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

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 15



TEXAS:

3 Texas killers lose Supreme Court appeals


A former Houston security guard convicted of a shooting spree that left 4
people dead, including his ex-girlfriend and her 2 children, was among 3
condemned Texas prisoners to lose appeals Monday before the U.S. Supreme
Court.

The justices refused to review the case of Virgil Martinez, convicted of
the October 1996 rampage at his former girlfriend's mobile home near
Alvin, south of Houston. The court also declined to hear the cases of
David Lewis, convicted of killing a Lufkin woman during a burglary of her
home almost 21 years ago, and Jeffery Lee Wood, convicted of killing a
convenience store clerk during a January 1996 robbery in Kerrville.

The court actions move all 3 men close to execution although none has a
scheduled death date.

Prosecutors in Texas have withheld requesting execution dates pending the
outcome of a Supreme Court case out of Kentucky that challenges the drugs
used in lethal injections as unconstitutionally cruel. The justices heard
arguments on that case last week and a decision is expected by the end of
the court's term in June. In the case of Martinez, now 40, witnesses saw
him shoot his ex-girlfriend, Veronica Fuentes, in the front yard of the
Alvin trailer park. Police found 10 to 12 bullets in her body. Her 2
children, Cassandra, 3, and Joshua, 6, were dead in their beds. Both had
been shot in the head at point-blank range.

Records show Martinez also shot John Gomez, 18, a neighbor, 7 times as he
ran to Fuentes' aid. Before he died, Gomez was able to tell police
Fuentes' ex-boyfriend shot him.

Martinez was convicted of 3 counts of capital murder and sentenced to
death. Brazoria County prosecutors combined the slayings of Victoria
Fuentes and Gomez into a single capital murder charge.

Police concluded a single 9mm gun fired all of the bullets. Police
recovered a holster for a 9mm gun in Martinez' car and a box designed to
house the same caliber weapon in his mother's home. The murder weapon
never was recovered.

In earlier appeals, Martinez unsuccessfully challenged the searches that
recovered the box and holster.

Martinez was arrested at a mental hospital in Kerrville 2 weeks after the
slayings. The killings were linked to Fuentes' breakup with Martinez 2
months earlier.

Martinez fled to Del Rio after the shootings and then wound up at the
mental hospital in Kerrville under an assumed name after he called Del Rio
police to complain he heard voices telling him to kill.

In the Lufkin case, Lewis, now 42, was convicted of shooting 74-year-old
Myrtle Ruby in the face with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle. The pair ran
into one another in the hallway of the woman's Lufkin home as she returned
from a church choir practice and while he was was burglarizing the place.

Records show he then stole her car, drove to his uncle's home and went on
a hunting trip. He was arrested when he returned and confessed. At the
time of the slaying, he had been paroled from prison on mandatory
supervision after serving about 6 weeks of a 2-year sentence for burglary
in Brazoria County.

His capital murder conviction and death sentence were reversed in 1993 by
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because part of his court record was
lost. He was retried later that year, was convicted and again sentenced to
die.

In 2000, a federal court allowed him to appeal on grounds his legal help
at the second trial did not adequately question a psychiatrist and because
a state refused admission of what he argued was newly discovered evidence.
A federal appeals court later denied those claims.

In the 3rd case rejected Monday, Wood and his roommate, Daniel Reneau,
were convicted of the death of Kriss Keeran, 31, who knew both men.

Evidence showed Reneau entered the store before dawn on Jan. 2, 1996, and
shot Keeran once in the face with a .22-caliber pistol. Then joined by
Wood, they robbed the store of more than $11,000 in cash and checks. Both
were arrested within 24 hours.

At his trial, Wood had refused to allow any evidence on his behalf at the
punishment phase of the trial. Then in his appeal, he argued the trial
court judge violated his rights by refusing to allow him to represent
himself and that his trial attorneys were incompetent.

Court records show Wood, now 34, was waiting outside the store and came in
after Keeran was shot, then both fled with the store safe, a cash box and
a video recorder containing a security tape showing the robbery and
slaying.

Evidence showed the pair had planned the robbery for a couple of weeks and
unsuccessfully tried recruiting Keeran and another employee to stage a
phony robbery.

Reneau was executed in 2002.

(source: KVUE News)

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

Screwball logic sets bad example


Kelly Siegler's remarks to a judge last year that members of Houston's
Lakewood Church are "screwballs and nuts," unworthy of jury service,
confounded many last week.

We wondered what would possess the star prosecutor with political
ambitions  she's a newly announced Republican candidate for district
attorney  to make such a politically stupid comment on the record.

The short answer seems to be desperation. Siegler was grasping for a
reason, almost any reason, to strike Matthew Washington from the pool of
prospective jurors in the capital murder case.

The real question is why. A defense attorney claimed it was because
Washington was black. Siegler denied that, knowing that attorneys are
banned from striking jurors on the basis of race.

But, after reviewing Washington's juror questionnaire and a transcript of
his voir dire examination, I couldn't find any other compelling reason.

Fact is, except for soft-on-crime stereotypes associated with his race,
Matthew Washington seemed like the perfect juror. And the reasons Siegler
gave for striking him were, to play on her phrase, just plain screwy.

For starters, Siegler characterized Washington last week as being "very
weak on the death penalty."

But Washington, a 43-year-old AT&T manager, checked the option on the
questionnaire that read, "I am in favor of capital punishment, except in a
few cases where it may not be appropriate."

He also checked statements that read "capital punishment is just and
necessary," and "capital punishment gives the criminal what he deserves."

Washington's best argument for the death penalty was its deterring effect.
"It serves to make criminals think twice about crime," he wrote.

Washington also noted his strong ties to law enforcement: A brother who's
an officer in the Travis County Sheriff's Department. A niece who's a
prison guard in Navasota. And a friend who's a prosecutor in Fort Bend
County.

And lest anyone assume that Washington had his own racial biases that
would cause him to sympathize with a black defendant, the prosecutor
friend, who is a godfather to Washington's young twins, is white.

In addition to the Lakewood argument, Siegler also told the judge she was
striking Washington because he was a member of the NAACP, which she argued
opposes the death penalty.

Siegler, known for her courtroom theatrics, took the liberty of
exaggerating Washington's role with the organization. "He says that he's
an active member of the NAACP," she told the judge.

Washington's actual words to the court: "I'm really not an active member.

"I may go maybe once, twice a year to the meetings, and most of the time
it's during presidential time and we're trying to get out the vote," he
said.

Siegler pressed on.

"Do you really think that you would be able to go back home and tell your
mom and your dad and all those people at that meeting that you sat on a
death penalty jury and voted to give somebody, especially another black
man, the death penalty?" Siegler asked Washington.

"Yes, I think I would," he answered.

He never got the chance. Visiting State District Judge Doug Shaver ruled
that Siegler had fairly struck the prospective juror, even though the
judge acknowledged that he wasn't swayed at all by the NAACP argument.

"There are jurors that are Roman Catholics," the judge said, noting that
many denominations oppose the death penalty.

And I'm not convinced that Siegler didn't disqualify Washington because of
his skin color. The practice is actually quite common.

A 2-year investigation published in 2006 by The Dallas Morning News showed
that nothing mattered more than race to prosecutors and defense attorneys
alike when searching for sympathetic jurors.

Prosecutors excluded eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the
rate they rejected eligible whites. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, excluded
white jurors at 3 times the rate they rejected blacks.

I called Washington to get his take and he seemed a fair-minded sort. He
stopped short of accusing Siegler of cutting him from the jury because he
was black, but he said some of her arguments weren't fair.

"I don't go by what a certain organization believes in," he told me. "I
have my own mind. If I think a case warrants the death penalty, I would
give it."

Siegler has argued that she was just doing her job when she deemed
Washington and all 45,000 members of America's largest church unworthy of
jury service in Harris County.

Let's hope this isn't an example of how she would do her job as district
attorney.

Exercising poor judgment and skirting ethical boundaries is the kind of
behavior that brought down her boss, disgraced District Attorney Chuck
Rosenthal, who recently agreed not to seek re-election after he was caught
penning love letters to his secretary and indulging in racist jokes on his
government e-mail account.

Siegler needs to show she can lead by a better example.





(source: Lisa Falkenberg, Houston Chronicle)

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

State to pay for Baby Grace's mom's fees


The state will pay the attorney's fees and the price of hiring expert
witnesses when the mother of the little girl known as "Baby Grace" goes to
trial.

In a hearing in the 10th District Court on Monday, Judge David Garner
approved an affidavit that declared the accused mother, 19-year-old
Kimberly Dawn Trenor, indigent.

Trenor is charged with capital murder and tampering with evidence in the
death of her 2-year-old daughter, Riley Ann Sawyers. She will keep the
attorney she initially hired, Tommy Stickler.

District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk will decide by April 17 whether to ask for
the death penalty in her case, a day after he announces whether he will
seek it for Trenor's husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler.

Both are being held in the Galveston County Jail on bonds of $850,000
each. Stickler said there was "no chance" Trenor would post bond and be
released from jail.

(source: Galveston Daily News)

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

Kerrville man loses death row appeal


A Kerrville man will stay on death row after losing appeals before the
U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

The justices refused to review the case of Jeffery Lee Wood, convicted of
killing a convenience store clerk during a January 1996 robbery in
Kerrville. The court also declined to hear the cases of Virgil Martinez,
convicted of the October 1996 rampage at his former girlfriends mobile
home near Alvin, south of Houston, and David Lewis, convicted of killing a
Lufkin woman during a burglary of her home almost 21 years ago.

The court actions move all 3 men close to execution although none has a
scheduled death date.

Prosecutors in Texas have withheld requesting execution dates pending the
outcome of a Supreme Court case out of Kentucky that challenges the drugs
used in lethal injections as unconstitutionally cruel. The justices heard
arguments on that case last week and a decision is expected by the end of
the court's term in June.

Wood and his roommate, Daniel Reneau, were convicted of the death of Kriss
Keeran, 31, who knew both men.

In 2000, the appellate court upheld that decision. In June 2007, the 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upheld his sentence.

Evidence showed Reneau entered the store before dawn on Jan. 2, 1996, and
shot Keeran once in the face with a .22-caliber pistol. Then joined by
Wood, they robbed the store of more than $11,000 in cash and checks. Both
were arrested within 24 hours.

At his trial, Wood had refused to allow any evidence on his behalf at the
punishment phase of the trial. Then in his appeal, he argued the trial
court judge violated his rights by refusing to allow him to represent
himself and that his trial attorneys were incompetent.

Court records show Wood, now 34, was waiting outside the store and came in
after Keeran was shot, then both fled with the store safe, a cash box and
a video recorder containing a security tape showing the robbery and
slaying.

Evidence showed the pair had planned the robbery for a couple of weeks and
unsuccessfully tried recruiting Keeran and another employee to stage a
phony robbery.

Reneau was executed in 2002.

In the case of Martinez, now 40, witnesses saw him shoot his
ex-girlfriend, Veronica Fuentes, in the front yard of the Alvin trailer
park. Police found 10 to 12 bullets in her body. Her 2 children,
Cassandra, 3, and Joshua, 6, were dead in their beds. Both had been shot
in the head at point-blank range.

Records show Martinez also shot John Gomez, 18, a neighbor, 7 times as he
ran to Fuentes aid. Before he died, Gomez was able to tell police Fuentes'
ex-boyfriend shot him.

Martinez was convicted of 3 counts of capital murder and sentenced to
death. Brazoria County prosecutors combined the slayings of Victoria
Fuentes and Gomez into a single capital murder charge.

Martinez was arrested at a mental hospital in Kerrville 2 weeks after the
slayings. The killings were linked to Fuentes' breakup with Martinez 2
months earlier.

Martinez fled to Del Rio after the shootings and then wound up at the
mental hospital in Kerrville under an assumed name after he called Del Rio
police to complain he heard voices telling him to kill.

In the Lufkin case, Lewis, now 42, was convicted of shooting 74-year-old
Myrtle Ruby in the face with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle. The pair ran
into one another in the hallway of the woman's Lufkin home as she returned
from a church choir practice and while he was burglarizing the place.

Records show he then stole her car, drove to his uncle's home and went on
a hunting trip. He was arrested when he returned and confessed. At the
time of the slaying, he had been paroled from prison on mandatory
supervision after serving about 6 weeks of a 2-year sentence for burglary
in Brazoria County.

His capital murder conviction and death sentence were reversed in 1993 by
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because part of his court record was
lost. He was retried later that year, was convicted and again sentenced to
die.

In 2000, a federal court allowed him to appeal on grounds his legal help
at the 2nd trial did not adequately question a psychiatrist and because a
state refused admission of what he argued was newly discovered evidence. A
federal appeals court later denied those claims.

(source: The Daily Times)

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

Lubbock Public Defender Office Ready for Capital Murder Case


The state's first public defender office for capital murder cases is now
open in Lubbock. As NewsChannel 11 first told you last summer, the Lubbock
based office will encompass over 80 counties, from the tip of the
panhandle down to San Angelo.

Typically, one death penalty case costs counties and taxpayers anywhere
from $150,000 to $500,000. Now, the public defenders office will pick up
those costs.

"We'll be providing the two attorneys that are required by statue," said
Jack Stoffregen, Chief of the West Texas Region Public Defender for
Capital Murder Cases. "The mitigation that's required by statue as well as
a fact investigator. "

The office is funded for the next 4 years by state grant funds. Once that
money runs out, all participating counties will pick up a portion of the
cost. For Lubbock county, that will be more than a $144,000.

The office started taking death penalty cases this month.

(source: KCBD)