Tonight, March 14, 2017, the State of Texas is scheduled to execute James Bigby for the 1987 murders of Michael R. Trekell and Jayson Kehler in Tarrant County. According to his attorney, John Stickels, Bigby has no appeals pending. In 2005, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bigby’s death sentence after finding that the jury […]
Category: Tarrant County
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution for Tilon Carter. Originally scheduled to be executed on February 7, 2017, Carter has spent 11 years on death row for the 2004 robbery and murder of 89-year-old James Eldon Tomlin in Fort Worth. The court granted the stay because the trial court missed the […]
Yesterday, January 11, the State of Texas carried out its first execution of 2017. Christopher Chubasco Wilkins was executed for the 2005 murders of Mike Silva and Willie Freeman in Fort Worth. Wilkins gave no final statement. He was 48 years old. In October 2015, Wilkins’ execution date was withdrawn at the request of Tarrant County prosecutors, who sought […]
Tonight, January 11, 2017, Christopher Wilkins is scheduled to be put to death for the 2005 murders of Mike Silva and Willie Freeman in Fort Worth. His October 2015 execution date was withdrawn at the request of Tarrant County prosecutors, who sought the delay after the Texas Forensic Science Commission raised concerns about DNA statistics […]
Important decisions in two North Texas death penalty-related cases were announced last Friday: A State District Judge in Dallas determined that John Battaglia is mentally competent to be executed, while a Tarrant County jury imposed a new death sentence for the first time in more than two years.
After nine hours of deliberation, a Tarrant County jury determined that mitigating factors warranted a sentence other than the death penalty for Gabriel Armandariz, who was convicted of killing his sons Luke, 6 months, and Gatlin, 2, in April 2011 in Graham, Texas. The trial was moved from Young County to Tarrant County. Armandariz was sentenced to Life […]
*Update as of 5:15 PM on September 17, 2014* The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Lisa Coleman, allowing her execution to proceed. Read more from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/17/texas-prepares-for-a-rare-occurrence-an-execution-of-a-woman/. The State of Texas is scheduled to execute Lisa Ann Coleman on Wednesday, September 17, 2014. Coleman was convicted a decade ago in Tarrant […]
According to TCADP’s new report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review, more than half of all new death sentences were imposed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex this year, while no new death sentences were imposed in Harris County for the third time in five years.