texas

TEXAS – Bobby Lee Hines – Execution DELAYED

may 21, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The execution of a man early next month for the slaying of a Dallas woman at her apartment more than 20 years ago has been delayed.

Dallas County prosecutors asked a judge to withdraw the June 6 execution date for 39-year-old Bobby Lee Hines because results of additional DNA testing in his case won’t be available by then. District Court Judge Don Adams in Dallas approved the request Friday.

Hines was convicted of the 1991 murder of 26-year-old Michelle Wendy Haupt. She was stabbed with an ice pick and strangled.

Hines was 19 at the time and on probation for a burglary conviction. He was staying with the apartment complex maintenance man who lived next door to the victim and had access to all the keys in the development.

TEXAS – Texas prison system has drugs for 23 executions

May 19, 2012  source : AP

After prodding from Texas AG, prison system says it has enough drugs to execute 23 inmates
Texas prison officials disclosed Friday they have enough lethal drugs to execute as many as 23 people.
In response to this week’s opinion from the state attorney general’s office that said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice could not withhold information about the drug supply, the department said it currently has 46 2.5-gram vials of pentobarbital. A 5-gram dose — about 3.4 ounces — is the 1st lethal drug used during each execution in Huntsville, according to Texas execution procedures.
The prison agency said it had similar supplies of 2 other drugs also administered to condemned inmates. It did not, though, identify suppliers of the lethal drugs, which the opinion also had addressed.
Executions also involve 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide and 140 milliequivalents of potassium chloride. Texas has 290 10-milligram vials of the pancuronium bromide — 10 are required per execution — and 737 20-milliequivalent vials of potassium chloride — 7 per punishment.
The department’s written procedures call for a matching set of drugs and syringes “in case unforeseen events make their use necessary.” But in a brief statement emailed to reporters late Friday, the agency said a backup set of lethal drugs for executions “is not actually prepared, but an additional dose is available if needed.”
The attorney general’s opinion, dated Monday, was an answer to public information requests filed earlier this year by the Austin American-Statesman and British newspaper The Guardian.
Prison officials had argued that releasing the information could be harmful to employees and provide death penalty opponents a way to harass the drug suppliers with the hope firms would refuse to do business with the state.
“We find your arguments as to how disclosure of the requested drug quantities would result in the disruption of the execution process or otherwise interfere with law enforcement to be too speculative,” Sean Opperman, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the opinion.
The prison agency had 30 days to comply with the opinion or to challenge it in court. The status of the supplier question was not immediately clear.
Opperman said that, while the attorney general’s office “acknowledge(s) the department’s concerns,” the corrections department didn’t show how disclosure of the information “would create a substantial threat of physical harm to any individual.”
Department officials previously had indicated they had a sufficient supply to handle upcoming executions. At least five are scheduled for this summer, including one early next month.
Last year, one of the drugs Texas had used in the process, sodium thiopental, became unavailable when its European supplier bowed to pressure from death penalty opponents and stopped making it. No other vendor could be found, so the drug was replaced by pentobarbital.
The physical effects of pentobarbital on condemned inmates have not been noticeable during the executions, but the financial cost to the state has risen considerably. Prison officials put the cost of the previous mixture at $83.35. It’s now $1286.86, with the higher cost primarily due to pentobarbital.

Cameron Todd Willingham Exoneration Was Written But Never Filed By Texas Judge

May 19, 2012 Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Cameron Todd Wilingham

A Texas judge who reviewed the controversial 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham planned to posthumously exonerate the father who was put to death for killing his three daughters in a house fire.

Scientific experts who debunked the arson evidence used against Willingham at his 1992 trial and a jailhouse witness who recanted his shaky testimony convinced District Court Judge Charlie Baird in 2010 that “Texas wrongfully convicted” him. But Baird’s order clearing Willingham’s name never became official, because a higher court halted the posthumous inquiry while it considered whether the judge had authority to examine the capital case.

While waiting for permission to finish the case from the Third Court of Appeals, Baird put together the document that “orders the exoneration of Cameron Todd Willingham for murdering his three daughters,” because of “overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence” presented during a one-day hearing in Austin in October 2010.

“You can’t do anything for Willingham except clear his name,” Baird told The Huffington Post. “When they tried Willingham, I’m convinced that everyone worked in good faith. The problem is that up until the execution, everything had changed so dramatically that you realized the science relied upon at trial was not reliable enough to take a man’s life.”

Baird’s intended order never came to light because the court of appeals criticized his handling of the case and prevented him from resuming work on it before he left the bench at the end of 2010 after choosing not to seek re-election. No one asked him for it after the court of appeals blocked him, he said.

Baird, now an attorney in private practice, said he was moved to share the document with HuffPost after reading about Carlos DeLuna, a Texan who a Columbia University team said this week may have been wrongly executed in 1989.

The 18-page unissued order closely examined the arson evidence presented during the trial, including claims that investigators found patterns on the floor where an accelerant was poured and traces of it on the porch. But Baird said he was persuaded by other experts that the initial investigative techniques were out of date.

The judge faulted Gov. Rick Perry and the state Court of Criminal Appeals, because they “ignored” exonerating evidence in 2004.

Baird, a Democrat, is now running for district attorney in Travis County, which includes Austin. The Willingham opinion is undated. Baird said he wrote it in the weeks after the Oct. 14, 2010, hearing. District court planner Kasey Hoke and court administrator Debra Hale told HuffPost they remember him preparing it in late 2010.

With Baird pushed to the sidelines that year, the fire that tore through Willingham home in Corsicana on Dec. 23, 1991, remained on the books as a triple homicide. Willingham escaped the burning house, but his three daughters — a 2-year-old and 1-year-old twins — were trapped inside and died from smoke inhalation. (His wife was out running errands for Christmas.)

Investigators concluded the blaze had been deliberately set with an accelerant. Two weeks after the fire, they arrested Willingham, a 23-year-old high school dropout with a rap sheet that included shoplifting and driving under the influence.

Willingham, maintaining his innocence, turned down a plea deal offering him life behind bars. At his August 1992 trial, the two fire investigators testified for the prosecution that Willingham torched his own home. The prosecution also called a jailhouse snitch, Johnny Webb, to the stand. Webb claimed that Willingham admitted in jail after his arrest that he killed his children. The jury convicted him in about an hour.

State and federal courts upheld Willingham’s conviction, and in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to get involved. During the appeals process, Baird was on the Circuit Court of Appeals that twice ruled against Willingham.

But doubts about Willingham’s guilt emerged. In 2000, Webb recanted his testimony. Forensic science had evolved since his trial, too. In 2004, Gerald Hurst, a chemist, released a report days before Willingham’s execution that said the testimony of the fire investigators was wrong and that the fire was accidental.

The report was rushed to Gov. Perry, but he denied a request for a reprieve, allowing the state to put Willingham to death by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004.

(The New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune had written extensively about Willingham’s case prior to Baird’s involvement.)

Baird’s proposed order — which drew upon Hurst’s report and the findings of other experienced arson investigators — came as a welcome surprise to Willingham’s relatives and attorneys, who continue to believe he was innocent.

“I’m very thankful he did this,” said Eugenia Willingham, Todd Willingham’s stepmother. “I’m sure this will have a good impact for Todd. I raised that boy and I believed him,” Willingham told HuffPost. “He adored those children. I never thought he could have done that.”

The fire occurred in Navarro County, but lawyers for Willingham’s family brought the case to Baird under a provision of the Texas Constitution that says all courts are open for people claiming harm to their reputation. Using the same arcane provision,Baird issued the state’s first posthumous exoneration in 2009 to Timothy Cole, who died in prison for a rape he didn’t commit.

R. Lowell Thompson, Navarro County’s district attorney, sought to derail the inquiry into Willingham, who was prosecuted by a predecessor. The prosecutor filed the petition with the court of appeals that froze Baird’s investigation and is critical of the former judge for writing the proposed order.

“it’s very surprising to me that he would enter some sort of opinion without hearing all the evidence, because none was presented by the state,” Thompson told HuffPost.

Baird said Thompson had the chance to argue his side, but left the court. Thompson said he departed because he wanted to get the court of appeals to step in immediately.

“I was doing my job and he thought he was doing the right thing,” said Thompson. “To me, it looked like he wasn’t applying the law.”

Some of the harshest criticism in Baird’s writing is directed at Perry. The governor’s role in refusing to postpone Willingham’s execution was closely examined by The Huffington Post during his presidential campaign.

“By 2004 there was no doubt that every single indication of arson had been debunked by the scientific community,” Baird wrote. “This fact was staring Governor Perry in the face; nevertheless, he refused to grant a reprieve.”

Perry has stood by decision when questioned previously about Willingham. His office didn’t flinch from the latest criticism.

“Nothing the Austin court could have done would change the fact that Todd Willingham was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for murdering his three daughters,” said a statement from his spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. “He had full access to every level of the appeals process, and his conviction was reviewed and upheld by multiple levels of state and federal courts. … The governor reviewed all of the facts of the case and agreed with the jury, and state and federal courts that Willingham was guilty.”

With Baird’s opinion revealed, lawyers for Willingham’s family members continue pushing for a pardon that would clear his name. Last year, the Texas Forensic Science Commission issued a report saying the evidence from the fire investigators was no longer valid.

“It’s an awful shame that this opinion was sitting in his desk gathering dust and nobody could see it,” said Barry Scheck, a lawyer from the Innocence Project working for Willingham’s relatives. “This opinion will stand the test of time, because it faces the facts.”

Related articles

TEXAS – Texas ordered to pay ex-inmate $2M over conviction – Billy Allen

may 18, 2012 Source : http://www.freep.com

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas was ordered on Friday to pay about $2 million to a man who spent 26 years in prison for murder before his conviction was overturned.

Billy Frederick Allen’s attempt to get the money has been a key case in developing standards for when ex-prisoners should be compensated. State Comptroller Susan Combs resisted paying Allen, arguing his conviction was overturned because of ineffective lawyers, not because he had proven his innocence.

But the state Supreme Court said the criminal courts showed Allen had a legitimate innocence claim and he should be paid.

Allen was convicted of two 1983 Dallas-area murders. He was freed in 2009 and sued the state for compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

Texas’ compensation law is the most generous in the U.S., according to the national Innocence Project, which works on cases where inmates allege wrongful convictions. Freed inmates who are declared innocent by a judge, prosecutors or a governor’s pardon can collect $80,000 for every year of imprisonment.

In Allen’s case, he didn’t have an innocence declaration. What he had instead was a Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that reversed his conviction based on ineffective counsel. It also determined that the evidence against him was too weak to for a reasonable jury to convict him.

Although prosecutors dismissed the charges, they said they still consider him a suspect and have kept the case open.

DNA evidence has led to most of Texas’ exonerations. But with DNA testing essentially standard in most cases now and the number of DNA-based exonerations expected to dwindle, cases like Allen’s — which had no DNA evidence — are likely to account for more compensation claims.

Upcoming – Executions – June 2012

Update : June 20, 2012

Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals

JUNE
05/06/2012

Henry Curtis Jackson

 Mississippi EXECUTED 6:13 P.M
06.06.12

Bobby Hines

 Texas STAYED
06/06/2012 Abdul Awkal Ohio Reprieve 2 weeks
12/06/2012 Jan Michael Brawner Mississippi  Executed  6:18 P.M.
12.06.12  Richard Leavitt Idaho Executed  10:25 A.M
20.06.12 Gary Carl Simmons Mississippi  Executed   6:16 p.m
27/6/2012 Samuel Villegas Lopez Arizona  


TEXAS – Bobby Lee Hines – Execution – june 6 2012 – DELAYED

Bobby Lee Hines Photo: TDCJ / HC

HOUSTON — A Texas death row inmate facing execution in three weeks for the slaying of a Dallas woman at her apartment more than 20 years ago has lost an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices, without comment, refused Monday to review the case of 39-year-old Bobby Lee Hines.

Hines is set for lethal injection June 6 for the 1991 murder of 26-year-old Michelle Wendy Haupt. She was found stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick and strangled.

Hines was 19 at the time of the slaying and was on probation for a burglary conviction. He was staying with the apartment complex maintenance man who lived next door to the victim and had access to all the keys in the development.

—————————————————-

Update may 21, 2012  source : http://www.chron.com

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The execution of a man early next month for the slaying of a Dallas woman at her apartment more than 20 years ago has been delayed.

Dallas County prosecutors asked a judge to withdraw the June 6 execution date for 39-year-old Bobby Lee Hines because results of additional DNA testing in his case won’t be available by then. District Court Judge Don Adams in Dallas approved the request Friday.

Hines was convicted of the 1991 murder of 26-year-oldMichelle Wendy Haupt. She was stabbed with an ice pick and strangled.

Hines was 19 at the time and on probation for a burglary conviction. He was staying with the apartment complex maintenance man who lived next door to the victim and had access to all the keys in the development.

Docket Entries

on May 14, 2012

Petition DENIED. (orders list)

on April 18, 2012

Reply of petitioner Bobby Lee Hines filed. (Distributed)

on April 12, 2012

Brief of respondent Rick Thaler, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division in opposition filed.

on March 12, 2012

Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due April 13, 2012)

Parties

Bobby Lee Hines, Petitioner, represented byLydia M.V. Brandt

Rick Thaler, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent, represented by Tomee M. Heining

………………………………………………………….

Facts of the  crime ( from Texas Attorney General)

On October 19, 1991, Mary Ann Linch went to the apartment of her friend Michelle Wendy Haupt in Carrollton, Texas, to spend the weekend. Linch brought with her a Marlboro cigarette carton in which only four packs remained. She had purchased the cigarettes at Brookshires’ in Corsicana and the carton contained a stamp showing “Brookshires’ Store” on the side. Linch left the carton at Haupt’s apartment when they left that evening to go to a nightclub. Linch had intended to return to Haupt’s, but instead spent the night with another friend.

Linch testified that when they went to the club, Haupt was wearing a gold sand-dollar charm necklace which she always wore. During the evening, Haupt became ill and another friend drove her back to her apartment. When he left, he testified that Haupt locked the door behind him.

Meanwhile, at Haupt’s apartment complex, Hines appeared uninvited at a party. When the hostess asked him who he was, he identified himself as the brother of the apartment manager. He told another guest that he was part of the maintenance crew at the complex. He pulled out a ring of keys and stated that he could get into any apartment that he wanted to at any time.

At about 6 a.m. on October 20, 1991, Haupt’s next-door neighbor heard a woman screaming. He could not determine the source of the screams, but his wife called the police. Two police officers were dispatched to the scene, but the screaming had ended before they arrived. After inspecting the premises, the officers could not determine where the screams had come from and they eventually left.

Two other residents in the apartment directly below Haupt’s also heard screaming loud enough to awaken them. One of the residents testified that he also heard other loud noises that sounded “like a bowling ball being dropped on Haupt’s floor.” He heard this noise at least 20 times. The screaming lasted for approximately 15 minutes.

The resident of an adjacent downstairs apartment also heard the screaming. Just before noon that morning, she and the other residents discussed what they had heard and became concerned for Haupt. Eventually, the apartment leasing manager was persuaded to check Haupt’s apartment. After knocking and receiving no answer, the manager opened the door and saw Haupt lying on the floor just inside the door. A stereo cord was tightly wrapped around her neck, her face was black, and she appeared to be dead.

Haupt was found dressed in only a robe and lying face up on the floor. There were puncture wounds to her chest area. The robe was stained with blood, but it had no holes to correspond with the puncture wounds to Haupt’s body, indicating the robe was placed on her body after the wounds were inflicted. Further, the belt to the robe was tied tighter than a person would normally tie it against her own body.

An object appearing to be an ice pick was found on the nearby couch. Hines’ palmprint was found inside Haupt’s apartment in what appeared to be blood, and his thumbprint was found on the inside of the front door. 

Later that same day, Hines was found to be in possession of Haupt’s gold sand-dollar charm. He had blood on some of his clothing and some other objects from Haupt’s apartment, including the Brookshires’ cigarette carton, were found under the couch where he had been sleeping. When Hines was arrested, he had a scratch under his right eye, scratches to the left side of his neck, and a scratch on his cheek. DNA testing conducted on a bloodstain found on Hines’ underwear indicated that the blood was consistent with Haupt’s blood. 

The Dallas County Chief Medical Examiner testified that the cause of Haupt’s death was strangulation and puncture wounds. Haupt had abrasions to her neck and jaw, contusions on her neck, and a fractured hyoid bone. She had about 18 puncture wounds. She had rectal tears with hemorrhaging. Barnard testified that the puncture wounds could have been made by the object found on the couch in Haupt’s apartment.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On October 21, 1991, Hines was indicted on charges of capital murder for intentionally and knowingly causing the death of Michelle Wendy Haupt by strangulation and stabbing, during the course of committing burglary of Haupt’s habitation, on October 20, 1991. Hines was convicted and sentenced to death on March 19, 1992. Hines’ motion for a new trial was denied on April 6, 1992. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Hines’ conviction and sentence on direct appeal on May 10, 1995. Hines’ petition for writ of habeas corpus in the state court was denied on February 24, 1999.

His federal petition for writ of habeas corpus in the federal court was denied on January 22, 2002. The district court also denied Hines a certificate of appealability (COA) on March 5, 2002. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals likewise denied COA on December 31, 2002, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Hines’ petition for writ of certiorari on October 6, 2003.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

Hines was arrested for car theft in 1984 at the age of twelve for which he received a year of juvenile probation. His probation was revoked and he was confined for three months in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC).

In 1986 he received ten-years of juvenile probation for burglary of a building, which was revoked in 1990. He was then confined in TYC for nine months.

In February 1986, Hines was placed on juvenile probation for getting into a school fight, and was committed to TYC for assault; He was confined 6 months and placed on probation, which he violated in 1987. His probation was revoked and he was confined for 6 months in TYC.

In January 1989, Hines was committed to TYC for attacking an elderly lady and burglarizing a church.

In June 1990, Hines received a 10-year prison sentence for a count each of burglary of a habitation and burglary of a building. Hines was placed on shock probation for 83 days, then released on 10-years probation.

 ………………………………………………………

2003 

June 22, 2003

No one deserves to die!

My name is Bobby Lee Hines, I am on Texas death row, I have been here for almost 12 years now and I first came here at the age of 19 years old. I am now into the last stage of my appeals.

I would like to take the time to say a few words, if you are willing to listen.

I often wonder if the people in the free world really understand that there’s two types of society? You have the free world society and the prison society.

When I was sentenced to death, it was because a jury was randomly picked out from the free world society and then given the power to make such a life and death decision! These people on the jury had no degree’s in psychology.  None that I remember were even a doctor of any kind!

The jury deciding I was or could be a threat to society is why I was sentenced to death, NOT because I was found guilty of a crime. There are two special issue questions the jury had to answer in the punishment phase that clearly show that! Here they are just as they were when given to the jury in my trail.

Special issue 1:  Do you find from the evidence that there is a “probability” beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Bobby Lee Hines would commit criminal acts of violence that constitute a continuing threat to society? jury answered YES

Special issue 2:  Taking into consideration all of the evidence, including the circumstances of the offense, the defendant’s character and background, and the personal moral culpability of the defendant, is there a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life imprisonment rather than a death sentence be imposed? jury answered NO

Would you for a moment reread this again and notice that the state is asking the jury to take a “guess” at the answers, because again they have “no” type of degrees  and just thought (guessed) that I might be a threat to society. Now in special issue 2, last sentence asking, if life imprisonment should be imposed, nowhere do they explain that there are two types of society. They weren’t given a way to make a clear decision but only a way to make only a guess!The jury had even asked the judge how much time would I have to do in prison on a life sentence if given one! And the judge said: “you don’t have to worry about that, that is no concern to you all!”

Now how could any jury be able to make such a drastic decision when they were denied information that they had asked for? This should have been the biggest part in deciding if one should live or die! Not only that, but the state allowed witnesses to lie in my trail on the stand in front of the jury. In short, I was charged with aggravated robbery at age 14, I had a trail and was acquitted-(not found guilty)of that charge. In my capital trail, then age 19, witness got up on the stand and stated that I was convicted of that aggravated robbery charge at age 14.  Me being only 19 years old at the time of my trail, I didn’t know anything about the law.  Ask yourself, “how much do you really know about the laws of the court system?” Even more so when you’re just looking back to a younger age of 19.  My lawyers didn’t object, and my appeal lawyers said that due to that , I waved my issue on appeal for it! This was no fault of my own, but the fault of the trail lawyers. The point here is, if the jury would have known that I was not guilty of that aggravated robbery charge at age 14, they may have or could have had a different opinion in the matter of deciding whether I was not a threat to society, or at least the prison society, and may have given me a life sentence rather than a death sentence.

I truly am not a threat to either the free world-or the prison society.

After all appeals are up, there is only one way to receive a life sentence. This is through what they call a clemency hearing. There has only been one clemency given since 1976 until now June 22, 2003.  In this time there has been some 315 executions, about 265 of them have been executed since I’ve been on death row.

The people deciding whether to recommend clemency to the governor don’t look at the facts that they should be looking at. If they would look and see that the trial court in my case used just 8 years of my past for the jury to decide that I would or could be a threat to society.  If they would look at my prison record over the past 11 years that I have been locked up on death row, they would clearly see that I’m not a threat to any society. Plus if they would take an over all count of cases that are in the “prison society” that have life sentences or 40,50 to 60 year sentences or more, looking into their prison records etc….then look at mine, they again would see that I would not in any way pose any type of threat to a prison society, and that I could in fact live in the prison society with a life sentence!

To prove my point to the fact, I spent some 8 plus years on a death row work program. Now the program was closed down due to an escape. Note that I had nothing to do with it.  But 8 plus years I lived being able to move around freely everyday, all day! Sixty (60) death row inmates on one wing with the cell doors opening up everyday, every hour on the hour, with only one “unarmed guard” working inside the wing, never feeling threatened,  and no one ever hurt guards.  I worked with and around 12 inch scissors, all types of shears and many different types of tools, working, living and functioning just as any other inmate would in any prison society. Again, I’m no threat to any society. I can and would live in the prison society with a life sentence if given the chance.

No one deserves to be strapped down to that gurney  to die!

I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me and what I’ve written. Any help or just input that you may have, please feel free to write to me at the address listed below! I’ll write more again soon!

Sincerely
Bobby Lee Hines

TEXAS – Steven Staley – execution STAYED

May 14, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stopped this week’s scheduled execution of a convicted killer whose mental health had become an issue in his appeals.

The state’s highest criminal court gave a reprieve to Steven Staley, 49, who was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the 1989 shooting death of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery.

“This is great,” said Staley’s attorney, John Stickels. “I’m very happy.”

Prosecutors contended Staley was competent for execution, but Stickels in his appeal to the court said that was accomplished only because a state judge in Fort Worth improperly ordered Staley be given drugs to make him competent so the state of Texas could kill him.

The appeals court spent much of the ruling’s three pages recounting Staley’s case in the courts and only in a final paragraph specifically addressed the appeal, saying the court had determined the execution should be halted “pending further order by this court.”

It gave no reason. Justice Lawrence Meyers dissented from his eight colleagues but issued no dissenting opinion.

“I don’t know what’s next,” Stickels said. “It just orders the execution stayed and doesn’t order anything else. I’m not going to do anything until they tell me.”

Related articles

TEXAS – Texas death row inmate’s mental health questioned

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, shows Texas death row inmate Steven Staley. The outcome of legal wrangling about Staleyís mental health is likely to determine if the former laborer from Denver is put to death this week in Texas for a slaying almost a quarter-century ago in Fort Worth while he was an escapee from a Colorado halfway house. Photo: Texas Department Of Criminal Justice / AP Steven Staley

may 14, 2012 Source : http://www.nydailynews.com

Prosecutors argue Steven Staley is competent to be executed

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The outcome of legal wrangling about condemned killer Steven Staley’s mental health is likely to determine if the former laborer is put to death this week in Texas for a slaying almost a quarter-century ago in Fort Worth.

Prosecutors contend he’s competent to be executed. His lawyer says Staley is severely mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and has been observed catatonic or lying on the floor of his jail cell covered in urine.

Staley, 49, faces lethal injection Wednesday evening for the fatal shooting of a Steak and Ale restaurant manager who was taken hostage during a botched robbery in October 1989. The arrest of Staley and two accomplices after a wild 20-mile car and foot chase ended a series of robberies, assaults and at least one other killing as the trio wreaked havoc in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

In a written statement, Staley implicated himself in the slaying of 35-year-old Bob Read. And since he arrived on death row in 1991, his mental competence became an issue as his punishment neared.

Prosecutors say he’s legally competent, and state District Court Judge Wayne Salvant has ordered him to be medicated, by force if needed.

“If he was found not to be competent, the trial judge would just withdraw the (execution) date,” said Jim Gibson, an assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, where Staley was tried and convicted.

Staley also has been examined by psychologists, who determined the prisoner was competent.

“Everybody agrees he’s competent,” Gibson said. “… I think the issue is going to be why he’s competent.”

Staley’s lawyer, John Stickels, calls the competency artificial.

“The state has given him enough psychotropic drugs that the judge found he met the definition to be competent to be executed,” said Stickels, who is asking the courts to halt the execution. “The whole reason he’s been medicated is to make him competent to be executed.”

Staley’s previous attorney called him “too nuts to be executed” when the courts stopped a scheduled execution in 2005. And Stickles said Staley’s severe mental illness has existed for several years and has been exacerbated by the forced drug regimen Stickles argues was illegally ordered by Salvant.

If lower courts refuse to stay the execution, Stickles said he’ll take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he said has not addressed the question of involuntary medication for the purposes of execution. When administered, the drugs leave Staley “with extreme sedation and zombie-like effects,” Stickles said in an appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mental-health-texas-killer-death-row-questioned-article-1.1077770#ixzz1urc23mW2

Related articles

TEXAS – Death Sentence Reviews Leave Unsettled Issues

may 13, 2012 source :http://www.texastribune.org

Stanley Schneider was shocked last year when Texas’ highest criminal court sent his death row client an early Christmas gift of sorts, ordering the trial court to re-examine evidence from a psychologist who had decided thatJohn Reyes Matamoros was mentally fit to face execution.

“We were hopeful their sending it back would mean something,” Schneider said.

But his hope flagged in March when, he said, two Harris County state district judges virtually rubber-stamped Dr. George Denkowski’s findings in the cases of Matamoros and a fellow death row inmate,Steven Butler. Denkowski, the psychologist who testified in the cases of 14 current Texas death row inmates that the convicted men were mentally fit for execution, was reprimanded last year after other psychologists and defense lawyers filed a complaint alleging that he had used discredited evaluation methods.

Lawyers for Matamoros and Butler, who have filed objections with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, say any findings by Denkowski should be disregarded. They said that the trial court judges — who are husband and wife — simply adopted Denkowski’s conclusions instead of examining reams of evidence from other psychologists that they said proved their clients were mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty.

“This is a perfect example of the state taking science and trying to prostitute it,” Schneider said, adding, “The role of the courts is to protect us from junk science.”

 

Judge Marc Brown, of Harris County District Court, who reviewed the Matamoros case, was in trial and did not respond to a request for comment. His wife, Judge Susan Brown, declined to comment on the Butler case because it is continuing. Calls to Denkowski were not returned.

But Roe Wilson, Harris County assistant district attorney, contended that the judges had disregarded Denkowski’s findings.

The judge’s findings in Butler’s case repeatedly refer to Denkowski’s findings, but Wilson said the references were “historical.”

“There was no consideration given and no mention given,” Wilson said.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 2002 that states could not execute people who were mentally retarded. The court allowed states to decide on guidelines for determining whether a person was mentally retarded. Texas courts have adopted a three-part definition that requires the convicted inmate to have below-average intellectual function, to lack adaptive behavior skills and to have had these problems since an early age.

Denkowski conducted tests to determine whether defendants who might face the death penalty aligned with those definitions.

But other psychologists and defense lawyers complained that he artificially inflated intelligence scores to make defendants eligible for the death penalty. (Denkowski’s lawyer has said that he vigorously denies having violated any psychology board rules and that he used his best clinical judgment in making forensic evaluations.)

Last year, the Texas Board of Examiners of Psychologists agreed to a settlement with Denkowski in which it reprimanded him, but he did not admit guilt. He agreed not to conduct intellectual disability evaluations in future criminal cases and to pay a fine of $5,500. In return, the board dismissed the complaints.

 

Since that reprimand, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has asked trial courts to review at least six cases that included Denkowski’s work to determine what effect it had had on the case.

Defense lawyers argue that Denkowski’s conclusions should be completely excluded from those reviews.

“You can talk all day long about how you don’t want junk science used in these cases, but when you’re confronted with it, you have to take active steps to make sure it hasn’t contaminated the case,” said Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates.

The Butler and Matamoros cases are the first to be returned to the Court of Appeals.

Butler, who was also sentenced to life in prison for a separate conviction of aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, was sentenced to death in 1988 for the shooting death of Velma Clemons, a clerk at a dry-cleaning business.

Denkowski evaluated Butler, and he testified in the case in 2006. School records showed Butler had been classified as “educable but mentally retarded,” but Denkowski said nothing in the records indicated that he required special education. He noted that Butler could tell time and could recite his Social Security number, “highly atypical skills for a mentally retarded person.” He concluded that Butler’s I.Q. was borderline normal.

Similarly, Judge Susan Brown concluded that Butler’s poor academic performance reflected underachievement and poor choices, not lack of intellectual function. She also wrote that he had enough intellectual ability to plan, commit and then lie about the murder for which he was convicted.

Dick Burr, a defense lawyer, said the judge had ignored findings by experts hired by Butler’s lawyers, including Dr. Denis Keyes, a special education professor at the College of Charleston, and Dr. Jack Fletcher, a psychology professor at the University of Houston. Both found that Butler had a low I.Q. and was mentally retarded.  Fletcher — one of the psychologists who complained to the board about Denkowski’s work — said that Denkowski’s conclusion that Butler was mentally fit for execution “was based on outmoded, no-longer-accepted information.”

“Our evidence demonstrated very persuasively that Steven Butler has mental retardation,” Burr said.

Matamoros, whose criminal history included auto theft and burglary with intent to sexually assault, was convicted of the 1990 murder of 70-year-old Eddie Goebel, who was found in his bed with 25 stab wounds.

Denkowski concluded in 2006 that Matamoros was not mentally retarded. His low I.Q. scores and a psychologist’s finding in 1977 that at 14 Matamoros had a mild intellectual disability, Denkowski concluded, were a result of bilingualism and his rearing in a deprived environment.

Judge Marc Brown agreed, quoting from a federal court ruling in the case that in turn relied on Denkowski’s findings. Like Denkowski, the judge concluded that Matamoros’s ability to care for himself as an inmate and to plan and commit crimes also contradicted his claims of mental retardation.

Judge Brown’s findings discounted the evaluations of psychologists hired by Matamoros’s lawyers who found that he was mentally retarded.

Dr. Thomas Oakland, a psychologist and a professor at the University of Florida, reviewed Denkowski’s findings along with Judge Marc Brown’s ruling. Both, he said, showed a “reckless disregard” for established forensic psychology.

“Based upon my review of Denkowski’s affidavit and testimony, it is my opinion that Matamoros’s intelligence was and is significantly subaverage,” he wrote in an affidavit.

Wilson, the assistant district attorney in Harris County, disputed the inmates’ lawyers’ argument that the judges’ findings were largely copied from Denkowski’s work.

“I don’t think that is an accurate characterization, but that is something the Court of Criminal Appeals will determine,” she said.

Lawyers for Butler and Matamoros want the Court of Criminal Appeals to insist that the death row inmates’ claims be re-evaluated without any reliance on Denkowski’s work.

Schneider said the decision by the Court of Appeals in the two cases would also send a signal to other judges who are reviewing cases in which Denkowski had made evaluations. He said he hoped the court would continue to reject forensic methods that had been proven unscientific.

“Their role has to be that of the supergatekeeper of forensic science,” Schneider said. “They have to say we will not allow a proceeding tainted by junk science to go forward.”