TCADP

The State of Texas is scheduled to execute Kimberly McCarthy on Tuesday, January 29, 2013, despite troubling questions about racial bias in the jury selection process.  Please take action now by calling Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and urging him to request a stay of execution.

Background on the Case

Kimberly McCarthy was convicted of the 1997 murder of Dorothy Booth in Dallas County.  Her original conviction was reversed on the basis of the erroneous admission of a statement she made upon arrest.  McCarthy was again convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 after a trial in which the guilt phase lasted only one day.

Troubling questions surround the jury selection process in her trial – of the 12 jurors selected, all but one were white.  According to McCarthy’s attorneys, the state struck three non-white prospective jurors (21% of its total strikes).  Of the 64 people questioned on individual voir dire, only 4 were not white.  Of these individuals, only 3 were African American.  None of these figures reflect the racial demographics of Dallas County.

There is a long, documented history of racially-biased jury selection practices in Dallas County.  The clemency video of Thomas Miller-El, who was eventually removed from death row because of these practices, features interviews with Dallas County jurors, judges, and prosecutors about the discrimination in the jury selection system.

McCarthy is one of ten women currently on death row in Texas.  Late last week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected her petition for clemency.  Since 1982, the State has executed three women, including Frances Newton in 2005.

Action Request

On Sunday, January 27, 2013, Dr. Frederick D. Haynes, III, the Senior Pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, spoke about the case of Kimberly McCarthy during his sermon.  Please join Dr. Haynes and many others in appealing to Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins to request a stay of execution for Kimberly McCarthy.

Please call or fax Mr. Watkins to express your support for a Texas Racial Justice Act and to request a stay of execution for Kimberly McCarthy, who was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury from which African Americans were excluded on the basis of their race.  If we believe in a Racial Justice Act, we must also believe Ms. McCarthy does not deserve to be executed.

Contact information for Mr. Watkins:

The Hon. Craig Watkins

Dallas County District Attorney’s Office

214-653-3600 – phone

214-653-2924 - fax

Thank you for taking action to stop this execution. Stay tuned to TCADP for any updates on this case.

Continue Reading

Thirty years ago today, December 7, 1982, the State of Texas officially resumed executions, putting Charlie Brooks to death for the 1976 murder of David Gregory.  That was also the nation’s first execution by lethal injection, a new method concocted by a legislator and former chief medical examiner in Oklahoma.

Reverend Carroll Pickett, who served as the chaplain at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, spent all day with Charlie Brooks and stood at the foot of the gurney as he was executed.  In his memoir, Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, he writes about the immediate aftermath of the execution:  “All that remained was an air of stunned silence – testimony to the fact that none of those who had witnessed penal history being made had really been prepared for what they had seen.”

Since 1982, the State of Texas has executed 492 people; 253 of these executions have occurred during the administration of Governor Rick Perry, more than any other governor in U.S. history.  This year, the State of Texas carried out 15 executions, a slight increase over last year and nearly three times as many as any other state in the country.

Yet Texas – along with the rest of the nation – is moving away from the death penalty.  New death sentences remain near record-low levels, and death-qualified juries have rejected this punishment in at least 18 trials in the past five years.

Use of the death penalty has been relegated to just a few jurisdictions statewide; in fact, only 11 counties in the entire state of Texas imposed new death sentences in the last two years.  These trends and other developments in 2012 appear in TCADP’s year-end report, scheduled to be released next week.

With your support, TCADP is educating Texans about the fatal flaws of our state’s death penalty system and equipping our members to serve as powerful citizen advocates for abolition.  Together, we are hastening the day that we mark the anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Texas.

Thank you for your support and steadfast commitment to this issue.

p.s. We had the pleasure of meeting Charlie’s son Keith in Dallas on Tuesday. Keith’s family is holding a memorial service today in Fort Worth for Charlie Brooks. The memorial will be held from 12 to 3:00 p.m. at the Riverside Community Center, 3700 Belknap Street, Fort Worth. The program will include lunch and reflections. Everyone is welcome.

Continue Reading

On November 15, 2012, the State of Texas executed Preston Hughes III for  the 1988 murders of Shandra Charles, age 15, and Marcell Taylor, age 3, in Houston.  It was the 2nd execution carried out by the state this week and the 15th this year.  No further executions are scheduled to take place in Texas in 2012; the state already has scheduled five executions into July of next year.

Hughes proclaimed his innocence and asked his supporters to continue to fight to clear his name. Read more from the Texas Tribune and ABC News/Associated Press.

Continue Reading

Last night, on November 14, 2012, the State of Texas executed Ramon Hernandez for  the 2001 rape and murder of Rosa Rosado in San Antonio. Another co-defendant in the case, co-defendant, Santos Minjarez, also was sentenced to death but died on death row earlier this year.  Read more about the case in the San Antonio Express-News.

This was the 14th execution to take place in Texas this year out of 39 nationwide.  Tonight, Preston Hughes III is scheduled to be put to death for the 1988 murders of Shandra Charles, age 15, and Marcell Taylor, age 3, in Houston.  Read more about his case in the Houston Chronicle and Austin Chronicle.

Continue Reading

Today the Texas Attorney General’s Office released the partial results of DNA tests conducted this fall in the case of Henry “Hank” Skinner.  Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend Twila Busby and her two developmentally disabled adult sons in Pampa, Texas.  Key pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene were not subjected to DNA testing, and for 10 years state officials refused to release it for analysis.   In his original trial, Skinner was represented by a former district attorney who had previously prosecuted him for theft and assault.  That attorney chose not to seek DNA testing, despite the fact that Skinner steadfastly protested his innocence of the crime.

On November 7, 2011, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay to Skinner,  who was scheduled to be executed on November 9 despite serious questions surrounding his guilt.   This was the second stay of execution for Skinner in two years.  In granting last year’s stay, the  court referenced changes in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64 related to DNA testing. Earlier in the year, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 122, which increased access to post-conviction DNA testing; it was signed into law by Governor Perry and went into effect on September 1, 2011.  The court stayed the execution to consider Skinner’s case in light of these changes in the statute.

On June 1, the State of Texas filed an advisory with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in which it agreed to DNA testing for death row inmate Hank Skinner.

Statements from Skinner’s attorney and from TCADP Executive Director Kristin Houlé in response to this latest development are posted below :

Statement from Attorney for Hank Skinner in Response to Initial DNA Test Results in Hank Skinner Case

“We find it troubling that the Attorney General’s Office has seen fit to release partial results of the DNA testing and submit its ‘advisory’ to the court while the DNA testing is still in progress. The partial results which have been produced by the initial round of DNA testing show that at least one person other than Hank Skinner and the victims may have been present in the house on the night the murders took place, and may have had contact with one of the weapons used in the killings.

“We will remain unable to draw any strong conclusions about whether the DNA testing has resolved the stubborn questions about Hank Skinner’s guilt or innocence until additional DNA testing has been completed, and the data underlying that DNA testing has been made available to our experts for a detailed review.

“Specifically, DNA testing of a carpet sample from the bedroom occupied by victims Elwin Caler and Randy Busby reveals a mixture of the DNA of Mr. Caler and that of an unknown person who is not Mr. Skinner, Randy Busby, or Twila Busby.

“In addition, DNA testing of one stain on a knife that may well have been used in the murders reveals a mixture of DNA from three contributors.  Two of those contributors appear to be Mr. Caler and Mr. Skinner, but the third contributor is someone other than Mr. Caler, Mr. Skinner, Randy Busby or Twila Busby.

“The DPS crime laboratory submitted the unknown DNA profile from the carpet sample to the Texas law enforcement DNA database, but that search produced no matches.

“We have requested additional DNA testing that could improve the quality of the unknown DNA profile from the carpet sample, to allow authorities to submit it to CODIS, the national law enforcement DNA database, to search for matches there.  We have also requested additional DNA testing of the stains from the knife, likewise hoping to develop further the DNA profile of the third contributor.

“All the parties must do everything in their power to make sure Texas does not make an irreversible mistake.”

Rob Owen, attorney for Hank Skinner
Clinical Professor, University of Texas School of Law
November 14, 2012

###

Continue Reading

On November 8, 2012, the State of Texas executed Mario Swain for the 2002 murder of Lola Nixon in her home in Longview (Gregg County).  This was the 13th execution to take place in Texas this year, out of 37 nationwide.  Two executions are scheduled to take place on back-to-back days in Texas next week.

Read more as reported by the Associated Press (published by the Huffington Post).

Continue Reading

Late last night, October 10, 2012, the State of Texas executed Jonathan Marcus Green for the 2000 rape, abduction, and murder of 12-year-old Christina Neal in Montgomery County.  The execution occurred after much legal wrangling over Green’s mental competency.  He reportedly suffered from schizophrenia, including severe hallucinations, for which he received no medication.  In 2010, Green received a last-minute stay of execution due to issues surrounding his competency.

Earlier in the week, a federal judge stayed the execution on an appeal from Green’s attorneys challenging a state district judge’s decision two years ago that he was mentally competent for execution.  According to the Associated Press (“Texas inmate executed for killing 12-year-old girl,” October 10, updated October 11, 2012), “U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled Monday that attorneys for Green weren’t properly allowed at a state competency hearing to present testimony from mental health professionals who treated him.”  The Texas Attorney General’s office appealed to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Criminal Appeals, which then lifted the stay.  The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.   The AP reports that “11th-hour appeals delayed the punishment nearly five hours past the initial 6 p.m. execution time and as the midnight expiration of the death warrant neared.”

Green is the 10th person to be executed in Texas this year, out of 31 executions nationwide.  He is among more than 25 documented cases of people who have been executed in Texas despite being diagnosed with a severe mental illness.  The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which considers cases from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, has never found a death row inmate incompetent for execution.

Three more executions are scheduled to take place in Texas this month.

Read more in the Houston Chronicle.

Read previous posts here and here.

Continue Reading