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

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 24



TEXAS:

Amnesty International USA Press Release


Friday, August 24, 2007

KENNETH FOSTER EXECUTION A 'NEW LOW FOR TEXAS' AND 'A SHOCKING PERVERSION
OF THE LAW,' SAYS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

---

Foster Convicted For a Murder He Did Not Commit or Predict; Human Rights
Organization Calls on Texas Board of Pardons, Gov. Perry to Grant Clemency

Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today condemned the scheduled August 30
execution of Kenneth Foster, who was convicted of a murder he did not
commit and has consistently denied knowing would occur. The human rights
organization has mobilized its international membership to urge the Texas
Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry to grant clemency.

Foster was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Michael LaHood
under Texas' controversial "law of parties." This law abolishes the
distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime and allows
both to be held equally culpable.

"This is a new low for Texas," said Larry Cox, executive director of
AIUSA. "Texas has the most far-reaching 'law of parties' in this country,
further marking it as the death penalty capital of the United States. In
essence, Kenneth Foster has been sentenced to death for leaving his
crystal ball at home. There is no concrete evidence demonstrating that he
could know a murder would be committed. Allowing his life to be taken is a
shocking perversion of the law."

In the early hours of August 15th, 1996, Mauriceo Brown, DeWayne Dillard,
Julius Steen and Kenneth Foster stopped outside the house of Michael
LaHood. Brown got out of the car, robbed LaHood, and then shot him. To
convict Kenneth Foster of capital murder under the law of parties, the
prosecution had to prove that there was a conspiracy between him and Brown
to rob LaHood, and that Foster should have anticipated that murder might
have occurred during the robbery. At the trial Brown testified that there
had been no discussion of robbing LaHood before he got out of the car.

Dillard testified at a state appeal that after the shot was heard, Foster
had appeared surprised and panicked. Steen signed an affidavit in 2003
stating that, "There was no agreement that I am aware of for Brown to
commit a robbery at the LaHood residence. I do not believe that Foster and
Brown ever agreed to commit a robbery. I don't think that Foster thought
that Brown was going to commit a robbery."

Brown was executed on July 19, 2006. Neither Steen nor Dillard, the 2
other accomplices, was prosecuted for LaHood's murder. Yet, as the
evidence stands today, their and Foster's culpability in the crime appears
to be the same.

(source: Amnesty International USA)

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

Bower has time left to appeal


The court that turned down Lester Bower's most recent appeal seeking a new
trial allowed him time to submit a request to have them reconsider that
decision.

Grayson County jurors sentenced Bower to die on April 28, 1984, after
convicting him of killing Bob G. Tate, Philip Good, Ronald Mayes and Jerry
Brown at the Tate Ranch near Sherman. The men were discovered shot to
death in an airplane hangar Oct. 8, 1983, on that property. The U.S. Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals granted Bower until Sept. 6, 2007 to file his
petition to have the court rehear his request for a new trial based on his
claims of ineffective assistance of counsel claim and his claim that the
prosecution failed to turn over to the defense information that could have
helped Bowers case.

Anthony Roth, one of the attorneys representing Bower, said the extension
allows them more time to file motions to have the entire court panel
reconsider the motion. A team of attorneys from Morgan and Lewis, a
national firm, have worked on Bower's case for a number of years.

Roth said if Bower's current appeal is not successful, they will appeal
all of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court's decisions on Bower's case to the
Supreme Court.

Bower appealed his death sentence to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
and that Court affirmed the conviction in 1989. He then petitioned for a
post-conviction habeas corpus (new trial) in the 15th state District Court
and that was denied.

In 1992, Bower filed a petition for a writ of a new trial with the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In 2000, Judge Richard
Schell conducted a 5-day evidentiary hearing and 2 years later, issued a
71-page memorandum denying Bower's petition but allowing him permission to
appeal that decision to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court.

More than a generation after Bower's conviction, the county where he was
convicted of committing the brutal crime has changed dramatically. There
are far fewer agricultural fields and many more housing developments. Many
young people in the county wouldnt even recall Bower's name though the
story concerning the deaths of Tate, Good, Mayes and Brown were front page
news for weeks after they occurred and during Bowers trial.

Bower, now 60, has been on death row for more than 2 decades, but he is
not the longest serving member of that particular population.

17 men currently on Texas' death row have been there longer than Bower.
Ronald Chambers has been there the longest. Chambers was 21 years old when
he was convicted of murder in Dallas County in 1976. Texas Department of
Criminal Justice records show that Chambers and 2 other men kidnapped a
man and his date from a nightclub parking lot. The group took the couple
to the Trinity River where they robbed and shot the couple.

Bower is not Grayson County's only convicted killer on death row. Andre
Thomas currently resides there as well. Grayson County jurors convicted
Thomas in March of 2005 for the brutal stabbing death of Leyha Hughes, the
13-month-old daughter of Thomas' estranged wife Laura Thomas.

Thomas also faced capital murder indictments for Laura Thomas' brutal
death and for the stabbing death of her son with Thomas, Andre Boren. That
little boy was only 4 years old when Thomas broke into the family's
apartment and butchered them. Thomas testified at trial that he thought he
acted on God's instructions when he committed the crimes.

In May of 2005, Judge James Fry denied Thomas' motion for a new trial.

(source: Herald Democrat)

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

Vote set on regional public defender office for capital murders


Members of a task force charged with improving defense for indigents in
Texas were expected to vote Friday on funding the state's first regional
public defender's office for capital murder cases.

The office would handle capital cases from 85 West Texas counties, many of
which rarely deal with such trials. But when they do, trial costs can
cripple their budgets.

The 13-member Task Force on Indigent Defense will vote on approving a $2.6
million grant over five years that would provide a chance for members to
study the regional concept and possibly duplicate it elsewhere in the
state.

"A lot of our programs are begun with the idea that they'll be suitable
for other places in the state," said Judge Sharon Keller, presiding judge
of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and chairwoman of the task force.

Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state, has often been
criticized for not providing adequate defense for those facing lethal
injection, including an instance in the 1980s where an attorney fell
asleep during crucial stages of testimony.

The state on Wednesday executed its 400th inmate since 1982, 6 years after
the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume.

Philip Wischkaemper, the Lubbock attorney who late last year approached
the task force about ways to improve death penalty representation in the
region, said each of the 5 attorneys who would work in the office would
have a limited case load.

So few attorneys, less than 20 in the 85-county region, handle capital
cases because they take so much time  preparation and trial can last
months  and the lawyers are unable to take on other cases.

"You can go broke doing it," he said. "The hope is that you'll be able to
concentrate on that case right then and not have to sleep through trial to
get your rest."

Best of all, officials said, the 5 attorneys who would work as public
defenders would have specialized training for capital cases and fewer
would come back on appeal.

David Slayton, court administrator in Lubbock County where the office
would be located, said the 85 counties, which make up two of the state's
nine judicial regions, asked for a $650,685 grant for the fiscal year
beginning Oct. 1. If approved, the office will begin taking cases Jan. 1.

Under the proposal, state funding to the office would gradually decrease
over the 5 years, and counties' contributions would increase
commensurately. Each county would contribute using a formula based on
population and a 10-year average of capital cases.

Keller said a grant committee recommended approval of the grant in June.

The task force has already set up public defender offices in Bexar County,
for indigent appellate cases, and in Travis County, for indigent mental
health law services.

The task force came out of the Fair Defense Act, authored by state Sen.
Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in the 2001 legislative session. Ellis was
traveling Thursday and unavailable to comment.

On the Net: Task Force on Indigent Defense:
http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tfid/tfidhome.asp

(source: Associated Press)

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

First Regional Public Defender Office Expected In Lubbock


Lubbock County will soon be home to the 1st regional public defender
office in Texas. The office will be devoted to handling only West Texas
capital murder cases for those who cannot afford an attorney. This could
mean big savings for taxpayers and county budgets.

For over 15 years Brian Murray has gone to court representing capital
murder defendants.

"You're doing a lot if you've got one a year. That's probably more than
you can save grace over if it's going to trial," said Murray.

In addition, in death penalty cases, trials can cost counties thousands in
tax dollars. So in an effort to combat the cost, the Texas Task Force on
Indigent Defense is expected to grant Lubbock County over $2.5 million for
a West Texas Public Defender Office.

It will encompass more than 80 counties from the tip of the Panhandle, to
Lubbock, and on down to Midland/Odessa and San Angelo.

Lubbock County Director of Court Administration David Slayton says, "In
order to provide the best quality of defense for those charged with the
crime we felt like it was necessary to increase the resources we had. The
second reason is the cost."

To bring a death penalty case before a jury it is estimated to cost a
county between $150,000 up to $500,000. But with a public defender office
each county will pay a 1-time fee. In Lubbock County's case that
eventually will be $130,000 per year.

"Regardless if you do or don't or have maybe 5 or 6 capital murder cases
that we may have this year you still are only going to have that 1-time
fee of paying on that rather than it be per case," Said Lubbock County
Commissioner Patti Jones.

Lubbock County Commissioners are in favor of the office, along with
District Attorney Matt Powell. Powell says its important defendants get
the best representation possible.

"For one to ensure that a fair trial is done. And for number 2 once it's
tried we want to make sure that's the only time it's tried," Powell said.

Murray says, "It's going to equalize resources in what the state able to
bring to bear and what the defense may be able to bring to bear."

Austin is expected to give final approval for grant money, which would
fully fund the office for 1 year on Friday. If approved, it is slated to
open in October and begin taking clients January 1st.

(source: KCBD News)

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

Task force may improve murder defense for poor


David Slayton thinks Texas has a bad reputation for sentencing a high
number of indigent defendants to die, sometimes for questionable murders a
competent attorney could have successfully defended.

And no one has felt the brunt of such criticism more than the small or
rural counties, Slayton, director of court administration at Lubbock
County, said Thursday.

"We really get a bad rap because a lot of people say we don't provide
adequate legal representation," Slayton said. "But we hope this will
change that perception."

Slayton was referring to the West Texas Regional Public Defender for
Capital Murder Cases office that is expected to open in Lubbock on Oct. 1.

Today, the state's Task Force on Indigent Defense in Austin is expected to
create such an office, which would represent 85 counties in the region,
from Dallam in the northwest corner of the Panhandle to Mills, a rural
county about 100 miles northwest of Austin.

If approved, the multi-county office would operate on a five-year $2.7
million grant that Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, with the help of his
colleagues Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, as well
as Rep. Aaron Pena, D-Edinburg, secured in the recently concluded
legislative session, said task force director Jim Bethke.

Slayton and Bethke say they are confident the 13-member task force will
approve the proposal. It has the backing of Chairwoman Sharon Keller, who
is the presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, making her the
highest-ranking jurist in Texas. At a June 6 task force committee meeting,
Keller voted in favor of it.

The plan is for the state to fund the office for the first year with about
$650,000 and for the 85 counties to gradually assume their share of the
cost, Bethke said. The counties are expected to be on their own after
2012.

Also, if approved, the West Texas public defender office would make sure
suspects who are accused of capital murder, but do not have the money to
hire their own attorneys, get qualified court-appointed attorneys, Bethke
said.

"This is very important," Bethke said. The defendant gets the proper legal
representation the Texas Constitution requires, and the counties save
themselves a lot of money dealing with a costly capital murder trial.

Duncan, who also is an attorney, said many of the 46 counties in his
Senate District 28, particularly the rural counties, would go broke if
they had to try a capital murder case.

"This is a concern that I hear all the time," Duncan said. "One of these
trials could bankrupt a county."

Rep. Joe Heflin, D-Crosbyton, who wrote a letter of support for the money
Duncan got approved, said that a few years ago, officials at Crosby
County, where he lives, were terrified they would get a capital murder
trial.

"A capital murder trial can cost up to $250,000," said Heflin, also an
attorney. "For a small county like Crosby, that's a lot of money. They
were terrified, but in the end, they breathed a sigh of relief because the
defendant decided to plea bargain so that he could get a life sentence. He
didn't want to risk getting the death penalty."

Slayton, Duncan and Heflin said another fear the counties have is if a
court of appeals overturns the conviction and orders a new trial, the
local governments have no choice but to obey the order, which means
another big legal bill.

Duncan said funding for the West Texas public defender office was made
possible thanks to the Fair Defense Act of 2001, which he and Ellis worked
on.

"Rodney is opposed to the death penalty, and I am not," he said. But both
lawmakers agree that as long as capital punishment is the law, it is in
the best interest of the state to provide the best legal representation if
the defendant cannot pay for an attorney.

Slayton, who would have a say on the hiring of the chief public defender
as early as next week if the task force approves the proposal, agreed.

"This is a win-win," he said. "If we are going to have the death penalty
we might as well do it right and provide the defendant with the legal
representation that these cases must have." (source: Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal)

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

As the Lone Star State becomes a pariah


As a Texan living in Europe, I'm appalled by the state's execution
Wednesday of Johnny Ray Conner.

Capital punishment is wrong. In the 27 countries of the European Union and
in Switzerland, where I live, capital punishment is rightly banned as
cruel and inhumane, an offense against human dignity and an ineffective
deterrent to violent crime.

I applaud the European Union for urging Texas Gov. Rick Perry to spare
Conner, who was the 400th person to be executed in the state since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The European Union implored the
governor to "exercise all powers vested in his office to halt all upcoming
executions and to consider the introduction of a moratorium."

It's embarrassing enough to be from a state that sails so aggressively
against the tide of civilization. But what really floored me was Perry's
petty response. In effect, he told the European Union to mind its own
business.

"230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a
European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long
ago decided the death penalty is just and appropriate punishment for the
most horrible crimes committed against our citizens," said spokesman
Robert Black.

But it didn't stop there. "While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome
their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws,
Texans are doing just fine governing Texas," he said.

Never mind that Perry misrepresents the European Union's intervention as
an attempt to restore the rule of European monarchs in America. I've lived
in Europe since April 2005. I see no indications that Queen Elizabeth II
is about to send red-coated Hessian mercenaries to reoccupy Boston and New
York -- or Dallas/Fort Worth.

What I dislike is Perry's insinuation that we Americans fought to make the
country safe for institutionalized lynching. I doubt that the Founders
would approve of the haphazard and unfair manner in which justice is
administered in Texas.

Perry knows that innocent people go to prison in Texas. In Dallas County,
13 felony convicts were recently exonerated of crimes they didn't commit,
thanks to the modern miracle of DNA testing.

What are the odds that innocent people have been executed in Texas? I'd
say they're high. Is it better that 10 innocent men die than that one
guilty man go free? The governor appears to think so. I don't.

Perry has behaved in this dismissive way before. I once heard him
delegitimize a journalist's tough question because she was born in New
York. Well, I was born in Virginia, the same as Sam Houston and Stephen F.
Austin, and my opinion is no less legitimate than Perry's.

It's untrue that whatever happens in Texas is Texans' business alone. The
European Union had an obligation to speak out about the corruption of
human values that it sees there.

The death penalty is turning Texas into an international pariah. By
speaking out, the European Union was doing Texas a favor.

I doubt that the state will change soon. The politics there strongly favor
capital punishment. But I know that the power to change isn't in Europe --
or in Asia or Africa. It's in Texas, where it's always been.

(source: Opinion, Timothy A. O'Leary is a freelance writer in Geneva; Fort
Worth Star-Telegram)

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

Jury selection begins in Fort Worth police shooting case


Jury selection got under way Thursday in the trial of a man accused of
fatally shooting Fort Worth police officer Henry "Hank" Nava almost 2
years ago.

If convicted of capital murder, Stephen Lance Heard could face the death
penalty.

At the Criminal Justice Building in downtown Fort Worth on Thursday
morning, 175 prospective jurors filled out questionnaires and heard
instructions from state District Judge Elizabeth Berry about the trial,
whose testimony is expected to begin in mid-October and last approximately
3 weeks.

The potential jury pool was soon whittled down to 150 after many asked to
be excused, several for upcoming trips. Three were dismissed because they
told the judge that they had already formed an opinion on Heard's guilt or
innocence.

Prosecutors Alan Levy and Betty Arvin declined to comment.

Mark Daniel and Tim Moore, Heard's defense attorneys, said they are
looking forward to the case going to trial.

"We think there'll be quite a few things that are going to be contrary to
what's been represented in the past," Daniel said.

Heard, appearing heavier than at the time of his arrest and dressed in
khaki slacks, a blue shirt and a tie with his hair shaved short, sat
quietly next to his attorneys Thursday morning.

The 41-year-old man is accused of fatally injuring Nava the afternoon of
Nov. 29, 2005, during a shootout with the officer and 2 of Nava's partners
inside a northwest Fort Worth mobile home. Police have said the officers
had gone to the home looking for Heard, who was wanted on a parole
violation warrant and was a suspect in an investigation of an identity
theft ring.

Nava, a member of the north side crime response team and a father of 2,
was struck just above the left eyebrow in the shootout. He died 2 days
later.

Heard, who suffered a superficial wound on his chin in the gunbattle, fled
to a nearby home where he held a woman hostage before surrendering about 3
hours later.

He later told reporters in a jailhouse interview that he had fired the gun
because he thought that Nava was a robber.

Heard remains in the Tarrant County Jail as he awaits his trial. Heard's
attorneys had sought to change the location of the trial but withdrew the
request.

Berry told prospective jurors that they will be called back over the next
6 to 8 weeks.

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)