Click here to watch the full episode of 48 Hours on Yogurt Shop online.

The Statesman has this summary:

Austin’s 1991 yogurt shop murder case was featured on a CBS television show Saturday night, about ten weeks after the October dismissal of charges against Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, both once convicted of capital murder in the case.

The show “48 Hours Mystery” chronicled elements of the 18-year-old case from the beginning and featured interviews with Springsteen, the original investigators and family members of the four teenage girls who were murdered in December 1991 at the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane.

In 1999 Springsteen and Scott each said in interviews with Austin police that they participated in the killings. Their lawyers later argued that those confessions are false and came under psychological pressure from detectives.

Perhaps the most compelling part of the CBS account was when former Austin police lead investigator John Jones said he recently reviewed the confessions in the case and does not think Scott and Springsteen are guilty.

The Texas Observer is reporting in the article “Cracked“, by Renée Feltz that the prosecution’s expert psychologist used junk science to determine that the defendant in the case in which Sharon Keller slammed shut the doors of her court by saying “we close at 5” did not have mental retardation. Michael Richard, the person whom Texas executed after Sharon Keller said “we close at 5”, would probably have been found to be constitutionally protected from being subject to the death penalty, if the state’s expert psychologist had not used junk science to incorrectly determine that he did not have mental retardation.

The now discredited psychologist, George Denkowski, also handled 17 other Texas death penalty cases in which the people are still on Texas’ death row, all of which would need to be re-evaluated, if Denkowski loses his license as a result of a hearing to be held Feb 16 in Austin.

From the Observer article:

In 2005, Brown and Denkowski tested Michael Richard, who had been sentenced to death for the 1986 rape and murder of a 53-year-old Houston woman named Marguerite Dixon. Based on test scores and school records, Brown concluded that Richard was mentally retarded, and had been all his life.

At first, Denkowski agreed that Richard was mentally retarded. As the state’s expert, he had submitted a finding that Richard had an IQ of 64 and adaptive-behavior scores that clearly showed mental retardation. His combined score was a 57, well below the 70 cutoff. But Denkowski retracted his findings after prosecutors showed him a list of books that were found in Richard’s cell, including two dictionaries. Denkowski said the dictionaries showed that Richard could read much better than he had indicated under testing. He adjusted several of Richard’s scores. When he added them up, the total score jumped from 57 to 76. In his new opinion, Denkowski concluded that Richard should no longer be considered mentally retarded.

When Brown saw the prosecution’s list of books, he met with Richard a second time to ask him about his reading abilities and clarify how he’d used the books in his cell—one of which was written in German. Denkowski had not followed up with Richard to ask about the books. Richard described to Brown how he stacked the books on top of each other and used them to sit on, since his death row cell lacked a chair.

Even so, the judge accepted Denkowski’s revised score. In September 2007, Richard was executed. Brown was appalled. “To those of us familiar with the right way to do these things, it is very apparent that what he’s doing is wrong.”

Read the entire article here.

Watch video accompanying story.

Rick Perry plans to issue a posthumous pardon to Timothy Cole, who died in prison before he could prove his innocence. Now, that Perry has acknowledged and plans to use the power to grant posthumous pardons, the door is open for him or future governors to issue pardons to innocent people already executed, such as Todd Willingham, Carlos De Luna or others, if they are convinced of their innocence.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Gov. Rick Perry announced Thursday he would pardon Timothy Cole, a Fort Worth man who died while serving time in prison for a rape he did not commit, as soon as he receives a recommendation from the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The announcement came hours after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott cleared the way with an opinion that the governor had the legal authority to grant a posthumous pardon.

“We’ve been seeking justice for Tim for almost 25 years,” said Cory Session, Cole’s brother. “Our whole deal was to do exactly what in many of Tim’s letters he wrote: ‘I want vindication, exoneration and a full pardon.’ This was the final act that he wanted.”

Cole, whose cause has been championed by state lawmakers and others, was found guilty in the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech student and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His conviction was based in part on the victim’s identification of him as her attacker and what a judge later called faulty police work and a questionable suspect lineup. The victim later fought to help clear Cole’s name.

Cole died in prison in 1999, at age 39, after an asthma attack caused him to go into cardiac arrest.

Following repeated confessions by another man, Cole was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, and a state judge exonerated him in 2009. His family pursued a pardon, but Perry had said he did not have the authority to grant one posthumously.

That changed Thursday, in what Perry called “good news.”

In response to a request for a legal opinion by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, Abbott noted that upon recommendation by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, Perry is constitutionally entitled to grant pardons in all criminal cases, except treason and impeachment.

Below is a video of Timothy Cole’s brother, Cory Session, speaking at the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty in Austin on October 24, 2009.

Texas executed its first person of 2010 today and the 448th since 1982. The person’s name was Kenneth Mosley.

Next week, Texas is set to execute Gary Johnson.

From the Houston Chronicle:

A man convicted of gunning down a Dallas-area police officer during an attempted bank robbery was put to death Thursday evening in the first execution of the year in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.

Kenneth Mosley, 51, was condemned for the February 1997 slaying of David Moore, an officer in the Dallas suburb of Garland. His lethal injection was carried out after his legal appeals became exhausted.

The punishment had been stalled twice last year by technical issues and court appeals.

Mosley shook his head once when asked by a warden if he had any final statement. As the lethal drugs began taking effect, he snored a few times, then gasped slightly. Nine minutes later, at 6:16 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead.

Moore’s widow was among the people in the chamber to watch Mosley die. He did not acknowledge her presence.

Earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his request for clemency.

Texas put 24 convicted killers to death last year, accounting for nearly half of the 52 executions carried out in the U.S. Another convicted killer was scheduled to be executed in Texas next week.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission, whose review of the controversial case of Cameron Todd Willingham was delayed when Perry replaced all of his appointees on the commission, has scheduled a Jan. 29 meeting in Harlingen.

The agenda has not been posted.

January 29th, 2010, 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Courtyard by Marriott
1725 W. Filmore Ave.
Harlingen, Texas 78550