FEATURED POST

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Texas: Family of Austin man on death row hopes new DNA analysis will reopen case

Published
Family of Austin man on death row hopes new DNA analysis will reopen case
There are questions surrounding nearly 1,000 criminal convictions in Travis County.

Delia Perez Meyer says her brother, Louis Castro Perez, is among the death row inmates who received a Brady notice stating his case could be compromised due to new DNA information. Meyer hopes reanalysis will prove her brother's innocence.

"That picture's been sitting there for 18 years," Meyer says while pointing to the center of her kitchen table, where you'll find the center of her world. "It's 99.9 % of my life."

Meyer said defending her brother's innocence has become her life's work.

"We've just been fighting."

Perez is on Texas death row for the 1998 murders of 31-year-old Michelle Fulwiler, 38-year-old Cinda Barz and Barz's 9-year-old daughter, Staci Mitchell. The women worked for the Travis County Juvenile Probation Department, and evidence indicated Louis fatally beat the women with a cast iron skillet and strangled the young girl in their Austin home.

"I have never thrown away one shred of evidence that I thought may help my brother someday," Meyer says.

Now, some of the DNA evidence is under review. It was last fall when the Perez family and his attorney received a letter from the Travis County District Attorney's Office, outlining issues the Texas Commission on Forensic Science found with the way DNA was analyzed. It could impact cases across the state, including those like Perez's, where DPS analyzed the DNA evidence. 

Upon receiving the letter, Perez's attorney says she immediately requested a re-analysis.

"Now, 18 years later, Louis' case is not the only one that was possibly messed up."

As KXAN reported 2 weeks ago, legal experts say it was a change in scientific standards that's prompting the unprecedented statewide analysis. The issue is not with the actual testing of what are called DNA mixtures, but rather, with the probabilities scientists generate. Prosecutors often use these probabilities as evidence of the degree of the tests' conclusiveness.

DNA mixtures are cases where evidence from a crime scene contains 2 or more persons DNA profiles.

"I think the science evolved in the area of how to calculate the frequency that certain DNA profiles appear at random in the population," said Bob Wicoff, director of the Texas DNA Mixture Review Project.

Meyer says as she looks forward, she can't help but flash back to where it all began: in court, the day her brother was given the death penalty.

Her last words to her brother were, "I know at some point the truth is going to come out."

"And I think maybe we're closer to the truth now than ever before," says Meyer.

Source: KXAN news, September 17, 2016

⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
Location: Texas, USA
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
Read more

Could Moscow attack suspects face execution in Belarus?

Published
Image
After the deadly terrorist attack at Moscow's Crocus City Hall, some Russian politicians are debating trying the suspects to Belarus, which still has death penalty. But it's not that simple. The terror attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall has ignited debate about the reintroduction of the death sentence in Russia. Given that 140 people died and more than 500 were wounded at the concert hall on March 22, 2024, emotions are running high.
Read more

Iran | 9 prisoners executed in a single day

Published
Image
9 prisoners of drug charges executed in the central prisons of Kerman, Chabahar and GhezelHesar According to the Iranian Human Rights Society website, on Sunday, April 21st, 2024, 9 prisoners including, Baloch and Kurdish drug suspects were executed in the central prisons of Kerman, Chah bahar, and GhezelHesar.  
Read more

Bill Moves Forward to Prevent Use of Nitrogen Gas Asphyxiation in Louisiana Executions

Published
Image
There’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430. When Louisiana legislators approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation as an execution method during a second special legislative session in February, the move attracted national attention; not the least because it has only been used in the U.S. once. That’s when Alabama executed convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith on January 25th of this year. Now there’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430.
Read more

Punjab | Woman sentenced to death for kidnapping, burying toddler alive

Published
Image
Neelam sentenced to death for burying toddler alive after kidnapping her, in a rare and heinous crime. The court found her guilty of murder and destruction of evidence, causing outrage in society. LUDHIANA: Over two years after the brutal murder of a toddler, the woman who killed her was sentenced to death by a local court. The convict had buried her neighbour’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter alive. 
Read more

Alabama lawmakers reject bill which would allow some death row inmates to be resentenced

Published
Image
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - An Alabama House committee rejected a bill that would have impacted sentences for dozens of death row inmates. The proposal would have required courts to resentence people sentenced to death by a judge who overrode a jury’s recommendation of life in prison. That practice was outlawed in 2017. Representative Chris England passionately argued it should be retroactively applied for more than 30 death row inmates who were sentenced to death over a jury’s recommendation.
Read more