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death penalty news—–TEXAS

Sept. 8

TEXAS:

Judge orders depositions in death row case

The judge and prosecutor from a condemned man's murder trial have been
ordered to testify under oath about allegations that they were
romantically involved during the case.

The state district court ruling 2 days before convicted killer Charles
Dean Hood's scheduled execution stemmed from requests by his attorneys to
investigate claims of an improper relationship between retired state
District Judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County District
Attorney Tom O'Connell.

The deposition for O'Connell began in a jury room shortly after District
Judge Greg Brewer's ruling Monday afternoon. Holland's deposition was
scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Hood's attorneys also were working to postpone his execution in order to
have more time to pursue their claims of judicial bias. They filed a
request for a stay of execution and also asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant a
30-day reprieve.

The 39-year-old Hood was convicted in the 1989 killings of an ex
strip-club dancer and her boyfriend.

(source: Associated Press)

**************

Question of judge-prosecutor affair lingers as Charles Dean Hood execution
nears

An attorney for a retired judge who was rumored to be having an affair
with the prosecutor during the death penalty trial of Charles Dean Hood
says the judge is "saddened" and "disappointed" by the allegations.

Bill Boyd made the remarks on behalf of retired Judge Verla Sue Holland,
whose relationship with former Collin County district attorney Tom
O'Connell has been questioned, while he and others waited for a decision
Monday on whether a request in civil court to require depositions about
the relationship from the 2 could be heard.

The request had been filed in state court and slated for a hearing Monday
morning, but was moved to federal court at the last minute. Neither Judge
Holland nor Mr. O'Connell appeared at the Collin County Courthouse.

Mr. Boyd said the move for a civil action in the case of condemned murder
Charles Dean Hood was "subterfuge" by his defense attorneys.

"This is not about getting money damages for Hood or his estate," he said.

Defense attorneys hope to use depositions about the relationship to obtain
a stay of execution for Mr. Hood, who is to die on Wednesday for the
killings of Tracie Wallace and Ronald Williamson in 1989.

While lauding their "creativity," Mr. Boyd noted that the alleged affair
happened 20 years ago and in all those years, "nobody has filed a
grievance between either of these 2 people."

In addition, defense attorneys always are "barking up the wrong tree," he
said, because no one at the county courthouse has the ability to order a
stay in the case.

"The only one who can stay the execution is the governor," he said. "They
ought to be down in Austin arguing to him."

Gov. Rick Perry's decision is complicated by the fact that the Collin
County district attorney's office would like to proceed with the
execution, but the state attorney general's office has filed a brief
urging the allegations be investigated to protect the integrity of the
criminal justice system.

Defense attorney Greg Wiercioch dismissed the notion that Mr. Hood's
lawyers waited until the last minute to raise the issue, noting that until
a former assistant district attorney filed an affidavit saying rumors of
the affair were common knowledge, "we didn't feel it was enough to go
forward."

When asked why no one with direct knowledge of the relationship has
surfaced to give them the evidence they seek, he said, "There are a lot of
people that still are intimidated by the fact that these people wield
power in Collin County."

"It certainly is baffling," he said.

Though the defense is unable to point to any specific instance of unfair
treatment in Mr. Hood's trial, they claim that he could not have received
a fair trial if the two were romantically involved.

"When a judge is involved in a long-term relationship with an attorney who
is appearing before her, the judge's impartiality is certainly suspect,
even without evidence that the relationship actually resulted in any
impropriety," they argued in a petition filed in state court and with the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Monday.

The defense also asked 8 of the 9 judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals
to recuse themselves from the case because they served with Judge Holland
on that same court.

********************************

Hector Medina's attorney plans to show why dad killed his 2 kids

The defense attorney for a man accused of killing his 2 children said
during opening statements at his trial today that she would show jurors
why the shootings took place.

"This case is not a whodunit," said defense attorney Donna Winfield in the
capital murder trial of Hector Medina. "The entire responsibility of what
happened that day lies with Hector Medina. We want to know why."

Hector Rolando Medina Mr. Medina, 29, is accused of fatally shooting
8-month-old Diana and 3-year-old Javier before shooting himself in the
head and neck in March 2007. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Ms. Winfield told the jury that she plans to show that Mr. Medina's
girlfriend and mother of his children, Elia Martinez-Bermudez, now 24, had
been having an affair with one of their roommates. Ms. Winfield also plans
to call a mental health expert to testify about Mr. Medina's mindset.

Prosecutor Pat Kirlin told the jury during opening statements that Ms.
Martinez-Bermudez left Mr. Medina days before the shooting in March 2007,
because he had threatened to kill her and their children. When she
returned to their Irving home one day later from picking up her paycheck,
Mr. Medina would not let her back into the home. Their children were
inside.

After she left, a couple of the roommates reported hearing some doors bang
shut, sounds which were later identified as gunshots, Mr. Kirlin said.

"He had put 2 bullets through each one of his children" Mr. Kirlin said.

The next day, a district judge granted a protective order to Ms.
Martinez-Bermudez. She could not be reached for comment last week, but she
is expected to testify during Mr. Medina's trial.

Mr. Medina, who is a citizen of El Salvador, was hospitalized for about a
week and then taken to the Dallas County Jail. He has remained there on a
federal immigration hold. The bullet remains in his neck, according to
court records.

Irving police Sgt. Jef Swann said it's common for violence in an adult
relationship to extend to children in the household.

"The husband or wife, if they can't take it out on that person, they'll
take it out on the children," said Sgt. Swann, who oversees the Irving
police family violence unit. "The kids are regularly caught in the
middle."

In an affidavit for the protective order, Ms. Martinez-Bermudez said that
"Hector has grabbed me, thrown me, pulled my hair and pinned me down and
forced me to have sex with him numerous times."

The week before the shooting, the affidavit said, Mr. Medina assaulted her
at the Irving house they shared with another family because she refused to
have sex with him.

She said Mr. Medina told her that police would write her a ticket if she
called them for no reason.

"Hector stated since I did not have any bruising they would not believe
me," Ms. Martinez-Bermudez said. "I believed Hector, so I didn't call for
help."

(source for both: Dallas Morning News)

*******************

Lawyers attempt to halt execution, alleging affair

Lawyers for a convicted killer who claim the judge and prosecutor were
having an affair during his murder trial asked the state's highest appeals
court Monday to halt this week's execution, saying the judge's extensive
history of recusing herself from the prosecutor's cases shows a
relationship between the 2.

It was one of a handful of actions Charles Dean Hood's attorneys were
taking in an effort to stop Wednesday's lethal injection he was sentenced
to for the 1989 killings of an ex strip-club dancer and her boyfriend.

In a filing for a stay of execution with the Court of Criminal of Appeals
in Austin, attorneys claimed that between 1997 and 2001 when Judge Verla
Sue Holland served on the appeals court she recused herself in 4 of every
5 cases from Collin County. That's where Tom O'Connell was district
attorney and where she had been a trial judge.

"Judge Holland's recusing herself at a rate nearly 160 times more than her
fellow jurists cries out for an explanation," the filing stated. "The
simplest explanation is the most plausible one: Judge Holland recused
herself at such an off-the-charts rate, because she had previously been
romantically involved with (D.A. O'Connell).

Holland and O'Connell have declined to discuss the accusations. Messages
left Monday with attorneys for both were not immediately returned.

According to Texas Defender Service statistics cited by Hood's lawyers,
Holland recused herself in 381 of 485 Collin County cases while on the
Court of Criminal Appeals.

Meanwhile, efforts to depose the retired Holland and O'Connell, who's now
in private practice, were on hold Monday as attorneys from both sides
battled over jurisdiction. State District Judge Greg Brewer in Collin
County could not rule on the request to depose them until another judge
decides whether the case should be in state or federal court.

Hood's attorneys also have asked Gov. Rick Perry's office for a reprieve.
They also were asking the attorney general's office to intervene and ask
the governor to issue a reprieve, and to join them in their appeals court
filing to stay the execution.

Last week Attorney General Greg Abbott notified the court he would file a
brief favoring a review of the allegations "to ensure that justice is
certain and beyond question." Abbott indicated the review should be
carried out even if it means postponing Hood's execution.

Hood, 39, was scheduled to die June 17 but his lethal injection, delayed
by numerous last-day appeals, was halted because prison officials said
they didn't have enough time to follow proper procedures before the
execution warrant expired at midnight.

Further complicating the case, the judge who originally set the hearing on
the depositions for after Hood's execution date, Robert Dry, took himself
off the case last week, citing a "previous business relationship" with
Holland's ex-husband.

Hood is a former bouncer at a topless club who was 20 when he was arrested
in Indiana for the fatal shootings of Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, an
ex-dancer, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46, at Williamson's home
in Plano in 1989.

Hood has maintained his innocence. He was driving Williamson's $70,000
Cadillac at the time of his arrest. Fingerprint evidence tied him to the
murder scene. Hood contended his prints were at Williamson's home because
he was living there and that he had permission to drive the car.

Evidence also tied Hood, who had served 2 years in an Indiana prison for
passing bad checks, to the rape of a 15-year-old girl.

(source: Associated Press)

**************************

2nd man on trial for 5 killings at Kilgore KFC

About 140 prospective jurors assembled Monday as trial got under way for
the 2nd of 2 men accused in the notorious murders of 5 people abducted
from an East Texas Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant a quarter-century
ago.

Darnell Hartsfield, 47, went on trial almost a year after his cousin,
Romeo Pinkerton, took a plea bargain midway through his own trial on 5
capital murder charges for the 1983 fatal shootings outside Kilgore.

If convicted, Hartsfield faces an automatic life prison term because
prosecutors have said they won't seek the death penalty. The convicted
burglar and drug dealer from Tyler already was serving life for perjury
when DNA testing tied him to the KFC killings.

He traded his prison whites Monday for a white open-collar shirt and black
slacks as he sat at the defense table in a courtroom in Bryan, facing
prospective jurors as State District Judge Clay Gossett qualified them and
considered reasons why they may not be able to serve.

Gossett introduced the defendant and the lawyers in the case to the
prospective jurors. Hartsfield rose briefly but said nothing.

The case was moved to Bryan from Henderson, about 150 miles to the
northeast, because of publicity in East Texas.

Gossett said some 600 Brazos County residents had been summoned as
possible jurors. Less than a quarter of that number showed up.

"I understand this is not something you like to hear or want to hear," he
said, telling them the trial could last up to five weeks. "It's just the
reality of this."

A panel of 14, including 2 alternates, likely would be selected by Friday,
the judge said. The jury prospects filled out 13 pages of questions and
were asked to return Thursday for additional questioning by lawyers.

Gossett said attorneys would deliver their opening arguments on Sept. 15.

The 5 victims were found dead along an oilfield road about 15 miles from
the KFC restaurant in Kilgore where they were abducted during a holdup the
previous night, Sept. 23, 1983.

Killed were David Maxwell, 20; Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey
Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19. All but Landers worked at the
restaurant about 25 miles east of Tyler and 115 miles east of Dallas.
Landers was a friend of Maxwell and Johnson and was visiting them as the
restaurant was closing for the night.

Hartsfield, then 22, was arrested for aggravated robbery in September 1983
in another case and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Prosecutors contend
that 3 days before his arrest, he was one of the men participating in the
Kilgore killings.

Pinkerton faced a possible death sentence if convicted when he took the
plea deal last year for the five life terms. The agreement, however, did
not require him to testify against Hartsfield.

Since 1995, Hartsfield has been serving a 40-year sentence out of Smith
County for delivery of a controlled substance and engaging in organized
criminal activity. He also had the burglary conviction from 1983, at least
2 parole revocations and then 3 years ago was convicted of perjury in a
KFC-related case and given a life term.

His cousin, Pinkerton, had been to prison at least 5 times and had been
out of prison just 2 days when the Kilgore murders occurred.

At Pinkerton's trial, Lisa Tanner, an assistant Texas attorney general and
lead prosecutor in both trials, disclosed for the 1st time that DNA
evidence confirmed the involvement of a 3rd person who raped 1 of the
victims. The rape also was a detail authorities never had disclosed over
the year as the slayings case became one of the state's oldest unresolved
mass murders.

Authorities have refused to disclose any progress in their hunt for a 3rd
suspect, citing a gag order imposed by Gossett.

DNA technology not available until recently showed Pinkerton's blood on a
napkin at the restaurant crime scene and blood from Hartsfield on a box of
cash register tapes. A former FBI agent hired as a special investigator
for the Rusk County Sheriff's Office in 2000 to look into the long-stalled
case found the items among evidence that had been kept. The DNA testing
led to the arrests of Pinkerton and Hartsfield.

The jury was questioned Monday in the same Brazos County courtroom where
white supremacist Lawrence Russell Brewer was convicted and condemned in
1999 for his part in the murder of James Byrd Jr., the black Jasper man
abducted and chained by his ankles to the back of a pickup truck, then
dragged for 3 miles down a winding bumpy East Texas road to his death.

(source: Associated Press)

***************************

Suspect in 2003 Clear Lake slayings set for trial—-Woman blames
boyfriend, who later killed self, for deaths of 4

A former Clear Lake High School student accused of gunning down 3 of her
classmates and a 4th victim during a 2003 home invasion is scheduled for
trial this week on a capital murder charge.

Jury selection in the trial of Christine Paolilla is scheduled for
Tuesday, and testimony is to begin on Thursday in state District Judge
Mark Kent Ellis' court. Paolilla's statement to police in which she
acknowledged being in the home, but blamed former boyfriend Christopher
Snider for the shootings, is among the evidence that jurors are expected
to hear.

She is ineligible for the death penalty because she was a minor at the
time of the killings.

Snider committed suicide shortly after he and Paolilla were charged.

Testimony also is expected from Paolilla's husband, Justin Rott, who has
recounted to authorities the tale his wife told him about the shootings.
In his version, Paolilla was a willing participant and even returned to
make sure everyone was dead.

Paolilla's attorney, Mike DeGeurin, declined to comment on the case.

The killings on July 18, 2003, rocked the quiet Brook Forest subdivision.
Although the attack took place in the middle of the afternoon in a 1-story
home in the 3700 block of Millbridge, where Tiffany Rowell lived, no one
reported hearing the gunshots.

Found dead were Rowell and her friend, Rachael Koloroutis, both 18;
Rowell's boyfriend, Marcus Precella, 19; and his cousin, Adelbert Sanchez,
21.

Paolilla, who has remained in the Harris County Jail since her July 2006
arrest, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Koloroutis' parents say the law prohibiting the execution of those who
committed their crimes before turning 17 is unfair.

"But the law is the law and we have no choice in the matter, so we choose
not to dwell on it," George and Ann Koloroutis wrote in an e-mail to the
Houston Chronicle.

An arrest warrant affidavit quotes Paolilla as saying that she and Snider
had guns when they went to the Rowell home in search of "dope and money."
Paolilla said that while they were there, Snider "just started shooting."
According to the document, she said that while she held a gun that Snider
had given her, "Snider put his hands on hers and the gun just started
going off multiple times."

Investigators said more than 20 shots were fired.

Snider and Paolilla then calmly left the home with a bag of drugs, Rott
said. He told the Chronicle that, when the 2 got to their car, Paolilla
raised concern that perhaps not all of the victims were dead.

Rott said his wife told him she returned to the house and, finding
Koloroutis still alive and choking on her own blood, she beat her to
death.

Koloroutis had tried to call 911 on her cell phone at 3:12 p.m. Police
have said the shootings ended by 3:25 p.m.

Shortly before 4 p.m., Paolilla clocked in at her job as a cashier at a
Walgreens store.

George and Ann Koloroutis, who have since left Texas, said their
daughter's death continues to haunt them.

"The pain and agony associated with losing Rachael is simply exhausting,"
they wrote in an e-mail. "It is hard to get up each and every day. We want
and need this all to be over."

Snider and Paolilla attended Seabrook Intermediate School together and
reunited after Snider returned to Texas, his sister, Brandee Snider, has
said.

A tip to Crime Stoppers led to charges against Paolilla and Snider.
Paolilla was arrested in a San Antonio hotel room she was sharing with
Rott on July 19, 2006.

Snider was warned by a relative that a warrant had been issued for his
arrest, investigators say. He left his girlfriend's home in Greenville,
S.C., with some of her prescription painkillers.

Search dogs found his body in some nearby woods on Aug. 5, 2006. His death
was ruled a suicide.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

*******************

Judge orders depositions in death row case

The judge and prosecutor from a condemned man's murder trial were ordered
Monday to testify under oath about allegations that they were romantically
involved during the case.

The ruling by District Judge Greg Brewer two days before convicted killer
Charles Dean Hood's scheduled execution stemmed from requests by his
attorneys to investigate claims of an improper relationship between
retired state District Judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County
District Attorney Tom O'Connell.

O'Connell's deposition took slightly less than two hours Monday evening.
He declined comment as he left the courthouse carrying some files and was
greeted by well-wishers. Attorneys for Hood also declined comment.
Holland's deposition was scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Hood's attorneys also were working to postpone his execution in order to
have more time to pursue their claims of judicial bias. They filed a
request for a stay of execution and also asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant a
30-day reprieve.

Hood is a former bouncer at a topless club who was 20 when he was arrested
in Indiana for the fatal shootings of Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, an
ex-dancer, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46, at Williamson's home
in Plano in 1989.

Brewer's decision to order depositions came after a federal judge stymied
attempts by attorneys for Holland and O'Connell to move the case to
federal court. Over the weekend they filed motions that took the case out
of Brewer's hands.

Bill Boyd, Holland's attorney, said he believed Hood's attorneys intended
to pursue a federal claim that Hood's civil rights were violated. U.S.
District Judge Richard Schell agreed with Hood's attorneys that their
request was a preliminary step that should remain in state court. Schell
sent the case back to Brewer.

In a filing for a stay of execution with the Court of Criminal of Appeals
in Austin, Hood's attorneys claimed that between 1997 and 2001 – when
Holland served on the appeals court – she recused herself in four of every
5 cases from Collin County. That's where O'Connell was district attorney
and where she had been a trial judge.

"Judge Holland's recusing herself at a rate nearly 160 times more than her
fellow jurists cries out for an explanation," the filing stated. "The
simplest explanation is the most plausible one: Judge Holland recused
herself at such an off-the-charts rate, because she had previously been
romantically involved with (D.A. O'Connell)."

According to Texas Defender Service statistics cited by Hood's lawyers,
Holland recused herself in 381 of 485 Collin County cases while on the
Court of Criminal Appeals.

Gregory Wiercioch, one of Hood's attorneys, used that argument in
presenting his case to Brewer. Boyd countered that the defense had 18
years to raise the issue and questioned the timing.

"I was surprised and really disappointed," Boyd said after the hearing.
"The main thing that surprised me was the lack of notice or lack of time
for a hearing. Our fight is more over the principle than the actual damage
to be done by a deposition."

Boyd said nobody in the case had an improper relationship while it was
pending before the court.

Last week Attorney General Greg Abbott notified the court he would file a
brief favoring a review of the allegations "to ensure that justice is
certain and beyond question." Abbott indicated the review should be
carried out even if it means postponing Hood's execution.

Hood, 39, was scheduled to die June 17 but his lethal injection, delayed
by numerous last-day appeals, was halted because prison officials said
they didn't have enough time to follow proper procedures before the
execution warrant expired at midnight.

Further complicating the case, the judge who originally set the hearing on
the depositions for after Hood's execution date, Robert Dry, took himself
off the case last week, citing a "previous business relationship" with
Holland's ex-husband.

Hood has maintained his innocence. He was driving Williamson's $70,000
Cadillac at the time of his arrest. Fingerprint evidence tied him to the
murder scene. Hood contended his prints were at Williamson's home because
he was living there and that he had permission to drive the car.

Evidence also tied Hood, who had served 2 years in an Indiana prison for
passing bad checks, to the rape of a 15-year-old girl.

(source: Houston Chronicle)