texas

Texas executes Tommy Lynn Sells

april 4, 2014

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A serial killer has been put to death in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers’ demand that the state release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.
Tommy Lynn Sells was executed Thursday evening. He became the first inmate injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the sedative.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials pronounced him dead at 6:27 p.m., about 13 minutes after he was injected with a fatal dose of pentobarbital.

As he waited word on his U.S. Supreme Court appeal Thursday, Sells was kept in a small holding cell just outside the execution chamber in Huntsville, said Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Sells was quiet, reserved and accompanied by a chaplain. He had access to a phone, Clark said.

His attorneys had hoped the courts would force prison officials to reveal more information about the pharmacy that supplied the drug. They argued the new pentobarbital could lead to unconstitutional pain.

Lawyers for Sells argued, in part, that, “the increasing scarcity of execution drugs — and consequent concerns about the quality and states’ desperate efforts to keep the source of drugs secret — have become the central feature of botched executions and Eighth Amendment concerns.”

The state prison agency wants the information kept secret to protect the pharmacy from threats of violence.
A Val Verde County jury sent Sells, 49, to death row in 2000 for the December 1999 stabbing death of 13-year-old Kaylene Harris in her family’s trailer home near Del Rio. He confessed after a friend who was sleeping over that night survived having her own throat slit and helped identify him to authorities.

He later pleaded guilty in Bexar County to strangling 9-year-old Mary Beatrice Perez, who was abducted from a Fiesta event at Market Square in 1999. District Attorney Susan Reed agreed to drop her bid for a second death sentence, instead settling on life in prison, in exchange for the plea.

Court records show Sells claimed to have committed as many as 70 killings in states including Alabama, California, Arizona, Kentucky and Arkansas.

The families of both slain children were on a list to witness the execution. Kaylene’s witnesses included her father, brother and two grandmothers. Also present were the mother and grandmother of Mary.

Sells’ execution is the fifth lethal injection this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest state for the death penalty.

Source: AP, April 3, 2014

Texas executes Anthony Doyle

march 27, 2014

Last Statement:

This offender declined to make a last statement.

Texas executes Anthony Doyle

(Reuters) – Texas executed a convicted murderer on Thursday for beating a delivery woman to death with baseball bat, and stuffing her body in a dumpster, a Department of Criminal Justice spokesman said.

The 37-year-old was beaten with a baseball bat, then robbed of her car, cellphone and credit cards.

Evidence showed Doyle ordered the doughnuts and breakfast tacos that Cho delivered. He shared the food with friends after stuffing Cho’s body in a neighbor’s trash can in an alley behind the home in Rowlett, east of Dallas.

Doyle shook his head and said nothing inside the death chamber in Huntsville when a warden asked if he had a statement to make. The prisoner’s eyes closed as the sedative pentobarbital was injected. He took a few breaths, then began to snore quietly. Soon, he stopped moving.

No one from Cho’s family attended the execution, but two witnesses picked by Doyle — a friend and a spiritual adviser — watched as he was put to death.

Anthony Doyle, 29, was pronounced dead at 6:49 p.m. CDT (2349 GMT) at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville after receiving a lethal injection.

Doyle became the fourth Texas inmate executed this year and the last before the state — the nation’s most active when it comes to capital punishment — begins using a new batch of pentobarbital obtained through a different pharmacy.

Prison officials have refused to reveal the source of the replenished stockpile, arguing the information must be kept secret to protect the supplier’s safety. But a judge Thursday ordered them to disclose the supplier to attorneys for two inmates set to be executed next month. The attorneys filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking an emergency order requiring state authorities to identify the drug provider and results of tests of its potency and purity.

The prison agency plans to appeal the judge’s order.

About two hours before Doyle was put to death, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to block his execution. Doyle’s attorney had called for his execution to be delayed, but not over the drug issue. The lawyer said Doyle deserved a new punishment hearing because jurors at his 2004 capital murder trial were given unknowingly false evidence about Doyle’s inability to be rehabilitated while he was confined at a juvenile detention facility for his delinquent behavior years before Cho’s slaying.

(Sources: Reuters, AP

Texas obtains new supply of execution drugs from source kept secret

march 19, 2014

Texas has obtained a new batch of the drugs it uses to execute death row inmates, allowing the state to continue carrying out death sentences once its existing supply expires at the end of the month.

But correction officials will not say where they bought the drugs, arguing that information must be kept secret to protect the safety of its new supplier. In interviews with the Associated Press, officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice also refused to say whether providing anonymity to its new supplier of the sedative pentobarbital was a condition of its purchase.

The decision to keep details about the drugs and their source secret puts the agency at odds with past rulings of the state attorney general’s office, which has said the state’s open records law requires the agency to disclose specifics about the drugs it uses to carry out lethal injections.

“We are not disclosing the identity of the pharmacy because of previous, specific threats of serious physical harm made against businesses and their employees that have provided drugs used in the lethal injection process,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark.

The dispute in the state that executes more inmates than any other comes as major drugmakers, many based in Europe, have stopped selling pentobarbital and other substances used in lethal injections to US corrections agencies because they oppose the death penalty.

Until obtaining its new supply from the unknown provider, Texas only had enough pentobarbital to continue carrying out executions through the end of March. The announcement comes a day after Oklahoma postponed two executions for a month because it had run out of its own supply of drugs.

Such legal challenges have grown more common as the drug shortages have forced several states to change their execution protocols and buy drugs from alternate suppliers, including compounding pharmacies that are not as heavily regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration as more conventional pharmacies.

Texas prison records examined by the AP show the state also has a supply of the painkiller hydromorphone and sedative midazolam, the drugs chosen earlier this year by Ohio to conduct its executions when they lost access to pentobarbital.

But in their first use in January, Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire made gasp-like snoring sounds for several minutes during his 26-minute execution. His family later sued, alleging their use was cruel and inhuman.

Alan Futrell, an attorney for convicted murderer Tommy Sells, whose scheduled 3 April execution would make him the first to be put to death with Texas’ new drug supply, said the issue could become fodder for legal attempts to delay his client’s sentence. “This might be good stuff,” he said. “And the roads are getting very short here.”

But Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington DC-based Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment organization, said it was doubtful that Texas would get to a point where a lack of drugs led officials to fully suspend capital punishment. “There are a lot of drugs, and Texas can be creative in finding some,” he said.

Texas’ current inventory of pentobarbital, the sedative it has used in lethal injections since 2012, will expire 1 April. The state has scheduled executions for six inmates, including one set for Wednesday evening and another next week.

Those two will be put to death with the previous stockpile purchased last year from a suburban Houston compounding pharmacy, Clark said. The new batch of drugs presumably would be used for three Texas inmates set to die in April, including Sells, and one in May.

Sixteen convicted killers were executed in Texas last year, more than in any other state. Two inmates already have been executed this year, bringing the total to 510 since capital punishment in Texas resumed in 1982. The total accounts for nearly one-third of all the executions in the US since a 1976 supreme court ruling allowed capital punishment to resume.

The AP filed an open records request in February seeking details about the drugs Texas planned to use to carry out executions. The AP received the documents on Tuesday, but in following up with Clark about their contents, he said they were moot as the state had secured the new batch of pentobarbital.

Clark then refused to provide more details about the drugs, including how much the state has purchased and from where, and when the new drugs expire. He also refused to say whether the drugs would need to be returned if the attorney general’s office rules the provider must be disclosed. “I’m unable to discuss any of the specifics. Other states have kept that information confidential,” he said.

Policies in some states, like Missouri and Oklahoma, keep the identities of drug suppliers secret, citing privacy concerns.

Clark, in refusing AP’s request to answer any specific questions about the new batch of drugs, said after prison officials identified the suburban Houston compounding pharmacy that provided its existing supply of pentobarbital, that pharmacy was targeted for protests by death penalty opponents. It sought to have Texas return the pentobarbital it manufactured, and prison officials refused.

Texas law does not specifically spell out whether officials can refuse to make the name of drug suppliers public, but Texas attorney general Greg Abbott’s office has on three occasions rejected arguments by the agency that disclosing that information would put the drug supply and manufacturers at risk.

In a 2012 opinion, his office rejected the argument that disclosing the inventory would allow others to figure out the state’s suppliers, dismissing the same kind of security concerns raised this week.

“Upon review, while we acknowledge the department’s concerns, we find you have not established disclosure of the responsive information would create a substantial threat of physical harm to any individual,” assistant attorney general Sean Opperman wrote.

Clark said the prison agency planned to ask Abbott to reconsider the issue. “We’re not in conflict with the law,” Clark said. “We plan to seek an AG’s opinion, which is appropriate in a situation like this, and the AG’s office will determine whether it’s releasable.”

When contacted by the AP and made aware of prisons department’s refusal to name the drug supplier, Abbott spokeswoman Lauren Bean said the attorney general would consider the request once it’s received.

(theguardian)

TEXAS – EXECUTION RAY JASPER – March 19, 2014 at 6 PM CDT EXECUTED 6.31 PM

Officials announced Jasper dead at 6:31 Wednesday, after a lethal dose of pentobarbital was injected into his system.

exExecution Watch with Ray Hill
can be heard on KPFT 90.1 FM,
in Galveston at 89.5 and Livingston at 90.3,
as well as on the net here
from 6:00 PM CT to 7:00 PM CT

No one from Jasper’s family was in Huntsville Wednesday to witness the execution. No one from the Alejandro family, who are against the death penalty, attended either. They instead opted to spend the evening together in San Antonio.

March 19, 2014

CORRECTS DATE TO MARCH 19 - This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Ray Jasper III. Jasper, convicted in the 1998 murder of David Alejandro, is set for lethal injection Wednesday evening, March 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice) uncredited

HUNTSVILLE — San Antonio rap musician Ray Jasper has never disputed his involvement in an attack and robbery more than 15 years ago that left a 33-year-old recording studio owner dead.

But Jasper testified at his capital murder trial that although he cut the throat of David Alejandro, a partner was responsible for the victim’s fatal stab wounds.

A Bexar County jury wasn’t convinced and deliberated only 15 minutes at Jasper’s January 2000 trial before convicting him. The panel then took less than two hours to decide he should be put to death.

Jasper’s lethal injection with a dose of pentobarbital was set for this evening.

Jasper, 33, would be the third Texas inmate put to death this year and among at least five scheduled to die over the next five weeks in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Lawyers for Jasper, who is black, argued that the punishment should be stopped to examine whether prosecutors had improperly removed a black man from possibly serving on his trial jury. San Antonio-based U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery rejected that appeal on Tuesday.

Jasper was 18 at the time of the November 1998 attack. Records showed he had a criminal past beginning about age 15.

Evidence at his trial showed he’d been expelled from school for marijuana possession, then was expelled from an alternative school. Authorities said he also had attacked an off-duty police officer who tried to stop him during an attempted burglary and led police on a high-speed chase.

Jasper had previous sessions with Alejandro, who was the lead singer of a San Antonio Christian-based music group in addition to running his recording studio. At his trial, Jasper described Alejandro as “one of the nicest people I ever met in my life.”

“I’m not a killer and I didn’t do it,” he testified during the punishment phase of his trial.

He refused interview requests from The Associated Press as his execution date neared, but reiterated his claim of innocence in a letter published on the Gawker website.

Jeff Mulliner, one of the prosecutors at Jasper’s trial, said it was undisputed that Jasper organized and participated in the most premeditated murder he’d seen.

Testimony showed that a week before the attack, Jasper purchased large bags he intended to use to hold stolen studio gear. He recruited two friends, Steven Russell and Doug Williams, brought two vans to the studio and reserved time under the pretense of a rap recording session.

“This was not a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Mulliner said.

As their session was ending, Jasper approached Alejandro from behind and slashed his throat from ear to ear with a kitchen knife he’d hidden in his jacket.

“Anybody on the planet that looks, presently or past, at the photos of David Alejandro’s corpse and saw the gash to his neck, it would be impossible to cut someone that deep and that badly across the entire path of the neck without having specific intent to cause his death,” Mulliner said. “He just didn’t quite get it done.”

Mulliner said Jasper then held Alejandro while Russell stabbed him some two dozen times, leaving the knife buried to its hilt in their victim’s body.

Evidence showed Jasper used a black sheet he brought from home to cover Alejandro, then began loading recording equipment worth as much as $30,000 into the vans.

When an off-duty officer unexpectedly showed up and questioned the activity, Jasper fled on foot. He was arrested a few days later and confessed to planning the crime and recruiting two accomplices. Court documents showed his confession was corroborated by his girlfriend, who testified he’d told her days earlier that he planned to steal the equipment and kill Alejandro.

DNA evidence and fingerprints also tied Jasper to the slaying scene. The gear they’d hoped to sell was left behind.

Williams, now 35, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Russell, 34, also is serving life after taking a plea deal.

Next week, a Dallas-area man, Anthony Doyle, 29, is set for execution for the robbery and beating death of a woman who was delivering food to his home.

Read Ray Jasper’s final letter here.

From Ray Jasper’s book called Walking in the Rain

THE CHAMBER

some want to live
some want to die

blood drips
like sweat from a forehead

voices scream for justice

hired for murder

merciless people

their apologies were no good
your ears would not hear
your heart would not love

death
death is all you love

the grave is your mistress
death is all you love

death is all you love

The victim’s brother, Steven Alejandro, wrote a letter back to Gawker about the incident claiming Jasper was not repentant and still did not take blame for the death. 

Read Steven Alejandro’s letter in full below:

“Previously, a post from Hamilton Nolan on Gawker shared a statement from a Texas Death Row inmate named Ray Jasper. The letter from Jasper is touted as the last statement Jasper may make on earth. Huffpo has it as a must read. Jasper is on Death Row for his involvement in a stabbing murder committed during a robbery in November of 1998. I’m about to comment on Jasper’s statement without having read it. In fact more than likely I will never read it. I imagine it is not much more than the statement he made in court to my family. My name is Steven Alejandro, and it is our brother, son, grandchild and cousin, the forever 33 year old, David Mendoza Alejandro who was killed by Jasper and his two accomplices.

The facts of the case are readily available on the internet, but allow me to plainly restate them here. David was killed on November 29 1998. It was roughly seven to ten days before this date when, unbeknownst to him, David received his death sentence. Jasper, according to his testimony, needed money so that he could move out of his parents house and into an apartment with the mother of his child, his girlfriend. Jasper decided to rob David.

Jasper was an aspiring rapper who had been recording music at David’s self owned recording studio. (An important note here is that Jasper was not a business partner of David’s as has been claimed elsewhere.) This was a self-made independently owned recording studio, by the way. David had leased an old apartment complex office, and with his own hands, and the help of our father, fashioned it into a affordable space for struggling local musicians. He offered low rates for artists who, much like himself, could not afford more spacious digs. My brother had no apartment of his own; he would crash on a couch at our parents house or, more often, sleep on a makeshift bed on the floor in the studio. He eschewed nicer living quarters so that he could pour his available money into the studio.

Ray Jasper knew well that he could not rob David’s studio equipment without being fingered to the police by him later. So it was, seven to ten days prior, Jasper made the decision to end David’s life. He enlisted the help of two others. That night (and this is all from on-the-record courtroom testimony and statements he gave police in his confession) the three men made the recording appointment. They were there for roughly two hours working, recording, David sitting at the control console. Jasper admits to then grabbing David by his hair, yanking his head back and pulling the kitchen knife he brought with him across David’s throat, slicing it open. David jumped up and grabbed at his own throat from which blood was flowing. He began to fight for his life. At this point Jasper called to one of his accomplices who rushed into the room with another knife. His accomplice then stabbed David Mendoza Alejandro 25 times. David collapsed, already dead or dying—we will never know. The final stab wound was at the back of David’s neck; the knife plunged in and left there.

He was then covered with a sheet and the three men proceeded to tear out as much equipment as they could and load it all into the van they drove there. As they were loading they were spotted by an off-duty Sheriff who called out to them. They took off running, and were eventually caught. The evidence was overwhelming; DNA, fingerprints, confessions. This is and was an open and shut case, as they say in all the cheesy TV murder investigation shows. One defendant was offered the choice of a trial by jury, which could end in a death sentence, or he could avoid the death penalty by admitting his guilt. He chose to admit his guilt. Jasper, given the same choice, apparently decided to take his chance with a jury trial.

During the trial, testimony from the Medical Examiner revealed that it was not technically Jasper’s injury to David that caused death, but the subsequent 25 stab wounds. Jasper’s defense team seized upon this as a defense tactic against a murder charge, and Jasper joined that opinion. Never mind that Jasper delivered the first attack. At one point while he was on the stand testifying, he asked to speak to us— David’s family members. He looked us square in the eye and exclaimed “I didn’t kill your son. He was one of the nicest guys I ever met, but I did not kill him.” Jasper’s reasoning was that since the M.E. cited the 25 stab wounds as the cause of death and not the throat slit committed by Jasper, he was technically not guilty of murder. You can make of that what you will, but it seems any reasonable person would hold Jasper as culpable in the murder as the other defendant who finished off David. So the long and short is this final statement is based in a fantasy that Jasper has convinced himself of. All evidence to the contrary, it seems he denies he is a murderer and therefore he feels he should not be executed for the crime.

And now to the Death Penalty issue. I must stress that I speak only for myself here and for no other family member. Our extended family is much like the rest of the United States. We are a large American family. There are Liberals and there are Conservatives in our midst. There are pro-death penalty and anti-death penalty folks in our tree as well. I am one of those opposed to the death penalty. As far as I can remember I have been in opposition to it. My brother David was not opposed to the implementation of the death penalty. We used to debate the topic often. Sometimes vigorously. During the trial the prosecutors in the case decided to use me on the witness stand in an effort to give David a voice. David was one year older than me. We had been roommates the whole time we lived with our parents. I was the Best Man at his wedding. I hesitate to say I was happy to testify, since it remains the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But I willingly agreed to testify on David’s behalf. At the trial, the first thing the prosecution wanted to do was to introduce David to the Jury through my words, so I was the first witness called.

After I was sworn in and sat in the chair, the prosecutor handed me a picture of David. It was a postmortem picture. It was a close up of David’s face from the neck up. His eyes still open. The gash from Jasper’s knife visible. I let out a gasp and when the Prosecutor asked me what the picture was of I told him, “it’s my brother, David.” Through tearful testimony, I tried my best to bring my brother back to life in that courtroom. When I got off the stand I reached for my father’s embrace and sobbed as I had never before and have not since.

As I wrote earlier, this was an open and shut case and the jury did not take long to return a guilty verdict. All that was left was the punishment. During the punishment phase the prosecutor outlines the State’s case for the death penalty and, of course, the defense argues for the sparing of the defendant’s life. I’m sure if you asked, under the Freedom Of Information Act, you would be able to wade through the trial documents; the prosecutor’s case was convincing for a death penalty verdict from the jury. Ray Jasper did not grow up on the wrong side of the tracks, he came from a family wherein his father, a career military man, and his mother were still happily married. Jasper was not defended by a court appointed lawyer; his defense was comprised of a well paid for and well known private practice firm. Jasper had a history of arrests and in fact was out on bail when he participated in the murder of David. He had, weeks before, assaulted an off-duty police officer who had stumbled upon Jasper attempting to break into a house.

During the trial somehow, apparently, the defense team got the idea that some of our family might be opposed to the death penalty and called my father to the stand. Nothing my father said could help their defense. When they called me to the stand the defense attorney asked me what my thoughts on the death penalty were. I knew what he was doing. He was hoping I would confess my opposition to the death penalty, thus maybe sparing Ray Jasper’s life. And I could not assist him in good conscience. I’ve thought often in the years since If I did the right thing. If, when push came to shove, I suppressed my own true thoughts in an effort to avenge David’s murder. This is what happened. The defense asked me what my opinion of the death penalty was. And I said, “I don’t think it’s relevant what my opinion is.” And I paused. And I don’t know where it came from, but I then said, “but I can tell you what David thought of the death penalty.” And the defense attorney asked me, “what was David’s opinion?” And I said, “he always told me that if there was no question of the guilt of a murder defendant, that the death penalty was a just punishment.” I’ll never know for sure, but it’s a pretty good bet David’s words uttered through me sealed Ray Jasper’s fate.

After everything, I’m still opposed to the death penalty. I have no intention of witnessing Jasper’s execution but I have no intention of fighting to stop it either. Does this make me a hypocrite? Maybe, but that’s for me to live with. I harbor no illusions that Jasper’s ceasing to exist will ameliorate the pain I feel daily from the loss of David. The truth is I rarely think of Jasper or the other defendants. I think of David more. Those thoughts are more important to me than anything else. Certainly more important than any last statement from Ray Jasper. Though I purposefully skipped reading Jasper’s statement, I did read through the comments. I have to say to my fellow death penalty opponent friends: Keep up your fight. It is an honorable one. But do not use this man, Ray Jasper, as your spokesperson, as your example of why the death penalty should be abolished. The death penalty should be abolished because it is wrong to kill another human being. Not because a Medical Examiner said your knife wound did not cause immediate death. Ray Jasper is not worthy of your good and kind hearts. He has never accepted culpability or expressed remorse. He is responsible for viciously ending the life of “the nicest man he ever met.” Responsible for ending the life of the nicest man my family ever met, David Mendoza Alejandro

Swearingen requests hearing on DNA testing; DA’s office focused on execution date

march 15,2014

Attorneys for convicted killer Larry Ray Swearingen filed opposition to the state’s motion to set an execution date, arguing the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for further proceedings.

A motion was filed in early March with the state of Texas for a tentative execution date of April 24. However, Swearingen “respectfully” requested a hearing in the 9th state District Court of Judge Kelly Case the week of May 12.

That hearing, if approved, would consider the effect of the appeals court’s remand on DNA testing, as well as the state’s request for an execution date, said James Rytting, Swearingen’s attorney.

“If they (the CCA) wanted to issue an execution date they could have established one by themselves,” Rytting said.

Swearingen was convicted for the murder of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. She was last seen leaving the Montgomery College campus with Swearingen on Dec. 8, 1998. Her body was found by hunters in the Sam Houston National Forest Jan. 2, 1999, north of Lake Conroe.

Trotter’s death was determined to be a homicide, and that she was sexually assaulted then strangled by piece of pantyhose.

Bill Delmore, appellate attorney with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said Swearingen’s attorneys have started “grasping at straws.”

In their opposition to the state’s request for an execution date, Swearingen’s attorneys contend where the Court of Criminal Appeals has remanded the case for additional proceedings, it “would be an abuse of discretion” to ignore the “plain language” of the opinion issued by the appellate court in this case and instead set an execution date.

However, Delmore said Swearingen’s case was remanded back to the district court in Montgomery County to deny future requests for DNA testing, and to set an execution date.

A briefing schedule for both parties regarding the effect of the appeals court’s remand was suggested by Rytting on or before May 2.

(yourhoustonnews)

TEXAS -Brandon Daniel transferred to Death Row

March 11, 2014

AUSTIN  — A week to the day that a jury sentenced Brandon Daniel to death by lethal injection for the April 2012 killing of Senior Austin Police Officer Jaime Padron, officials transferred him to Death Row.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials confirmed Daniel is in the Polunsky Prison in Polk County, Texas, after authorities transferred him on Friday.

Jurors — 10 women and two men — found Daniel guilty of capital murder after more than eight hours of deliberations and nine days of testimony.

“You are a coward and I hope you rot in hell,” Johnny Padron, Jaime’s older brother, said in a brief statement to Daniel following the sentence.

Amy Padron, Jaime’s ex-wife, also took the stand after the sentence was handed down, giving an emotion-packed speech where she read letters from her 8 and 12-year-old daughters.

“You made me cry,” one of the letters read. “Now it is your time to cry in prison for the rest of your life.”

“There are so many things you took away,” Matt Baldwin said to Daniel. Baldwin was Padron’s old partner in San Angelo. “I don’t know why you did it. I don’t care. So many lives were destroyed by what you did.

“Any moments of fame you may think you had, I want you to know that you lost,” Baldwin added. “You confirmed Jaime was the winner. Jaime was the hero.”

The weight of the jury’s life-or-death decision was not lost among those in the courtroom.

“You guys had a very difficult task. Your lives will never be the same from here on out,” Linda Diaz, Jaime’s sister, said to the jury. “You were doing your job. Please don’t carry this on your shoulders. You followed the instructions you were given.”

Daniel was remanded into custody to be transferred to The Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Prosecution’s closing arguments

“He is a future danger, and there is not one good reason not to sentence him to death,” said prosecuting attorney Bill Bishop, ending his argument.

Before closing, Bishop told jurors everything that can be considered to Daniel’s benefit came from him — adding that all of the defense experts only got their information from Daniel himself.

“It cannot be trusted. It is all his grand design,” said Bishop, referencing Daniel trying to find a Xanax and Ambien defense while in jail. “He laid out the clinical words he was supposed to say but he could not explain them.”

Bishop went on to say that Daniel gets his self-worth by taking pictures of himself with a gun, blowing a hole in his ceiling and taking a picture of the damage. Yet, Bishop pointed out that Daniel’s motive for having that gun on April 6, 2012, is still a mystery.

“For 22 months, he has pondered upon that and still cannot give an explanation as to why he took a loaded .380 to Walmart,” said Bishop. “You take a loaded .380 to Walmart to kill somebody, and that is what he did.”

Bishop said Daniel’s intention was not escape or to run away the morning of April 6, 2012.

“His intention was far more sinister,”-said Bishop, describing Daniel readying his weapon as he ran. “This is someone who gains his self-worth through evil that he has done.”

Bishop went on to describe Daniel’s fascination with Columbine and the Boston Marathon bombings.

The life of Jaime Padron was remembered by Assistant District Attorney Gary Cobb.

“In our society, we are critical of police until we need police,” said Cobb who reminded the jury about Padron’s military service in the Marines and his desire to serve the community.

Cobb called the shooting “A cold-blooded assassination” and said Jaime Padron’s two daughters already will be paying a price for the rest of their lives. He said a sentence of life in prison would force them to pay again. In a letter from jail, Daniel wrote he was “living the dream, retired at age 25.” In the patrol car ride after the shooting, he said he at lease would not have to work or pay for food.

“The man murdered your father in cold-blood and you will, as an adult when you start paying taxes, will pay for his room and board,” said Cobb as he posed the scenario. “If that is what passes for justice in this community, we should tear that flag down and blow up this courthouse, because it is wrong.”

Defense’s closing argument

Brad Urrutia took the floor for defense, talking about the Texas sentencing law.

“The next time he leaves prison will be in a coffin,” he said.

Urrutia said Daniel is going to a place where hardened criminals go to do time, not a club with a pool or tennis courts. In addition, Urrutia told the jury there is a pattern of the state trying to deceive the jury.

“They aren’t lying to you,” he said. “They are just trying to hide the truth.”

Urrutia said the alleged list that Daniel kept with jailers’ name on it doesn’t exist or else it would have been introduced as evidence. He continued to say that with all the talk about coded letters, the state never disclosed that, decoded, the letter said, “I love you, mom.”

Urrutia continued on during closing arguments to tear into inmate informant Louis Escalante’s testimony.

“You can’t trust a word that man says,” said Urrutia. “He is a liar … They [the prosecution] got in bed with Mr. Escalante and had to live with his fleas.”

He questioned: “They [the state] wants you to take a man’s life, and they bring you that kind of evidence to do it? … You really, really, should demand better evidence from your DA. It should not be half-truths and innuendo.”

Russell Hunt said Daniel’s life can still produce positives even behind prison walls. He mentioned Daniel’s intelligence and potential that allowed him to become a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard and develop programs still being used today.

“Brandon Daniel has expressed remorse and has responded to psychiatric medication in jail,” Hunt said about the prospect of Daniel’s future in prison.

Daniel’s sister has been sitting two rows behind the defense table for the entire trial and has spent much of it crying. His family may also be considered a mitigating factor.

“This person has value. He has value to others and is loved by others for  a reason.”

kxan.com

TEXAS – A Letter From Ray Jasper, Who Is About To Be Executed

march 3, 2014

Texas death row inmate Ray Jasper is scheduled to be put to death on March 19. He has written us a letter that, he acknowledges, “could be my final statement on earth.” It is well worth your time.

Read the whole story at Gawker

More evidence emerges that Texas almost certainly executed an innocent man. Todd Willingham-Yet another reason why our error-prone justice system should never have to the power over life and death.

february 27, 2014 (nytimes)

In the 10 years since Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham after convicting him on charges of setting his house on fire and murdering his three young daughters, family members and death penalty opponents have argued that he was innocent. Now newly discovered evidence suggests that the prosecutor in the case may have concealed a deal with a jailhouse informant whose testimony was a key part of the execution decision.

The battle to clear Mr. Willingham’s name has symbolic value because it may offer evidence that an innocent man was executed, something opponents of the death penalty believe happens more than occasionally. By contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote seven years ago that he was unaware of “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”

Mr. Willingham was convicted on charges of setting the 1991 fire in Corsicana, Tex., that killed his three children, and was sentenced to death the next year. The conviction rested on two pillars of evidence: analysis by arson investigators, and the testimony of a jailhouse informant, Johnny Webb, who said that Mr. Willingham had confessed the crime to him.

Mr. Willingham was convicted and executed in the killings. Associated Press

The arson investigation has since been discredited; serious questions were raised about the quality of the scientific analysis and testimony, which did not measure up to the standard of science even at the time. But the prosecutor who led the case shortly before Mr. Willingham’s execution argued that even though the arson analysis had been questioned, the testimony of Mr. Webb should be enough to deny any attempt for clemency.

In recent weeks, as part of an effort to obtain a posthumous exoneration from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry, lawyers working on Mr. Willingham’s behalf say they have found evidence that Mr. Webb gave his testimony in return for a reduced prison sentence. Evidence of an undisclosed deal could have proved exculpatory during Mr. Willingham’s trial or figured in subsequent appeals, but Mr. Webb and the prosecutor at trial, John Jackson — who would later become a judge — explicitly denied that any deal existed during Mr. Webb’s testimony.

In September, lawyers from the Innocence Project in New York filed an official request with the board to exonerate Mr. Willingham, citing the flawed fire science and Judge Jackson’s subsequent actions in the Webb case: efforts to cut Mr. Webb’s prison time and to downgrade the charges after the Willingham trial. The Innocence Project also contends that prosecutors suppressed an effort by Mr. Webb to recant his testimony.

But recantations in criminal cases are relatively common, said Walter M. Reaves Jr., a criminal defense lawyer who has worked on Mr. Willingham’s case, so the biggest open question has been whether Judge Jackson and Mr. Webb had made a deal. Judge Jackson, who has retired from the bench, continued to insist there was no deal, even in an interview last year.

What has changed is that investigators for the Innocence Project have discovered a curt handwritten note in Mr. Webb’s file in the district attorney’s office in Corsicana. The current district attorney, R. Lowell Thompson, made the files available to the Innocence Project lawyers, and in late November one of the lawyers, Bryce Benjet, received a box of photocopies.

As he worked through the stack of papers, he saw a note scrawled on the inside of the district attorney’s file folder stating that Mr. Webb’s charges were to be listed as robbery in the second degree, not the heavier first-degree robbery charge he had originally been convicted on, “based on coop in Willingham.”

Mr. Benjet recalled a “rush of excitement,” he said, and thought, “This is what we’ve been looking for.”

The Innocence Project submitted the note, which is not dated or signed, in a new filing to the board asking that it be included as part of its September request for a pardon.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, called the note a “smoking pistol” in the case.

“We’re reaching out to the principals to see if there is an innocent explanation for this,” he said. “I don’t see one.”

Judge Jackson did not respond to several requests for comment.

Mr. Thompson, the district attorney, said that while he willingly complied with the request for the Webb files, he had no opinion as to what happened during the Willingham trial in 1992. “I wasn’t even a college graduate yet,” he said.

As for Mr. Webb, he said, the robbery that put him in a cell with Mr. Willingham was not his only brush with the law. “I’ve also prosecuted him,” he said. “The D.A. before me prosecuted him, and the D.A. before him prosecuted him.”

Mr. Scheck said that the Willingham case suggested a fundamental weakness in the justice system: If Mr. Webb’s testimony “was really based on a deal and misrepresentation, then the system cannot be regulated,” he said. Under those circumstances, “you cannot prevent the execution of an innocent person.”

Even if the board ultimately agrees with Mr. Willingham’s advocates, the final decision will rest with Governor Perry (who has called Mr. Willingham “a monster” who killed his children) or with his successor in 2015.

Mr. Willingham’s stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, said: “I’m real thrilled that all this has come to light. We’ll see what happens. I can’t help but be hopeful.”

His cousin Patricia Cox said that if an exoneration does occur, the family has no plans to press for damages. “We’re not asking compensation,” she said. “We’re asking justice.”

Jailhouse Interview With Man on Death Row for Shooting, Killing Daughters – John David Battaglia

february 21, 2014 (nbc)

A Highland Park man is on death row for shooting and killing his two daughters more than a decade ago.

John David Battaglia was arrested for the May 2, 2001 shooting deaths of 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty in his downtown Dallas loft. The girls’ mother was on the phone and heard the gunshots.

Jurors found Battaglia guilty of capital murder and sentence him to death.

Battaglia, 58, is now on death row. Sarah Mervosh, a reporter with The Dallas Morning News, spoke with him for an hour in a jailhouse interview. Here is some of that interview.

Sarah Mervosh: “Do you feel like you were killing them to get back at your wife?”

Battaglia: “I don’t feel like I killed them.”

Mervosh: “You what?”

Battaglia: “I don’t feel like I killed them. I do not know why. If you read what I wrote, you will find that I am a little bit in the blank about what happened.”

Mervosh said Battaglia was persistent that he is innocent.

“From what he says and if I can infer that is true that he can’t remember what happened and he doesn’t feel like he did it,” Mervosh said.

During the interview, Battaglia talked about his late daughters.

“You think about your best little friends. Nicest little kids you’ve ever met. Not much you can do about that,” Battaglia said. “I have pictures of them up in my house. I have them on my table and on my wall, I have them around me all the time,” Battaglia said, speaking of his prison cell.

“I thought that was interesting that he wants to keep it in his line of sight, because it means something to him, and yet he killed them,” Mervosh later said.

Battaglia at one point turned on Mervosh, pointing his finger at her and yelling. But during the interview he saved most of his venom for the people he believes put him behind bars.

Sypnosis

John Battaglia was an abuser…. period.  Most of his abuse was directed at his two wives, however, there were others that were victims of his abuse.  As the classic abuser however, he was able to use charisma and charm to get out of things and to convince people that he was the victim.  Even when he was obviously caught he would blame the victim for pushing him to the point in which he abused.  Also, like many classic abusers, after he abused his spouse he would apologize and cool down to which the women would take him back and accept his apologies.   

Battaglia’s abuse to his first wife, to which he was often faced with legal problems began in the 1980’s.  During this time domestic abuse was not taken very seriously.  There was little talk about what went on behind closed doors and there was even less understanding as to the psyche of the abused woman.  His first wife, Michelle, saw a few personality things prior to their marriage and although it was still considered a bit taboo at the time Michelle considered not going through with the marriage and raising their daughter as a single mother.  While she was still pregnant with their daughter Michelle suffered mainly verbal abuse.  However, she began to see some signs of physical abuse towards her son from a previous relationship.  With each escalation of abuse Michelle would kick John out of the house but he would charm his way back in.  Finally the abuse to her and her son came to a point in which his charm had no affect on her and she worried that their daughter would be in danger.  She finally filed for divorce.  When John could no longer control or even charm Michelle this enraged him.  Michelle had gotten a restraining order against John but that did not stop him.  She repeatedly changed the locks to her home and he would charm a locksmith into making him a copy.  He would enter her home when she was not home and even when she was.  She often woke in the middle of the night to find him in the home.  At first it was even a challenge to prove that he was entering the home and doing things, then later it became a more challenge to get the authorities to do anything about it.  Generally they would set out an arrest warrant for him.  It would be a process of the police picking him up and taking him to the station where he would sign papers for his bail, pay the bail and walk out the door.  These arrests and legal troubles only infuriated John more, although he generally faced little to no repercussions for his actions. Finally John went too far.  He had hidden on a public street waiting for Michelle to pass and attacked her breaking her nose and dislocating her jaw…. and there was a witness.  He spent some time in jail for this offense, but, as I said domestic violence was not taken as serious.  Oftentimes the abused were (and still are at times) blamed for “pushing” the abuser.  At this point Michelle realizes the only way to get away was to move out of state to where her family lived.  Once she moved John’s criminal charges were still being debated.  She was informed that he likely would not serve anymore jail time than he had already but that he would get probation which would not allow him to leave Dallas, Texas where he lived.  At this point Michelle agreed with the agreement thinking the restrictions would keep her and her children safe.  Michelle never imagined that John would be given unsupervised visitation with their daughter.  

The ongoing belief at that time, and sadly still seems to be sometimes, is that when there is no evidence of abuse against the children but only against the spouse (or ex-spouse), there is no reason to limit contact between the abuser and their children.  Again, this goes back to the mentality that it is about pushing buttons and isolated abuse only to the one person. Michelle also never thought of the future and if her actions or decisions could ever possibly affect anyone else.  Her concern, as it should have been, was for the well being of herself and her children. 

After a few years John met Mary Jean.  They quickly married and over the course of the years had two daughters, Faith and Liberty.  Luckily for Mary Jean and her children for many years there was no physical abuse from John, but the verbal abuse was evident from the start of their marriage, just like it had been for Michelle.  For a long time Mary Jean knew little or at least believed little of what Michelle had been through with John.  For the most part after John met Mary Jean he left Michelle alone and their daughter visited her father one weekend a month.  John had always been fairly well about hiding things.  Then, like Michelle, after several outbursts of events in which John’s charm smoothed things over, Mary Jean also had had enough, kicked John out and filed for divorce.  

Just as Michelle did, Mary Jean obtained a protective order against John. And, just like Michelle, Mary Jean never imagined John would harm their children. Christmas of 1999 John came to Mary Jean’s house with his daughter with Michelle to pick up the girls.  Against her better judgment Mary Jean allowed him in the house because the girls wanted to show him their gifts and decorations.  While there John began attacking Mary Jean.  Ultimately he left, not taking any of the children with him.  Mary Jean filed charges against him. Just before they were to go to court John contacted Mary Jean and asked if they could sign the divorce papers the morning of court beforehand but at another location.  Mary Jean really did not want to risk being late to court but she also wanted the divorce to be over.  She went to where they were to meet only to find out that he had lied to her in attempts to make her late to court, to which she was.  She got a message to the lawyers that she was on the way but the judge refused to wait.  She was able to refile but ultimately John simply got two years of of probation after pleading guilty.  He was still not to contact Mary Jean and lost visitation for 30 days with the girls but that was all.  He repeatedly violated the order, just as he did when dealing with Michelle.  Once was for testing positive for drugs and also by contacting Mary Jean.  

By May 12, 2001 Mary Jean had filed charges against John more than two weeks before.  Earlier that day there was finally a warrant made for John’s arrest.  It was a day of visitation (for a 2 hour dinner) for him with Faith and Liberty.  Earlier in the day John had gotten someone to contact Mary Jean to see if she was going to allow visitation (there’s no prove of his claims that she ever denied him) and that they would meet in their normal public place.  He also became aware of the warrant for his arrest and talked to his probation officer as well as a detective.  Both assured him that he would not be arrested that evening while with his children.  However, he called the girls, on a phone line that was just for them, telling them that he would likely be arrested while he saw them that evening and that he likely would not see them for a year and that it was their mothers fault.  Mary Jean assured them that he would not be arrested that night and that even if he were put in jail it would not be for a year.  At this point neither girl was very interested in going to see their father but Mary Jean encouraged it and met him at the designated time and place. 


A short time after dropping them off and going to a friends house Mary Jean received a phone call from her mother.  John had contacted her asking that she get a hold of Mary Jean because the girls wanted to talk to her.  Although she was not at home they had called Mary Jean’s home phone and left a message for her to call them back.  When Mary Jean called back John answered and then turned on the speaker phone demanding to Faith,  “ask her.”  Through tears Faith asked Mary Jean why she wanted her Daddy to go to jail.  Always trying to keep her children out of the middle of their problems, Mary Jean chastised John for putting the children in that position.  Suddenly she heard Faith yelling “No, Daddy, please don’t” and Mary Jean heard several shots from a gun.  Suddenly John came back to the phone and said “Merry Fucking Christmas.”  


Rushing to his home Mary Jean called 911.  She expected to get to John’s home and see several police officers but no one was there and she was scared to go to his loft apartment, not only for her own life, but for what she would find.  Her call had not properly been handled.  First it was to be transferred to another district since that was where John lived and secondly it was listed as a simple domestic issue and had a low priority.  While outside John’s apartment building Mary Jean saw a police officer and flagged him down.  He called for backup before entering the apartment.  Once in they found the bodies of the girls each shot several times, with one shot through the head.  They also found several firearms in the apartment. What they did not find was John.  A man hunt was made for him.  He was found several hours later intoxicated by alcohol and drugs coming out of a tattoo parlor in which he had gotten a tattoo of two roses, telling the woman who had gone with him it was to represent his daughters so he had them forever.  The woman had no idea that John had killed his daughters.


John was ultimately convicted and currently sits on death row in Texas but the story does not end there.  While in some areas by 2001 domestic violence was taken more serious than it had been in previous years, it still was not a high priority everywhere. Further, it was widely believed that while a father may be physically abusive to a mother that did not mean they were a danger to their children and there was no need for supervised visitation with the abusive spouse.  Whether John has openly admitted it, I am not sure, but it is widely believed that this was solely done as an act of revenge against Mary Jean.  This case proved that domestic violence and child visitation and custody need to be more closely watched and related.  However, I must admit that in the recent case of Josh Powell, it was proven even those who are violent are capable of getting around even supervision.  


John Battaglia tormented and abused both of his wives for many years.  He never cared who was around, including his own children, when he abused them.  He never batted an eye to bad mouth the mothers to his children.  The courts allowed this behavior and in the end his children suffered the ultimately sacrifice. 

After Death Row in Texas, I’m Fighting to End the Death Penalty – Kerry Max Cook

february 22, 2014

My name is Kerry Max Cook, but for two decades, I was known as “Cook, Execution number 600.” Innocent of the murder and rape I was accused of in 1977, my home became a tiny death row cell in Texas, the state that kills more people than anywhere else in the U.S. by far — including 141 of my fellow inmates before my release in 1999. By then, my only brother had been murdered and my Dad had died of cancer. My Mom died soon after. I was stabbed, raped and routinely abused on death row. My ordeal spanned two generations of the Smith County District Attorney’s office, two wrongful convictions, two reversals of conviction, a walk to the execution chamber, and three capital murder trials. My legal team and I have been unable to find a worse case of prosecutorial misconduct in Texan history.

I avoided a fourth trial only by pleading no contest, while making no admission of guilt. I have never been officially exonerated. Author John Grisham said, “If it were fiction, no one would believe it …”

I am, in fact, innocent. Another man’s DNA was found on the victim’s clothing two months after my release. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals accused Smith County prosecutors of “willful misconduct” in my case. Nonetheless that office remains determined to stop me clearing my name. My lawyers are working to file an application for writ of habeas corpus in coming months, hopefully prompting the appeals court in Austin to officially exonerate me and end my 36-year-old nightmare.

It all began in 1977. I was 20 and working as a bartender when a waitress said the manager wanted to see me. I stepped into a pitch-black room that was usually lit by fluorescent lighting and fumbled for the switch. Suddenly, hands reached out to grab both sides of me. The silver Smith & Wesson handcuffs crashed down on my wrist and I heard the detective’s words, “Kerry Max Cook, you’re under arrest for the capital murder of Linda Edwards” — a name I didn’t even recognize.

At the police station, they used my head as a toilet plunger. I knew the policeman was lying as he rammed my head repeatedly down the bowl filled with dark urine, screamed at me to confess and told me they had found my DNA on the body. I wept for my mother and father, for anyone, to help.

Even though I still bear the mental and physical scars and ongoing indignities of my wrongful conviction and imprisonment, I consider myself lucky. I have a wife and son. I have powerful allies — including Amnesty International, which found me in a dark cell and helped raise awareness of my wrongful conviction in 1991. It literally saved my life. I was so proud to be introduced by Susan Sarandon at Amnesty’s Bringing Human Rights Home concert in Brooklyn February 5 and address the audience as my 13-year-old Kerry Justice Cook looked on. I was proud to honor a powerful, global movement of activists who carry Amnesty’s torch for human rights — including my right to life. That is why I support Amnesty’s abolition work and the efforts by courageous activists on the ground, most urgently in New Hampshire, where a repeal vote in the state House is anticipated early next month.

The death penalty should be abolished across the United States, and everywhere. We do not need any more mistakes. We know that 143 people have served time on US death rows for crimes they were wrongfully convicted of. And imagine this. On appeal, the only question becomes whether the defendant received a fair and impartial trial. So if the evidence is made up, like in my case, you die.

The price of this system is a life. Of course the odds are stacked in your favor if you have access to financial resources, but you won’t be surprised to hear that you don’t meet too many people like that on death row.

One of death row’s other dirty little secrets is that it is a repository for every conceivable mental illness. Its population consists largely of untreated, traumatized children who grew up into broken adults. There are exceptions, of course, but I do not believe that even the guilty on death row are irredeemable. As Rosalind says in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, “Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders.” If my case proves anything, it is that only time can tell if someone is guilty.

No prosecutor should have the power to end another human life. No other living soul should endure what I did. So I am praying now for victory, by Amnesty International USA and all those who are pushing to end this barbaric practice, in New Hampshire, and everywhere. Then, my nightmare will be over.

Click here to read more about Kerry’s fight for justice, and here to read about his work on self-empowerment.