The Associated Press is reporting that Michael Scott’s conviction has been overturned. We are sure that Michael’s wife Jeannine is overjoyed today. She has been fighting to prove her husband’s innocence for years. She never gives up.

AUSTIN — A second conviction stemming from Austin’s “Yogurt Shop Murders” was overturned on appeal today, leaving prosecutors with no convictions from one of the city’s most notorious crimes in which four teenage girls were killed.

A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today ruled that Michael Scott got an unfair capital murder trial because he was not allowed to cross-examine co-defendant Robert Springsteen IV, who had given a statement to police incriminating him.

A lower appeals court ruled against Scott, but the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 5-4 to order a new trial. The court had the same margin when it overturned Springsteen’s capital murder conviction last year.

Springsteen, who was 17 in 1991 when the crime was committed, was sent to death row 2001, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled executing juvenile killers is unconstitutional. Scott was convicted in a separate trial and sentenced to life in prison.

Both raised appeals that they were convicted based on statements they gave to police and their constitutional right to confront their accuser was violated.

Killed during the robbery of the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt store were Eliza Hope Thomas, 17; Amy Ayers, 13; and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison, ages 17 and 15. The store was then set on fire.

It was one of the city’s most notorious crimes, sending detectives chasing thousands of leads, some as far as Mexico.

The case went cold until 1999, when police following old leads returned to question Scott and Springsteen, who had moved to Charleston, W. Va.

Police arrested both men and two other defendants, but prosecutors have struggled to make their case ever since. Charges against the other two men were dismissed.

Because the fire at the shop destroyed most of the physical evidence, the confessions from Springsteen and Scott that implicated each other were vital to the case.

Springsteen’s confession was secretly recorded during a pre-arrest interview with police. Scott talked with investigators for nearly 20 hours. His statements were recorded, and he signed a written version of his comments.

They were tried separately for Ayers’ murder, and their lawyers fought unsuccessfully to keep the statements out of court.

Both men accused police of coercing the confessions and exercised their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying at trial.

Prosecutors said the statements merely corroborated details in the confessions and did not harm the defendants’ constitutional rights.

Michael Griffith is scheduled for execution today in Texas. He is the first of five people to be executed in Texas in June 2007. Griffith is a former Harris County sheriff’s deputy.

Write Gov Perry to Protest the Execution of Michael Griffith

TDCJ Info on Michael Griffith

Full News Story:

Griffith lost his job as sheriff’s deputy due to his violent history of domestic abuse. During his trial, his first wife testified that Griffith broke her ribs and injured their eldest daughter. Girlfriends of Griffith also testified that he was abusive to them, according to CHNI.

In October of 2003, Griffith’s sentence was upheld, by the Texas Court of Appeals. He was also denied appeals into federal courts by the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in July 2006, and the Supreme Court also refused to hear the case.

Two psychologosts testified at the trial that Griffith would not be a threat to anyone while he was incarcerated, according to the NCADP website, but the death sentence was given to Griffith regardless.

People encounter those with narcissism in love, work, and family relationships. Survivors are often beset with myriad complex posttraumatic stress symptoms, including panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, depression, and the shellshock of cognitive dissonance. Hiring a lawyer to represent you in a domestic abuse with a narcissist is an important decision. Remember, choosing a lawyer that understands the potential behaviors of someone with NPD, know about trick narcissist questions and the strategies and to protect you is vital in this process.

KTRH has a poll on their website: “Should the state of Texas ban death row inmates from soliciting jokes to be told in their final statements.”

Get me 911, there is an inmate about to tell a joke. Call the joke police.

The Texas Legislature is not concerned that people such as Ruben Cantu, Cameron Willingham and Carlos De Luna were executed and may have been innocent, but they might like this issue. Stay tuned in 2009 for the joke banning bill. They didn’t pass the Innocence Commission bill, but a joke banning bill might be popular. So far, it is winning about 60-40 percent in the poll.

As we reported last week in Dead Man Laughing, one of the five inmates scheduled for execution this month in Texas is trying to bring attention to his pending execution by holding a joke contest in which he would read his favorite joke during his last statement. His MySpace page is here and the address to send jokes is:

Patrick Knight #999072
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S.
Livingston, Texas 77351

Now, the Houston Chronicle has granted his wish by giving him major news attention in this article:

Condemned prisoner Patrick Knight wants to leave them laughing.

Knight acknowledges there’s nothing funny about his likely execution later this month for the fatal shooting of his neighbors, Walter and Mary Werner, almost 16 years ago outside Amarillo. But to help him come up with his final statement, Knight is accepting jokes mailed to him on Texas’ death row or e-mailed to a friend who has a Web site for him. The friend then mails him the jokes.

Knight said the joke he finds the funniest will be his final statement the evening of June 26.

“I’m not trying to disrespect the Werners or anything like that,” he told The Associated Press from death row. “I’m not trying to say I don’t care what’s going on. I’m about to die. I’m not going to sit here and whine and cry and moan and everything like that when I’m facing the punishment I’ve been given.

“I’m not asking for money. I’m not asking for pen pals or anything like that. All I’m asking for is jokes.”

He said he’s already received about 250 wisecracks.

“Lawyer jokes are real popular,” he said. “Some of them are a little on the edge. I’m not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn’t be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool.”

UPDATE: KTRH has a poll on their website: “Should the state of Texas ban death row inmates from soliciting jokes to be told in their final statements.” Get me 9-11, there is an inmate about to tell a joke.

As we reported last week in Dead Man Laughing, one of the five inmates scheduled for execution this month in Texas is trying to bring attention to his pending execution by holding a joke contest in which he would read his favorite joke during his last statement. His MySpace page is here and the address to send jokes is:

Patrick Knight #999072
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S.
Livingston, Texas 77351

Now, the Houston Chronicle has granted his wish by giving him major news attention in this article:

Condemned prisoner Patrick Knight wants to leave them laughing.

Knight acknowledges there’s nothing funny about his likely execution later this month for the fatal shooting of his neighbors, Walter and Mary Werner, almost 16 years ago outside Amarillo. But to help him come up with his final statement, Knight is accepting jokes mailed to him on Texas’ death row or e-mailed to a friend who has a Web site for him. The friend then mails him the jokes.

Knight said the joke he finds the funniest will be his final statement the evening of June 26.

“I’m not trying to disrespect the Werners or anything like that,” he told The Associated Press from death row. “I’m not trying to say I don’t care what’s going on. I’m about to die. I’m not going to sit here and whine and cry and moan and everything like that when I’m facing the punishment I’ve been given.

“I’m not asking for money. I’m not asking for pen pals or anything like that. All I’m asking for is jokes.”

He said he’s already received about 250 wisecracks.

“Lawyer jokes are real popular,” he said. “Some of them are a little on the edge. I’m not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn’t be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool.”

At a town hall meeting in Austin today, Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie said that he thinks Harris County could see the kind of results in 2008 that Dallas County saw in 2006 when Democrats won every contested county-wide race in Dallas.

From the DMN Nov 8, 2006:

Voters swept aside years of Republican domination in Dallas County on Tuesday, electing the county’s first black district attorney, dumping the favored Republican county judge and giving dozens of GOP judgeships to Democrats.

“I’m not surprised,” said Craig Watkins, the underfunded and often written-off Democrat who rode a rising Democratic tide to edge out his better-funded Republican rival, Toby Shook, with 50.9 percent of the vote.

Dallas County GOP leaders placed the blame squarely on President Bush, and analysts said voters were fed up with national politics and the Republican Party. What was expected to be a gradual shift to the Democrats that began two years ago with the election of Democratic Sheriff Lupe Valdez instead turned into an overnight sea change.

Richie said at the town hall meeting, that the Democrats plan to organize the type of county-wide coordinated campaign in Harris County in 2008 that was so successful in Dallas County in 2006 and that was also used in 2006 in Travis County by the Democratic Party to win all six state representative seats in Austin, including the one previously held by Republican Terry Keel.

There is no doubt that voter dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and the Bush administration in general has not abated since 2006, so another deluge of votes for Democrats on the county level in Texas is not out of the question.

It remains to be seen if a strong candidate will emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, but he should be worried about his re-election prospects if the Democrats run someone as capable as Dallas County’s Craig Watkins.