On Wednesday, March 10, 2010, Milton Dwayne Gobert was sentenced to death in the 2003 killing of Mel Kernena Cotton in North Austin.
Gobert is the first new death sentence to be handed down from Texas juries this year. Although it is unique for a capital punishment sentence to come from Travis County, Gobert will be joining seven other offenders who have been sentenced to death in Travis County. However, this having been the first new death sentence of the year is consistent with national and statewide trends which show a decline in the number of new death sentences. Last year in Texas, nine individuals were condemned to death, the lowest number of new death sentences since 1976.