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We received a copy yesterday of Jeanette Popp's long-anticipated new book in the mail. Mortal Justice: A True Story of Murder and Vindication. It was published March 1. Jeanette has worked long and hard for many years against the death penalty. She served several years as chairperson of Texas Moratorium Network. Her book tells the story of her daughter's murder, the wrongful conviction of two innocent men Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger, their eventual exoneration, the subsequent conviction of the real killer, and Jeanette's long activism against the death penalty, including a jailhouse meeting with the real killer and her successful efforts to prevent him from being sentenced to death.
In her new book, Jeanette includes an account of a jailhouse meeting with the man who actually killed her daughter before his trial because she wanted to convince him to take a plea bargain and accept life in prison istead of going to trial and risking the death penalty. In the jailhouse meeting, she told him, "Mr Marino, you know I don't want you executed?"
"Ive heard that," he answered stoically.
"It's the truth. I don't want you to die."
He shook his head and told her, "Mrs Popp, I'd rather be executed than spend the rest of my life in prison."
Ms. Popp asked prosecutors not to seek the death penalty, because she says she did not want her daughter's memory stained with someone's blood. "I'm not a bleeding heart liberal," she says. "But I do have a heart."
Since the exoneration, she has been an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. That doesn't mean she wants Mr. Marino to ever walk free.
We talked to Jeanette yesterday and she plans to come to Lobby Day Against the Death Penalty on March 24 at the Texas Capitol in Austin. In 2001, Jeanette's testimony to the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee was instrumental in persuading that committee to vote in favor of a moratorium on executions. This year, the same committee will again consider a proposal by State Rep Harold Dutton to enact a moratorium on executions and create a commission to study the death penalty system in Texas.
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Families of Two Innocent Men Deliver Letters to Governor Perry at Mansion
Accompanied by 300 supporters standing outside the gates of the Texas Governor's Mansion Saturday October 28, family members of Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos De Luna delivered separate letters to Gov Perry asking him to stop executions and investigate the cases of Willingham and De Luna to determine if they were wrongfully executed. Willlingham's stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, slipped the letter, along with a copy of an article from the Chicago Tribune that concluded that her son was innocent, through the bars of the front gate of the mansion and left it lying on the walkway leading to the front door of the mansion. Mary Arredondo, Carlos De Luna's sister, also slipped her own letter through the bars and left it lying on the walkway. They had asked a DPS trooper on duty to take the letter, but the officer refused to accept it. The action was part of the 7th Annual March to Stop Executions.
The 300 supporters standing beside the two families carried signs saying, "THE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM IS BROKEN" on the top of the signs and different slogans at the bottom listing various problems with the Texas death penalty system that can lead to innocent people being executed, including "NO STATEWIDE PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICE", "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT", "NO INDEPENDENT COMMISSION TO REVIEW THE SYSTEM" and other problems.
After delivering the letter, the Willingham family and De Luna's sister joined the crowd in a march to Austin City Hall for a rally against the death penalty.
Text of letter from Willingham family
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas Austin, Texas
October 28, 2006
Dear Governor Perry,
We are the family of Cameron Todd Willingham. Our names are Eugenia Willingham, Trina Willingham Quinton and Joshua Easley. Todd was an innocent person executed by Texas on February 17, 2004. We have come to Austin today from Ardmore, Oklahoma to stand outside the Texas Governor's Mansion and attempt to deliver this letter to you in person, because we want to make sure that you know about Todd's innocence and to urge you to stop executions in Texas and determine why innocent people are being executed in Texas.
Todd was not the only innocent person who has been executed in Texas. There have been reports in the media that Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna were also innocent people who were executed in Texas. It is too late to save Todd's life or the lives of Ruben Cantu or Carlos De Luna, but it is not too late to save other innocent people from being executed. We are here today to urge you to be the leader that Texas needs in order to make sure that Texas never executes another innocent person. There is a crisis in Texas regarding the death penalty and we ask you to address the crisis. Because the public can no longer be certain that Texas is not executing innocent people, we urge you to stop all executions.
Strapped to a gurney in Texas' death chamber, just moments from his execution for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, our son/uncle, Todd Willingham, declared his innocence one last time, saying "I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do." Todd is now dead and can no longer speak for himself, so we have come to Austin to speak for him.
Before Todd's execution, you were given a report from a prominent fire scientist questioning the conviction, but you did not stop the execution. The author of the report, Gerald Hurst, has said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire."
Another report issued in 2006 by a panel of national arson experts brought together by the Innocence Project concluded that the fire that killed Todd's three daughters was an accident. The report says that Todd's case is very similar to the case of Ernest Willis, who was convicted of arson murder and sentenced to death in 1987. Willis served 17 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2004 – the same year Todd was executed. The report says that neither of the fires which Todd and Ernest Willis were convicted of setting were arson. The report notes that the evidence and forensic analysis in the Willingham and Willis cases "were the same," and that "each and every one" of the forensic interpretations that state experts made in both men's trials have been proven scientifically invalid. In other words, Todd was executed based on "junk science".
Please look into our son/uncle's case and ask the District Attorney in Corsicana to reopen the investigation into the crime for which my brother was wrongfully executed. You should also establish an Innocence Commission in the next session of the Texas Legislature that could investigate my brother's case, as well as other cases of possible wrongful executions, such as Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna.
Please ensure that no other family suffers the tragedy of seeing one of their loved ones wrongfully executed. Please enact a moratorium on executions and create a special blue ribbon commission to study the administration of the death penalty in Texas. Texas also needs a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases. Such an office will go a long way towards preventing innocent people from being executed. A moratorium will ensure that no other innocent people are executed while the system is being studied and reforms implemented.
We look forward to hearing from you and we pledge to work with you to ensure that executions of innocent people are stopped.
Yours sincerely,
Eugenia Willingham Stepmother of Cameron Todd Willingham who raised him from the age of 13 months
Trina Willingham Quinton Niece of Cameron Todd Willingham
Joshua Easley Nephew of Cameron Todd Willingham
Text of Letter Delivered to Governor's Mansion for Rick Perry by Carlos De Luna's Sister during 7th Annual March to Stop Executions
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas Austin, Texas
October 28, 2006
Dear Governor Perry,
My name is Mary Arredondo. Carlos De Luna was my brother. He was an innocent person executed by Texas on December 7, 1989. I have come to the Texas Governor's Mansion today to personally deliver this letter to you. It is too late to save my brother's life, but it is not too late to take steps to prevent other innocent people from being executed. I am writing to ask that you provide the leadership to make sure that Texas never executes another innocent person.
My brother claimed his innocence from the time of his arrest until his execution. He named another man as the real killer. The Chicago Tribune has recently published the results of their investigation that concluded that my brother was the victim of a case of mistaken identity and the most likely killer was a man named Carlos Hernandez. Hernandez's relatives and friends have recounted how he repeatedly bragged that my brother went to Death Row for a murder Hernandez committed. I am enclosing a copy of the Tribune article for you to read.
Please look into my brother's case and ask the District Attorney in Corpus Christi to reopen the investigation into the crime for which my brother was wrongfully executed.
I also ask you to support a moratorium on executions and to create a special blue ribbon commission to study the administration of the death penalty in Texas in order to prevent other innocent people from being executed and to propose reforms to ensure the fair and accurate administration of the death penalty in Texas. In addition, I ask you to support an Innocence Commission that would be charged with investigating claims of innocence from people before they are executed and cases of people that have been wrongfully executed, as well as cases of innocent people who have been exonerated in order to determine what went wrong in the system that resulted in an innocent person being convicted.
There are other reforms that will help prevent innocent people from being convicted and executed, such as establishing a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases and increasing the amount of money paid to attorneys representing indigent defendants and the amount of money available to them to conduct investigations. Of course, the best way to prevent innocent people from being executed is to end the use of the death penalty and instead sentence people convicted of capital crimes to life without the possibility of parole.
Thank you for reading my letter. I hope that you will do whatever is necessary to prevent other innocent people from suffering the fate of my brother.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Arredondo
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Pleasanton man spared execution
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 06 December @ 02:16:26
Web Posted: 12/06/2005 12:00 AM CST Jeorge Zarazua Express-News Staff Writer
FLORESVILLE — Prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty again for a Pleasanton man accused of participating in one of South Texas' bloodiest police ambushes, which left three officers dead in 1999.
The US Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for those who commit murder when aged less than 18.
The court was divided on the issue, but voted 5-4 that the juvenile death penalty should be declared unconstitutional.
The decision could affect about 70 prisoners on death row who face execution for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17-years-old.
The decision is seen as a victory for opponents of capital punishment.
BBC News
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Courts consider death row retardation claims
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 17 February @ 15:21:54
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- In the year and a half since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mentally retarded inmates cannot be executed, more than 40 death row cases were delayed or sent back for review in Texas -- leaving appellate courts in a quandary.
Posted by admin on: Thursday 23 October @ 13:32:46
Following a march through downtown to the Governor's Mansion and the Capitol, a couple of hundred death penalty abolitionists gathered Saturday afternoon at what they called the third point on "the axis of evil" -- the Court of Criminal Appeals, where many wrongly convicted Texas defendants have had their cases run aground before the heavily politicized and prosecution-biased justices.
More than 4,000 executions took place around the world last year, the vast majority of them in China, a leading campaigner against the death penalty announced today.
Behind the story: What it felt like to see a man die By RACHEL GRAVES Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
HUNTSVILLE -- On Feb. 25, I watched my government kill a killer.
Texas' 298th execution was the first death I had seen, but the other reporters and prison officials who were there had each observed more than 100 state killings.
With the experience of 306 executions in 20 years, Texas carries them out with machine-like precision. Regular witnesses refer to them as "clinical."
Taking a small poke at a rock solid Texas institution, the Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday called on the Legislature to order a temporary halt to executions in the state.
Blacks and whites are murdered in about equal numbers, but what happens to their killers can be far different. Those who murder whites are much more likely to be executed than killers of blacks, Amnesty International USA said Wednesday.
A senior forensic scientist, whose recent failing of a proficiency test sparked a review of three years' worth of DNA cases handled by the Fort Worth police crime lab, has been fired.
Fewer states executed inmates in 2002
By John Moritz
Star-Telegram Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - The number of states that carried out the death penalty fell to a nine-year low in 2002, and in several states, fewer people were executed than last year, a new study shows.
1) New Video Available on Why Texas Needs a Moratorium (Order one now for holiday gift-giving!) 2) Read this Major Article on the Death Penalty from Texas Monthly 3) Preparing for the Coming Legislative Session 4) TMN's Holiday Wish List 5) Upcoming Executions 6) Report on Last Month's 3rd Annual March for a Moratorium 7) Report on Jeanette Popp's Speaking Tour
ACLU Appeals Dismissal Of Lawsuit Against Judge Posted: 10:05 a.m. CST November 22, 2002 HOUSTON -- Calvin Burdine, the Texas death row inmate who is being retried after his lawyer slept through parts of his trial, told a state district judge he won't cooperate with the two lawyers the judge appointed to assist in his retrial.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 09 November @ 09:24:20
Anonymous writes: Freed convicts in 1988 rape and murder sue police, City of Austin Family of Richard Danziger, who suffered brain damage in prison beating, also suing state Department of Criminal Justice
1) 3rd Annual MARCH FOR A MORATORIUM - October 12 2) Trial has started for man who murdered Jeanette Popp's daughter. 4) Jeanette Popp speaking at UT-Austin on Thursday, October 10. 3) Help Convince the Austin City Council to Pass a Resolution Supporting a Moratorium on Executions- We are incredibly close! 5) Ross Byrd to visit photo exhibit in Austin on Friday, October 11.
OPERA REVIEW | 'DEAD MAN WALKING' - (Coming to Austin in January)
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 17 September @ 07:41:41
Anonymous writes: OPERA REVIEW | 'DEAD MAN WALKING'
Advice and Songs on Death Row, but No Easy Answers
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
When a serious new American opera is embraced by audiences, it's a rare and encouraging achievement. Since its premiere at the San Francisco Opera in the fall of 2000, "Dead Man Walking," with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Terrence McNally, has been picked up by companies across the country. The elaborate staging presented by the New York City Opera on Friday night and directed by Leonard Foglia is a co-production with the Cincinnati Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, Baltimore Opera and Opera Pacific. As at the premiere, the audience responded with an enthusiastic standing ovation.
Dear Moratorium Supporters, There is good news since we wrote to you last month. For starters, the Supreme Court banned execution of persons with mental retardation. Our members made progress towards passing a moratorium resolution at the Texas Democratic convention, and have begun an effort to pass a moratorium resolution in the Austin City Council. But there is also bad news. June and July have been busy months for Texas' death chamber, and execution dates for two juvenile offenders are looming close in August. Please read on for details and actions.
Mexico tries to save Texas prisoner condemned to die Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government has launched a last-ditch effort to save the life of Javier Suarez, sentenced to die in Texas in August for the murder of an undercover drug agent in 1988.
Anonymous writes: Death penalty: Supreme Court is right to refine the process
Dallas Morning News
06/26/2002
On Sunday's edition of NBC's Meet the Press, Sen. John Kerry suggested that America is "beginning to question how we have applied the death penalty." The prospective 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said that, despite public support for capital punishment, he opposes it. Citing advances in the application of DNA evidence, Sen. Kerry said he favors a moratorium on the death penalty until some troubling questions are answered – including why minorities account for three-fourths of inmates on death row.
Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain In "Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain," Rev. Carroll Pickett recalls his 15 years as chaplain to death row inmates in Huntsville, Texas, and provides an account of ministering to 95 men in their final hours before execution.
1) Effort to get city councils to adopt moratorium resolutions 2) Review of Napoleon Beazley action 3) Texas Bar Association to vote on moratorium resolution 4) Texas Defender Service needs volunteers 5) 3rd Annual March for a Moratorium set for October 12, 2002. Save the Date! 6) TMN Online Petition and updated website
Anonymous writes: Letters to the Editor
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Friday, June 7, 2002
ALBERTA PHILLIPS' JUNE 4 COLUMN `BRINGING UP CHILDREN IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD'
Important words
Alberta Phillips' column regarding Napoleon Beazley was outstanding. She was able to capture the most important statement ever made by a person on death row.
Anonymous writes: Executions disgrace the state and community of Texas
In Our Names
BY MICHAEL KING
The Austin Chronicle
May 31, 2002:
Try this for an "axis of evil": the United States, Iran, and the Congo.
The connection may not be immediately obvious, but it is real enough. These three countries are now the only ones in the world which officially allow the execution of juveniles -- that is, offenders who were under 18 years of age at the time of their crimes. Even the People's Republic of China, which annually cranks out executions by the thousands, no longer executes juvenile offenders. The overwhelming majority of sovereign states -- even that shrinking number which retain the death penalty -- subscribe to the common understanding that a minor cannot be judged by the same moral or emotional standards as an adult, and that to execute a child is both a violation of human rights and a disgrace to the community that takes part in it.
We are sending out this special alert because the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will be making decisions in two separate landmark cases next week - Johnny Martinez and Napoleon Beazley. You can help them decide for life in prison instead of execution.
1) A Chance to Elect a Republican Who Opposes Capital Punishment. 2) The Race for State Representative in District 51 in Austin. 3) The Race for State Senator in District 20. 4) List of Upcoming Scheduled Executions 5) Death Row Ten Tour: Live From Death Row! 6) March Against the Death Penalty in San Antonio
Mike de Brauw writes: The September newsletter contains information about cases to watch (Napoleon Beazley, Calvin Burdine, Max Soffar, and Andrea Pia Yates) as well as a speaking schedule for Sister Helen Prejean in Texas.
Mike de Brauw writes: This first issue contains information about our new monthly e-mail newsletter, the Adopt A Legislator program, the upcoming execution of Napoleon Beazley, and the second Annual March for a Moratorium (Oct 27, 2001, Austin, Texas)
AUSTIN — Regardless of how it ultimately plays out, the roiling controversy over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham is already energizing death penalty opponents into a renewed attack on capital punishment in Texas.
Gov. Rick Perry, depicting Willingham as a "monster" who murdered his children in a Christmastime house fire in 1991, says that opponents of the death penalty are using the case as "propaganda" to promote their cause. But advocacy groups that oppose capital punishment say the possibility that Texas may have put an innocent man to death underscores the need to end or seriously restrict the state’s executions.
"It has raised a lot of questions," says Scott Cobb, director of the Texas Moratorium Network. "No matter how things turn out, people are looking at the death penalty in a new light. They’re saying if it could have happened in the Willingham case, it could have happened in other cases."
Texas has a global reputation as the most prolific execution state in the country, having put 441 inmates to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Willingham was No. 320, executed Feb. 17, 2004, after he was found guilty of setting his Corsicana home afire and killing his three daughters — a 1-year-old and 1-year-old twins. Willingham reasserted his claims of innocence in his final statement just before the sentence was carried out.
Perry, as well as investigators and prosecutors, say evidence overwhelmingly supported the jury’s decision, which was affirmed at each step of the appeals process. But several noted arson experts who re-examined the fire investigation say it relied on outmoded concepts and did not support a finding of arson. The Texas Forensic Science Commission opened a review of the arson investigation in 2008, but the inquiry stalled this month after Perry replaced four members of the panel.
Although Texans have traditionally strongly supported the death penalty — surveys generally show a breakdown of about 75 percent for and 25 percent against — Barry Scheck, co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, says that Texans are "beginning to think twice" about capital punishment.
Scheck’s organization has led the push for a re-examination of Willingham’s execution and features details of the case on its Web site, including a photograph of Willingham with one of his daughters perched on his shoulders. Scheck said questions raised by the investigation contribute to the "widespread perception that the process of trying these cases has broken down."
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose office has helped obtain exonerations for 20 wrongfully convicted defendants in Dallas County, says "it may be wise for all DAs throughout the state to implement a policy . . . to make sure mistakes weren’t made" in prosecuting capital cases.
In Fort Worth, Tarrant County District Attorney Joe Shannon says he supports the death penalty "in the proper case" but said prosecutors need to ensure that correct procedures are followed and that the evidence is sound. "If you’re going to have the death penalty," he said, "you need to do it right."
Other questionable cases
Cobb says concern over Willingham’s execution could also prompt a re-examination of several other executions in which questions have been raised, either by advocacy groups or newspaper investigations.
One case centers on Ruben Cantu, a teen-age offender who was executed in 1993 for shooting a San Antonio man during an attempted robbery. A two-part investigation by the Houston Chronicle in 2005 concluded that Cantu "was likely telling the truth" when he denied being involved. A key eyewitness who survived being shot in the robbery attempt at first identified Cantu as the assailant but recanted, the newspaper reported.
Questions have also been raised in the 1997 execution of David Spence, convicted of killing three teen-agers in a botched killing-for-hire scheme that became known as the Lake Waco murders. A convenience store manager was also charged and sentenced to death but was acquitted in a new trial. He said repeatedly that neither he nor Spence was connected to the killings. A homicide investigator involved in the case also expressed doubts about Spence’s guilt.
"The problem is that Texas goes so fast and executes so many people," Cobb said. "That creates the environment of making more mistakes."
The Willingham case is also likely to fuel efforts to find new safeguards against wrongful convictions.
The Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions began a yearlong effort last week to develop legislative remedies against false eyewitness identification, fraudulent testimony from snitches and other criminal justice flaws that could land the wrong person behind bars. The panel was created by the 2009 Legislature and named after Tim Cole, a wrongfully convicted inmate from Fort Worth who died in prison and was posthumously exonerated.
Austin battle brewing
Cobb said death penalty opponents are already gearing up for the next session of the Legislature in 2011 with plans to call for a moratorium and a study panel to examine Texas’ death penalty policies. "A lot is going to happen between now and then," he said. "I see radically increased support for a moratorium after the Willingham case."
But law enforcement groups, prosecutors and other death penalty supporters are also expected to marshal their forces to help keep the death penalty in place. Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who are battling for the Republican nomination in the 2010 governor’s race, are both ardent death penalty supporters.
"I think the people of Texas believe in the death penalty and believe it’s an appropriate sanction," said state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, vice chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which will hold hearings on the forensic commission next month. "But they also believe it should be administered with unerring accuracy."
Charley Wilkison, spokesman for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said the 17,500-member organization will continue to make the case that capital punishment deters murder and helps protect police.
If the death penalty were repealed in Texas, he said, "It would be absolutely an open season on policemen by drug dealers, transnational gangs and other criminals if the consequences were only life in prison with a decent bed, a TV and three squares."
DAVE MONTGOMERY IS THE STAR-TELEGRAM’S AUSTIN BUREAU CHIEF. 512-476-4294
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Letter from State Commission on Judicial Conduct to TMN's Scott Cobb
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 12 August @ 02:06:53
From: Seana Willing [mailto:Seana.Willing@scjc.state. tx.us] Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:11 PM To: 'admin@texasmoratorium.org' Subject: Re: Judge No. 96
Scott Cobb and all Complainants who signed on:
Please be advised that on December 2-4, 2008, following three informal hearings that took place before it on June 18-20, 2008, August 13-15, 2008, and October 15-17, 2008, the Commission voted to initiate formal proceedings against the judge who was the subject of your complaint. This process involves a public trial before a Special Master appointed by the Texas Supreme Court, after which findings of fact will be presented to the Commission. You will be notified in writing of the date, time and location of this trial. Based on the Report from the Special Master, the Commission may vote to dismiss the case, issue a public censure, or recommend to the Supreme Court that the judge be removed from office.
In the event that removal is recommended, a seven-member Review Tribunal of appellate justices, also appointed by the Texas Supreme Court, will review the record of the public trial and the hearing before the Commission to determine if the judge should be removed from office. The Review Tribunal could also dismiss the case or issue a public censure against the judge. Be advised that this process is lengthy and could take anywhere from six (6) to eighteen (18) months or more to complete.
Thank you for your continued patience and cooperation as we continue with this process. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the delay in resolving the complaint, as well as for our failure to communicate with you more often and in more detail regarding the status of the investigation. Due to confidentiality rules, we were greatly restricted as to what information we could provide and were concerned that any information we provided would be leaked to the media.
We appreciate that this case is very important to you. Like all cases filed with our agency, this matter was handled carefully and thoroughly investigated. Because the factual allegations and legal issues presented proved to be more complicated than most cases presented to the Commission, it simply required more time to resolve. In addition, please keep in mind that our Commission holds hearings only six (6) times per year, and handles hundreds of cases at each of those meetings. The thirteen volunteers who serve on the Commission take their responsibilities seriously and provide each case and decision the consideration it deserves. The members did not arrive at their decision in this matter lightly or prematurely.
We would also point out that we have a small, but dedicated staff that includes five lawyers and three investigators, who handle over 1,000 cases each year. Because of the significance of this matter, the investigation and presentation of the case was handled exclusively by the agency’s Executive Director and the Chief Investigator. It should be clear from a review of the Notice of Formal Proceedings how much time and effort has gone into this case so far.
On a final note, we are honored to have the services of John J. “Mike” McKetta, III, Michelle Alcala, and their firm, Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody, P.C., supporting the Commission as Special Counsel in this matter.
Let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this process.
Seana Willing Executive Director State Commission on Judicial Conduct
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New Book by Jeanette Popp: Mother of Murder Victim
We received a copy yesterday of Jeanette Popp's long-anticipated new book in the mail. Mortal Justice: A True Story of Murder and Vindication. It was published March 1. Jeanette has worked long and hard for many years against the death penalty. She served several years as chairperson of Texas Moratorium Network. Her book tells the story of her daughter's murder, the wrongful conviction of two innocent men Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger, their eventual exoneration, the subsequent conviction of the real killer, and Jeanette's long activism against the death penalty, including a jailhouse meeting with the real killer and her successful efforts to prevent him from being sentenced to death.
In her new book, Jeanette includes an account of a jailhouse meeting with the man who actually killed her daughter before his trial because she wanted to convince him to take a plea bargain and accept life in prison istead of going to trial and risking the death penalty. In the jailhouse meeting, she told him, "Mr Marino, you know I don't want you executed?"
"Ive heard that," he answered stoically.
"It's the truth. I don't want you to die."
He shook his head and told her, "Mrs Popp, I'd rather be executed than spend the rest of my life in prison."
Ms. Popp asked prosecutors not to seek the death penalty, because she says she did not want her daughter's memory stained with someone's blood. "I'm not a bleeding heart liberal," she says. "But I do have a heart."
Since the exoneration, she has been an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. That doesn't mean she wants Mr. Marino to ever walk free.
We talked to Jeanette yesterday and she plans to come to Lobby Day Against the Death Penalty on March 24 at the Texas Capitol in Austin. In 2001, Jeanette's testimony to the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee was instrumental in persuading that committee to vote in favor of a moratorium on executions. This year, the same committee will again consider a proposal by State Rep Harold Dutton to enact a moratorium on executions and create a commission to study the death penalty system in Texas.
Green was executed in 2004, for the 1992 robbery and slaying of Andrew Lastrapes in Houston. Best-selling author Thomas Cahill, (How the Irish Saved Civilization), met Green the year before his execution and publicity materials say he encountered "a level of goodness, peace, and enlightenment that few human beings ever attain."
Cahill arranged for Green to be visited by Archbishop Desmond Tutu before his death.
But more impressive than Cahill's perspective or even Tutu's, is that of the victim's family: before his execution, Lastrapes' widow and son asked that Green be spared.
Cahill's book promotion tour takes him to the Rothko Chapel in Houston at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 12, but not to Dallas.
His publicist says, "he'll be in Dallas next year for the paperback! We will go MUCH wider throughout Texas next year, including Dallas and Austin. You can catch up with all of the events and media on the Thomas Cahill Facebook page.
A Texas state lawmaker is trying to impeach a judge on the state's highest criminal appeals court.
Rep. Lon Burnam filed a resolution Monday seeking to start the process against Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller for what he calls "neglect of duty" in a death penalty case.
Keller refused to keep the court offices open after 5 p.m. back on Sept. 25, 2007, when attorneys for Michael Richard said they were having computer problems, causing troubles filing late appeals.
Richard was executed that night by lethal injection for the rape and murder of a Houston-area woman.
"I am trying to remove her from the bench," Burnam said. "It's one thing for a banker to close shop at five o'clock sharp. But a public official who stands between a human being and the death chamber must be held to a higher standard."
Keller refused to allow the Court of Criminal Appeals to stay open past 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007, even though Richard's attorneys had called and asked for extra time to file their appeal because of computer problems. He was put to death by lethal injection hours later.
Earlier that day, the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to review the constitutionality of lethal injection in a Kentucky case.
Keller's refusal to keep the court open outraged defense attorneys and civil rights activists and led to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Richard's widow. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court in Austin in 2008, said lawyer Richard Kallinen, who represented Richard's widow.
Text of the resolution:
81R8266 JSA-F
By: Burnam H.R. No. 480
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, The House of Representatives of the Texas Legislature has exclusive power to present articles of impeachment against a state officer under Section 1, Article XV, Texas Constitution, and Chapter 665, Government Code; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 81st Texas Legislature adopt the following procedures to consider the impeachment of Judge Sharon Keller, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for gross neglect of duty and conducting her official duties with willful disregard for human life: SECTION 1. SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON IMPEACHMENT. The House Special Committee on Impeachment composed of seven members of the House of Representatives shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House. The Speaker shall designate a committee member to serve as chair of the committee and a committee member to serve as vice-chair of the committee. SECTION 2. INVESTIGATION; ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT. (a) The committee shall conduct an investigation to consider whether to recommend that under Section 1, Article XV, Texas Constitution, and Chapter 665, Government Code, the House of Representatives adopt and present to the Texas Senate articles of impeachment against Judge Sharon Keller, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for gross neglect of duty and conducting her official duties with willful disregard for human life in connection with her actions on the evening of September 25, 2007, including her apparent irresponsible refusal to abide by the prior practice of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in order to receive the appeal of Michael Richard, which conduct may have resulted in Mr. Richard's deprivation of life without due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Section 19, Article I, Texas Constitution, by means of a potentially unlawful execution by lethal injection, and in the embarrassment of the State of Texas in a manner that casts severe doubt on the impartiality of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the entire criminal justice system of this state. (b) The committee shall submit a report of its findings to the Speaker of the House and the full House of Representatives as soon as reasonably practicable, but not later than the 90th day after the date the committee is appointed. If the committee recommends impeachment of the judge, the report shall contain a draft of articles of impeachment. SECTION 3. POWERS; ADMINISTRATION. (a) The committee shall meet at the call of the chair and may meet in executive session if approved by a majority of the members of the committee. (b) The committee has all the powers granted to a standing committee under the Rules of the House of Representatives and under Subchapter B, Chapter 301, Government Code, including the power to issue process to procure testimony or other evidence. (c) On the request of the committee, the House of Representatives or the Texas Legislative Council shall provide the staff necessary to assist the committee in carrying out its duties. (d) The operating expenses of the committee shall be paid as determined by the Committee on House Administration. SECTION 4. EXPIRATION. This resolution expires and the House Special Committee on Impeachment ceases to exist on January 1, 2010.
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430th Person Executed Today in Texas Since 1982
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 10 February @ 18:24:28
Today Texas executed Dale Devon Scheanette, who was the 190th person executed since Rick Perry assumed the office of governor of Texas in December 2000. Overall, 430 people have been executed in Texas since 1982. There were zero executions in Texas between 1964 and 1982. Virginia, with 102 executions, comes in a distant second to Texas in number of executions.
On Thursday, Johnny Ray Johnson, 51, is scheduled for execution in Texas.
Asked if he had any final statement, Dale Devon Scheanette paused and said, "My only statement is that no cases ever tried have been error free. Those are my words. No cases are error free."
Scheanette then told the warden he could proceed. He selected no witnesses for his death. Six relatives of his two murder victims watched as he took his final breath. He never looked at them.
Nine minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow, he was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m.
Scheanette, 35, became known as the "Bathtub Killer" after two women at the same apartment complex in Arlington in 1996 were found dead in half-filled bathtubs, strangled, raped and bound with duct tape.
He was sent to death row for the Christmas Eve 1996 slaying of Wendie Prescott, 22, and charged but not tried for killing Christine Vu, 25, three months earlier.
Scheanette was the seventh condemned inmate executed in Texas this year and the first of two set to die this week.
Scheanette, acting as his own lawyer, had appeals rejected Monday in the federal appeals courts. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also voted 7-0 to turn down a clemency request.
A woman identifying herself as Scheanette's sister filed a three-page handwritten motion on his behalf Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a reprieve so he could get a court review of the appeals rejected Monday. The high court turned down the appeal less than an hour before Scheanette was scheduled to die.
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Lobby Day Against the Death Penalty at the Texas Capitol
Posted by admin on: Saturday 31 January @ 23:09:23
Tuesday March 24, 2009 Texas State Capitol 11th and Congress Austin, Texas
Sponsored by Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Campaign to End the Death Penalty - Austin Chapter, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center and Students Against the Death Penalty.
Every Texas legislative session since 2003, the anti-death penalty community in Texas has rallied at the Texas capitol to lobby legislators to end the death penalty. In 2009, there have already been several bills filed that we will be lobbying in favor, including a bill to end the death penalty under the Law of Parties, an abolition bill, a death penalty study commission and moratorium on executions bill, and other issues.
Please make plans to be in Austin on Tuesday, March 24, so that we can all raise our voices together against injustice of the Texas death penalty.
Below is the tentative schedule. We will announce more details and he rooms for all events later.
Tentative Schedule
10 AM - Noon Lobbying Training Workshop and Orientation to the State Capitol
12:30 Press Conference
1 PM Break for Lunch
After Lunch: Visiting legislative offices and attending committee hearings (If the committees will be hearing any death penalty related bills, we will know five days before the event)
5:30 PM Rally on the South Steps of the Capitol
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Emergency Action To Save An Innocent Person
Posted by admin on: Saturday 24 January @ 01:11:58
Larry Swearingen is scheduled to be executed in Texas on January 27. He was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of Melissa Trotter in 1998. He maintains his innocence of the murder. Several forensic experts have provided statements and testimony supporting his claim.
We'd like to ask for your help to save an innocent man's life. Larry Swearingen is scheduled to be executed on January 27, 2009 by the State of Texas despite the fact that he didn't kill anyone.
Larry is in URGENT need for IMMEDIATE PUBLIC ATTENTION on his case since the courts ignored the brought up evidence which shows clearly that he was jailed on unrelated charges while the victim in this case got killed and her body dumped in the woods.
Please take a minute to sign his petition. You can help by spreading the Petition link on the internet. You can send letters, e-mails, faxes or make phone calls to the local, national and international media, TV and radio stations. Raise your voice and express your displeasure and anger about the injustice taking place in this case. The media has to point a finger at this outrageous crime that the State of Texas plans to commit against a wrongly convicted man before it's too late!!
Please write to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, urging them to not execute Larry Swearingen!
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles General Counsel's Office 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, Texas 78757
Phone (512) 406-5852 Fax (512) 467-0945
We oppose the death penalty unconditionally in all cases since it is an affront to human dignity. However, the execution of an innocent man is the ultimative catastrophe in a civilized country and society since it can happen to any of us.
The cases of Troy Davis in Georgia, Jeff Wood and Kenneth Foster in Texas shown so far what is possible when people stand up, and we're watching the development of these cases intently from Europe. Today we're turning to you with our plea to please stand up and raise your voice for Larry Swearingen to stop the insanity of state sanctioned murder.
Thank you very much, Erwann Doulin, Gianluca Ferrara & Wiebke Swearingen on behalf of the Larry Swearingen Support Group
Mental Illness on death row is a serious problem, as shown by this incident, reported in the Austin American-Statesman. Mr. Thomas, 25, had already pulled out his other eye in 2004 while awaiting trial in Sherman. He was ruled competent to stand trial.
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON — A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye, authorities said Friday.
Andre Thomas told officers he ate it.
Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.
While in the Grayson County Jail in Sherman, Thomas similarly had plucked out his right eye before his trial later in 2004. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.
A death-row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and had him taken to the unit infirmary.
""Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.
Thomas was treated at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler after the Dec. 9 incident. Then he was transferred and remains at the Jester Unit, a prison psychiatric facility near Richmond southwest of Houston.
"He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1," Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas' trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. "He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one."
At his trial, defense lawyers also argued he suffered from alcohol and drug abuse.
Thomas does not have an execution date.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in October upheld his conviction and death sentence for the death of 13-month-old Leyha Marie Hughes. Also killed March 27, 2004, were his wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, and their son, 4-year-old Andre Lee.
Thomas, from Texoma, walked into the Sherman Police Department and told a dispatcher he had just murdered the three and had stabbed himself in the chest.
Thomas told police how he put his victims' hearts in his pocket and left their apartment, took them home, put them in a plastic bag and threw them in the trash.
Court documents described the three victims as having "large, gaping wounds to their chests."
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Sharon Keller Should Be Removed from Office for "willful neglect of duty"
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 09 December @ 19:09:41
When the Texas Legislature convenes in January, it should take action to remove Sharon Keller from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. We are still waiting for a report from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct regarding the reprehensible actions of Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The last communication we received from the Commission was that their investigation was nearing completion. That was in September. There were several judicial complaints filed against Keller (scroll down for list).
We do not know what, if any, action the Commission will take to discipline Keller for her violation of the unwritten policies of the Court of Criminal Appeals on Sept 25, when she neglected to inform the duty judge that the lawyers of Michael Richard wanted to submit an appeal 15 minutes after the end of the day's office hours. Keller said, "we close at 5" and refused to accept the appeal. In truth, the Court does not "close". Justice is always open. Keller knew it and yet she obstructed justice by her actions. The Commission could recommend that the Texas Supreme Court removes her from office. However, there are two other methods that could be used to remove Keller from her position.
The Texas Constitution Article 15, Section 2 says that "impeachment of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Commissioner of the General Land Office, Comptroller and the Judges of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and District Court shall be tried by the Senate."
Before such a trial can take place, the Texas House has to impeach the officer to be tried. "Impeachment" is the formal charging of misconduct.The actual removal of office would be by the Senate's trial. even if the Senate did not vote to remove her, being officially indicted by the Texas House could be encouragement enough to convince her to resign.
If the commission doesn’t act quickly, we’ll have to wait until January 2009, when the Legislature—which has the power to oust high judges—reconvenes, or worse, 2012, when Keller is up for reelection. The fact is, we need to do it now. Impeach Sharon Keller.
The Texas Constitution also says in Article 15, Section 8 that judges can be removed for causes that are not sufficient for impeachment:
The Judges of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and District Courts, shall be removed by the Governor on the address of two-thirds of each House of the Legislature, for willful neglect of duty, incompetency, habitual drunkenness, oppression in office, or other reasonable cause which shall not be sufficient ground for impeachment; provided, however, that the cause or causes for which such removal shall be required, shall be stated at length in such address and entered on the journals of each House; and provided further, that the cause or causes shall be notified to the judge so intended to be removed, and he shall be admitted to a hearing in his own defense before any vote for such address shall pass, and in all such cases, the vote shall be taken by yeas and nays and entered on the journals of each House respectively.
Texas Moratorium Network submitted a Public Information Request to Sharon Keller to receive a copy of the letter she wrote to the Houston Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe in response to Ratcliffe's own PIR. Ratcliffe wrote an article on his PIR on Dec 13 ("Judge in death case violated policies: Keller, who shut out appeal, says new written rules reflect unwritten ones on that day"). He wrote that "Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller apparently violated court policies for handling death penalty cases when she closed the court clerk's doors on Michael Richard's efforts to file a last-minute appeal before his execution."
Ratcliffe's reporting seems to have uncovered the smoking gun admission that Keller broke the CCA's policies in effect on the day of Richard's execution. He should be given a journalism award for his work. We congratulate him on his idea of asking for the policies in effect on Sept 25. His article left us wanting to see the entire text of the policies ourselves, so we submitted our own PIR.
Reading the entire text of the policies makes it very clear that Keller violated the rules by not contacting the assigned duty judge about the request by Richard's lawyers to file a late appeal.
We sent a copy to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct of Keller's letter to Ratcliffe and of the document "Execution-day Procedures".
A designated judge will be assigned to be in charge of each scheduled execution. Generally, judges will be assigned in rotating seniority order by the general counsel. Exceptions in order of assignment will be made for prior involvement in the death-row inmate's case as trial judge, prosecutor, or defense counsel, or for recusal. Judges may also trade assignments, with notice to all other judges and general counsel, for other good cause such as anticipated absence from court on the day of execution. Unless the Court has been informed by defense counsel that no pleadings will be filed, or pleadings have been filed and ruled on, general counsel shall be present at the Court on the date of the scheduled execution until the time of execution has passed. The assigned judge shall be present at the Court, or immediately available, on the date of the scheduled execution until the time of execution has passed. Support staff may be requested to remain, also, as needed.
All communications regarding the scheduled execution shall first be referred to the assigned judge. The term “communications” includes pleadings, telephone calls, faxes, emails, and any other means of communication with the Court. The assigned judge may call a special conference or gather votes by telephone, email, fax, or other form of communication.
If the communication includes a request for stay of execution, the assigned judge shall contact, by any reasonable means, the other members of the Court and request a vote on the motion to stay. Non-assigned judges will provide to the assigned judge an adequate means of contact. "Reasonable means" includes calling a special conference and contact by electronic communication.
Below are some of the people who filed complaints last year against Keller with the Commission on Judicial Conduct.
* A group of about 1900 people signed a complaint sent to the Commission by Texas Moratorium Network. * Twenty lawyers represented by Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project, including: o Dick DeGuerin o Chuck Herring o former State Bar President Broadus Spivey o University of Houston law professor Mike Olivas o former appellate Judge Michol O'Connor o State Representative Harold Dutton * Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, signed by more than 130 lawyers and others, including: o State Representative Dora Olivo o State Representative Garnet Coleman * National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers * Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association * State Representative Lon Burnam * State Representative Jessica Farrar
Several newspapers also called for Keller to be removed from office, including the Houston Chronicle, which wrote on Oct 15, 2007:
Judge Keller let her personal bias in favor of the death penalty trample the right of now-executed prisoner Michael Richard to access the courts and have due process. In doing so, she abdicated her role as the state's chief criminal justice to become its chief executioner.
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Photo of Greg Wright 15 Minutes After His Execution in Huntsville
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 03 December @ 02:25:44
Greg Wright was one of the 18 people executed in Texas in 2008. There are no more executions scheduled this year in Texas. So far in 2008, there have been 36 executions in the U.S., so 50 percent of them took place in Texas. There is one more scheduled in South Carolina on December 5.
This is a photo of Greg Wright 15 minutes after his execution on Oct 30, 2008 in Texas. His friend, Bente Hjortshøj, is standing on the left. She wrote this caption to the photo:
"The first time we touched you Greg...you were still warm...you looked at peace...as though you were just sleeping and would wake up soon....it was sooooo hard to see you like this though you were finally free..this is just about 15 minutes after the execution...sooo surreal....BUT dearest Greg.....Me and Connie kept our promise to you and for that we are glad...but it was tougher than we thought.... we did it out of love and respect for you!! LOVE YA LOADS!!!!".
Bente Hjortshøj has given permission for the photo to be distributed around the internet, "me and Connie decided to publish all pictures to show the world the cruel and unusual punishment and its horrible consequences".
"The truth doesn't matter," Wright said in an interview from death row a few days before his execution. He said he was stunned when his guilty verdict was announced. "I couldn't believe what was happening ... I am innocent."
Wright again proclaimed his innocence in his last statement at his execution, when asked if he had anything to say:
"Yes I do. There has been a lot of confusion on who done this. I know you all want closure. Donna had her Christianity in tact when she died. She never went to a drug house. John Adams lied. He went to the police and told them a story. He made deals and sold stuff to keep from going to prison. I left the house, and I left him there. My only act or involvement was not telling on him. John Adams is the one that killed Donna Vick. I took a polygraph and passed. John Adams never volunteered to take one. I have done everything in my power. Donna Vick helped me; she took me off the street. I was a truck driver; my CDL was still active. Donna gave me everything I could ask for. I helped her around the yard. I helped her around the house. She asked if there were anyone else to help. I am a Christian myself, so I told her about John Adams. We picked him up at a dope house. I did not know he was a career criminal. When we got to the house he was jonesin for drugs. He has to go to Dallas. I was in the bathroom when he attacked. I am deaf in one ear and I thought the T.V. was up too loud. I ran in to the bedroom. By the time I came in, when I tried to help her, with first aid, it was too late. The veins were cut on her throat. He stabbed her in her heart, and that's what killed her. I told John Adams, "turn yourself in or hit the high road." I owed him a favor because he pulled someone off my back. I was in a fight downtown. Two or three days later he turned on me. I have done everything to prove my innocence. Before you is an innocent man. I love my famly. I'll be waiting on ya'll. I'm finished talking."
The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m.
When you read the final statements of most executed offenders, at least those who choose to give them, they tend to express remorse, often apologizing to victim families, or else offering comfort to friends and family they're leaving behind. Wright's final statement was noteworthy because he defiantly maintained his innocence until the end, instead insisting that an informant who testified against him really did the deed.
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HURRICANE SEASON: the hidden messages in water
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 11 November @ 03:04:06
HURRICANE SEASON: the hidden messages in water is a two woman show about unnatural disaster and a great shift in universal consciousness.
Alixa and Naima are the soul-sister co-conspiracy of arts activists known as Climbing PoeTree. With roots in Haiti and Colombia, Alixa and Naima reside in Brooklyn and track footprints across the country and globe on a mission to overcome destruction with creativity.
AUSTIN the Off Center 11.19.08 | 6:30 PM Austin, TX The Off Center 2211 Hidalgo St Austin, TX 78702 (512) 476-7833
doors open (6:30) show time (7:00)
Ticket Info: 10- 20 dollar sliding scale.
Hurricane Season is a post-Katrina performance uprising: a multi-media show and movement strategy that draws vital connections between shared struggles and common solutions in a critical moment in national and global history.
New Orleans emerged from the floodwaters as a microcosm of the intersecting forces at play across the world:
- global warming and environmental injustice - extreme poverty amidst affluence and over-consumption - gentrification and forced relocation of poor people and people of color - the police, prison, and military industrial complex - corporate control over public policy - lack of local ownership and self-determination - gross disparity of access and power along gender, sexuality, class, and color lines
Through a tapestry of spoken-word poetry, theater, video projection, dance, shadow art, and a sound collage of personal testimonies, Hurricane Season connects the issues that surfaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the “unnatural disasters” disenfranchised communities are experiencing nationwide on a daily basis.
Popular education through cultural activism, the performance brims with stories missing or mangled in mainstream media. The show is both brutal and uplifting, taking the audience on a voyage of unthinkable tragedy and undeniable promise from the eye of a systemic storm.
With a set built of bamboo,calabash, and water that surrounds the audience in a circle of shadow and light, Hurricane Season transforms spaces into sanctuaries of healing, witness, and imagination.
Every show is followed by a “solutions-cipher,” a forum that addresses the impacts of the issues surfaced in Hurricane Season on a local level, and illuminates solutions already underway. The objective of the post-show “solutions-ciphers” is to cross-pollinate creative strategies for self-determination and to turn the passion generated in the show into action manifested in the community.
Representatives from grassroots groups doing critical and inspiring work in every tour stop, will be featured at the dialogs to garner support for their initiatives and give audience members access into local movements.
Texas Moratorium Network will participate in the post-show dialogue at the Austin show. TMN is a grassroots organization that struggles against the death penalty in the number one execution state in the U.S.
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Help Us Win a Contest so that We Can Help Some Families of People on Death Row
Posted by admin on: Thursday 30 October @ 23:15:11
Click here to join the "Abolish the Death Penalty Project" on Amazee.com and help us win the membership contest. We could win up to $5,000 to use against the death penalty. The project with the most members by Jan 22 wins. We plan to use one-half of any prize money we win to help needy families of people on death row travel to visit their loved ones on death row. We will use the other half of the prize money to fight against the death penalty.
You have to go to the project page, click on "join project" on the right hand side, then click on "register". Then to qualify as one of the members who count towards the contest, you have to upload a profile picture or avatar of yourself. You don't have to do anything else to help us win the membership contest, but if you want, you can contribute content to the project.
We were all moved by the family members who spoke at the 9th Annual March to Stop Executions in Houston, so we were thinking of how we could help them. We all know that the death penalty is reserved for the poor. There are no rich people on death row. We want to use one half of any prize money we get through this contest to help family members visit their loved ones on death row. Many families have a hard time making ends meet and the extra cost of traveling long distances to visit their loved ones on death row is a great financial burden. Some of the people on death row have young children who rarely get to visit them.
If we win the first place prize of $5,000, then $2500 will be reserved to help with trips to death row for families of people sentenced to death who need financial help to visit their loved ones. The other $2,500 would be used for activities during the upcoming Texas legislative session, such as a big anti-death penalty rally in Austin and other projects. If we only win third place, then we would have $1000 for the families and $1,000 for other expenses. But let's aim for first place!
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Robert Jean Hudson's Family and Supporters Plead for Commutation of Death Senten
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 22 October @ 21:55:49
Robert Jean Hudson is scheduled for execution in Texas on November 20. If all the executions scheduled in Texas between now and Hudson's scheduled date, he will be the twelfth person executed in Texas within a six week period. Hudson's supporters are asking for his death sentence to be changed to life in prison.
A petition for Hudson has been signed so far by more than 2000 people. To sign click here. His supporters have created a group for him on Facebook explaining why his sentence should be commuted to life:
Robert has always admitted to the murder, which he has repeatedly said was wrong, plead guilty in court, and has shown deep personal remorse and sorrow for the crime.
He had a troubled childhood and the murder *WAS NOT* premeditated, meaning he *should not* have been charged with capital murder, as non-premeditated murder *IS NOT a capital offense* in Texas, where it was committed.
Robert has a family and children of his own, who will have to face the loss of their father if his execution goes ahead.
Robert's lawyers during the sentencing phase of his trial did not perform as they should have, and failed grievously in their task.
The sentencing phase of Robert's trial was defective; he was on antidepressants and thus unable to testify/stand trial.
Due to his troubled childhood, he has had pyschiatric treatment since he was young, and he spent several years in special education. His Vietnam-veteran father was alcoholic.
Robert went through a long cycle of depression as a child, which hindered his chance to have a fair start in life.
NOTE: Neither this group nor Robert Jean Hudson's profile are edited by him. The group and his profile are maintained by his supporters on behalf of him. He has no access to the Internet, but we can send messages to the prison (the notorious Polunsky Unit).
IMPORTANT: As we are requesting only a COMMUTATION, if this is granted, Robert WILL NOT be released -- he just won't be executed. So please don't think we're requesting a pardon or the like. Robert will remain imprisoned, but he will be able to rebuild his life, and won't face the barbaric, torturous death penalty.
As one group member said, "I AM JOINING THIS GROUP BECAUSE A PARDON IS NOT BEING ASKED FOR AND THE VICTIM IS NOT BEING FORGOTTEN; SO I HOPE A STAY OF EXACUTION IS GRANTED; JUSTICE WILL STILL BE DONE."
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Statement of Co-Defendant: Greg Wright is innocent!
The below is taken from the "Short Summary of the Application for a Post-Conviction Writ of Habeas Corpus, submitted by Bruce Anton & Mary Penrose, attorneys, on behalf of Gregory Wright, to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals". The full writ was submitted to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals before Wright's previous execution date in Sept (Download here). Wright has a new execution date of Oct 30.
On July 7, 2008, after years of denying his role in Vick’s murder, John Adams wrote an unsolicited declaration of guiltthat reads as follows:
My name is John Wade Adams #999278. I want the record clear that Greg Wright is innocent of the crime he’s here on death row for. If you kill him your (sic) killing a innocent man. Greg Wright was used as a scape goat. I’m doing this because I’m tired of seeing innocent people being killed for murders they’ve not done the statement I made is a lie the one that I made at the first of our arrest. Greg Wright is innocent! I was there and know better.
On August 11, 2008, Adams sent a supplemental declaration clarifying Wright’s role in the offense.
8. Did you place the murder of Donna D. Vick on the hands of Gregory E. Wright?Yes to make it look like he did it. I set him up.
9. Is Gregory E. Wright actually and factually innocent of the murder of Donna D. Vick and never knew of any intent to harm before the crime took place?
Yes he’s innocent of this crime. I did it.
13. Did you kill Donna D. Vick?
Yes
23. Do you have anything additional to add, relevant to the subject of Gregory E. Wright’s trial, evidence, conviction, sentence, or date of execution, not previously covered in your above and foregoing (sic) answers
Greg is innocent. You will be killing an innocent man.
Adams’ recantation completely exonerates Wright. Adams’ recantation does more than unequivocally establish Wright’s innocence; it also renounces Adams’ written confession used at Wright’s trial to obtain a convictionagainst Wright.
The lawyers for Wright explain in the full writ that John Adams is himself on death row and that his statements above endanger his own appeals.
Adams himself is facing a death sentence. His recent habeas victory is currently pending in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, having been granted a new sentencing hearing by the federal district court. If his appeal is reversed, Adams faces execution. If his appeal is affirmed, Adams faces a resentencing hearing in which his recantation would be admissible and very damaging.
This recantation, apparently made over Adams’ own counsel’s advice, has the capacity to subject Adams to execution. No statement ever given is more against penal interest. Therefore, no statement ever given carries a greater indicia of reliability than Adams’ recent recantation.
Greg Wright's supporters are circulating the following appeal requesting that people write the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Governor:
Gregory Edward Wright is scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas October 30, 2008 for the murder of Donna Vick on March 21, 1997 in Desoto, Texas. Mr. Wright was one of two defendants sentenced to death in this case in separate trials. A petition for Commutation of his death sentence or in the alternative, a 180 day Reprieve has been submitted by his attorneys.
We are requesting that letters of support be sent to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking them to recommend these actions to the Governor, and to the Governor asking him to commute the death sentence to life or to grant a 180 day reprieve.
Some of the issues in Mr. Wright’s case have never been considered on appeal because his State Habeas attorney did virtually no work on his behalf leaving these issues unpreserved and preventing them from being raised in further appeals. This attorney is no longer on the list of attorneys approved to represent capital defendants in their appeals.
The other defendant in this case made confessions to the murder to a number of individuals both before the trial and after conviction. However he has never confessed under oath. One such confession was to an individual working at a 24 hour video story on the evening of the murder. The other defendant then asked him to call 911 for him. Both of them made calls to 911, but the tapes, which might have been helpful to Mr. Wright’s defense, have disappeared.
Mr. Wright’s attorneys were unable to find this witness to interview him, and the prosecutor’s office claimed they did not know his whereabouts. An affidavit by this witness confirms that the prosecutor’s office maintained contact with him prior to the trial.
There was another person to whom the other defendant confessed shortly after the murder while driving the victim’s car that the defense was never aware of until after the trial.
The prosecution made an undisclosed deal with another person who testified against Mr. Wright at his trial, providing information not available from any other source that was very damaging to Mr. Wright such as a cheerful demeanor after the murder. Although this witness testified to actions that would have subjected him to a lengthy prison sentence, he was never charged with a crime. Upon questioning by the defense attorney, both the witness and the prosecutor denied the existence of any deal. However testimony during the trial of the other defendant in the murder confirms the existence of a deal made prior to Mr. Wright’s trial.
A lot of emphasis was placed on the testimony of this witness during both the trial and the punishment phase. Failure to disclose a deal rendered the defense unable to point out the bias of this witness. Not only did the prosecution deny a deal but repeatedly insisted that none existed.
Items related to the crime, papers and clothing, such as jeans containing Mr. Vick’s blood, were found in a shack in Desoto. Although the police and the prosecutor were aware that both men had access to this shack, at trial the information was withheld that paperwork belonging to the other defendant was also present, and access was attributed only to Mr. Wright. In the other defendant’s trial, the shack was described as being shared by both men. There remain questions about the ownership of the jeans, which have questionable DNA inside a pant leg, and DNA testing is ongoing. Further testing is being opposed by the prosecution.
The state presented as their only physical evidence against Mr. Wright a partial bloody fingerprint on a pillowcase lifted by a crime scene officer not trained to handle evidence and who has now been indicted for murder in another case and is currently a fugitive from justice. Members of the Dallas Co. Sheriff’s Office with extensive experience and training in fingerprint identification did not find the print comparable to those of any suspects. A retired print examiner, who had worked in the past with the other examiners, testified to the match to Mr. Wright’s known prints without showing the points of comparison and told the jury they would have to take his word for it. A forensic scientist who recently reviewed the materials found that no scientific comparison could be made on the materials submitted at trial.
In conclusion, Mr. Wright did not have a fair trial. Witnesses were hidden, key evidence was suppressed, and testimony was bought and paid for. The State “shopped” for a fingerprint expert who would testify to a match.
There are serious doubts that Gregory Wright is guilty of the crime for which he is scheduled to be executed. There is NO doubt that he did not receive a fair trial.
Using the information in this summary and any other factors you think should be considered, please write your letters to the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Remember to include in your letter your awareness of the severity of the crime and the harm done to Ms. Vick and the loss to any of her relatives or loved ones.
Please send your letters as soon as you are reasonably able to do so as the petition has already been submitted.
Here is the contact information
Rissie Owens, Presiding Officer
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles & other Board Members
Today, a letter from 22 former federal and state judges and prosecutors (pdf) from Texas and across the country was delivered to Governor Perry urging him to grant a 30-day reprieve to Charles Dean Hood who is scheduled for execution on Wednesday, September 10, 2008. The former judges and prosecutors are asking the governor to grant a reprieve to allow the Texas courts to conduct a meaningful review of the allegations of a secret romantic relationship between Judge Verla Sue Holland, who presided over Mr. Hood’s 1990 capital murder trial, and former Collin County District Attorney Thomas O’Connell, who prosecuted the case.
The letter states: “We write because our long experience as jurists and law enforcement officials leads us to believe that justice cannot be served unless the courts are able to consider whether Mr. Hood’s conviction and sentence are invalid.”
Signatories to the letter include: John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; W.J. Michael Cody, former Attorney General of Tennessee; J. Joseph Curran, former Attorney General of Maryland; William S. Sessions, former Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and former Director of the FBI; Kenneth J. Mighell, former United States Attorney, Northern District of Texas; Jay Burnett, former Criminal District Court Judge, Texas; and Sam D. Millsap, former District Attorney, Bexar County, San Antonio, Texas.
The former judges and prosecutors say that “Mr. Hood’s claim appears on its face to have substantial credibility.” In June, a former assistant district attorney who worked in the office with Mr. O’Connell filed an affidavit stating that “[i]t was common knowledge in the District Attorney’s Office, and the Collin County Bar, in general, that the District Attorney…and Judge Verla Sue Holland had a romantic relationship.” Mr. Hood’s trial attorney and a private investigator have also signed affidavits corroborating this claim.
To-date, the Texas courts have refused to consider the charges on their merits or allow an investigation before the scheduled execution. Judge Robert Dry of the 199th Judicial District Court has scheduled a hearing on Mr. Hood’s request to take investigatory depositions of Judge Holland and former District Attorney Tom O’Connell on September 12, 2008 – two days after the scheduled execution.
“It is an irrevocable wrong to send a man to his death without ever hearing this critical evidence,” the letter from the former judges and prosecutors states.
Earlier this summer, the nearly 500-member Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and three dozen of the nation’s leading legal ethicists also called Mr. Hood’s conviction into question (pdf). They say the affair constitutes a violation of Mr. Hood’s constitutional rights and must be investigated.
On June 3, Hood's lawyers obtained a sworn statement from a lawyer who had worked in the Collin County district attorney's office at the time of the trial in 1990. The former assistant DA, Matthew Goeller, said it was "common knowledge in the district attorney's office" that DA Tom O'Connell and Judge Verla Sue Holland were involved in a long-running affair.
The courts have clearly held that the constitutional right to due process includes a trial in which the judge is not, figuratively or literally, in bed with the prosecutor.
The ABA Code of Judicial Conduct provides that "A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Where there is doubt, a judge is obliged to disclose information that lawyers might consider relevant to the question of disqualification.
The judge in Hood's case did not disclose the affair with the prosecuting attorney.
Charles Hood deserves a new trial in which the judge is not having an affair with the prosecuting attorney.
Please compose a message in your own words. Form letters are not effective.You can also express your sympathy for the familes and loved ones of Tracie Wallace and Ronald Williamson.
You can also leave Governor Perry 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
Below is a letter from ten Texas legislators to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles urging them to grant clemency to Jeff Wood. In addition to this letter, other legislators have told us that they are writing their own letters, including Rep. Dora Olivo and Rep. Mike Villareal.
Ms. Rissie Owens Chair Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Executive Clemency Section 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, Texas 78757
Dear Chairwoman Owens and Board Members:
We are writing to urge the Board to recommend commuting Jeffrey Wood's death sentence to a life sentence. Further, we hope that Governor Peny would act favorably on such a recommendation. As we are certain you are aware, Mr. Wood is set to be executed on August 21,2008.
Mr. Wood was convicted of capital murder under the Texas Law of Parties. It appears evident that he neither killed, nor anticipated that Daniel Earl Reneau would kill, Kris Keeran. He did not anticipate that a murder would occur and was not in the store when the murder took place. The shooter, Danny Reneau, has already been executed for this crime. When asked on death row to identify the shooter, Reneau had a oneword reply, "Me."
This case is similar to the case of Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Govemor Perry in 2007.
While Jeffrey Wood deserves to be imprisoned for his participation in the robbery, he should not be executed. We find the facts of his case, as well as the application of the Law of Parties, to be particularly bothersome.
The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst. It seems clear to us that Jeffrey Wood is not a man for whom the death penalty should be applied. We respectfully request that clemency be granted.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Rep. Elliott Naishtat District 49
Rep. Donna Howard District 48
Rep. Lon Burnam District 90
Ruth Jones McClendon District 120
Rep. Alma Allen District 131
Rep. Eddie Rodriguez District 51
Rep. Sylvester Tumer District 139
Rep. Harold Dutton District 142
Rep. Jessica Farrar District 148
Rep. Mark Strama District 50
cc: The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas State Capitol 2S.1
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What is the Law of Parties?
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 06 August @ 02:37:12
Section 7.02 of the Texas Penal Code outlines the following:
A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if "acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense he solicits, encourages, directs, aids or attempts to aid the other persons to commit the offense" or "If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy." Article 37.071(b)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedures permits the infliction of the death penalty only if the jury believes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant "intended to kill the deceased or another or anticipated that a human life would be taken."
PARTIES AND THE US SUPREME COURT The US Supreme Court held that imposition of the death penalty on a person who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill violates the 8th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. (Edmund v. Florida 458 US 782, 1982) Five years after the Edmund decision the Supreme Court created an exception to this general rule for those guilty of a murder that occurs in the commission of a felony who do not kill or intend to kill, but who have major personal involvement in the felony and display a reckless indifference to human life. (Tison v. Arizona, 481 US 137, 1987)
THE STANDARD NECESSARY TO DEMONSTRATE RECKLESS INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN LIFE The Delaware Superior Court observed: "Major participation and reckless indifference to human life are more likely to be found where an accomplice defendant is present at and before a killing which involved considerable deliberation and the killing is preceded by physical or psychological abuse of the victim, including assault, torture or other acts of cruelty. Such a finding is less likely where the killing is sudden or impulsive and it is unclear that the defendant actually caused the victim’s death."
The application of Texas Penal Code 7.02, in combination with Texas Code of Criminal Procedures Article 37.071(b)(2), is unjust and unconstitutional because it permits the death penalty to be imposed for complicity in a capital crime without requiring a finding that the person intended to kill or that he was a major participant in a crime where he showed reckless disregard for human life. In other words, neglecting to anticipate another actor’s commission of murder in the course of a felony is all that is required to make a Texas defendant death-eligible, thus immensely lowering the standard the US Supreme Court has set. This is allowing the death penalty to be applied in a most immoral and liberal way
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San Antonio Express News Report on Rally for Jeff Wood
MARIANA QUEVEDO/mquevedo@express-news.net Kristin Wood, the wife of death row inmate Jeffrey Wood, holds sister-in-law Terri Been at a rally at the Alamo. Jeffrey Wood is scheduled to be executed Aug. 21. A second rally is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.
Recommend recommend 0 Eva Ruth Moravec - Express-News
Supporters of Texas inmate Jeffrey Wood, scheduled to die Aug. 21 for the 1996 murder of a Kerrville convenience store clerk, are hoping Gov. Rick Perry can see how similar Wood's case is to that of an inmate whose death sentence he commuted to life in prison last year.
"It was the exact same thing," said Wood's wife, Kristin. "He has faith, especially that the truth will come out eventually."
Jeffrey Wood and his former roommate Daniel Reneau were convicted of murdering Kris Keeran, a clerk at the Kerrville Gold Star Texaco.
According to court testimony, Reneau held up the store . on Jan. 2, 1996, and shot Keeran after he refused to participate in a plan to stage a robbery and split the proceeds. Wood drove the getaway car. In a taped interview with a Kerrville police detective, Wood called Keeran "a real good friend."
Wood's defense team claimed he was unaware that a robbery, let alone murder, would occur.
Kerr County Assistant District Attorney Lucy Wilke, formerly Lucy Cavazos, won a conviction against Wood under the law of parties statute, which makes someone who participates in an act that leads to homicide as culpable as the actual killer.
In a letter sent in July to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Wilke wrote, "Mr. Wood was the mastermind of this senseless murder. It was Wood who showed his teenage brother the surveillance video tape depicting the murder, while laughing, and then ordered his brother to destroy the tape."
On Saturday, about 20 people gathered in front of the Alamo to rally for Wood's life, begging Perry for help.
Last August, Perry commuted a death sentence to life in prison for inmate Kenneth Foster Jr., also convicted under the law of parties statute.
"Jeff's case is so much like Kenneth's case; it is like a mirror image," Lawrence Foster, grandfather of Kenneth Foster Jr., wrote in a statement read at the rally. "I remember thinking last summer that Texas had already executed the killer and yet they wanted Kenneth. It is the same for Jeff."
The cases are so similar that Norway native Kristin Wood, 29, has found comfort and support from the Foster camp, including from Foster's wife, Tasha, a 24-year-old Netherlands citizen.
Wood's relatives staged the rally with the Texas Moratorium Network, which wants a two-year moratorium on all death penalty cases. A second rally for Wood is planned for Aug. 16 in Austin.
Meanwhile, younger relatives have joined a group called Kids Against the Death Penalty.
"I'm here because Jeff Wood is innocent and on death row for a murder that he didn't commit," said Gavin Been, 11, Wood's nephew.
According to the Texas Moratorium Network, attorney Jared Tyler with the Texas Defender Service is preparing a clemency package to submit on Wood's behalf.
The victim's father, Charles Keeran, also would like to see Wood live.
"The death penalty, to me, is the easy way out," he said. "If you had to be down there and get up every morning, as hot and humid as it is, knowing that you are going to spend the rest of your life locked up under those conditions, that's punishment. That's what I think my son would want for him."
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Jordan Smith Reports on Jeff Wood in Austin Chronicle
Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle reports in this week's issue on the case of Jeff Wood. From "Those Who Are About to Die":
Wood did not fire the fatal shot and did not participate in the robbery that preceded the Jan. 2, 1996, murder. Nonetheless, Wood was sentenced to die, based on the state's "law of parties," also known as the "conspirator liability" statute. The law provides that if two or more people agree to commit one crime but in the process commit another, each person is guilty of the crime committed – if the crime was "one that should have been anticipated." This is a more nebulous form of traditional accomplice liability (aiding and abetting) that requires the state to prove specific, individual culpability. The difference here is in intent and foresight: Accomplice liability requires intent; conspiracy requires only a finding that the crime was foreseeable.
In Wood's case, the state argued that he had planned with Reneau to rob the Texaco and therefore was responsible for Keeran's death. But it isn't at all clear that Wood was planning to rob the store. Wood told police that he'd heard Reneau talking with someone else (the store manager, Been says) about a possible robbery – the place had taken in $17,000 over Christmas, and the pair speculated that a similarly hefty stash could be expected just after New Year's Eve, since the bank holiday would mean the money would not yet have been deposited – but Wood also said he believed the talk was "bullshit in the breeze." (Family members have said that Wood did initially talk about robbing the store, along with Reneau, the store manager, and Keeran, but insisted that Wood, Keeran, and the manager all dismissed the idea.)
Critics have argued that Texas' use of the law of parties unconstitutionally broadens the field of death-eligible defendants; the death penalty, they argue, should be reserved for the most culpable and most heinous crimes. In fact, Texas is the only state that uses a conspiracy statute to make defendants eligible for the death penalty. "To pass constitutional scrutiny," Wood's attorney Scott Sullivan argued on appeal, "a sentencing statute must not only narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty, it must also ensure sentencing decisions are based upon an individual inquiry" of culpability. Texas' law of parties fails to do that, he wrote. The state, however, argues that the law of parties is not implicated in a decision to impose death: "The Texas capital murder scheme does not allow an individual to be put to death merely for being a party because the law-of-parties cannot be applied in answering the special issues" that jurors must answer, argued then-Bexar Co. Assistant District Attorney Lucy Cavazos. A death sentence is assessed only if jurors find that a defendant would pose a continuing threat to society and that there is no mitigating evidence that might lessen the defendant's culpability. Yet Cavazos' argument evades the fact that without the law-of-parties, defendants like Wood wouldn't be eligible for death in the first place. The courts have sided with the state.
Wood's case is similar to that of Kenneth Foster, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Michael LaHood by a companion, based on the Bexar Co. district attorney's use of the conspiracy statute. Foster was scheduled to die last year but was spared when Gov. Rick Perry accepted the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and commuted his sentence to life in prison. "I believe the right and just decision is to commute Foster's sentence," he said. Perry did not directly implicate the law of parties in explaining his decision but did raise the issue of culpability, saying he was "concerned" that state law allowed Foster to be tried jointly with triggerman Maurecio Brown.
Jeff Wood's family and friends are holding a rally to Save Jeff Wood this Saturday, Aug 2, in San Antonio in the plaza in front of the Alamo.
The Executive Director of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation has written a letter to Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles asking that they grant clemency to Jeff Wood.
July 16, 2008
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor, State of Texas P.O. Box 12428 Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Ms. Rissie Owens, Chair Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, Texas 78757
Re: Jeffrey Wood, TDJC No. 999256
Dear Governor Perry and Chairwoman Owens:
Our organization consists of hundreds of family members of murder victims plus thousands of “Friends of MVFR”. Many of these members reside in Texas. I write as a representative of all of these good people.
We make an urgent plea for you to extend mercy to Jeff Wood by commuting his death sentence. He presently resides on Texas’ death row, with the date of 8/21 set for his execution. We do not ordinarily write to state officials in behalf of those on death rows. We only do so when we believe the circumstances are so extraordinary that it cries out for leniency. In those cases, there have usually been one, or possibly two, circumstances that might lead to commutation. In Wood’s case, there appear to be at least four such circumstances, probably more, but the four noted herein are the ones that strike us as being most important. First, he was not at all involved in the shooting, actually being outside, with no idea this tragedy might take place. This is combined with fact that there was no predetermined plan for a shooting to happen. Second, he has severe mental problems, likely stemming from abuse he suffered as a child. This is no fake, proven by fact that he was originally found unfit to stand trial and placed in a mental hospital. Third, no defense was presented at the penalty phase of the trial, since Wood, in his diminished capacity, ordered his lawyer not to assert a defense. Had a defense been presented, there is a good possibility that this letter would not even be necessary. Fourth, and this is very important to those of us who have lost loved ones to murder, is the fact that the victim’s father and cousin do not want Wood to be executed. On a very personal note, the wishes of a father are very important to me. I lost my beloved daughter to murder in the State of Georgia twenty years ago, and at that time, I asked the prosecutor to seek the longest possible prison term she could for the killer, but not seek the death penalty. She complied with my request. While the desires of the victims’ family members certainly are not controlling, they often lead prosecutors to seek capital punishment. Here, they should also be a factor to be considered in determining whether leniency is appropriate.
To summarize, in our humble opinions, this is the exact type of case where intervention is called for, a case in which the legal requirements of capital punishment have been met, but justice will be best served by intervention. Accordingly, our thousands of members and friends most respectfully request that you provide that justice.
With great thanks for your consideration of this vital matter,
Lorry W. Post Executive Director
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Lester Bower May be Innocent: Execution Date July 22
Witness says condemned Arlington man isn't responsible for 1983 slayings By TIM MADIGAN Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Just a few paragraphs into the Star-Telegram story, the woman knew something was terribly wrong. A man named Lester Leroy Bower Jr. was on Death Row for the 1983 massacre of four men in a Sherman airplane hangar, she read that morning in 1989. But the woman, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym "Pearl," had reason to believe that Bower wasn’t the killer at all — that it was her ex-boyfriend and three others who had committed the crime.
The woman showed the story to her sister, the one person she had told of her suspicions about the old boyfriend.
"They’re going to put that guy to death for that," she remembers her sister saying.
"Yeah, I know," Pearl replied.
"But he didn’t do it?"
"No," Pearl said.
"You’ve got to do something," the sister said.
After a day of struggling with fears for her own life, Pearl did. The next day, she contacted Bower’s lawyers from Washington, D.C., told them her story and signed a legal affidavit attesting to it.
Now, 19 years later, information she related is at the heart of an increasingly urgent effort to save Bower’s life. On July 22, after 24 years on Texas Death Row, Bower is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
Bower’s lawyers say they have identified the four men whom Pearl alleges to be the killers, have documented their long criminal records and have confirmed other key parts of her story. In recent months, a defense investigator has also located another witness, the wife of one of alleged accomplices who said she heard the four men discussing the killings. The names of the new suspects, though known to defense lawyers, have remained sealed by court order.
"I don’t want Mr. Bower to die for something that he didn’t do," said Pearl, who broke up with her boyfriend shortly after the slayings and remains fearful of him today. Since she signed the affidavit in 1989, her identity has been concealed by court order. "I know in my heart that he didn’t do it. I just could not in my conscience sit back and just go, 'Oh well, sorry.’
Jeff Wood is waiting to die on Texas Death Row with an execution date of August 21st, 2008. Please contact Governor Perry and the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles on behalf of Jeff Wood. Jeff was charged under the Law of Parties and was not the shooter in this crime. Jeff could not anticipate that a murder would occur. The actual shooter in this case has already been executed by the state of Texas.
It took over 17,000 people contacting Governor Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to make a difference for Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Governor Perry last year. Please help save Jeff as Kenneth was saved. The cousin of Kris Keeran (the murder victim) wants to save the life of Jeff Wood:
"My cousin was the person killed by Danny, not Jeff. I say this as a family member who realized long ago Jeff had no part in my cousin's murder and he shouldn't be executed. It's insane to kill another person who did not kill Kris. The video showed Jeff took no part in it. Jeff was one of my friends growing up and someone I think deserves a chance. If he didn't kill him, why should we kill Jeff? This is ridiculous." - Amanda Smith, Texas June 19, 2008
Don’t know about Jeff Wood’s case? Here is a short case summary:
At approximately 6:00 a.m. on Jan. 2, 1996, while Wood waited outside, Reneau entered the gas station with a gun and pointed it at Kris Keeran, the clerk standing behind the counter. Reneau ordered him to a back room. When he did not move quickly enough, Reneau fired one shot with a 22 caliber handgun that struck Keeran between the eyes. Death was almost instantaneous. Proceeding with the robbery, Reneau went into the back office and took a safe. When hearing the shot, Wood got out of the car to see what was going on. He walked by the door and looked through the glass. Then he went inside, and he looked over the counter and ran to the back, where Reneau was. Wood was then ordered, at gun point by Reneau, to get the surveillance video and to drive the getaway-car.
Additional facts:
Wood suffers from severe mental, emotional and learning disabilities. He was abused and beat severely and repeatedly as a child. He is submissive to dominant behavior because of such.
At arrest Wood was forced into interrogation by the police and did not have council present. Wood was kept awake the entire time. He was refused sleep. He eventually confessed saying it was a planned robbery. He later revoked this statement.
Wood was found not mentally fit to stand trial. He was admitted into a mental hospital and a couple of weeks later was found 'trial ready'.
At trial, Wood was not satisfied with his representation. Wood asked to represent himself, but wasn't allowed to do so. The judge found him not capable of doing this. The judge however, did not argue Wood when Wood said he would then order his attorney's not to do anything. Result: Jeff had no witnesses during the punishment phase of his trial on his behalf.
The victim's father is against the death penalty and actually campaigned to keep the actual gunman Reneau alive.
Important facts that should be mentioned in your letter to the Governor include:
Jeff was charged under the Law of Parties and was not the shooter in this crime.
Jeff could not anticipate that a murder would occur.
Jeff was not even in the store when the murder took place and had no way of knowing it would happen.
The actual shooter in this case has already been executed by the state of Texas.
The murder was actually committed by Daniel Earl Reneau, who was executed in Texas on June 13, 2002 for this crime.
You can also express your sympathy for the family of the victim, Kris Keeran, while mentioning again that Jeff Wood did not kill Kris.
You can also mention that Jeff's case is similar to the case of Kenneth Foster, whose death sentence under the Law of Parties was commuted by Gov. Perry in 2007.
My name is Terri Been and I am a Texas republican who is AGAINST the death penalty. I am sorry to say that it was not always this way as I was raised to believe in the death penalty; BUT my views changed over 10 years ago when I was thrust unwillingly into the Texas Judicial system; at which time my eyes were opened to the complete injustice of our whole system.
See, I am the sister of a man wrongfully convicted under the law of parties in Texas. This man's name is Jeffery Wood and he is set to die on August 21st, 2008 for a murder he did NOT commit.
I am writing to you because I am feeling helpless, and I do not know what I can do. These days, I find myself slave to the computer...at first I was a slave to the computer waiting for the worst...to see my brother's name upon the list of those waiting to be executed. That time has come and gone, but I find myself still a slave to the computer in hopes of finding people who can help us in our fight against the Texas Judicial System.
With the execution date set less than 3 months from now, we are running out of time. We are desperate for exposure with people who have some kind of influence on the public, or people who know other people who may be able to help. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or just anything that may help...please feel free to get in touch with me.
We now have a homepage for Jeff in addition to the online petition that is circulating, (which can be found on his homepage at the following web address: www.freewebs.com/savejeffwood under the how to help section). I humbly ask you to help my family by taking a few minutes of your time to read a few facts regarding Jeff's case and to sign his petition that we will be sending the governor!
While you are on Jeff's Web Page, I also ask that you take an extra minute or two to look at the other information we have in the how you can help section. For those of you who are familiar with Kenneth Foster's case (which is very similar to Jeff's case) it took their family over 17,000messages to the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to get his sentence commuted to Life. This was accomplished by sending petitions, faxes, letters, and by making phone calls. At this point, I am getting a little worried because we only have 353 signatures on the petition, and while I am eternally grateful for every single signature.I need more. I need calls, letters and faxes to go along with the petition signatures.
I humbly ask that you help my family. Jeff is my baby brother and he did not kill anybody! Please ask yourselves what you would do if you were in my situation.
Death row inmate set for execution Tuesday says he didn't get impartial trial. By Chuck Lindell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, June 13, 2008
The capital murder conviction of Charles Dean Hood, who is set to be executed Tuesday, should be overturned because the judge at his 1990 trial was secretly dating the district attorney, an appeal filed Thursday alleged.
Judge Verla Sue Holland, now retired, could not have provided Hood with a fair and impartial trial while involved in a long-term intimate relationship with then-Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell, the appeal said. O'Connell played an active role in prosecuting Hood for the double murder that put him on death row.
"The wall of silence that has long protected Judge Holland must now come down," the appeal said. "An intimate relationship ... not only implies a special willingness of the judge to accept the prosecutor's representations and arguments, but also suggests extensive personal contacts beyond the confines of the courtroom."
Neither Holland nor O'Connell were married at the time, but they worked to keep the relationship secret, the appeal said.
June 3, 2008, 5:36PM Appeals court stays execution for Harris County killer Sonnier murdered Humble woman and toddler
By ROSANNA RUIZ Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
HUNTSVILLE — Two last-minute appeals filed today halted Texas' first planned execution after a nine-month hiatus.
The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the stay after attorneys for the Texas Defender Service took up Derrick Juan Sonnier's case in the last few days. The length of the stay has not been determined.
The 40-year-old was sentenced to die for the 1991 stabbing deaths of Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son, Patrick.
AUSTIN — One by one, nine wrongly convicted men stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate on Thursday to explain how innocent men ended up in prison and how to prevent it from happening again.
"I'm here to tell you I lost everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "We can do better in the justice system. The system failed all of us."
A week after a man who spent 27 years in prison became the 18th Dallas County man since 2001 to have his conviction tossed aside after DNA testing, state officials and men who lost years of their lives behind bars met in the Capitol to discuss what they said was Texas' "disturbing number of wrongful convictions."
The event was billed as the nation's first "Summit on Wrongful Convictions." It brought together lawyers, police chiefs, judges and lawmakers, who sought to identify systemic problems that could be addressed through changes in law.
Since 2001, DNA testing has cleared 33 Texans who spent a combined 427 years in prison, according to The Justice Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group. Eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 27 of those cases, easily the most common link.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he will sponsor a bill during next year's legislative session that would mandate police departments use specific procedures when presenting live lineups or photo arrays to eyewitnesses. Several of the men who were wrongly convicted talked about how an incorrect identification by an eyewitness was a key factor in their false convictions.
HUNTSVILLE, Tex. — Here in the nation’s leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others with capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up.
Less than three weeks after a United States Supreme Court ruling ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have been set in six states between May 6 and October.
“The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. “So in some sense, they’re back from vacation and ready to go to work.”
Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national — and international — issue of capital punishment.
“When people confront a new wave of executions, they’ll be questioning not only how people are executed but whether people should be executed,” said James R. Acker, a historian of the death penalty and a criminal justice professor at the State University at Albany.
Texas leads the list with five people now set to die here in the Walls Unit, the state’s death house, between June 3 and Aug. 20. Virginia is next with four. Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota have also set execution dates.
Some welcome the end of the moratorium.
“We’ll start playing a little bit of catch-up,” said William R. Hubbarth, a spokesman for Justice for All, a victims rights group based in Houston.
“It’s not like we have a cheering section for the death penalty.” Mr. Hubbarth said. But, he added: “The capital murderers set to be executed should be executed post-haste. It’s not about killing the inmate. It’s about imposing the penalty that 12 of his peers have assessed.”
More inmates whose appeals have expired are certain to be added to execution rosters soon, including, in all likelihood, Jack Harry Smith, who, at 70, is the oldest of the 360 men and 9 women on Texas’ death row (though hardly a row any more, but an entire compound). Mr. Smith has been under a death sentence for 30 years for a robbery killing at a grocery in the Houston area.
“If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go,” said Mr. Smith, who maintains his innocence and was delivered by guards for a prison interview in a wheelchair.
So far, at least nine others elsewhere, including Antoinette Frank, a former police officer convicted of a murderous robbery rampage in New Orleans, have been given new execution dates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment research group that puts the latest death row census at 3,263. Dozens more are likely to get execution dates in coming months, but most under death sentences have not exhausted their appeals.
Yet public support for capital punishment may be dwindling. Death sentences have been on the decline, and a poll last year by death penalty opponents found Americans losing confidence in the death penalty.
“There will be more executions than people have the stomach for, at least in many parts of the country,” said Stephen B. Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, a leading anti-death-penalty litigation clinic.
Last year, Texas accounted for 26 of the 42 executions nationwide. That includes the last two people executed before the Supreme Court signaled a moratorium on executions while considering whether the chemical formula used for lethal injection in Kentucky inflicted pain amounting to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. The justices ruled 7 to 2 on April 16 that it did not, while allowing for possible future challenges.
But the scheduling of executions comes as prosecutors and juries have been turning away from the death penalty, often in favor of life sentences without parole, now an option in every death-penalty state but New Mexico.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, death sentences nationwide rose from 137 in 1977, peaked at 326 in 1995 and fell steadily to 110 last year.
“We’re seeing a huge drop-off,” said Mr. Bright, attributing the decline to the time and trouble of imposing death sentences, and a recent wave of exonerations after DNA tests proved wrongful conviction.
Close to 35 people have been cleared in Texas alone, including, just days ago, James L. Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in prison for a 1980 murder he did not commit.
The first inmate now set for execution is William E. Lynd, 53, on Tuesday in Georgia. Mr. Lind was convicted of shooting his girlfriend, Ginger Moore, in the face during an argument in 1988, shooting her again as she clung to life, and a third time, fatally, as she struggled in the trunk of his car. After burying her, he attacked and killed another woman he had stopped on the road.
With two other executions pending but not yet scheduled in Georgia, the state seeks “clearance of the backlog,” said Russ Willard, a spokesman for Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker. “We will work our way though the system at a much more rapid pace than we would have.”
Virginia — which has executed 98 people since 1976, second only to Texas, with 405 — has the next scheduled execution: May 27, for Kevin Green, 30, for the 1998 slayings of Patricia and Lawrence Vaughn in their convenience store in Dolphin. Three other Virginia inmates also have been given dates in June and July.
Louisiana has set a July 15 execution date for two inmates, including the former police officer, Ms. Frank, 30. She was convicted of killing a fellow officer, Ronald Williams, and two Vietnamese workers, Ha Vu and her brother, Cuong Vong, at their family’s restaurant in New Orleans during a robbery in 1995.
But appeals may delay her execution and that of the second inmate Darrell Robinson, convicted of killing four people.
South Dakota, which has recorded only 15 executions since 1889, set a week’s window of Oct. 7-13 for the execution of Briley Piper, 25. He pleaded guilty to the torture murder of Chester Allan Pogue, 19, who was forced to drink hydrochloric acid and then stabbed and bludgeoned to death in 2000. One accomplice was executed last year and another is serving life without parole.
The first Texas inmate now re-scheduled for death, on June 3, is Derrick Sonnier, 40, convicted of stalking, stabbing and strangling a young mother, Melody Flowers, and her baby son in Humble, north of Houston, in 1991.
Mr. Sonnier, who turned down a request this week for an interview, had forbidden his trial lawyer from calling family members as mitigating witnesses, costing him a chance for life in prison without parole, said his appellate lawyer, Jani Maselli.
About 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the last three decades. Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, accounts for more than 100 of those executions. Indeed, Harris County has sent more people to the death chamber than any state but Texas itself.
Yet Harris County’s capital justice system has not been the subject of intensive research — until now. A new study to be published in The Houston Law Review this fall has found two sorts of racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty there, one commonplace and one surprising.
The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. More than 20 studies around the nation have come to similar conclusions.
But the new study also detected a more straightforward disparity. It found that the race of the defendant by itself plays a major role in explaining who is sentenced to death.
It has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many experts, including some opposed to the death penalty, have said that evidence of that sort of direct discrimination is spotty and equivocal.
But the author of the new study, Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a robust relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the race of the victim and other factors were held constant.
His statistics have profound implications. For every 100 black defendants and 100 white defendants indicted for capital murder in Harris County, Professor Phillips found that an average of 12 white defendants and 17 black ones would be sent to death row. In other words, Professor Phillips wrote, “five black defendants would be sentenced to the ultimate sanction because of race.”
Scott Durfee, the general counsel for the Harris County district attorney’s office, rejected Professor Phillips’s conclusions and said that district attorneys there had long taken steps to insulate themselves from knowing the race of defendants and victims as they decided whether to seek the death penalty.
After 7 months without executions, Texas has scheduled two people for execution. Meanwhile, we are still waiting on a response from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to the complaint against Judge Sharon Keller that we sent them that was signed by around 1900 people regarding Keller's unethical behavior on Sept 25, the last time a person was executed in Texas and in the entire U.S.
From the Houston Chronicle:
At least two condemned Texas inmates already have execution dates following last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the lethal injection process.
Charles Dean Hood, convicted of a double slaying in the Dallas suburb of Plano more than 18 years ago, and Larry Donnell Davis, condemned for a 1995 robbery-slaying in Amarillo, are set to die, said the Texas Attorney General's Office, which handles federal appeals involving capital murder cases.
Hood, 38, was set for lethal injection June 17 by State District Judge Curt Henderson. Davis, 40, was set to die July 31 by State District Judge John Board.
Justice Stevens Upholds Ky. Lethal Injection, Calls Executions 'Pointless' By ARIANE de VOGUE
April 16, 2008—
Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's most senior member, took aim at the entire system of capital punishment Wednesday, writing in an opinion that it was a "pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes."
Stevens' stance came to light in his opinion on Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, which the court, including Stevens, upheld Wednesday in a 7-2 decision. There had been an unofficial moratorium on executions while the court mulled the case.
It is the first time 87-year-old Stevens has called on states to stop executions entirely.
Stevens wrote, "the risk of executing innocent defendants can be entirely eliminated by treating any penalty more severe than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as constitutionally excessive."
In essence, Stevens has sent a signal that, while he recognizes the court has, in the past, found the death penalty to be constitutional, he thinks it's now time for state legislatures, Congress and the courts to reconsider.
He wrote how current attempts to "retain the death penalty as part of our law" are the "product of habit and inattention, rather than an acceptable deliberative process" that weighs the costs of administering the penalty against its benefits.
Wednesday's disclosure marks an evolution of Stevens' thoughts.
In 1976, only months after he had been nominated to the high court by President Gerald Ford, Stevens voted to reauthorize the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. Four years earlier, the court had invalidated it.
Posted: April 16, 2008 10:40 AM Updated: April 16, 2008 04:39 PM
AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN/AP) -- Texas and dozens of other states soon may resume executions after the Supreme Court's rejection of challenges to Kentucky's lethal injection.
Use of the death penalty has been on hold for seven months while the high court considered inmate complaints about Kentucky's three-drug method of execution.
The justices issued their ruling Wednesday. Scott Cobb of the Texas Moratorium Network said the opinion was not unexpected. Cobb said he anticipated at least one district attorney in the state would file the paperwork to reopen the death penalty in Texas by the end of the week.
The Texas Moratorium Network, on the other hand, is pinning more of its hopes on the November general elections. The last time a moratorium on the death penalty seriously was considered in the Legislature was 2001; by no coincidence, that was the last year the Democrats held the majority in the House. Cobb points out Democrats are only five seats away from a majority.
Even a new Speaker of the House could make a difference, Cobb said. Rep. Brian McCall (R-Plano) was the sole Republican in the House to vote in favor of a death penalty moratorium in 2001. Right now, McCall is one of a number of potential candidates who may challenge current Speaker of the House Tom Craddick next session.
The recent exoneration of multiple Dallas County prison inmates -- based on DNA tests requested by new DA Craig Watkins -- may be just the push to encourage lawmakers to take a moratorium and study committee on the death penalty seriously, Cobb said.
ANGOLA, Louisiana (CNN) -- He is not a killer, but the state of Louisiana is determined to execute Patrick Kennedy for his crime.
The New Orleans native faces that reality as he sits on death row at Louisiana's maximum security prison, the largest prison in the nation. The Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola Prison, is the size of Manhattan and surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River.
Unlike the 3,300 inmates awaiting execution nationwide -- including the 94 other men at Angola -- Kennedy, 43, is a convicted rapist. The victim was his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
For the first time in 44 years, a state is preparing to execute a man for a felony other than murder. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Louisiana can use capital punishment in child rape cases.
The constitutional question before the justices is whether the death penalty for violent crimes other than homicide constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment. The high-profile examination of the death penalty also raises anew a national debate over selective prosecution and race.
Aims to speed up execution Selwyn Davis expected to pursue only a required appeal.
By Steven Kreytak AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, April 08, 2008
In a move that could trim his stay on Texas' death row from the norm of about 10 years to less than two, condemned killer Selwyn P. Davis wants to waive most of his appeals, according to his lawyer.
Ariel Payan, Davis' appeals lawyer, declined to say why Davis doesn't want to carry out all of his appeals.
During his October trial in Travis County, Davis' lawyers said he conceded that he fatally stabbed Regina Lara, his ex-girlfriend's mother, at her 381/2 Street apartment. But they argued that his crime was not committed in the course of a burglary and robbery, as charged, and that therefore it didn't fit Texas' definition of capital murder.
Davis killed Lara during a two-day crime spree that began when he beat his ex-girlfriend, fracturing her eye socket, and poured rubbing alcohol over her head and threatened to set her on fire, according to testimony. During the capital murder trial, Davis stuck his middle finger up at Lara's family.
It is uncommon for death row inmates to waive their appeals, and some defendants who initially say they don't want to appeal change their minds, according to death penalty lawyers. These include William Murray, a North Texas man condemned in 1998.
Murray, convicted of killing an elderly woman in Kaufman, said in 1999 that he wanted his execution expedited. He is still on death row after years of appeals, including a legal fight to reinstate his appellate rights.
Just over a year after Angel Maturino Resendiz was sentenced to death in 2000 for killing a Houston doctor, the confessed serial killer acknowledged his guilt and said he wanted to waive his appeals in the case. But his mental competency to do so was questioned, and a series of appeals was eventually filed on his behalf. He was executed in 2006.
The average stay on Texas' death row is 10 years and three months, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Since Texas reinstated the death penalty in the early 1980s, the inmate with the shortest stay on death row before execution was Joe Gonzales, who was executed in 1996 after eight months there. Gonzales, a roofer, was convicted in Potter County of the murder and robbery of his boss in Amarillo and waived his appeals.
Davis, 26, was sent to death row in Livingston from Travis County on Oct. 17, 2007, two days after his death sentence was announced. On Nov. 20, he wrote the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a letter.
"I would like to cancel my appeals," the letter said, in part. "All of them!"
Last month, the court entered an order stating that Texas law guarantees a review by the Court of Criminal Appeals of a death penalty conviction and sentence. Payan said Davis has agreed to cooperate in that so-called direct appeal. But Payan said that Davis wants to waive his right to file applications for writ of habeas corpus in federal and state courts, the process by which inmates can challenge the legality of their incarceration.
That process, which takes years to run its course, can be waived.
Once briefs are filed by Davis and the state in the direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals is under no time limit to issue an order. Payan said some decisions are reached within months and others take years. He estimates the quickest Davis' case could be disposed on appeal and ready for an execution date would be in a year and a half.
Executions in Texas have been on hold since September as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of lethal injection. A decision is expected this summer.
Davis is in the Travis County Jail and will appear Friday before state District Judge Julie Kocurek, who presided over his trial. The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Kocurek to question Davis on a series of issues related to his appeals, including whether he wants to waive any rights, and if so, whether he makes that waiver knowingly and intentionally.
Even if he did waive his right to appeal, the court would examine the trial record in its own review of the case, said University of Texas law professor Rob Owen, co-director of the school's Capital Punishment Clinic.
"There is a very strong public interest in ensuring that the Court of Criminal Appeals reviews every death penalty at least once to ensure conformity with basic fundamental rights," Owen said.
Wife of executed killer sues judge who blocked appeal
Posted by admin on: Thursday 08 November @ 02:53:47
Nov. 8, 2007, 12:00AM Lawsuit claims order to close the court clerk's office violated his rights
By CINDY GEORGE Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
The wife of executed killer Michael Richard filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of causing the inmate's Sept. 25 lethal injection.
Marsha Richard of Houston claims Keller had no authority to prevent what would have been a successful appeal to stay her husband's execution.
Oct. 28, 2007, 2:05AM Death penalty foes target Harris County 200 march here because of high use of sentence
By ANNE MARIE KILDAY Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Beating drums, playing music and talking over loudspeakers, about 200 opponents of the death penalty marched through Houston's Third Ward on Saturday, chanting, "Texas says Death Row, we say 'hell, no!' "
Among them was Barbara Cowan,76, a Quaker, who regularly visits two of the state's 371 condemned inmates, including one who has asked her to be present when he is put to death.
"I know I will be the one person there for him, when he is executed," Cowan said. After her visits to the Polunsky Unit, Cowan said: "I am sad, and I am grateful for the friendships we have formed. But I don't call it a justice system, I call it a legal system."
The man's father was a pimp, his mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and "he knows that if life hadn't been so rotten and he hadn't made such bad choices in terms of drug and alcohol, well ... " Cowan said, looking away as her voice trailed off. "Anyway, there's is no money for an appeal. He knows he is going to die."
The eighth annual march, usually held in Austin, proceeded from Emancipation Park to the Shape Community Center just northeast of downtown. It was held in Houston this year because Harris County leads Texas in the number of people sentenced to death.
Since executions were resumed 25 years ago, 102 convicts from Harris County have been executed and 122 now reside on death row, according to march organizer Gloria Ruback.
Texas leads the nation in the number of executions — 405 — since the death penalty was reinstated.
Two exonerated former death row inmates — Clarence Brandley and Kerry Max Cook — were scheduled to speak at the rally, but were unable to attend.
Cook had a scheduling conflict, and Brandley, who spent 10 years on death row, is seriously ill with cancer, said his sisters, Margaret and Alice Brandley.
The marchers said they opposed the death penalty for spiritual, political or personal reasons. Several families of death row inmates carried pictures of their brothers, husbands or sons.
Oscar Green, 37, said his brother, Travis Green, 39, was convicted in 2000 for murdering his former girlfriend. Green said his brother's only alibi was that he was alone at home on the night she was murdered.
"The death penalty is just not the right thing to do," Green said. "God is the judge, not us."
Oct. 26, 2007 Anti-execution march moves to Houston Ex-death row inmates to take on Harris County's sentencing record
By ALLAN TURNER Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Former death row inmates Clarence Brandley and Kerry Max Cook will be keynote speakers Saturday at a Houston anti-death penalty march and rally expected to draw protesters from throughout the state and nation.
Normally held in Austin, the march, now in its eighth year, was moved to Houston to protest Harris County juries' record of leading the nation in assessing death sentences, said event organizer Gloria Rubac. Since executions were resumed 25 years ago, 102 killers from Harris County have been executed; 122 remain on death row.
The March to Stop Executions will assemble at 2 p.m. at Emancipation Park, 3018 Dowling, then proceed to SHAPE Center, 3815 Live Oak, for a 3:30 p.m. rally.
The theme of the event is "Celebrating Our Victories, Remembering Our Losses; Continuing the Fight for Abolition!"
Brandley, who was convicted of the August 1980 rape-murder of Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16-year-old volleyball player at Conroe High School, spent a decade on death row before prosecutors dropped charges against him. Investigators' failure to compare a Caucasian hair found on Ferguson's body with that of other possible suspects in the case was among presumed irregularities in the case cited by Brandley's advocates.
At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing in October 1987, state District Judge Perry Picket called on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to grant Brandley a new trial. "The litany of events graphically described by the witnesses, some of it chilling and shocking, leads me to the conclusion the pervasive shadow of darkness has obscured the light of fundamental decency and human rights," he wrote.
After unsuccessfully appealing to stop a new trial, the prosecution dropped charges in October 1990.
Cook spent 22 years on death row after he was convicted of the 1977 rape-murder of Linda Jo Edwards, a Tyler woman. He was tried three times and twice condemned. After he won a new trial in 1993, Cook was freed from prison based on time served after he entered a no contest plea. Months later, DNA linked Edwards' murder to another man.
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Nueces County DA imposes local moratorium on death penalty
HOUSTON — A South Texas district attorney's decision to stop seeking death sentences until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the legality of lethal injections apparently isn't gaining much traction among other prosecutors in the state.
Nueces County District Attorney Carlos Valdez said this week his office won't seek the death penalty until the high court rules on a challenge from two Kentucky prisoners who claim lethal injection is cruel and unusual.
"Until we can get some direction from the Supreme Court we will waive the death penalty and seek life in prison," Valdez said Monday.
Former HPD Chief Bradford to Challenge District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal in Harr
Posted by admin on: Saturday 08 September @ 14:16:53
The politcial wisdom in Texas is that Democrats are taking over the large counties. They were expected to begin dominating large county elections next decade, but it may have started earlier than expected. In 2006, a Democrat won election to the office of Dallas County District Attorney and the party swept all the Dallas county wide elections. At a town hall meeting this summer, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party said that the party would be trying to do the same thing in Harris County in 2008. Now, comes word that Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal is getting a high name recognition opponent. The Democrats are likely to win many more down ballot races across the country this year, because of the unpopularity of George W. Bush, so Rosenthal could very well lose his bid for re-election if his opponent runs a decent campaign. Now, Democrats need to recruit some quality opponents for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Sept. 6, 2007, 10:56PM POLITICS Former HPD Chief Bradford sets sights on DA post By KRISTEN MACK Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Former Houston Police Chief C.O. "Brad" Bradford wants to make neighborhoods safer — not as the city's top cop, but as the county's lead prosecutor.
He plans to take on District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal next November, but he's kicking off his campaign later this month.
Bradford says the DA should address the root causes of crime.
"The district attorney has to understand crime within a community context," he said. "Arrest, prosecution and confinement are not enough."
That doesn't sound like Texas justice as usual. And it may not be what people expect of their DA, especially in Harris County, which has sent more people to death row than any state outside of Texas.
As many of you know, a group of Texas organizations working against the death penalty recently put together a team to apply for a retreat sponsored by Equal Justice USA in order to strategize about a way forward to stop executions in Texas. Today, we received some good news from EJUSA. An excerpt from their email follows:
Dear friends in Texas,
After looking through the application from Texas and seeing your unique situation, EJUSA wants to give you all some special attention and offer your team a different opportunity than this year's Training and Strategy retreat. We'd like to tailor a special strategy, skill-building, and planning meeting/retreat specifically for the movement in Texas. This will allow more people than just the five of you to be involved and will also give us the opportunity to adapt an agenda specifically for your needs.
We hope that this will be 'more bang for your buck' so to speak and will really allow us all to make progress in building both capacity and support in Texas.
I'm really looking forward to working with you all and learning more about the movement and possibilities in Texas!
on behalf of the entire EJUSA staff, Sarah Craft
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Houston Community Forum with Kenneth Foster's Family
The most important reason that many people want a stop to executions in Texas is the risk of innocent people being executed. Even most people who support the death penalty in general do not support it in practice because they are concerned that innocent people are spending years and years on death row or even being executed before they can prove their innocence, such as happened to Cameron Willingham.
Greg Wright is yet another case of a probably innocent person on Texas death row. He is fortunately still alive, unlike Willingham.
Wright may yet walk off death row after proving his innocence considering this latest news from his lawyers. Read more at this website and sign a petition supporting him here.
GREG WRIGHT IS INNOCENT OF THE CHARGE OF MURDER!
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION:
DNA Tests Suggest Gregory Edward Wright, On Texas Death Row, Has Been Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder
On December 10, 1997, a Texas court convicted and sentenced Gregory Edward Wright to the death penalty for murder (F97-01215-PJ). Today, his attorneys have authorized release of news that approved DNA tests show evidence used at his trial, and crucial to the prosecution case, is unlikely to be reliable. This new DNA evidence, together with a recent successful polygraph test, suggests that Wright has been truthful in his assertion of innocence.
Livingston, Texas (PRWEB) August 6, 2007 -- Greg's legal team, headed by Bruce Anton and Meg Penrose have authorized the following announcement: "Following approved DNA testing in recent weeks, Gregory Edward Wright was excluded as a contributor to the DNA on the knife used in the crime for which he has been accused. Additionally, it has been found that Greg's DNA is inconsistent with the biological material found on the pair of jeans, claimed at the trial (F97-01215-PJ) by the prosecution to have been worn by him."
These two facts, coming as they do on top of a successful polygraph examination, represent significant new evidence in this case. It is the intention of Greg's attorneys to seek immediate consideration of these factors by every legal means.
In June 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to consider a Writ of Certiorari (No. 06-10186). In November 2006 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal declined a Certificate of Appealability (05-70037). Wright's wife, Connie, states: "The new DNA evidence challenges still further the prosecution theories of my husband's actions and complicity in the crime of murder. He has further shown he has told the truth by convincingly passing a polygraph test in May this year. Greg has always declared his innocence of this crime and now it is the duty of the courts to heed this new evidence. I live for the day of Greg's exoneration and release from Death Row. We place our trust in the legal process of the American courts to ensure that Greg is protected from a miscarriage of Justice."
URL: http://www.freegregwright.com Attorney: Bruce Anton Sorrels, Udashen & Anton Suite 400 2301 Cedar Springs Road Dallas Texas 75201 USA Tel: 214-468-8100
posted by Texas Moratorium Network at 2:05 AM 0 comments Yet Another Innocent Person on Tx Death Row?: Greg Wright The most important reason that many people want a stop to executions in Texas is the risk of innocent people. Even most people who support the death penalty in general do not support it in practice because they are concerned that innocent people are spending years and years on death row or even being executed before they can prove their innocence, such as happened to Cameron Willingham.
Greg Wright is yet another case of a probably innocent person on Texas death row. He is fortunately still alive, unlike Willingham.
Wright may yet walk off death row after proving his innocence considering this latest news from his lawyers. Read more at this website and sign a petition supporting him here.
GREG WRIGHT IS INNOCENT OF THE CHARGE OF MURDER!
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION:
DNA Tests Suggest Gregory Edward Wright, On Texas Death Row, Has Been Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder
On December 10, 1997, a Texas court convicted and sentenced Gregory Edward Wright to the death penalty for murder (F97-01215-PJ). Today, his attorneys have authorized release of news that approved DNA tests show evidence used at his trial, and crucial to the prosecution case, is unlikely to be reliable. This new DNA evidence, together with a recent successful polygraph test, suggests that Wright has been truthful in his assertion of innocence.
Livingston, Texas (PRWEB) August 6, 2007 -- Greg's legal team, headed by Bruce Anton and Meg Penrose have authorized the following announcement: "Following approved DNA testing in recent weeks, Gregory Edward Wright was excluded as a contributor to the DNA on the knife used in the crime for which he has been accused. Additionally, it has been found that Greg's DNA is inconsistent with the biological material found on the pair of jeans, claimed at the trial (F97-01215-PJ) by the prosecution to have been worn by him."
These two facts, coming as they do on top of a successful polygraph examination, represent significant new evidence in this case. It is the intention of Greg's attorneys to seek immediate consideration of these factors by every legal means.
In June 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to consider a Writ of Certiorari (No. 06-10186). In November 2006 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal declined a Certificate of Appealability (05-70037). Wright's wife, Connie, states: "The new DNA evidence challenges still further the prosecution theories of my husband's actions and complicity in the crime of murder. He has further shown he has told the truth by convincingly passing a polygraph test in May this year. Greg has always declared his innocence of this crime and now it is the duty of the courts to heed this new evidence. I live for the day of Greg's exoneration and release from Death Row. We place our trust in the legal process of the American courts to ensure that Greg is protected from a miscarriage of Justice."
'I shouldn't have to abandon my humanity, my dignity' By BOB RAY SANDERS Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Kenneth Foster Jr. has an appointment he hopes not to keep.
He is scheduled to die Aug. 30 in the Texas prison system's death chamber.
If it comes to that, Foster says he is ready. But as I pointed out in Sunday's column, Foster never should have gotten the death penalty in the murder of Michael LaHood of San Antonio.
In fact, Mauriceo Brown, the man who killed LaHood in 1996, was executed a year ago for the crime.
Foster and two other people were with Brown most of the evening that LaHood was killed, but all the evidence -- including Brown's testimony at trial -- clearly shows that neither Foster nor the other men knew about, planned, participated in or anticipated Brown's act.
But under Texas' "law of parties," and partly because Foster was tried along with Brown, he was convicted and given a death sentence.
Although a federal judge overturned that sentence, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
Foster does not deserve to die, and he and others are fighting to stop the execution through more appeals to the courts, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and directly to the governor's office.
As promised Sunday, I want to share some of Foster's thoughts on his scheduled execution, Texas' Death Row, and the victim and his family.
"I got a strong heart. I got a strong heart," Foster told me on a recent visit to Death Row. "I don't have any fear toward death. If we have to walk that path, then I'll walk it."
He added, "If they do murder me -- and it will be murder -- then I'm prepared."
Foster has become active in fighting for inmates' rights on Death Row, and like another former inmate we knew -- Gary Graham, executed in 2000 while still maintaining his innocence -- he said he doesn't plan to go to his death quietly after "eating nine cheeseburgers that you can't digest."
He stated emphatically: "I won't be walking. I won't have no last meal. If they want me executed, they are going to have to throw me on that gurney.
"It's genocide. Covert genocide. They are approaching 400 murders here."
Texas has executed 398 people since capital punishment was reinstated in 1974.
In reference to LaHood, Foster said: "I've been accused of not reaching out to the victim's family. We never wanted the family to feel we were indifferent to their loss. I pray for that family. They don't know.
"I thought it would be rude to them for me to write a letter ... My father wrote to them, and a friend of the family's wrote them."
He noted that he's been getting a lot of hate mail (from people sympathetic to the LaHood family) on a Web site set up by his supporters, yet he continuously thinks about the people whom the victim left behind.
"If they want atonement, I can give them atonement," he said. "If they want vengeance, I can't help them.
"I have a lot of respect for that family .... I've repeated to my supporters to keep the victim in mind."
Foster, whose 11-year-old daughter was only 8 months old when he was charged with this crime, said his child comes to Texas from California once a month to visit him.
"She's a soldier," he said of his daughter.
As for his experience on the nation's busiest Death Row, he said: "There's something ugly and beautiful about Death Row. It's ugly what we have to go through here. It's a beautiful process with what you go through spiritually and emotionally."
He vowed that no matter what happens, there are some things to which he simply will not succumb.
"I can't surrender my humanity," he said. "Yeah, I made a mistake; let me correct it. I shouldn't have to abandon my humanity, my dignity."
Humanity should compel us to try to save this innocent man's life.
JOIN THE FIGHT
Contact the governor's office or the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to object to the execution of Kenneth Foster Jr.
Gov. Rick Perry
Mail: State Capitol, P.O. Box 12428, Austin, TX 78711-2428
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA One county, 100 executions Harris County and Texas -- A lethal combination One of the cruellest anomalies of the modern system of capital punishment: Geography means everything Houston Chronicle(1)
In 1969, "Houston" became the first word to be spoken by a human being on the moon, beginning astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous message back to earth. Four decades later, the City of Houston, or rather Harris County where both the city and NASA's Johnson Space Center are located, has gained international notoriety for something that pushes the boundaries of human decency rather than space exploration.
For, while Texas is the execution centre of the USA, Harris County is that state's main supplier of condemned human beings. This is a lethally symbiotic relationship that helps to create geographic bias in the US capital justice system on a grand scale.
Harris County is the third largest county in the United States, with a population of a little under four million inhabitants, or about 1.3 per cent of the US population. Between one and two per cent of the USA's murders each year occur in Harris County. About four per cent of the country's current death row inmates were tried in Harris County. Nine per cent of the men and 18 per cent of the women executed in the United States since judicial killing resumed there in 1977 were condemned to death in Harris County.
Ninety-seven men and two women prosecuted in Harris County have been put to death since Texas carried out its first execution of the "modern" era in 1982. At the time of writing, Lonnie Johnson was set to become the 100th such prisoner to be put to death, his execution scheduled for 24 July 2007. Johnny Connor was set to become the 101st on 22 August and Michael Richards the 102nd on 25 September.
If Harris County was a state, it would rank 26th in population among the US states, one above Oregon. Oregon has executed two people since 1977, both of whom had given up their appeals. There are about three of four times as many murders each year in Harris County as there are in Oregon, but Harris County accounts for 50 times as many executions as that west coast state. Indeed, if Harris County was a state, it would rank second only to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 1977.
The State of Texas intends to execute Kenneth Foster on August 30,despite the fact that he did not murder anyone. Unlike any other state in this country, Texas utilizes a unique statute called the Law of Parties which allows the State to subject a person to death even though he did not kill,intend to kill, help or encourage anyone to do so.
RALLY AND MARCH IN AUSTIN Saturday, July 21, 5:00 PM Texas State Capitol, south steps
On July 21, join Kenneth's friends, family and supporters for a march and rally with speakers, live music, and food to demand that Texas does not go through with the execution.
Tasha Foster - Wife of Kenneth Foster and Hip Hop Performer Nydesha Foster - Daughter of Kenneth Foster Shujaa Graham - Exonerated Death Row Inmate from D.C. Welfare Poets - Politically Conscious Music from NY, myspace.com/welfarepoets Mario Africa - With MOVE, Activist from Philadelphia Darby Tillis - Exonerated Death Row Prisoner and Blues Musician from Chicago
National call-in / fax day on Friday, July 20 Contact Gov. Perry and tell him, "Don't execute Kenneth Foster, Jr.!"
Tel (800) 252-9600 (Texas callers) (512) 463-1782 (Austin and out of state) Fax (512) 463-1849
************************************ Join the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign Get involved with our letter and petition drive and help organize events for Kenneth. Come to our weekly meeting ever Wednesday at various local libraries. This Week:
Wednesday, July 17 at 7PM Cepeda Branch Library at Pleasant Valley and East 7th Street
Poll: Americans Want Death-Penalty Moratorium Growing concerns about making sure the innocent aren’t sentenced to death has caused more Americans to support a moratorium on the death penalty.
WEB EXCLUSIVE By Kurt Soller Newsweek Updated: 4:34 p.m. CT June 15, 2007
June 15, 2007 - Even though most Americans support the death penalty, there’s rising concern about how the state’s ultimate punishment is levied. A new poll by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides analysis on capital punishment, found that 58 percent want a national moratorium on executions. In 2006, there were fewer executions than in any year since the death penalty was reinstated over 30 years ago. NEWSWEEK’s Kurt Soller spoke with the director of the center, Richard Dieter, about the current state of capital punishment in America. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed want a moratorium in place. How surprising is that? Richard Dieter: It is counterintuitive, given that the majority of people support the death penalty nationally [65 percent according to a 2006 Gallup poll]. But even in the South, where most executions occur, there is a willingness to stop executions. If you’re concerned about killing innocent people, you want something done. [According to DPIC research], 62 percent support a death penalty [as long as it is administered fairly and the innocent are adequately protected]. But people have concerns: innocence. They don’t believe it’s a deterrent. Unfairness.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave Cathy Henderson a reprieve and sent her case back to the trial court. The AP says "Judge Tom Price, in the lone concurring statement, said he thought Bayardo's affidavit proved to him no rational juror could have found Henderson guilty "to a level of confidence beyond a reasonable doubt."
Condemned inmate Cathy Lynn Henderson won a reprieve Monday from a divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that will keep her from being executed this week for the slaying of a 3-month-old child in her care.
Henderson, 50, was scheduled to be executed Wednesday for the death of Brandon Baugh, whose skull was bashed in while she was baby-sitting him. His body was buried in a wine cooler box as she fled the state more than 13 years ago.
The state's highest criminal court voted 5-3, with one judge not participating, to send the case back to the trial court to examine arguments that Henderson was innocent of capital murder and that constitutional errors led to her conviction.
In an appeal filed late last month, Henderson's lawyers said new scientific evidence bolstered the baby-sitter's contention the child died when she accidentally dropped him and his head struck the concrete floor at her home in Pflugerville, a north Austin suburb.
A medical examiner who testified for the prosecution in 1995 that Brandon's death could not have been an accident submitted an affidavit with Henderson's appeal that he believed scientific tests not available a decade ago now show his conclusion was incorrect.
"Had the new scientific information been available to me in 1995, I would not have been able to testify the way I did," said Dr. Robert Bayardo, the now retired chief medical examiner in Travis County.
Because Henderson's appeals had been exhausted, her lawyers needed to convince the courts their latest appeal introduced new evidence.
A court majority agreed.
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Ruling Likely to Spur Convictions in Capital Cases
A decision by the Supreme Court on Monday that made it easier for prosecutors to exclude people who express reservations about the death penalty from capital juries will make the panels whiter and more conviction-prone, experts in law and psychology said this week.
The jurors who remain after people with moral objections to imposing the death penalty are weeded out, studies uniformly show, are significantly more likely to vote to find defendants guilty than jurors as a whole.
The message below is from an email from TDPAM. It looks like they are doing a great job down in Houston getting this year's March to Stop Executions organized. The march has been held in Austin since 2000, but this year it is in Houston. Contact Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement abolition.movement@hotmail.com to get involved.
Texas' 8th Annual March to Stop Executions will be held in Houston on Saturday, October 27, 2007. Next planning meeting is Monday, June 11, at 7 pm, at S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, 3815 Live Oak.
We need everyone's help to make this event a significant contribution to the struggle to get rid of capital punishment.
We need:
organizers
fundraisers
strategists
writers
logistical brains
networkers
thinkers
media workers
visionaries
We want to get together so we can begin to plan a march and rally that will outreach to the communities in Houston most affected by the death penalty and the prison industrial complex and bring them into this fight.
We want to respectfully remember those who have been murdered by the state of Texas and to fight for those still living on death row. We want to honor the families of these men and women who live a difficult and heartbreaking life.
There is already a number of endorsers and people volunteering to help, from graphic artists to spoken word artists, from march security to freeway blogging. But we need folks from all areas of the progressive community to step up.
This will be the first year the march is going to be in Houston instead of Austin and for good reason:
There are 383 people on death row in Texas and 129 are from Harris County.
This summer, likely in July, the 100th person from Harris County will be executed.
More people have been executed from Harris County than any other state---except for Texas.
Please join us on Monday night and let's get to work! Make sure your organization is represented!
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."
Death of 3-month-old not as clear-cut as once thought, Bayardo says
By Chuck Lindell AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, May 25, 2007
As the doctor who autopsied 3-month-old Brandon Baugh, Robert Bayardo confidently told jurors in 1995 that the child was deliberately killed, not accidentally dropped on his head as baby sitter Cathy Lynn Henderson claimed.
The testimony was instrumental to Henderson's conviction and death sentence.
But on Thursday, with Henderson's execution less than three weeks away, Bayardo backed away from his emphatic testimony, telling a Texas appeals court that recent medical findings have cast doubt on his 12-year-old conclusions.
"Had the new scientific information been available to me in 1995, I would not have been able to testify the way I did," Bayardo said in a signed affidavit provided to a Texas court as part of an appeal filed Thursday on Henderson's behalf.
Henderson's appeal draws on recent research, disputed by prosecutors, that shows infants can sustain fatal head injuries far more easily than once believed.
"Based on the physical evidence in the case, I cannot determine with a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether Brandon Baugh's injuries resulted from an intentional act or an accidental fall," wrote Bayardo, who retired last year after 28 years as the Travis County medical examiner. Bayardo also stated that he was not paid for providing the statement.
CEDP is putting together a planning meeting for an effort to stop the execution of Kenneth Foster. We'll be there. If we are going to stop executions in Texas, it will be because of coalition work like this. Everyone is welcome.
Public event and organizing meeting on behalf of Kenneth Foster, an innocent man on Texas' death row facing an execution date of August 30th. Kenneth is a leader of the DRIVE movement, a campaign by death-row inmates of non-violent protest for rights and dignity. A number of human rights and anti-death penalty groups will be coming together to plan and emergency campaign to save Kenneth. Watch this space for more details. For more about Kenneth: http://www.freekenneth.com">
More info: bmccann@mail.utexas.edu
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Kerry Max Cook to Speak at UT-Austin April 17, 2007
The Texas Journal of Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Cordially Invites You to Attend:
Reexamining incarceration: A Discussion on Civil Rights and the Prison System
April 17, 2007 12:00 – Catered Lunch Kerry Max Cook, author of Chasing Justice exonerated after spending two decades on Texas’ death row for a crime he did not commit (Please RSVP for lunch to tjclcr@law.utexas.edu) Francis Auditorium, 2nd floor, UT Law School
1:30 – Panel : “Juvenile Justice: How do we fix this mess?” Scott Medlock, Texas Civil Rights Project, Will Harrell, ACLU of Texas, and Isela Gutierrez, Texas Coalition Advocating for Juvenile Justice
3:00 – Panel: “Fighting from the outside: Civil Society Challenges to the Conditions of incarceration”, Nicole Porter, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Michele Deitch, Professor, LBJ School of Public Policy, University of Texas, J. Rogue, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, Andria Shively, Inside Books Project
Both Panels will be held in the Eidmann Courtroom, UT School of Law, 727 East Dean Keeton Street × Austin, Texas 78705 × 512.232.1278 × www.utexas.edu/law/journals/tjclcr/
By Steven Kreytak AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, April 02, 2007
A judge today reset the execution date of a Pflugerville-area baby-sitter set to die for killing a 3-month-old.
Visiting state District Judge Jon Wisser announced this afternoon that he would move the execution date from April 18 to June 13 to give Cathy Lynn Henderson's lawyers more time to file an appeal.
"I decided, although not convinced of the legal correctness of the defendant's position, it is in the interest of justice" to delay the execution, Wisser said.
Henderson's lawyers had argued during a hearing last week that advances in the science of evaluating head trauma have shown that Brandon Baugh's injuries in 1994 could have been an accident.
They said they will file an appeal based on what they say is a relatively new scientific approach that melds the work of doctors with that of physicists and engineers.
Back in 2001, both the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice approved measures for a moratorium on executions, primarily because of the powerful testimony from people such as Randall Adams and Kerry Cook about the risk of executing innocent people. See the news stories below.
The approval of a moratorium in the two committees in 2001 came as a complete surprise. This year, the two committees have not yet heard the moratorium issue. When hearings are scheduled, it is quite possible that we will see a repeat of 2001 because the of the reports in the past two years that as many as three innocent people may have been executed in Texas: Ruben Cantu, Cameron Willingham and Carlos De Luna. Also, Ernest Willis was exonerated and released from Texas death row in 2004 after spending 17 years there for a crime he did not commit.
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: SUN 04/22/2001 Section: A Page: 1 Edition: 4 STAR
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston Chronicle AustinBureau Staff
AUSTIN - After decades spent passing the toughest criminal laws and building the largest penal system in the nation, Texas lawmakers are taking a timeout.
This session, "tough on crime" talk has been replaced by discussions of reform and fairness. Instead of adding to the list of crimes for which a person can be executed, the Legislature is giving serious consideration to banning the execution of the mentally retarded and offering juries the option of sentencing capital murderers to life without parole.
Legislation to allow voters to decide whether executions should be halted for two years while the cases of the 445 individuals on death row are re-examined has made it out of committees in both the House and the Senate.
"Six months ago, had you told me we'd even be here, I wouldn't have believed it," former death-row inmate Randall Dale Adams told supporters of a death-penalty moratorium outside the Capitol last week.
In 1989, Adams was released from prison, where he spent more than a dozen years after being wrongfully convicted for the murder of a Dallas police officer. He said he is one of seven inmates in Texas and 95 nationwide who have been released from death row since 1971 after being exonerated of the crimes for which they were convicted.
Already this session, Gov. Rick Perry has signed into law a bill giving Texas inmates the right to petition a court for DNA tests using new technology that may not have been available at their trials.
The Senate has approved legislation setting minimum standards for court-appointed lawyers, for the first time kicking in state money to help pay the lawyers. The Senate also has passed bills to stop racial profiling and to provide more compensation for those who are wrongfully convicted.
The reforms may be an unintended legacy of President Bush. Bush was an ardent defender of the state's criminal justice system and presided over a record 40 executions during his last year as governor.
But his race gave a platform to critics who could point to flaws in the system such as ill-prepared lawyers appointed to represent poor defendants. The case of a lawyer who dozed during his client's capital murder trial became famous nationwide.
In 1999, Bush vetoed an indigent-defense reform bill, saying he supported the system that allowed trial judges to appoint defense attorneys. This year, Perry has expressed support for statewide standards for attorneys defending indigent clients.
Perry also has said the state should take a hard look at giving juries the option of sentencing capital murder defendants to life without parole. Bills to do that have been passed by committees in both chambers.
The House is scheduled to debate a bill Monday that would ban the execution of mentally retarded people.
"It's ironic because the changes that President Bush opposed are now coming about because of his presidential campaign," said Rep. Juan Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat who serves as chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
"The media, the different candidates that were running at that time, the different interest groups focused on the presidential race and the criminal justice system because we are executing more people than any other state in the nation," said Hinojosa, who is carrying many of the reform bills.
"Then, all of a sudden, we have the advancements made in forensic evidence such as DNA that showed we had convicted a whole bunch of people wrongly," continued Hinojosa, a lawyer who sometimes represents criminal defendants. "So that leads to the conclusion that there is a very strong possibility that there have been some innocent people executed in our state."
Bush maintained that no innocent person was executed in the state while he was governor.
Nearly a dozen men have been freed from Texas prisons in the past three years after DNA evidence cleared them of rape and murder charges.
One of those was Christopher Ochoa, who was released in January after he was exonerated by a DNA test and other evidence. Ochoa had been coerced by an Austin police officer into falsely confessing to raping and murdering Nancy DePriest at an Austin Pizza Hut in 1988. He implicated a friend, Richard Danzinger, who also was freed this year.
Jeanette Popp, the mother of the victim, has become an activist for an execution moratorium.
"There are those who say that the system isn't broken. I challenge them to listen to my story, to Randall's story, to look us in the eye and tell us justice was done," said Popp.
"DNA made everybody sit up and pay a little bit closer attention to the process," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.
"Our criminal justice system is broken, and it needs to be repaired," said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, the author of indigent-defense and hate-crime bills.
But not everyone is happy with the tinkering.
Harris County state District Judge Ted Poe said the system isn't broken. He said cases are thoroughly reviewed by state and federal judges.
"We want the judicial system to review cases," said Poe. "We don't want the Legislature to get involved in reviewing cases. That's not their area."
Advocates for crime victims also are watching some of the changes with dismay.
"This is one of the toughest sessions for victims in my memory," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, who follows legislation for Justice for All, a Houston victims' rights group.
Chuck Noll, a prosecutor who is monitoring legislation for Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, said the session is turning into a disaster for law enforcement.
"All the people in the Legislature heard was, `Texas is bad, Texas is bad,' " Noll said. "We as prosecutors didn't feel comfortable defending ourselves in the media, didn't respond to these charges publicly because we don't feel professionally that's our job.
"As a result, there was a drumbeat for two years about how evil Texas is and how bad the system is, with no response from anybody in law enforcement. So there's this general feeling, `Oh, gee, there must be something wrong, so let's pass all these bills to fix it.' "
Kenneth Armbrister, a conservative Democrat from Victoria who is chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, believes there is more at play than just a response to criticism from outside Texas. Armbrister said he traveled around the country last year campaigning for Bush and defending the state's criminal justice record.
"I don't mind taking that heat," said Armbrister, a former police officer.
But Armbrister said he supports the moratorium bill because legislators already have acknowledged criminal justice weaknesses by advancing the bills on DNA testing and defense lawyers. Perry even declared the DNA bill an emergency.
"It would be somewhat hypocritical for us to then say, `Oh, well, we've just passed those, but we still think everything is the way it ought to be.' You can't have it both ways," Armbrister said.
The committees run by Armbrister and Hinojosa this year have one more Democrat than Republican, a turnaround from last session, when Republicans dominated the committees. The vote in both committees on the moratorium bills broke down along party lines.
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: THU 04/12/2001 Section: A Page: 1 Edition: 3 STAR
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston ChronicleAustin Bureau Staff
AUSTIN - Texas voters would decide whether to halt executions for two years while the fairness of the state's criminal justice system is studied, under a resolution passed by a Senate committee Wednesday in a tight vote that fell along party lines.
The surprising 4-3 vote by the Criminal Justice Committee is the first step in a long process to get the issue of a moratorium before voters in November.
Senate Joint Resolution 25 would let Texans amend the constitution to prohibit the state from carrying out lethal injections until Sept. 2, 2003. The committee also passed Senate Bill 680, which would set up a special commission to study possible flaws in the system, including legal representation of indigent inmates, the possible innocence of death row inmates and whether race is a factor in such cases.
"By passing this committee, we have cleared one hurdle. We have many more," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, sponsor of the resolution and bill.
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, a member of the committee, voted for the bill.
Shapleigh said he doesn't plan to push the measure to a Senate floor debate right away. He needs time to find the 21 votes necessary to bring the measure up for floor debate, he said.
Two-thirds of the Senate and House would have to pass the proposed constitutional amendment for it to be placed on the November ballot.
Texas by far leads the nation's in executions and has 449 on death row. Last year, the state set a national record for executions when 40 people were put to death. Six have been executed this year.
Sen. Kenneth Armbrister, D-Victoria, is a former police officer and chairman of the committee. Armbrister said he supported Shapleigh's bill because of steps lawmakers have taken this year to strengthen the state's criminal justice system.
Last week, Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation that established a process for inmates to seek DNA testing that might clear them. Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill to establish standards for appointing defense lawyers to represent poor defendants.
"It would be somewhat hypocritical for us to then say, `Oh well, we've just passed those but we still think everything is the way it ought to be.' You can't have it both ways," said Armbrister.
Flaws in the state's capital punishment system were widely publicized during the presidential election and highlighted in a Houston Chronicle series in February.
The reports and other studies found capital cases involving unqualified or ill-prepared defense attorneys and even lawyers who slept through parts of a capital trial. Nearly a dozen men, including one who had spent time on death row, have been released after new DNA testing proved their innocence.
Kerry Max Cook last week told the committee that he spent 20 years in prison - 13 on death row - before testing on DNA evidence spurred his release in 1999.
"This is what I survived for," Cook said. "I'm not an abolitionist. I'm fighting for the innocent victims of the death penalty."
Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, voted against the resolution, "keeping in mind the rights of the victims and the victims' families . . . ," said spokesman Jerry Johnson.
Perry does not believe a moratorium is necessary, said spokesman Gene Acuna.
Armbrister said a popular vote also would allow Texans to express whether they still believe in the way the state administers capital punishment.
"It sets up a vehicle for Texans to ask themselves that question: Do we believe that the system we have now in place guarantees proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this individual deserves to be executed?" said Armbrister.
Religious leaders praised the vote.
"Our Texas capital punishment system is a broken legal-social system," said Bishop Michael Pfeiffer of the Diocese of San Angelo and president of the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The Legislature should suspend executions while we as a state conduct a thorough examination of the system."
Dianne Clements of the Houston-based victims' rights group Justice for All, called the moratorium "a preposterous idea which has no foundation."
The bill calls for the Capital Punishment Commission to include 11 members experienced in criminal justice issues. The governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker each would appoint three members; the deans of the law schools at the University of Texas and Texas Tech University would name two others.
Similar legislation by Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, is pending in a House committee.
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Chicago Tribune cites Texas innocence cases in call to abolish death penalt
This newspaper has done groundbreaking reporting on cases that suggest innocent people have been executed.
Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in Texas in 1994 for the arson murders of his three daughters. Willingham claimed he was innocent, and now several arson experts believe the case against him was built on scientifically invalid evidence. The fire that killed Willingham's children may have been an accident.
Carlos De Luna was executed in Texas in 1989 for the murder of a gas station clerk, though no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. Now evidence points to another man, Carlos Hernandez, who bragged to relatives and friends that De Luna was convicted for a murder Hernandez committed.
The editorial concludes:
The evidence of mistakes, the evidence of arbitrary decisions, the sobering knowledge that government can't provide certainty that the innocent will not be put to death--all that prompts this call for an end to capital punishment. It is time to stop killing in the people's name.
The Texas Legislature has about two months left in its current session to take action on the question of whether Texas has executed innocent people. The very real probability that innocent people have been executed in Texas should be dealt with as a statewide emergency that requires a moratorium on executions and a death penalty study commission.
The chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee should immediately schedule a hearing on HB 809, which would enact a two-year moratorium and create a study commission.
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Clemency for Cathy Henderson (Execution Date: April 18, 2007 in Texas)
Cathy Henderson is scheduled to be executed in Texas on April 18 for the 1994 murder of Brandon Baugh, an infant she was babysitting. Henderson would be the 12th woman put to death in the U.S. since capital punishment was reinstated. Since her arrest, Henderson has maintained that the child's death was accidental. She said that she dropped the baby, fracturing his skull, and then panicked after realizing she could not revive him. She then buried the boy's body and fled to Missouri, where authorities captured her nearly two weeks later. Henderson said that she is sorry for Brandon's death and that she feels regret every day for the pain she caused his family. She notes, "I wish there was something I could do to comfort them, and if it's going to comfort them to end my life for an accident, I hope this gives them comfort."
Henderson's spiritual advisor is Sister Helen Prejean, well-known author of "Dead Man Walking." Sister Helen believes Brandon's death was an accident. She said that the public needs to understand that Henderson is not a monster. "It's easy to kill a monster. It's hard to kill a real human being," she noted.
In February, the United States Supreme Court denied Cathy's petition for certiorari. This was a huge blow. Her lawyers are pursuing some other "longer shot" options, but if those fail it means her execution, scheduled for April 18, will proceed unless she is granted clemency.
Please help save Cathy's life by writing letters to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Texas Governor, Rick Perry. The Clemency Letters link provides pointers for writing such letters.
In the meantime, Cathy's lawyers and a dedicated team are working hard to find some legal means of stopping her execution.
Governors are given a very special power over life and death. They are given the power to grant clemency to someone condemned to die. Clemency is an exercise in mercy, a power that is rarely - very rarely - exercised.
It seems mercy is out of fashion.
We need to change that, for Cathy's sake, for the sake of her daughters.
Please write a letter asking for clemency for Cathy Henderson. Write to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and to the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.
Note that we have an updated address for letters to the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The envelope should be addressed to:
Board of Pardons and Paroles Executive Clemency Section 8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard Austin, TX 78757
The enclosed letter should be addressed to:
Rissie Owen Presiding Officer Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles & other Board Members
If addressed this way, the letter should find its way to Ms Ramirez, who handles the clemency packages. She will fax a copy to each board member. Points for your clemency letters
Before you write, read the points below. We are very fortunate to have had advice from a former member of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on exactly what constitutes an effective clemency letter. The same points apply when writing to the Governor.
The key thing to remember is that the goal of your letter is to save Cathy's life. This letter is not a good time to rail against the inequalities and injustices of the system - doing so will render your letter less effective.
We also recommend you read Tony Rizzo's article in the Kansas City Star, Uncommon Path to Death Row. It shows how Cathy's punishment appears out of kilter with others sentenced to death (a punishment usually reserved for the "worst of the worst"). Not to minimize Brandon's death and his parents suffering, but put in this context, the Board may find there is room for mercy.
(If you do wish to write a letter about the injustices in Cathy's case and in the Texas system, consider addressing it to the editor of one of the local papers, such as the Austin-American Statesman.)
How to write an effective clemency letter
Things to remember
* All of the members of the Parole Board will almost invariably believe that the judicial system is essentially fair and just. Therefore, they believe that Cathy has received a fair trial, has received adequate appeals, and is guilty.
When writing your letter, it does not matter whether you agree with this or not: this is what the Parole Board members believe and it is the context in which they will make their decision.
* The members of the Parole Board are appointed by the Office of the Governor. They will almost invariably reflect the views of the governor, Rick Perry.
* Most members of the Parole Board are not attorneys (currently, four of the seven members are not attorneys), so they generally are not going to consider the legal problems in a case. The members of the Parole Board do not think of their role as being a court of appeals. They view clemency letters essentially as pleas for mercy, and they will need overwhelmingly good reasons to grant that mercy.
Things to do
The bulk of your letter should focus on these points:
* Emphasize Cathy's humanity. If the Parole Board members are going to consider clemency, they need to be able to see Cathy as a human being and not as a murderer. One thing you can do is stress that Cathy is a parent with children.
* The Parole Board members want evidence that the person for whom you're requesting clemency has changed for the better. In Cathy’s case, it would be good to note that she has taken advantage of having spiritual advisors, culminating in Sister Prejean serving as her spiritual advisor.
* The Parole Board members will take into account a person’s criminal history. People with extensive criminal histories have no chance at clemency. In Cathy’s case, she had no felonies and no violent offenses in her background, so highlight this in your letter.
Things to avoid
Your letter might briefly mention the following things, but you should generally avoid them, and the focus of your letter should not be on these issues:
* Philosophical discussions about the shortcomings or the immorality of the death penalty. As far as the members of the Parole Board are concerned, the death penalty is a fact of law, and it’s not their role to change it. They have probably heard all the arguments before.
* The facts of the case. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, the members of the Parole Board are not going to be weighing the merits of the case or Cathy's guilt or innocence. It would not be out of line, however, to discuss the perceptions of the facts. In Cathy’s case, there is no disputing that Brandon Baugh died. It can be argued, however, that it was an accident. Realize, however, that they will be inclined to believe the forensic report on the injury to Brandon’s head.
* Avoid personal attacks on the people who have been involved in the case. Again, unless there are extraordinary circumstances, the members of the Parole Board are going to be inclined to believe in the integrity of the process and the people who are a part of the process.
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Roundtable Discussion on Art and Protest and Dissent
LOYAL OPPOSITION is an art exhibition of protest and dissent at the Joann Cole Mitte Art Building in Gallery I at Texas State University. It was curated by Mary Mikel Stump and contains artwork by a few artists that were also in TMN's "Justice for All?: Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty".
LOYAL OPPOSITION is comprised of 41 pieces of art, including photography, paintings and sculptures. The pieces were created by 21 emerging and mid-career artist from across the nation.
Each piece of art in the exhibit signifies a social issue concerning “Protest and Dissent,” such as racism, politics, segregation, justice and drug abuse. Works in the exhibition include the stitched cotton “WHITE FLAG” by Jack Daws, a woodcut piece entitled “Good Worker” by Daniel Gonzalez and “Freedom of Expression National Monument,” a photograph by Erika Rothenberg.
Derrick Durham, a Texas State alumni and resident of San Marcos, created the large mural outside of Gallery I for the exhibit.
“It’s important the viewer not walk away thinking that is the end game,” Durham said. For the art to be effective in creating an impact, he said, “action must be followed.”
Mary Mikel Stump, JCM gallery director, said she appreciates the opportunity to support programs such as Common Experience. Stump traveled to several galleries and art shows across the nation to obtain pieces of art for LOYAL OPPOSITION.
“I like the characterization that each artist represents a singular voice about their particular issue,” Stump said.
Meanwhile last Fall, the Tides Foundation gave out $150,000 to groups around the county trying to stop executions, but it did not give any money to Texas, instead giving $50,000 to an anti-death penalty organization in Wisconsin, which does not even have the death penalty. No wonder Texas executions are continuing at a torid pace. The national leaders of the anti-death penalty movement would rather fight the death penalty where it doesn't even exist, rather than in Texas.
Call the Governor of Texas and tell him we need a moratorium on executions.
Office of the Governor Main Switchboard: (512) 463-2000 [office hours are 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. CST] Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849
For anyone who wonders about stays on the day of an execution here is a number to call: TDCJ Public information---1-936-437-1303 ----just ask if the execution is still scheduled.
Condemned prisoner Charles Anthony Nealy says he wasn't even in Texas on an August evening almost 10 years ago when two men were gunned down during the robbery of a convenience store just south of downtown Dallas.
"It's not me," Nealy says of a grainy videotape image from a security camera that shows one man carrying a shotgun and another with a pistol taking money from a cash register and then grabbing a bottle of wine and a couple of six-packs of cold beer. "Two kids — that's what I see. Possibly teenagers. And I wasn't one of them."
A Dallas County jury believed otherwise.
Nealy, who would be 43 later this week, faced lethal injection Tuesday evening in Huntsville for the shooting death of one of the men, store owner Jiten Bhakta, 25.
He'd be the ninth condemned inmate executed this year in the nation's most active death penalty state. Two more are set to die next week.
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"Day of Innocence" Rally and Testimony of Kerry Cook to Senate Criminal Justice
Three innocent people who were wrongfully convicted attended today's "Day of Innocence" rally at the Texas capitol. Two of those people, Kerry Cook and Shujaa Graham, spent time on death row. The other, George White, was wrongfully sentenced to life in prison. All three were completely innocent and eventually exonerated.
Kerry Cook spent more than 20 years on Texas death row before being released and exonerated. He testified against HB8 and SB5 in today's Senate Criminal Justice Committee, asking lawmakers to address the problems in the death penalty system instead of expanding the death penalty to apply to repeat child abusers. After his testimony, an aide for Senators Deuell and Seliger followed Kerry out of the room and asked him to autograph their copies of Kerry's book, "Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn’t Commit". Kerry believes that lawmakers should reject the death penalty expansion in HB 8 and SB 5. If they do not take out the death penalty provision, then lawmakers should at least attach amendments to the bills to create an innocence commission, enact a moratorium on executions and create a commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the death penalty system in Texas.
Kerry Cook will be speaking again at the capitol in the Auditorium tomorrow March 14, from 11 AM to 1 PM as one of the speakers on a panel that includes three innocent people who were wrongfully sentenced to either death or life in prison, two family members of murder victims, and the oldest living person (89) whose sentence was commuted from death to life as a result of the Furman v Georgia decision in 1972.
Every lawmaker who is considering voting to expand the death penalty this session should come hear the stories of these panelists.
Wednesday, March 14
11:00 AM - 1 PM: Murder Victim Family Member and Former Death Row Inmate Panel. Location: the Auditorium in the Texas State Capitol on level E1 in the Annex in room E1.004. (Across from the cafeteria).
The panel includes:
Kerry Cook, an innocent man who spent 22 years on Texas Death Row and recently wrote a book, "Chasing Justice".
Shujaa Graham, an African American man who spent 3 years of his life on California's death-row for a crime he did not commit
Moreese "Pops" Bickham, who was on death row when the Furman v Georgia decision was announced in 1972 abolishing the death penalty. He is now the oldest living survivor of the Furman v Georgia decision.
Christina Lawson, who has suffered the loss of her father and her husband. Her father was murdered when she was a child and her husband, David Martinez, was executed this past summer, July 28, 2005. She has witnessed the pain from both sides: the loss of her father, the anger and hate felt towards his killer, the loss of her husband, the sorrow for his victim's family and loved ones, the loss of a Daddy for their child. She has realized through her pain, that the death penalty does not bring anyone back, it does not heal anyone... it brings back the pain of losing a loved one and destroys another innocent family.
Bill Pelke, president of Journey of Hope and Chairman of the Board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He authored a book entitled "Journey of Hope...From Violence to Healing", which details the May 14, 1985 murder of his grandmother Ruth Pelke, a Bible teacher, by four teenage girls. Paula Cooper who was deemed to be the ringleader was sentenced to die in the electric chair by the state of Indiana. She was fifteen-years-old at the time of the murder Pelke originally support the sentence of death for Cooper, but went through a spiritual transformation in 1986 after praying for love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family. He became involved in an international crusade on Paula's behalf and in 1989 after over 2 million people from Italy signed petitions and Pope John Paul II's request for mercy, Paula was taken off of death row and her sentence commuted to sixty years. Bill, a retired steelworker, has dedicated his life to working for abolition of the death penalty. He shares his story of forgiveness and healing, and how he came to realize that he did not need to see someone else die in order to heal from his grandmother's death.
George White: On February 27, 1985, the White family experienced first-hand the insanity and horror of murder. George and his wife Charlene were shot repeatedly by an armed robber at his place of business in Enterprise, Alabama. George held Charlene in his arms as her life slipped away. Their children, Tom and Christie, were only 12 and 5 at the time. The nightmare had just begun. Sixteen months later, George was charged with murdering his wife. Following a capital murder trial that was later described as "a mockery and a sham", George was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was overturned in 1989 and he was released from prison, but George remained in legal limbo until 1992, when proof of his innocence was finally brought forward. Following a brief hearing the trial court ordered the charge against him forevermore dismissed. The nightmare had lasted more than seven years...had the State of Alabama had its way, George White would be a dead man today. Understanding fully how easy it is to become advocates for revenge, the White family, however, rejects the death penalty as a solution and as way of healing the wounds of their loss.
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Texas Governor commutes death sentence of Doil E. Lane
Doil Lane was convicted of murdering 8-year-old San Marcos girl.
By Katie Humphrey AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Saturday, March 10, 2007
The only Hays County killer to receive a death sentence in the last 30 years will instead serve life in prison.
Gov. Rick Perry commuted 45-year-old Doil Edward Lane's sentence from death to life imprisonment on Friday, finding that Lane had mental retardation. Lane was convicted in 1994 of killing 8-year-old Bertha Martinez.
A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision bars the execution of killers who have mental retardation.
"It's the right decision from every aspect," said Bill Allison, a defense attorney and clinical professor of law at the University of Texas, who has represented Lane along with a team of volunteers since 1997.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, February 18, 2007
LLANO — Beginning in the summer of 1977, when Linda Jo Edwards was found raped, murdered and mutilated in her Tyler apartment, Smith County fought hard to kill Kerry Max Cook for the deed.
Tried, convicted, sentenced to die and sent to the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Cook was raped shortly after his arrival and made a sexual slave, a commodity to be traded like cigarettes in the death house economy. Over more than two decades he endured three trials, appeals that raised his hopes and dashed them again, brutal assaults and suicide attempts, the last of which, in August 1991, included nearly severing his penis. He dipped a finger in his own blood to scrawl a final message on the wall of his cell: "I was an innocent man." The organ was reattached and Cook recovered.
Wife Sandra Pressey met Kerry Cook at an Amnesty International meeting. She's helped him find his way in the outside world that he'd been shut off from for two decades.
For two decades on death row, Kerry Max Cook lived in fear. Today, his experience haunts him, but his 6-year-old son, Kerry Justice Cook, has brought joy.
Over and over, his lawyers argued that Cook had gotten a raw deal, railroaded to death row by prosecutors and police. Finally, the appeals court agreed with them and ordered a new trial, his fourth. At the 11th hour, prosecutors offered a deal, and Cook walked out of the Bastrop County Courthouse a free man.
That was eight years ago. But to borrow from Faulkner, the past is never in the past for Kerry Max Cook.
His case has become a rallying cry for criminal justice reform advocates and death penalty opponents. Where once his companions were the scum of humanity, he now hobnobs with Ben Stiller, Bruce Springsteen and Susan Sarandon. His tale is one of those told in the hit play "The Exonerated." He has a book coming out Feb. 27, "Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit" and a Web site, chasingjustice.com.
These days, Cook lives with his wife, Sandra Pressey, and their 6-year-old son, Kerry Justice Cook, in a Plano apartment complex overlooking a golf course. They have a big-screen JVC TV, a Macintosh computer with a Scooby Doo mouse pad and a couple of frenetic Jack Russell terriers.
Solidly built and square-jawed, he paces in his living room and talks fast, like a man who's been struggling for a long time to be heard.
He says, "I think my case is as Kafkaesque as it could ever get in America. A man was railroaded here."
Says Tyler attorney David Dobbs, who prosecuted him and is now in private practice: "It's such a joke that we promote and support people such as Kerry Max Cook in our world. . . . It has nothing to do with justice; it's all about publicity and targeting weak cases from the past that are vulnerable."
Says Paul Nugent, Cook's attorney: "Kerry's case is the most egregious prosecutorial misconduct ever documented in Texas. . . . It is shocking. Prosecutorial misconduct is easy to allege but it's hard to prove. We proved it."
Posted by admin on: Tuesday 13 February @ 16:14:42
Here is the KPFT radio coverage of the art show by Renee Phelps, KPFT News Director. The coverage starts about at the halfway point, so move the little ball on the media player to the half way point, and you will find the start of it.
Please come to the gallery talk this Friday, Feb 16, at 7 PM.
Yesterday, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen declared a 90-day moratorium on executions while the state studies its method of lethal injection. Executions also are halted in Missouri, California and North Carolina because of lethal injection concerns.
In Texas, the big issue is whether Texas has executed innocent people, but in Tennessee the issue that sparked the moratorium is whether the protocol used for lethal injections causes the inmate to suffer.
Tennessee Joins Florida, California, and North Carolina in Studying Lethal Injection Procedures
Nashville: The Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing applauded Governor Phil Bredesen’s decision to halt executions while Tennessee’s method of lethal injection is studied today. Executions have been botched recently in California, Florida, and Ohio resulting in obvious pain to the condemned. Tennessee’s protocol, which includes no medical personnel and the use of questionable chemicals, one of which is strictly banned for use in euthanizing animals, presented many of the same risks.
“The Governor has taken a courageous and moral step today,” said Reverend Stacy Rector, Executive Director of TCASK. “If Tennessee is going to carry out executions, we owe it to ourselves to ensure that they are carried out in a humane manner. Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure was a botched execution waiting to happen.”
The lethal injection procedure utilized by Tennessee involves a three drug cocktail similar to that used in most other states. The first drug, thiopental, is meant to anesthetize the inmate. The second drug, pavulon, paralyzes the nervous system, and a dose of potassium chloride causes cardiac arrest. However, thiopental is an extremely unstable anesthetic, and potassium chloride has been described by some experts as causing the maximum amount of pain to the cardiovascular system. Because the second drug, pavulon, paralyzes the inmate, it is highly possible that a condemned person would feel all the effects of the potassium chloride, while being unable to speak or move. Pavulon has been banned for veterinary procedures.
A brilliant and unprecedented work, Chasing Justice is the riveting chronicle of how a smalltown murder became one of the worst cases of prosecutorial misconduct in American history—and sent the author, an innocent man, to hell for twenty-two harrowing years. Kerry Max Cook is one of the longest-tenured death-row prisoners to be freed: This is his unbelievable story and the only first hand account of its kind.
"Chasing Justice is captivating...It is going to break through political barriers and be a catalyst for reform.
— Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
"I dare you to read this book. . . An inspiring human being."
— Richard Dreyfuss
"A brutal but compelling account. . . . Amazing."
— William S. Sessions, former FBI Director and federal judge
"The incredible story of this enforced visit to hell and back is a modern day version of Dante and Kafka."
— Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
"Deserves a wide readership alongside John Grisham’s The Innocent Man.
— Publishers Weekly
"An inmate’s harrowing first-person account of a travesty of Texas jurisprudence."
— Kirkus Reviews
"As a Texas death row in-mate trying to prove himself innocent of a rape and murder in Tyler, KERRY MAX COOK was reminded of his fate every time another con made the death walk. CHASING JUSTICE is a hellish tour of a criminal justice system whose officers allegedly railroaded Cook for personal and political gain. The litany of professional malfeasance was sufficiently egregious to inspire the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to write, with unprecedented frankness, that “prosecutorial and police misconduct has tainted this entire matter” and that the “conviction was obtained through fraud and in violation of the law.” But the Kafka-esque courtroom episodes are small beer compared with the nightmarish conditions of Cook’s twenty-year incarceration; he was left naked in solitary confinement and victimized by prison predators. That he survived is astounding; the circumstances that finally freed him by means of DNA evidence are nearly miraculous. " — Texas Monthly
Christopher Jay Swift is set for execution on Jan 30, which is this Tuesday. He is set to die for the 2003 murders of his wife and mother-in-law. Because the appeals process usually takes a number of years, death row inmates usually wait much longer before execution than Mr. Swift has. He has canceled all appeals and asked the judge to set an execution date for him. He wants to die and he wants the state of Texas to help in his suicide. He currently has no attorneys working on his behalf. In February 2006 he asked a judge to dismiss his appeal lawyers and allow him to represent himself. Then he waived any appeals.
Whether an execution takes place or not should be the decision of the justice system after all questions that could warrant a different outcome have been addressed by the courts. Appeals of a death sentence should proceed despite the objection of a death-sentenced inmate. Executions are conducted in the name of the people, they are not conducted to satisfy the desires of an inmate, particularly one who may have mental problems and there are questions about the sanity of Swift, which could be addressed in an appeal of his case, but he won't allow any appeals to take place. His previous defense attorneys Jerry Cobb and Derek Adame argued that Mr. Swift was legally insane, calling a psychiatrist who testified that he believed Mr. Swift was schizophrenic.
Mr. Swift wrote several letters, which appear in court files, asking for an execution date as soon as possible.
"I am writing to you one final time to plead with you to set my execution date ahead of those already scheduled," he wrote Oct. 19, 2006. "While others dread their approaching executions, I am very anxious to be executed and go to heaven to be reunited with my loved ones who understand what those on Earth cannot, i.e. the forgiving power of the Lord."
At the very least, Swift should be allowed to ask the court or the governor to stop his execution, if he changes his mind about not wanting to pursue any further appeals.
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Retardation appeals in limbo, years after ruling
Posted by admin on: Saturday 27 January @ 21:52:16
Jan. 27, 2007, 12:49AM
By BRIAN ROGERS Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally retarded killers, 16 death row inmates from Harris County are still waiting to have their appeals on the issue resolved.
"This is a really unique situation," Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson, chief of the DA's division dealing with the claims, said of the bubble. "We won't see this again."
The cases may get speedier resolution with judges across the state facing an order, issued last summer by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, to wrap up more of these cases.
Since the 2002 ban, six of the 454 inmates then on Texas' death row have had their sentences commuted to life in prison after proving they are retarded. One of those, Robert Smith, commuted in 2004, was from Harris County.
Of the 131 inmates on death row from Harris County, 16 have retardation claims pending.
Posted by admin on: Thursday 25 January @ 04:10:15
Rep Dutton of Houston has filed a bill (HB 809) to enact a moratorium on executions and create a commission to study the administration of the death penalty in Texas.
Since the last regular session of the Legislature there have been two new cases brought to light in which it appears that an innocent person was executed by Texas: Ruben Cantu and Carlos DeLuna. A third case in which an innocent person may have been executed, Cameron Todd Willingham, was first reported on by the Chicago Tribune in November 2004.
A moratorium on executions has been endorsed by the following media outlets in Texas: Abilene Reporter-News, Austin American-Statesman, Bryan-College Station Eagle, Corpus Christi-Caller-Times, Dallas Morning News (several times), El Paso Times (only endorsed allowing voters to decide in a constitutional amendment), Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Galveston County Daily News, Houston Chronicle, KPRC Channel 2 NBC Houston, San Antonio Express News, Victoria Advocate, Wichita Falls Times Record News.
The El Paso County Commissioners Court passed a resolution calling for a moratorium last October. The Travis County Commissioners Court has also passed a moratorium resolution.
On March 13, 2007, there will be a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day at the capitol and a rally for a moratorium on executions will be held on the South steps of the capitol.
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Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break
Posted by admin on: Thursday 25 January @ 01:57:22
Looking for something to do during spring break this year? Here's an idea: come to Austin, Texas for a week of activism and education against the death penalty as part of the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break. The event is open to both high school and college students. Register now.
The 2007 anti-death penalty spring break, organized by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty and co-sponsored by Campus Progress, Amnesty International, Texas Moratorium Network, NCADP and other groups, is designed to to give students something more meaningful to do during their week off, rather than just spending time at the beach or sitting at home catching up on school work. This is the place to be if you want to become a part of the next generation of human rights leaders. Go to the beach to change your state of mind for a week, come here to change the world forever.
Students will participate in workshops led by experienced, knowledgeable presenters who will teach them skills that they can use to go back home and set up new anti-death penalty student organizations or improve ones that may already exist. The skills participants will learn can also be used in other issues besides the death penalty. During the week, students will immediately put what they learn into action during activities such as a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day and a Direct Action Day. There will be opportunities to write press releases, speak in public, meet with legislators or their aides, and conceive and carry out a direct action.
"This is an historical echo to what happened in the 1960s when people came down to the South during the Civil Rights Movement to help people register to vote, what they called freedom summers. This is very similar to what was going on back then, but here the issue is the death penalty." said Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network.
Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Twenty-four people were executed in Texas in 2006. There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1060 executions in the United States. Texas has performed 381 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.
This innovative spring break was featured last year on mtvU, NPR and the front page of The Huntsville Item. MTV is planning to send their crew to Austin again this year to shoot the spring break for "The Amazing Break," an MTV show featuring alternatives to beer and beaches. Coverage by MTV and other media outlets ensures that the anti-death penalty message of the alternative spring break will reach thousands and thousands of people.
Throughout the week students will participate in workshops and have a chance to talk and eat with people that they probably never imagined they would encounter in their daily lives, such as Shujaa Graham, an African American man who spent 3 years of his life on California's death-row for a crime he did not commit or Renny Cushing, a former New Hampshire state legislator whose father was brutally murdered or Christina Lawson, whose husband was executed by the state of Texas in 2005.
Other speakers include Moresse Bickham, who was on death row when the Furman v Georgia decision was announced in 1972 abolishing the death penalty on grounds that it violated the U.S. constitution. Another ruling fours years later allowed executions to resume. Bickham was released in 1996 and at 89 is now the oldest living survivor of the Furman v Georgia decision.
Participation in the Annual Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break is an invaluable experience. Participants will come away with firsthand knowledge of the anti-death penalty movement and a new understanding of how they can affect public policy. Plus, they will an opportunity to form new friendships that could last a lifetime. During the spring break students will have plenty of free time to enjoy Austin, the Live Music Capital of the World. The famous SXSW Festival is the same week as spring break, so if anyone is interested they can attend some of the films or music events during their free time.
Thanks to contributions from Campus Progress, Resist Foundation and other groups there is no participation fee for the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break except for those people who need housing. If you do not need housing, because you live in Austin or you are making your own housing arrangements, then your participation is free, but please register so we know how many people to expect. Participants are expected to travel to Austin at their own expense and pay for their meals and incidental expenses while in Austin. We will provide some free pizza and snacks a couple of times. Housing is available for a fee of $25. That's right. $25 for all five days. That's $5 a night. Students will stay in rooms with one or two other people at a dormitory near the University of Texas at Austin.
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 24 January @ 02:21:08
For everyone who will be in Austin on Monday, January 29:
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty will be debating the Young Conservatives of Texas on the death penalty this coming Monday, at 7:30pm at Jester Auditorium (Jester A121A).
The debate will be in the Oxford style, with alternating speakers from each side debating a resolution that the death penalty be abolished. Each side also has a "questioner" who will get to ask one or two questions of the other side, designed to point to the weaknesses in the opposing side's argument. In the middle of the debate, there will be a short break in which audience members can make comments and ask questions.
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Supreme Court to hear 3 Texas death penalty cases
Posted by admin on: Thursday 18 January @ 17:24:05
Possible rebuke of state court, UT connection fuel interest in arguments.
By Chuck Lindell AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, January 14, 2007
The U.S. Supreme Court will devote a significant portion of its shrinking docket to three Texas death row cases this week, signaling the court's continued interest in justice provided by the state that has executed the most inmates.
All the cases involve a jury instruction that Texas has not used since 1991, and the guilt of the three men is not in question — pointing to little chance of sweeping changes to death penalty law.
And yet the cases have drawn wider interest with some intriguing subplots.
The nine justices will determine whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals flagrantly disregarded an order from the highest court in the land.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 06 January @ 23:21:05
Five set to die this month, including Williamson County man.
By Michael Graczyk ASSOCIATED PRESS Saturday, January 06, 2007
HUNTSVILLE — The convicted killer of a 3-year-old Williamson County boy is set to die next week, the first of five lethal injections scheduled this month as Texas bucks a national trend and bolsters its standing as the most active in carrying out capital punishment.
Twenty-four condemned Texas killers were executed in 2006, accounting for 45 percent of all the executions in the United States. Although the national count of 53 was seven fewer than 2005, the Texas total was up five from the previous year.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 06 January @ 05:14:50
Jan. 6, 2007, 1:31AM Supreme Court will weigh when mental illness can halt an execution
By LINDA GREENHOUSE New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to use the case of a schizophrenic death-row inmate in Texas to set the standard for determining when a mental illness is so severe that execution would be constitutionally impermissible.
It appears that the feds have had enough of state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett and the rest of the state prosecutorial entourage that has been fighting to keep Texas Death Row inmate Anthony Graves behind bars. On Dec. 29, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Froeschner issued a bench warrant for Graves, pulling him from Burleson Co. jail and back to federal court in Galveston for a hearing tomorrow (Jan. 5), when it appears Froeschner will order Graves free on a $50K bond pending any retrial in the capital murder case that sent Graves to prison in 1994.
Graves was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1992 murder of six people in Burleson Co. Graves has maintained his innocence and last March the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction, ruling that Burleson Co. prosecutors, led by former District Attorney Charles Sebesta, withheld crucial witness statements from the defense -- including statements made by Robert Carter, who was also convicted and executed for the crime and who implicated Graves as his accomplice before later recanting and proclaiming Graves' innocence -- possibly tainting the outcome of the trial.
On the heels of that reversal, Froeschner in the fall recommended Graves be set free pending any retrial of the case, and U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent concurred, meaning that with $5K down, Graves could walk away from prison, where he has spent 12 years on death row.
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Panel Seeks End to Death Penalty for New Jersey
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 03 January @ 00:24:38
January 3, 2007 The New York Times By LAURA MANSNERUS
TRENTON, Jan. 2 — A legislative commission recommended on Tuesday that New Jersey become the first state to abolish the death penalty since states began reinstating their capital punishment laws 35 years ago. Its report found “no compelling evidence” that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”
The report, whose lone dissenter was the original author of the state’s modern death penalty statute, came a year after New Jersey joined Illinois and Maryland in imposing moratoriums on executions, and amid growing unease among politicians and the public about capital punishment.
Eight other states, including New York, have also suspended executions in recent years, most because of court decisions. Maryland had lifted its moratorium in 2003, after a year, but a court essentially reinstated it last month.
Death penalty experts said that New Jersey was the first state to receive an official recommendation that capital punishment be abandoned, and it lands in a state where legislators have a Democratic majority along with a Democratic governor who supports repeal of the statute.
The governor, Jon S. Corzine, embraced the report on Tuesday. “As someone who has long opposed the death penalty,” he said in a statement, “I look forward to working with the Legislature” to carry out the recommendations.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 16 December @ 01:42:12
The AP is reporting that "Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in Florida after a medical examiner said Friday that prison officials botched the insertion of the needles when a convicted killer was put to death earlier this week.
Separately, a federal judge in California imposed a moratorium on executions in the nation's most populous state, declaring that the state's method of lethal injection runs the risk of violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment."
The moratoriums in these two states are based on problems with the method of lethal injection. Texas executes many more people than any other state, so there is a strong probability of botched executions in Texas too. However, the bigger problem in Texas is that innocent people are at a high risk of execution in Texas. Recently, there have been credible reports that three innocent people were executed in Texas, Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos De Luna.
The next session of the Texas Legislature, which gets underway in January, should enact emergency legislation to halt executions in Texas, so that we can ensure that no more innocent people are executed in Texas.
Rep. Harold Dutton of Houston is expected to file legislation that would enact a moratorium and create a commission to study capital punishment in Texas.
Robert Black, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry, said, "Perry has no plans to announce a moratorium on the death penalty and executions," Black said Friday. "He believes it is administered fairly, justly and in accordance with the law."
Perry was re-elected in November with 39 percent of the vote.
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Murder victim's mother takes unlikely stance
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 29 November @ 17:51:47
O.J. Simpson avoided the death penalty, Saddam Hussein is headed for it and Texas leads the United States in carrying it out. The morality and legality of execution is frequently brought into question by death penalty opponents.
But in Texas, another issue sometimes comes to the forefront of the debate -- accuracy.
And it's an issue Jeanette Popp, a resident of Graham, has close experience with.
Popp's daughter was murdered in Austin in 1988, but during the trial of her daughter's killer, Popp was strongly against the death penalty.
Two men were wrongfully convicted for her daughter's murder and spent 12 years in prison, she said.
"Had they been given the death penalty, they surely would have been executed," Popp said. "And what does that make us? That makes us murderers, just like the people we're killing."
So when her daughter's murderer was convicted in 2001, she begged him to take a plea bargain.
"He told me he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in a Texas prison," Popp said.
So she said she went public with her appeals.
"I asked people to call the district attorney's office and demand that they take the death penalty off the table, and they did," Popp said.
She said the offender got two consecutive life sentences, which was what she wanted.
"I wanted him punished, but without punishing his loved ones," Popp said.
Popp said the support of family and friends kept her from turning her grief into anger. But she also said her religious beliefs were the biggest factor in healing after the murder.
"My faith in God helped get me through this," Popp said.
Popp, who is Catholic, said her religious beliefs also contribute to her views on the death penalty. But not everyone shares those views.
"The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the American public supports the death penalty," said Dr. Byron Johnson, professor of sociology. "And they have for a long time."
Religious beliefs often contribute the formation of people's views on the death penalty, said Paul Martens, an assistant professor of religion who teaches religious ethics.
"Many people, particularly Christian people, would be concerned about not ending life, but restraining people from committing further crimes...without ending the possibility of spiritual renewal," Martens said.
Rabbi Gordon Fuller of Waco's Congregation Agudath Jacob, voiced a similar objection Judaism would have to execution.
"We believe in repentance," Fuller said. "If someone can repent at any time, then there's always hope for them."
Fuller said Judaism as a religion is "extremely in favor of life."
"So it would be a little incongruous to be in favor of the death penalty," Fuller said
Martens said that in 2003, the Baptist General Convention of Texas came up with a statement suggesting there be a moratorium on the death penalty in Texas.
"So there are elements of the Baptist community that are against it, but there certainly are elements of the Baptist community that would be for it," Martens said.
He said Biblical texts cited in favor of the death penalty usually come from the Old Testament, where God outlines Israelite society.
"In that society, the death penalty is commanded for various crimes, including things like adultery and being disrespectful to your parents," Martens said.
New Testament texts, such as the sermon on the mount and passages where a life of peace is encouraged, are often used to oppose the death penalty, Martens said.
But New Testament passages can sometimes be used to support capital punishment, said Deacon Daniel Payne, lecturer in the Institute of Church-State Studies.
"Paul in Romans says God has allowed for the use of the sword by the state," Payne said. "How you interpret that passage is what is at issue for Christians who either oppose or support the death penalty."
Those in favor of the death penalty believe that is God's sanction of state execution, whereas those opposed to the death penalty see it as simply a statement of fact that God controls the state, Payne said.
"God has allowed state to use sword as form of law, but that doesn't mean that's endorsing the use," Payne said opponents of the death penalty would argue.
Popp said her religious objection is to human unnaturally taking any life.
"We have no right to take human life," Popp said. "No one gave us that right. That's God's right."
"I don't care if it's the man that murdered my daughter, a drunk driver, abortion, whatever. We have no business doling out the final punishment."
Not everyone agrees with her stance on the death penalty, though, including some family members, Popp said. But Popp hasn't let that stop her from turning her pain into a passion.
"I've been an activist for six years now, and I'm very proud of what I do," Popp said.
She said she and others who share her vision have worked hard to influence the state and local governments.
"We've made a lot of progress," Popp said, pointing to recent changes in laws concerning execution of the juveniles and the mentally ill.
In 2002 the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to execute the mentally ill.
Popp also pointed out the change in sentencing options for jurors.
In June of 2005, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill giving juries the option of sentencing capital offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Before, if it was a person who had committed a murder, the only choice (the jury) had was life in prison - which gives them the possibility of parole - or execute them," Popp said.
She said she thinks the new option represents important progress.
"I believe you will see less and less execution as jurors are given that choice," Popp said.
Popp said the possibility of innocent people being executed is one of the biggest objections she has to the death penalty.
"The death penalty is such a final thing," Popp said. "And with over 100 people exonerated from death rows because they were there for crimes they didn't commit, we're making mistakes. And if we're making mistakes, we don't need to be in the business of killing people."
Popp believes life in prison without the possibility of parole is the best answer sentencing options because any potential mistakes won't be final. With the death penalty, she said, all the punishment creates is more victims.
"Everybody we execute has a mother, a father, a husband, children, people who love them," Popp said. "And you're victimizing those people, because you're murdering their child like that man murdered my child."
"I would not put another mother through that pain for anything."
From 2001 to 2004, Popp served as chairwoman of the Texas Moratorium Network.
"Our goal is to create a moratorium on executions in Texas along with a study commission that would look into the problems of the administration of the death penalty," said Scott Cobb, president of the organization.
"We work with different organizations that are interested in criminal justice reform, as well as churches and faith-based groups," Cobb said.
He said the group currently has about 10,000 members trying to influence the Texas legislature and local governments to pass moratorium resolutions temporarily suspending use of the death penalty.
The organization also supports an office of statewide defenders of capital punishment cases to handle cases of people from when they're arrested throughout the appeals process, Cobb said.
"A lot of people executed received the death penalty where they really should have been punished with a lesser punishment like life without parole," Cobb said. "And in some cases they were completely innocent and there would have been a different outcome had they had better representation."
Popp said she now views what she does as an effort to honor her daughter.
"Neither one of us believed in death penalty," Popp said. "I hope what I do honors her memory."
"Because I would much rather honor her in that way than to murder in her name."
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Andy Kahan attacks freedom of speech on MySpace
Posted by admin on: Thursday 23 November @ 19:51:31
Dave Maass of the San Antonio Current writes in this week's edition about Andy Kahan's assault on people exercising their freedom of speech on MySpace.
Is No Myspace Sacred?
Houston's victims-rights official appoints himself morality sheriff, deputizes FOX News to run death-row activists out of e-town.
It ain't easy being against the death penalty. The Governor-writing, the cross-country journeys, the heartbreak and frustration, and threatening phone calls - all just to keep a human being alive. Now anti-death-penalty activists are facing the threat of their own deletion from the system.
By system, I mean Myspace.com, the social-networking site that has added a whole new layer of communication and interconnection to modern society. Two months ago, Andy Kahan, the Houston Mayor's director of Crime-Victim Services, logged on to Myspace to hunt for villains. He struck gold: Myspace hosted profiles and blogs supposedly for serial killers Richard "Night Stalker" Ramirez and David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, mass murderers Charles Manson and his female disciples Squeaky Fromme and Susan Atkins.
Myspace's official response to Kahan and FOX's demands was "Unless you violate the terms of service or break the law, we don't step in the middle of free expression. There's a lot on our site we don't approve of in terms of taste or ideas, but it's not our role to be censors."
Kahan's not going to give up. It took two years to beat eBay, he said. He told FOX he'd consider lobbying for legislation.
That may not be necessary. FOX's parent company, News Corp., bought Myspace.com for $580 million in July 2005, and this week the company's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, gave in to pressure to cancel a two-part interview with O.J. Simpson to promote his kinda-confessional, If I Did It. Of course, in O.J.'s case, it wasn't news so much as it was promotion and profit, since he would've been interviewed by his publisher at ReganBooks, an imprint of FOX's sister publishing house, HarperCollins. Murdoch also cancelled the book's publication.
For me, as a journalist, there's another issue at stake. In the last year I have used Myspace as a first point of contact in about one-third of my articles, especially those involving the friends and family of death-row inmates. If Kahan's successful, it will not only sever a vital communication link, it will set an unacceptable precedent. My concern is there will be nothing to stop Kahan from harassing internet providers until they ban anti-death-penalty websites, and it will encourage other self-appointed morality police to petition Myspace to censor anything else controversial.
Austin marchers say: ‘The system is broken—stop executions!’
By Gloria Rubac Austin, Texas Published Nov 2, 2006 8:27 PM
Hundreds of energized people marched down Congress Avenue in downtown Austin Oct. 28, led by the family members of two executed men who have now been proven innocent after investigations by the Chicago Tribune over the last few years.
Chanting “Texas says ‘Death Row,’ We say ‘Hell no!,’” the protesters participated in the seventh annual March to Stop Executions in Texas, the state that accounts for 377 out of the 1,053 U.S. executions that have taken place since the U.S. death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Before the march began, activists surrounded Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s mansion and then gathered for a short rally in front of the house. The mother of Todd Willingham and the sister of Carlos de Luna were warmly welcomed by the crowd as they recounted how their loved ones died despite their innocence. Trying to hold back tears, Mary Arredondo said that her family always knew her brother was innocent but, because they were poor, there was nothing they could do to help him.
Todd Willingham’s family drove from Oklahoma. His mother, Eugenia Willingham, said, “I am so glad we came all this way. For the first time I feel like people are with our family and they support and understand what we have been through.
“For so many years, not only was my son vilified after being accused of burning down his house with his children inside, but I was, too. I was called an unfit mother for raising a monster who could kill his children. Now technology has proven that the fire was an accident, that Todd had nothing to do with it.”
The families of the two men left the governor a letter asking that their loved ones’ cases be reopened and investigated. Armed guards told the families the governor was not home but refused to take the envelopes for him. The families then dropped them inside the wrought iron fence, in front of the guards.
A rally at City Hall featured the mothers of two innocent men now on death row: Sandra Reed, mother of Rodney Reed; and Lee Greenwood, mother of Joseph Nichols-Bey. Both appealed for continued support for their innocent sons and thanked activists for their efforts.
Prisoner Howard Guidry spoke to the crowd via a recording. His capital murder conviction was thrown out and he is currently in the Houston county jail awaiting a new trial. Guidry thanked the crowd for being there, saying, “I can hear the pounding of your feet on the pavement. Your voices pierce the walls of my confinement. Your determination to end the death penalty strengthens my resolve and gives me hope that one day I will be free.
“Please support the hunger strike by death row prisoners Steve Moody and the others to protest the inhumane conditions on death row. Stand up for Rob Will, Kenneth Foster and the others in the D.R.I.V.E. Movement whose activism is a constant on death row. Continue to fight. Keep your fist in the air. We will win!”
Other speakers included European activist Sandrine Ageorges, who visits men on Texas death row several times a year.
At the rally, Texas Moratorium Network member Allison Deiter organized the signing of holiday cards for the men and women on death row that the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement sends every year. The cards were taken back to Houston for more signatures to be added later.
Njeri Shakur, a Houston activist with the Abolition Movement, summed up the event: “The day was exhilarating for the young and the experienced activists alike. There were sad stories of innocents being executed and of pending executions, yet there was such an air of optimism and energy, that most left feeling ready for another year of battle against state killing. With the families of those on death row and the dedicated activists in the community working together, I know we will win.”
Posted by admin on: Thursday 02 November @ 05:18:59
Family members of executed men speak out on overlooked evidence
David Cabanero Posted: 10/30/06
Family members of three men executed by the state spoke out against the death penalty Saturday in the seventh annual March to Stop Executions.
A group of more than 100 protestors marched from the Governor's Mansion to City Hall, holding signs reading, "The Death Penalty System is Broken: Innocent People Have Been Executed."
Ruben Cantu, Carlos De Luna and Cameron Todd Willingham were executed in Texas despite claims of overlooked evidence allegedly proving their innocence, family members said during the march.
Scott Cobb, president of the Texas Moratorium Network, led the procession around the mansion, inciting the group to chant out loud.
Congratulations to Carol Tures and El Pasoans Against the Death Penalty. Carol told me that Juan Melendez was there to testify and that they also read a letter from Sam Milsap. This should greatly increase our chances of similar successes in San Antonio, Austin and other places.
El Paso County Commissioners Court today approved a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in Texas.
The resolution passed four to one with Miguel Teran, Larry Medina, Betti Flores and Dolores Briones voting in favor of the resolution. Dan Haggerty opposed it.
A similar resoultion was presented years ago and was passed by Commissioners Court before District Attorney Jaime Esparza at that same meeting went back to the Commissioners Court and convinced them to rescind the resolution.
Travis County has adopted a similar resolution.
In other action, it appears that the proposal to alter the method of appointments to Thomason Hospital's board will be deleted from agenda and no action taken.
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Families of Two Innocent Men Deliver Letters to Governor Perry at Mansion
Accompanied by 300 supporters standing outside the gates of the Texas Governor's Mansion Saturday October 28, family members of Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos De Luna delivered separate letters to Gov Perry asking him to stop executions and investigate the cases of Willingham and De Luna to determine if they were wrongfully executed. Willlingham's stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, slipped the letter, along with a copy of an article from the Chicago Tribune that concluded that her son was innocent, through the bars of the front gate of the mansion and left it lying on the walkway leading to the front door of the mansion. Mary Arredondo, Carlos De Luna's sister, also slipped her own letter through the bars and left it lying on the walkway. They had asked a DPS trooper on duty to take the letter, but the officer refused to accept it. The action was part of the 7th Annual March to Stop Executions.
The 300 supporters standing beside the two families carried signs saying, "THE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM IS BROKEN" on the top of the signs and different slogans at the bottom listing various problems with the Texas death penalty system that can lead to innocent people being executed, including "NO STATEWIDE PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICE", "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT", "NO INDEPENDENT COMMISSION TO REVIEW THE SYSTEM" and other problems.
After delivering the letter, the Willingham family and De Luna's sister joined the crowd in a march to Austin City Hall for a rally against the death penalty.
Text of letter from Willingham family
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas Austin, Texas
October 28, 2006
Dear Governor Perry,
We are the family of Cameron Todd Willingham. Our names are Eugenia Willingham, Trina Willingham Quinton and Joshua Easley. Todd was an innocent person executed by Texas on February 17, 2004. We have come to Austin today from Ardmore, Oklahoma to stand outside the Texas Governor's Mansion and attempt to deliver this letter to you in person, because we want to make sure that you know about Todd's innocence and to urge you to stop executions in Texas and determine why innocent people are being executed in Texas.
Todd was not the only innocent person who has been executed in Texas. There have been reports in the media that Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna were also innocent people who were executed in Texas. It is too late to save Todd's life or the lives of Ruben Cantu or Carlos De Luna, but it is not too late to save other innocent people from being executed. We are here today to urge you to be the leader that Texas needs in order to make sure that Texas never executes another innocent person. There is a crisis in Texas regarding the death penalty and we ask you to address the crisis. Because the public can no longer be certain that Texas is not executing innocent people, we urge you to stop all executions.
Strapped to a gurney in Texas' death chamber, just moments from his execution for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, our son/uncle, Todd Willingham, declared his innocence one last time, saying "I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do." Todd is now dead and can no longer speak for himself, so we have come to Austin to speak for him.
Before Todd's execution, you were given a report from a prominent fire scientist questioning the conviction, but you did not stop the execution. The author of the report, Gerald Hurst, has said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire."
Another report issued in 2006 by a panel of national arson experts brought together by the Innocence Project concluded that the fire that killed Todd's three daughters was an accident. The report says that Todd's case is very similar to the case of Ernest Willis, who was convicted of arson murder and sentenced to death in 1987. Willis served 17 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2004 – the same year Todd was executed. The report says that neither of the fires which Todd and Ernest Willis were convicted of setting were arson. The report notes that the evidence and forensic analysis in the Willingham and Willis cases "were the same," and that "each and every one" of the forensic interpretations that state experts made in both men's trials have been proven scientifically invalid. In other words, Todd was executed based on "junk science".
Please look into our son/uncle's case and ask the District Attorney in Corsicana to reopen the investigation into the crime for which my brother was wrongfully executed. You should also establish an Innocence Commission in the next session of the Texas Legislature that could investigate my brother's case, as well as other cases of possible wrongful executions, such as Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna.
Please ensure that no other family suffers the tragedy of seeing one of their loved ones wrongfully executed. Please enact a moratorium on executions and create a special blue ribbon commission to study the administration of the death penalty in Texas. Texas also needs a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases. Such an office will go a long way towards preventing innocent people from being executed. A moratorium will ensure that no other innocent people are executed while the system is being studied and reforms implemented.
We look forward to hearing from you and we pledge to work with you to ensure that executions of innocent people are stopped.
Yours sincerely,
Eugenia Willingham Stepmother of Cameron Todd Willingham who raised him from the age of 13 months
Trina Willingham Quinton Niece of Cameron Todd Willingham
Joshua Easley Nephew of Cameron Todd Willingham
Text of Letter Delivered to Governor's Mansion for Rick Perry by Carlos De Luna's Sister during 7th Annual March to Stop Executions
The Honorable Rick Perry Governor of Texas Austin, Texas
October 28, 2006
Dear Governor Perry,
My name is Mary Arredondo. Carlos De Luna was my brother. He was an innocent person executed by Texas on December 7, 1989. I have come to the Texas Governor's Mansion today to personally deliver this letter to you. It is too late to save my brother's life, but it is not too late to take steps to prevent other innocent people from being executed. I am writing to ask that you provide the leadership to make sure that Texas never executes another innocent person.
My brother claimed his innocence from the time of his arrest until his execution. He named another man as the real killer. The Chicago Tribune has recently published the results of their investigation that concluded that my brother was the victim of a case of mistaken identity and the most likely killer was a man named Carlos Hernandez. Hernandez's relatives and friends have recounted how he repeatedly bragged that my brother went to Death Row for a murder Hernandez committed. I am enclosing a copy of the Tribune article for you to read.
Please look into my brother's case and ask the District Attorney in Corpus Christi to reopen the investigation into the crime for which my brother was wrongfully executed.
I also ask you to support a moratorium on executions and to create a special blue ribbon commission to study the administration of the death penalty in Texas in order to prevent other innocent people from being executed and to propose reforms to ensure the fair and accurate administration of the death penalty in Texas. In addition, I ask you to support an Innocence Commission that would be charged with investigating claims of innocence from people before they are executed and cases of people that have been wrongfully executed, as well as cases of innocent people who have been exonerated in order to determine what went wrong in the system that resulted in an innocent person being convicted.
There are other reforms that will help prevent innocent people from being convicted and executed, such as establishing a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases and increasing the amount of money paid to attorneys representing indigent defendants and the amount of money available to them to conduct investigations. Of course, the best way to prevent innocent people from being executed is to end the use of the death penalty and instead sentence people convicted of capital crimes to life without the possibility of parole.
Thank you for reading my letter. I hope that you will do whatever is necessary to prevent other innocent people from suffering the fate of my brother.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Arredondo
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"I didn't do it.": Last words written in blood on walls?
Posted by admin on: Thursday 19 October @ 20:05:45
The article below says that Johnson wrote on the wall of his cell in blood, but does not say what the words were. We have heard from one source that the words were: "I didn't do it."
Oct. 19, 2006, 6:38PM Texas inmate kills himself hours before execution
By staff and wire reports Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Facing lethal injection later in the day, condemned Texas prisoner Michael Dewayne Johnson beat the executioner to it today, fatally slashing his throat and arm in his death row cell just over 15 hours before he was scheduled to die.
Johnson, 29, was found in a pool of blood and unresponsive at 2:45 a.m. by officers making routine checks on him every 15 minutes at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Fifteen minutes earlier, he was talking to prison staff and awaiting breakfast.
"He had used some sort of metal blade or razor to cut his right jugular vein and an artery inside his right elbow," prison system spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. "He had made no indications that he was contemplating suicide."
Words written in blood were on the wall of his cell, but prison officials declined to disclose the nature of the writing because Johnson's death remained under investigation, Lyons said.
Posted by admin on: Thursday 19 October @ 09:12:58
LIVINGSTON — Condemned prisoner Michael Dewayne Johnson committed suicide early today in his death-row cell, less than 18 hours before he was scheduled to be executed, a prison official said.
Johnson slashed his throat with a makeshift blade fashioned from a small piece of metal attached to a wooden stick, said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville.
Prison guards had been checking on Johnson's welfare every 15 minutes, as is customary, when they found him unresponsive in a pool of blood in his cell, Lyons said. He was transported to a hospital in nearby Livingston, where he was pronounced dead, Lyons said.
There are some reports that he wrote on his cell in his own blood, "I didn't do it."
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 18 October @ 19:01:49
Inmate convicted of '93 Ashley Estell killing seeks hearing
11:44 PM CDT on Tuesday, October 17, 2006
By ED HOUSEWRIGHT / The Dallas Morning News
Michael Blair, convicted of killing 7-year-old Ashley Estell in 1993, is arguing that new DNA evidence proves he is innocent of the crime that spawned new laws against sex offenders. Michael Blair Michael Blair
Phil Wischkaemper, Mr. Blair's attorney, filed a motion in Collin County that contends new DNA technology, which didn't exist at the trial in 1994, shows that tissue found under Ashley's fingernails did not come from Mr. Blair.
"Given the nature of this evidence ... his actual innocence can hardly be disputed," said Mr. Wischkaemper, who practices law in Lubbock.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 30 September @ 22:47:26
ATTENTION: Starvation Strike
Beginning... Oct. 8, 2006 Ending ...Jan.01, 2007
We believe the time has come to stop the mistreatment of prisoners and the illegal application of the death penalty. The seeds of rebellion have been watered by a dictatorship type administration. This is a cause that will need the utmost commitment from everyone involved. We must form bonds that cannot be broken. Because every tactic will be utilized by the administration to discourage us. That is why we have chosen a HUNGER STRIKE as our method of protest against the system and the death penalty.. Our hearts are set on refusing to accept another morsel from an oppressive system that has no respect nor consideration for those they hold in captivity.
There are 5 of us that stand so strong in our beliefs that we are willing to sacrifice our health and well being to show others the seriousness of our predicament..
Our goals are to open the eyes of our fellow captives and society. We extend the hand of friendship to those who wish to become a part of our fight.. Anyone who wants to battle oppression and mistreatment can extend any kind of help., support, advice, grievance's , protest or petition. To find out more go to www.anarchyinchains.com
Or contact the captives below at : Travis runnels # 999505 Steven Woods # 999427 Richard Cobb # 999467 Kevin Watts # 999456 Justin Hall # 999497
At Polunsky Unit 3872 FM 350 South Livingston, Tx. 77351
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Judge resets bail hearing for Anthony Graves
Posted by admin on: Monday 25 September @ 02:16:53
Sept. 22 Houston Chronicle
Prosecutors are fighting release of death row convict before a new trial
A federal judge has scheduled a hearing on a proposed bail that would allow Texas death row inmate Anthony Graves to remain free until he is retried on capital murder charges in the deaths of a woman and 5 children.
Shoddy lawyering can prove fatal in death row appeals
Posted by admin on: Sunday 24 September @ 21:21:48
Web Posted: 09/24/2006
Maro Robbins Express-News Staff
With his client's life on the line, the lawyer appointed to file the death row inmate's final state appeal cobbled together arguments that were incomplete, vague and, in at least one place, just plain wrong.
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to Examine Lethal Injection Protocol
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 20 September @ 21:10:18
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Ex parte John Alba ordered the following:
We must consider whether a claim that the execution chemical protocol may violate the constitutional rights of the condemned is cognizable in a writ of habeas corpus. Before making the decision in this case, we invite, applicant, the State, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to present their positions on the following question: Is a claim that the lethal-injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment cognizable under Article 11.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure?
All briefs on these issues should be delivered to this Court within 60 days from the date of this order.
IT IS SO ORDERED THIS THE 20th DAY OF September, 2006.
It remains to be seen whether this order will result in a temporary halt to executions in Texas.
The more important question in Texas is not whether the method of execution is constitutional, but whether Texas has executed innocent people, such as Ruben Cantu, Carlos De Luna and Cameron Todd Willingham.
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Protesters deliver petitions on behalf of Rodney Reed
Posted by admin on: Thursday 14 September @ 03:29:55
Protesters march from Capitol David Stout Posted: 9/14/06 The Daily Texan
Protesters gathered at the Capitol on Wednesday, petitioning the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to conduct a new trial for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed.
Reed was convicted for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites after matching DNA evidence was discovered at the scene of the crime.
Yet, rallies for Reed's innocence have begun to gain popularity. The documentary "State v Reed," which took home an award at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival, has helped gain support from death row abolitionists across the country for Reed.
Posted by admin on: Saturday 09 September @ 03:00:53
Sept. 9, 2006 Hearing begins process of a new trial for Graves
By HARVEY RICE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
CALDWELL — After 12 years on Texas' death row, Anthony Graves strode into a Burleson County courtroom Friday for the first in a series of hearings that will lead to a new trial.
Although the hearing before state District Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett would have been routine in most other cases, for Graves it marked the beginning of a second chance to argue that he is innocent of taking part in the 1992 slayings of a grandmother and five children in nearby Somerville.
Time for yet another innocent person to walk off Tx Death Row?
Posted by admin on: Friday 01 September @ 12:37:01
Anthony Graves may soon walk off Texas Death Row on his way to an exoneration. This is yet another case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is said to have become a national "laughingstock" by one of its own judges, refused to remove an innocent person from Death Row. In March, the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Graves' 1994 capital murder conviction, forcing U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent to order a new trial. Kent set a Sept. 12 deadline for Graves to be set free on bail or given a new trial. Kent refused a request Thursday by the Texas Attorney General's Office to delay the Sept. 12 deadline while an appeal of the 5th Circuit Court's ruling is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, Graves' attorneys will seek to get Graves released on bail. Read an article from 2000 by CBS News on the case.
"The mere possibility that the United States Supreme Court could accept review of the decision of the Court of Appeals and reverse is not sufficiently likely to justify Graves' continued detention in contravention" of a federal rule requiring that Graves be released on bond, Kent wrote, as reported in The Houston Chronicle.
Roy Greenwood, Graves' defense attorney, has said: "They don't have any testimony putting him there. They have no physical evidence. They don't have a confession; they don't have anything."
To the Davis family, I am sorry for all of the pain that I caused your family. It was me and me alone. Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. I lied on him in court. My wife had nothing to do with it. Anthony Graves don't even know anything about it. My wife don't know anything about it. But, I hope that you can find your peace and comfort in strength in Christ Jesus alone. Like I said, I am sorry for hurting your family. And it is a shame that it had to come to this. So I hope that you don't find peace, not in my death, but in Christ. Cause He is the only one that can give you the strength that you need.
In 2004, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals failed to overturn the conviction of another innocent man - Ernest Willis. A federal court then stepped in and overturned his conviction. Willis walked off death row in Octber 2004 a free man, fully exonerated.
Ballistics, HPD lab questions were factors in overturning his conviction By DALE LEZON Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Martin Allen Draughon beat the odds Friday when he walked out of jail after nearly 20 years on Texas' death row.
"I beat the executioner," he said later by telephone from the home in Livingston where he will live with his fiancee, Joy Weathers. "It's the biggest miracle in my life."
A former Texas death row inmate whose conviction was overturned, partly because of problems in the Houston Police Department's crime lab, walked out of the Harris County Jail today after being paroled.
Martin Allen Draughon did not comment before getting into a state-owned car and being driven away from the downtown jail.
By Michael Hall Texas Monthly, Nov2004, Vol. 32 Issue 11, p154, 9p
Over the past ten years, the Texas court of Criminal Appeals has discharged exculpatory DNA evidence, threats of torture, bad lawyering, and in some cases, all common sense to uphold convictions in keeping with its tough-on-crime philosophy. Why should toughness steamroll fairness?
Officials say foreign visitors abused the rules on traveling long distances
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has rolled up the welcome mat for prison visitors who, it contends, are abusing a special once-a-month visitation opportunity reserved for those who must travel long distances to the state's far-flung prisons.
TDCJ's recently implemented action limits European visitors or anyone who has traveled more than 300 miles to one "special visit" per trip. The special visit consists of 2 4-hour sessions scheduled on consecutive days.
Special prosecutor sought in Cantu-execution inquiry
Posted by admin on: Wednesday 16 August @ 22:36:16
Aug. 16, 2006, 6:55PM
BY LISE OLSEN and SHEILA HOTCHKIN Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has been asked to halt the Bexar County District Attorney's politically charged investigation into a possible wrongful execution and to name a special prosecutor to fairly examine claims that Ruben Cantu was innocent when he was put to death in 1993.
July 22, 2006, 10:58PM Investigators are heard mocking the claim of wrongful execution, but DA denies any bias
By LISE OLSEN and MARO ROBBINS Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle AND San Antonio Express-News
SAN ANTONIO - The Bexar County district attorney's investigation into a possibly wrongful execution had barely started earlier this year, but already DA investigators were scoffing at the three witnesses who contend Texas sent an innocent man named Ruben Cantu to his death.
"They're lying. They're all lying, and they know they're lying," Mike Beers, the senior DA investigator, told the retired sergeant who drove the homicide investigation against Cantu and whose actions, along with other officers in that case, are under review by the DA's office.
TEXAS DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION MOVEMENT C/O S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, 3815 Live Oak, Houston, TX 77004 713-503-2633, Abolition.Movement@hotmail.com
July 10, 2006
PRESS ADVISORY
Contact: Njeri Shakur 713-237-0357 or Gloria Rubac 713-503-2633
WITH NEWSPAPERS REPORTING THREE CASES OF INNOCENCT PERSONS BEING EXECUTED IN TEXAS, WE DEMAND A MORATORIUM NOW!
STOP THE EXECUTION OF DERRICK OBRIEN!
At 6:00 PM on Tuesday, July 11, in Huntsville, Texas, members of the Abolition Movement will be protesting the execution of Derrick Sean OBrien, a convicted participant in one of Houstons most well known murder cases.
O'Brien was one of six youths involved in the rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, on June 24, 1993. The girls were Waltrip High School students who were walking home from a pool party when they took a shortcut through a park and the 6 young men attacked them.
The Abolition Movement is opposed to all executions, regardless if the person is innocent or guilty. The state of Texas does not have the right or the moral authority to kill anyone, said activist Njeri Shakur.
As a mother of six girls, I can only extend my sympathy to the parents of Pena and Ertman. What happened to their daughters was truly a parents nightmare. But as an African in America I know first hand that the criminal justice system is fatally flawed with racism and class bias.
The Abolition Movement also stresses that the death penalty is not reversible. In just the last 19 months, newspaper reporters have uncovered that three innocent people have likely been executed by the state of Texas: Cameron Todd Willingham, Ruben Cantu, and Carlos DeLuna.
Since 1973, 123 people in 25 states have been released from death row for reasons of innocence. Eight of these exonerees were from the state of Texas.
We demand an immediate moratorium on executions in Texas. These three cases of innocence must be fully investigated. And we demand a state agency be formed to not only fully examine these cases, but the application of the death penalty in Texas. If newspaper reporters can uncover innocent people being put to death, we need a total revamping of the criminal justice system. Deluna, Cantu and Willingham were surely not the only innocent people sent to death, Shakur stated.
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TDPAM to host "an evening of solidarity with howard guidry-"
Host: howard guidry justice commitee Location: the pyramid shop 3215 dowling near elgin, houston, TX When: Sunday, July 16, 6:00pm to 9:00pm Phone: sis njeri. 713.237.0357 or 713.503.2633
i get mad when we say we're down to get down but get gone when it goes down and i throw down alone
--howard guidry
in 1995, eighteen year old howard guidry was forced by lying policemen to confess to a murder that he did not commit. they told him they would put him on the "fast track" to death row if he did not sign a confession. they did not let him see his lawyer. they lied to him and told him that his lawyer wanted him to sign a confession.
with only a forced, illegal confession and hearsay testimony from the girlfriend of the suspected killer, the state of texas sent howard to death row for a decade. that is to say, they stole 87,600 hours of this young man's life.
in 2003, after a comedy of errors revealed the true nature of how howard was sent to death row, federal judge vanessa gilmore threw out the evidence and ordered houston to retry or release howard within 180 days. the state of texas appealed the ruling, but the fifth circuit court in lousiana upheld it and the u.s. supreme court refused to hear the case.
3 years later, a thirty year old howard is finally getting a re-trial for a murder the state still wants to pin on him, even though they have no evidence and no case.
on july 16, the night before jury selection is set to begin, we will hold an evening of solidarity with howard guidry.
Judgment errors led to suspensions before, after controversial probe of murder
By LISE OLSEN and MARO ROBBINS Houston Chronicle And San Antonio Express-News
The sergeant in charge of an investigation that led to the possible wrongful execution of a Texas man had arrested innocent people before and was suspended three times for errors in judgment over his 31 years at the San Antonio Police Department.
Convict's questionable mental level leads to 3 overturned sentences
01:10 AM CDT on Sunday, July 2, 2006
By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News
LIVINGSTON, Texas – Nearly 27 years ago, Johnny Paul Penry shattered the peace of this small East Texas town by brutally raping and killing Pamela Moseley Carpenter in the bright light of morning.
Texas has been trying to put him to death ever since, spending millions of dollars in three different trials. Each time, appellate courts have thwarted the efforts, concerned that juries have not been instructed sufficiently to take Mr. Penry's alleged mental retardation into account. In mid-June the Supreme Court cleared the way for yet another sentence.
Texas Moratorium Network 3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, #251 Austin, Texas 78731 512-302-6715
For immediate release: June 25, 2006
Contact: Delia Perez Meyer, (512) 444-5366 Scott Cobb, President, Texas Moratorium Network (512) 689-1544 Hooman Hedayati, President, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty (210) 601-7231
Evidence of Possible Execution of Innocent Man in Carlos De Luna Case Uncovered by an Investigation Conducted by The Chicago Tribune Warrants Halt to Tuesday’s Execution of “Railroad Killer” Angel Maturino Resendiz
An immediate halt to executions in Texas is warranted by The Chicago Tribune’s investigation finding that Texas may have executed an innocent man named Carlos De Luna. The Tribune began publishing the results of its investigation in the paper’s June 25th edition. The De Luna case is the third time in 19 months that a major newspaper investigation has concluded that an innocent person may have been executed by the state of Texas.
The Chicago Tribune previously reported in November 2004 that Cameron Willingham was probably innocent of setting the arson fire that killed his three daughters. Willingham was executed by Texas in 2004. The Houston Chronicle has reported that Ruben Cantu, who was executed by Texas in 1993, was also probably innocent.
“Reports that three innocent people may have been executed by Texas should shake the souls of every person in this state”, said Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network. “These continuing reports of executions of innocent people indicate that we now have an emergency situation in Texas. The death penalty system here is clearly not capable of sorting out the guilty from the innocent before strapping people down for their lethal injections. Texas district attorneys and judges should enact a moratorium on executions by agreeing to cancel all execution dates until the next session of the Texas Legislature has an opportunity to address the crisis”, said Cobb.
The execution of Angel Maturino Resendiz, known as “The Railroad Killer”, on June 27 may endanger the life of another innocent person. There is no doubt that Maturino Resendiz is guilty of murder, however his execution may mean the family of another person on death row named Louis Castro Perez may not be able to prove Perez’s innocence. The Railroad Killer has been convicted of one murder and is suspected in at least 14 other killings nationwide. “If Maturino Resendiz is executed before a full investigation into the possibility that he committed additional murders, including those for which my brother has been sentenced to death, then Texas risks becoming responsible for yet another innocent person’s execution”, said Delia Perez Meyer, sister of Louis Castro Perez.
The Texas Democratic Party endorsed a moratorium on executions in its 2006 party platform approved at the party’s state convention June 10. The Travis County Commissioners Court has also passed a resolution calling for a moratorium. Rep. Harold Dutton of Houston has introduced legislation to establish a moratorium on executions and a commission to study the problems in the system in every regular session of the Texas Legislature since 2001.
By Maurice Possley and Steve Mills Tribune staff reporters Published June 24, 2006
For many years, few questioned whether Carlos De Luna deserved to die.
His execution closed the book on the fatal stabbing of Wanda Lopez, a single mother and gas station clerk whose final, desperate screams were captured on a 911 tape.
Arrested just blocks from the bloody crime scene, De Luna was swiftly convicted and sentenced to death--even though the parolee proclaimed his innocence and identified another man as the killer.
But 16 years after De Luna died by lethal injection, the Tribune has uncovered evidence strongly suggesting that the acquaintance he named, Carlos Hernandez, was the one who killed Lopez in 1983.
Ending years of silence, Hernandez's relatives and friends recounted how the violent felon repeatedly bragged that De Luna went to Death Row for a murder Hernandez committed.
The newspaper investigation, involving interviews with dozens of people and a review of thousands of pages of court records, also shows the case was compromised by shaky eyewitness identification, sloppy police work and a failure to thoroughly pursue Hernandez as a possible suspect.
These revelations, which cast significant doubt over De Luna's conviction, were never heard by the jury.
His case represents one of the most compelling examples yet of the discovery of possible innocence after a prisoner's execution.
As soon as Lamont Reese received the lethal dose Tuesday night, he spoke.
"This is some nasty," he said, referring to the taste many condemned prisoners say they notice in the seconds before death.
With that, Reese, 28, drew his last breath, and his mother broke down. Brenda Reese, Lamont's mother, had been talking calmly through the glass separating she and her son until he drew his final breath.
"No, Jesus," she screamed and began beating on the window. "God, he felt that. They killed my baby.
"Please Jesus," she cried and pleaded. "Don't do it. Oh, God, Jesus, please don't."
Family members surrounded Reese in the witness room at the Huntsville "Walls" Unit, trying to comfort her in the moments after her son's death. "Oh God, Jesus," she began to chant. "Oh God, Jesus. My baby's gone."
With that, Reese began to kick the wall separating her side of the witness room and the victim's witnesses, kicking 2 small holes in the wall.
June 21, 2006 By ALLAN TURNER Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
State district Judge William Harmon today ruled Angel Maturino Resendiz competent to be executed Tuesday for the December 1998 stabbing-budgeoning murder of West University Place doctor Claudia Benton.
June 6, 2006, 11:27PM Lawyers ask Supreme Court to overturn ruling on death row inmate
By HARVEY RICE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
In a last-ditch effort to avoid giving death row inmate Anthony Graves a new trial, state attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that the prosecution withheld vital evidence during his 1994 trial.
The petition from the Texas Attorney General's Office will not push back the Sept. 12 deadline for a new trial, said Graves' attorney, Jay W. Burnett of Houston.
Mentally ill on death row: legal quandary Man sentenced to death in Fredericksburg murders puts question of insanity before federal appeals court.
By Ralph Blumenthal, Adam Liptak THE NEW YORK TIMES Friday, June 02, 2006
HOUSTON — Scott Panetti, a death row inmate, understands that the state says it means to execute him for the murder of his wife's parents.
But Panetti, 48, who represented himself in court despite a long history of mental illness, says he thinks that the state's real reason is a different one. He says the State of Texas, in league with Satan, wants to kill him to keep him from preaching the Gospel.
Other states adopted method chosen with little scientific basis.
When states began reviving the death penalty 30 years ago, hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber and firing squads had passed out of favor, perceived as too brutal for a civilized nation.
Do you remember the Garbage Pail Kids Trading Cards? I think it was in the early Eighties that their disgustingly caricatured personas were all the rage. While kids traded "Sicky Vicky," a goopy girl who looked to have been covered in slime, snot, and I don't want to know what else, for "Up Chuck," and "Potty Scotty" for "Virus Iris," I guess the concept of anti-role models was being worked out in the social exchange of one disgusting character for another.
For some reason, I thought about the Garbage Pail Kids Trading Cards after seeing Annie Feldmeier Adams' entry in the Texas Moratorium Network's "Justice for All?" show on the death penalty. Yet where the Garbage Pails featured sticky, dirty characters, each of Adams' "Last Supper Trading Cards" shows only a plain, very human mouth, a number, a date, and a stark printout of what looks like a menu, listing something like liver and onions, mashed potatoes, gravy, and whole milk. While even after reading the card, I don't know who No. 247 was or what he did to be executed on June 13, 2001, I do know that he wanted old-fashioned comfort food at his last meal. I also know that No. 247 is dead now, and his card can't be traded for anything other than what it was.
The human detail illustrated through the tight graphic design of Adams' cards is part of the sentiment that runs through "Justice for All?," which was juried by Annette Carlozzi, head curator of the Blanton Museum of Art's Contemporary and American Art collection; Lora Reynolds of Lora Reynolds Gallery; and Malaquias Montoya, artist and professor at UC Davis, with assistance and suppor
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Greg Wright was one of the 18 people executed in Texas in 2008. There are no more executions scheduled this year in Texas. So far in 2008, there have been 36 executions in the U.S., so 50 percent of them took place in Texas. There is one more scheduled in South Carolina on December 5.