April 19
TEXAS --- impending executions
Texas court blocks 1 of 2 executions set for Wednesday
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted one of the 2 executions set for
Wednesday when it granted a reprieve to condemned inmate Milton Mathis,
whose lawyers contended may be mentally retarded.
Mathis, 26, was to have been the 2nd of 2 convicted killers to receive
lethal injection Wednesday evening. He was convicted of the fatal
shootings of 2 men at a Houston crack house in December 1998.
In a short 5-paragraph order, the court Tuesday said arguments about
Mathis' mental retardation should be reviewed by his trial court in Fort
Bend County.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of the mentally
retarded.
Mathis' attorneys also contended his execution, if carried out, would
violate his rights unless he could get a full hearing on the claims of
mental retardation.
Still scheduled to die Wednesday is Douglas Roberts, 42, for the abduction
and fatal stabbing of a San Antonio man in 1996.
The double execution would have been the first in Texas in nearly 5 years
and just the fourth time there's been a multiple execution on a single day
in the state since executions resumed here in 1982. Roberts, at his
request, had no appeals pending in the courts to try to stop his
punishment. It would be the fifth execution of the year in Texas.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
Texas Set for 2 Executions on Same Night
Texas, the leading U.S. death penalty state, is set to carry out a rare
double execution on Wednesday night, when 2 men convicted of separate
murders will receive lethal injections.
Barring intervention by the courts or Gov. Rick Perry, Milton Mathis, 26,
will be put to death first, followed quickly by Douglas Roberts, 42,
officials said on Monday.
"Witnesses to the 1st execution will be escorted out and witnesses to the
second will be brought in," said prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.
"All the medical supplies and bedding will be switched. When we proceed
will depend, as always, on what is working in the courts," she said.
Texas leads the nation with 340 executions since resuming capital
punishment in 1982 after the lifting of a death penalty by the U.S.
Supreme Court. It was the last state to kill 2 people on the same night.
That took place on Aug. 9, 2000 when Brian Roberson, 36 and Oliver Cruz,
33, died 30 minutes apart in the Texas death chamber, which is at a state
prison in Huntsville, 75 miles north of Houston.
Texas also did it on Jan. 31, 1995 and June 4, 1997. Before that, it had
not happened in the state since Sept. 5, 1951.
The most known executions in Texas in one day took place on Feb. 8, 1924
when the state used its new electric chair to put 5 people to death.
Lyons said Mathis and Roberts would be held in separate cells near the
death chamber and would have separate chaplains to assist them in the
hours leading up to execution.
Mathis was the first of the 2 to have an execution date set and,
therefore, shortly after 6 p.m. CDT will be the first to be strapped into
the lone gurney in the death chamber and injected with a lethal mix of
chemicals.
His body will be removed; then officials will change the needles and tubes
used to inject the chemicals, change the gurney sheets and bring in the
next inmate.
"We basically treat it as 2 separate events that happen to happen on the
same evening," said Lyons.
Having 2 executions on the same day is just a coincidence because the
dates are set by the judges who preside over the criminal cases of each
inmate.
The judges usually do not consult with each other and their only
scheduling criteria is that no executions are performed around Christmas
or Easter, officials said.
Mathis was condemned for a 1998 shooting spree at a reputed drug den near
Houston that left 2 people dead and another paralyzed.
Roberts was sentenced to death for kidnapping and stabbing a San Antonio
man to death in 1996.
They would be the 5th and 6th people executed in Texas this year.
(source: Reuters)
*********************
Senator eyes more power for new panel -- Council would be able to probe
innocence claims under Ellis' substitute bill
Sen. Rodney Ellis wants to put some teeth into Gov. Rick Perry's recently
created Criminal Justice Advisory Council by giving the panel power to
investigate innocence claims.
But Perry's office said the council, which has not been named, is not
designed to look at individual cases.
At a Senate Criminal Justice Committee meeting today, Ellis will offer a
substitute for Senate Bill 1033, legislation to create a Texas Innocence
Commission. Ellis has filed similar bills in the past 2 sessions.
The substitute would give the governor's advisory council power to
subpoena witnesses and documents to investigate possible wrongful
convictions.
"What I'm trying to do is strengthen the positive moves that the governor
has made," said Ellis, D-Houston.
But Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Perry created the council to look at
changes that might need to be made in the state's criminal justice system
to keep pace with advances in forensic science.
"The focus of the governor's criminal justice council is not on individual
cases but on bigger picture issues," said Walt.
Ellis said it's possible for the council to look at individual cases as
well as systemic changes.
"The individual cases are what give you some sense of what can be done to
improve the overall system," Ellis said.
Walt said that the advisory council won't be named until after the
legislative session because it will include some lawmakers.
When announcing the council last month, Perry said it will represent a
broad perspective including law enforcement, prosecutors, defense
attorneys and victims rights advocates.
Barry Scheck, whose New York-based Innocence Project has helped clear
several Texas inmates, will testify in favor of the bill.
Scheck said Monday that he will highlight two cases in which there are
serious concerns that unreliable forensic science led to executions.
Capital murder
One case involves Claude Howard Jones, who was executed in December 2000
for the capital murder of a liquor store owner.
At trial, a Texas Department of Public Safety analyst testified that his
microscopic examination of a hair found on the store counter was
consistent with Jones. But before Jones was executed, his lawyers asked
then-Gov. George W. Bush to stay the execution so that a DNA test could be
performed on the hair.
Scheck said that such a test was not conducted. He said that without the
hair evidence, the prosecution had a circumstantial case that relied upon
an accomplice's testimony.
Arson case
The 2nd case involves Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in
February 2004 for setting a fire that killed his 3 children.
Scheck said Willingham's case is similar to that of Ernest Willis, who was
freed last year after 17 years on death row. A federal judge found that
scientific evidence of arson was faulty and ordered the state to either
retry Willis or set him free.
An arson expert who reviewed Willingham's case concluded that the fire was
likely accidental, Scheck said. He said Willingham's attorney submitted an
affidavit from that expert, Gerald Hurst, to Perry seeking to stop the
execution.
Prosecutors, though, pointed to other evidence against Willingham
presented at his trial: a jailhouse informant who claimed Willingham
confessed to him and witnesses who said Willingham did not try hard enough
to save his children.
Walt said at the time of Willingham's execution that Perry carefully
considered "all of the factors."
*******************
Violent gang puts Houston in spotlight
A toddler's shooting death, linked to a violent Central American gang that
could be linked to as many as nine area killings, is turning the attention
of a national task force Houston's way.
Miguel Angel Castro, a 19-year-old El Salvador native, is charged with
capital murder in the April 12 death of Aiden Naquin, who would have been
2 in August.
Castro is accused of firing on a car driven by the boy's father as it
pulled into the Huffman trailer park in the 2700 block of Third where the
family lives. One of the bullets struck the toddler in the head.
Castro indelibly marked his body with tattoos indicating he is a member of
the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang, said detectives with the Harris
County Sheriff's Department. Mara Salvatrucha, which was started by
Salvadoran refugees in the Los Angeles area in the early 1980s and now
reaches into 31 other states, has been the target of a federal crackdown
that last month swept 6 U.S. cities, netting the arrests of 103 gang
members.
"The biggest groupings have been in L.A., New York and northern Virginia,
but the cliques seem to be growing quickly now in Providence, Rhode
Island; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Houston," said Bob Clifford, who
heads the MS-13 National Task Force that formed in January.
He said the task force is keenly aware of the latest killing in Houston.
Houston police want to question other suspects, who they say were with
Castro during a recent standoff, about possible connections to 9 other
homicides.
"We are becoming increasingly involved in Houston on this and other cases.
When we look at Houston, we will be looking for ties that may connect to
other parts of the U.S.," he said. "This gang's propensity for vicious
violence, its rapid spread and ties to violent Central American cliques
have made it the highest priority of the FBI's gang investigations."
He pointed to another recent connection to the MS-13 gang in Texas that
disturbed federal investigators.
On Feb. 10, an alleged MS-13 gang member was arrested in McAllen trying to
illegally cross an immigration checkpoint, he said.
"This same individual is a suspect in the killing of 28 men, women and
children and wounding of 14 others on a bus that was ambushed in December
in Honduras," he said.
The attack was in response to a government crackdown there on the MS-13
gang.
Officials believe the gang is loosely organized now, but they are
concerned the underculture may be developing a more national structure.
"This gang has strong, ominous connections to El Salvador, Honduras and
Mexico, where the gang has more rigid organizational structures like the
mafia has had," he said.
The first part of the gang's name, Mara, can be traced to a Central
American slang term for "street gang," taken from a species of an ant that
devours tropical forests. "Salva" is an abbreviation for El Salvador, and
"trucha" is a slang word for "fear us,'" Clifford said. The 13 refers to
'm,' the 13th letter in the alphabet.
The '13' was added after MS-13 joined forces with the Mexican Mafia to
provide protection for members sent to prison.
Although MS-13's presence in Houston was known before Castro's arrest, the
gang had not yet brought national attention to itself as it has in the
Washington, D.C., area, where its members have been implicated in two
machete attacks since May.
In one of the cases, the body of a woman who gave information to
authorities about her former gang associates was found repeatedly stabbed
and her head nearly decapitated on the banks of the Shenandoah River.
"The gang's preferred method to kill is beheadings," said Clifford,
stressing the brutality of the group.
The burial Monday of the 20-month-old boy from Huffman and the possibility
that his two older sisters could have been killed along with their father
made that brutality very real for his family.
Aiden's parents cried, hugged and kissed him as he lay surrounded by teddy
bears in a tiny blue casket before his burial in Humble.
Afterward, Ernest Naquin stood next to his son's grave and reiterated that
he has no connection to his son's killer and believes it was a case of
mistaken identity.
"Police keep thinking I'm holding something back, not being cooperative.
But I know for a fact that we were not the target," he said. "You don't
think I'd help them find the killer of my own son?"
Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Denholm said investigators are certain
the attack on the family was no mistake.
"The family was the target," he said, but investigators are still looking
into exactly what drew the gang's attention.
He said investigators are going to explore the possibility of applying
organized crime statutes to the murder case, which is a goal of the
national task force.
A cellular telephone, apparently dropped at the shooting scene, led police
to Castro.
4 days before his arrest on Saturday, detectives say Castro also was
involved in an all-night standoff in an apartment in the 6400 block of
West Bellfort when HPD officers tried to serve 4 warrants for aggravated
assaults and robberies.
County detectives have said Castro managed to get away from that apartment
before city officers eventually took 11 people into custody.
No-details policy
How many MS-13 members may be in the Houston area and what kind of crimes
they may be responsible for cannot be readily determined because of a
Houston Police Department policy prohibiting officers from discussing by
name specific gangs, their memberships or crimes.
A Houston officer speaking on condition he not be identified said the
policy was put in place to prevent small local gangs from "competing with
each other to see who could do the crime that would get their name in the
paper."
>From that standpoint, the officer said, the policy makes sense.
"But with a gang like MS-13, where you've got the feds and everyone else,
even the Sheriff's Department, talking about it being here, (the policy)
kind of hampers (the press) from warning people of the dangers," the
officer said.
"I don't think MS-13 members care whether they get their gang's name in
the paper or not," the officer added. "I don't think they're big readers."
RESOURCES
MARA SALVATRUCHA
- 1980s: Founded in Los Angeles by El Salvador immigrants in mostly
Mexican neighborhoods. Other Central Americans joined.
- 1990s: Gang members convicted of crimes deported back to Central
America, where they formed local branches.
- 2003-2005: Central America cracked down on the gangs. Thousands of
members jailed; others killed. An unknown number fled to Mexico and the
United States.
(source for both: Houston Chronicle)
*********************
Prosecutors seek gag order in twin slayings
A decision on whether a state district judge will issue a gag order in the
case of a man charged with capital murder for killing his unborn twins is
expected as early as today, according to the defense.
Prosecutors filed a request for the gag order late Friday, claiming too
much media attention would make it impossible to give Gerardo Flores a
fair trial.
The case is expected to be among the 1st to test a state law redefining an
individual, having the right to protection from criminal acts, to include
unborn children.
After running in The Lufkin Daily News, the story went to state and
national news wires, hitting CNN's new ticker the same evening.
Flores, then 18, was charged with 1st-degree murder May 7, allegedly
causing the stillbirth of the couple's unborn sons after beating his
16-year-old girlfriend, Erica Basoria, then 5 months pregnant.
After police discovered that the couple allegedly worked together to cause
the babies' deaths, the district attorney's office re-indicted Flores for
murder in October for conspiring with his girlfriend to abort the twins.
Flores, his girlfriend and family have granted interviews with the
Associated Press, and defense attorney Ryan Deaton has commented to local
and state media.
CNN reporters have been in Lufkin over the last few days, possibly fueling
the prosecution's move to seek the order, Deaton said Monday.
Deaton said he was "very much opposed" to the motion.
"I think the public and the community have a right to know what is going
on in the cases in the courthouse," Deaton said.
Deaton sought to have the charges against Flores dropped on constitutional
grounds in October, claiming the case violated his client's rights to
equal protection.
The charges crossed the line between church and state, Deaton said, by
applying religious beliefs for legal purposes to the theory that life
begins at conception.
Assistant District Attorney Art Bauereiss, who signed the motion, refused
comment on the gag order request. Bauereiss also declined to discuss
previous gag orders sought by the district attorney's office in unrelated
cases.
While he has not commented specifically on the Flores case, District
Attorney Clyde Herrington has granted interviews to local and state media
on fetal protection laws since Flores' arrest.
Barring attorneys, witnesses and police from talking to media would be the
only way to ensure the defendant a fair trial, according to the motion.
Basoria is not expected to be charged in the unborn twins' deaths.
According to state law, a pregnant woman cannot be prosecuted for the
death of their unborn children for any reason. Doctors performing legal
medical procedures, including abortions, are exempted from prosecution.
President Bush in April 2004 signed a similar national law into effect,
making it illegal to injure or kill an unborn child during a federal or
military crime.
(source: Lufkin Daily News)
