TCADP

Executions

The State of Texas is scheduled to carry out three executions in May. Read about their cases on the TCADP blog and participate in vigils in your community.

Texas accounts for four of the ten executions carried out nationwide to date in 2013.  The State has executed 496 people since 1982.

Legislative Updates
Two important legislative hearings related to the death penalty took place last month in Texas, and TCADP was there, every step of the way. On April 16, the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee considered House Bill 2458, which seeks to prohibit the imposition of a death sentence or execution under any judgment that was sought or obtained on the basis of race. The hearing included a lengthy exchange between legislators and TCADP Executive Director Kristin Houlé. Read about it here.

On April 29, starting at 10:50 PM, the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard testimony on House Bill 1703, which calls for the repeal of the death penalty in Texas. First up at the podium was Anthony Graves, who spent 12 years on death row and faced two execution dates for a crime he didn’t commit. Needless to say, he held the members spellbound with his story. Read our account of the hearing, and check out a compilation of Vicki’s live tweeting from the committee room!

Earlier that day, State Representative Jessica Farrar acknowledged Bob Van Steenburg, who served as the President of the TCADP Board of Directors from 2009 to 2013, from the floor of the Texas House of Representatives! House Resolution 478 by Rep. Farrar congratulates Bob on his service to the people of Texas and his tireless efforts to engage the public and legislators on the death penalty issue. Hooray, Bob!

We are grateful to everyone who contacted the members of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee last month to urge hearings on House Bills 1703, 2458, and 2614, and to the intrepid members of the TCADP Lobby Corps who stayed with us at the Capitol until midnight on Monday!

Please make one more call (or email) to the Committee members this week to thank them for conducting fair and open hearings on HB 1703 and HB 2458 and urge their support for repealing the death penalty in Texas.  Contact information is available here.

***
In other legislative news, on Thursday, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley will sign the bill that repeals the death penalty in his state! Check the TCADP blog tomorrow for coverage.

Spring 2013 Newsletter

TCADP 2013 Spring Quarterly Newsletter

In this issue:
Voices of Texas: Diane Allen
2013 Legislative Session
Death Penalty Developments
“The Trial of Jesus” in Austin
News from the Field
Thank You, Members, Donors, and Partners for Justice!
Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty
and more…

Read it now!

Case Updates
Nearly 50,000 people have signed the petition by former Harris County prosecutor Linda Geffin for Texas death row inmate Duane Buck. Is your name on this list? Ms. Geffin, former Governor Mark White, and many other prominent Texans believe that Buck deserves a new sentencing hearing that is free from racial bias… during his original trial, the jury was told that Mr. Buck was more likely to pose a future danger to society because he is African American. Sign the petition now to express your outrage at this blatant display of racial discrimination!

Announcements
Festivals, Conferences, Religious Gatherings?
It’s the season for community festivals and religious and civic gatherings! Do you know of any upcoming community events or meetings where TCADP could sponsor an information table and recruit new members? If so, please contact TCADP Program Coordinator Vicki McCuistion at info@tcadp.org or 512-441-1808. See the calendar below for examples of tabling events.

Join the TCADP Social Media Rapid Response Team!
Help TCADP expand its reach and communicate important messages online!  Sign up today to be a part of the TCADP Social Media Rapid Response Team. (You don’t have to be in Texas to be helpful!) http://tcadp.org/social-media-team/
TCADP is on Facebook – become a Fan today!  On Twitter, follow us!

Calendar

May
1: Webinar: Addressing the Needs of Victims in Death Penalty Cases: The Role and Responsibility of the Defense http://bit.ly/11JSJFO
7: Scheduled Execution – Carroll Parr
10-12: Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas
14: The New Jim Crow in Texas w/ Michelle Alexander, King of Glory Lutheran Church, Dallas 1:00pm www.ntnl.org
15: Scheduled Execution – Jeffery Williams; Dallas Religious Organizing Committee 6:00pm, Chapter meeting 7:00pm, dallas@tcadp.org
20: El Paso Chapter Meeting, 7:00pm, elpaso@tcadp.org
21: Scheduled execution – Robert Pruett
25: Dallas International Festival*
31—June 2:  United Church of Christ Conference, Dallas*

For more information about these events or to volunteer to staff a table at an *outreach event, email info@tcadp.org.

Support all of the programs and initiatives described here with a generous donation to TCADP today!

TCADP is on Facebook – become a Fan today!  On Twitter, follow us!  And on LinkedIn – Join Us!

Continue Reading

The State of Texas is scheduled to carry out the following executions in May:

• On May 7, Carroll Parr is scheduled to be put to death for the 2003 drug-related robbery and killing of Joel Dominguez in Waco.  According to a 2012 article in the Houston Chronicle, Parr sought to end his appeals. *Update* Parr was executed on May 7, 2013.
• On May 15, Jefferey Williams is scheduled to be put to death for the murder of plainclothes Houston police officer Troy Blando in 1999 while being arrested for stealing a car.  His attorney is pursuing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.  Read more about his case from the Austin Chronicle.
• On May 21, Robert Pruett is scheduled to be put to death for the 2002 for the murder of correctional officer Daniel Nagle at the McConnell Unit in Beeville.  In an interview with the Texas Tribune, Pruett contends he was framed.   The article  focuses on staffing shortages at Texas prisons, an issue that Nagle addressed at a rally at the State Capitol in 1999 calling for raises for prison employees.  At the rally, he reportedly said “Someone will have to be killed before the Texas Department of Criminal Justice does anything about the shortage of staff in Texas prisons.”

Texas accounts for four of the ten executions carried out nationwide to date in 2013.  The State has executed 496 people since 1982.

Continue Reading

Last night, April 16, 2013, the State of Texas executed Ronnie Threadgill for the 2001 murder of 17-year-old Dexter McDonald during a carjacking outside a Navarro County nightclub.  It was the third execution to date this year in Texas, out of eight nationwide.

Read more about the case.

Eleven executions are scheduled to take place in Texas between now and the end of July.  According to the Port Arthur News, the execution of Elroy Chester has been moved from April 24 to June 12 due to a paperwork issue.  Chester was convicted in Jefferson County of the 1998 shooting death of Port Arthur firefighter Willie Ryman III.  He pled guilty to Ryman’s murder and reportedly has admitted to four other slayings.

Continue Reading

Amnesty International has released its annual report on death sentences and executions for 2012. Worldwide, 682 people were executed this past year, compared to 680 in 2011. Sentencing fell from 1,923 death sentences in 63 countries in 2011 to 1,722 in 58 countries in 2012. Amnesty International asserts that the global trend is towards abolition, and the U.S. figures certainly give such an assertion some validity. The United States is responsible for 43 executions, essentially the same as in 2011; however, only 9 states carried out executions compared to 13 in 2011. The number of new death sentences (77) was the second lowest since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, and only occurred in 18 of 33 states retaining the death penalty. Notably, Connecticut became the 17^th state to abolish the death penalty!

Amnesty International reveals some of the world’s worst offenders, and the statistics are quite shocking.  Iraq’s execution rate almost doubled in 2012, and Iran has the second-highest number of executions worldwide (at least 314). China is responsible for more executions than the rest of the world combined. China’s death penalty data is considered a state secret and therefore, Amnesty International cannot publish credible information on the matter. However, the number of executions is assumed to be in the thousands. Some countries still use hanging, stoning, and beheading as means of execution. Eight countries sentenced people after eliciting confessions under duress. Also, five countries resumed executions in 2012: Botswana, Gambia, India, Japan, and Pakistan.

On a positive note, Latvia has become the 97^th country to abolish the death penalty for all crimes. Additionally, in 2012, only 21 countries carried out executions as opposed to 28 in 2003.

Two Texas men who were executed in 2012 are specifically mentioned in the report: Yokamon Hearn and Johnathan Green. Hearn was sentenced for a murder he committed when he was 19. He was also thought to have a developmental mental disability that amounted to “mental retardation”, but was executed nonetheless. Green was the 248^th prisoner executed in Texas under the governorship of Rick Perry. Green suffered from schizophrenia and often had severe delusions and auditory and visual hallucinations.  When the state motioned to lift a stay of execution, neither the US Supreme Court nor Governor Rick Perry intervened.

Amnesty International’s Death Sentences and Executions 2012 is available online at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/001/2013/en/bbfea0d6-39b2-4e5f-a1ad-885a8eb5c607/act500012013en.pdf

Continue Reading

Executions
Five executions currently are scheduled to take place in Texas this month; the April 3 execution date of Kimberly McCarthy has now been moved to June 26, 2013 upon an order from State District Judge Larry Mitchell. Those still scheduled for execution include Rigoberto Avila, whose attorneys are pursuing a claim of actual innocence. Read more on our blog and stay tuned to TCADP for information and action requests regarding these cases.

Action Opportunities
Join the Call for a New Sentencing Hearing for Duane Buck
On March 20, 2013, more than 100 prominent individuals from Texas and throughout the country, including civil rights leaders, elected officials, former prosecutors and judges, and clergy representing seven faith denominations, released a statement urging the Harris County District Attorney to provide a new, fair sentencing hearing for Texas death row inmate Duane Buck. The jury was told that Mr. Buck was more likely to pose a future danger to society because he is African American. Former Texas Governor Mark White, one of the signatories, delivered the statement to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.  Read more.

Another signatory to the statement, Linda Geffin, one of Mr. Buck’s trial prosecutors, started an online petition on Change.org, which calls for a new, fair sentencing hearing for Mr. Buck.  Sign the petition now (if you haven’t done so already) and share it with your friends and family!

Read an editorial by the Houston Chronicle (“Race and the death sentence,” March 26, 2013), which urges Senator John Cornyn and Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson to show leadership in this matter and calls for a new sentencing hearing for Duane Buck.

Join the TCADP Social Media Rapid Response Team!
Help TCADP expand its reach and communicate important messages online!  Sign up today to be a part of the TCADP Social Media Rapid Response Team. (You don’t have to be in Texas to be helpful!) http://tcadp.org/social-media-team/

After you sign up for the Rapid Response Team, support the Duane Buck resentencing campaign on Thunderclap.  Register with your FB and Twitter accounts.  The action will take place on Wednesday! https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1672

Watch Videos from TCADP Annual Conference Panel Discussion
Prof. James Liebman of Columbia Law School on the Carlos DeLuna case – http://youtu.be/iKrOpCfdPWM

Also airing on Austin Access TV – Live Streaming available – Video of Anthony Graves at the TCADP Annual Conference airing on Austin Access. Channel 16 – Wed April 3rd 8:00am; Channel 10 – Monday April 1st 6pm, Tues 2nd 9pm, Fri 5th 7pm. Live Streaming!

Legislative Updates
Texas 83rd Legislature Passes Halfway Mark
Members of TCADP’s Lobby Corps continue to visit the State Capitol weekly to meet with legislative offices and discuss repeal of the death penalty. Two additional legislators, State Representative Alma Allen (District 131–Houston) and State Representative Lon Burnam (District 90–Fort Worth) have signed on with State Representative Jessica Farrar as joint authors of House Bill 1703, which calls for abolition of the death penalty.   Please thank these legislators for their leadership: Jessica.farrar@house.state.tx.us, lon.burnam@house.state.tx.us and alma.allen@house.state.tx.us. We expect the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee to schedule a hearing on HB 1703 in the coming weeks.

Read about other legislative initiatives aimed at limiting the application of the death penalty and reducing the risk of wrongful convictions in an editorial by the Dallas Morning News (“With death penalty bans gaining steam, what’s next for Texas?” March 21, 2013).

Maryland Ends the Death Penalty!
On the national front, on March 15, 2013, Maryland’s House of Delegates voted 82-56 to end the death penalty. This followed passage in the Maryland Senate earlier in the month, by a vote of 27-20. The bill will go to Governor Martin O’Malley, who has already promised to sign it and make it law. In doing so, Maryland will become the sixth state in six years to end the death penalty. Read more from the Baltimore Sun.

Right next door, the Delaware Senate voted 11-10 on March 26, 2013 in favor of legislation repealing the death penalty. The bill now moves to the House for consideration, where it has 12 bipartisan sponsors. Read more.

In the News – New Voices on the Death Penalty
New Group Questions the Alignment of the Death Penalty with Conservative Principles
A diverse group of state and national leaders gathered at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to launch a new entity, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. This self-described “national network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles” includes Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, and Richard Viguerie, known as the “Funding Father” of the conservative movement, and TCADP Board Member Pat Monks, a long-time Republican Precinct Chair in Houston. Read some of the media coverage of this new group here and here.

If you would like to become involved in conservative outreach efforts in Texas, please contact TCADP Program Coordinator Vicki McCuistion at info@tcadp.org.

Former District Attorney of Montague County, Texas Asks Whether the State Needs to Take a Life to Make a Point
The March issue of Texas Monthly magazine features a personal essay by Tim Cole, who served four terms as the District Attorney of Montague, County (“The Death Penalty Has a Face: A DA’s Personal Story,” March 18, 2013), in which he discusses his personal experience with a local death penalty case. He writes, “Over the years I have come to believe that the time for the death penalty has passed. As more and more states abolish the sentence, or declare moratoriums on carrying it forward, the death penalty will be given less and less until the day comes when the state no longer needs to take a life to make a point.” Read the essay.

Featured Events
April 11: Sister Helen Prejean in Fort Worth
Texas Wesleyan University is proud to present for its 2013 Willson Lecture, Sister Helen Prejean, on Thursday, April 11, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in the Polytechnic United Methodist Church Sanctuary (church on campus at 1310 S. Collard St, Fort Worth, 76105). The lecture is free and open to the public and there will be a book sale/signing immediately after.  Learn more. Sister Prejean is the author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the U.S. and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.

April 13: Texas State Meeting of Amnesty International USA
The 2013 Texas State Meeting of Amnesty International USA will take place on Saturday, April 13, 2013 from 10:30 am – 5:30 pm at the University of Texas-Austin Student Activity Center. TCADP Board Member Les Breeding will lead a workshop on Lobbying 101.  Other workshop topics include Human Rights 101, Texas Death Penalty Abolition, and Immigrant Rights. For more information and to RSVP, go to http://texasstatemeeting.eventbrite.com or email Savannah Fox at sfox@aiusa.org.

May 1: Webinar – Addressing the Needs of Victims in Death Penalty Cases: The Role and Responsibility of the Defense
with Tammy Krause, Kelly Branham and Dick Burr
What application does restorative justice have in the highly-charged, adversarial context of death penalty cases? Is it possible to do more to engage the families of homicide victims in these cases and in doing so, to help address their needs? What can and should the defense team do in these situations? This webinar will take place from 3:30-5:00 PM Central Daylight Time (USA) and cost $10.  Registration is limited to the first 100 registrants, so sign up today!

Calendar

April
2-4: National Catholic Educational Association Conference, Houston
3: Scheduled Execution: Kimberly McCarthy
6: Pax Christi Texas Conference, Houston; Texas Junior State of America, Houston
9: Scheduled Execution: Rickey Lewis
10: Scheduled Execution: Rigoberto Avila, Jr.
11: Sister Helen Prejean at Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth, 7:00pm
13: Texas State Meeting of Amnesty International USA, Austin 10:30am
15: El Paso Chapter Meeting, 7:00pm, elpaso@tcadp.org
16: Scheduled Execution: Ronnie Threadgill
17: Dallas Religious Organizing Committee 6:00pm, Chapter meeting 7:00pm, dallas@tcadp.org
24: Scheduled Execution: Elroy Chester
25: Scheduled Execution: Richard Cobb

For more information about these events or to volunteer to staff a table at an outreach event, email info@tcadp.org.

Support all of the programs and initiatives described here with a generous donation to TCADP today!

TCADP is on Facebook – become a Fan today!  On Twitter, follow us!  And on LinkedIn – Join Us!

Continue Reading

Five executions currently are scheduled to take place in Texas this month; the April 3 execution date of Kimberly McCarthy has now been moved to June 26, 2013 upon an order from State District Judge Larry Mitchell.

Here are the five inmates with execution dates in April:

• Rickey Lynn Lewis is scheduled to be executed on April 9, 2013.  He was convicted of the 1990 murder of George Newman during a burglary at the victim’s house in Smith County.
• The State of Texas is scheduled to execute Rigoberto Avila, Jr. on April 10, 2013.  His attorneys are pursuing a claim of actual innocence based on newly discovered, previously unavailable scientific evidence. Avila was sentenced to death for the 2000 murder of 19-month-old Nicolas Macias in El Paso, who he was babysitting along with four-year-old Dylan Salinas. He has consistently maintained his innocence.
• Ronnie Threadgill is scheduled to be executed on April 16, 2013; he was sentenced to death for the 2001 murder of 17-year-old Dexter McDonald outside a Navarro County nightclub.
• On April 24, 2013, Elroy Chester is scheduled to be executed for the 1998 shooting death of Port Arthur firefighter Willie Ryman III.  He was convicted in Jefferson County.  Chester pled guilty to Ryman’s murder and reportedly has admitted to four other slayings.
• Richard Cobb is scheduled to be executed on April 25, 2013 for killing Kenneth Vandever during the robbery of a convenience store in Rusk in 2002 (Cherokee County).  His co-defendant, Beunka Adams, was executed on April 26, 2012.

Five executions have taken place nationwide to date in 2013, including one in Texas.   The State of Texas has carried out 493 executions since 1982.

Continue Reading

Last night, February 21, 2013, the State of Texas executed Carl Blue for the 1994 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Carmen Richards-Sanders, in Bryan.  It was the first execution to take place in Texas this year and the third nationwide. The State of Georgia also carried out an execution last night, putting Andrew Allen Cook to death for the killing of two college students, Michele Lee Cartagena, 19, and Grant Patrick Hendrickson, in 1995.

According to the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Blue’s attorney argued that jurors never heard evidence about Blue’s birth and upbringing. Blue was born prematurely at home in a two-room shack shared by 22 people to a 13-year-old mother.  The impoverished family warmed him in an oven for a week before taking him to the emergency room.  Evidence about his low intellectual functioning and limitations in adaptive skills also were left out of the trial, according to the appeal.  Read more about Blue’s childhood in the Austin Chronicle.

Blue received a new sentencing hearing five years after his conviction in Brazos County when Senator John Cornyn, then-Attorney General of Texas, admitted that six defendants, including Blue, must have new sentencing hearings because of race-based testimony in their original hearings.  A former state prison psychologist, Dr. Walter Quijano testified that the defendants in those cases would be more dangerous in the future because of their race (black or Hispanic).  Blue  was sentenced to die at a second punishment hearing in 2001.

Extensive coverage of Blue’s case is available in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, including interviews with his children and with the children of Ms. Richards-Sanders.

As both Texas and Georgia prepared to carry out executions, the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings committee voted 6-5 to send Gov. Martin O’Malley’s death penalty bill to the Senate floor.   It was the first time in decades that this key committee has allowed the bill to proceed.  The full Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week.  Read more about this exciting development in the Baltimore Sun.

Continue Reading