Texas: Michael Rosales executed

Texas has executed a parole violator for beating and using kitchen tools to kill a 67-year-old woman during a burglary at her Lubbock apartment.

35-year-old Michael Rosales was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. CDT Wednesday.

He confessed to the 1997 slaying of Mary Felder a day after Felder's body was found by her grandson, who routinely checked on her. Rosales told police he was high on cocaine and looking for money when he broke into her home as she slept. She was attacked when she woke up.

At a tight-knit apartment complex community in Lubbock, 67-year-old Mary Felder "Miss Mary" to the residents was everybodys grandmother, known for candy and cookies and other goodies available to the neighborhood kids.

"She was such a wonderful woman," said Ken Hawk, a former Lubbock district attorney.

That made it all the more shocking nearly a dozen years ago when her grandson, who routinely would check on Felder at her place at the Four Seasons Apartments, found her viciously beaten and stabbed to death.

Attorneys from the Texas Defender Service, a legal group involved in death penalty issues, lost a bid Tuesday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the punishment. Their appeal argued Rosales was entitled to a qualified lawyer who should have at least 6 months to draw up a state clemency petition and further pursue claims Rosales may be mentally retarded and ineligible for execution.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in a Tennessee case, said the government should pay for federally appointed lawyers to work on state clemency requests for condemned inmates.

The Texas Attorney General's Office had opposed Rosales' appeal, arguing he'd already missed a state deadline for filing a clemency petition and allowing him to do so now would circumvent state procedures and open the door for every condemned inmate to file a last-minute clemency request after the deadline had passed. They also pointed out Rosales mental retardation claims previously were rejected by the courts.

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, acting on claims Rosales was mentally retarded, stopped Rosales' scheduled execution in 2004.

Rosales becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 436th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982. Rosales becomes the 197th condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry became governor in 2001. Rosales becomes the 21st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1157th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin, April 16, 2009