Texas executes Jesse Joe Hernandez

Jesse J. Hernandez

A convicted child sex offender was executed Wednesday for the beating death of a 10-month-old boy he was baby-sitting at a home in Dallas.

Jesse Joe Hernandez smiled and laughed at times before receiving a lethal injection for the slaying of Karlos Borja 11 years ago.

"God bless everybody. Continue to walk with God," the 47-year-old Hernandez said. Moments later, he shouted "Go Cowboys!" in honor of his favorite football team.

As the drugs took effect, the condemned man repeated his appreciation for those he knew who had gathered to witness the execution. "Love y'all, man," Hernandez said. "... Thank you. I can feel it, taste it. It's not bad."

He took about 10 deep breaths, which grew progressively weaker until he was no longer moving. 10 minutes later, at 6:18 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

No one related to the slain child attended the execution, the 4th this year in Texas. It was carried out about 2 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied last-ditch appeals for Hernandez.

10-month-old Karlos was taken to a Dallas hospital in April 2001 with a skull fracture and bruises to his head, thigh and abdomen. A week later, he was taken off life support and died. His 4-year-old sister had similar beating injuries to her head, ears and eyes but survived.

Hernandez's DNA was found in Karlos' blood on a pillowcase and on the child's clothing. The boy's sister drew stick figures for detectives to help describe her attack.

Hernandez denied beating the children but later told a detective he may have hit the boy with a flashlight. He did not include the flashlight reference in a written confession in which he said he "just exploded" and struck them with the back of his hand.

"They were being very bad by crying a lot for nothing," Hernandez wrote.

Howard Blackmon, the former assistant district attorney in Dallas County who prosecuted Hernandez, recalled seeing photos of the badly bruised boy connected to tubes while in the hospital and his sister's red, bruised forehead.

"I don't think Hernandez admitted to any intent to kill," he said. "He did admit to striking."

Jurors saw those images and also learned that Hernandez had a previous conviction for molesting a child and drug possession, had beat his ex-wife with a baseball bat, burned a girlfriend's child with cigarettes and was found with a shank while locked up in jail.

Court records showed Hernandez and his wife of 6 years had been living with the 2 children and their 22-year-old mother about 3 days in a Dallas house that had no running water. Hernandez and his wife were to watch the children while their mother was working as a waitress.

On April 11, 2001, Hernandez's wife left to run some errands. When she returned he told her the kids were sleeping and not to disturb them. Hours later, after their mother returned from work, the girl complained her head was hurting and the mother took her to a hospital. While they were gone, Hernandez's wife checked on Karlos, discovered his injuries and called paramedics. Police were then notified.

In trying to stop the execution, Hernandez's attorneys unsuccessfully argued that his trial lawyers were deficient because they didn't pursue evidence that the boy was prematurely removed from life support and had toxic levels of the drug pentobarbital in his blood. The same barbiturate is used in the execution process in Texas.

The attorneys also claimed an initial appeals lawyer did not investigate the case beyond the trial record and that failure cost Hernandez his lone opportunity to raise substantive legal claims following his conviction.

Brad Levenson, director of the Texas Office of Capital Writs, said a more thorough investigation could have shown Hernandez wasn't responsible for the child's death.

The Texas attorney general's office opposed any delay, questioning whether the high court even had jurisdiction in the case because constitutional claims weren't raised earlier in state courts.

Hernandez becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 481st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982. Hernandez becomes the 242nd condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry became governor of Texas in 2001.

At least 6 other condemned Texas inmates have execution dates scheduled for the coming months.

Hernandez becomes the 12th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1289th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. As many as 8 executions may be carried out in the USA in April.

Sources: Associated Press, Rick Halperin, March 28, 2012

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida to execute William Silvia for 2006 shooting murder of wife

William Silvia, convicted of the 2006 shooting murder of his wife, Patricia, is scheduled to die by lethal injection in August, according to a death warrant filed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 17. If all previously scheduled executions go as planned, Silvia will be the 13th person put to death in Florida this year, following a record-breaking 19 executions in 2025. Silvia, now 61, went to his estranged wife's mother's house in Seminole County to attempt to reconcile with her, but first he calmly bought a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition, prosecutors said. After talking to Patricia Silvia, Silvia got the shotgun from his truck, shot her mother, Betty Woodard, in the face, and fatally shot Patricia in the head, court records show. Woodard, who was standing in front of her daughter, lost her left eye and the top portion of her nose.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog