Wednesday

TEXAS- UPCOMING EXECUTION Kimberly McCarty JUNE 26, 2013 Executed

Update june 26

Update June 25

Texas’ highest criminal court has denied a request to block a Dallas County woman’s execution this week.

Kimberly McCarthy’s execution would be the 500th in Texas since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982. She contends black jurors were improperly excluded from her trial by Dallas County prosecutors and this wasn’t challenged by her lawyers.

But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin denied McCarthy’s request on Monday. The court said it didn’t consider the merits of McCarthy’s appeal because she should have raised her claims previously.

Maurie Levin, McCarthy’s attorney, said she is “reviewing the order and considering our options.”

McCarthy, 52, also would be the first woman put to death in the U.S. since 2010 if she receives lethal injection on Wednesday.

UPDATE JUNE 20

APPEAL FILED FOR KIMBERLY McCARTHY

DALLAS – Attorneys for Kimberly McCarthy filed an appeal Wednesday designed to block her execution.

The motion was made in the 292nd District Court of Dallas County, the site of McCarthy’s original trial on a charge of murdering her neighbor.

If McCarthy does not succeed in her appeals, she is slated to be executed Wednesday..

june 19 2013 source : http://www.kwtx.com

Kimberly McCarthy (Texas prison photo)

The lawyer for former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy, 52, who’s scheduled to die next week for the murder of an elderly neighbor, has filed an appeal in an effort to block the execution.

McCarthy, who’s on women’s death row in Gatesville, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next Wednesday.

If she does, she would be the first woman put to death in the U.S. since 2010 and the 500th prisoner executed in Texas since the death penalty resumed in 1982.

She was sentenced to die for the fatal stabbing, beating and robbery of her 71-year-old neighbor, retired college professor Dorothy Booth, in 1997.

McCarthy’s state court appeal contends black jurors were improperly excluded from her trial, and that her lawyers should have challenged the exclusions.

Lawyer Maurie Levin says the punishment should be stopped in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision backing another Texas prisoner who raised similar arguments about attorney competence.

I. BACKGROUND

On July 21, 1997 McCarthy entered the home of her 71-year-old neighbor Dorothy Booth under the pretense of borrowing some sugar and then “stabbed Mrs. Booth five times, hit her in the face with a candelabrum, cut off her left ring finger in order to take her diamond ring, and nearly severed her left little finger as well.” McCarthy v. State, No. 74590, 2004 WL 3093230, at *2 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). McCarthy then took Mrs. Booth’s purse and its contents, along with her wedding ring and fled in her car. Later, McCarthy bought drugs with the stolen money, used the stolen credit cards, and pawned the stolen wedding ring. This was the last in a series of robbery-murders that McCarthy committed against her elderly female acquaintances.

On August 18, 1997, McCarthy was charged with capital murder for causing Booth’s death in the course of committing and attempting to commit robbery. (Vol. 1, State Clerk’s Record, “CR”, at 2-3) Her first conviction and death-sentence in 1998 was reversed on direct appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“CCA”). See McCarthy v. State, 65 S.W.3d 47 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (hereinafter “McCarthy I”). She was subsequently tried and found guilty of capital murder in November of 2002, which was affirmed, see McCarthy v. State, 2004 WL 3093230 (“McCarthy II”), and her petition for a writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States. McCarthy v. Texas, 545 U.S. 1117 (2005). McCarthy filed her second state habeas action on August 24, 2004, which was denied (without an evidentiary hearing in the trial court) by the CCA on September 12, 2007. Ex parte McCarthy, No. 50,360-02, 2007 WL 2660306 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). On September 11, 2008, McCarthy filed in this court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus within the one-year limitations period.

Victim Dorothy Booth, 71.

Texas AG: New tests don’t clear death row inmate – HANK SKINNER

November 14, 2012

New DNA testing in the case of a Texas Panhandle man on death row for a New Year’s Eve triple-slaying doesn’t support an alternate theory of the crime, the state attorney general’s office said Wednesday.

Hank Skinner once came within an hour of execution for the 1993 killings of girlfriend Twila Busby and her two grown sons in Pampa, about 50 miles northeast of Amarillo. Now 50, Skinner’s execution has been stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Both his attorney and prosecutors agreed in June to new DNA testing of evidence.

The attorney general’s office filed a court advisory Wednesday that says new testing “does not support Skinner’s claim that an alternative suspect is the real killer.”

Skinner has argued he wasn’t the killer because he was passed out on a couch from a mix of vodka and codeine. The AG’s advisory says traces of Skinner’s DNA were located in blood in the bedroom where one of Busby’s sons, Randy Busby, was found stabbed to death. Prosecutors said his DNA also was matched to blood stains throughout the house.

Skinner attorney Rob Owen objected to Wednesday’s advisory, calling its findings premature. In a statement, Owen said it was “troubling” that the AG’s office submitted a report while testing was still ongoing. The AG’s office says both sides are discussing whether to conduct more tests.

“We will remain unable to draw any strong conclusions about whether the DNA testing has resolved the stubborn questions about Hank Skinner’s guilt or innocence until additional DNA testing has been completed, and the data underlying that DNA testing has been made available to our experts for a detailed review,” Owen said in the statement.

While Skinner’s DNA was found on the handle of a bloody knife on Twila Busby’s front porch, Owen said the handle also had genetic material from two other people: Busby’s other slain son, Elwin Caler, and a third person other than Skinner or the victims. Owen said an unknown person’s DNA also was found on the carpet of the sons’ bedroom.

Skinner has acknowledged he argued with Busby on the night she was killed and that he was inside the house where the victim’s bodies were found. He was found about three hours after the bodies were discovered, hiding in a closet at the home of a woman he knew. Blood from at least two of the victims was found on him.

The attorney general’s office had argued against DNA testing, which Skinner’s trial attorneys did not request, but changed course. The state agreed to allow testing of a list of 40 items, though not a windbreaker jacket Skinner’s advocates consider crucial to establishing an alternate suspect’s guilt.