy Henderson. Henderson's original execution date was set
for 2 years ago until a last-minute appeal put the decision on hold. Baugh
said he feels justice has not been served and he and his family cannot
find closure until she is executed.

"Imagine yourself 15 years ago, and someone came up and put a knife to
your back," Baugh said. "The pain is great. It doesn't leave, and you're
just waiting for someone to pull it out of you so you can heal your
wound."

Henderson's attorneys claimed the murder was an accident and that she
dropped the baby on its head, shattering his skull, according to Baugh.
Baugh said he is not convinced.

"She would have called emergency services," he said. "We don't know how
long he suffered, how long it was before he died. He could have been badly
hurt but maybe she could have saved him if she had taken him to the
emergency room."

Baugh said Henderson tried to cover up the death.

"She put him in our wine cooler box, taped him up," he said. "She went to
the bank, got an oil change with our son in her trunk, took him out to a
field with some trees, patched out a hole and threw beer bottles on top of
it."

Baugh said he believes the death-penalty system is just and more humane
than life in prison, and that lethal injection provides a less painful
death than that suffered by victims of violent murders, or even those who
die naturally.

"Until she's dead, I'll never have true closure," he said. "I have to make
sure she'll never get out of prison."

(source: University of Texas Daily Texan)

death penalty news-----TEXAS

April 15

TEXAS----execution

Lubbock grandmother's killer executed Wednesday

Texas has executed a parole violator for beating and using kitchen tools
to kill a 67-year-old woman during a burglary at her Lubbock apartment.

35-year-old Michael Rosales was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. CDT
Wednesday.

He confessed to the 1997 slaying of Mary Felder a day after Felder's body
was found by her grandson, who routinely checked on her. Rosales told
police he was high on cocaine and looking for money when he broke into her
home as she slept. She was attacked when she woke up.

At a tight-knit apartment complex community in Lubbock, 67-year-old Mary
Felder "Miss Mary" to the residents was everybodys grandmother, known
for candy and cookies and other goodies available to the neighborhood
kids.

"She was such a wonderful woman," said Ken Hawk, a former Lubbock district
attorney.

That made it all the more shocking nearly a dozen years ago when her
grandson, who routinely would check on Felder at her place at the Four
Seasons Apartments, found her viciously beaten and stabbed to death.

Attorneys from the Texas Defender Service, a legal group involved in death
penalty issues, lost a bid Tuesday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals to halt the punishment. Their appeal argued Rosales was entitled
to a qualified lawyer who should have at least 6 months to draw up a state
clemency petition and further pursue claims Rosales may be mentally
retarded and ineligible for execution.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in a Tennessee case, said the
government should pay for federally appointed lawyers to work on state
clemency requests for condemned inmates.

The Texas Attorney General's Office had opposed Rosales' appeal, arguing
he'd already missed a state deadline for filing a clemency petition and
allowing him to do so now would circumvent state procedures and open the
door for every condemned inmate to file a last-minute clemency request
after the deadline had passed. They also pointed out Rosales mental
retardation claims previously were rejected by the courts.

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, acting on claims Rosales was mentally
retarded, stopped Rosales' scheduled execution in 2004.

Rosales becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas and the 436th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
Dec. 7, 1982. Rosales becomes the 197th condemned inmate to be put to
death since Rick Perry became governor in 2001. Rosales becomes the 21st
condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1157th
overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 14

TEXAS----impending execution

Lubbock grandmother's killer set to die Wednesday

At a tight-knit apartment complex community in Lubbock, 67-year-old Mary
Felder "Miss Mary" to the residents was everybody's grandmother, known
for candy and cookies and other goodies available to the neighborhood
kids.

"She was such a wonderful woman," said Ken Hawk, a former Lubbock district
attorney.

That made it all the more shocking nearly a dozen years ago when her
grandson, who routinely would check on Felder at her place at the Four
Seasons Apartments, found her viciously beaten and stabbed to death.

Michael Rosales, who had been staying with friends in an apartment next
door, was convicted of her death and was set for lethal injection
Wednesday evening.

Rosales, 35, would be the 13th inmate executed this year in the nation's
busiest capital punishment state.

Attorneys from the Texas Defender Service, a legal group involved in death
penalty issues, lost a bid Tuesday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals to halt the punishment. Their appeal argued Rosales was entitled
to a qualified lawyer who should have at least six months to draw up a
state clemency petition and further pursue claims Rosales may be mentally
retarded and ineligible for execution.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in a Tennessee case,
said the government should pay for federally appointed lawyers to work on
state clemency requests for condemned inmates.

The Texas Attorney General's Office had opposed Rosales' appeal, arguing
he'd already missed a state deadline for filing a clemency petition and
allowing him to do so now would circumvent state procedures and open the
door for every condemned inmate to file a last-minute clemency request
after the deadline had passed. They also pointed out Rosales' mental
retardation claims previously were rejected by the courts.

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, acting on claims Rosales was mentally
retarded, stopped Rosales' scheduled execution in 2004 just hours before
he could have been taken to the death chamber.

Rosales, who refused to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to
this week's punishment, had been on probation for nearly four years for a
drug conviction in Lubbock but had a history of violating probation.

In 1994, he fled from a Latham County, Colo., jail after being arrested on
charges that included resisting arrest and battery. When he was arrested
for Felder's June 4, 1997, slaying, evidence showed he had removed an
electronic monitor he was supposed to be wearing.

Rosales was taken into custody after police discovered he had an
outstanding traffic warrant. The following day, confronted with photos of
his bloody clothes recovered by officers, Rosales told detectives he was
high on cocaine and broke into Felder's apartment to get money.

He said when the woman discovered him and threatened to call police, he
pulled her into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from a table, then dragged
her into a bedroom and began stabbing her.

"I told her that I was sorry and asked her to die, but she kept
breathing," he told police in a written statement that was read at his
trial.

Felder had more than 100 wounds and injuries from a steak knife, a
two-pronged kitchen fork and a pair of needle-nose pliers.

"That guy really, really did a number on her," said Hawk, who was the lead
prosecutor at Rosales' trials and is now a federal defender in Tyler. "He
bent a fork off in her. I'll never forget those images."

Rosales led police to a trash container where he tossed the weapons used
in the attack. Detectives found Felder's blood on his clothes and on a
door at the apartment where Rosales was staying. Prints from his shoes
matched bloody footprints in Felder's bedroom.

"There wasn't anything to work with," David Hazlewood, one of Rosales'
trial lawyers, said this week. "It was open-shut. He had confessed to it.
There was a single-spaced confession where he detailed everything that
happened."

Another Texas inmate is set to die later this month. Derrick Johnson faces
execution April 30 for the 1999 rape-slaying of 25-year-old LaTausha
Curry, who was beaten with a board and then suffocated with a shirt and
sweater after she was abducted from a Dallas pay phone.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 13

TEXAS:

Judge favors sentence other than death

No legal system is perfect, said Cleburne resident and senior district
judge C.C. "Kit" Cooke.

That includes the one in Maryland being altered to custom-fit that state's
capital murder offenders, he said.

Gov. Martin OMalley said said that this month he will sign into law major
restrictions on when offenders may be sentenced to death.

The death penalty will only be allowed in Maryland when defendants are
linked to the offense through DNA or other biological evidence, videotaped
confessions or videotaped evidence.

It may be the most rigid bundle of limitations on capital murder
punishment in the United States, and it is flawed, Cooke said.

"I don't think it's realistic. You're not going to have a video confession
or video of the act, and you can't tie everything to DNA."

Cooke should know. DNA played a major role in a conviction in a capital
case Cooke tried in Johnson County.

DNA could have played a major role in a case Cooke tried in Fort Worth. It
didn't because no DNA existed.

Cooke tried another capital case in Fort Worth in which DNA did not play a
role at the time, but it did later in related cases.

The three defendants had 2 things in common Cooke presided at their
trials, and they were ultimately executed in Huntsville.

Reginald Perkins was a cold-blooded killer, convicted in 2002 of
strangling his stepmother to death "because she wouldn't give him any
money for gasoline," Cooke said. "I let [the prosecution] do a DNA test on
him because they thought they had some other cases he was good for. He
wasn't, but they later found 2 murders in Illinois he was good for. That
was about 2 weeks before he was executed.

"That was the last capital case I did. It went through the system fairly
quickly. It took about 6 years. Ironically, that was Kevin Rousseau's 1st
capital case as a prosecutor. He's a Cleburne boy."

The Johnson County capital case was air tight.

Bobby Ray Hopkins was convicted in 1994 of stabbing 2 Grandview teenaged
girls to death. DNA plus a confession led to Hopkins' execution in 2004.

"[Hopkins] stabbed them 56 times apiece," Cooke said. "We had DNA and a
confession, even though he fought it and claimed [his arrest] was a racial
thing. That was the first DNA case in Johnson County."

The 3rd case, in which Richard Wayne Jones was convicted and sentenced to
death in Fort Worth in 1987, bothers Cooke to this day.

It contributed to his belief that the death penalty is assessed too
liberally in Texas.

Jones, he said, might have been innocent of the crime for which he was
executed in 2000.

"Richard claimed innocence forever," Cooke said. "To be honest, that's
when I started having some doubts about trying capital murder cases. I
tended to believe his story. The facts were that he'd been to the
penitentiary 2 or 3 times. According to his statement [which Jones said
was coerced], he decided he was going to kill somebody when he got out.

"He set up a crafts store in Arlington. A petite lady came in to buy yarn
so she could knit her brother a sweater. [Jones] picked her out at random.
He took her out and raped her and murdered her, then set her on fire.

"When there's a fire, there is no DNA. So there was no way for the jury to
know if he raped her. The jury convicted him. All the way through his
appeals, he said he was innocent. An author in England [Wendy
Schmid-Eastwood] took up his cause. She wrote a book ["Twisted Truth"]
that exerted a lot of influence. She funded his appeal.

"He had the best lawyers, Jack Strickland and Bill Lane at trial level,
and I appointed Allan Butcher on appeal. All 3 were top-notch lawyers who
had tried people who were guilty.

"Lane especially did not think he was guilty, and Allan had some real
doubts. I got a letter from an inmate saying we were killing the wrong
guy, though you always look at those things with a jaundiced eye.

"The case languished a long time [14 years]. Sharon Wilson was the
prosecutor. She went to Huntsville for the execution. Richard looked at
her and said, 'Sharon Wilson, you're killing the wrong man.'?"

Cooke said he did well by Jones.

"Did I do everything I could? Yeah," he said. "I'm convinced he had the
best lawyers. I did have some doubt [about Jones' guilt]. I would have
been more comfortable if he could have been locked away for life with no
parole"

Largely for 2 reasons, capital murder cases have dwindled. The cost of
trying one is prohibitive, and juries now have the option to sentence
defendants to life with no parole.

"The last time I lectured on the subject, a capital trial cost over $3
million," Cooke said. "Well, we can keep a person in prison for life for
about $500,000. Some say it costs too much to keep them locked up, but
that doesn't square. It's a lot cheaper to keep them in a 9 by 6 cell
instead of paying the attorneys' fees and all the other costs that go with
a capital trial. Some counties can't afford it. In Brewster County, the
net tax base wouldnt pay for a capital trial."

Cooke was a young state legislator when the death penalty was abolished in
the early 1970s. He saw the reinstatement of the death penalty in the mid
70s.

"I was very pro capital punishment at the time," he said. "I wouldn't take
it off the books now. There are cases that probably deserve it. But
generally speaking, life without parole is more palatable."

Cooke has said as much at legal gatherings.

"I did a lecture for an advanced criminal law course where all the top
lawyers in Texas come together every year," Cooke said. "They had me talk
on the death penalty, and I raised some strong objections to it. That was
the 1st time I know of that a judge had spoken out about it. I look at it
with a little more critical eye than when I started."

What stipulations would Cooke place on capital punishment?

"That's a good question," he said. "I've wrestled with that my entire 34
years on the bench. I can't give you an answer that is foolproof. There is
always going to be a question mark. You can have DNA to tie someone to the
crime, but you still have to decide culpable intent. Did the person intend
to commit the murder? You can't see inside their minds.

"It's not a debate that's going to go away. It's not a flawless system.
You hope there are enough stopgaps in the appellate system that we dont
execute an innocent person."

(source: Cleburne Times-Review)

death penalty news----TEXAS

Apr. 12

TEXAS:

Different paths to a tragic finish----Teens with contrasting backgrounds
had brief relationship with fatal ending

Cinco Ranch High School student Spenser Vogt lived in a comfortable gated
neighborhood in Katy, drove a nice sports car, worked at a Wal-Mart and
had just been accepted into college.

Lee Carl Banks III lived with his mother in a poorly kept south Houston
apartment complex after being expelled from Yates High School. He had no
car and no job, and was wanted in a Harris County courtroom to explain why
he had botched his probation.

The 2 19-year-old men likely never would have met except for the fact that
both were drawn to a gay chat room, police said.

When their paths crossed online it led to tragic results, with Vogt shot
to death and Banks jailed on a capital murder charge, possibly facing the
death penalty.

Police say they may never know exactly why the pair's 2nd face-to-face
meeting on March 27 turned violent, but said Banks eventually confessed to
shooting Vogt so he could steal the victim's 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse and
other items.

Banks denied robbing or intentionally harming Vogt when interviewed by the
Houston Chronicle at the Harris County Jail last week. He said he fled to
another state in Vogt's car because he was scared.

"I'm very sorry for what I did I know what I did was wrong," Banks said
from inside the jail, where he is being held without bond.

But Banks refused to say what he was apologizing for, even as he denied
robbing and killing Vogt.

He also said they were just friends.

Interviews and public records suggest Banks, a former Yates High School
drum major and one-time aspiring journalist, had problems controlling his
temper.

One Yates High School instructor said she was so badly frightened when
Banks lunged at her in 2007 that she considered quitting her job. Banks
later sent an e-mail to fellow students threatening the teacher's life.

Court records also show Banks was arrested last year on allegations of
assaulting a former boyfriend and damaging his apartment.

"Lee kind of painted himself as everything going downhill, beginning with
the Yates deal and the break-up with the boyfriend," said Fort Bend County
sheriff's Detective Jeff Martin.

Banks' bleak future diverged markedly from Vogt's, whose death came the
day after he had received an acceptance letter from the University of
Texas-San Antonio.

Pair met online

Both Vogt and Banks were openly gay and both were young when their fathers
died. Vogt embraced his homosexuality, describing himself on his MySpace
page as "gay and proud" and posting provocative self-portraits.

Banks also was fond of posting self-portraits on his MySpace page, though
his pictures were less racy sometimes showcasing his new clothes,
expensive suits or new Air Jordan shoes.

Fort Bend County sheriff's investigators and Texas Rangers don't yet know
which man initiated contact with the other.

Police believe Vogt was killed on the men's 2nd date at the apartment
Banks shares with his mother in the 3300 block of Yellowstone. Banks first
told police Vogt found his gun in his room and they struggled, which
caused the gun to fire, striking Vogt in the head.

Handgun is being tested

He told investigators he then wrapped Vogt's head in 2 plastic bags and
put the body in Vogt's car before dumping Vogts remains in a field in
south Houston.

3 days later, a deputy sheriff stopped Banks in Cairo, Ga. about 14 hours
from Houston as Banks headed to Atlanta, driving Vogt's car.

Officers found a gun that Banks said was his a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber
revolver on the car's floorboard, Martin said.

Police are awaiting ballistics test results to see if it was used in the
killing.

Directions provided by Banks later led police to Vogt's body, wrapped in a
blue tarp and dumped in an undeveloped lot in the 5200 block of Fuqua near
Cullen.

An autopsy revealed Vogt had been shot twice in the head once at close
range in the left temple and another time in the base of his skull.

After giving conflicting stories, Banks confessed Monday that he shot Vogt
to steal his car, said Harris County prosecutor Connie Spence.

Investigators found what appeared to be blood on the back patio of the
apartment, a search warrant revealed.

Officers seized all the bedding and sheets from a 2nd-floor bedroom in the
apartment, along with a floor mop, a vacuum cleaner canister, a couch
cushion and fabric cut from a chair.

Banks' life apparently began to unravel when he was expelled from Yates
High School during his senior year in the fall of 2007.

Yates magnet school coordinator Myrtice Newhouse said Banks became
belligerent when she asked for a medical excuse because he had missed
class one day.

She said Banks followed her out of her office, then lunged at her in front
of a school police officer.

"He just lost his mind," Newhouse said. "He was hollering, screaming. It
made me contemplate quitting. It frightened me that bad."

The expulsion also led to Banks removal from the Houston Chronicle
Classroom, a program designed to expose high school students to
journalism.

In an e-mail to classmates this January, his continuing anger toward
Newhouse was obvious more than a year after the incident.

"I was so mad at that point I really wanted (to) take her life, but they
had me handcuffed to a chair," Banks wrote.

On his MySpace page, he claimed to attend the University of Houston, but
there are no records showing he ever enrolled there.

In March 2008, Houston police arrested Banks on allegations that he struck
his then-boyfriend and pushed him into a window.

He pleaded guilty to Class A assault of a family member and was placed on
deferred adjudication for one year, but failed to comply with his
probation, court records show.

Prosecutors sought to revoke Banks probation and convict him of the
assault charge, saying he hadn't taken part in a domestic violence
treatment program and had not paid court fees.

He was arrested March 18 9 days before the killing then released from
jail with orders to return to court March 30 for a probation revocation
hearing.

Banks failed to show up in court that day, though, because he had fled
Texas in Vogt's car. Deputies stopped him in Georgia that same day.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

Re- Texas death row Inmate Reginald Blanton 999395

Reginald Blanton's case is one riddled with injustices. The Initial
suspect could not be found. The only two witnesses were forced to sign
statements against Reginald, under threats of being charged with the
crime. These witnesses were Reginalds brother, Robert, and Robert's then
pregnant girlfriend. Prosecutors racially excluded African Americans from
serving on his jury. The shoe print on the victims kicked in apartment
door did not match the shoes Reginald wore the day of the crime. Reginald
was wrongly convicted of murdering his friend and robbing him of jewelry
that already belonged to Reginald! His appellant Attorney refused to
represent his legal interest, ignored all of Reginald's letters pleading
this attorney to file what amounted to innocence claims and because of
this failure, all Reginalds innocence claims were procedurally barred
from ever being heard.

REGINALDS OWN WORDS

7 years, 7... Long... years I've struggled to be heard; struggled through
my isolation like a flower fighting to grow through concrete. My only
hope... that some rain may come before the sun makes me wither away. The
sun? People's misconception that the criminal justice system works;
peoples misconception that I can't be a man behind bars, inside concrete,
on Death Row. An innocent man on top of that. The silence and
indifference is hot, scorching! My state Habeas attorney refused to file
any of my innocence claims I wrote to him about; pleaded to him about,
over the course of the year, he, what the system calls, represented me. I
swear I don't know who that "me" is. Because it wasn't Reginald W.
Blanton. So I compiled the carbon copies I had of these letters together
and filed it in a petition to the court. It was my cry: LOOK! My
representation "is not representing me. He won't file my innocence claims
which have merit because most of it is already recorded!

But the court ignored me. Not a word--though I sent it to the judge,
court clerk, DA's office, and my own attorney, certified mail/ return
receipt. Then I filed the same petition to the next court (C.C.A) and
they ignored me. I even filed a grievance to the State Bar against my
State Habeas attorney and they acted as if they read someone else's
grievance, stating my grievance didn't allege any misconduct, classifying
it as an inquiry. I wasn't inquiring about anything. I was showing them
the significance of my claims and how the attorney failed to file them.
Now as a result of my State Habeas attorney's refusal to represent
my legal interest at the state Habeas stage of my appeal, all my
innocence claims have been procedurally barred. My case now sits in the
Supreme Court which will be heard shortly.
7 long years, at just 27 years old, I've fought hard. And over the
years my supporters and I have contacted, lord knows how many
Organizations across the world, from California, to New York on to United
Kingdom and Europe, and almost everywhere in between, and they have all
said the same thing: Don't have the resources; don't have the time; don't
have! don't have!
Proving I'm innocent after I'm murdered wrongfully by the State will
not resurrect me, nor my mama or my wife; because they will surely die
inside if I lose my life.

Will you, too, burn me with your silence, your indifference, or will you
contact my wife who will put you in contact with my court appointed
Federal attorney who is fighting, against the seed of judicial time, to
save the life of the quadriplegic appeal my previous state Habeas
Attorney left behind? Now this is an "inquiry".

My wife, Sandie, can be contacted at:
reggieblanton@hotmail.com

<mailto:reggieblanton@hotmail.com> or

lawofparties@hotmail.com
<mailto:lawofparties@hotmail.com>

My myspace page is
www.myspace.com/freereggieb<http://www.myspace.com/freereggieb>

Everything I Am,
because I have nothing left
Reginald "Omari" Blanton

REGINALD'S PETITION

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/SaveReginald

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 11

TEXAS:

Killer who tore out own eyes fuels Texas debate on insanity defense

Everyone agrees Andre Thomas is crazy.

In 2004, he cut out the hearts of his wife and her 2 children and pocketed
them. Before his murder trial, he plucked out his right eye. In January,
while on death row, he ripped out his other eye and swallowed it.

Thus far, courts say Thomas is not insane.

His case is a classic example of the complexities of Texas' insanity
defense law and why some mental health advocates are pushing to change
it. Several bills pending in the Texas Legislature would do just that.

With medication and treatment, Thomas eventually was found mentally
competent to stand trial, because he could communicate and assist his
attorney in his defense. At trial, he was found to be sane at the time of
the crime because he knew the difference between right and wrong. And he
may be found competent to be executed if he understands what execution
means and why he is being killed.

Thomas is "clearly 'crazy,' " a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals wrote in a concurring denial of his appeal last month, "but he is
also 'sane' under Texas law."

Death penalty opponent Maurie Levin, an adjunct professor at the
University of Texas School of Law, is appalled. "There is something just
horribly wrong with a system that permits somebody as severely mentally
ill as Andre Thomas to be found competent to stand trial or sane at the
time of that crime," said Levin, who consulted with Thomas' defense
attorney.

"We need to change the law," said Brian Shannon, a Texas Tech law
professor, because a mentally ill person may know their conduct is wrong
but be unable to fully comprehend the situation because the illness
affects his "emotional state and thinking and reasoning ability."

Some defendants, such as Thomas, know killing is wrong but say God is
telling them to do it.

Proposed legislation

Shannon supports bills pending in the Legislature to broaden the law, in
all cases, not just capital cases, to say that a defendant must
"appreciate," not just "know," the difference between right and wrong and
that the wrong should be a moral one, not just legal.

Such changes, which have been proposed in past sessions, would bring Texas
closer to the federal standard on insanity. Supporters are hopeful for
passage this time, but for now, the Texas law is similar to that in other
states.

"Texas is right within the norm," said Bruce Winick, who teaches law at
the University of Miami, and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the
medical school. "People aren't going to say, 'Oh, there goes Texas again.'
"

Texas, like many states, narrowed the insanity defense in the 1980s amid
outrage over John Hinckley's acquittal in the attempted assassination of
President Ronald Reagan. Hinckley has been confined to a mental hospital
since 1982.

Shannon said Texas law also should change to inform jurors what happens to
defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity. They do not "just walk
free," he said.

A bill authored by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, would allow jurors
to be told that such defendants are sent to a mental hospital if
acquitted. Long-term hospitalization is not guaranteed, but "even if
someone gets well and is discharged, there's still oversight by the
court," Shannon said.

Prosecutors oppose efforts to broaden the not guilty by reason of insanity
defense.

"The people who are truly mentally ill, to the degree that their
functioning is impaired, I think they are protected by the existing
system," said Karla Hackett, who handled the Thomas appeal for Grayson
County.

Thomas' attorneys had numerous opportunities to explain the effect of his
mental illness to jurors. In the weeks before the murders, Thomas heard
voices, behaved strangely and left mental facilities without treatment.

But jurors also heard how he planned the crime, intentionally avoided
detection, then turned himself in to authorities. Prosecutors said
drinking and drug use also contributed to his psychotic episodes.

"There's no doubt he has mental illness," Hackett said, but " why does he
have mental illness?" Under Texas law if the illness is caused or worsened
by "voluntary intoxication" such as drug or alcohol abuse, "you don't get
to claim insanity."

Levin said the prosecution is implying that "if he hadn't been
intoxicated, he wasn't crazy, he was faking. I think Andre's actions since
the crime including gouging out his eye pretrial and taking out a
remaining eye 3 months ago have proven them wrong."

Jurors weigh in

Jurors heard experts from both sides, but didn't buy the argument that
Thomas' mental illness meant he shouldn't be held criminally accountable,
Hackett said.

Thomas' appellate attorneys, who declined to comment, claim his trial
counsel was ineffective. Appellate courts have disagreed and deferred to
the jury's judgment.

"What angers people is when they don't know the whole case," Hackett said.
"It's, 'Oh, my gosh, he's got no eyeball, I can't believe they're doing
this, he must be crazy.' Well, don't say that until you've been there,
until you've sat in the jury box for 6 weeks."

Hackett said changing the wording of the law would "open up a whole new
area of litigation. Now we're going to argue, what does the word
appreciate mean? Whose morals?"

Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said the current law
"strikes the appropriate balance."

Informing jurors about what happens if the defendant is found not guilty
by reason of insanity would make the process less objective, Bradley said.
He thinks jurors might speculate about what could happen and be
"frightened into convicting the defendant" if they understood the limits
of judicial oversight when a defendant is found not guilty by reason of
insanity.

High court ruling?

Winick, the University of Miami instructor, expects the U.S. Supreme Court
eventually to weigh in on the issue. So far, the court has ruled only that
an inmate must be competent to be executed. Last summer the high court
also ruled a mentally ill defendant cannot represent himself in court.

But the court has not ruled on whether an inmate may be forcibly medicated
to render him competent and therefore eligible for execution. That issue
may be ripe for the Supreme Court to decide.

Winick thinks the court ultimately may have to rule whether it is
unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on someone who is sane but
mentally ill. That issue is a "natural extension," he said, of the court's
decisions prohibiting execution for the mentally retarded and juveniles
because they have less ability to understand the consequences of their
crimes.

Ron Honberg, director of policy and legal affairs for the National
Alliance on Mental Illness, said it probably would be years before the
issue reaches the court. The decisions regarding mental retardation and
juveniles relied heavily on the fact that more than half of the states had
abolished the death penalty for those individuals. So far, only a handful
of states are even considering a ban on executing the mentally ill. Texas
is not among them.

DETERMINING INSANITY

Under current state law, mentally ill defendants undergo tests of mental
competence at several stages:

1. Before trial: Defendants must be able to understand the trial process
and be able to communicate with their attorney and understand the
proceedings. A judge may make the determination at an examining trial
where the defendant is represented by an attorney and may present evidence
from experts. The defendant may request a jury decision.

2. At the time of the crime: If the defendant claims at trial to be not
guilty by reason of insanity, he must prove he did not know his conduct
was wrong while committing the crime. As in any criminal trial, he may
request a judge or a jury.

3. At the time of execution: If the case results in a death penalty, an
inmate cannot be executed if he does not understand what it means to be
executed and why he is being put to death. If a claim of incompetence is
made, a judge must hold a hearing to determine competency. Lower courts
differ on whether an inmate may be forcibly medicated to achieve
competency, which makes him eligible for execution. The U.S. Supreme Court
has not ruled on forcible medication.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 10

TEXAS:

Let's push for moratorium on death penalty in Texas

Losing a loved one to death is a tragic, painful experience. The pain is
even more searing when the loved one is an innocent or a bystander whose
life is cut short by a vicious crime.

But, does the death-penalty truly serve as a deterrent?

Statistics resoundingly say no.

Does the death sentence assuage the pain?

Many family members of these crime victims do not receive the "closure"
they seek.

On this Good Friday, perhaps we should consider the efficacy of the death
penalty.

We can look at the image of the crucified Christ and see the victims of
horrific murders. But can we see beyond those victims to the prisoner
condemned to death for a heinous crime? Is death the only option?

Since 2005, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has called
for a moratorium on the death penalty, urging the alternative of life
without parole.

Texas leads the nation in executions. Since its 1976 reinstatement, 1,156
people have been executed in the U.S.; 435 in the state of Texas, 37.6 %
of the national total.

The question of true guilt or innocence is a telling one -- 133 people
have been released from death row after exoneration, having spent years in
prison for crimes they did not commit. There have been questions around
the Texas executions of Ruben Cantu, Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna,
who were probably innocent.

Over 69 % of death-row inmates are minorities. There were 22 executions of
juveniles in the U.S. between 1985 and 2005; in Texas, 13 juveniles have
been executed.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the executions of those who
were juveniles at the time of their offenses were unconstitutional and 29
death sentences were commuted to life sentences.

Texas has executed 6 people with mental retardation since 1982. In 2001,
Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a bill that would have banned these executions. On
June 20, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with
mental retardation violates the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment
prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment," banning them in every
state.

Despite this, Johnny Penry, suffering from mental retardation, was
sentenced to death on July 3, 2002. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court had
refused to reinstate Penry's death sentence. In 2008, Texas agreed to a
plea bargain and he is serving serve life without parole.

Under the Law of Parties, a person who "should have anticipated" a murder
can receive the death penalty for the actions of another. A person
sentenced to death under the Law of Parties has not killed anyone. They
are accomplices or co-conspirators of 1 felony, such as robbery, during
which another person killed someone. There is currently legislation
pending in the Texas Legislature to prevent this application of the death
penalty.

On June 17, 2005, Texas juries were given the option of sentencing capital
defendants to life without parole.

On March 18, 2009, New Mexico repealed the death penalty, in favor of life
without parole.

In all 36 death-penalty states, juries now have the option of sentencing
defendants to life without parole.

The U.S. bishops call us to reflect, saying "The test of whether the death
penalty can be used is whether society has alternative ways to protect
itself, not how terrible the crime was. Life in prison without parole
provides a non-lethal alternative to the death penalty. We cannot tell
whether God has a purpose for a person's life, even one who has committed
a terrible crime and must spend his or her life behind bars."

(source: Opinion; Ouisa D. Davis is an attorney at law in El Paso----El
Paso Times)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 7

TEXAS:

A state district judge in Austin today is expected to formally clear a man
who died in prison 13 years into a 25-year sentence for a rape he did not
commit, making him the 1st posthumous DNA exoneration in Texas history.

Jerry Wayne Johnson testified at a court of legal inquiry that he
committed the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech student for which Timothy Cole (in
the portrait) was convicted. State District Judge Charles Baird already
indicated after a February hearing that he would exonerate Timothy Cole,
who was convicted of a 1985 sexual assault of a Texas Tech University
student. Baird is expected to reveal the legal reasoning for his decision
during a hearing today in his Austin courtroom, lawyers from the Innocence
Project of Texas said.

Cole died in 1999 at 38 of complications from asthma.

He always maintained his innocence.

It's cold comfort to Cole's family, but at least he didn't die at the
hands of the state. Still, it will be only a matter of time before DNA
shows that the state of Texas executed an innocent man on death row. This
is why I oppose the death penalty. I cannot agree that murderers don't
deserve to pay for their crime with their life. They do. But I do not have
enough faith in human judgment to put a man to death, based on "beyond
reasonable doubt." If the state dramatically raised the bar for capital
murder cases to mandate DNA evidence as well as multiple eyewitnesses, I
would support maintaining the death penalty. But nobody's talking about
that, and I believe today's DNA exoneration of Cole is a sign of things to
come on the death penalty front.

When that day comes, what, then? Will people shrug and say, "Oh well, you
can't win 'em all"? Or will there be some serious move toward reforming
our death penalty, even if we don't abolish it?

(source: Opinion, Rod Dreher, Dallas Morning News)

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

Book Reviews----A Saint on Death Row ---- The life story of a young man
who transformed himself and others during his 11 years in prison.

A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green Nan A. Talese 144 pp.,
$22 Dominique Green, a poor black man from Houston, could easily have
ended up like others executed on Texass Death Row: buried beneath a
headstone sporting nothing but an X and a date. Instead, his ashes are
buried in the shadow of a beautiful basilica in Rome.

They are there because of his ingenuity and the remarkable transformation
he brought about in his own life and the lives of others during the 11
years he spent in the most restricted section of state prison.

In A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green, Thomas Cahill pays
poignant tribute to a young life that ended at age 30 by lethal injection,
but affected almost all who met him. After visiting Dominique in prison,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Greens hero, called him "a
remarkable advertisement for God."

Cahill, author of the bestselling, seven-book "Hinges of History in the
Western World" series including "How the Irish Saved Civilization" and
"The Gifts of the Jews" came to know Green well and care about him
deeply. They met through a retired judge from Chicago, Sheila Murphy, who
was working to win the young Texan's freedom.

Green died for his role in a robbery at a convenience store that resulted
in a shooting and a man's death. A white youth in the group of teens was
not charged, and a jury without any black members convicted Green,
although someone else's fingerprints were on the gun. The victim's family
believed in his innocence and opposed the execution.

Cahill's moving tale shines a sharp light on a negligent and flawed
justice system, and on a state that uses the death penalty far beyond any
other. Texas has executed at least 425 people since the penalty was
reinstated in 1976, while the next highest state, Virgina, has executed
102.

Yet Green's story is also a stand-in for thousands, perhaps millions, of
other American youths who get into trouble because they were raised in
poor and abusive environments, and whose potential is often snuffed out.

As a small child, he was raped by a priest at his school. His mother, also
abused in her youth, became an alcoholic and drug user, and once punished
him by holding his palm over a burning flame. The youngster fled home with
his 2 smaller brothers in tow, and struggled from then on to feed, clothe,
and house them. Forced to steal in order to do so, he ended up several
times in juvenile detention, where he was raped again.

The preponderance of Green's heartrending story, however, plays out on
death row, where he fought to prove his innocence and read and read. One
of the books that changed this bright young mans life, Archbishop Tutu's
"No Future Without Forgiveness," lit a flame. He set about forgiving those
in his life who had hurt him and seeking forgiveness from others. And he
began nudging other men on Death Row to do the same.

Dominique organized football pools, lessons on the law, and encouraged the
men to contribute their innermost thoughts to a manuscript, seeking among
other goals to eliminate the racial prejudices that divided them. Excerpts
from their poems and prose reverberate with self knowledge, intelligence,
caring, and descriptive power.

As his appeals failed, Green reached out to Italy, where the death penalty
is frowned on. Sending a letter to Italian newspapers seeking help and
friendship, he won several pen pals and support from the Community of
Sant'Egidio, a Catholic religious movement active in peacebuilding around
the world. SantEgidio involved Judge Murphy, who became like a mother as
well as a lawyer to Green, while her son became his close friend.

But it was too late the Texas system and appeals courts were indifferent.
He was executed on October 26, 2004.

While Green's innocence was never established, Cahill says the most
important question is, "Did he receive a fair trial?" The narrative leaves
little doubt that answer is "no."

Given the stark power of this tragic tale, it's unfortunate that Cahill
begins his storytelling with a prologue that tends to undermine his
purpose. His description of his first impressions of Green is so glowing
that one is immediately on guard as to whether this writer was predisposed
by some leanings of his own to find a saint in a prison cell. Once the
history itself takes over, however, the young inmate's special character
comes to the fore.

Those engaged in the growing movement to end the death penalty in the
United States will find inspiration and help for their efforts from this
short but riveting book. Others will be moved and reminded that many
behind bars have much to offer if given the chance.

What stands out most, though, is the incredible price society pays for
indifference indifference to the needs of children, to flagrantly unjust
systems, and to youths, often victims of abuse themselves, who are locked
up and forgotten.

(source: Jane Lampman is the Monitor's religion reporter; Christian
Science Monitor)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 6

TEXAS:

Take pains to spare innocent

Re: "Restoring Justice -- Lawmakers move urgent reform closer to reality,"
Sunday Editorials. I join you in thanking and congratulating state Sen.
Royce West and Sen. Rodney Ellis for their leadership in helping innocent
people who may have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit,
and for establishing an innocence commission to lessen the chances of an
innocent person being sent to prison -- or worse, to death row.

If our district attorney, Craig Watkins, has already brought about the
exoneration of 19 innocent men from just the Dallas area, how many more
innocent are among the hundreds on death row? How do we expect previously
incarcerated people to succeed without help?

We get 500 of them monthly returning to Dallas to look for jobs and
housing. If we refuse to help them, crime due to recidivism puts all
citizens at risk.

I reluctantly still believe we must resort to the death penalty in certain
horrible criminal cases, but we must use every possible methodology to
avoid putting innocent people to death.

We have killed innocent people and will do more if we don't follow the
lead of West, Ellis and Watkins. I know this because I was there. All of
us want a safer Texas, but not at the expense of innocent people.

Charles T. Terrell, former chairman of the board, Texas Criminal Justice
Department, Addison

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

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

Hearing set in judge's misconduct case

The Texas appeals court judge who declined to keep her office open late
the night of an execution will appear before a state panel on misconduct
charges in August.

Sharon Keller, the top judge in Texas' highest criminal appeals court,
will have a public hearing before a specially appointed judge Aug. 17, the
Judicial Conduct Commission said Monday.

Keller is accused of ignoring execution day procedures on the Court of
Criminal Appeals and bringing "public discredit on the judiciary" by
refusing to keep the court open past 5 p.m. Attorneys for Michael Wayne
Richard say keeping the office open later may have helped in their appeal
efforts hours before Richard was executed.

Keller has said she did nothing to stop attorneys from using other
established routes for after-hours appeals.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Man admits to unsolved murder before execution

In the final hours of his life, condemned murderer Luis Salazar talked not
of the stabbing that led him to death row but of another murder, one he
had gotten away with.

Encouraged to confess by his spiritual adviser, Salazar told investigators
that he stabbed a San Antonio convenience store clerk, leaving her to die
in a beer refrigerator case on Easter in 1992 a confession that solved an
old case in which he had never been a suspect, San Antonio Police Chief
William McManus said Monday.

"We were at a standstill until this confession," McManus said.

Salazar was executed March 11 for the 1997 attempted rape and stabbing
death of a San Antonio mother, a crime that occurred more than five years
after the clerk's death. His confession to the killing of 19-year-old
Melissa Morales came just a little more than an hour before he was
executed.

McManus said Salazar also confessed to a 3rd murder in the San Antonio
area, but investigators believe the victim in that case survived.

Police notified Morales' family late last week that the long-dormant case
had been solved.

"At least now we can have some peace," said Alma DeLeon, Morales' mother,
who helped fight for a Texas law requiring convenience stores to have
surveillance cameras. "We felt a lot of anger through the years. We just
knew. We just had faith in God, we knew this day would come."

Since Morales' death, her family has celebrated an annual Mass in her
honor, praying for closure in the April 19, 1992, case. This year's will
be special, said DeLeon, who cried during a news conference with McManus.

DeLeon said she is relieved that Salazar cannot hurt anyone else, but she
wishes she could face him to tell him and ask him, "Why?"

Police believe robbery was the motive. Salazar had been given probation
for aggravated robbery in convenience store holdups several years before
Morales' murder.

Morales' sister, Stephanie DeLeon, was 9 when her sister was killed, and
she said the murder forced her to grow up quickly.

"We never forgot about her. She's with us every day of our lives," she
said.

The store near St. Mary's University where Morales was killed didn't have
a surveillance camera, and because of her death and several other violent
incidents at convenience stores, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, then a House
representative, introduced legislation requiring cameras and other safety
measures in Texas stores.

In 1993, Texas law began requiring cameras, outdoor lighting and cash
registers in clear view from the outside for stores open overnight.

"I'm just so thankful that Melissa's family kind of has closure," said the
San Antonio Democrat who has known Morales' grandparents for 40 years. "I
always knew her death was not in vain because we really changed things."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Texas Death Row Inmate Helps Solve Cold Case

About 1 hour before he was executed for the 1997 stabbing death of a
woman, a San Antonio man confessed to law enforcement authorities about an
unsolved murder in 1992.

According to a news release from the San Antonio Police Department, as
Luis Cervantes Salazar was getting ready March 11 to be put to death for
the fatal stabbing of Martha Sanchez, he told a Texas Ranger that he
killed Melissa Morales, a convenience store clerk, during a robbery at a
Stop n Go at Woodlawn and 36th Street on Easter Sunday. Morales was
stabbed 13 times.

Texas Rangers then contacted SAPD cold case detectives about Salazar's
confession, and upon confirmation, notified Morales' parents and
grandparents on April 2.

After the slaying, Morales' relatives were instrumental in getting a bill
passed that required convenience stores in Texas to install security
cameras.

(source: KSAT News)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 3

TEXAS----new execution date

Kenneth Mosley has been given an execution date of July 16; it shoudl be
considered serious.

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 2

TEXAS----stay of impending execution

Killer of South Texas sheriff wins reprieve

A condemned inmate set to die next week for fatally shooting a South Texas
sheriff almost 20 years ago won a reprieve Thursday from the Texas Court
of Criminal Appeals.

Jose Briseno, 51, was scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday for gunning
down Dimmit County Sheriff Ben "Doc" Murray at the 68-year-old sheriff's
home in Carizzo Springs, about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio.

Briseno has been on death row for 17 years.

The state's highest criminal court, acting on an appeal filed by Briseno's
attorneys, agreed to look at whether the trial jury in Laredo deciding his
punishment never received proper instructions about how to consider
mitigating evidence of Briseno's unstable family, troubled background,
limited intellectual ability and poverty.

"The Texas courts have wrestled with this issue in numerous cases since
1989, when the Supreme Court first addressed this problem with the Texas
capital sentencing procedure," Richard Burr, Briseno's lead lawyer, said.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2004 in another Texas capital case appeal
that focused on punishment instructions "has given the Court of Criminal
Appeals reason to revisit this issue in cases involving crimes that
occurred before September 1991," he said.

Murray, who had been sheriff for 20 years, was killed in January 1991.

Briseno originally was scheduled to die in January but a state judge reset
the date to Tuesday so a disabled friend from England could make
arrangements to come to Texas and visit him on death row.

Burr had argued in 2002 that Briseno was mentally retarded and ineligible
for the death penalty under Supreme Court rules and won a reprieve for
Briseno less than 4 hours before he could have been put to death.

Murray had arrested Briseno in the past and authorities speculated the
killing could have been out of revenge. At the time of the slaying,
Briseno had been on parole almost a year.

A visitor to the sheriff's home found his body the morning of Jan. 6,
1991. Murray had been shot with his own gun and a butcher knife was left
buried in his chest. By that evening, Briseno and a companion, Albert
Gonzales, were under arrest.

Blood samples taken from the carpet at the sheriff's house matched
Briseno's blood and the sheriff's blood was found on Briseno's clothing.

After his arrest, Briseno and 2 other inmates broke out of the Zavala
County Jail in Crystal City and remained at large for a couple of days.

Gonzales, who lived next door to the sheriff, received a life prison term.
Briseno got the death penalty.

Briseno would have been the 13th Texas inmate executed this year in the
nation's most active death penalty state.

Scheduled next to die, on April 15, is Michael Rosales, 35, convicted of
the murder of 67-year-old Mary Felder during a burglary of her Lubbock
home in 1997. Felder was stabbed more than 100 times with a steak knife, a
2-pronged kitchen fork and a pair of needle-nose pliers.

(source: Associated Press)

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

April 3

TEXAS:

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

Impending Texas execution schedule # since 1982 # under Perry

Apr.
15 Michael Rosales 436 197
30 Derrick Johnson 437 198

May
19 Michael Lynn Riley 438 199

June
2 Terry Hankins 439 200

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 2

TEXAS:

Neighbor accused in death of 13-year-old Arlington girl

Neighbors at an Arlington apartment complex where a 13-year-old girl was
strangled said they are worried about the safety of their children.

Police remained at Cedar Point Apartments in the 2000 block of Cherry
Point Drive three days after Elizabeth Villa was found in her apartment.
Her mother had tried to wake up Elizabeth for school Monday but she was
not breathing. Police said she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Her neighbor, Rodrigo Sanchez, 24, was arrested Wednesday and charged with
capital murder. He remained in Arlington jail this morning in lieu of $1
million bail.

According to police records, Elizabeth was found lying on her bedroom
floor. Her bedroom window was open and the screen had been removed. An
armoire that had been against the windown had also been pushed aside.

Investigators lifted finger and palm prints from the window and
fingerprints from the furniture, according to police records. Those prints
matched those belonging to Sanchez. The family told police Sanchez had no
reason to be in their apartment.

Sanchez, who lives in the same apartment building as Elizabeth, had been
arrested previously on Class C misdemeanor counts, police said.

Yellow police tape remained outside the Elizabeth's apartment this morning
and flowers had been placed near the apartment.

Regina Busby, who lives upstairs from Sanchez, said she has a 17-year-old
daughter and has warned her about what has happened. "We just haven't gone
outside much since," she said.

Jessica Vargas, 13, was schoolmates with Elizabeth at Hutcheson Junior
High School. "She was a nice girl," Jessica said. "Everyone knew her at
school."

School principal Rose Mary Bolden said Elizabeth was a 7th grader who was
enrolled in honors classes and known for her beautiful smile and bubbly
personality.

"It's been a hard week for everyone," she said. "We're doing everything we
can to help them (students) work through their grief."

The school is planning to hold a memorial service for students and parents
from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Friday.

A funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at St. Matthew Catholic Church
at 2021 New York Ave.

"We are going to miss her a lot," Bolden said. "She was our little ray of
sunshine."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Former Texas nurse charged with injecting 10 patients with bleach, killing
5

A former nurse has been charged with injecting 10 patients with bleach at
a Texas dialysis clinic last year, killing 5 of them.

Kimberly Saenz was indicted by a grand jury on 1 count of capital murder
and 5 counts of aggravated assault in connection with a spate of patient
deaths last April at a DaVita Inc. dialysis center in Texas.

The clinic temporarily shut down last year after the unexplained spike in
deaths, then later reopened under heavy state oversight.

The 35-year-old Saenz is charged with injecting bleach into each of the
patients.

Her attorney, John Henry Tatum, didn't immediately return a call
Wednesday.

(source: Associated Press)

death penalty news----TEXAS

April 1

TEXAS:

Death Penalty Sought In De Jesus Killing

A man accused of kidnapping and shooting a woman to death outside her
Brazoria County workplace was charged with capital murder and could face
the death penalty, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

Deputies said Nicolas-Michael Edwin Jean, 21, led them to the body of
Susana De Jesus after he was arrested for a carjacking in Pearland.
Investigators said Jean admitted during questioning that he was present
when De Jesus was killed.

De Jesus was abducted on Feb. 2 while getting into her car after she left
her job at Catherine's Plus Sizes clothing boutique on Smith Ranch Road
near F.M. 518 at about 9:15 p.m. The 37-year-old was found dead inside the
back of an 18-wheeler near Reliant Arena on March 10.

The capital murder indictment said Jean shot De Jesus while attempting to
rob and kidnap her. Prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty.

Jean denies being the trigger man.

Investigators said it appeared that Jean picked De Jesus at random.

A Brazoria County grand jury handed down the capital murder indictment.

"The crime itself underscores the fact that there is no safe place," said
Brian Wice, KPRC Local 2's legal analyst. "Tragedy and trouble can
ultimately find you in spite of the fact that you think you happen to be
in a nice section of town. I think to a jury panel in Brazoria County that
will ultimately consider this case, that is going to be an important
consideration in putting a human face on the victim."

A suspected accomplice, Wallace Charles Ledet IV, 25, is also jailed in
connection with the Pearland carjacking, and investigators said he is also
suspected of being involved in the kidnapping and murder of De Jesus.

(source: click2houston.com)

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

Suspect indicted in De Jesus abduction-slaying

A man suspected in the kidnapping and death of a Pearland woman found dead
weeks after she disappeared was indicted Tuesday on a charge of capital
murder.

Nicholas-Michael Edwin Jean, 21, is accused in the death of Susana De
Jesus, 37.

Her body was found in an 18-wheel truck's trailer parked near Reliant Park
on March 11 after she had disappeared Feb. 2. She had been shot.

Jean was indicted by a Brazoria County grand jury, officials said. He also
is accused of several other crimes.

Jean led investigators to the woman's decomposed body in the 9000 block of
Knight Road after he was captured March 10 following a day-long manhunt
that began with an attempted carjacking of a Pearland resident.

He admitted being present when De Jesus was killed shortly after he took
her from a Pearland parking lot as she left a dress shop, where she was
assistant manager. He has not said who killed her.

Police also arrested Wallace Charles Ledet IV, 25, of Pearland, and
charged him with aggravated kidnapping in De Jesus' disappearance. They
say he was Jean's accomplice.

Police said Ledet told investigators that he was in his Ford F-150 with
Jean when Jean saw a black 2008 Cadillac in a Pearland shopping center
parking lot and told him to pull in, according to court documents in the
case.

As 2 women walked toward the Cadillac, Jean pulled a pistol from a bag and
got out, Ledet told an investigator. Ledet said Jean approached the women
and ordered De Jesus into her Cadillac.

As the car left the parking lot, Ledet drove away in his truck but did not
follow the car, Ledet told police. He said he was not present when De
Jesus died.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Death row inmate wins new punishment hearing

A convicted killer sent to death row for a double slaying in San Antonio
won a new punishment trial Wednesday because his lawyer did a poor job
preparing for the penalty phase of his capital murder trial.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Ricky Eugene Kerr returned to
Bexar County for a new punishment hearing.

Kerr was convicted and condemned a year after the 1994 slayings of his
landlord, Elizabeth McDaniel, 57, and her son, Garry Lawrence Barbier, 42.
Both were fatally shot and Barbier was struck several times in the head
with a hammer in the culmination of an apparent dispute over Kerr's lease.
Evidence showed that on the day of the killings the water at Kerr's home
had been turned off and authorities had served Kerr with an eviction
notice.

The appeals court in 1997 upheld Kerr's conviction and death sentence.

In 1998, he got within days of execution before a federal judge halted the
punishment amid questions about the legal competence of his then
state-appointed appeals lawyer.

Acting on a later appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals last year returned
the case to his trial court in San Antonio to review whether his lawyer's
lack of preparation contributed to a jury deciding Kerr should be
executed.

In its ruling Wednesday, the state's highest criminal court noted the
trial court judge found Kerr's trial attorney "failed to prepare for the
punishment stage of the trial because they believed the jury would not
find (Kerr) guilty."

The court agreed Kerr's lawyer wasn't aware of evidence that Kerr had a
history of physical and emotional abuse, family violence, abuse by his
father, alcoholism, mentally retarded siblings, drug abuse, head injuries,
learning disabilities and possible fetal alcohol syndrome.

The trial court said the question to be decided was whether jurors would
have reached a different conclusion knowing about some or all of the
mitigating factors in Kerr's background.

"We agree that this is the issue," the appeals court said.

Kerr, 49, a former truck driver and native of Peoria, Ill., does not have
an execution date. The 11th-grade dropout in 1980 was sentenced to 2 years
for theft in Illinois and had been paroled from there in 1981.

In another Texas death row case, the appeals court rejected an appeal from
convicted murderer Arthur Lee Burton, who contended his trial judge
improperly allowed into evidence his admission to a prison sociologist
that he killed a woman in Houston in 1997 and that his attorney was
deficient in not properly objecting to the evidence.

Burton's original death sentence was thrown out by the appeals court and
he was given another punishment trial in 2002.

A Harris County jury deliberated over 2 days before deciding he should
return to death row for the rape, beating and strangling of Nancy Adleman,
a 48-year-old mother of three. Adleman was attacked while jogging along a
secluded trail bordering a bayou on Houston's west side. Evidence showed
she was strangled with one of her own shoe laces.

Burton, who turned 39 Sunday, does not have an execution date.

(source: Houston Chronicle)