More info from the AP on why Dallas County DA Craig Watkins requested a stay of execution for Joseph Lave:

Mike Ware, special assistant in Watkins’ conviction integrity unit, said Thursday prosecutors discovered evidence that had not been turned over to Lave’s defense attorneys. The evidence, a second polygraph test given co-defendant Timothy Bates, came to light within the last few days, Ware said.

While he wouldn’t describe the polygraph results in detail, it “does go directly to his credibility,” Ware said.

Lave’s lawyers had been requesting the information for years as part of the post-conviction process and Ware said it appeared the administrations of two previous district attorneys failed to turn it over. Watkins became Dallas County district attorney in January and has since allowed an outside review of cases where inmates are seeking post-conviction DNA testing.

Ware said Lave’s case, tried in 1994, continues to be examined, but said prosecutors believe several attorneys no longer with the DA’s attorney’s office misled the court by saying the evidence did not exist.

“This office and this administration is about honesty, about candor, about integrity … we do not feel it would be right to allow the execution to go through without disclosing this information to Mr. Lave’s attorneys,” Ware said.

Historian David Oshinsky won the Pulitzer Prize for his book on the campaign to wipe out the most feared childhood disease of the 1950s—polio. He will speak on his current project, the history of capital punishment in the U.S.

Panelists:
John Butler
Sheldon Ekland-Olson
George Forgie
Camille Parmesan
Michael Starbird

Discussion guide (PDF, 54KB)

Execution set for Thursday stopped by court order

By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The scheduled Thursday night execution of a Texas prisoner for his part in the slaying of two workers during a robbery was stopped after the Dallas County district attorney’s office asked that the execution order be withdrawn.

Joseph Lave, 42, would have been the 25th inmate given lethal injection in Texas, the nation’s busiest death penalty state.

In an order signed late Wednesday, a state district judge in Dallas agreed with the request from District Attorney Craig Watkins, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Thursday.

Lave was convicted of being one of three robbers involved in the beating and slashing deaths of Justin Marquart and Frederick Banzaf, both 18, on the night before Thanksgiving in 1992.

From the Texas Observer blog:

A San Jacinto County district judge has ruled that a crucial piece of evidence that might help determine whether Texas executed an innocent man almost seven years ago must be preserved while The Texas Observer, the Innocence Project, and other criminal justice groups pursue a lawsuit seeking to have it tested by an independent laboratory.

Judge Elizabeth Coker on Monday issued a temporary restraining order barring county officials from destroying evidence in the case of Claude Howard Jones, who was executed on December 7, 2000, for killing a liquor store owner. Coker scheduled a hearing for October 3 to consider allowing DNA testing of a hair found at the crime scene.

Jones’s conviction rested largely on a single, 1-inch strand of hair found on the liquor store counter. A state expert testified at trial that the hair closely resembled Jones’, but it was never subjected to DNA testing.

Send and email to Texas Governor Rick Perry urging him to Stop the Execution of Joseph Lave scheduled for September 13, 2007

The state of Texas is scheduled to execute Joseph Lave on September 13, 2007. Lave was sentenced to death for the January 1992 capital murder of Justin Marquart during a robbery at a Richardson sporting goods store.

Joseph Lave was not the only participant in this crime, yet the other participant received a lighter sentence while Lave was sentenced to die. Lave surrendered to the police once he heard that they were looking for him. During the trial, Timothy Bates, an accomplice to the crime, testified against Lave who was convicted and sentenced to death under the controversial Texas “law of parties.”

In addition to sending Gov Perry an email, you can leave him a phone message at: 512-463-2000, fax him at 512-463-1849 (his fax line is often busy, so just keep trying) or write him at:

Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428