Acker was convicted in the 2000 murder of his girlfriend in East Texas. Her body was found on the side of the road after neighbors said they saw him abduct her.
For the second time in two days, Texas carried out an execution Thursday. It was the state’s 10th execution of the year, and the 18th in the nation.
Daniel Acker, 46, was put to death in Huntsville’s execution chamber hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last appeal, just 24 hours after another man, Troy Clark, died by lethal injection in the same spot.
Acker was sentenced to death in the 2000 East Texas murder of his girlfriend, 32-year-old Marquetta George. Her body was found on the side of the road several miles away from the trailer they shared in Hopkins County after their neighbors said they saw Acker grab her, toss her over his shoulder and shove her into his truck, according to court records. Acker had maintained that he was taking her to confront a man she had slept with and she jumped from his moving vehicle.
With all appeals exhausted, Acker was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital shortly after 6 p.m. and pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., according to the prison department. He gave no final statement.
George's brother attended the execution, according to a prison witness list. Acker had no friends or family present at the time of his death.
Both Acker and the state agreed that he kidnapped his girlfriend during a fight on March 12, 2000. The two had argued at a club the night before, and he spent the night searching for her around town, he testified at trial. Shortly after a man brought her home the next morning, she ran to her neighbor's home asking for help, and Acker took her away in his truck.
But there are multiple theories as to what happened between George’s abduction and her severely wounded body being found on the side of the road. At Acker’s trial in 2001, the state told the jury that George died by strangulation, blunt force injuries or both, court records show. The state's main theory was that Acker strangled George to or near death, pulled her out of his truck and then ran her over.
But during an appellate hearing, the state’s own expert said George's injuries weren't consistent with strangulation, and the theory arose that Acker pushed her from the truck and then ran over her. The federal judge who took over the case after the hearing wrote in a later opinion that the evidence pointed to her having been "unconscious or incapacitated" when pulled from the truck and then run over by Acker.
Acker’s attorney argued that the change of theory necessitated a new look at his case. He said in a filing last year that his conviction and death sentence were upheld “based on false evidence, a now-discredited theory, and a new theory never presented to his jury.”
“There are now serious doubts as to whether this case was a homicide at all,” wrote Acker’s attorney, Richard Ellis, in a recent filing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. “Mr. Acker was tried and convicted on the theory that he had abducted the victim Marquetta George and then strangled her while driving, a theory that the State has now disavowed in federal court.”
But despite the shifting primary theory, federal and state courts upheld Acker’s murder conviction, saying the indictment and jury charge allowed the jury to decide George was killed by blunt force injuries alone, even if much of the evidence presented — including autopsy testimony — focused on strangulation.
“The district court found that the jury could have convicted Acker based on a theory of strangulation, a theory of blunt-force injury, or a combination of the two,” wrote the federal appellate court in its opinion upholding the lower court’s ruling. “... Although the prosecution referred to strangulation in closing argument, the same argument could easily apply to running over George, regardless of whether she had been strangled.”
Acker turned himself in after George’s death — he flagged down a patrol car as it passed by his mother’s house, according to court documents. His attorney wrote that he has admitted to her kidnapping and has expressed remorse for that but that George’s death was “a tragic accident, and never a homicide.”
The state, represented by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his office, said in its last briefing filed Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court that Acker has already failed to persuade the courts — and the jury — of this claim.
“Acker produces no new evidence showing he did not commit the crime but continues to assert that George’s death resulted from her leap from the vehicle — a theory rejected by the jury at the time of trial,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Ellen Stewart-Klein.
Source: texastribune.org, Jolie McCullough, September 27, 2018
Texas man put to death in state's second execution in two nights
The whole thing started with a fight at the Bustin' Loose nightclub. It was a late night, with lots of booze - and whispers of another man involved.
When it was all said and done, Marquetta George ended up dead and bloodied on the side of the road. Eighteen years later, on Thursday night, her former boyfriend Daniel Acker was put to death for her murder.
He always maintained his innocence but gave no final statement. He took one deep breath and kept his eyes closed the entire time, according to Texas prison officials.
The 46-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., 14 minutes after the lethal dose began.
Acker's execution was the state's second in as many nights - and the 10th here this year.
The Sulphur Springs man was convicted of strangling his 32-year-old girlfriend and pushing her from a moving car, according to court records. But for years, Acker and his defense team have argued that he didn't kill George and that her death was an accident after she jumped out of a moving car.
"This is a real tragedy," defense lawyer A. Richard Ellis told the Chronicle earlier in the week. "Daniel Acker is innocent, this was a tragic accident not a homicide, yet the courts are not listening."
At the time of the slaying in March 2000, Acker and George were sharing a rented trailer in Hopkins County. The night of George's death, the troubled couple started fighting at the bar - and he bluntly commented that he was going to kill her, according to court records.
Later, Acker got kicked out of the club, while George went home with another man, a bouncer named Calico. But in the wee hours of the morning, Acker went out looking for her, scouring the town all night and even stopping at her mother's house.
While there, he told the woman's mother that it was OK if she'd stayed out the night alone. But, he added, "if I find out she was with anybody, I'm going to kill 'em."
He didn't get back to his trailer till around 10 a.m., and George showed up about an hour later.
Acker wanted to find out if she'd cheated, so he violently forced his girlfriend into his truck and tried bringing her Calico's house for a confrontation.
But the two never made it. Instead, George ended up on the side of the road dead. Prosecutors argued that Acker strangled her then tossed her from the truck - and a jury agreed. But Acker has consistently said that his girlfriend leaped from the vehicle - as she'd done before - and was killed in the process.
Afterward, Acker didn't hide; he flagged down police himself.
"From the day he turned himself in, Daniel has said the victim jumped from his truck, and he has consistently expressed remorse for abducting her," Ellis said. "The state has to date had three differing versions of his guilt, the two latest of which are inconsistent with the facts and testimony presented to the jury at his trial."
During the appeals process, the state stepped back from the strangulation theory, but still maintained Acker killed his girlfriend.
"Acker had no motive to do this," Ellis said. "He didn't have the physical ability to strangle her while he was driving."
In appeals, defense counsel brought up claims of earlier bad lawyering and "massively flawed" post-conviction proceedings, and argued that prosecutors used false testimony from experts and repeatedly changed their theory of the crime.
This week, the parole board denied his request for clemency. As of Thursday morning, his last hope for reprieve was an appeal in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that he shouldn't be executed based on a theory of the crime abandoned only after his conviction.
The state disagreed.
"Acker's assertions of innocence dispute only the victim's cause of death, which the jury determined was strangulation, blunt-force injury, or a combination of the two," state attorneys wrote in their response filing. "Acker produces no new evidence showing he did not commit the crime but continues to assert that George's death resulted from her leap from the vehicle — a theory rejected by the jury at the time of trial."
Acker's scheduled execution comes a day after Troy Clark was put to death by lethal injection. The Tyler man, who maintained his innocence even in his final statement, was convicted of drowning his former housemate and stuffing her body into a barrel of lime.
The last time two convicted killers were executed in two days was in 2012, when the state put to death Ramon Hernandez of Bexar County and Preston Hughes, from Harris County. Hughes, who also professed his innocence with his final words, was convicted in the stabbing deaths of two children.
As of now, another eight executions are on the calendar in Texas, including two scheduled in early 2019.
Source:
chron.com, Keri Blakinger, September 27, 2018
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