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Todd Willingham
Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed under Governor Rick Perry on February 17, 2004.

Yesterday, January 11, 2011, Cleve Foster received a last minute stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court. By around 6:15 pm Tuesday, more than 60 people had gathered at the Texas Capitol to protest the scheduled execution when the news of a stay of execution came in a phone call from other protesters gathered outside The Walls Unit in Huntsville (Photos from Capitol).

On the same day, the Illinois Legislature voted to abolish the death penalty and sent the bill to the governor of Illinois.

Yesterday was also the first day of the 2011 Texas legislative session, during which a moratorium on executions will be one of the issues under consideration.

From the AP:

The U.S. Supreme Court gave a last-minute stay of execution Tuesday evening to a Desert Storm veteran and former Army recruiter convicted of raping and killing a Sudanese immigrant in Fort Worth in 2002.

Cleve Foster, 47, known as “Sarge” on Death Row, had eaten his final meal and was waiting to walk a few steps to the death chamber when the court’s brief order was received just before 6 p.m., a prison spokesman said.

The court offered no explanation for its decision or why justices other than Justice Antonin Scalia participated. Scalia can act alone on Texas execution appeals. But he can also ask other justices to vote on whether to hear an appeal.

The order indicated that Scalia and Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the majority vote and would have allowed the execution to proceed.

When prison officials asked Foster whether he was surprised to get a reprieve, he said, “I was and I wasn’t. I gave it to God a long time ago.”

He also said he was gratified by support from friends, calling it “really humbling.”
Foster’s execution would have been the first this year in Texas.

Foster has always maintained that his co-defendant, Sheldon Ward, was responsible for fatally shooting 30-year-old Nyaneur “Mary” Pal on Feb. 13, 2002.

Ward, one of Foster’s Army recruits, was also condemned for the slaying. He died of cancer last year in prison.

In their latest appeal, Foster’s attorneys argued that his conviction was flawed because trial lawyers failed to arrange for a blood-spatter expert to dispute a detective’s testimony that Ward couldn’t have killed Pal and moved her body to where it was found all by himself. If they had presented such testimony, there was “at least a reasonable probability that the result of Mr. Foster’s trial would have been different,” appellate attorney Clint Broden said.

Prosecutors insisted that evidence showed that Foster actively participated in the woman’s killing, offered no credible explanations, and lied and gave contradictory stories about his sexual activities with Pal. His eleventh-hour appeal “recycles the stale arguments that state and federal courts have already considered in rejecting Foster’s protestations of innocence,” Jonathan Mitchell, an assistant Texas solicitor general, wrote in the state’s response.

Foster declined to speak with reporters in recent weeks. In 2005, he told The Associated Press that he viewed the evidence against him as prosecutors “pulling stuff out of their hat.”
“I didn’t do this,” he said of Pal’s killing.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/01/11/2762454/ex-recruiters-execution-for-2002.html#ixzz1AqS6rxtd

From the Austin American-Statesman:

A Houston defendant cannot challenge the state’s death penalty laws as unconstitutional before his capital murder trial begins, the state’s highest court ruled today.

John Edward Green Jr., charged with robbing and killing a Houston woman in 2008, had challenged the Texas death penalty law because “its application has created a substantial risk that innocent people have been, and will be, convicted and executed.”

District Judge Kevin Fine held a Dec. 6 hearing on Green’s motion, hearing from defense experts who testified about 138 exonerations of U.S. death row inmates since 1978, including 12 in Texas.

At the urging of prosecutors, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the hearing the following day and requested briefings to determine if proceedings should continue.
Today, the court ruled 6-2 that Fine exceeded his authority and ordered him to dismiss Green’s challenge. Texas law does not allow judges to hold pretrial hearings on the constitutionality of a law, said the opinion by Judge Cathy Cochran.

In addition, until the death penalty statute is applied against Green, he does not have legal standing to challenge the law, the court ruled.

“One does not put the cart before the horse: a defendant has no claim of wrongful conviction or wrongful sentencing before he has even gone to trial,” Cochran wrote.

“It bears noting that no provision of the current (death penalty statute) has been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court or this Court, although that statute has been attacked many times,” Cochran added.

Judges Tom Price and Paul Womack dissented without submitting an opinion stating their reasons. Recently retired Judge Charlie Holcomb did not participate.

Fine made national news last spring when, in response to a motion from Green’s lawyers, he declared the Texas death penalty law unconstitutional. He later rescinded that ruling and ordered the December hearing, saying he should have heard evidence before reaching such a conclusion.

Cleve Foster received a last minute stay of execution from U.S. Supreme Court today (Read court order here). More than 60 people gathered at the Texas Capitol to protest the execution rejoiced at the news received from a phone call from other protesters gathered in Huntsville.

A former Army recruiter who maintained his innocence in the rape-slaying of a woman in Fort Worth nine years ago has received a reprieve from execution Tuesday evening.

Forty-seven-year-old Cleve Foster’s lethal injection was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court so it can further review an appeal. In the court’s brief order, Justices Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito indicated they would have allowed the punishment to proceed.

Foster has insisted a friend was responsible for fatally shooting 30-year-old Nyaneur Pal, who had fled Sudan for Texas. The friend, Sheldon Ward, one of Foster’s recruits, also was condemned for the slaying. He died of cancer last year while in prison. Foster’s lawyers said the evidence did not support his conviction.

Breaking News: Ten years after former Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the practice of capital punishment, Illinois lawmakers today voted to abolish the death penalty in the Land of Lincoln.

The Illinois State Senate followed the lead of the House and approved the bill (SB 3539) by a 32-25 margin this afternoon. The legislation, if signed by the governor of Illinois, would end the death penalty and redirect money the state pays in death row prosecution and defense
fees ($100 million in the past seven years alone) to support law enforcement training and programs for the families of murder victims. It now heads to Gov. Pat Quinn, where it faces an uncertain future.

Protest of First Texas Execution of 2011 To be Held at 5:30 PM Tuesday
January 11 at Texas Capitol in Austin

UPDATE: Cleve Foster received a last minute stay of execution from U.S. Supreme Court. More than 60 people gathered at the Texas Capitol to protest the execution rejoiced at the news received from a phone call from other protesters gathered in Huntsville.

People opposed to the death penalty will gather today, Jan 11, at the
Texas Capitol at 5:30 PM on the sidewalk at Congress and 11th for a
protest of the first Texas execution of 2011 on the day the Texas
Legislature convenes for its first day in session. Today at 6:00 PM
Cleve “Sarge” Foster is scheduled to be executed in Huntsville by the
state of Texas for a murder that his already executed co-defendant
said Foster did not commit.

Demonstrators will also be calling on the Texas Legislature to enact a
moratorium on executions and address problems in the system that put
innocent people on death row, such as in the cases of Anthony Graves
and Todd Willingham. “If the Texas legislature had enacted a
moratorium on executions in 2003, then Willingham would not have been
wrongfully executed in 2004 based on faulty forensic evidence”, said
Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network.

Groups participating in the demonstration include Texas Moratorium
Network, Campaign to End the Death Penalty – Austin chapter, Students
Against the Death Penalty and Witness to Innocence.

What: Protest of 1st Execution in Texas in 2011

Date: Tuesday, January 11

Time: 5:30 to 6:30 PM

Place: Texas Capitol on sidewalk at 11th and Congress Avenue
Austin, TX

##

Join us at the Texas Capitol Tuesday, January 11, at 5:30 pm to protest the first Texas execution of 2011 and to call on the Texas Legislature to enact a moratorium on executions and address problems in the system that put innocent people on death row, such as in the cases of Anthony Graves and Todd Willingham. If Texas had enacted a moratorium on executions in 2003, then Willingham would not have been wrongfully executed in 2004 based on faulty forensic evidence.

Let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page.

If you are a Texas resident, but you cannot come to the Capitol in Austin, you can help by calling your Texas state senator and state representative and urging them to support a moratorium on executions. Go here to find out who represents you.

You can also email Governor Rick Perry, although he probably doesn’t care what you say.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Former Army recruiter Cleve Foster was one of two men in Fort Worth tied to the slayings nine years ago of two women, one who had fled Sudan and the other a Texas Tech honors graduate.

Both Foster and his former roommate wound up on death row for the slaying of Nyaneur Pal, 30. He was set for lethal injection Tuesday that would make him the first convicted killer executed this year in Texas.

Foster, 47, always insisted his buddy, Sheldon Ward, acted alone in Pal’s slaying.

“My old roommate — he’s told them,” Foster told The Associated Press. “It wasn’t me.”

Ward died in prison last May of cancer.

“Cleve Foster saying ‘I didn’t do anything,’ that’s bull, … that’s baloney,” said Ben Leonard, a former Tarrant County assistant district attorney who prosecuted him. “The jury had no problem convicting him of murder. That case, I’ve never had any doubts about that case at all.”

A Tarrant County jury in 2004 deliberated less than an hour and a half before convicting him.

Foster’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the punishment, arguing his conviction was flawed because trial attorneys failed to get testimony from a blood spatter expert to counter a detective’s testimony that Ward couldn’t have killed and moved Pal’s body by himself.

“The state of Texas is on the verge of executing an innocent man,” attorney Clint Broden told the court.

Similar arguments raised in earlier appeals from Foster failed.

Foster and Ward were convicted separately. The Sudanese woman, known as Mary Pal, worked at a country club and was seen talking with the pair at a Fort Worth bar. Her body was found hours later dumped in a ditch off a Tarrant County road. She’d been shot once in the head.

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