Jan. 5
TEXASimpending execution
Death Watch: Conflicts of InterestWhen your attorney goes to work for the
D.A.
The state's death chamber fires up again after a year in which the total number
of state-sanctioned killings (7) was the fewest since 1996, when former Gov.
George W. Bush oversaw the execution of only 3. First set for strapping in is
48-year-old Christopher Wilkins, convicted of capital murder in 2008, 2 1/2
years after confessing to the shooting deaths of 2 men - Willie Freeman and
Mike Silva - near Ft. Worth during a drug deal gone awry.
Several weeks before the murders, Wilkins left a halfway house in Houston,
stole a truck, and drove to Ft. Worth, where he made plans to meet Freeman to
buy drugs. Instead, Freeman presented Wilkins with a $20 piece of gravel and
laughed at him. Williams testified during trial that he decided at that moment
to kill his new acquaintances. During testimony Wilkins also expressed a desire
to plead guilty, skip the remainder of the trial, and await sentencing. He told
jurors they had a job to do.
Jurors took only 90 minutes to return a guilty verdict and sentenced Wilkins to
death. Despite the verdict, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that 2 of the
jurors cried during the announcement, while Wilkins mouthed "It's okay. It's
okay." In 2010, the state's Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Wilkins'
conviction.
Wilkins' appellate lawyers, led by Hilary Sheard, filed a federal petition for
relief in May 2012 that claimed Wilkins' trial counsel conducted a "belated
inadequate and cursory investigation" and violated his Sixth Amendment right to
effective assistance of counsel. They also claimed their client suffered from a
conflict of interest because one of his previously assigned lawyers had
formerly represented another of Wilkins' victims: Gilbert Vallejo, whom Wilkins
confessed to killing the night before he shot Silva and Freeman. They also
argued that the original trial violated their client's 14th Amendment right to
due process, in that the defendant was self-destructive and therefore incapable
of entering a plea deal or standing trial. The petition was denied by a federal
judge, and the Supreme Court declined a motion to stay the proceedings.
"Strickland took the case, but failed to reinvestigate the trial, and [he] had
contracts to work with the prosecutor's office that put Wilkins on death row."
- Hilary Sheard
A 2015 execution date was stayed in order to address potential DNA concerns
with the case, and the execution was eventually rescheduled for this Wednesday,
Jan. 11.
On Dec. 21, Sheard requested another stay of execution from the state's Court
of Criminal Appeals, asking that Wilkins be given a full and fair review of his
claims. Sheard cited the poor quality of capital habeas representation in "some
Texas cases and the devastating consequences" such conditions have on the
convicted. Specifically, Jack Strickland, who represented Wilkins at trial, was
also assigned to be Wilkins' attorney during appeals. Strickland, however, had
begun working for the Tarrant County D.A.'s office, which sentenced his client
to death, before resigning from Wilkins' case. According to Wilkins' appeal,
Strickland made public his plans to return to the D.A.'s office in May 2010,
prior to filing Wilkins' habeas application, but waited until Feb. 2011 to
withdraw from the case - after habeas had been denied. "He should have been
appointed a new attorney, or at least been given a hearing on the issue,"
Sheard told the Chronicle. "Strickland took the case, but failed to
reinvestigate the trial, and [he] had agreed to work with the prosecutor's
office that put Wilkins on death row. Wilkins tried to fire Strickland
repeatedly, but to no avail."
Late on Wednesday (Jan. 4), the CCA denied Wilkins' appeal. He currently has a
petition for writ of certiorari pending with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding
an absence of funding for reinvestigating the case and trial; SCOTUS has not
issued a ruling on that, either. If the state moves forward with the execution,
it will mark the 539th execution in Texas since the state reinstated the death
penalty in 1976. The Department of Criminal Justice currently has 2 additional
executions scheduled for January: Kosoul Chanthakoummane on Jan. 25 and Terry
Edwards the following evening.
"For Law Enforcement Purposes Only"
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed a lawsuit on Jan. 3 in a
Galveston federal court against the Food and Drug Administration and
Commissioner Robert Califf, arguing the FDA has failed to make a prompt final
decision on the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental. The 2 agencies have
been in a standoff since July 2015, when the FDA intercepted a shipment of
sodium thiopental being sent from India, arguing on three grounds that the drug
shouldn't be allowed into domestic commerce. The FDA issued a tentative
decision last April
