January 10 TEXAS: Thomas Jury Selection Begins Monday Jury selection will begin tomorrow for the much-anticipated trial of an accused triple murderer. 1000 potential jurors have been served notices. They will be asked about their feelings concerning punishment for capital murder. The judge ruled that Andre Thomass confessions to Sherman Police back on march 27th will be submisable in court. Andre Thomas is accused of killing his wife, their child, and her daughter. (source: KTEN News) ******************** Case closed, but questions remain There is something oddly disconcerting about what went down in McKinney last week. Collin County prosecutors got an Ohio prison inmate to plead guilty to the abduction and slayings of three North Texas girls. Yet the families of those little girls left the courthouse feeling like victims once more - this time of a criminal justice system that seemed bent on expediency. They wanted to see the man who confessed to killing their children stand trial, convicted and sentenced to death. Prosecutors, they say, had assured them that would occur. Instead, days before the start of his capital murder trial - which I'm sure would have cost the county well into the 6 figures to prosecute - David Elliott Penton pleaded guilty to the heinous crimes and thus avoided facing the death penalty. None of the surviving family members was more incensed than Mike Meeks, the father of 5-year-old Christi Lynn Meeks, who was abducted in Mesquite in 1985 and found dead months later in Lake Texoma. I talked to Mr. Meeks on Friday, a day after he expressed outrage at Collin County prosecutors for cutting a deal with Mr. Penton's defense attorneys. I wanted to know if he was still angry, or if he simply was overcome by emotions the day he learned that his child's killer would get to live behind bars for the rest of his life. Mr. Penton already is serving a life sentence in Ohio for abducting and killing a 9-year-old Ohio girl in 1988. Under terms of the plea bargain, he will complete his sentence in Ohio, where he is eligible for parole in 2027. Notice that I said he's "eligible" for parole. By then, Mr. Penton, now 47, will be almost 70. When he finishes doing his time in Ohio, he will serve three consecutive life sentences in Texas. Now, to you and me, that may seem like a grand victory for prosecutors: Lock Mr. Penton up and throw away the key! But, as Mr. Meeks eloquently and passionately explained, he and the families of the other victims wanted much more than that. "We wanted the case prosecuted," Mr. Meeks said. "And that's what they [Collin County prosecutors] were telling us for 18 months that they were going to do." Instead, he said, when families were summoned to the courthouse last week for what they thought was trial preparation; they were hit with a surprise. "I was told we were there to hear about the jury [selection]," Mr. Meeks said. "That wasn't the case. That [plea bargain] deal was done before we ever got there." Mr. Meeks said that Assistant District Attorney Greg Davis "didn't ask us" if they wanted to accept the plea bargain. "His words were, quote, 'I can't win this case.'" I couldn't reach Mr. Davis last Friday for a comment. But before announcing the agreement last Thursday, prosecutors acknowledged that they agreed to the lesser punishment because they feared that evidence showing that Mr. Penton may have been out of Texas when one of the girls was killed could hurt the case. On the face of it, that sounds like a smart move. But when you think about it, it also sounds like a lame excuse for not giving the families what they wanted - a vigorous prosecution that could lead to Mr. Penton being put to death. I mean, it seems to me that one of the first things investigators would have done before they charged Mr. Penton with abducting and slaying any of the Texas girls would be to make sure they could establish that he was in Texas at the time. If they didn't do that, that means they dropped the ball long before last week. And that is one of the things that Mr. Meeks said is really troubling him. If Mr. Penton really wasn't in Texas at the time one of the girls was killed, he wonders out loud, why would prosecutors even want to accept a confession of guilt for that particular crime? That's a really good question, and one to which prosecutors must understand that the families, if not the general public, deserve an immediate response. The way the plea bargain was handled has left some doubt in Mr. Meeks' mind about whether Mr. Penton really is the man who killed Christi Meeks. "I doubt it so much now," Mr. Meeks said. "I have a right to go down there and request a complete transcript of what they've done. I want to see every piece of memo, every note and date." I decided to put the hard question to Mr. Meeks, the one I'm sure that many of you are asking yourself: Would you rather have gone to trial and risked Mr. Penton being found not guilty? "Yes, sir," Mr. Meek said without missing a beat. "If a jury of his peers had not convicted him, then that would have been right." A jury trial, he said, and a thorough vetting of the evidence against Mr. Penton is what he and the other families wanted. "That's the whole thing that would have made this right," he said. That raises an ultimate question, one that you and I can debate and one that prosecutors most assuredly must wrestle with quite often: How should prosecutors balance the desires and demands of victims and their families with the responsibility of bringing criminals to justice? I don't have an answer for that. But I do wonder - if the families of those little girls aren't satisfied with this plea bargain, has justice really been served? The deal may have been efficient for prosecutors, but what good is that if it failed to bring the sort of closure that the families need and deserve? (source: The Dallas Morning News, Jan. 9) ******************** Juvenile(s) may face death penalty 3 RUSK COUNTY TEENS INDICTED FOR CONNECTIONS TO MAN'S DEATH A Rusk County grand jury has indicted 3 men for their possible connection to the murder of a 63-year-old New London man. According to the indictment list, 17-year-olds Steven James Torres and Randy William Richter were indicted for 1st-degree murder and Matthew Wood was indicted for burglary of a habitation. Richter and Torres allegedly beat and shot Weldon Vinson at his home on County Road 102 in New London on Dec. 26, of last year then stole several items from the victim, including his vehicle. Wood came forward later to turn himself in for his part in the burglary, which law enforcement said occurred after the man was killed. Wood is expected to be a material witness against Torres and Richter. (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) ************************* Trial date could be set today for Camacho A trial date could be set today for a Brownsville mother accused of decapitating her 3 children in March 2003. Angela Camacho, 25, is expected to appear at a pretrial conference in the 107th state District Court. Several issues, including defense attorneys' claims of Camacho being mentally retarded, have stalled the case in courts. The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that mentally retarded criminals cannot be put to death. Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos said a trial date could be set if Judge Benjamin Euresti makes a decision on Camachos retardation status. Villalobos said prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to determine their expert witnesses. "They claim they have reports that Ms. Camacho is below the line for mental retardation," Villalobos said. "That doesn't affect guilt, but it does determine if we can seek the death penalty." Camacho faces capital murder charges for the March 2003 deaths of her children. According to court records, she and her common-law husband John Allen Rubio, 24, strangled and decapitated her 2 daughters. The couple allegedly washed up afterward and had sex before they decapitated her 1-year-old son. At his own request, Rubio was sentenced to death in November 2003. He later appealed the sentence. (source: The Brownsville Herald) COLORADO: Psychiatrist in botched Texas drowning case working on similar Colorado case In Lamar, a psychiatrist who gave false testimony in the botched conviction of a Houston woman accused of drowning her children has been working with Colorado prosecutors on a similar case. A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned the murder convictions of Andrea Yates in the 2001 drownings of her children, citing the testimony of Park Dietz. Dietz testified in that trial about an episode of the television program Law & Order where a woman was found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children. There was no such episode. Long before the Texas case was reversed, Prowers County, Colo., prosecutors had hired Dietz to evaluate Rebekah Amaya, who pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the bathtub drownings of her daughter and infant son. After his evaluation, Dietz told prosecutors he believed Amaya was insane at the time of the drownings. Doctors at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo also concluded she had mental problems, and the judge ruled Tuesday she was not competent to stand trial. She is scheduled to return to court Jan. 31, where she is expected to tell the judge that she killed her children. She faces an indeterminate commitment to the state Mental Health Institute. Neither prosecutors nor the defense lawyer would comment on whether Dietz's role would affect Amaya's case, citing the judge's gag order. Dietz, of Newport Beach, Calif., and a consultant for Law & Order, blamed his testimony in the Texas case on confusion about a conversation with prosecutors. He said they had told him there was an episode with a drowning plot. Harris County prosecutors said blaming them was a stretch. Yates, now 40, had pleaded insanity after drowning her 5 children in June 2001. She was convicted in three of the drownings. Her lawyers do not expect the reversal to mean she will be freed. In the Colorado case, Amaya is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Grace Headlee, 4, and Gabriel Amaya, 5 months, on Oct. 16, 2003. Police say Amaya told them she killed the children after getting a sign from a spider that crawled across her hand but also gave other accounts. (source: Associated Press)
