Texas sends just 4 killers to death row as Texans lose taste for eye-for-an-eye justice

Dallas County twice tried to condemn killers but didn't send anyone to death row in 2017.

It hasn't for three years — and neither has Harris County.

Both were once leaders in a state known for putting convicted killers to death.

And although Texas remained the national leader in executions in 2017 — with seven — executions and new death sentences have been steadily declining over the past decade.

Nationwide, there were 39 death sentences issued in 2017, and 31 percent of those came from just three counties: Riverside County, Calif.; Clark County, Nev.; and Maricopa County, Ariz., according to a year-end study by the Death Penalty Information Center.

In Texas, only four people were sent to death row this year.

And for the first time in more than 30 years, no one from Harris County was executed in 2017. Only one from Dallas was executed.

Terry Edwards, 43, was put to death by lethal injection in January after judges denied multiple appeals claiming he had deficient legal counsel. His lawyers alleged he wasn't the triggerman in a deadly 2002 robbery at a Balch Springs Subway.

Nationally, only about half of Americans support the death penalty, a 45-year low, according to the year-end study.

Support is waning in Texas, too.

In 2017, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed six executions. Over three years, the court granted 21 stays, compared with just three between 2012 and 2014, according to the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

"The chorus of voices raising concerns about the death penalty is growing louder every day," said Kristin Houlé, executive director of the coalition. "Concerned citizens and elected officials should take a closer look at the realities of this irreversible, arbitrary, and costly punishment and pursue alternative means of achieving justice."

Meanwhile, the controversy over capital punishment is on the rise, whether because of botched executions, the exoneration of inmates who have spent decades on death row or the disproportionate number of minorities sentenced to death.

Legal reforms have also given prisoners more chances to have their sentences reviewed, and pursuing the death penalty can cost taxpayers millions.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson has said her office considers the severity of the crime, the desires of the victim's family and the criminal background of the accused before seeking the death penalty.

"Our office only seeks the death penalty in the most heinous and serious of crimes," Johnson said this year.

In 2018, Dallas and Harris counties will account for the first three executions — if they're carried out as planned.

"Across the political spectrum, more people are coming to the view that there are better ways to keep us safe than executing a handful of offenders selected from a random death-penalty lottery." -- Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center

Two-time killer William Rayford, 64, is scheduled to die Jan. 30. He was convicted of the brutal 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Carol Lynn Thomas Hall. The 44-year-old was stabbed, strangled and beaten before her body was discarded in a creek. At the time, Rayford was on parole after serving eight years of a 23-year sentence for killing his wife.

John Battaglia is scheduled for execution Feb. 1. The 62-year-old killed his daughters — Faith, 9, and Liberty, 6 — in 2001 at his Deep Ellum loft while on the phone with their mother.

"No, Daddy! Don't do it!" Faith pleaded, moments before her father pulled the trigger in an act of revenge against his ex-wife.

Battaglia was set to be executed in March 2016 but was granted a stay after seeking new legal counsel to help appeal the sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his death sentence this year after he was found mentally competent.

About half of the death penalty cases tried in Texas since 2015 have resulted in a death sentence. In Dallas, prosecutors tried two death penalty cases in 2017, but jurors couldn't condemn the men.

A Dallas County jury deadlocked on whether Erbie Lee Bowser should be put to death for killing his girlfriend and her daughter at their Dallas home before driving to DeSoto, where he killed his estranged wife and her daughter.

Four others were seriously injured in the attack. Bowser's defense argued the man didn't pose any continuing threat to society. He'll spend the rest of his life in prison.

Justin Smith killed three people in a drug house robbery, but jurors indicated they couldn't agree on whether there were reasons to save his life.

Smith took a plea deal to save his life while the jury deliberated.

The Dallas County district attorney's office has two pending death penalty cases, including the alleged gunman accused of killing dentist Kendra Hatcher in 2015 at an Uptown apartment parking garage. His trial is set for October.

Brenda Delgado, who's accused of hiring Kristopher Love to kill Hatcher, is not eligible for the death sentence because of an extradition agreement with Mexico.

The second case is a new punishment trial for a man who has been on death row for nearly a decade. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a reprieve for Hector Rolando Medina because of his defense attorney's "deficient performance."

The Irving man was convicted of killing his baby girl and 3-year-old son in 2007. His attorney refused to call any witnesses to try to spare Medina's life during the punishment phase.

The district attorney had planned to seek the death penalty against a man accused of abducting 18-year-old Zoe Hastings from a Walgreens in Lake Highlands and then killing her in her minivan.

The office reversed the decision in November because the alleged killer, 36-year-old Antonio Cochran, was deemed intellectually disabled.

Cochran's capital murder trial is set to start Jan. 8.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Texas to use modern medical standards to determine whether death row inmates are fit to be executed. The state had used medical standards from 1992.

Nationwide, four death row inmates were exonerated in 2017 because of flawed forensics, poor defense and prosecutorial misconduct, the national year-end report showed.

The report also showed that less than 1 percent of counties sentenced anyone to death, and 85 percent of counties have never executed anyone.

"Across the political spectrum, more people are coming to the view that there are better ways to keep us safe than executing a handful of offenders selected from a random death-penalty lottery," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in the nonprofit's year-end report.

Source: Dallas News, Tasha Tsiaperas, December 30, 2017

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

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Comments

Kansas AG urges governor to deny clemency to 8 sentenced to death

TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach on Tuesday urged the governor to deny clemency to Kansas inmates who have been sentenced to death. Eight of nine people sentenced to death in Kansas formally filed clemency requests in May, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office. Kobach urged Gov. Laura Kelly to reject them.

Idaho will soon turn to firing squad executions. Police will pull the triggers

Trained members of Idaho law enforcement with demonstrated firearms proficiency are expected to fill slots for carrying out the death penalty by firing squad as the state prison system transitions to the controversial execution method next month. Six volunteers certified for no less than three years apiece through Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, will be recruited to ensure the Idaho Department of Correction is ready to comply with a state law that prioritizes shooting prisoners to death over lethal injection starting July 1. No one on the team may have faced disciplinary action over firearms, use of force, or related conduct over the prior year, according to new execution protocols the prison system released this week.

SCOTUS: Alabama can’t execute Jeffery Lee by nitrogen; Thursday execution called off

After a week of legal volleyball, Alabama death row inmate Jeffery Lee’s execution—scheduled for Thursday evening—was called off after federal courts called the state’s nitrogen gas execution method “likely unconstitutional.” The state took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping Lee could still be put to death tonight. In an order issued at 8:10 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that it would not lift a ban on Alabama executing Lee via nitrogen . In a short court order, the justices denied Alabama’s motion to go ahead with the execution. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the appeal and let the execution proceed, according to the order.

Alabama | Judge bars nitrogen gas execution, says method is unconstitutionally cruel

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas after declaring it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Emily Marks issued the ruling hours after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional. Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas. He was scheduled to be executed Thursday. The decision, for now, blocks the use of the controversial new execution method that the state has championed since 2024, but the issue will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

With nitrogen gas blocked, Alabama seeks to execute inmate by lethal injection

Jeffery Lee, who successfully challenged his scheduled Thursday execution by nitrogen gas, argued that execution by firing squad would be less painful. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Friday sought to put an Alabama death row inmate to death by lethal injection a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the state’s attempt to execute him by nitrogen gas. In a filing with the Alabama Supreme Court Friday afternoon, the state sought an expedited motion to set a new execution date for Jeffery Lee, 49. The state said that with a permanent injunction in place against nitrogen gas, the method by which the state intended to execute Lee on Thursday, it could execute him by lethal injection or the electric chair.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

US | Army lays groundwork for death row executions if Trump gives approval

The Army is preparing to carry out the executions of the military's four death-row inmates if ordered to do so by the president, according to an internal planning document reviewed by ABC News. If carried out, it would mark the first time the military executed convicted American inmates in more than a half-century The plan, dubbed "Operation Resolute Justice" and issued internally in February, directs Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of non-military federal executions during President Donald Trump's first term.

Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch wanted an execution that a Trump judge deemed illegal

The Supreme Court these days is generally in the business of helping executions go forward. But on Thursday night, the court did something notable: It told Alabama no. Even then, the court wasn't unanimous. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the refusal to let the nitrogen gas execution of Jeffery Lee proceed. What prompted the rare rejection? In line with the typical shadow docket practice, the court didn't explain itself. Nor did the dissenters, who merely noted their disagreement. But a deeper look at the case helps us understand why a majority of the court was unwilling to help the state this time.

Texas | Tanner Horner now incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner has now taken up residence in one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury last month. Horner is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state's death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells. The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison on May 5 within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog