August 25
TEXAS----impending execution//female
Newton maintains her innocence, keeps hope -- A new clemency petition
continues the legal duel as execution looms for woman convicted of killing
family
A cloud of verbal gunsmoke hung over Frances Newton's capital-murder case
Wednesday as defense attorneys and prosecutors dueled about the existence
of a mystery pistol allegedly seized as evidence from the scene of the
1987 execution-style killings of Newton's husband and 2 young children.
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal adamantly denied the existence of such a
weapon and accused defense attorney David Dow of making up his theory "out
of whole cloth."
The reality of a second gun is key to defense efforts to save Newton,
convicted of killing her family to reap $100,000 in insurance benefits,
from a Sept. 14 execution. The killer's attorneys hope the existence of a
second pistol would diminish damning prosecution evidence that Newton
dumped the murder weapon miles from her home on the night of the killings.
Markings on .25-caliber bullets test-fired from that weapon repeatedly
have been found to match those removed from the victim's bodies.
"What we think happened is that multiple guns were recovered," Dow said,
"and that the serial numbers were not noted at the time, the location of
recovery not noted, the time of recovery not noted. By the time they made
it to the ballistics lab, it was not known which gun was recovered where."
In filings on Newton's behalf with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and
the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Dow and his Texas Innocence
Network colleague Jared Tyler contend that the existence of a 2nd pistol
was confirmed by a Harris County prosecutor in a June 2004 television
interview with Dutch reporters.
In that broadcast, Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson said a weapon
had been found, but she noted that it belonged to Newton's husband, had
not been fired and had no significance in the investigation. Now, though,
Wilson has advised Rosenthal and the appeals court that she was wrong.
Bullets, but no gun, were recovered from the murder scene.
Dow, who argued in his filings that prosecutors improperly had kept the
second gun's existence from defense attorneys, called Wilson's recantation
"incredible."
Rosenthal countered that if a second pistol had been recovered, it would
have been listed in an inventory of evidence.
"The defense attorneys read our file," he said. "We didn't hide anything
from them."
As the legal skirmish continues, Newton, 40, spends what may be her final
days in a death row cell at Gatesville's Mountain View Unit. In a tearful
prison interview this week, she again insisted on her innocence and
denounced state and federal courts of "rubber stamping" the jury's
sentence of death during reviews of her case in the past 13 years.
"For a long time," she said, "I believed in the death penalty. I would
have thought that a person who harmed her children should be punished to
the fullest extent of the law. But now I know that the system can't be
trusted to be right. I've been wrongly accused, wrongly convicted.
"It's happened to me; it's happened to other people."
Newton, who once attended the University of Houston-Downtown and aspired
to be a TV news reporter, has spent nearly 17 years on death row for the
April 7, 1987, murder of her husband, Adrian Newton, 23, her son, Alton,
7, and her daughter, Farrah, 21 months.
If executed, she would be the 1st black woman legally put to death in
Texas since the Civil War. 2 other women have received lethal injections
since the state resumed executions in 1982.
In announcing filing of a clemency petition Wednesday, Dow noted that
defense lawyers have gained the support of two jurors who sentenced Newton
to die in asking that her life be spared. Former prison public information
officers Larry Todd and Larry Fitzgerald also have signed affidavits
asking that her death sentence be commuted to life in prison, Dow said.
Dow said the parents of Newton's husband have voiced support for stopping
the execution, but that claim could not be verified Wednesday.
The attorney also said a one-time prisoner in the Harris County Jail, a
former husband of one of Newton's cousins, claimed that another prisoner
boasted of killing the family. Dow conceded that claim has not been
verified.
Issues surrounding the gun from which the fatal bullets were fired have
surfaced repeatedly. In December, Gov. Rick Perry granted Newton an
execution-day reprieve so that the presumed murder weapon, a .25-caliber
pistol, could again undergo ballistics testing.
Trial testimony indicated the pistol belonged to Michael Mouton, who
loaned it to Newton's lover, Jeffery Frelow. Prosecutors argued in court
that Newton had access to the weapon.
Telling her story
In this week's interview, Newton insisted she never saw the weapon until
the day of the killings when she unexpectedly found it in her kitchen
cabinet as she searched for her husband's drugs.
Newton said she had overheard her husband - a user and seller of marijuana
and cocaine - and his brother talking about possible "trouble," presumably
with drug suppliers. Newton said her husband owed suppliers $500 and
sometimes hid from them under the bed.
She said she removed the pistol from the house to eliminate the
possibility of bloodshed, dumping it miles away in a burned-out home owned
by her relatives.
Newton said she never used drugs and that although her husband indulged,
he remained "a good dad."
"He was very patient with the kids," she said. "He loved the children."
Newton said she rarely worried about his marijuana use. "It mellowed him
out," she recalled. But she found his friends, who rarely seemed to work,
somewhat troubling. And she became increasingly concerned as he started
staying out late and became short-tempered. She attributed that to her
husband's cocaine use.
Along with his drug usage, Adrian Newton's infidelity and his contrite
confessions and pledges to reform were hallmarks of the couple's marriage.
On the day of the killings, Newton said, the couple had reconciled and
agreed to eschew extramarital affairs.
Newton, who became pregnant with the couple's 1st child at 14, said she
loved her husband and children.
Occasionally pausing to wipe away tears, Newton recalled that Alton was
"definitely all boy" and often protected his younger sister.
She recalled one incident in which the little girl mischievously took
single bites out of apples displayed in a fruit bowl.
"Alton took the apples and turned the bite marks to the back so I wouldn't
see what she had done," Newton recalled. "Farrah was very loving."
Herself one of 12 children, Newton said she always yearned for a family.
As her husband was sporadically employed, she was the family's primary
breadwinner, holding a series of "accounting" jobs.
Trial testimony revealed that she was fired from a Houston department
store for stealing and later was convicted of forgery.
"Not everything in my life has been pretty," Newton admitted.
A father's advice
Still, she said, it was her family's welfare and not greed that propelled
her to buy life insurance policies for herself, her husband and daughter
just three weeks before the killings.
She said her father's admonition to buy insurance - given after a relative
lost 3 children in a house fire and lacked the money for proper burials -
was a key consideration.
She said a persuasive insurance agent then convinced her to buy the
policies, which, she was told, doubled as a savings plan.
Testimony at her trial showed both Newton and her mother quickly filed for
benefits from the policies.
As attorneys spar and the courts grind toward a resolution in her case,
Newton said she occasionally ponders the prospect of execution.
"But the worst thing that can happen to me has already happened," she
said. "My husband and children have been murdered, and I've been accused
and convicted. ... I know, though, that I am innocent.
"I don't know how or why, but I believe that it will all work out, and I
keep that hope."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
****************************
Report of Second Gun Is Used in Defense of a Texas Woman Facing Death
After nearly 17 years on death row and a last-minute reprieve in December,
a Texas woman facing lethal injection next month in the killings of her
husband and two children is raising new claims of innocence based largely
on conflicting accounts of whether a mysterious 2nd gun had been recovered
and never revealed to the defense.
Citing a prosecutor's claimed slip of the tongue, lawyers for the inmate,
Frances Newton, 40, argued Wednesday in their latest clemency petition
that the state may have tested the wrong gun after the slayings in 1987.
The prosecutor, Roe Wilson, assistant district attorney here in Harris
County, said in court papers on Tuesday that she had no recollection of
having told Dutch television in June that a previously unreported gun had
been found at the crime scene but that a viewing of the videotape showed
"she made such erroneous statement." Actually, she told the Court of
Criminal Appeals, she meant to say "ammunition."
Defense lawyers also said other new information cast doubt on the guilt of
Ms. Newton, who would be the third woman put to death in Texas since
capital punishment resumed in 1982 and the 1st black woman executed in the
state since the Civil War.
This included, they said, a sworn account from a relative of Ms. Newton's
who had been incarcerated in the Harris County jail in 1987 and 1988 and
told of a cellmate who had boasted of going to the Newtons' house the
night of the slayings to collect a drug debt "with orders to kill
everybody present if the man did not have the money."
Defense lawyers also said that they had tracked down 3 of the original
jurors who now say they would not have voted to convict her if they had
known of all the evidence, and that two former Texas criminal justice
officials were urging that Ms. Newton's life be spared because she was not
a future danger to society, a necessary finding for execution.
But the crucial new factors involved another possible gun, lawyers said.
"The family was buying a lot of guns," her main lawyer, David R. Dow of
the Texas Innocence Network of the University of Houston Law Center, said
in a telephone conference call with reporters. "We have real doubt about
which gun Frances Newton had access to."
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, ruling Wednesday on an earlier
appeal, rejected the claims, reaffirming that a .25-caliber Ruger pistol
tied to Ms. Newton was the murder weapon, "even assuming that 50 other
guns had been found," and that Ms. Newton had tried to hide the gun after
killing her family for insurance money.
Prosecutors also dismissed the latest defense claims as baseless. "Mr. Dow
is making this up out of whole cloth," said District Attorney Charles A.
Rosenthal Jr. of Harris County in an interview. "I'm very clear: 1 gun was
recovered in the case."
The legal struggle is only likely to intensify as the Sept. 14 execution
date approaches. Ms. Newton had been scheduled to die last Dec. 1, but
hours before, she was spared by a rare 120-day reprieve granted by Gov.
Rick Perry, acting on a equally rare recommendation for a delay by the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The panel and the governor said more
time was needed to review disputed evidence.
The ballistics were retested and confirmed the original results, the
criminal appeals court said in its ruling. But Mr. Dow contended the court
did not address the latest questions about a possible other gun. He also
said that Ms. Newton's dress had been destroyed in the original testing
for explosives residue and that the disputed results could not be
restudied.
The case goes back to April 7, 1987, when Ms. Newton's husband, Adrian,
and their 2 children Alton, 7, and Farrah, 21 months, were shot to death,
each with one bullet, in their Houston-area apartment. The couple had had
a strained relationship, with husband and wife dating other people. Mr.
Newton was also involved with drugs. A distraught Ms. Newton said she and
a cousin found the bodies when they came home.
But the cousin also told the police that hours before, she saw Ms. Newton
take a blue knapsack out of her car and put it in an abandoned building.
The police found a pistol in the backpack, and experts testified it had
fired the fatal shots. Evidence also showed that 3 weeks before the
killings she had taken out $50,000 in life insurance on her husband,
signing his name, and also on Farrah, although not on Alton.
Defense pleadings say she bought the policies under pressure from a broker
months after three of her cousins died in a fire. They also say the
established timeline would have left her less than half an hour to kill
her family and remove all traces of blood, none of which were found on her
or her clothes or the gun.
Hints that an unreported gun might been recovered at the scene cropped up
at the trial, but Mr. Dow said Ms. Newton's court-appointed counsel, Ron
Mock, failed to investigate. Mr. Mock was later barred from capital cases.
Confirmation, Mr. Dow said, appeared to come from an interview that a
Dutch television reporter, Ton Vriens, conducted with Ms. Wilson, the
prosecutor, in June. She said: "There is no second gun theory. The police
recovered a gun from the apartment that belonged to the husband. It was -
had not been fired, not involved in the offense, it was simply a gun he
had there."
Mr. Dow said such information would have had to be turned over to the
defense and had not been.
Ms. Wilson's office said she was out this week. District Attorney
Rosenthal said Ms. Wilson had simply misspoken, explaining to him in a
memo: "In the videotape I say that the police recovered a gun from the
crime scene apartment, Newton's husband's apartment. This is not correct.
The correct statement is that the police recovered unfired ammunition in
various places in the apartment."
Mr. Dow said he did not understand how a prosecutor could confuse a gun
and ammunition.
(source: The New York Times)
**************************
Lawyers ask parole board to spare woman set to die next month
In Houston, lawyers for death row inmate Frances Newton today asked the
Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute her sentence to life in prison.
Newton faces execution September 14th over the 1987 shooting deaths of her
husband and her 2 children.
The 40-year-old Houston woman has denied any role in the killings at the
family's apartment, in what prosecutors say was an alleged insurance
scheme.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals late today rejected Newton's appeal.
Newton is in line to be just the 3rd woman - and the 1st black woman -
executed in Texas since the Civil War.
Her current attorneys cite alleged incompetent legal help at her trial,
state negligence destroying and mishandling evidence and failure to inform
defense lawyers that a 2nd gun was found.
Questions about her legal help and challenges to the evidence have been
raised before.
(source: KLTV News)
************************
Jury to head out on capital murder case deliberations
Jurors are expected to begin deliberating today to decide if Rodolfo
"Kreeper" Medrano is guilty in connection with a pseudo-cop
raid-turned-massacre that left 6 people dead on Monte Cristo Road in 2003.
Closing arguments are set for 8 a.m. today.
Medrano, 26, is accused of providing high-powered assault weapons to the
lower-ranking Tri-City Bombers who shot six men in and around 2 small
homes at 2915 E. Monte Cristo Road shortly after midnight Jan. 5, 2003.
In his recorded statement to police, Medrano said he was a sergeant in the
Tri-City Bombers. He acted as the gangs treasurer and had purchased the
weapons for $300 from a gun dealer at a McAllen gun show.
Prosecutors - who have the burden to prove Medranos guilt - ended their
case Wednesday after calling witnesses to the stand throughout the trial,
which began Aug. 15 in the 332nd state District Court.
Medrano attorney Hector Villarreal did not call any witnesses and did not
present an opening argument to jurors.
The prosecution contends Medrano told Edinburg police he handed over SKS
7.62 mm weapons to steal a large amount of marijuana thought to be at the
Monte Cristo property.
Medrano was at home watching movies with his wife when the shootings
occurred and told police he learned of them on the evening news the next
day.
Still, prosecutors say Medrano should have anticipated that the weapons
would be used to kill.
One of 13 men charged with capital murder, Medrano is tried under the law
of parties, which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him
for conspiring and aiding other gang members to commit capital murder.
If he is found guilty, Medrano could be the third man to receive the death
penalty for the slayings. Two men, Juan Raul Navarro Ramirez and Humberto
"Gallo" Garza, are on death row after being found guilty of capital murder
in connection with the shootings. Another man indicted in the Edinburg
murders, Robert "Bones" Gene Garza, is already on death row for the
September 2002 murders of 4 women in Donna. Medrano is also charged with
capital murder in the Donna case.
2 of the victims of the Edinburg murders - brothers Jerry Eugene Hidalgo,
24, and Ray Hidalgo, 30 - were believed to be members of the Tri-City
Bombers rival gang, the Texas Chicano Brotherhood. The Chicano Brotherhood
split from the Tri-City Bombers and now the 2 gangs have a green light
policy to fight each other without permission from any higher-ranking
member, Edinburg Police Detective Robert Alvarez testified earlier in the
week.
The other victims were Ruben Rolando Castillo, 32; Jimmy Edward
Almendariz, 22, and half-brothers Juan Delgado Jr., 32, and Juan Delgado
III, 20.
Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorneys Cregg Thompson and Judith
Cantu will speak for the prosecution in todays closing arguments.
Villarreal, Medranos attorney, is expected to present his closing argument
with co-counsel Oscar Rene Flores. State District Judge Mario Ramirez will
continue to preside.
(source: The Monitor)
*******************
JAMARCUS WARREN COUNSEL WITHDRAWS AS SECOND-CHAIR
A day before jury selection begins in a capital murder case, Jamarcus
Warren's defense counsel withdrew as 2nd-chair representation because of a
conflict of interest.
About 800 Smith County citizens have been summoned to the courthouse
Thursday for jury selection in Warren's death penalty case. The
29-year-old is accused of ordering the death of Shaun Pickens on Jan. 15,
2004.
The lead counsel for Warren is F.R. "Buck" Files Jr. Second-chair attorney
Richard Kennedy filed a motion to withdraw as Warren's counsel because he
briefly represented a man during a grand jury proceeding in which the
grand jury was deciding whether to indict Warren on the capital murder
charge. Kennedy was appointed to represent Lester Owens for a short time
before Owens was to testify.
Kennedy did not foresee that he would represent Warren and now, Owens is
on the state's witness list and will likely be called to testify in
Warren's trial. The attorney could not cross-examine Owens regarding what
he may have learned during the grand jury proceeding, which could be
detrimental to Warren's case, and continuing as his attorney would have
the appearance of impropriety, Kennedy's motion states.
Judge Skeen, of the 241st District Court, granted Kennedy's motion for
withdrawal. He will have to appoint a new attorney to represent Warren as
2nd-chair counsel.
Files, Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham and First Assistant DA
April Sikes will continue with group jury selection on Thursday.
Individual questioning of remaining potential jurors was moved back from
Sept. 6 to Sept. 19. Warren's trial was scheduled to begin Oct. 3 but has
been delayed to Oct. 17 to allow the new attorney to get caught up on the
case.
Warren faces the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of capital
murder.
The defendant was set to go to trial when a mistrial was granted in March
after his Houston attorney was taken to a Travis County detoxification
center for failing to appear in court during jury selection. Seven jurors
were selected for trial when Skeen granted a motion for withdrawal by
Warren's hired attorney, Shawn Roberts, who was repeatedly late for
hearings and was a no-show on occasion until Skeen ordered he be taken
into custody and brought to court.
Warren was on the lam for about 7 months before he was caught in Houston
by U.S. marshals. He is also linked to a 2001 bank robbery in Tyler and a
2004 ordered killing of a 2nd man in Gregg County, officials have said.
Co-defendants Bryson Carey and Stefany Campos have both agreed to plead
guilty and testify against their alleged gang leader, Warren, who
officials believe ordered co-defendant Cornet "Pokey" Meekins to carry out
the murder.
Pickens was shot in the head and left inside a vehicle off County Road
2209. They allegedly belong to a street gang called the Chapel Hill Hoover
Five Deuce Crips, allegedly headed by Warren.
(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)
************************
Slaying on lovers lane is described for jurors
A plan to rob South Side rap artist Tommy Garcia Jr. went according to
plan until one of the assailants fired a shot and Garcia began running for
his life.
That was the testimony Wednesday from Francisco Martinez Gonzales, 35, who
already has pleaded guilty to murder in Garcia's slaying in exchange for a
40-year prison term.
The testimony came on the 2nd day of trial for Juan Edwardo Castillo, 24,
who is facing a death sentence on a capital murder charge in the Dec. 3,
2003, killing of Garcia.
Prosecutors allege Castillo was the triggerman in a plot among two couples
to lure Garcia to a dark, lovers lane and rob him of jewelry, cash and
other valuables.
Also charged were the girlfriends of Castillo and Gonzales. Castillo's
girlfriend, Debra Espinosa, 28, was arrested Dec. 31, 2003, and pleaded
guilty, on Aug. 8, to aggravated robbery in exchange for a 40-year prison
term. Gonzales' girlfriend, Teresa Quintero, was arrested two months ago
and charged with aggravated robbery.
Quintero is accused of being the driver of the getaway car. Her case is
pending.
Gonzales testified he and his girlfriend met Castillo at Espinosa's home
on the evening of Dec. 2, 2003, when Espinosa began making calls to
potential victims.
Gonzales said the 1st would-be victim turned her down because it was too
late in the evening. The 2nd person she called was Garcia, who picked her
up a short while later in his 1994 Camaro, Gonzales said.
Gonzales said the plan was for Espinosa to get Garcia into his front
passenger seat with a promise to perform oral sex.
"It was just supposed to be a simple robbery to take his money and the
dope he had on him," Gonzales testified.
But with the couple parked in the 9700 block of Clamp Avenue, the plan
went awry, he said.
Wearing a bulletproof vest and a ski mask, and carrying a 9 mm
semiautomatic pistol, Castillo was to accost Garcia, while Gonzales was to
grab Espinosa out of the driver's seat, Gonzales said.
"We both hit it at the same time. The passenger door was locked and
Juanito hit the window with the butt of his gun and shattered the glass."
Moments later, Gonzales said, he heard the gun go off.
"Tommy yelled out in pain, 'Ahhhh,' like he took the bullet. That's when I
took off my mask. I didn't want nothing more to do with it," Gonzales
recalled.
Gonzales said Garcia got out of his car and began running away.
"Juanito shoots him 2 more times in the back. Tommy falls down, and then
(Castillo) goes up to him and shoots him four more times in the back,"
Gonzales added.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Bill Harris, Gonzales
repeatedly denied he was the triggerman.
Defense attorneys contend Gonzales and Espinosa named Castillo as the
triggerman to avoid the death penalty.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
