Feb. 12 TEXAS----impending execution Convicted murderer-rapist set to die in Texas Bill Hawkins passes through areas of Houston and is reminded of convicted murderer Johnny Ray Johnson, a man he convinced a Harris County jury to send to death row. "He had so many victims," the assistant Harris County district attorney said. "Several parts of town I can't drive by without thinking of his victims." Johnson, 51, was set for lethal injection Thursday evening for the rape-murder of 1 of at least 3 women authorities said he killed during a monthlong spree in 1995. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday refused an appeal to block what would be the 2nd execution this week in Texas and eighth this year in the nation's busiest death penalty state. In their appeal, Johnson's lawyers contended he was mentally retarded and ineligible for execution. Prosecutors said records from IQ tests and his behavior and work history overwhelmingly showed Johnson was not retarded and accused his lawyers of waiting until his execution was imminent before raising the issue. Court documents showed Johnson was responsible for at least five rape-murders and eight rapes in Houston and Austin starting in the late 1970s. Prison records show he was arrested at least 20 times and his convictions included aggravated assault on an undercover police officer. Johnson was condemned for the death of Leah Joette Smith, 41, described in court filings as a cocaine addict who Johnson offered drugs in exchange for sex. After she got high on crack cocaine, she refused to have sex with Johnson and they fought. Records show he raped her repeatedly after beating her head against a concrete street curb, then stomped her face. Records also show he left his wallet behind, returned to retrieve it, raped the dying woman again before picking up his wallet and left with his victim's boots. Then he went to get a beer. A medical examiner testified Smith was beaten so severely her tongue was displaced. She died on the Houston street, choking on her own blood. "I didn't do this," Johnson insisted recently in a death row interview. "I knew Joette. She was part of my family. I wasn't there. I was at work that night. I don't know what happened to her." Johnson had an extensive criminal history before he got to death row. Testimony showed he raped an 8-year-old niece in Houston. In 1983, he was convicted of sexual assault in Travis County and sentenced to 5 years in prison but was released on mandatory supervision less than 2 years later. He found work as a cab driver and confessed to raping women he would pick up, including one who fought back and for whose rape he was sentenced to another 5 years in prison. He was released again after 10 months. Johnson subsequently confessed to numerous other rapes, including one he said he committed on a hill near the Austin police station. Records show that besides the Smith slaying, Johnson led Houston police to the scenes of two other rape-murders and what he said was another killing authorities were unable to confirm because they had no body. At the time of his arrest, Johnson was working as a heavy equipment operator and would be hired out of daily labor pool sites in Houston. Investigators determined the slaying victims were found near labor pool locations. >From prison, Johnson complained his confessions were coerced by police and accused detectives of "stereotyping black folks." Instead, he described himself as a "productive citizen, working." "I was clean," Johnson said, blaming his previous convictions for his arrest for Smith's slaying. "This was easy to pin on me." After Johnson's punishment, scheduled for execution next in Huntsville is Willie Pondexter, 34, for the 1993 shooting death of an 85-year-old woman, Martha Lennox, during a burglary at her home in Clarksville, about 60 miles west of Texarkana. Pondexter on March 3 would be the first of four condemned Texas inmates set to die in March. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA----impending execution Danny Joe Bradley, convicted of murdering his stepdaughter in 1983, is scheduled to die by lethal injection tonight----Inmate convicted of killing stepdaughter 26 years ago Alabama death row inmate Danny Joe Bradley, convicted of raping, sodomizing and strangling his stepdaughter 26 years ago, is scheduled to die by lethal injection tonight at Holman Correctional Facility. "The facts of Bradley's crime demonstrate that he is richly deserving of his death sentence," Attorney General Troy King said in a brief filed this week with the U.S. Supreme Court. Bradley was convicted of murdering his stepdaughter, Rhonda Hardin, in Piedmont on the night of Jan. 24, 1983. At the time, Bradley was caring for the 12-year-old girl and her younger brother while their mother was in the hospital. Janette Carr, crime victims advocate for the attorney general's office, said Rhonda Hardin's mother, Judy Bennett, and her father, Gary Hardin Sr., plan to witness Bradley's execution. "When you live a nightmare for so long, you just want to see that it's over," Carr said. Carr added that Rhonda Hardin's brother, Gary Hardin Jr., and his wife, Jennie, will be on hand but will not witness the execution. Bradley's wife, Pam, whom he married while on death row, is expected as well, Carr said. Bradley's attorneys say he is seeking some of the evidence - now missing - from his case so it can undergo "potentially exculpatory DNA testing." In an e-mail, attorney Theodore Howard said the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on that issue next month and issue a decision by the end of June. The issue stems from a 1993 Alaska case in which William Osborne, an inmate convicted of kidnapping, assault and sexual assault, wants some of the evidence collected against him to undergo DNA testing. "Mr. Bradley should be entitled to continue his efforts to determine conclusively that the evidence he is seeking (the rape kit and the victim's semen-stained clothing) is or is not lost, and if it can be found, he ought to be entitled to test it," Howard said. A federal district court "terminated Mr. Bradley's efforts to get to the bottom of what happened to the evidence, which the state says is lost, on the basis of the court's view that Mr. Bradley does not possess the constitutional right that is the subject of the Osborne case," Howard said. "Thus, it is our position that Mr. Bradley's execution should be stayed and his case should be held in abeyance until Osborne is decided and the Supreme Court says whether or not the right exists and, if so, what the rules are for these types of cases." The attorney general's office is arguing that the state has tried unsuccessfully to find the missing items that were part of the evidence used against Bradley, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled "there are no extraordinary circumstances in Bradley's case entitling him to further post-conviction access to DNA evidence." In his argument, King said, "Bradley has been granted access to all physical evidence in the state's possession and his DNA testing of the evidence conclusively establishing his guilt." The DNA testing Bradley requested, on bedding items taken from his apartment, showed his DNA and that of Rhonda Hardin "were commingled on a blanket," King said. "Thus, it is highly unlikely that any DNA test results from the missing items would be exculpatory," King wrote. In Birmingham, local groups that oppose the death penalty will hold a silent vigil from around noon to 1 p.m. today at the Mel Bailey Criminal Justice Center. If he is executed today, Bradley, 49, and a death row resident for nearly 26 years, will be the 2nd Alabama inmate to die in a month. James Harvey Callahan, 62, a fellow Calhoun Countian and a death row inmate for more than 26 years, was executed Jan. 15 for the 1982 abduction murder of Rebecca Suzanne Howell. Bradley also will be 193rd inmate put to death by the state since 1927, the 40th since executions resumed in the state in 1983 after an 18-year pause, and the 16th to die by lethal injection. The next scheduled execution at Holman, on March 19, is that of Phillip Hallford. He was convicted of the 1986 murder of Charles Eddie Shannon in Dale County and has been on death row 21 years. Executions also are scheduled in April and May. Alabama has 206 death row inmates, all but 4 of them male. (source: Birmingham News) GEORGIA: Fulton County Death Sentence A Fulton County jury has recommended death for a man convicted in a triple murder. 36 year old DeKelvin Martin was found guilty of stabbing his girlfriend's 12 year old son and her grandparents during a rampage 7 years ago. Prosecutors say Martin was angry after his girlfriend had rejected his demands for sex. The jury convicted Martin of the murder last week and sentenced him to die Wednesday. The death sentence follows the decision by a different Fulton County jury to spare the life of convicted courthouse killer Brian Nichols. (source: WSB Radio) WASHINGTON: Proposal to abolish the death penalty draws almost no opposition A proposal to eliminate executions for aggravated murder convictions in Washington state drew no opposition today - except from Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn. When Seattle attorney Jeff Ellis, president of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, testified in support of the bill proposed by Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, he was cut off by Roach. She explained to other lawmakers, "I feel like we are not getting that open debate." In addition to Ellis, a representative with Amnesty International also testified in support of the measure. Murray said bills to abolish the death penalty are introduced almost every legislative session, but never pass. He doesn't believe this year will be any different. No inmate has been executed in Washington state since 2001. Cal Coburn Brown is slated to be executed on March 13 for the 1991 slaying of Holly Washa, 22, near SeaTac Airport. The Burien woman was raped, robbed, tortured and slashed to death, and her body was left in the trunk of her car. Brown was on parole from Oregon at the time of the slaying. (source: Seattle Times) ********************************** Lawyer challenges Washington death penalty A lawyer for 2 men on Washington's death row is appealing their execution order, arguing that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The Seattle Times reports Gil Levy filed an appeal this week in Thurston County Superior Court on behalf of Cal Coburn Brown and Jonathan Gentry. The Seattle lawyer says the drugs used in lethal injections are not administered by a doctor. A Department of Corrections spokeswoman says a medical professional not necessarily a doctor can be on the team that administers the drugs. The Washington state Penitentiary at Walla Walla is preparing to execute Brown on March 13. He tortured and killed a Burien woman in 1991. No execution date has been set for Gentry who killed a 12-year-old girl in 1981 near Bremerton. (source: Associated Press) MARYLAND: In Defense of the Death Penalty I am sure there are many good reasons to end capital punishment in Maryland, but the arguments seemed rather lame as presented in the few short paragraphs of the Feb. 6 editorial "A Vote Against Cruelty." So a respected commission of Maryland leaders thinks the death penalty is "costly and flawed." Our federal tax code is certainly "costly and flawed." Does anyone expect anything to be done about that? It was also stated that the death penalty has little deterrent effect on murder rates. But, as the editorial noted, there were only 37 executions nationally last year. Why would you expect such a small number to have any effect on anyone, much less a hardened criminal or a normally law-abiding person in a rage? As far as the higher percentage of death sentences sought for crimes whose victims are white, why is this not a correctible problem, if indeed the reasons are understood? Lastly, regarding the anguish visited upon the families of victims by drawn-out court proceedings, the fact that the process takes so many years is the fault of the justice system and is at least theoretically correctible. Such delays may also contribute to the lack of deterrence. JOHN MacARTHUR ----Silver Spring (source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post) _______________________________________________ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
