August 4
TEXAS----new execution date
RICKEY LEWIS' EXECUTION DATE SET SEPTEMBER 7
Rickey Lynn Lewis, a man twice sentenced to die for capital murder, was
issued a death warrant Wednesday to be carried out next month.
The 43-year-old was set to be executed on Sept. 7 by 114th District Judge
Cynthia Stevens Kent, who found that all of his state and federal appeals
had been exhausted.
Lewis was convicted for the Sept. 17, 1990, murder of George Newman during
a burglary at the victim's house. He was also found guilty of sexually
assaulting Newman's common-law wife, Connie Hilton.
Lewis, clad in a bright yellow jail jumpsuit and shackles and flanked by
deputies, was transported from death row to Smith County for the hearing,
after which he was escorted back to prison. The convict hung his head
after the date was announced but moments later, was smiling and talking
with his attorney.
A handful of people for the victims, including Ms. Hilton, sat in the
court's gallery.
Judge Kent ruled in February that Lewis was not mentally retarded, a claim
he used to try to escape the death chamber. The Court of Criminal Appeals
of Texas, which ordered the trial judge to preside over the writ of habeas
corpus hearing, agreed with her ruling and ordered her to set an execution
date.
Lewis, who has been on death row for about a decade, was convicted and
twice sentenced to die for the capital murder.
The first Smith County jury selected convicted Lewis and sentenced him to
death. But in 1996, the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the punishment
back to the trial court. In 1997, another jury again sentenced him to the
death penalty, finding that he committed the murder deliberately, that
there was a high probability he would be a continuing threat to society
and that there were no mitigating circumstances that warranted a life
sentence rather that the death penalty.
Former 241st District Judge Diane DeVasto set Lewis' execution date for
Aug. 7, 2003 but Lewis' attorneys claimed he was mentally retarded, a
matter that was finally settled this year. The final judgment came down
when the Court of Criminal Appeals' affirmed Judge Kent's finding that
Lewis is not mentally retarded.
Defense attorneys tried to prove that Lewis was wrongly sentenced to
death. Mental retardation experts hired by the state testified that he has
learning disabilities but is not retarded; doctors hired by the defense
disagreed.
In a mental retardation claim, the defense has the burden of proof. The
3-pronged approach to diagnosing mental retardation includes below-average
intellectual functioning usually denoted by an IQ score of 70 or less,
manifestation of the disorder by age 18 and consideration of adaptive
functioning, or how a person operates in daily life.
If the judge had ruled that Lewis was retarded, his sentence would have
automatically been commuted to life in prison. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme
Court prohibited the execution of mentally retarded people.
Judge Kent concluded that Lewis entered the home to burglarize it but was
interrupted by the victims. He shot Newman and sexually assaulted, bit and
hit Ms. Hilton, threatening to kill her. He also killed the couple's dog.
The defendant's late mother's testimony during trial indicated he was a
"bright" child who began having problems when the family moved in with his
father, who beat him and whom he later shot to protect his mother. The
shooting occurred when he was 10 years old, she said.
Lewis' capital murder trial attorney, Jeff Baynham, sat in on the hearing
Wednesday for Lewis' appellate attorney Mike Charlton, of New Mexico.
District Attorney Matt Bingham, First Assistant DA April Sikes and
Assistant DA Mike West represented the state.
(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)
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Testimony begins in 2 slayings at apartment complex
Moments before he was ambushed and gunned down in his own apartment, Luke
Scott called out for his cat.
What happened next, according to prosecutors, and described in a police
confession, was a slaying that some say is as cold-blooded as they come.
Noah Espada, 21, is on trial, charged with capital murder and facing a
possible death sentence in 2 separate slayings in late February and early
March of 2004.
Luther Scott, who went by the nickname Luke, was 30 and flying high as the
general manager of Polly Esther's Dance Plex one of the River Walk's
trendiest nightclubs.
Sandra Ramos, 29, had recently quit her job as a bartender at a North Side
saloon and was about to move to Missouri for another career opportunity.
The only connection between the 2 - before Espada's arrest in their
slayings - was that they lived in the Altamonte Apartments, north of San
Antonio International Airport.
"Luke is dead because he fired a guy from a $2.50-an-hour job. Sandra
Ramos is dead because she was collateral damage," lead prosecutor Kevin
O'Connell concluded in his opening statement to jurors in 379th District
Court.
Prosecutors contend Espada plotted to kill Scott and that Ramos was slain
after the defendant mistakenly broke into her apartment thinking it was
Scott's.
3 days later, he returned to finish what he started, they allege.
Defense attorneys Jeff Scott and Richard Langlois chose not to give an
opening statement.
Jeff Scott said last week the case is not about Espada's guilt or
innocence, but whether he deserves the death penalty.
The trial, before Judge Bert Richardson, got under way Wednesday after a
rocky start. One of the original 12 jurors was excused Monday because of a
death in the family, and prosecutors and defense attorneys had to take an
extra day Tuesday to choose a replacement juror.
Detective Liz Greiner, lead investigator on the case for the San Antonio
Police Department, took the witness stand and recounted to jurors how the
leads were developed that ultimately led to Espada's arrest on March 18,
2004, at his girlfriend's apartment near the South Texas Medical Center.
She testified that the case was broken wide open after a tip led to the
discovery of Luke Scott's flashy black sports car, which was stolen after
he was shot to death around 4:25 a.m. March 2 in Altamonte's Unit 807. The
car was discovered in a garage at the home of one of the defendant's
ex-girlfriends.
Although the slayings appeared unrelated at first, Greiner described her
suspicions that Espada also was responsible for the suffocation death of
Ramos, 3 days earlier, in apartment No. 1216.
She said Espada ultimately admitted to another detective he committed that
murder.
Then Greiner was asked to read the 5-page confession she took from Espada.
In the confession, Espada described how Luke Scott unfairly treated him
and disciplined him at the nightclub, where he worked as a bartender's
helper. He told of plotting Scott's death after being fired Feb. 13. He
related how he broke into Scott's 2nd-floor apartment through the balcony
door and lay in wait in the bedroom with Scott's cat. Scott's relatives
said the cat was named Kiki.
Then Greiner's voice started shaking as she got to the part where Espada
described what happened when Scott entered his apartment after a long
night at the club.
"Luke came in and called his cat," Espada stated in the confession. "My
heart was pounding. I could not back out, now.
"As soon as Luke was in front of me, I fired 1 shot. ... Luke ran into the
hallway and I fired again and he fell to the floor. Luke sat up facing the
door. I was standing behind him then and I fired once into his head."
Espada went on to say he took Scott's car keys, a watch and his gym bag
before fleeing the scene in the victim's car.
The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
*****************************************
Polly Esther's Murder Trial Begins
16 months after the manager of Polly Esther's Dance Club on the Riverwalk
was murdered in his north side apartment, a fired busboy at the club went
on trial today on capital murder charges.
Prosecutors say Noah Espada, 21, murdered Luke Scott because of 'simmering
anger' that Scott had fired him for incompetence. He is also accused of
murdering Sandra Ramos, who also lived in the Altamonte Apartments on
Starcrest, because he bungled his first attempt to kill Espada and broke
into the wrong apartment. Scott was shot in the head, Ramos was strangled.
"Luke Scott is dead because he fired a guy from a two and a half dollar an
hour job," prosecutor Kevin O'Connell told the jury in opening arguments.
"Sandra Ramos is dead because to Noah Espada she was collateral damage."
Relatives of both victims, both of whom were from out of town, wiped away
tears during the opening arguments. Espada, dressed in a business suit,
appeared not to be listening to the proceedings.
"All of these things that happened at work, for some reason, whipped him
to such a level that he felt Luke Scott was the worst person in the world
and just had to die," O'Connell said.
Espada faces the death penalty if convicted. The murders, which occurred 3
days apart in March of 2004, terrified the northeast side area.
Espada was arrested 2 weeks after the murders when police traced Scott's
stolen Nissan sportscar to a home in west Bexar County, and that led
officers to Ramos' stolen SUV on the city's north side.
(source: WOAI News)
*********************************
Immigrants' relatives sue over truck deaths ---- Driver, trailer
manufacturer and owner are named
Relatives of 7 immigrants who died in a nearly airtight truck trailer as
they were being smuggled into Texas in one of the country's deadliest
human-trafficking accidents have sued the truck driver and the trailer
owner and manufacturer in federal court.
U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey in Victoria is scheduled to hold
pretrial conferences with attorneys on some of the claims Sept. 6.
The lawsuits, filed in May, name trucker Tyrone Williams; his company,
Tyrone II Transport; Salem Trailer Leasing Inc., the trailer owner; Great
Dane Trailers, the manufacturer; and DOES 1-10, another trailer
manufacturer. Each suit asks for thousands of dollars.
19 immigrants died in the botched smuggling scheme that ended May 14,
2003, when Williams abandoned the trailer at a Victoria truck stop.
The lawsuits allege that Great Dane Trailers "manufactured and designed
the trailer to be used without any warnings, safety precautions or human
escape mechanisms. The design of the trailer allowed operators, occupants
and/or passengers to be trapped inside the trailer and yet have no rescue
hatch, pull string or other escape mechanism thus placing trapped
occupants of the trailer in danger of suffocation or death. There were no
warnings, instructions, decals or other means of warning of the dangers of
transporting individuals inside the trailer nor where (sic) there safety
switches within the trailer to allow escape in case of emergency."
The plaintiffs' attorneys, Moreno, Becerra, Guerrero and Casillas of
Montebello, Calif., and Great Dane and Salem officials did not respond to
requests for comment.
Legal experts say the relatives' effort to recover damages from the
trailer manufacturer is not unusual.
Attorneys are ethically bound, they said, to recover whatever possible for
their clients.
They likely will try to show that the firms were negligent for not warning
people about the dangers of misusing their product, experts said.
"Attorneys are looking for the deep pockets," said Charles Rhodes, law
professor at South Texas College of Law and an expert in federal civil
procedure. "This not an unusual practice."
"Did the manufacturer have a legal duty to warn the purchasers of
(possible dangers)? That's likely what the case will turn on," said Mark
Cole, executive director of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Houston.
Williams, who faces a possible death sentence, is scheduled to be tried
Dec. 5 in connection with the deaths of the illegal immigrants, who were
among at least 74 people packed into his trailer.
A federal jury in his 1st trial in March failed to reach a verdict on 20
smuggling counts, 1 carrying the death penalty.
He was found guilty on 38 other counts, 19 carrying the death penalty, but
U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore ruled out the death penalty on them.
Gilmore ruled that Williams could be retried on the 20 counts on which the
jury failed to reach a verdict.
Prosecutors want to retry him on all 58 counts and have appealed to the
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
*********************
Crime lab inquiry at a standstill Idled for month, investigators are
expecting to sit on their hands at least 2 more weeks
The independent investigation of the Houston crime lab, which has provided
outside scrutiny for the first time since the lab's problems became public
in December 2002, has been stalled for more than a month.
Michael Bromwich, the former U.S. Justice Department official who is
leading the investigation, and his panel of experts have been idle since
they issued a series of reports in June that exposed troubling faults such
as analysts who were accused of fabricating test results. The group began
its work March 30.
The city initially budgeted $2.2 million for the 1st year of the
investigation, and a $1 million balance remains. Even so, Houston Police
Department officials have told the team it must receive approval from the
City Council before it can start the 2nd phase of its investigation - a
review of about 3,000 criminal cases that have already been prosecuted.
Although the investigating team is independent, it must rely on HPD
officials to carry funding requests to the City Council. Police Capt.
David Watkins said he expects to take the proposal for the 2nd phase of
the investigation, which includes a request from Bromwich for an
additional $1.6 million, before the council in about 2 weeks, meaning work
will be interrupted for a minimum of 6 weeks.
"It would have been nice if the whole thing was seamless, but it didn't
work out like that," Watkins said. "We wanted a number of people to give
their seal of approval."
But other city officials, like Bromwich, say the interruption is
unnecessary.
"We're frustrated that we haven't been permitted to do any work for the
past month - our forensic scientists are eager to start the case reviews,
which lie at the center of our work," Bromwich said by e-mail Wednesday.
"We think it's in everyone's interests for us to get started as soon as
possible so we can complete our work as promptly as possible."
City Comptroller Anise Parker said she is frustrated by what she described
as a lack of a "sense of urgency within the department" to get the
investigation back on track.
"I just think they are very gun-shy, and they want everybody to sign off
before they go forward," she said. "I think this is an unnecessary delay,
and I hope the administration gets on with it."
Mayor Bill White's office did not respond to requests for comment.
In the first phase of his investigation, an overview of the crime lab's
problems, Bromwich uncovered allegations that two drug analysts committed
"drylabbing" - or concocting results without preforming any tests.
The revelation was one of the most startling in the more than 2 years that
HPD's crime lab has been plagued with problems, which led to the shutdown
of the DNA division in late 2002 and have cast doubt on thousands of
cases, including some that were tested in other divisions.
The revelations also prompted HPD officials to expand the number of cases
that Bromwich's team will review. The new cases include about 700 in which
evidence was tested by the analysts accused of drylabbing. That expansion
is responsible for the $1.6 million increase requested.
Crime lab director Irma Rios, who joined HPD in 2003, said employees are
eager for the next phase of the investigation to begin. "We're ready to
find out what is going on and take care of any issues that may or may not
come up," she said.
(source for both: Houston Chronicle)
