TEXAS EXECUTIONS

As Execution Nears, Plano Road-Rage Killer Claims Inhumane Treatment, Neglects to Mention He Tried To Tear Phone From Wall

feldmandouglas2.jpg

Barring a stay of execution, Douglas Feldman is scheduled to die in nine days. His petition for a state writ of habeas corpus based on ineffective assistance of counsel has gone nowhere. He claims his trial attorney failed to investigate the role his alleged bipolar disorder played in the murders. Now he’s running out of road, but Feldman is in no hurry to become the 503rd Texas inmate to meet the end. So, he filed his own petition with a federal district court last week.

It’s handwritten and a little messy, but Feldman is no dummy. His petition is also lucid and articulate. He was, after all, once a financial analyst. Then, in 1998, he was out for a night ride on his Harley when he claimed an 18-wheeler nearly ran him off the road. He gunned his motorcycle alongside the truck and emptied his clip into the cab, killing Robert Everett, the driver.

On his way home, he pulled off at an Exxon fueling station and shot tanker driver Nicholas Velasquez in the back. A week later, he shot Antonio Vega outside of a Jack-in-the-Box because he was standing next to a big rig. A jury sentenced him to die. Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to vacate his death sentence. Earlier this year, he wrote a letter to Gawker, pondering the sociological inequities he’d identified on death row and requesting “LSD Hydrate” to help him cope with some heavy existential anxiety.

Now, he’s taking a run at the federal district court himself and claiming some abhorrent treatment in the Polunsky Unit. Among other things, he says he’s had his head shaved, been subject to round-the-clock searches, been forced to sleep naked on the bare concrete floor and been denied toilet paper. All of this, he claims, without having been “convicted of any disciplinary offense.”

But Unfair Park reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and was just stunned to discover that Feldman isn’t exactly Nelson Mandela. About a month ago, he granted an interview to a reporter. Before it could begin, TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark says, the inmate tried to tear a telephone from the wall.

Feldman, Clark says, has a lengthy disciplinary history. He’s been caught with a razor, which officers believed could be used as a weapon. He has filled bottles in his cell with feces and urine. He has “attempted to assault a corrections officer by slipping out of his cuffs.”

Clark couldn’t comment on Feldman’s pending litigation.

dallasobserver.com

Scheduled Executions in Texas

By On July 17, 2013

Texas has passed 500 executions in the modern era since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty was constitutional. Texas conducted its first execution after the ruling in 1982.

To express your opposition to any execution, you can contact Governor Rick Perry’s office at 512 463 2000. If you call after business hours, you can leave a voice mail message. During business hours, someone should answer the phone. You can also send a message using a form on Perry’s official website.

503) Douglas Feldman, July 31, 2013

TDCJ Info on Feldman

Letter from Feldman to Gawker.com

504) Robert Garza, September 19, 2013 (Law of Parties case)

TDCJ Info on Garza

505) Arturo Diaz, September 26, 2013

TDCJ Info on Diaz

506) Michael Yowell, October 9, 2013

TDCJ Info on Yowell

507) Rigoberto Avila Jr, January 15, 2014

TDCJ Info on Avila, Jr

VAUGHN ROSS HAS BEEN EXECUTED BY TEXAS 6:38 pm

HUNTSVILLE, TX — A former Texas Tech graduate student convicted of a double slaying a dozen years ago has been executed.

Vaughn Ross received lethal injection Thursday evening for the January 2001 fatal shootings of an 18-year-old woman with whom he had been feuding and an associate dean at the university in Lubbock who was with her. He was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. CT.

Ross, from St. Louis, came to Texas Tech for graduate work in architecture. Ross was found guilty in the January 2001 fatal shootings of an 18-year-old woman with whom he had been feuding an associate dean at the university who was with her at the time. In his appeal to the high court, Ross argued his previous appeals attorneys neglected to note that his trial lawyers didn’t present evidence that may have convinced jurors to sentence him to life in prison.

A bicyclist spotted the bodies of Douglas Birdsall, 53, the associate dean of libraries at Texas Tech University, and Viola Ross McVade in a car in a gully at a Lubbock park. McVade was the sister of Ross’ girlfriend and was not related to the convicted killer.

Court documents said Birdsall had been looking for a prostitute and that a friend of McVade introduced him to her that evening. Prosecutors contend McVade was the intended target, and that Birdsall was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Both victims were shot multiple times. Detectives said they linked Ross to the deaths after finding his and Birdsall’s DNA on part of a latex glove in the car. DNA tests on Ross’ sweatshirt also detected blood from both victims.

Ross, from St. Louis, came to Texas Tech for graduate work in architecture. When questioned by detectives, he acknowledged arguing and threatening McVade. He also acknowledged wearing latex gloves but said they were to protect his hands while he was doing some cleaning with bleach.

While in jail, Ross phoned his mother, who asked if he had any involvement in the slayings. He replied he “might have,” according to the tape-recorded call.

“I’ve always said a guy could never lie to his mama,” Matt Powell, the Lubbock County district attorney who prosecuted the case, said last week. “It was the closest thing we had to a confession.”

Authorities believed Bridsall and McVade were ambushed in an alley behind Ross’ apartment after Ross had ordered McVade’s sister to leave. Birdsall’s blood and glass from shattered windows of his car were found in the alley, as well as a shell casing matching casings inside Birdsall’s car.

Prosecutors believed the latex glove was torn when Ross moved Birdsall’s body from the front to the back seat so he could drive the car to the gully.

At least six other Texas prisoners have execution dates set for the coming months, including one later this month.

Source: AP, June 18, 2013

Texas man executed for killing during 2002 hold up- Quintanilla EXECUTED 7:32pm

July 16, 2013

Texas Execution

John Manuel Quintanilla received lethal injection for gunning down 60-year-old Victor Billings at a game room in Victoria, about 125 miles southwest of Houston. The 2002 slaying came just a few months after Quintanilla had been released from prison after serving a sentence for several burglary convictions.

Asked to make a final statement before his execution, Quintanilla told his wife he loved her.

“Thank you for all the years of happiness,” he said.

He never acknowledged his victim’s friends or relatives, including two daughters, who watched through a window.

As the lethal drug began taking effect, he snored about a half dozen times, then stopped breathing. At 7:32 p.m. CDT — 15 minutes after being given the drug — he was pronounced dead.

Quintanilla’s wife, a German national who married him by proxy while he was in prison, watched through an adjacent window and sobbed.

Quintanilla, 36, became the ninth Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the 501st since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. His was the first of two executions set for this week; the other is planned for Thursday.

Quintanilla’s punishment was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court refused two last-day appeals.

His lawyers contended his confession was coerced by authorities threatening to also charge one of his sisters and that the statement improperly was allowed into evidence at his trial in 2004. The lawyers obtained affidavits from two jurors who said the confession was a key to their decision to convict him.

“It is clear that Quintanilla would not have been convicted of capital murder if his confession had not been admitted — a fact confirmed by two of his jurors,” appeals lawyer David Dow told the high court.

The appeal also argued Quintanilla had deficient legal help during his trial and in earlier stages of his appeals, and that his case would give justices the opportunity to define filing rules in light of recent death penalty rulings from the court.

The Texas attorney general’s office said the appeal was without merit and improperly filed, and that the juror affidavits also were improper.

“There wasn’t any coercion whatsoever,” Dexter Eaves, the former Victoria County district attorney who was lead prosecutor at the trial, recalled last week. He also said that while the robbers, who fled with about $2,000, were masked, witnesses were able to “describe very clearly who the triggerman was.”

Court records show Billings, a retired chief deputy from nearby Edna in adjacent Jackson County, was at the game center with his wife on the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2002 when the gunmen came in through a back door. Billings approached one of them and grabbed the barrel of the gunman’s rifle “so no one else was going to be hurt and paid for it dearly,” Eaves said.

He said Billings was shot three times, the last one fired while he was on his knees.

“A very cold killing,” Eaves said.

During questioning by detectives for an unrelated robbery some two months later, Quintanilla made references to the still unsolved Billings case, then led authorities to a canal where divers recovered items used in the holdup.

“They had the mask, the guns and his statements saying who did what,” Jim Beeler, Quintanilla’s lead trial lawyer, said. “He told them everything.”

Beeler said the trial judge overruled his objections and ruled the statements proper and admissible into evidence. He also said Quintanilla signed affidavits ordering that his defense team present no mitigating evidence during the punishment phase of his trial, where jurors deciding his sentence could have considered he had virtually no parental supervision while growing up.

“You want to argue your case, completely and totally,” Beeler said. “In that situation, we’re not being allowed to present our case, based on our client.

“It’s extremely frustrating.”

Prosecutors bolstered their case for Quintanilla’s future dangerousness by presenting evidence he attacked a jailer with a homemade weapon while awaiting trial.

“He did not do himself any favors,” Eaves said.

Quintanilla’s accomplice, Jeffrey Bibb, 33, is serving 60 years for murder and 50 years for aggravated robbery.

On Thursday, another Texas inmate is set for lethal injection. Vaughn Ross, 41, is to be executed for a double slaying in Lubbock in 2001.

Kimberly McCarthy put to death in 500th Texas execution since 1982

june 26,2013

Last Statement:

I just wanted to say thanks to all who have supported me over the years: Reverend Campbell, for my spiritual guidance; Aaron, the father of Darrian, my son; and Maurie, my attorney. Thank you everybody. This is not a loss, this is a win. You know where I am going. I am going home to be with Jesus. Keep the faith. I love ya’ll. Thank you, Chaplain.

She was pronounced dead at 6:37 p.m. CDT, 20 minutes after Texas prison officials began administering a single lethal dose of pentobarbital.

Original post 2:43 p.m.:

HUNTSVILLE – Kimberly McCarthy has arrived at the Texas prison nicknamed “the Walls Unit” where she is expected to be executed tonight for the 1997 murder of Dorothy Booth in Lancaster.

Dorothy Booth

McCarthy will be the 500th person executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated.

McCarthy’s trip to the death chamber is being treated no differently by the prison system than the one before it or the one that will come next. But McCarthy’s execution is gaining more outside attention because of the milestone.

“We are treating this execution as we do all the others,” said John Hurt, director of public information for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “We realize that there will probably be more interest from the public than usual, but we expect the McCarthy execution to proceed in the same manner as any other.”

McCarthy can meet with her spiritual adviser and attorney before the execution, which is scheduled for around 6 p.m. No appeals are pending, so the execution by lethal injection is expected to take place, barring unforeseen circumstances.She will also speak to the warden about what will happen to her body and who is witnessing the execution. She can make telephone calls to say goodbye.

Kimberly McCarthy is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for the murder of her neighbor, Dorothy Booth. If the execution is carried out, she will be the 500th person executed in Texas since they death penalty was reinstated.

She has been given a new white prison uniform and can eat the same meal offered to all other inmates: pepper steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, mixed veggies and white cake with chocolate icing.

“And she will walk unrestrained into the execution chamber,” said Jason Clark, a public information officer with the prison system.

Her execution is expected to be witnessed by the family, of Booth, a retired college professor.

Texas has carried out nearly 40 percent of the more than 1,300 executions in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. The state’s standing stems from its size as the nation’s second-most populous state as well as its tradition of tough justice for killers.

A history of capital punishment in Texas

Milestones in capital punishment in Texas:

1819 — George Brown is first person executed in Texas, by hanging.

1863 — Chipita Rodriguez is first woman executed in Texas, by hanging.

1923 — Lee Nathan becomes the last of 394 people executed by hanging.

1924 — Charles Reynolds becomes first inmate to die in the electric chair in Huntsville as state takes over executions.

1963 — Joseph Johnson is the last of 361 Texas prisoners to die in the electric chair.

1972 — U.S. Supreme Court finds death penalty “cruel and unusual;” death sentences of 52 people in Texas are commuted to life in prison.

1976 — U.S. Supreme Court holds Georgia death penalty statute constitutional, setting stage for resumption of executions.

1977 — Texas adopts lethal injection method.

1982 — Texas inmate Charlie Brooks becomes first in U.S. to receive lethal injection.

1998 — Karla Tucker becomes first woman executed in Texas since Civil War.

2000 — Texas executes a record 40 prisoners in one year.

2013 — Texas schedules execution of Kimberly McCarthy, number 500 by lethal injection.

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Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, “Espy File” database compiled by historians M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla.

Execution Watch: RACISM STALKS HALLS OF DEATH HOUSE AS TX PREPARES TO TAKE WOMAN’S LIFE

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Kimberly McCarthy says jury selection in her trial was tainted by racism.

The courts have told her, in essence, “Drop dead.”

They say they won’t consider the merits of McCarthy’s appeal because her lawyers should have raised the issue sooner.

Despite the unheard claims, McCarthy remains on track to become the 500th person, and only the fourth woman, executed in Texas during the modern death-penalty era.

Execution Watch will provide live coverage and commentary of McCarthy’s execution, as well as the protests expected to take place outside the death house.

Unless a stay is issued, EXECUTION WATCH will broadcast live:
Wednesday, 26 June 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time
KPFT FM Houston 90.1 and Online…
http://executionwatch.org/ > Listen

TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE:
KIMBERLY McCARTHY, who has the gruesome distinction of holding ticket No. 500 in the Texas death-penalty lottery. The ex-crack addict was condemned in a 1997 robbery-slaying near Dallas. McCarthy is the former wife of New Black Panther Party founder Aaron Michaels, with whom she has a son. She is one of 10 women on Texas death row.

SHOW LINEUP
Host: RAY HILL, an ex-convict and activist who founded — and hosted for 30 years — The Prison Show on KPFT. His internet radio show airs Wednesdays at 2 PM CT.: hmsnetradio.org.

Legal Analyst: JIM SKELTON, a legal educator, retired attorney and native Texan who has seen capital trials from both the prosecution and defense tables. Joining him will be Houston criminal defense attorneys SUSAN ASHLEY, LARRY DOUGLAS, MICHAEL GILLESPIE & JACK LEE.

Reporters Outside the Death House will include GLORIA RUBAC, member, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, abolitionmovement.org, and DR. DENNIS LONGMIRE, professor of criminal justice, Sam Houston State University, shsu.edu.

Reporter, Vigil, Houston: DAVE ATWOOD, founder and former board member, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, tcadp.org.

Texas town where detention and death is a way of life

Texas town where detention and death is a way of life

With 7 prisons, a cemetery for dead inmates and its infamous execution chamber, the business of detention and death is a way of life in the Texas town of Huntsville.

In this neat and tidy city north of Houston, prisoners recognizable by their white uniforms, maintain public green spaces under a blazing sun and the gaze of a guard, sitting on the edge of a car.

“These are trustees,” says the corrections officer. The inmates in question are low-level criminals convicted of crimes such as car theft or burglary.

Out of Huntsville’s population of 38,000 people, 14,000 are prisoners while a further 6,000 are guards or employees of the Texas Justice Department.

Instead of tourist signs pointing out antique shops, the tomb of famous Texas Governor Sam Houston, or other places of interest, a visitor is guided to the various prisons: the Wynne Unit, the Byrne Unit, Hollyday Unit.

“Prison, it’s an industry here,” says Kathreen Case, executive director of the Texas defender service. “It is their industry, it is amazing how many people can earn their lives out of it.”

Prisons generate 16.6 million dollars in wages per month, while nearly 200 educators from the Windham School District contribute another 740,000 dollars each month to the local economy, according to the local Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s a prison town, everybody knows somebody that works in the prison system,” says Gloria Rubac, an activist who campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty in Texas. “It’s a very prison-oriented town.”

Prisoners are put to work in a number of schemes, doing everything from manufacturing their own clothes or the uniforms of prison guards to feeding and raising chickens.

“If we didn’t have the prison system and if we didn’t have the university, I don’t know if you’d even have a traffic light in this town,” said Jim Willett, former warden and commissioner at the Walls Unit, the oldest of 7 prisons.

An imposing building guarded by high red brick walls, the Walls Unit is set just a short distance from downtown Huntsville.

In the northeast corner of the building, topped by a watchtower, is the execution chamber, reveals Willett, who gave the green light to 89 executions in his 30-year career.

The clock on the facade of the building is the usual gathering point for anti-death penalty activists ahead of each execution.

They will gather again here Wednesday for the 500th execution scheduled since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976.

Previously, those sentenced to die were also imprisoned at the facility, but due to over-crowding amid soaring convictions, they were transferred to the Ellis Unit and later to the maximum security Polunsky Unit.

A few hours before execution, the prisoner is taken from death row, a concrete fortress topped by razor wire where narrow slits are the only openings to the outside world, and transferred to the Huntsville execution chamber.

The condemned prisoner’s final journey is a scenic route along the shores of Lake Livingston, surrounded by cedar forests. The precise route of a prisoner’s final journey is never revealed for security reasons.

Since his retirement, Willett has taken over responsibility as curator for the Huntsville prison museum, one of the most popular stops on the tourist trail, where exhibits include the final words of those executed.

Pride of place is given to “Old Sparky” the nickname for the electric chair, which was responsible for sending 361 prisoners to their deaths before its use was discontinued in 1965.

Large syringes and straps on display reflect Texas’s transition to the use of lethal injection as the preferred method of execution.

A gift shop sells mugs and T-shirts with death row symbols as well as novelty items notable for their black humor, including “Solitary Confine-mints.”

A couple of blocks away is Hospitality House, a charitable organization run by 2 baptist pastors which aims to offer support to the families and loved ones of those who are condemned to death.

“The families shouldn’t be punished,” says Debra McCammon, the executive director of Hospitality House, describing them as “the other victims of crime.”

It is also here that the prison chaplain prepares families in order to avoid “hysteria or panic” during executions.

A guided tour of the city’s jails ends with the cemetery of prisoners, situated on a green hill shaded by sycamore trees.

Some 3,000 concrete crosses have been erected at the site since the 1st burials in the 19th century. Many graves are anonymous, while some are identified only by their prisoner number.

Others carry a single 1-word epitaph: “Executed.”

(source: Global Post)

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Execution date moved for El Paso man convicted of killing boy -Rigoberto “Robert” Avila Jr.

June 24, 2013 elpasotimes.com

 

The execution date for an El Paso man convicted in the 2000 death of his then-girlfriend’s 19-month-old son has been rescheduled again.

The request was made by his attorneys who wanted more time to explore the possibility he may be innocent.

Rigoberto “Robert” Avila Jr., 40, has been on Texas’ death row since 2001 after his capital murder conviction in the Feb. 29, 2000, death of Nicolas Macias.

In 2001, a state district court jury sentenced Avila to death after convicting him in Nicolas’ death. Prosecutors had alleged Avila fatally beat Nicolas while Avila was baby-sitting Nicolas and his sibling.

At the time, Avila was dating the children’s mother, who was attending classes when Nicolas was injured. Nicolas’ mother, Marcelina Macias, has declined interview requests from the El Paso Times.

Avila was initially scheduled to be executed on Dec. 12 — which happened to be the Catholic Church’s feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe — but was rescheduled for April 10. After defense attorneys asked for more time to explore scientific evidence in the case, Avila‘s execution was rescheduled again for July 10.

Cathryn Crawford and Kathryn Kase, attorneys with the Texas Defender Service who are representing Avila in his appeals, requested that Avila’s July 10 execution date be withdrawn to allow them to explore the possibility Avila may be innocent, based on a scientific study that Nicolas was injured by a sibling.

District Attorney Jaime

Esparza did not oppose the request, which was granted by 41st District Judge Anna Perez last week. Perez also scheduled a new execution date in January 2014.

Avila’s attorneys commended Esparza for not opposing their request for more time. Esparza declined to comment on the request, but said he allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Avila based on Nicolas’ brutal death. At the time, jurors did not have the option of sentencing Avila to life in prison without parole.

According to testimony by two medical experts at Avila’s trial, Nicolas had severe internal injuries, including a severed pancreas, that were caused by the same amount of force seen in high-speed traffic crashes. They also testified Nicolas’ injuries could not have been caused by an accident.

One witness, pediatric surgeon Dr. George Raschbaum, testified the only way a 4-year-old child could have caused Nicolas’ injuries was if he had jumped on Nicolas from a height of 20 feet.

During an El Paso Times editorial board meeting last week, Crawford said testing by their defense expert indicates Nicolas’ injuries could have been caused by a 4-year-old child jumping from a height of 16 to 24 inches. The bed in the bedroom Nicolas and his sibling were playing in was 18 inches high.

“It is very clear that physically, this is a very possible scenario,” Crawford said. “We’re hoping to present the evidence to the court to determine if the jury had heard this, would they have possibly found him not guilty. That’s all we’re asking for.”

Crawford and Kase stopped short of saying Avila is innocent, but said they are exploring the possibility Nicolas was fatally injured by his 4-year-old sibling, who was mimicking wrestling moves both had seen on pay-per-view a few days earlier.

According to preliminary biomechanical testing conducted by a defense expert, Crawford and Kase said, it is possible Nicolas could have suffered his injuries after his sibling leaped from a bed onto the boy, who was lying on the floor.

However, the biomechanical testing was not available to Avila’s defense attorneys at the time of his 2001 trial, and according to Senate Bill 344, a state law that will take effect Sept. 1, a defendant is entitled to a court hearing based on “relevant scientific evidence” not available at the time of the defendant’s trial.

Crawford said she and Kase are also looking into the possibility that Avila unknowingly signed a confession where he admitted to hitting Nicolas.

Avila had initially told then-El Paso police homicide Detective Tony Tabullo that Nicolas and his sibling were playing in a bedroom while Avila was watching television in a different room when Nicolas’ sibling told Avila the boy was not breathing.

Crawford said in the first statement, Avila initialed each paragraph indicating he had read them. She said Avila’s first statement was consistent with what he told police and paramedics at the scene and what Nicolas’ sibling described during an initial interview with a police investigator.

During the early morning hours of March 1, 2000, while Avila was still at police headquarters, Tabullo learned of a bruise on Nicolas’ abdomen that paramedics interpreted as a shoe mark, Crawford said.

Crawford said Tabullo, who retired from the police department in 2003, had Avila sign a second statement that said Avila confessed to beating Nicolas. Avila signed the second statement because he trusted it was the same as the first.

Kase and Crawford also noted Avila had no previous criminal or violent history and was a Navy veteran.

Crawford and Kase said they expect to file more extensive documents once the new law becomes effective in September. Kase said Avila’s case will very likely be the first case heard under the new law.