Feb. 24
TEXAS:
Inmates in Houston, Lubbock cases lose appeals
The U.S. Supreme Court today refused an appeal from a 36-year-old man
sentenced to receive lethal injection for the 1999 slayings of a man and
his girlfriend at their Houston home.
Evidence showed Ronald Prible Jr. started a fire that also left the
couples' 3 children dead of smoke inhalation.
Prible was convicted for the shooting deaths of 29-year-old Esteban
"Steve" Herrera and 24-year-old Herrera's fiancee, Nilda Tirado. Testimony
showed Prible shot Herrera, had sex with Tirado, then shot her and set her
body on fire to hide DNA evidence.
Tirado's daughter, 7-year-old Rachel Elizabeth Cumpian, Herrera's
daughter, 7-year-old Valerie, and the couple's 22-month-old daughter,
Jade, all died from smoke inhalation.
Herrera was described as Prible's best friend and partner in crime. They
allegedly robbed banks, used the money to buy and sell drugs and hoped to
make enough money to open their own topless club. Prosecutors said Prible
turned on Herrera after accusing him of stealing $250,000.
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Appeal refused in Houston officer's slaying
The U.S. Supreme Court today refused an appeal from a condemned inmate
whose arrest for the slaying of a Houston police officer became a symbol
of Texas crowded prisons in the early 1990s.
Carl Wayne Buntion, 64, has been on death row 18 years for gunning down
James Irby, a Houston motorcycle patrolman killed in 1990 when he pulled
over a car in which Buntion was a passenger.
Buntion had been on parole only 6 weeks at the time of the shooting,
released from prison on the latest of about a dozen convictions over a
nearly 30-year period. His case prompted a public outcry about prison
crowding and the parole system.
Irby, 37 and an 18-year officer in Houston, was shot in the head and back
as he talked to the driver of the car. Buntion had tried to get out of the
car and leave and was ordered to return by Irby. When witnesses in another
car screamed, Buntion opened fire and injured them. Buntion then ran away,
tried to steal a car and eventually turned himself in to police.
Buntion contended the shooting was in self-defense.
He does not yet have an execution date.
A year ago, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling from a
Houston-based federal district judge, Kenneth Hoyt, who overturned
Buntions capital murder conviction.
Hoyt ruled that state District Judge Bill Harmon, the Harris County judge
who tried the case, had a "deep seated and vocal bias" against Buntion and
that Harmon deprived Buntion of his constitutional right to a fair trial.
The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct subsequently publicly
reprimanded Harmon for his conduct in the case.
State attorneys appealed Hoyt';s decision to the 5th Circuit, which also
was critical Harmon but said his actions didnt show bias.
Buntions case was 1 of 3 involving Texas death row inmates to be rejected
by the high court today. The justices similarly refused to review the
appeal of condemned prisoner Michael Rosales, who won a reprieve almost 5
years ago just hours before he was set to die for the fatal stabbing and
beating of a 67-year-old woman in Lubbock.
Rosales, 35, has been on death row more than 10 years for the 1997 murder
of Mary Felder.
The former roofer avoided lethal injection in 2004 when a federal appeals
court agreed to look at claims he was mentally retarded and ineligible for
execution.
Felder had more than 100 wounds and injuries from a steak knife, a
two-pronged kitchen fork and a pair of needle-nose pliers that were found
near the apartment complex the day after the slaying. Rosales, a native of
Kit Carson County, Colo., had been staying with friends at an apartment
next door.
He'd been on probation for nearly four years for a drug conviction but had
a history of violating his probation. Rosales was taken into custody after
police discovered he had an outstanding traffic warrant. The following
day, confronted with photos of his bloody clothes recovered by officers,
Rosales told detectives he was high on cocaine, broke into Felder's
apartment to get money and began stabbing her when she confronted him and
threatened to call police.
In the 3rd case, the Supreme Court refused an appeal from Ronald Prible
Jr., convicted of the 1999 slayings of a man and his girlfriend at their
Houston home. Evidence showed Prible, 36, started a fire that also left
their 3 children dead of smoke inhalation.
A Harris County jury in 2002 decided Prible should receive lethal
injection for the shooting deaths of Esteban "Steve" Herrera, 29, and
Herreras fiancee, Nilda Tirado, 24. Testimony showed Prible shot Herrera,
had sex with Tirado, then shot her and set her body on fire to hide DNA
evidence. Tirado's daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Cumpian, 7; Herreras
daughter, Valerie, 7; and the couples 22-month-old daughter, Jade Herrera,
all died from smoke inhalation.
Herrera was described as Prible's best friend and partner in crime. They
allegedly robbed banks, used the money to buy and sell drugs and hoped to
make enough money to open their own topless club. Prosecutors said Prible
turned on Herrera after accusing him of stealing $250,000.
At the time of his capital murder trial, Prible already had been convicted
of holding up at least 6 banks and was in federal prison.
(source for both: Associated Press)
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Harvard Law Interns Aiding Death-Row Inmate Detained by Sheriff, Suit Says
2 Harvard law students working as legal interns on behalf of a Texas
death-row inmate were stopped by sheriffs deputies and ticketed for
criminal trespassing after they tried to interview a corrections officer
at home, a lawsuit alleges.
The students, who were interning with the Texas Defender Service during
their winter break, were trying to gather evidence supporting a claim by
inmate Willie Pondexter that he deserved clemency because he has been a
model inmate, the Associated Press reports.
The civil rights suit (PDF) claims the sheriff and the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice harassed Pondexter and tried to interfere with clemency
efforts, the AP story says.
The law students were pulled over by Polk County deputies on Jan. 17 and
told to drive to the sheriffs office, according to the suit. After they
got there, they were ticketed and warned that if they returned to the
property of the corrections officer there would be a '99 % chance' that
the officers would lock them in jail," the suit says.
After the incident, the suit claims, corrections officers "knowing Mr.
Pondexter to be especially concerned about hygiene, removed his sheets,
wiped them across the floor and walls and replaced them on his bed."
The suit, filed in federal court in Tyler, Texas, is on appeal following a
judges ruling that he didnt have jurisdiction. Pondexter is on death row
for the murder of an 85-year-old woman more than 15 years ago.
Pondexter's lawyer, David Dow, told AP that he was surprised by the
interns treatment.
"It would be a traumatic experience for anybody," Dow told the wire
service. "We didn't prepare them for that because that honestly never
happened to any of our interns before. We prepare them for a lot of things
but that was not on the list."
(source: ABA Journal)