Clemency Campaign Archive
Anthony Bartee
On May 2, 2012, Anthony Bartee was again scheduled for execution by the State of Texas, even though DNA testing ordered recently by State District Judge Mary Román had not been completed or analyzed.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn the stay of execution granted earlier on Wednesday to Anthony Bartee. This effectively allowed the execution date of May 2, 2012 to expire, and Bartee was removed from the holding cell at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Late in the day, his attorneys filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Bexar County District Attorney’s office, charging them with violating Bartee’s civil rights by denying access to post-conviction DNA testing. A federal judge in San Antonio, acting on the lawsuit, granted Bartee the reprieve. According to the Associated Press, “a 5th Circuit panel reviewing the case said it wanted more information but put off a ruling Wednesday night. If the court eventually rules against Bartee, it could be another couple of months before he is set to die.”
Bartee was originally scheduled to be executed on February 28, 2012, despite the fact that the Bexar County Criminal Investigation Laboratory has not tested pieces of DNA evidence that were collected from the crime scene. Even after being ordered to test this evidence by Judge Román in 2007, neither the Bexar County crime lab nor the DPS lab in Austin performed the ordered tests on all available evidence. Bartee was convicted of the 1996 murder of his friend David Cook in San Antonio. He has consistently maintained that although he was present at the house, he did not kill Cook.
Bartee received a reprieve on February 23, 2012 when Judge Román withdrew the execution warrant so that additional DNA testing could be conducted on the strands of hair found in the hands of the victim. She also ordered the forensic lab to provide a detailed and comprehensive report to the court with an analysis of the results. According to Bartee’s attorneys, this testing still has not been performed. Yet, inexplicably, Judge Román has set another execution date – May 2, 2012.
Bartee’s attorneys assert that chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure obligates the court to hold a hearing after the testing has been conducted and after examining the results to determine whether this evidence would have made a difference in the outcome of the trial, had it been available to the jury.
Additional Background and Talking Points for Letters to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry
Untested DNA Evidence
While performing an autopsy on the victim, David Cook, the medical examiner found hairs in both of his hands. On June 18, 2007, Trial Judge Mary Román ordered that these hairs be tested by the Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) lab in Austin. According to a report later issued by the DPS crime lab, hairs found in Cook’s left hand were tested and not found to belong to Bartee. This same report confirmed that no DNA was extracted during these proceedings from the hairs found in the right hand of David Cook.
Even after Judge Román ordered the additional testing of all forensic DNA evidence in the Bartee case on July 21, 2010, the hairs taken from the right hand of the murder victim remain frozen at the DPS crime lab in Austin. The official response to the judge’s request from Bexar County Crime Lab claimed that “no remaining physical evidence [was] available for additional forensic DNA testing,” even though the report from the DPS confirms this is not the case.
At a hearing in November of 2010, Judge Román used an incomplete report that only contained information from the DNA test performed on the evidence collected from the left hand of the victim. This report did not contain any information on the still frozen and untested hairs found in the victim’s right hand. From this incomplete report, Judge Román concluded that though the hair tested did not belong to Bartee, it could have belonged to David Cook and, as such, did not exonerate Bartee.
To date, 17 inmates on death row in the United States have been exonerated by use of DNA testing. Shouldn’t every prisoner get this chance when DNA evidence is available? Shouldn’t Texas insist on the highest standards of evidence proving guilt, especially in cases where the punishment is irreversible?
A Serious Conflict of Interest Involving a Trial Attorney
A severe conflict of interest took place in this case during the trial. This conflict involved Michael Sawyer, the defense attorney sitting second chair for Bartee, and his relationship with David Cook, the victim. This relationship was revealed on April 13, 1998, on the morning the actual trial was to begin, when Sawyer “realized” that he knew the victim, David Cook, and the victim’s entire family.
Although Sawyer claims that he was not aware of his familiarity with the entire Cook family throughout the trial’s previous month-long seating of the jury, a clear conflict of interest existed and potentially impacted the jury selection process.
The judge allowed Sawyer to withdraw from the case, but she denied the motion for a mistrial made by Bartee’s other attorney, Vincent Callahan. When claims that the trial was tainted by Sawyer’s conflict of interest were made in Bartee’s state habeas petition, the judge denied relief by citing previous case law showing that Texas courts required defendants to prove that but for the conflict of interest, the results of the trial would have been different.
On September 12, 2007, however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that this was not the proper standard by which to analyze claims involving conflicts of interest. Due to this change in the standard applied to claims involving conflicts of interest in Texas, Anthony Bartee should now be given the chance to have his claim heard under the proper standard.
A Model Prisoner and Commitment to Service
Additional factors should be taken into consideration in the case of Anthony Bartee, namely, his behavior as a model prisoner while on death row, along with his family’s commitment to serving our country through various branches of the Armed Services. As his prison disciplinary records reveal, if his sentence were commuted to life in prison, he would not be a danger to any prisoner or guard.
Since he began his time on death row on September 9, 1998, Bartee has been at level one, the best disciplinary level possible. He has only been cited for two disciplinary infractions, neither of which were violent, throughout his entire 13 years on death row.
Bartee was raised in a family devoted to serving our great nation. Bartee’s father served our country in the Air Force for 26 years and his grandfather served in the Army in Germany during World War II. Bartee himself received an honorable discharge from the Army on July 12, 1976.
Bartee has also long sought to teach others to learn from his mistakes. During time spent in prison for an earlier conviction, Bartee was chosen as one of two “model prisoners” to speak to a group of troubled students from the local town. These students were greatly influenced by his comments, and it has been reported that many of them ceased participating in gang activity after their visit with Bartee.
Anthony Bartee, scheduled for execution on February 28, 2012 had his date withdrawn.
On February 28, 2012, Anthony Bartee may be put to death by the State of Texas, even though the Bexar County Criminal Investigation Laboratory still has not tested pieces of DNA evidence that were collected from the crime scene. Even after being ordered to test this evidence by Trial Judge Mary Román, neither the Bexar County crime lab nor the DPS lab in Austin have performed the ordered tests on all available evidence. Bartee was convicted of the 1996 murder of his friend David Cook in San Antonio. He has consistently maintained that although he was present at the house, he did not kill Cook.
Mark Stroman
Mark Stroman was e executed on July 20 for killing Indian immigrant Vasudev Patel in a series of shootings of people he believed to be Middle Eastern after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
One of his intended victims, Rais Bhuiyan, survived and opposed the execution.
Humberto Leal
Humberto Leal was executed on July 7, 2011 for the 1994 rape and murder of Adria Sauceda in San Antonio. He protested his innocence of these crimes. At his trial, Mr. Leal was represented by two inexperienced attorneys who failed to challenge the junk science used to convict him and failed to present powerful mitigating evidence that might have saved Mr. Leal’s life.
As a Mexican national, Mr. Leal was legally entitled to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate. Texas authorities failed to inform him of this right, which is afforded to him and to Americans who travel abroad, by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. If the government of Mexico had been informed of Mr. Leal’s arrest, he would have been provided with highly qualified and experienced legal counsel, as well as funding for necessary experts and investigators. Instead, he received grossly inadequate representation from two court-appointed attorneys, one of whom has been reprimanded or suspended from the practice of law on multiple occasions as a result of ethical violations.
A petition in support of his clemency was at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/save-humberto-leal/
Visit www.humbertoleal.org to access the clemency petition, letters of support, and case background.
Coverage of the case can be found on the TCADP blog: http://tcadp.org/blog/
Timothy Adams
Timothy Adams was executed by the State of Texas on Tuesday, February 22, 2011. The Board of Pardons and Parole voted 6 – 0 against clemency. He was convicted of killing his son while planning his own suicide in 2002. Members of his family, who are also the victim’s family members, his church community, and even three of the jurors from his trial are pleading with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry to show mercy by commuting Adams’ sentence to life. Adams is deeply remorseful for his crime, for which he accepted responsibility right away.
Petition that called for clemency for Tim Adams.
Read a press release about the clemency petition filed on February 7 by his attorneys.
Read background information about Tim and this tragic case.
“Since the trial, I have learned new information that would have made me fight for Adams’s life…It would have been nice to hear from Adams’s family members and friends, because it would have shown many of the jurors that he was not a monster, that he was a good human being, who had done something horribly wrong but completely out of character…I do not believe that Timothy Adams deserves to die for his crime.”
Ngoc Duong, Juror
“I love my grandson and not a day goes by that I am not thinking of him. Our immediate family lives with this daily. And his dad does too….I know that Timothy has done a terrible thing, but I still love my son very much. I am asking that Timothy’s life be saved.”
Wilma Adams, Mother of Tim Adams
