[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., PENN., VA., N.C., S.C., OHIO, KAN.
March 23 TEXAS: With support of US Supreme Court, Texas authorities execute mentally ill man Adam Kelly Ward, a severely mentally ill Texas man sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of 44-year-old Michael Walker, was executed Tuesday evening by lethal injection. Ward, 33, was the 9th person executed in the US so far this year and the 5th in Texas alone. Roughly 2 hours before the execution, the US Supreme Court rejected Ward's appeal. The high court refused to comment on the case, signaling its support for the barbaric practice of murdering the mentally impaired. Ward was given a lethal dose of pentobarbital at the Walls Unit in Huntsville after 6 p.m. local time, according to the Associated Press. As it took effect, he took a deep breath followed by a smaller one and then stopped moving. He was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. Ward had been on death row less than nine years after being convicted and sentenced to death in 2007. During that trial, a psychiatrist testified that Ward suffered from a psychotic disorder which caused him to "suffer paranoid delusions such that he believes there might be a conspiracy against him and that people might be after him or trying to harm him," according to court documents. Evidence of Ward's paranoia, delusions and bipolar disorder was presented in his initial trial and subsequent appeals court trials, with a federal district court noting that by age 15 Ward "interpreted neutral things as a threat or personal attack." He was found to have begun exhibiting delusional tendencies as early as the 6th grade, leading the court to declare, "Adam Kelly Ward has been afflicted with mental illness his entire life." The details surrounding Ward's murder of Walker clearly indicate that his mental illness of delusions and paranoia prompted him to commit the murder. Walker was a code enforcement officer who was inspecting Ward's property in Commerce, a town 65 miles northeast of Dallas. The Ward family had been cited numerous times for violating housing and zoning codes. Witnesses said that the 2 got into an argument when Walker began taking pictures around the perimeter of the Ward property, prompting Ward to spray Walker with a hose he had been using to wash his car. Ward's trial lawyer, Dennis Davis, says that Walker then told Ward that he was calling for back up, which Ward interpreted as meaning that the police were coming to kill him. "He had no idea that was the exact wrong thing to say to that person," Davis told AP. After Walker made the phone call, Ward went into his house, returned with a gun and shot Walker nine times. Ward later testified that he believed Walker was armed, telling AP, "Only time any shots were fired on my behalf was when I was matching force with force, when this man had pulled a gun on me and he pointed it at me and was fixing to shoot me, which is self-defense." There was no evidence demonstrating that Walker had a weapon, suggesting that Ward had suffered a psychotic episode. Davis told AP, "When I stepped in front of the jury, I said, 'I'm not going to be so callous and look you in the face and say my client didn't kill this man. He killed him but you have to understand why. These delusions he has caused the situation.'" Despite Ward's mental illness clearly prompting him to commit the murder, state and federal courts repeatedly rejected his appeals for a life sentence in lieu of the death penalty. Most recently, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Elsa Alcala rejected Ward's last petition with the state last Monday. In issuing her verdict, Alcala said, "As is the case with intellectual disability, the preferred course would be for legislatures rather than courts to set standards defining the level at which a mental illness is so severe that it should result in a defendant being categorically exempt from the death penalty." Any appeals to the state legislature in Texas for reforms to such laws will fall on deaf ears, as the state's legislature remains among the most reactionary in the country. At present, there are 249 inmates on death row in Texas. The state has carried out by far the most executions since the death penalty was reinstituted in the US following the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court decision, executing 535 people, or more than a third of the total executions. These have included many individuals convicted of crimes committed as juveniles and the mentally impaired. (source: World Socialist Website) * Baptist minister arrested in death penalty protest A Texas Baptist minister was arrested March 22 in a civil disobedience protest of the execution of a man who claimed he was mentally ill when he shot and killed a city code enforcement officer in a dispute over trash in 2005. Jeff Hood, an advocate for abolishing the death penalty who writes a column for Baptist News Global, found it symbolic that Texas carried out the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., PENN., VA., N.C.
May 14 TEXASimpending execution Texas to execute man for Houston officer's slaying When Houston police arrested Jeffrey Demond Williams for gunning down a plainclothes officer working an auto theft assignment, the slain officer's handcuffs dangled from one of Williams' wrists. Witnesses said they saw the officer, 39-year-old Troy Blando, start to cuff Williams, who then began struggling, grabbed a gun under his clothing with his free hand and shot the 19-year police veteran before running off on foot. Williams, 37, was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening. He'd be the 6th Texas prisoner executed this year. Officers found Williams a block from where he shot Blando on May 19, 1999. Besides the handcuff, he still was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the weapon used to fatally shoot Blando in the chest. Attorneys for Williams appealed Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, after lower courts refused to do so. They contend that he received poor legal help in earlier appeals, and that those lawyers should have argued that his trial lawyers had failed him. The trial lawyers should have provided jurors with more than superficial mitigating evidence of Williams' mental impairment to show he did not deserve a death sentence, they said. There is a reasonable probability, but for trial counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different, attorney Jonathan Sheldon told the high court. State attorneys have said Williams' appeals were strategically filed with his execution imminent, that no federal law authorizes the court relief being sought and that arguments raised were wholly unpersuasive on the merits, according to Georgette Oden, an assistant Texas attorney general. Blando was in an unmarked vehicle, working surveillance at a southwest Houston motel where authorities suspected auto theft activity. Williams pulled into the parking lot about 9 a.m. driving a Lexus. A check of the license plate showed the car was reported stolen the previous week. His fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed. The mortally wounded Blando managed to radio his location and tell a dispatcher he'd been shot. He also provided a description of his attacker and exchanged gunfire with him. I don't know about you, but I know about me, and I want to get somebody there to save my life, Lyn McClellan, the former Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Williams, said last week. That's in my mind, I'm all about preservation. Instead, Blando was focused on his job, McClellan said. Here's the guy, here's what he looks like and here's what he's wearing. And of course, one handcuff on his wrist. It ought to be easy to identify him, the former prosecutor said. The fact he takes time to give a description of the person and the direction of travel, it's just beyond pale, beyond the line of duty. And that's what these guys do all the time. At his trial, lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die. Prosecutors said Williams had good parents and plenty of chances at help, even from the U.S. Navy, which discharged him after disciplinary problems. Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman. Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck. Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to four robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery. Williams would be the 498th Texas prisoner put to death since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. At least 8 others have executions scheduled in the coming months. (source: Abilene Reporter-News) Convicted Houston cop killer set to die Wednesday Attorneys for a 37-year-old Texas death row inmate are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution this week for the fatal shooting of a Houston police officer 14 years ago. Jeffrey Demond Williams is set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for gunning down 39-year-old Troy Blando. Blando was working as a plainclothes officer doing auto theft surveillance when he stopped Williams, who was driving a stolen Lexus. As Blando was putting handcuffs on Williams, he was shot. Williams' lawyers argue his punishment should be halted while the high court reviews whether his legal help at his trial and in earlier stages of his appeals was deficient. When Williams was arrested shortly after the shooting, he was still wearing the officer's handcuff on one of his wrists. (source: Associated Press) ** Defense doesn't dispute
