Oct. 28
TEXAS:
Killer gets his wish to die----Jury sends Shore to death row for
strangling victims
Days after admitted serial killer Anthony Allen Shore stunned listeners by
requesting a death sentence, jurors granted his wish Wednesday.
Shore stood silently, his eyes darting back and forth between the jury and
state District Judge Caprice Cosper, as he was sentenced to die for
strangling 4 young females over a 9-year period. 3 of the victims also
were raped.
Placing jurors in the position of choosing between sparing his life and
granting the sentence he requested was symptomatic of his deranged mind
and psychopathic narcissism, prosecutors and a therapist said.
"Even at this late, late, final hour, he still wants to pretend to have
some control over his fate," Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler
told jurors. "There are some people who are just mean and bad and sick and
evil, and all the shrinks in the world can't fix them."
Shore's request did not surprise his therapist, Sharon Burns.
"That's a true hallmark of a psychopath. He would be in control," she
testified Wednesday.
"It's an adrenaline rush. It's a thrill," she said. "That is the ultimate
control, to have power over life and death."
Shore was convicted last week of capital murder in the death of
21-year-old Maria Del Carmen Estrada, who was sexually assaulted,
strangled with a nylon cord and left behind a fast-food restaurant in
April 1992.
Although Shore requested a death sentence at the outset of the punishment
phase, jurors spent 4 days hearing details of three other murders. They
also heard testimony from three women he raped, including 2 from his own
family.
Shore's psychopathic behavior began at age 4, when he killed a
neighborhood cat with a knife because it would not stay in his yard, Burns
said. Several of his former girlfriends testified that he had drugged them
and had sex with them while they were unconscious.
Shore, a former telephone repairman and wrecker driver, was arrested last
year after new DNA tests on scrapings found under Estrada's fingernails.
His DNA was on file because he had pleaded guilty in 1998 to molesting two
young relatives.
Confronted by police, Shore confessed to killing Estrada, as well as
Laurie Lee Tremblay, 15, who was found dead in September 1986; Dana
Sanchez, 16, found dead in July 1995; and Diana Rebollar, 9, found dead in
April 1994.
Shore, 42, did not testify but instructed his attorneys last week to relay
his request for the death penalty. If he waives his appeals, he could be
executed within 2 years.
*******************
Court backs Innocence Network An upswing in exonerations spurs funding for
conference
The growing number of exonerations in recent years persuaded the Court of
Criminal Appeals to put up $10,000 from an education fund it oversees to
finance a Nov. 5 conference in Austin on how to expand the fledgling
Innocence Network statewide, said Judge Barbara Hervey. The network
currently is based at 2 universities.
The appeals court has been criticized for what some consider its
indifference to innocence claims, most famously when it rejected DNA
evidence in the case of Roy Criner.
Criner served 10 years in prison before being pardoned in 2000 after a
second DNA test showed he did not commit the rape for which he was
convicted.
"The court has been criticized, particularly by the defense bar, as being
prosecution-oriented," said law professor Robert Dawson, who heads the
Innocence Network branch at the University of Texas at Austin. "That's
what makes Judge Hervey's participation so remarkable."
Hervey is the driving force behind the initiative by the appeals court,
the state's court of last resort in criminal cases. "My goal is to see
Texas lead the way nationwide," she said.
The court's backing for an endeavor that many prosecutors view as a
nuisance may signal a growing sentiment that the judicial system needs
changes to deal with wrongful convictions.
"It's safe to say there is a change in awareness because you have more
cases being questioned," Hervey said. "You can't run and hide from it."
State Sen. Rodney Ellis hopes the changing attitude signals better
prospects next year for a bill he will reintroduce, seeking to create a
commission that would recommend ways to avoid convicting the innocent.
Ellis said he sees indications of a growing attitude statewide "to make a
level playing field" in criminal prosecutions.
The effort to bolster the Texas Innocence Network has the backing of all 9
judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals, 6 of whom will attend the Nov. 5
conference, Hervey said.
The conference will include district attorneys and representatives from
the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice and other agencies.
They will meet with defense lawyers, officials from universities that are
not part of the Innocence Network and leaders of the two programs now in
the network: Dawson, at UT, and David Dow, a professor at the University
of Houston Law Center.
Hoping to assist universities unable to finance Innocence Network
programs, Hervey has met with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state Sen. John
Whitmire, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, about securing state
money.
Dewhurst spokesman Mark Minor said only that Dewhurst was reviewing the
request.
Whitmire supports the idea but cautioned that it would be competing with
other worthy projects in another tight budget year. He agreed with Hervey
that attitudes toward innocence claims appear to be softening.
"I would think that the citizens of Texas, in general, recognize that
there have been difficulties in some previous convictions in relation to
scientific evidence," Whitmire said.
Many district attorneys are skeptical or even hostile to the idea of an
innocence commission and the work of the Innocence Network because both
review their work.
Rob Kepple, director of the Texas District and County Attorneys
Association, said he will attend the conference with an open mind.
"If it's done properly and with a set of procedures, I think it's great,"
Kepple said. "If all it's going to do is be press conferences and bashing
people in the system and a way to abolish the death penalty, I think
you've got problems."
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, whose office has been
plagued by problems at the Houston police crime lab that affected hundreds
of cases, was uncertain about attending the gathering. He has clashed with
the founding branch of the Innocence Network at the University of Houston
but says he does not oppose expanding the network.
"I have never minded people grading my papers," he said.
But he added that the UH Innocence Network has treated his office
shabbily.
"I've been upset that they've wanted to handle cases in the media as
opposed to the courts," Rosenthal said. "There have been times when they
have resorted to ad hominem attacks on people in this office as opposed to
legal attacks."
Dow, head of the UH program, said the network has good relations with
other district attorneys' offices but Rosenthal's seems "unusually
defensive and reluctant to admit fault."
Dow said he sees a change in attitude among many officials.
"District attorneys are initially resistant to the notion that there is
some institution looking over their shoulders," he said. "Eventually, they
realize that in 90 % of their cases we don't think they convicted somebody
who is innocent."
Dow said studies show that about 4 % to 6 % of all death penalty cases
lead to wrongful convictions.
"Obviously, if we're making mistakes in death penalty cases, we are making
mistakes in cases that don't get the attention," he said.
**
RESOURCES
Other states have created innocence commissions to make recommendations on
how to reduce the number of wrongful convictions. Here are recommendations
made by the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission and the Illinois
Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment.
- No clues: Use "double blind" procedure for photo or lineup
identification, in which officer in charge does not know the identity of
suspect. This avoids inadvertent clues given by the officer.
- No feedback: Witnesses should not receive any feedback during or after
photo or lineup identification.
- Confidence: Witnesses should be asked to rate their confidence in the
identification in their own words.
- Suspects: Witnesses should be told that the suspect may not be in the
lineup or photos.
-Video records: Interrogations in homicide cases should be videotaped.
- Taped statements: All statements by homicide suspects must be recorded.
Any statements not recorded should be repeated to the suspect on tape and
his or her comments recorded.
- False testimony: Police and judges should be trained in the risks of
false testimony by in-custody informants, accomplice witnesses, wrongful
convictions and "tunnel vision" attention to evidence supporting
conviction.
- Exoneration: Police and judges should be trained in reporting evidence
that exonerates suspects and in the risks of false confessions.
- Rights of foreigners: Police agencies should include in their training
the rights of foreign nationals to contact their consulate or embassy.
- Independent labs: Forensic laboratories should be independent and
operated by civilians, with separate budgets free from supervision by law
enforcement.
- Data bank: A DNA database should be created and capital defendants
allowed to apply for a database search to identify others who may be
guilty of the crime.
- Review: Mandatory review of death penalty eligibility by a statewide
committee.
- Certification: Judges should be certified as qualified to handle capital
cases.
- Reasonable inquiry: Police should pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry
whether they point toward or away from a suspect.
(source for both: Houston Chronicle)
***************
Death-row inmate wants execution -- Man convicted in 1992 killing of
Amarillo 5-year-old girlKiller: Judge has not ruled on man's request
"Noticed in the Globe-News that the city voted for a fare increase for
Amarillo taxi service. Just wondering if there is any standards for the
cars the companies use- have you seen some of the old beat up cars that
are used as taxis here?"
Little Audra Reeves still visits Robert Anderson now and then in his death
row prison cell. And then he wakes up in a cold, damp sweat. But now
Anderson wants to put an end to his nightmares.
Anderson, convicted in 1993 of capital murder in the slaying of the
5-year-old child, told a federal magistrate Wednesday he wants to abandon
further appeals and be executed.
On June 9, 1992, a neighbor found Reeves' body packed inside a Styrofoam
cooler left in a garbage Dumpster in the 400 block of South Tennessee
Street. Witnesses reported seeing a man pushing a grocery cart with a
cooler inside, and that description soon led Amarillo police to Anderson,
who confessed to the brutal slaying.
During Wednesday's hearing in Amarillo, U.S. Magistrate Clinton Averitte
and one of Anderson's attorneys, Alex Calhoun, repeatedly grilled Anderson
about his decision to halt his appeals.
Anderson, now 38, told Averitte he recently drew a pentagram on the floor
of his cell and sat on it. St. Christopher and Satan argued for dominion
over his soul. Satan lost, Anderson said.
Anderson, who wore black horn-rimmed glasses, a white, striped shirt and
Dockers, said he has rededicated himself to the Christian way of life and
wants his final federal appeal dismissed. He spoke of his sick parents, a
near-death episode when inmates stabbed him 54 times and Christ.
"Sir, this may sound callous ... I don't want to hurt anybody any longer,
and I want to be executed," he said. "Christ has granted me a peace that I
didn't have before."
And Anderson spoke briefly of young Audra and his nightmares.
"The victim in my case has appeared to me at several times in various
stages of the assault," said Anderson, who said doctors prescribed an
antidepressant to help halt his nightmares.
Anderson said he alone decided to end his appeals and believes God has
forgiven him for killing Audra.
"He has basically invited me to come home," Anderson said.
In interviews with homicide investigators, Anderson confessed to abducting
Reeves from a nearby park after an argument with his ex-wife. He forced
the girl into his home and sexually assaulted the child before killing
her.
In a recent recommendation to deny Anderson's federal appeal, Averitte
noted that Anderson's other appeals had been denied in state appeals
courts and cited the "particularly egregious" nature of the crime. The
appeal was denied.
"After abusing the victim, he proceeded to kill her by various tortuous
means, including choking her, stabbing her with a paring knife and a
barbecue fork (bending them both), slashing her throat, and beating her
with his hand, a pipe and a wooden stool," the judge's recommendation
says.
Anderson told investigators he stuffed the girl into a Styrofoam cooler,
but she tried to crawl out. He persuaded her to take a bath to clean the
blood off her battered body. Audra, according to court records, made a
final plea for her life.
"Why are you doing this? I love you," she asked Anderson. Anderson turned
up his stereo to silence Audra's screams and drowned her in the bathtub,
according to state and federal court records.
In his recommendation to deny Anderson's appeal, Averitte cited young
Audra's appeal for mercy and the brutal crimes committed against her.
"His persistence in carrying out this assault and murder over a period of
at least 45 minutes, leaving no major part of her body that did not
sustain wounds, and undaunted by a plea for mercy, would support a finding
of sufficient aggravation, in and of itself, to support imposition of the
death penalty," Averitte said.
After Wednesday's hearing, Averitte met with attorneys for the state and
defense, but has not yet ruled on Anderson's request.
(source: Amarillo Globe-News)
