Nov. 9
TEXAS----impending execution
Convicted serial rapist set to die Wednesday for killing teacher
A condemned Texas prisoner hoped to win a reprieve putting off his
scheduled Wednesday execution so DNA testing could be conducted on
evidence authorities said tied him to the strangling and attempted rape of
a suburban Houston teacher a dozen years ago.
Charles Daniel Thacker also was arguing in the courts that if he's
executed, Texas lethal injection procedures should be changed to ensure
he's unconscious before the lethal drug cocktail is pumped into the veins
of his arms.
"I'm entitled to have it done in a way that does not involve an
unnecessary risk of pain and suffering," Thacker, who would be the 17th
Texas inmate executed this year, said in a court filing.
Thacker, 37, faced injection for the 1993 fatal attack on Karen Gail
Crawford, 26, a second-grade teacher in suburban Houston's Klein
Independent School. The Loraine County, Ohio, native already had served
prison time for robbery and sexual assault when he was arrested for
attacking Crawford as she stopped to pick up mail at a community mailbox
at her apartment complex in Tomball, northwest of Houston.
A passer-by who spotted a key dangling from Crawford's open mailbox
prompted a search for her. Crawford's car with her dog inside wasn't far
away.
A maintenance worker found the woman's restroom nearby locked but was
surprised to hear a male voice from inside. When the door burst open, the
worker got a blast of pepper spray from the fleeing man, whom he later
identified as Thacker.
Other residents who chased the man as he ran into a wooded area also said
it was Thacker. Crawford was found unconscious in the restroom. Police
using tracking dogs found Thacker hiding in a yard.
Authorities found a hair belonging to the victim in Thacker's underwear,
Thacker wanted the DNA testing to support his claim that he was not
involved in the woman's death.
"I was there that night or could say I was near there in the back behind
the apartments in a rich neighborhood of homes," Thacker said on a Web
site where condemned inmates seek pen pals. "I was up to no good with 2
others guys looking for stuff to steal and sell."
There was no evidence of others involved. Thacker's truck was found in the
apartment complex parking lot, and witnesses reported seeing him loitering
in the area before the attack.
On his Web site, Thacker suggested Crawford accidentally died because of
CPR efforts.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles this week refused to commute his
sentence to life in prison and refused a request to delay the punishment
for 120 days.
Lawyers also questioned in the courts whether Thacker's death sentence
should be reconsidered in light of a new state law that took effect Sept.
1 that allows capital murder juries to consider life without parole for
offenders they convict.
"Texas has effectively abolished the death penalty for everybody except
those people who can't be safely confined in prison," lawyer Richard
Bourke said, referring to jury deliberations about whether a capital
murder convict would be a future danger. Thacker, he said, "has never been
a problem in prison."
At least 6 victims, ranging in age from 13 to 64, testified at his trial
how he sexually assaulted them, or attempted to, including a Tomball woman
abducted while she was picking up mail at her apartment complex.
"I remember he was a particularly dangerous guy," recalled Joe Owmby, a
Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Thacker. "He was
stalking these women."
2 more condemned Texas inmates are scheduled to die next week and another
in December in the nation's busiest death chamber. At least 5 have
execution dates for early next year.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
Texas death row escapee posed as Katrina victim
An escaped death-row inmate from Texas who was captured in Louisiana late
Sunday has told investigators that he posed as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee
in order to get food, clothing and money from Good Samaritans in
Shreveport, a Texas law enforcement official said Tuesday.
Authorities continue to investigate whether Charles Victor Thompson had
help last Thursday when he slipped out of his handcuffs and prison
jumpsuit in an interview room at the Harris County Jail in Houston,
changed into trousers and a shirt he had worn to a court appearance, and
then slipped by several deputies while flashing a doctored inmate ID card.
Thompson has told investigators that he managed much of the escape on his
own, the Texas official said. The official has been briefed on the case
but asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak
publicly about it.
Thompson, 35, who was convicted in 1999 of the slayings of his former
girlfriend and her boyfriend a year earlier, was in Houston for a
sentencing hearing and was awaiting transfer back to a Texas prison 75
miles north of the city.
The Texas official said Thompson has described to investigators a brief
but brazen adventure that ended with his capture at a telephone booth
outside a liquor store in Shreveport, about 240 miles northeast of
Houston.
Thompson told investigators that shortly after posing as an employee of
the Texas Attorney General's Office and walking out of the jail, he
stripped down to his boxer shorts, a T-shirt and tennis shoes, the
official said.
Thompson claimed that he pretended to be a jogger and ran to a nearby rail
crossing, where he hopped a train to Shreveport.
Once he was in Shreveport, Thompson told investigators, he posed as a
hurricane victim and went to an unidentified paper company.
There, Thompson said, Good Samaritans allowed him to take a shower and
gave him some clothing and food. Thompson also told investigators he was
able to get some money in Shreveport by begging, the Texas official said.
When Thompson was arrested Sunday after authorities had received scores of
tips about his location, Deputy U.S. Marshal Mickey Rellin said that
Thompson, unarmed and smelling of alcohol, had about $12.
Rellin said that when law enforcement officers approached Thompson, the
escaped killer told them, "I'm the one you are looking for."
Federal and state authorities are trying to verify Thompson's account of
his escape from the jail and his travel, the Texas official said.
Meanwhile, the Harris County Sheriff's Office is investigating whether
Thompson could be linked to an attempted carjacking that occurred near the
jail just after the inmate escaped.
"It's something that we'll look at as we question him," said sheriff's Lt.
John Martin, who would not comment on other aspects of the investigation.
"Nobody knows more about this than he does. He seems to be cooperating."
(source: USA TODAY)
*****************
As execution nears, terror still tangible for victim
The memory of the attack no longer pains Julie Hollas the most. Instead,
it's the small and unexpected ways the violence and fear of those few
hours have woven themselves into her daily life.
She doesn't like to leave home at night. She shrinks from hugs - even from
her 7-year-old son - if hands come close to her neck. She cannot stand the
smell of sweat.
"If Greg has been working in the garden, he has to take a shower before he
can even kiss me hello," Hollas said of her husband of nearly 10 years.
"Because it will bring back a fear. I go through it again."
Charles Daniel Thacker was already a convicted rapist when, Hollas says,
he sexually assaulted her Feb. 17, 1993. Thacker was arrested two months
later, after strangling Klein schoolteacher Karen Gail Crawford during an
attempted rape, and convicted of capital murder.
He is scheduled to die tonight.
After Thacker was sent to death row, the case involving Hollas' attack
never went to trial. But lawyers familiar with the case say Hollas'
testimony was key in the conviction. Thacker and his attorney refused to
comment for this article.
Memories remain vivid
Hollas and her husband plan to be in Huntsville tonight but are not going
to witness the execution. Hollas said she is torn over the issue of
capital punishment, even more so now because of her involvement in the
Thacker case.
"On the one hand, I feel sorry that he has to die," she said. "On the
other hand, I want him to fry.
"I want to know he is sorry, that he has repented. I want to know when he
dies, where is he going? That's what's tearing me up inside."
Hollas, who was 23 at the time of the trial, remembers being asked by
Thacker's defense attorney if she was certain that he was her attacker.
Hollas said she turned and faced Thacker, before answering. "Then I said,
'I will never forget his face until the day I die.'"
And she hasn't, Hollas said. With the execution's approach, the
34-year-old mother has looked back with mixed emotions over her long
struggle to rebuild her life. She spoke with the Chronicle and insisted
that her name be used because she wants others to benefit from her
experience and, she said, using her name "makes it more real."
In 1993, Hollas was Julie Bowlby and she lived in Tomball. On her way home
Feb. 17, she stopped to get her mail in front of her apartment building.
When she got back into her van and tried to close the door, it swung open.
A man climbed in and shoved her into the passenger seat, Hollas recalled.
He was armed with a knife.
"As soon as he drove off he started to rip at my clothing," Hollas said.
"In my head I was thinking, 'I don't want to die.'"
Hollas could smell the man's sweat.
"He smelled," she said. "He just smelled, he was dirty."
The man drove behind a nearby senior citizen's center, down a dead-end
street by an empty field.
"I won't hurt you, I won't hurt you," Hollas remembered him saying. When
she looked at the dashboard glow, the clock flashed 7:14 p.m.
Hollas didn't fight back until his hands were around her neck and he began
to squeeze.
"I just know he didn't put his hands around me for any other reason other
than to kill me," she said.
She slapped his hands away. "I would have told him anything just to live,"
she said. Hollas told him that since they had been sitting in the dark she
hadn't seen his face. She told him to wipe the van clean of any possible
fingerprints and that she wouldn't go to the police.
He threw the keys in front of the van and disappeared into the dark field.
She sat quietly for a moment before groping outside for the keys. She
drove home, intending to take a shower, go to bed and forget the night
ever happened.
Her mother persuaded her to go to the police, and several months later,
Thacker was arrested in the slaying of Crawford, a 26-year-old
second-grade teacher. Hollas was asked to testify; news reports described
her testimony as "powerful."
The killer was given the death penalty.
Climbing back up
Hollas' true fight began after the trial. Remembering still brings tears
to her eyes.
"Looking back now I feel sorry for who that person was," she said from her
north Houston home. "I feel sorry for what she was feeling at that time."
Depression set in. Unable to bring herself to leave her apartment, Hollas
lost her job. Soon she was on public assistance, worried about keeping the
lights on and feeding herself.
In a way she was fighting for her life, just as hard as when she was
trapped in the van.
"I was just trying to live. I was just trying to have a life of some
sort," she said. "I was just worried about where the money was going to
come from. There were times when I did not have electricity."
But at her core, there was a part of Hollas that no attack could touch.
Hollas called it stubbornness, and she used it to push herself back onto
her feet.
"I didn't have a choice to become a victim," she said. "But it was up to
me to become a survivor."
Hollas started going to counseling and began taking antidepressants. She
became active in her church, where the members rallied around her and
helped her find a new job.
And, through mutual friends, she met Greg Hollas.
"When we met, we hated each other," she remembered with a laugh. "He
thought I was rough, and I thought he was naive. We did not like each
other."
Experience had hardened her, she acknowledged, but she soon saw that Greg
had the capacity to see the world in a way that she no longer could. Greg
could still be trusting.
"I really needed someone like that," she said. "I still need that today. I
still need reassurance. But no matter how bad things get, he still loves
me for me."
Julie and Greg married in 1997.
Hollas kept climbing.
The couple had a son. She had whole years where things would seem dark and
she would lash out at her loved ones. At one point her doctor threatened
to have her hospitalized. She kept climbing.
Greg countered her ill-temper with patience.
"God put him in my life and he is the one I was supposed to be with," she
said. "Who else would put up with my bitchiness?"
Life may never be easy for Hollas, but about 2 years ago she took stock of
her life and realized she had come a long way.
"I'm not that same person anymore," she said. "I've come so far. It makes
me proud of myself today."
Coming to terms
Despite her struggles with those small daily reminders, Hollas two years
ago began speaking on panels organized by the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice. During the talks she recounts the attack for prisoners and TDCJ
officials.
"You try and make it as real as possible for them," she said. "The attack
itself is not what bothers me the most. It was an event, it happened."
At one recent talk, a prisoner stood and thanked her. He told her he had
never thought about the victims of crimes before.
"He now realizes that whatever his crime was, he now realizes what that
did to his victims," she recalled.
Thinking about that exchange, Hollas marvels at the course of her life.
She said she has learned that life is often unkind, cruel at times, but if
you work at it, life will have no choice but to compensate.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
******************
JAILHOUSE RAMBLE----Heads should roll after killer's escape from the
Harris County Jail revealed intolerable negligence
No one will mistake the Harris County Jail complex for one of those
notorious penal facilities such as the long decommissioned Devil's Island
or Alcatraz, where an escape attempt was tantamount to suicide. Even less
permeable is the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where convicted Texas
murderers are housed while they await execution.
In Harris County, at least 19 prisoners have escaped in the past 10 years,
but none quite captured the public's attention like Charles Victor
Thompson. The convicted double murderer brazenly cakewalked past at least
4 deputies to short-lived freedom over the weekend. He was recaptured in
an intoxicated state talking to himself outside a Shreveport, La., liquor
store Sunday night.
Thompson, who waived extradition proceedings in order, he said, to save
taxpayers money, apparently is no Hannibal Lector, but jail guards had
every reason to consider him extremely dangerous. Thompson brutally killed
a former girlfriend and her new boyfriend and made death threats against
others involved in his conviction and double death sentences. He should
have been a top security priority every moment he was in the jail.
After his re-sentencing last week, visiting state District Judge Doug
Shaver reassured jurors concerned about possible retaliation that Thompson
would be completely isolated in a cell inside a cell and that he would
have no means of escape. After the escape, fearful relatives of Thompson's
victims went into hiding or accepted police guards.
Thompson somehow managed to use a jailhouse visit from his lawyer to get
out of handcuffs in an enclosed interview room, slip out of prisoner garb
and into his own civilian clothes, and then talk his way past deputies
using a doctored inmate badge to impersonate a state official. At every
step along the way, jailers made critical mistakes that allowed a vicious
murderer the chance to go after more victims.
As Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Martin admitted, "This was 100 % human
error; that's the most frustrating thing about it." He's right, and the
heads of the humans responsible for allowing the escape should roll.
Clearly, staff training and security procedures failed at numerous points,
enabling Thompson to walk out the front door of the county jail. Rather
than the work of a diabolically intelligent criminal, this situation
resulted from a disgracefully negligent jail operation in need of a
through shake-up.
Sheriff Tommy Thomas was recovering at home from eye surgery at the time
of the escape, but he bears responsibility for the prevailing lax attitude
and failure to follow procedures that made the escape possible. Employees
found to have violated jailhouse procedures should be disciplined and new
rules instituted to make sure this dangerous, potentially fatal
embarrassment is not repeated. If there is a next time, it might not end
so harmlessly.
(source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle)
****************
Prosecutor promises to detail slain professor's last minutes
The prosecutor in the capital murder case of Edward Lee Busby Jr. promised
jurors Wednesday morning to take them through the last minutes of Fort
Worth educator Laura Lee Cranes life and prove that Busby bears
responsibility for ending it.
Crane disappeared from the parking lot of a Tom Thumb grocery store near
her home on Bellaire Drive South in southwest Fort Worth on the morning of
Jan. 30, 2004.
Busby and his companion, Kathleen Latimer, were found driving Cranes 1999
Nissan Sentra in Ardmore, Okla., on Feb. 1.
2 days later, Busby led Fort Worth police to Cranes body. Her head, arms
and legs had been duct-taped. She was wrapped in a white sheet and left
near an embankment off Interstate 35 near Davis, Okla.
Busby has pleaded not guilty and said in media interviews that he did not
mean to cause Cranes death.
Prosecutor Greg Miller spent about 20 minutes in District Judge Wayne
Salvants court Wednesday detailing what would come in the 1st day of the
death penalty trial.
First, he told jurors about the morning of Jan. 30, when Crane and her
husband, Meade Crane, sat down to set their finances for the week and
planned a run to the local Tom Thumb grocery store.
She left about 11 a.m. and soon had "the horrible misfortune of running
into Edward Busby Jr. and Kathleen Latimer," Miller said.
He said the prosecution would present witnesses who saw Busby and Latimer
in the Tom Thumb parking lot and photos taken from a surveillance camera
showing the pair inside the store.
Witnesses will tell of crates from Cranes trunk being left beside the
road, where prosecutors believe Busby moved the elderly woman into the
trunk.
Prosecutors also plan to call a worker from a nearby Wells Fargo, who will
tell about cashing a $175 check from Cranes account with a signature that
later turned out to be forged.
Miller acknowledged that prosecutors dont know exactly when Busby applied
the duct-tape that medical examiners say suffocated Crane as she lay in
her trunk. But, he said, there will be no doubt that the 14 layers of tape
caused her death.
"The evidence is going to show that when they put Mrs. Crane in the trunk
of her own car, the trunk became her coffin and the car itself became her
funeral hearse," Miller said.
Crane directed Texas Christian Universitys Starpoint School for more than
20 years and was well-known in the community. Her disappearance sparked
widespread searches and prayers from a multitude of friends.
Latimer is to be tried separately on a capital murder charge.
Busbys attorney, Jack Strickland, declined to make an opening statement.
Testimony began afterward, with a taped deposition from Laura Lee Cranes
husband.
(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
***********************
4th person charged in slaying at drug deal
A 4th man has been charged with capital murder in the Aug. 30 shooting
death of David Ibarra, 26, who police say was killed during a drug deal
rigged for a robbery.
Police said Andre Clewis, 20, beat a friend of Ibarra's as he walked
toward what he thought was a drug purchase. Clewis was arrested early
Tuesday and was held in Bexar County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
John Casanova, 18, Greg Hayes, 20, and Clarence Badgett, 20, have also
been charged with capital murder.
Ibarra was robbed and killed in the 1900 block of Budding Boulevard.
Ibarra's friend told police Hayes took him and Ibarra to the Park Town
Homes apartment complex to buy drugs, according to an affidavit.
While Ibarra stayed in the car, his friend walked with Hayes through the
complex. 2 men then jumped out and beat Ibarra's friend, leaving Hayes
unmolested, the affidavit states.
Ibarra's friend told police one of the men was armed with a gun.
The attackers demanded money, and when Ibarra's friend said he didn't have
any, Hayes and the armed man walked off.
Ibarra's friend was standing with one of his attackers in the back of the
complex when he heard gunshots, the affidavit states.
According to another affidavit, Badgett shot Ibarra in the stomach.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
***********************
Outback suspect pleads guilty----Henson sentenced to 45 years on 3 counts
of murder
The 2nd of 2 suspects nabbed in Labor Day 2003s Outback Steakhouse triple
murder was sentenced to 45 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty
to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder.
Richard Markeil "Lucky" Henson, of Texarkana, Texas, pleaded guilty to an
amended indictment for the murders of Outback proprietor Matt Hines, 31,
and managers Rebecca Shifflett, 24, and Chrystal "Chrissy" Willis, 23.
Henson was set to go on trial for capital murder next week in Sulphur
Springs. The case was moved there by 5th District Judge Ralph K. Burgess.
He agreed with Hensons lawyers, Craig Henry and Michael Jones, that a
trial in Bowie County could be tainted because of the notoriety of the
case.
Burgess had the victims' families in court on Monday morning at the
Bi-State Justice Building, asking each of them to say whether they
supported the plea agreement.
Burgess accepted Henson's change of plea and sentenced him to 45 years in
prison as part of the agreement. The judge reminded him that the only way
he can appeal the matter is if he were to get permission from Burgess.
"There's really no justice from the court for your actions. You deserved
to lose your life," said Pam Pointer, Hines mother. " ... My family has
struggled to forgive you, but we will. Youll be held accountable. Some day
youll be held accountable and you'll get your just punishment."
Earlier, Hines wife, Toni, held up a photo for Henson showing her with her
husband and their baby.
"This is the man you killed. You killed my husband. To my knowledge you
never had the privilege of meeting him other than the night you killed
him," Toni Hines told Henson.
Through tears, Hines told Henson that she blames him just as much as she
does Stephon Lavelle Walter, his co-defendant and the suspected trigger
man in the shootings. Walter was tried for 3 counts of capital murder in
Collin County last year and was convicted, but jurors spared him the death
penalty. Hes serving a life sentence for the murders.
"I don't think you pulled the trigger, but you did absolutely nothing to
prevent their deaths. You didn't call 911 or tell the truth for the past 2
years," Hines told him.
Hines asked Henson what her husband's last words were.
Raising her young son alone, Hines said she is taking over the role her
husband was happily filling before his death.
"My son has asked me so many times where his daddy is and when he's coming
back," Hines said, adding that she knows her husband is in heaven. "He
asks me regularly if we can go there and see him or to go get him and
bring him back. You have taken away his dad. I am forced to see the pain
in his eyes when he sees other kids playing with their dads ... you took
away the perfect dad."
Darcy Baggett, Shifflett's mother, read a letter one of her surviving
daughters wrote about the killings.
Shifflett was 6 months pregnant when she was gunned down inside the small
office of the restaurant. Her baby, named Lilly, was delivered while
medical examiners performed Shiffletts autopsy.
The family looked at her and held her in the examining room to see if she
had any of Shifflett's features. The child was placed in her dead mothers
arms and they were buried together.
Lilly is described by Shifflett, Hines and Pointer as the last victim in
the murder. Because of Texas law and the uncertainty of the exact time of
the shootings, an indictment was not issued for the baby's death.
"You're pleading guilty to three counts of 1st-degree murder, but you have
4 peoples blood on your hands," Hines said.
Hines said the baby died a slow death from lack of oxygen in the womb.
"You could have at least saved her life," Hines said.
Baggett read that when her daughter wants to reach out and touch
Shifflett, she pulls out a plastic bag "with hair that I dug out from her
drain."
Baggett read, "I hear the families of the murderers say they've lost a
child, too. Well, I disagree. They chose to be judge, jury and
executioners for Rebecca, Lilly, Matt and Chrissy. They got to spend the
last minutes of their life knowing they were about to die."
Baggett said the murders were senseless.
"I hope you hear their screams and see the terror in their eyes for the
rest of your life," Baggett said.
But Hines plans to stick around and haunt Henson.
"You are nothing but an evil coward. I want you to know that when you come
up for parole, I will be there to argue to keep you in prison. I'll be 43
years old and my son will be 21," Hines said. She hopes his fellow inmates
will learn of Hensons role in the murders.
"I hope they make your life a living hell," Hines told him.
(source: Texarkana Gazette)
**************
Mistrial declared----Bryan man's capital murder trial rescheduled
The capital murder trial for a Bryan man accused of hiring a trio of
amateur hitmen from Atlanta for a botched payback scheme was temporarily
derailed Tuesday after two jurors refused to take an oath.
Chad Fenley Davis, 30, flashed a brief smile at prosecutors after the jury
was dismissed.
"That's mistrial No. 1," he said before giving a thumbs up sign to
television cameras in the courtroom.
A new trial was scheduled for Nov. 28.
Davis and his brother, Trey, were arrested 2 years ago for allegedly
orchestrating a bloody ambush on Tommy Joe Andrade at his home in the Oak
Creek mobile home community just south of College Station.
According to Brazos County Sheriff's Department investigators, the
brothers had operated a major interstate drug-trafficking enterprise, and
Andrade somehow had double-crossed them out of $100,000 in either drugs or
cash. So the two found three gunmen - all strangers selected by a middle
man - and picked them up at an airport in Houston before driving them to
College Station, court documents state.
However, the scheme didn't seem to work out as expected, investigators
surmised.
After the hitmen kicked in Andrade's door at about 12:30 a.m. to demand
money, a hail of gunfire erupted, according to police. Everyone involved
was wounded, investigators said, with the exception of a 17-year-old girl
who had flown in from Canada the night before to meet Andrade after
corresponding with him over the Internet.
Among those killed were Andrade and Jesse Mancuso, an accused hitman
allegedly left by his colleagues in a pool of blood on Andrade's front
lawn. The other two accused hitmen later were driven back to Atlanta in a
tour bus driven by the Davis brothers' father and attended to by an
off-duty nurse, according to court documents.
This week's trial would have been the 1st for the 5 suspected conspirators
arrested as a result of the sheriff's department investigation.
One of the gunmen, Bradley Jessup Padrick of Dacula, Ga., took a 20-year
sentence for burglary of a habitation as part of a plea agreement in July
2004. Chad Davis' younger brother and his father, Willie Davis, are
awaiting trial.
Also awaiting trial on a murder charge is Thomas Parent, the alleged
middle man. A 6th man, suspected gunman Boris "Short Fat" Mogilevich, is
still at large.
About 85 people showed up for jury duty Monday. By evening, however, one
of the 12 selected jurors said she wouldn't be able to take the oath to
render a true verdict in the case. After attorneys scrambled to find an
alternate, a 2nd juror made a similar statement Tuesday afternoon.
At that point, both sides agreed that finding a 2nd alternate might be
"forcing the issue" too much at the expense of a fair verdict, according
to District Attorney Bill Turner.
"We decided the best way to go is to start again," he said.
The jurors did not reveal why they decided they couldn't participate in
the trial, nor was it clear why they did not make such intentions clear
earlier in the process, 85th District Judge J.D. Langley said Tuesday.
Such a situation has happened only twice during his time on the bench,
both times during high-profile cases, he recalled.
According to assistant district attorney Jay Granberry, jurors were aware
that the prosecution was not seeking the death penalty. A guilty verdict
would result in an automatic life sentence.
In addition to the wasted man-hours put into selecting the jury, Tuesday's
development throws a wrench in the courtroom schedule, which had been
cleared for 2 weeks in anticipation of the trial.
It also put a hitch in prosecutors' plans to fly in about a half-dozen
witnesses from out of state. The Canadian teen described as having
survived the shooting already had arrived in town, while 3 other witnesses
were in flight from Georgia as the mistrial was declared, Granberry said.
However, Tuesday's turn of events should have little bearing on the case's
ultimate outcome, both sides agreed. The jury selection process is
scheduled to start over immediately after the Thanksgiving weekend.
"It's a non-event in terms of a resolution," defense attorney Dan Cogdell
said.
(source: The Bryan-College Station Eagle)
*************************
New trial still expected after court ruling on Yates case
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Wednesday to reconsider a
lower court's decision to overturn Andrea Yates' capital murder
convictions for drowning her children in a bathtub in 2001.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Alan Curry said the case would
be retried or a plea bargain considered. Jurors rejected Yates insanity
defense in 2002 and found her guilty of two capital murder charges for the
deaths of three of her five children.
"Andrea Yates knew precisely what she was doing," Curry said. "She knew
that it was wrong."
Curry said if the case goes back to trial, he is confident Yates would be
convicted again. Yates' attorney, George Parnham, did not immediately
return a phone call to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The First Court of Appeals in Houston overturned Yates' 2002 convictions
in January because of false testimony from forensic psychiatrist Park
Dietz.
Curry asked the highest criminal court in Texas, based in Austin, to
reconsider the lower court's ruling. He said the lower court wrongly
applied the law when it overturned the convictions.
Curry also said the First Court of Appeals erred when it said the trial
court should have granted a mistrial based on Dietz's testimony, and when
it failed to consider whether Dietz's testimony about a television show
actually cast blame upon Yates.
Dietz incorrectly testified that an episode of "Law and Order" in which a
woman with postpartum depression drowned her children and was found insane
aired shortly before Yates drowned her 5 children. Such an episode never
existed.
"What was never suggested in these cases was that based upon the
particular episode of 'Law and Order,' the appellant discovered a way to
kill her children and 'get away with it,' by successfully pursuing an
insanity defense," Curry wrote.
Parnham has said Dietz's testimony swayed jurors who otherwise might have
found Yates was insane.
Prosecutors, who agreed Yates suffered from mental illness, tried her for
the deaths of 3 of her 5 children, who ranged in age from 6 months to 7
years.
Yates, 41, was sentenced to life in prison and is jailed at a psychiatric
prison in East Texas.
Yates called police and an ambulance to her home within hours of her
husband leaving for work on June 20, 2001. She answered the door in wet
clothes and told an officer what she had done. She then led the officer to
a back bedroom where the 4 youngest children's lifeless bodies were laid
out on a bed. Police later found the oldest child, Noah, 7, floating face
down with his arms outstretched in the tub's murky water.
During her trial, psychiatrists testified that Yates suffered from
schizophrenia and postpartum depression, but defense and prosecution
expert witnesses disagreed over the severity of her illness and whether it
prevented her from knowing that drowning her children was wrong - the 2
requirements to be declared legally insane in Texas.
Jurors determined Yates knew it was wrong to kill her children and found
her guilty.
(source: Associated Press)
