Texas executes Richard Cobb

Richard Cobb

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas inmate was executed Thursday for fatally shooting one of three people he and a partner abducted during a convenience store robbery nearly 11 years ago after the U.S. Supreme Court refused a last-day appeal seeking to halt the punishment. He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m.

Richard Cobb, 29, didn't deny using a 20-gauge shotgun to kill Kenneth Vandever in an East Texas field where two women also were shot and one was raped. He was convicted of capital murder.

His lawyers from the University of Houston-based Texas Innocence Network unsuccessfully contended in an appeal to the high court that a prison expert at Cobb's trial in 2004 falsely described how much freedom the convicted Cobb could expect if Cherokee County jurors gave him life in prison rather than a death sentence.

Cobb's attorneys argued that in at least four other death row cases with similar testimony, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered reviews of those punishments.

In a brief order last week, the state court refused Cobb's appeal as being filed improperly and dismissed it without considering the merits of the claim. The Supreme Court justices needed to address whether Cobb's equal protection or due process rights were violated, Cobb's attorneys said.

The justices, in a brief order about two hours before Cobb's execution, rejected the appeal and refused to halt the punishment.

State lawyers said the state court's ruling was legally correct and that the expert testimony was factually and procedurally different from the other cases cited, as well as accurate in Cobb's trial.

Cobb's lethal injection was the fourth execution this year in Texas and third this month.

On Sept. 2, 2002, Vandever and the two women were abducted from a store in Rusk, about 120 miles southeast of Dallas, and taken to a field about 10 miles away. All three were shot and left for dead. Vandever, 37, died, but the women managed to get help and later testified against Cobb and his partner, Beunka Adams.

Cobb was 18 at the time of the attack, on probation for auto theft and a high school dropout. Cobb and Adams were arrested in Jacksonville, about 25 miles away, the day after the crime. It was the latest in a series of robberies tied to them.

Cobb testified at his trial he began using drugs at age 12 and turned to robbery to pay off a drug debt.

Adams was executed a year ago this week for his participation in the slaying.

Vandever had frequented the store in Rusk and would do things like take out the trash. An auto accident had left him with the mental capacity of a child.

Cobb's trial attorneys unsuccessfully tried to show Adams forced Cobb to shoot Vandever by threatening Cobb. The survivors of the attack said they never heard such threats, but heard Vandever plead that he needed his medication and scream when he was shot.

"Basically, it was an act of compulsion," Cobb said of the abductions and shootings. He described himself to The Associated Press shortly after arriving on death row in 2004 as "young, dumb and made a mistake."

"I'm guilty of the crime," he said.

He told the Jacksonville Daily Progress last month from prison he didn't want to die "but I'm ready for it."

Richard Cobb final words were: "Life is death, death is life. I hope that someday this absurdity that humanity has come to will come to an end," Cobb said when asked if he had any last words. "Life is too short. I hope anyone that has negative energy towards me will resolve that.

"Life is too short to harbor feelings of hatred and anger. That's it, warden."

Just before the lethal drug took effect, he added:

"Wow! That is great! That is awesome! Thank you warden! Thank you (expletive) warden!"

At least 11 other Texas inmates have executions scheduled for the coming months, including three in May.

Sources: AP, Rick Halperin, April 26, 2013

Transcript of an interview with Death Row inmate Richard Cobb

LIVINGSTON — Following is a transcript containing most of the roughly 30-minute interview Jacksonville Daily Progress reporter conducted with Death Row inmate Richard Cobb March 6 at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, a facility that holds nearly 3,000 inmates.

There were a few additional minutes of interview after the tape recorder had reached capacity:

• Cobb related that he had been disciplined for somehow sneaking a cellular phone into his cell.

• Cobb said he was adopted and had just came into contact with his birth mother around the time his execution date was announced. At the time of the interview the birth mother had recently fallen out of contact with Cobb.

• Cobb initially canceled the interview but changed his mind before the reporter left the Death Row facility. He later told the reporter it was because he woke up in a bad mood.

• Cobb was skittish about discussing specifics about the case, so the reporter was forced to tip-toe around certain subjects and ask several generic "how are you doing?" questions.

FOLLOWING IS THE INTERVIEW:

TINSLEY: Okay. We're talking to Richard Cobb. He's here on Death Row and basically I wanted to, I guess, ask you first off, Richard, if you had, you've been in here ten years, correct? If you had anything you really want to say, anything up front on your mind. About the case, about life, about anything.

COBB: No, nothing. No nothing, especially.

TINSLEY: Ten years ago is a lot of appeals. I was wondering if you would mind walking me through what happened, from your perspective.

COBB: I'm not going to go into anything about the crime itself.

TINSLEY: I gotcha. Do you have any last appeals prepared?

COBB: No, not really. You know, we've shooting and trying, you know, to get. There's nothing, As far as formal appeals go, its exhausted. Just some kind of last-ditch thing at the last minute. What you're formally given is all exhausted.

TINSLEY: Well, just on a personal note, that's got to be rough on you, right?

COBB: Yeah, you know.

TINSLEY: I mean, is there some frustration there?

COBB: Yeah. There's plenty of frustration because there's so much you want to experience that you know you won't: Looking back you know I never really had a life and whenever I thought I did, that got taken way from me. There was a lot (unintelligible) but at the same time it will be somewhat of a relief because I won't be imprisoned anymore. No more captivity. Oppression. Oppressive atmosphere of a death row person.

Click here to read the full interview

Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress, Ben Tinsley, April 25, 2013

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