June 20
TEXAS----impending (500th) execution
Woman's death sentence appealed----All but 1 juror at trial was white
The lawyer for a Dallas County woman set to die next week is appealing to block
the woman's execution, which would be the 500th in Texas since the state
resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982.
The total is far more than any other state.
Kimberly McCarthy, 52, also would be the 1st woman put to death in the U.S.
since 2010 if she receives lethal injection June 26 in Huntsville.
The former nursing home therapist was condemned for the 1997 stabbing, beating
and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor, Dorothy Booth, who was killed at her
home in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas. The slaying was 1 of 3
linked to McCarthy, who had become addicted to crack cocaine.
McCarthy's appeal, filed Tuesday to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
contends that black jurors improperly were excluded from her trial by Dallas
County prosecutors and that her lawyers should have challenged the exclusions
both at the trial and in early appeals. McCarthy is black; her victim was
white. Of the 12 jurors at her trial, 1 was not white.
Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing McCarthy, said
the punishment should be stopped and McCarthy's case reviewed in light of a 5-4
U.S. Supreme Court decision three weeks ago that backed another Texas prisoner
who raised similar arguments about deficient legal help.
"I do think her case does present some of the topical issues of this decade,"
Levin said Wednesday, referring to a "pervasive influence of race in
administration of the death penalty and the inadequacy of counsel - a
long-standing issue here."
(source: Associated Press)
**************************
Appeal Seeks To Halt Dallas County Woman's Execution
The lawyer for a Dallas County woman set to die next week is appealing to block
the woman's execution, which would be the 500th in Texas since the state
resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982.
The total is far more than any other state.
Kimberly McCarthy, 52, also would be the 1st woman put to death in the U.S.
since 2010 if she receives lethal injection June 26 in Huntsville.
The former nursing home therapist was condemned for the 1997 stabbing, beating
and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor, Dorothy Booth, who was killed at her
home in Lancaster. Investigators said Booth a retired college professor, had
agreed to give McCarthy a cup of sugar when she was attacked with knife and
beaten with a candelabra. McCarthy also cut off Booth's finger, so she could
take her wedding ring. The slaying was one of 3 linked to McCarthy, who had
become addicted to crack cocaine.
McCarthy's appeal, filed Tuesday to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
contends black jurors improperly were excluded from her trial by Dallas County
prosecutors and her lawyers should have challenged the exclusions both at the
trial and in early appeals. McCarthy is black; her victim white. Of the 12
jurors at her trial, 1 was not white.
Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing McCarthy, said
the punishment should be stopped and McCarthy's case reviewed in light of a 5-4
U.S. Supreme Court decision three weeks ago that backed another Texas prisoner
who raised similar arguments about deficient legal help.
"I do think her case does present some of the topical issues of this decade,"
Levin said Wednesday, referring to a "pervasive influence of race in
administration of the death penalty and the inadequacy of counsel - a
longstanding issue here."
The failings of McCarthy's earlier appellate help means no court ever has
looked at McCarthy's claims, she said.
Shelly Yeatts, who handles appellate cases in the Dallas County District
Attorney's office, said the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest
criminal court, first must decide whether Levin's appeal is proper under filing
rules before even considering the merits of the arguments.
In January, McCarthy had been moved to a small holding cell a few steps from
the Texas death chamber when a Dallas judge moved her execution for April. That
timing then was reset for next week when Dallas County District Attorney Craig
Watkins said he wanted to await the outcome of capital punishment-related bills
before lawmakers in Austin. The regular legislative session now has concluded.
McCarthy would be the 8th Texas prisoner executed this year. Her punishment is
among at least 8 scheduled for Texas in the coming months.
(source: CBS News)
*****************************
Texas poised to execute 500th prisoner as lawyers fight to save her
lifeKimberly McCarthy, 52, to face lethal injection next week for 1997 murder
but lawyers say judicial process was fatally flawed
Lawyers in Texas are fighting to save the life of a female prisoner scheduled
to become the 500th person to be executed by the state since the death penalty
was reinstated in America in 1976.
Barring a last-minute stay, Kimberly McCarthy, 52, will face lethal injection
next Wednesday for the 1997 murder of her neighbour. Should the execution be
carried out, she would be the 500th person put to death by Texas, a state that
has shown more enthusiasm in modern times for capital punishment than any
other.
The next seven days will be the culmination of an emotional and legal
rollercoaster for McCarthy. This is her third appointment with the death
chamber in the space of 5 months.
"She is a very spiritual person. She believes what's meant to be is meant to
be, and it's all in God's hands," said Maurie Levin, McCarthy's legal counsel
since January.
Now Levin has filed a new motion to stay execution with the Texas court of
criminal appeals. The filing argues that McCarthy has suffered from 2
fundamental flaws that persistently crop up in death penalty cases. "As it
turns out, Kimberly McCarthy is an African American woman scheduled to be the
500th person to be executed in Texas. Her case raises 2 of the most typical
issues in the administration of the death penalty: race discrimination and the
quality of counsel," Levin told the Guardian.
At the heart of the habeus application is evidence compiled by Levin that the
jury at McCarthy's original trial in 2002 was essentially rigged through
blatant racial discrimination. The case was racially charged from the start as
it involved an African American defendant - McCarthy, - and a white victim, her
71-year-old neighbour Dorothy Booth.
Dallas County, the area around the city of Dallas, where the trial was held, is
69% white and 23% black. Yet among the 13 men and women selected to form
McCarthy's jury, only 1 was black.
Out of an initial pool of 64 prospective jurors, only 4 non-whites made it
through to the final selection. Of those 4, 3 were ejected from the actual jury
through peremptory strikes by prosecution lawyers.
McCarthy's application for a stay of execution alleges that prosecutors
consciously set out to distort the racial composition of the jury as part of a
culture of discrimination that stretches back to the days of southern
segregation. The filing cites the case in 1938 where the African American
president of a historically black college was thrown headfirst down the Dallas
County courthouse steps after he objected to being excused from jury service.
In 1963, a Texas training manual instructed prosecutors not to "take Jews,
negroes, dagos, Mexicans, or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter
how rich or how well educated". A similar manual published in 1986 carried the
memorable advice that it was "not advisable to select potential jurors with
multiple gold chains around their necks or those who appear to be 'free
thinkers'."
The habeus application traces such discrimination through to the present day.
In 2005, 3 years after McCarthy was convicted and put on death row by an
overwhelmingly white jury, an investigation by the Dallas Morning News found
that prosecutors were still excluding eligible blacks from juries at more than
twice the rate of eligible whites.
The filing argues that McCarthy was tried within the context of this history
and culture of racial discrimination. 2 of the prosecutors from the district
attorney's office who led the capital case against her were trained within such
an environment, the habeus application states.
Levin has gone further. In a separate filing, she has asked the presiding judge
of the Texas court of criminal appeals Sharon Keller, and another judge sitting
on the court Micheal Keasler, to recuse themselves from the McCarthy case on
the grounds that they also served as assistant district attorneys in the same
Dallas County prosecutors' office where the culture of discriminatory jury
selection allegedly existed.
In addition to the claim of racially-skewed jury selection, Levin also argues
that McCarthy should be spared execution because she received poor legal
counsel after she was sent to death row. A recent US supreme court ruling,
Trevino V Thaler, requires Texas courts to consider appeals from prisoners
facing execution where they claim to have received inadequate legal
representation after they were convicted.
Levin points out that neither McCarthy's original defence lawyer at trial, nor
her subsequent counsel after she was sent to death row, made any attempt to
challenge the racially distorted composition of the jury. "The evidence of
discrimination in the selection of the jury was there to be had, yet her
counsel did very, very little to examine her case for constitutional errors."
(source: The Guardian)
*****************
Texas Poised to Hit 500th Execution; Texas is on the eve of its 500th execution
since death penalty reinstatement
With the execution of Kimberly McCarthy slated for June 26, Texas is on the eve
of a historic first: The 1st state to have executed 500 individuals since
reinstatement of the death penalty ??? an event that also extends Gov. Rick
Perry's record as the U.S. governor presiding over the most executions ever
carried out. McCarthy is slated not only to be tagged with the infamous fate of
500, but will also become only the 5th woman - and the 3rd black woman -
executed in Texas since 1854.
McCarthy, who was previously married to New Black Panther Party founder Aaron
Michaels, was sentenced to die for the 1997 robbery-murder of her 71-year-old
neighbor, retired professor Dorothy Booth. According to the state, McCarthy's
crack cocaine addiction led her to employ a ruse - she needed to borrow sugar,
she told Booth - in order to get into Booth's house. Booth was repeatedly
stabbed, and her finger, with ring on it, was cut off. Booth's car and credit
cards were also stolen; McCarthy told police she pawned the items to get money
for drugs.
McCarthy was first slated to be executed in January, but that date with death
was halted by a Dallas County judge in order to consider a claim that minority
potential jurors were improperly struck by prosecutors from serving in
McCarthy's trial (it was actually her second trial; her initial 1998 conviction
was overturned after the courts found that the state improperly included into
evidence a statement McCarthy made to police after she had "unambiguously"
invoked her right to counsel). In a letter to Dallas County District Attorney
Craig Watkins, McCarthy's attorney Maurie Levin pointed out that at the time of
McCarthy's trial racial discrimination "pervaded" the county's jury selection
process. Levin also noted that Watkins had told The Dallas Morning News that he
would advocate during the recently concluded 83rd Legislature for passage of
the Texas Racial Justice Act, which would allow death row inmates to appeal
based on claims that racism played a role in their conviction.
McCarthy's execution was postponed until April 3 and then again, to June 26, on
Watkins' request, in order to afford the Legislature time to consider whether
to pass a racial justice law - either Dallas Sen. Royce West's Senate Bill 1270
or Houston Rep. Senfronia Thompson's House Bill 2458. Neither bill was
successful. Thompson's bill received a hearing in the House Criminal
Jurisprudence Committee, but was not called up for a vote; West's measure
wasn't even given a hearing. Those bills were fashioned after the landmark
Racial Justice Act passed by North Carolina; in early June, the Republican-led
legislature there repealed the RJA.
Nonetheless, litigation is expected to continue as McCarthy's date draws
nearer. Indeed, an appeal filed June 18 again raises claims related to racial
bias. A separate filed motion seeks also to recuse CCA Presiding Judge Sharon
Keller and Judge Michael Keasler from considering McCarthy's appeals based on
the fact that both judges once served as prosecutors in Dallas where McCarthy's
case - and racial bias claims - originated.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
*****************************
Veteran judge praised for making tough decisions with a compassionate heart
After spending almost 22 years on the bench, U.S. District Judge Terry Means is
still haunted by the brutal abduction and murder of Arlington teenager Lisa
Rene, a case which resulted her assailants being sentenced to death.
Rene, a Lamar High School honors student, was abducted by Arkansas drug dealers
from her sister's apartment in September of 1994 to avenge a $5,000 theft by
her brothers. She was raped before being bludgeoned with a shovel and buried
alive in a shallow grave.
At the time Means was quoted as saying at the sentencing of the 3 men who
killed Rene, that he "could not imagine any more heinous crime."
"Somehow, those death penalty cases just leap to the front of my memory. You
are dealing with the life of a human being," Means said in a recent interview.
"I still must pronounce the death sentence. You are informing someone that they
will be put to death.
"That is a rare and focusing event," said Means, 64, who is preparing to
transition to what is known as "senior status" next month, a form of retirement
where he will handle fewer cases.
Known in the courthouse for treating prosecutors, defense attorneys and even
those accused of heinous crimes with respect, Means will be missed, courthouse
observers say.
During the unveiling of Means' official portrait at the downtown Fort Worth
courthouse last week, Sidney Fitzwater, chief U.S. District Judge for the
Northern District, described his colleague as a true friend who was always
thoughtful and fair-minded in the courtroom.
Means has a compassionate heart; but he is someone who can make the tough
decisions, he said.
"Today is decidedly a day of mixed emotions," Fitzwater said.
Looking back, Means, a thin man with salt-and-pepper hair and a gentle
demeanor, said that although he tried many important cases, the death penalty
cases will always weigh on his mind.
He recalled that he got the Lisa Rene case soon after the federal death penalty
had been reinstated. It had been declared unconstitutional. "Those cases will
always prey on my mind," said Means.
Demanding job
While maybe not a household name, since 1991 Means has presided over cases
involving Tarrant County's leading corporations and citizens.
It was Means on the bench when a whistleblower filed a lawsuit against Lockheed
Martin claiming that the defense contractor followed unsafe and fraudulent
practices in developing flight control software for the F-35 joint strike
fighter. He dismissed the case.
He rebuffed efforts by the influential Moncrief family to unseal an affidavit
detailing specific allegations in the Internal Revenue Service's investigation
into their finances following the raid of the wealthy oil and gas family's
downtown offices by federal agents. But he brokered a deal allowing the
Moncriefs to get back some of the documents they needed to run their business.
Means also recently sentenced a former Arlington strip club owner who wanted to
kill Mayor Robert Cluck and an attorney who represented the city in a murder
for hire scheme
"This is a very demanding job; I've sacrificed a lot of time with my family,"
Means said. He said he rarely took vacations, and described bringing work home
with him at night.
In fact, Means has handled 10,534 civil cases and sentenced 2,300 criminal
defendants.
Growing up in a ranching family in Artesia, N.M., Means had a childhood
fascination with politics and the law. His parents had just gotten a black and
white television, and 8-year-old Means watched the 1956 Republican and
Democratic conventions.
"I couldn't get enough; my parents thought I was a bit odd," he said.
Taking a leadership role was also important to Means. He was president of his
high school student council and, when he went off to college, became president
of the Southern Methodist University student senate as well as his fraternity.
He also attended law school at SMU where he met his wife JoAnn who was also
studying law. They married and moved to Tyler where they practiced law together
until Gov. Bill Clements appointed Means to the 10th Court of Appeals in 1989.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed Means to the bench in the
Northern District of Texas, which includes Dallas and Fort Worth.
Means said when lawyers and criminal defendants come into his courtroom, he
treats them with respect and dignity.
"I call an attorney 'Mister,' just as I would call a criminal defendant
'Mister.' Everyone is entitled to due process," Means said.
But he also doesn't hesitate to make attorneys toe the line when necessary.
Former U.S. Attorney Richard Roper who now practices in Fort Worth, joked about
Means setting time limits for him to present his arguments. Roper prosecuted
the Lisa Rene case.
"You hear an amiable and friendly voice say "Mr. Roper, you only have an hour
and a half left on your case.' I would give him a painful look and he said,
'You know, why don't you just get to the point.'"
Fewer cases
When Means changes to senior status next month, he will handle fewer cases,
saying he wants to reduce his caseload by 50 %. He will get through the cases
on his criminal docket and said that other federal judges can help with the
civil cases.
In his spare time, Means wants to write 3 books.
He wants to tackle the subjects of constitutional reform and presidential
politics.
But Means, who lived in Tyler before settling in Fort Worth, also wants to
write about a Tyler soccer team that overcame many obstacles to win state and
regional championships, beating better-equipped teams such as Dallas.
The book would also tell the story of a farmer who coached the team and his son
who was tragically killed in a farming accident shortly after the team's
victory.
When Means presides in his courtroom, he intends to continue his practice of
treating everyone with dignity and respect.
"I, like every judge here, am a flawed human being struggling to do the
work..." Means said.
(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
**************************
Texas Attorney General's Office Wins National Award
The Texas Attorney General's Office has won a national award for legal
excellence.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that the National Association of
Attorneys General has once again honored a team of lawyers from the Texas
Solicitor General's Office with a "NAAG Best Brief Award" for a legal brief
filed with the Supreme Court of the United States.
Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, Deputy Solicitors General Adam Aston
and Andrew Oldham, and Assistant Solicitors General James Sullivan and Arthur
D'Andrea received the award for writing a brief defending Texas's procedural
framework for death penalty appeals.
This is the 10th consecutive year that the Texas Solicitor General's Office has
received a NAAG Best Brief Award.
"Our Solicitor General's Office continues to provide the high court with the
finest work the legal profession has to offer - and today's award is another
testament to the quality of their work on behalf of the people of Texas," said
Abbott.
(source: KFYO News)
****************************
Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----260
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----499
Perry #--------scheduled execution date-----name---------Tx. #
261------------June 26-------------------Kimberly McCarthy----500*****
262--------------July 10------------------Rigoberto Avila, Jr.----501
263-------------July 16-----------------John Quintanilla Jr.---502
264-------------July 18------------------Vaughn Ross----------503
265-------------July 31-------------------Douglas Feldman-----504
266-------------Sept. 19------------------Robert Garza--------505
267-------------Sept. 26------------------Arturo Diaz--------506
268-------------Oct. 9---------------------Michael Yowell-----507
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
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