[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

June 10



TEXAS----impending execution//female

Mom's execution: One daughter dreads it; the other welcomes it----Cathy
Lynn Henderson set to die by lethal injection on Wednesday.


Jennifer Henderson's early memories of her mother are vague recollections:
going to the neighborhood pool together and watching scary movies at their
house near Pflugerville.

Melissa Bradshaw remembers her mother using drugs, calling her a little
bitch and beating her, once so badly that her eyes swelled up and she
couldn't see.

Their mother is Cathy Lynn Henderson, a Travis County woman scheduled to
die Wednesday for murdering Brandon Baugh, a 3-month-old boy she was
baby-sitting, in 1994.

Jennifer Henderson, 17, wants her mother to get a new trial and one day be
set free.

Bradshaw, 28, wants Cathy Lynn Henderson dead.

In many ways, Jennifer Henderson is a typical suburban teen. She lives
with her father, Cathy Henderson's ex-husband, and her stepmother in a
2-story house with a thick front lawn in a Round Rock subdivision.

She is heading into her senior year at Round Rock High School, spends
hours at a time on myspace.com and works as a hostess at Joe's Crab Shack.

Until recently, her classmates didn't know that every other week since she
was a child, she has visited her mother at the women's death row in
Gatesville. Jennifer Henderson, who was 4 when Cathy Henderson was
arrested, knows her mother through those visits.

"Many people find it weird, but I thought it was normal just because I had
always done it," she said. "I look forward to it."

Bradshaw was 15 when Cathy Henderson was arrested, but had not lived with
her mother since she was 7. She is an Austin Community College student and
a single mother of 2 young girls. She lives in North Austin, where she
waits tables part time in a coffee shop.

She occasionally corresponds with Jennifer Henderson on myspace.com, but
they aren't close. She talks more frequently to her sister Amber, Cathy
Henderson's middle daughter, who lives in Illinois and couldn't be reached
for this story.

Bradshaw visited her mother on death row once, years ago.

Like Jennifer Henderson and their mother, Bradshaw has blond hair and is
about 5 feet tall. But unlike her half-sister, who talks with energy and
optimism, Bradshaw's voice is calm and low. Her words seem carefully
pulled from a well of thoughts and emotions that she is constantly trying
to understand.

Her life has been a struggle, especially after she testified at her
mother's trial at age 16. She said she dropped out of high school, partied
too much and used drugs; she was convinced that failure was in her genes.

Bradshaw now talks of raising her children in a loving home and breaking
what she sees as her family's cycle of abuse and drug use. She wants to go
to college in Oregon and travel the world to study other cultures.

"We can say, 'Poor me; I had a horrible childhood, and that gives me the
right not to do anything with my life,' " she said."I want the world to
know that they can overcome these things."

Their mother is 50 and has been on death row since 1995, when a Travis
County jury rejected her defense that Brandon's death was an accident and
agreed with prosecutors' theory that she intentionally slammed his head
into a hard object.

Cathy Henderson declined an interview with the American-Statesman. Her
daughters and her ex-husband say she denies ever abusing her children.

Last week, Henderson's lawyers filed a new appeal, saying that scientific
evidence that wasn't available during her trial shows that a short
accidental fall - Henderson claimed she dropped Brandon while reaching for
the phone - could have caused the head injuries that killed the baby.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could decide any day whether to allow
the appeal and delay her execution for the 2nd time.

Hiding in the doghouse

Bradshaw said her mother's mistreatment started as neglect.

"Cathy took me to day care when I was probably about 6 months old,"
Bradshaw said, "and she would repeatedly forget to pick me up."

Bradshaw was born in Austin but remembers moving around a lot, with
different men coming in and out of her mother's life during her childhood.
She didn't learn which one was her father until she was an adult.

Linda Bradshaw, the woman who cared for Melissa as an infant - and
eventually adopted her - testified at Henderson's trial that she got a
call from Henderson one day when Melissa was about 18 months old.

"Cathy called me to come and get" Melissa, Linda Bradshaw told the jury.
"She said if I didn't come and get her, she would put her on somebody
else's doorstep."

Melissa Bradshaw said things got worse when her mother moved her and
Amber,who is about 4 years younger than Melissa, to Hearne, a town
northwest of Bryan.

"There were people in and out of the house, using drugs," she said. To
escape it, she would go outside and hide in the doghouse and wait for
everything to pass. Bradshaw said her mother often beat her.

"If I woke her up to go to school, she beat me," Bradshaw said.

One of the men who passed through Cathy Henderson's home was Robert Moore.

He was in prison for murder when he took the witness stand at Henderson's
trial and told jurors that in 1986, he saw Henderson shoot up
methamphetamine in front of her eldest daughter and then slap her.

That year, when Melissa was 7, the state put her in foster care. The
judge's order said she was in "immediate danger" because of her mother's
abuse, according to news accounts after Henderson's arrest. Henderson also
lost custody of Amber that year in a divorce.

Linda Bradshaw and her husband later adopted Melissa, and Melissa says
they gave her a good life. But she said Cathy Henderson wouldn't leave her
alone, regularly calling and stopping by the Bradshaws' Round Rock home.
When she was about 13, Melissa Bradshaw said, her mother made a threat
that still sticks with her.

"She told me that one day when I had a child of my own, she would do
everything in her power to take that child away from me so I could know
how she felt," Bradshaw said. "Part of me is still scared of her."

'I think she was scared'

A year after Henderson lost custody of her children, she got a job at an
aircraft component overhaul shop in Pflugerville. There she met Warren
Henderson.

They married a year later. Jennifer was born in 1990. People told Warren
Henderson that his wife used drugs sometimes when she went out, but he
said he never saw it. He also said he never saw her abuse her children.

"She was a good mother," he said.

In 1992, Warren Henderson said, his wife started baby-sitting children in
their home near Pflugerville to make extra money and have companions for
Jennifer.

On Jan. 21, 1994, she was watching Jennifer, Brandon and Brandon's
2-year-old sister, Megan. Henderson would later tell investigators that
she panicked after she dropped the infant and then drove north with
Jennifer, Megan and Brandon's body.

She left Jennifer and Megan at a relative's house in Bell County and kept
going, according to testimony at her trial. In an oat field near Temple,
she buried Brandon in a wine cooler box. She then fled to her childhood
hometown of Independence, Mo., where she was arrested 11 days later after
dyeing her hair and assuming a new identity.

Jennifer Henderson says she remembers nothing about that day. But she said
she believes it was an accident and she's not angry that her mother left
her.

"I think she was just scared," Jennifer Henderson said.

Mom won't apologize

When Melissa Bradshaw heard about Brandon's death, she felt partly
responsible, she said. She had heard about her mother taking care of other
people's children and thought about saying something about her own abuse,
she said, but didn't.

At 16, she agreed to testify against her mother, she said, because "I felt
I had to."

During the punishment phase of the trial, as jurors prepared to decide
whether Henderson would be sentenced to life in prison or lethal
injection, Bradshaw took the stand.

She told the jury about her mother's abuse. She told them about hiding in
the doghouse when the men and the drugs filled their home.

Back at school, she said, students saw the media coverage and realized who
Melissa's real mother was. Some students called her the daughter of a baby
killer. Others were sympathetic, which she read as pity.

Before the trial, Melissa had been an honors student and an athlete on
schedule to graduate early. After the trial, she said, she dropped out
just before graduation and "wandered through life" for several years.

"I had a chip on my shoulder and felt sorry for myself," she said. "I used
to wish that maybe she had killed me."

She said she went into drug rehab when she was 19 and cleaned herself up
with help from her adoptive parents and her friends. Then she went to see
her mother on death row. "I wanted her to know that I forgive her. That I
am OK," she said. "I wanted some kind of closure."

Bradshaw said she was also seeking something in return: an apology. "I
wanted her to finally admit that the life I had as a child wasn't normal."

Her mother considered the request, Bradshaw said, and then said she
couldn't apologize because none of the things her daughter remembered had
happened.Bradshaw said Cathy Henderson then talked about how hard life was
on death row.

"Everything was about her," Bradshaw said.

'She's like a teenager'

Every other week for 12 years, Warren and Jennifer Henderson have made the
pilgrimage to the prison in Gatesville where Cathy Henderson and 9 other
women await execution.

In the beginning, Jennifer's father told her that they were going to see
her mother at the hospital and that the Plexiglas between them was to keep
germs contained. Later, Jennifer Henderson said, she began to understand
that her mother was on death row and why.

She said she and her mother have never talked about the day that put Cathy
Henderson there. She goes to her father for that information.

"I felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want her to be uncomfortable," she
said.

So, during their visits, they kept it light, with Jennifer giving her
mother updates on her life: school, friends, boyfriends.

"We just have fun," she said. "We are goofy."

When Jennifer got into cheerleading, she said, her mother looked up
information on competitions in magazines to share with her. When Jennifer
got into music, Cathy Henderson told her daughter about bands she used to
like - Lynyrd Skynyrd was one - and Jennifer went home and downloaded the
music from the Internet.

"People always say we look the same, act the same," Jennifer Henderson
said. "She's like a teenager. She's so full of energy."

She said she never became too emotional about her mother's situation. Then
late last year, a judge set Cathy Henderson's execution for April 18.

"It really hit me hard," Jennifer Henderson said. "I didn't want to go to
school. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I was moping around. It sucked."

She said she became overwhelmed with anxiety, began taking Valium and
ended up in the hospital. She said therapy and the support of her friends
and family helped her pull out of the tailspin. Then she decided she
needed to help her mother.

Against the advice of her stepmother and father, she went to school with
fliers detailing her mother's case. Her teachers agreed to give her a
couple of minutes to address her classmates, and Jennifer Henderson
revealed that her real mother was on death row for murdering a child. She
told them her mom didn't do it and asked them to write to the state Board
of Pardons and Paroles. "It was like going on a stage by yourself in front
of the entire school pretty much," she said. "It was very nerve-racking."

She said her classmates were supportive, and a handful joined her at an
April court date during which her mother's lawyers asked for more time to
file an appeal. They were successful, and the execution date was moved to
this month.

Different dreams

As her mother's appointment with death creeps closer, Jennifer Henderson
is hoping the courts will step in again. She dreams of one day walking
through a mall with her mother or having lunch with her at a restaurant.

If no reprieve comes, she plans to be with her father outside the gates of
the prison in Huntsville that contains the death chamber. Her father won't
allow her to be in the witness room to watch the execution.

Bradshaw said she won't be in Huntsville on Wednesday. She is busy
studying, fmoving toward her goal of attending Oregon State University in
a couple of years.

Her mother's execution, she said, will be "relieving."

"Finally that chapter in my life could actually be done with now," she
said. "And I can stop looking over my shoulder."

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

******************************************

The problems behind the culture of 'Stop Snitching'


Can snitching be ethical? The question has troubled me ever since I was a
little-bitty boy. I ratted out my neighborhood friend Andrew. He had
brazenly filched a couple of cookies out of his nice mother's cookie jar
after she had told us not to. When I snitched, Drew was ticked off at me.
But his mom let him off the hook. She even gave each of us a cookie. Years
later, sadly, Andrew would go to prison on much more serious charges. I
would pursue a career in journalism. As the twig is bent, so grows the
tree.

My childhood friend came to mind when I heard about a Web site called
whosarat.com, which is devoted to snitching on snitchers. It posts names,
photos and court documents of witnesses who cooperate with the government.
The Internet, that great megaphone for the masses, now enables
tattletales, too.

Whosarat.com was launched by a guy named Sean Bucci in 2004, apparently
out of personal rage. He had been indicted in federal court in Boston on
marijuana charges based on information from an informant. At first the
site was free, but it caught on. Now it charges $7.99 for a week of access
or $89.99 for a life membership and a free "Stop Snitching" T-shirt.

In case you haven't heard, "Stop Snitching" T-shirts, DVDs, rap videos and
Internet sites are a sign that the criminal underworld's values have gone
mainstream, transmitted like a lethal virus through the culture and
multi-billion-dollar commerce of hip-hop.

As the rap star Cameron "Cam'ron" Giles said in a recent CBS 60 Minutes
interview, cooperation with police would violate his "code of ethics" and
damage his street credibility. "It would definitely hurt my business," he
said. As a result, neither he nor his entourage of potential witnesses
have cooperated with police investigating Giles' shooting in Washington,
D.C., in October 2005 by a presumed carjacker.

The whosarat.com site claims to have identified more than 4,000 informers
and 400 undercover agents, many from documents obtained from court files
available on the Internet.

Of course, police and prosecutors would like to shut it down, but that
pesky First Amendment stands in the way. The Web site claims that it does
not condone violence against anyone. Yet its homepage prominently displays
mug shots and bios of its "rats of the week" in a way that all but paints
targets on their faces.

According to a recent article about the site by New York Times reporter
Adam Liptak, at least one witness in Philadelphia has been relocated, and
the FBI was asked to investigate after material from the Web site was
mailed to neighbors and posted on cars and utility poles in his
neighborhood.

The "Stop Snitching" culture is bad, but it has grown in reaction to 2
other malignant problems. One is the false testimony offered up by too
many witnesses looking for lighter sentences and used too eagerly by
unquestioning prosecutors. The other is a persistent pattern of bad
relations between police and civilians in certain neighborhoods.

Arrests and prosecutions too often have been tainted by witnesses lured or
coerced into lying in return for lighter sentences.

As stated in "The Snitch System," a 2005 report by the Center on Wrongful
Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law, "snitch
testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in capital cases."

An American Bar Association report, "Achieving Justice: Freeing the
Innocent, Convicting the Guilty," last year similarly recommended
requiring corroboration of jailhouse informant testimony with other
evidence or testimony to avoid wrongful convictions.

Even in the small-town neighborhood where I grew up, residents would
refuse to cooperate with police if they felt the police could not be
trusted. Urban crime declined sharply in the 1990s after cities and towns
got a lot smarter about "community policing" programs to improve
police-civilian cooperation.

What happens next at whosarat.com depends on how smart police, judges and
prosecutors are going to be about the risks it poses. The Web site's
operators could be charged with witness tampering or aiding and abetting
criminals, but it would be hard to make the charges stick. The information
on whosarat.com is drawn from court documents posted elsewhere on the
Internet. That helps other defendants and their lawyers to receive a fair
trial. Judges are better off deciding in each case whether witnesses'
identities can safely be posted anywhere on the Internet or whether they
should be sealed legally from public access.

There may be hope for hip-hop, too. Giles issued a national apology after
saying in his 60 Minutes interview that he would not even snitch on a
serial killer next door. Even the world of gangster rap reeled at that
one.

(source: Houston Chronicle, Commentary; Clarence Page is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning syndicated columnist specializing in urban issues)

*******************************

DA policy varies in child death cases----DAs have great discretion in
bringing charges against parents in tragic accidents


Tammie Sharma worked nights, her common-law husband days. Between their
shifts fell a period of 30 minutes or so, which might have been a matter
of small consequence but for one thing: the two small children left at
home by themselves.

Those few minutes made all the difference 2 weeks ago when a fire broke
out shortly before Sharma arrived home. Despite the best efforts of an
older sister, 3-year-old Dazzalena Escobedo could not make it out of their
apartment before smoke overcame her.

To local prosecutors, however, Dazzalena's death was more than a tragic
accident. Sharma and Adrian Gonzales were arrested and charged with injury
to a child by omission, a first-degree felony that could put them in
prison for the rest of their lives.

"It's a disgrace and sickening that they charged this couple," said
Gonzales' attorney, Samuel Cammack. "These were not drug dealers. They are
a good, hard-working couple. The DA's office is out of control. This never
would have happened in any outlying county."

Cammack may have a point, at least with respect to the vagaries of
jurisdiction. Last year in Victoria, a single mother of four whose
children perished in a house fire when she was not at home was not charged
in their deaths. The local district attorney said that her efforts to keep
in touch with the children, ages 13 to 3, by phone were enough to show
that the children were not in imminent danger.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said there is no set
policy on how to pursue these cases, regardless of the extent of injury to
the child. But he acknowledges his office is more aggressive than many
other jurisdictions, and he makes no apologies for it.

"I've got better lawyers and a better staff to review these kinds of
things," Rosenthal said. "We're not as reticent to take cases, unlike some
other jurisdictions that feel like they have to win if they take it to
trial. There are a lot of cases where we feel 12 people from the community
ought to decide."

Supervision question

Whether lack of parental supervision rises to the level of criminal
negligence is an invariably gray and subjective matter. Even similar
incidents can yield significantly different treatment of parents. And
fatalities alone are no guarantee of prosecution.

2 Houston-area toddlers drowned last week when no adults were paying
attention. Neither case has resulted in charges so far, and officials with
the Harris County Sheriff's Office privately expressed doubt that they
will.

Prosecutors have great discretion in bringing a charge, said Pat McCann,
president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. "What may
look like negligence to one prosecutor that's worthy of a criminal charge
may look to another prosecutor like a tragedy that is best left alone. I
can tell you from the outside, a lot of us scratch our heads and wonder
why certain cases are charged at all."

If children were without adult supervision when a tragedy occurred, Harris
County prosecutor Murray Newman said he typically will consider the age of
the oldest child present, how long the children were left alone and
whether the lack of supervision was a regular practice or a 1-time
miscommunication.

In the case of Sharma's young daughters, Newman said, "it was a regularly
occurring practice for those children to be left alone."

Newman said he also looks at whether the children had access to emergency
phone numbers; whether there was anyone they could approach for help, such
as a next-door neighbor; whether they were locked inside the house and
whether they were confined by burglar bars.

"These cases do get tricky when you analyze them," Newman said. "There's a
difference between a child left in a car seat for 3 minutes while Mom runs
in to pick up the cleaning and a child who is left in the care of a
5-year-old."

The 'reasonable' standard

True, Cammack responded, but he insists a neighbor was supposed to keep an
eye on the two girls until Sharma got home, and a grandparent lived
nearby. The older girl called the grandparent when the fire broke out, he
added.

"Why did they bring this case?" he said. "Because they can."

The laws addressing endangerment or abandonment of children require
parents or guardians to consider what a reasonable person would do, said
investigator Catheryn Gardner-Sanders of the Houston Police Department's
physical child-abuse unit.

However, a generally accepted threshold is that children younger than 10
should not baby-sit or watch over youths younger than themselves, she
said.

Baby-sitters 11 or older might be a different matter, based on their
intelligence level, maturity and capability.

One of the toddlers who drowned recently, 2-year-old Darius Allen, was
left by his working parents in the care of his 11-year-old sister and
7-year-old brother. If authorities think that she was a capable caregiver,
or could reasonably be thought of as such, then the investigation likely
would go no further.

One case that Gardner-Sanders thought clearly violated the law was that of
baby-sitter Rachael Marie Green, 27, who was arrested in January after she
was accused of leaving four young children alone with tragic results.

Green was charged with abandoning a child after she was accused of leaving
a 4-month-old boy with three children, ages 8, 5 and 4, at her apartment
in the 3800 block of Synott, records show.

During Green's absence, the older children played roughly with the infant,
Gardner-Sanders said. The baby was badly injured and is now blind and
brain-damaged as a result of being shaken and suffering bleeding in his
brain, she said.

Many cases, perhaps the majority, are not clear-cut. Many drownings, for
instance, occur while parents are nearby and become distracted or lose
track of their children for just a few minutes. Charges may not be filed
in those cases because the police realize accidents do happen,
Gardner-Sanders said.

Accidental shooting cases frequently result in charges against parents
because there is a state law that specifically addresses leaving firearms
accessible to children. Fatal fires also draw serious scrutiny.

A deadly fire

In 2005, Royshunda Page and her boyfriend, Kelvin Lamone Rucker, were
charged with felony murder when they went out to eat and shop while
leaving her three daughters  ages 6, 5 and 2  alone in a Spring apartment
with a burning candle. A fire ignited, killing all 3 children as they
slept. Rucker pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors without a
promise of leniency. He was sentenced to 10 years' deferred adjudication
and ordered to spend 6 months in jail. Page took her case to a jury and
was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Records show Rucker's deferred adjudication was later revoked after he was
arrested on New Year's Eve 2006 for driving while intoxicated. He was then
sentenced to 6 years in prison for his murder conviction.

When a 7-year-old boy in east Houston died in an apartment fire in 2004,
the charge against his grandmother was less severe. Myra Martin Page was
charged only with abandoning a child. Prosecutor Paul Doyle noted there
were several mitigating factors in her case: She was at work trying to
provide for her grandson because the boy's mother was not part of his
life, and she said her adult son was supposed to return to the apartment
shortly after she left for work.

The son denied that, but prosecutors had to consider how such conflicting
stories would look to a jury.

Myra Page ultimately pleaded no contest to the abandonment charge and was
sentenced to a year in jail.

Under consideration

"We look to see if there is a pattern of conduct," said John Jordan, a
Harris County prosecutor who in 2005 went after the parents of a
6-year-old boy injured when they allowed him to ride a motorized minibike.
"Are the defendants remorseful? Do they want help? A lot of it has to do
with their history, not always a legal history but sometimes a history
with (Child Protective Services)."

Which helps explain the 7-year prison sentence slapped on Wade Brandon
Wilson, whose 1-year-old daughter died in a bathtub last year. He had left
water running and gone to a store for milk, his attorney said, leaving 5
children alone. He was on probation for a drug conviction, his wife was in
jail, and the 2 had been visited previously by CPS.

"He was very remorseful  he cried at the scene when it happened and in
court," attorney Danny Easterling said. "But he never should have left
those kids alone. Everyone recognized that."

(source: Houston Chronicle)

******************************

Death penalty capital murder case starting


A Commerce man is facing the potential of death by lethal injection, if he
is convicted of capital murder in connection with the killing of one of
the citys code enforcement officers.

Opening arguments and the start of testimony are scheduled to begin in the
354th District Court Monday in the trial of Adam Kelly Ward. Ward, 24, has
been charged with one count of capital murder involving the shooting death
of Michael "Pee Wee" Walker. Wednesday is the 2nd anniversary of Walker's
death.

Ward remains in custody at the Hunt County Jail in lieu of $2 million
bond. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to take about 2
weeks.

Walker was working as a code enforcement officer for the City of Commerce
when at around 10:30 a.m. on June 13, 2005, authorities said he was taking
photos of alleged code violations at the home where Ward lived on Caddo
Street.

The criminal complaint filed against Ward by an investigator with the
Texas Rangers claimed that after Walker and Ward had "a brief verbal
altercation", Ward went back inside the residence and retrieved a .45
caliber semi-automatic pistol, then returned and shot Walker several
times. He was arrested a short time later.

Capital murder carries a maximum punishment upon conviction of death by
lethal injection or life in prison.

District Attorney F. Duncan Thomas said that he is seeking the death
penalty in Ward's case, as the defendant was allegedly retaliating against
Walker at the time of the shooting.

Thomas said after researching the states death penalty statute, he learned
there is a provision under the law where capital murder could apply, if
the defendant commits murder while in the course of also committing
obstruction or retaliation.

As Walker was performing his duties for the City of Commerce at the time
of the shooting, Thomas said the statute could apply because Walker was
considered a public servant.

Ward's defense attorneys attempted to have their client found mentally
incompetent to stand trial.

During an April hearing before visiting District Judge Webb Baird, the
attorneys offered testimony from medical professionals who had examined
Ward and who claimed he was not mentally competent to aid in his own
defense, saying Ward was unable to answer questions directly, had
delusional thought processes and rambled in his answers.

Prosecutors called their own witnesses who testified Ward understood the
trial process and the roles of everyone involved in that process and he
was declared mentally competent to stand trial.

The jury selection process took more than a month, due to the fact it is a
death penalty case. Once the prosecution and defense attorneys made their
preliminary eliminations, the remaining members of the jury pool received
questionnaires which they were asked to complete and return before being
individually interviewed.

Ward has had felony charges filed against him before, although he has
avoided any prison time.

Ward was indicted in 1999 on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon, in connection with the stabbing of a Commerce High School student.
The indictment was dismissed in September of 2000, after the Hunt County
District Attorney's office indicated it could not prove the case beyond a
reasonable doubt.

Just 2 months later, in November of 2000, Ward was indicted on 2 counts of
assault on a public servant, for allegedly attacking 2 Commerce Police
Department officers and attempting to take one of the officers' firearm.

1 of the counts was dismissed after Ward pleaded guilty in July of 2001 to
the remaining charge. Ward was placed on 5 years of deferred adjudication
probation, which carries no finding of guilt. The probation was terminated
in 2003, after Ward had successfully completed 2 years of the community
service.

(source: The (Greenville) Herald Banner)

********************

Ninth state District Court Judge Fred Edwards has scheduled a July 2
evidentiary hearing for the case of convicted killer Larry Ray Swearingen,
who contradicts the forensic evidence that helped send the Willis man to
death row.


The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office requested the hearing.

Swearingen, 36, was set to die Jan. 24 in Huntsville by lethal injection
for the 1998 kidnapping and strangulation of 19-year-old college student
Melissa Trotter, also of Willis. He was found guilty of Trotter's murder
in June 2000.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Swearingen a stay about 24
hours before his execution was scheduled to take place.

The appeals court ruled that a 2nd writ of habeas corpus submitted by
Swearingen raised 6 points worthy of re-examination, including a claim by
defense attorney James Rytting, of Houston, that prosecution experts
incorrectly determined the time of Trotter's death. Rytting's motion also
claimed the state withheld the entomological information that would have
helped his client.

Trotter was last seen alive Dec. 8, 1998, at the Montgomery College
campus. Her body was found in the Sam Houston National Forest in far north
Montgomery County Jan. 2, 1999.

It has been the opinion of Rytting and his experts that entomological and
pathological evidence contradict the state's claim Trotter was murdered
and placed in the forest well after the date of her disappearance and
projected death of Dec. 8. It is Swearingen's contention he could not have
killed Trotter because he was in jail Dec. 11.

Rytting has submitted affidavits from 2 pathologists and 2 entomologists
that the state's forensic evidence did not fit the proposed time of death.

"The evidence is looking stronger and stronger in favor of Mr.
Swearingen's position," Rytting said.

Edwards will issue a finding of fact and a conclusion of law based on the
hearing, which he will forward to the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals in
Austin.

Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Marc Brumberger, of the
appellate division, said he filed the motion for the hearing to prevent a
"repeated exchange" of written rebuttals.

"It makes sense to bring the people into court and go over an expert's new
piece of testimony during an evidentiary hearing," he said. "It's much
easier and cleaner to address all of this in live court where the judge
can hear it."

Brumberger said he expects the hearing to last only one day. Rytting said
it was a "clearly just and reasonable decision" for Edwards to call the
hearing.

"To the DA's credit, I think it's the right thing to get this resolved,"
Rytting said. "This way, the experts can testify and be cross-examined in
front of the judge."

(source: Houston Community Newspapers Online)