[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

May 4


TEXAS:

The Innocence Project: Guilty until proven innocent -- Capital punishment
in the US is under the microscope and lawyers using the latest forensic
science techniques have found justice wanting.


Cameron Todd Willingham is the 1st and only man executed in the United
States for suspected arson after his 3 children, all under the age of 3,
burned to death at their home in Corsicana, about an hour's drive
south-east of Dallas, Texas, in December 1991.

Willingham testified at his trial that he narrowly escaped the fire
himself, that he tried and failed to rescue his children, that he then
made repeated attempts to call for help and re-enter the building, at one
point smashing a window with a pool cue in the hope of reaching the
children's bedrooms.

Not everyone, though, believed him. One of his neighbours, who knew he was
a drifter, knew he had trouble holding down a job and knew about his
fondness for going out to drink beer and play darts, thought he hadn't
done nearly enough to save his family.

When the fire marshals examined the aftermath of the fire, they too found
some anomalies and began to wonder if Willingham hadn't set it
deliberately. Particularly damning at his trial was the testimony of the
deputy state fire marshal, Manuel Vasquez, who examined the burn patterns
on the wood floor and the melted aluminium threshold piece, as well as the
way certain pieces of glass has cracked into crazy patterns in the heat,
and told the jury there was no way this was the result of an accident.
Someone, presumably Willingham, had sprinkled fuel and set light to the
building.

"The fire tells a story," Mr Vasquez said on the stand at Willingham's
trial. "I am just the interpreter. I am looking at the fire, and I am
interpreting the fire. That is what I know. That is what I do best. And
the fire does not lie. It tells the truth."

Willingham was duly convicted of murder and, after 12 years on death row,
was executed by lethal injection in February 2004.

Now, though, compelling evidence has emerged that Mr Vasquez did not in
fact know what he was talking about. None of his testimony has passed
muster with a panel of acknowledged arson experts, which has gone over it
in detail. And without his testimony, the case against Willingham is left
essentially baseless. Unlike most capital convictions, where a defendant's
protestations of innocence raise the question of who else might have
committed the crime, this case may well have constituted no criminal
behaviour whatsoever, just one more ghastly element in an unspeakable
family tragedy. That is certainly what Willingham asserted as he went to
his death. "The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent
man, convicted of a crime I did not committed," he said. "I have been
persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."

Thanks to the work of the New York-based Innocence Project - a team of
defence lawyers who put dubious capital convictions under the microscope
of modern technology - his protest is looking increasingly believable.

The group commissioned a real expert's report using advances in the
understanding of arson evidence which will make uncomfortable reading for
the prosecution in the Willingham case. Their findings will this week be
handed to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which is constitutionally
bound to launch its own investigation and report back to Governor Rick
Perry, the man who gave the green light to Willingham's execution.

The Innocence Project's report will be hard to argue with. It was compiled
by four of the country's leading arson experts who have testified on
behalf of defence and prosecution in previous cases. Their conclusion:
Willingham's conviction was based on bad science, and none of the evidence
should have ever led investigators to believe the fire was set
deliberately. "While we have no doubt that ... witnesses believed what
they were saying, each and every one of the indicators relied upon have
since been scientifically proven to be invalid," the report says.

And so the stage is set for the next big showdown over the death penalty
in the US. Already, the pace of executions in most states has slowed
because of doubts in recent years about the safety of capital convictions.
The release of death row inmates shown by DNA evidence and other methods
to have been innocent of the crimes of which they were accused is steadily
increasing.

And a host of other doubts are being introduced. California's execution
machine is at a standstill because of evidence that the lethal drugs
administered during executions merely mask the pain felt by the dying
prisoner instead of eliminating it. Reports emerged from Ohio on Tuesday
of convicted murderer Joseph Lewis Clark taking 90 minutes to die after
the team trying to deliver a lethal injection had problems finding a
suitable vein.

The Project's lawyers have been instrumental in forcing courts to take new
DNA-testing technology into account when reviewing convictions. Since
1992, when the Innocence Project first began, 175 prisoners have been
exonerated, including 14 who spent time on death row.

It was the Project's lawyers who first questioned the arson evidence. They
assembled the panel of experts and commissioned the report. More
strikingly, they were also responsible for lobbying the Texas authorities
and bringing about the existence of the Forensic Science Commission in the
first place.

As the Innocence Project itself put it in a statement, the release of its
report "marks the first time in the nation that scientific evidence
showing an innocent person was executed has been submitted to a government
entity that is legally obligated to investigate cases, reach conclusions
and direct system-wide reviews to determine the extent of the problem". In
other words, it could conceivably be the beginning of the end of the death
penalty in Texas.

It also spells political trouble for Governor Perry as he faces an
election race this November. Many of the arson panel's conclusions had
been reached even before Willingham's execution, by a Cambridge-educated
arson expert called Gerald Hurst, who passed on his findings to the
Governor's office. As he told an investigative team from the Chicago
Tribune at the time: "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson
investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire." It does not
appear, however, that Dr Hurst's findings were taken seriously by either
the Governor's office or the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Barry Scheck, one of the two principles of the Innocence Project, who
remains perhaps most famous for his role in defending O J Simpson, said he
had established through open records requests that the Hurst report had
indeed been properly filed before the execution.

"Neither office has any record of anyone acknowledging it, taking note of
its significance, responding to it or calling any attention to it within
the government," he said. "The only reasonable conclusion is that the
Governor's office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles ignored scientific
evidence and went through with the execution."

The prosecution, meanwhile, presented last-minute, second-hand evidence
that Willingham had confessed to his estranged wife, something she later
said was untrue.

Perhaps most poignant for Willingham's surviving relatives is that, at the
time of execution, a similar case was going through the Texas legal
system, that of Ernest Willis, who had been sentenced to death for his
alleged role in setting a fatal fire in west Texas in 1987. Dr Hurst
examined his case, too, found the forensic evidence similarly flawed and
said he saw no evidence of arson. Willis was able to have his case
reopened and dismissed. He walked out of death row a free man seven months
after Willingham's execution.

All this adds up to a potentially explosive cocktail of political and
social issues. Texans may be more attached than most Americans to the
death penalty, but even they tend to draw the line at putting innocent
people to death. One candidate in the governor's race, the humourist and
former singer Kinky Friedman, does not appear to have been harmed by his
record of campaigning on behalf of death row prisoners. One of Friedman's
campaign lines is: "Texas: 50th in education, first in executions... how's
that working for you?"

If the political tide is turning slowly, the sense of discomfort in the
professional world of forensics and legal analysis is starting to be
overwhelming. Copycat Innocence Projects have been set up. The original
one, meanwhile, has been at the forefront of denouncing errors and
unprofessional behaviour at forensic crime labs around the country, most
notably in Virginia, Texas and Ohio.

The group has also made disturbing findings about the functioning of the
criminal justice system more generally. The Innocence Project has found
that the single biggest cause of wrongful convictions is mistaken
eyewitness identification testimony. In more than a third of cases,
forensic science has also been misapplied in some way, with experts
presenting "fraudulent, exaggerated, or otherwise tainted evidence to the
judge or jury".

6 years ago, the state of Illinois issued a blanket commutation of all its
death sentences after it was established that 13 people on death row were
in fact innocent of the crimes of which they were committed. (In that
case, it was journalism students at Northwestern University who did the
legwork.) Much more recently, New York state chose not to reinstate its
death penalty law.

The backlash against capital punishment may be coming too late for
Willingham, but his case remains a potent weapon in the hands of the
Innocence Project and other campaigners. If Texas, of all states, is
forced to acknowledge it killed an innocent man, then the death penalty
may be on its way to extinction.

(source: Independent News and Media)

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

State Prepares For 8th Execution Of The Year Thursday


A Texas death row inmate convicted of killing a 5-year-old girl faces
execution just after 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville.

Jackie Barron Wilson was sentenced to die for the 1988 murder of Maggie
Rhodes of Arlington.

Investigators say Wilson had been drinking, used cocaine and
unsuccessfully attempted a sexual elsewhere about an hour before breaking
into the girl's home.

Wilson had been in the apartment before. He knew the child's live-in baby
sitter.

He was convicted and condemned in 1989, his conviction was overturned on a
technicality, then Wilson was convicted against in 1994.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined this week to commute
Wilson's sentence.

A federal judge and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused
to intervene.

Wilsons attorneys are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wilson would be the 8th Texas death row inmate to be executed so far this
year.

(source: KWTX News)

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

Mother outraged at attempts to block execution


After waiting nearly 20 years, a North Texas mother said she is furious at
last minute efforts to block the execution of her daughter's killer.

Jackie Wilson was scheduled to die Thursday for a crime described as so
brutal, detectives signed up to watch the lethal injection.

On a November night in 1988, Maggie Rhodes, 5, was taken by Wilson after
he broke into her window and snatched her.

Toni Rhodes, Maggie's mother, said she was startled when she felt a cold
wind from the broken window.

"At first I didn't realize she was missing because her covers were over
her animals," she said.

However, it didn't take long for it to hit that her daughter was gone.

"I started hollering for her," Rhodes said.

Maggie's body was discovered soon after along a Grand Prairie roadside
only 9 miles away.

Mike Basillo was lead detective, and along with his team arrested Wilson
about a week later.

Police said they found Wilson's fingerprints on Maggie's broken window,
his tire prints across her neck and her hair inside his car.

"...There are monsters out there," Basillo said. "Unfortunately, she saw
one, Jackie Baron Wilson."

Rhodes said her pain has not dwindled with time.

"[It's been] 18 years, I get emotional about it to this day...," Rhodes
said.

The Innocence Network appealed to the US Supreme Court claiming the way
Texas executes inmates is cruel and unusual.

But Basillo said he bristles at the Innocence Network's appeal, and plans
to watch the execution himself.

"And then laying her down on the pavement like a piece of trash and
running over her, oh, that's pain," Wilson said. "That's pain."

Rhodes said she will watch too.

"For God's sake, he just goes to sleep," she said. "My daughter had to
suffer all the pain. That was cruel and unusual."

Rhodes said after going through two trials, she now fears Wilson might
avoid the death penalty after an appeals court overturned his 1st
conviction.

She said the last minute effort has prolonged her misery.

"I won't be breathing the same air he's breathing," she said. "I won't be
paying to keep him alive."

Maggie would have turned 23 last Sunday.

The Texas attorney general will file a response to the legal challenge
Thursday, but Rhodes and two of the detectives said they hope they will
watch Wilson's execution later that night.

(source: WFAA News)

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

Police think suspect may be a serial killer----HPD detectives say 2 local
deaths bear similarities to Fort Bend case

After taking the lives of 2 young women, the killer posed the bodies of
his victims in their bathtubs.

Those morbid poses, considered the calling card or "signature" of the
killer, led Houston police to suspect Edward George McGregor in the grisly
slayings of Danielle L. Subjects, 28, and Mandy R. Rubin, 25, both of
Houston.

Both women were strangled and beaten.

Homicide detectives are now poring over unsolved case files for other
possible victims.

"We believe that Edward George McGregor is a serial murderer who is
responsible for 3 very violent deaths of 3 women in the Houston area,"
said Houston police Capt. Dale Brown.

McGregor, 33, is being held in a Fort Bend County Jail as Houston police
continue their investigation. Fort Bend authorities have charged him with
the April 17, 1990, slaying of Kim Wildman, 38. She was stabbed and
sexually assaulted in her Missouri City home. Police said he was charged
with the Missouri City homicide because of the DNA evidence linking him to
the crime.

Houston police said they consider him a suspect in the slayings of
Subjects and Rubin because of the similarities surrounding their violent
deaths.

Both women were single mothers of two children living in southwest Houston
apartment complexes. And both women knew McGregor and had contact with him
before their deaths, said Sgt. Jim Binford, of HPD's homicide division.

Subjects was slain shortly after she dropped off her children at day care
Aug. 5 and returned to her apartment in the 10900 block of South Gessner.
She was getting ready for work when she was killed about 10:30 a.m.,
police said. Subjects' roommate returned to their apartment about 1 p.m.
and found her in the bathtub, police said.

Rubin was found dead Feb. 4 in her apartment in the 10700 block of
Westbrae Parkway. Security personnel were called to Rubin's apartment
after friends discovered her door was unlocked.

There was no sign of forced entry and it appeared that she fought her
attacker in the bedroom and into the bathroom. Investigators said in
February that Rubin may have been sexually assaulted during the attack.
Rubin was an assistant manager of the apartment complex.

Linking McGregor to the crimes happened by chance, police said.

Binford said he mentioned McGregor's name to another homicide detective
who had worked on Subject's case. The detective immediately recalled that
McGregor's name had come up during the investigation of her death.

"So we had the same man within a three blocks of two women who had been
killed within five or six months of each other. And he lived in the same
apartment building as Mandy Rubin," Binford said.

Police asked McGregor for a swab from the inside of his mouth for DNA
testing. Police then found out McGregor was moving back to his mother's
house in the 1400 block of Whispering Pines. Binford said Houston police
decided to tell Missouri City police about the Houston murder probe and
McGregor's moving plans.

When detectives compared notes they were struck by the coincidence that a
Houston murder suspect lived only 2 houses away from Kim Wildman in the
1400 block of Whispering Pines. He was 17 at the time of her slaying.

Binford said McGregor has lived in Florida, Georgia and Louisiana during
the 16 years since Wildman's death. Police in those states will be
notified that a serial-killer suspect once lived there.

"I consider this to be kind of a bookend case. We have the 1st murder in
Missouri City, and I think we have the murders in which we have got on to
him here," Binford said. "Now we need to get between those 16 years and
see what other kind of cases we have."

Missouri City police Detective Andi Wiltse said all the evidence from the
Wildman slaying will be removed from storage and re-examined.

"We are going to determine what evidence should be submitted to the DPS
crime lab to develop out any possible further DNA on this case," Wiltse
said.

Wiltse said the details of the slaying will be provided to the FBI, which
maintains a database of uncleared cases.

If McGregor is indicted, tried and convicted of capital murder, he cannot
be sentenced to death in the Wildman case because he was 17 at the time.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that those who killed when they
were minors could not be put to death.

Max Wildman, Kim Wildman's father, who lives in suburban Chicago with his
wife, said although he wants justice, he is not lusting for vengeance.

"I have no desire to pull the trigger at the firing squad or start the
juice," he said.

Subjects' father, Donel Williams, said Wednesday that he was not sure what
to make of the news.

"Relief is going to come in time," he said of losing his daughter. "This
is the first positive news we've heard in 9 months. He hasn't admitted to
nothing, so we just don't know for sure if it's him or not."

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Boyfriend arrested in toddler's death


A 22-year-old man was arrested on an allegation that he killed his
girlfriend's 3-year-old son who died earlier this week with a lacerated
liver and a torn small intestine, an arrest affidavit said.

An arrest warrant charges Joel Carlos Monteagudo with capital murder.

The toddler, Brian Andrew Rivera, died around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday from
blunt force trauma to the abdomen, the Bexar County medical examiner's
office ruled Wednesday.

The incident pushed the number of child abuse and neglect cases in the
city to at least 5 in the past 3 weeks, the second capital murder charge
in that time period.

The toddler had initially been taken to Southwest General Hospital Tuesday
evening with stomach pains and later died. An autopsy revealed that
Brian's liver had been ripped in two places and his small intestine was
cut apart.

"The injuries were only consistent with someone sitting on him or punching
him in the stomach," police spokesman Sgt. Joe Rios said. According to the
affidavit, Brian's mother, Sandra Rivera, on Tuesday drove Brian and her
boyfriend to a meeting to apply for assisted day care for Rivera's
children.

When she dropped off the two at her apartment on the 5800 block of Medina
Base Road around 5 p.m., Rivera told police Brian did not appear injured
although he was recovering from being ill.

A few hours later, Monteagudo took Brian to a neighbor's home while he
picked up Rivera, who was having car trouble. Anndria Flores told police
Monteagudo dropped the child off during the Spurs game after 8:30 p.m.

When Brian came over, Flores said, the child's eyes would "not stay open
and his stomach was .. 2 to 3 times the size it should have been," the
affidavit said.

Monteagudo told police he was alone with Brian when he was injured and
said he had "lightly" pushed on the child's abdomen because he was
constipated. He said his abdomen was "already starting to get hard" when
he left him with Flores.

Monteagudo's mother, who came looking for her son shortly after he was
taken before the magistrate, said he is a gentle man.

Her son had dated Rivera for around three years, she said, and had spent
many days looking after the kids recently.

Child Protective Services is investigating a March incident involving the
child when he was treated at a hospital for an injured leg.

As he walked, handcuffed, to a police car, wearing denim shorts and a
white T-shirt, Monteagudo was asked whether he had killed Brian.

"No," was all he offered.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

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

Man pleads guilty to conspiracy


Hilario Cardenas, a former south Arlington restaurant manager who
authorities say supplied the guns in the Dec. 11, 2003, shooting deaths of
a Mansfield couple, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit capital
murder, according to court officials.

Cardenas pleaded Monday in Criminal District Court No. 297 in Fort Worth.

Andrew Wamsley and his girlfriend, Chelsea Richardson, have already been
convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Wamsley's parents, Suzanna
and Rick Wamsley, in their Mansfield home. Wamsley was sentenced to life
in prison in March for his role in the murders.

Richardson was sentenced to death in May 2005 and is the first Tarrant
County woman sent to Death Row. Susana Toledano, a 4th person involved in
the scheme to collect on the Wamsleys' $1.65 million estate, also has
pleaded guilty for her role in the killings.

Toledano and Cardenas could be sentenced this month.

According to court testimony, the 4 friends met several times at a south
Arlington restaurant where Cardenas was a night manager to plan the
Wamsleys' deaths.

The group tried several times to kill the Wamsleys before succeeding,
Toledano testified in both hearings.

Medical examiners testified that Rick Wamsley was shot in the head and
back and stabbed 21 times. Suzanna Wamsley died instantly from a gunshot
to the head. She was stabbed 18 times after the initial shot.

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

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

State orders Harris County to move inmates----County could face sanctions
after 3rd year of failing to meet standards


The Texas Commission on Jail Standards today ordered Harris County to
begin easing its crowding problem by sending prisoners to other county
jails in the region.

Such an operation could cost the county about $1 million per month.

The commission, concluding for the third consecutive year that the County
Jail has failed to meet state standards, told county officials to
outsource prisoners to achieve the prescribed prisoner-to-guard ratio of
48-1.

That could mean sending more than 500 prisoners to other jails.

The commission voted on the outsourcing order this morning in Austin.

Details on where the prisoners would go, and how soon, were not available
this morning. Chief Deputy Mike Smith said, however, that county officials
had anticipated such an order and have begun making contingency plans.

Smith said county authorities hope to keep prisoners within 200 miles
because of the need to bring them to Houston for court appearances and
other needs.

During a 4-day on-site review in April, commission inspectors found that
jail officials have failed to maintain the required inmate-to-guard ratio
of 48-1.

At the time, more than 9,000 inmates were housed in the county's jail
complex in downtown Houston. The commission report did not state the
actual ratio at the time of the inspection.

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas, whose office operates the jail,
acknowledged Wednesday that, because of a shortage of guards, some
prisoners are being housed in areas designed to house a small number of
inmates, and that some inmates have had to sleep in temporary bunks.

A temporary bunk is a rectangular piece of metal with 4 legs that sits
about 4 inches off the ground. Inmates sleep on mattresses placed on the
steel structures. But some inmates, said a Harris County guard, are forced
to sleep on mattresses on the floor, sometimes next to toilets,

"That happens frequently," said the guard, who asked not to be identified
for fear of retaliation.

"Some inmates just have a mattress - if they're lucky - and their bed is
just whatever spot on the floor they can find."

Thomas denied that inmates are sleeping on the floor. The commission
report did not state how many inmates are without regular bunks. Last
year, inspectors reported that almost 1,300 inmates were sleeping on the
floor.

Thomas said the sheriff's office is trying to hire the 160 detention
officers he says it will take to alleviate the prisoner crowding problem.

Earlier this year, the Harris County Commissioners Court, which funds jail
operations, authorized the hiring of those additional officers as well as
a 15 percent pay increase for the positions.

"We're starting to see the benefits of that, but it will take several
months to staff up," said Judge Robert Eckels, the presiding officer of
Commissioners Court.

The sheriff, along with representatives of the Commissioners Court, are
expected to attend the Austin meeting today where the prisoner crowding
situation is scheduled to be discussed.

Terry Julian, executive director of the commission, noted Wednesday that
state inspectors in their 2004 and 2005 reports have cited Harris County
for the same problem.

He also hinted the commission could be ready to finally hold Harris County
accountable for the jail situation.

"I cannot say what the commission will do, because they make the decision
on that, but I would tend to say yes (they will)," Julian said.

The commission's options include the rarely used measure of closing the
jail or ordering the sheriff's office to send some prisoners to other
counties - with the accompanying expenses and logistical problems.

The sheriff, however, is optimistic it won't come to that.

"Hopefully, they'll work with us and give us some time," Thomas said.

Thomas also said he would like to explore ways to reduce the number of
inmates coming into the jail.

A recent study requested by the county's district courts concluded that
many low-risk defendants in the county jail may be there because they are
unable to afford bond.

That report also states that Harris County judges underutilize Pretrial
Services - an agency set up to gather information for the judges on
defendants eligible for free or low-cost bonds.

The agency was initiated as part a settlement of an inmate lawsuit.

At the conclusion in 1995, the county was forced to spend more than $100
million on jail-related construction and almost $40 million on new adult
probation facilities.

According to an official with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas,
after 3 years of prisoner crowding, Harris County is again opening itself
to that same type of court battle.

"They haven't been in compliance for several consecutive years, and these
problems continue," said the ACLU's Nicole Porter.

"Prison rights advocates will probably take action to pursue litigation to
correct the problems."

State inspectors also found problems with the jail's 2-way communication
system between inmates and guards, as well as a lack of documentation that
all jail personnel have been participating in quarterly fire drills.

(source: Houston Chronicle)