[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 3




TEXAS----stay of impending execution

Texas Court Grants Execution Stay - State's8th Execution Delay In Recent 
Months----Robert Jennings was scheduled to be executed in October for the 1988 
murder of a Houston police officer.


On Friday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution for 
Robert Jennings.

Jennings was scheduled to be executed on Sept. 14 for the 1988 murder of Elston 
Howard, a Houston police officer. He was sentenced to death after his trial in 
1989.

The stay of execution means that this is the 8th consecutive scheduled 
execution date in Texas to have been withdrawn, stayed, or moved to a later 
date.

The unsigned opinion - from which 4 of the court's 9 judges dissented - was a 
brief 3 pages, laying out the legal history of the case and Jennings' current 
request before the court. Among Jennings' arguments is that improper jury 
instructions prevented the jury from "properly considering and giving effect 
to" the mitigating evidence raised at his sentencing.

The only explanation given by the court for granting the stay was a single 
sentence: "After reviewing applicant's pleadings, this Court has determined 
that applicant's execution should be stayed pending further order of this 
Court."

This is the 2nd Friday in a row in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals - 
the state's highest appellate court for criminal matters - issued a stay of 
execution with little explanation for its action. A week earlier, the court 
stayed the pending execution of Ronaldo Ruiz.

At this point, the next scheduled execution is the scheduled execution of 
Barney Fuller on October 5 - nearly 6 months since the most recent execution in 
the state, which took place April 6.

This long of a gap between executions in Texas - a state that has conducted 
more than 500 executions since it began executing people again in 1982 - is 
very rare. The only other time a gap of more than 5 months between executions 
happened in Texas in the past 20 years was between September 2007 and June 
2008, when executions across the country hit a standstill because the U.S. 
Supreme Court had agreed to hear a case regarding the constitutionality of a 
lethal injection protocol.

Unlike then, however, the reasons given for withdrawing, staying, or moving the 
past eight execution dates in Texas have differed and have also at times, as 
with Friday's order, been less than transparent.

(source: BuzzFeedNews)

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

State court hands Houston cop killer a stay weeks before execution


Texas' highest criminal appeals court Friday stayed the execution of a man, 
sentenced to die for the 1988 fatal shooting of a Houston policeman during the 
robbery of a Richmond Avenue adult book store.

Robert Jennings, 58, who has spent 2/3 of his life behind bars for various 
felony convictions, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 
14.

Friday's 5-4 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals marked the fourth 
time in a month that the Austin court halted an execution. The court's 
5-paragraph order offered no explanation for the ruling, noting only that the 
execution had been stopped "pending further order of this court."

Jennings was convicted of repeatedly shooting 24-year-old Police Officer Elston 
Howard. The officer was issuing a misdemeanor citation to an employee of the 
Empire Book Store, 4330 Richmond, when the gunman entered to rob the business.

Late last month, Jennings' Houston attorney Randy Schaffer filed an appeal that 
argued, in part, that prosecutors "destroyed, lost or suppressed" school 
records that might have shown earlier indications of intellectual deficiency 
and that the trial judge's directions to the jury improperly precluded 
consideration of the killer's remorse as a mitigating factor.

Howard's relatives could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, but in 
1988, the slain officer's mother, Era Howard, told reporters that lethal 
injection was "too good" for Jennings. "He should be stood out and shot just as 
close a range as my son was shot," she said. "I want him to see that gun before 
he's blown out."

Testifying at Jennings trial, book store clerk Larry Overholt told jurors that 
Howard was issuing a citation for the showing of movies without a license when 
the gunman entered.

"He pulled a gun out of his jacket right away," Overholt testified. "He went 
right toward officer Howard. By the time officer Howard noticed, Jennings was 
right on him."

Overholt said Howard, who was attired in a vest bearing the word "Police," 
uttered the words, "Oh, no" seconds before Jennings fired 2 shots into his 
neck. After the officer fell to the floor, Jennings fired two additional shots 
into his head.

Then-District Attorney Johnny Holmes read jurors a statement Jennings gave 
police in which he claimed he fired as Howard attempted to tackle him.

"When the dude charged me, he tried to tackle me and he put his head in my 
stomach and was trying to knock me down and while he was tackling me, my gun 
went off and I shot him in the back 2 times, " the statement read. "After I 
shot him, the dude went to the ground between my legs and he was still holding 
me by the legs."

Jennings told authorities he was unaware Howard was an officer.

As his execution date approached, Jennings rejected a request for an interview.

Accomplice was 'pretty upset'

His accomplice, David Harvell, however, spoke with reporters at Teague's Boyd 
Unit, where he is serving a 55-year sentence for aggravated robbery.

Harvell, who waited at the wheel of a getaway car about a block from the store, 
said Jennings told him he had shot a security guard.

"He came back with that story. I didn't believe him," Harvell said. "But when I 
took the gun, I saw it had 4 spent shells. So, I believed it. ... I was pretty 
upset. I took him down the street and tried to get him out of the car. He 
didn't know whether he had shot a cop or not. He's never been all that sharp."

In an effort to force Jennings from his car, he shot the robber in the hand.

"I've dreamt about this," he said of the crime. "It's possessed my heart and 
mind."

Harvell said he had driven the getaway car during several earlier robberies 
with Jennings - prosecutors told jurors Jennings had committed at least 10 
other robberies - and that the "jobs" were always low-dollar, easy targets.

'He didn't have a chance'

Jennings was troubled from earliest adolescence. At 14, he was declared 
delinquent. At 16, he was sent to a youth detention facility. At 17, he was 
sentenced to 5 years in prison for aggravated robbery. Released in 1978, he was 
returned to prison months later on a 30-year sentence on 2 counts of aggravated 
robbery and 1 count of burglary of a habitation.

He was paroled 2 months before he fatally shot Jennings.

Howard, the father of a 3-year-old girl, had wanted to become a policeman since 
childhood.

When he was 8 years old, his father, Alcono Howard said in 1988, the boy saw a 
policeman on the street and said, "That's what I want to be. Doesn't he look 
great?"

Howard joined the department in 1983, and by the time of his death had achieved 
a reputation as a star undercover narcotics officer. More than 100 drug cases 
were developed through his work, authorities said after his death.

Howard's partner on the fatal night was officer Milford Sistrunk, who said he 
was unaware of the shooting until emergency vehicles arrived at the scene.

"I was parked at the far end of the strip center with the air conditioner 
running," he said. The night's tragedy marked the low point of his career, he 
said.

"He didn't have a chance," he said of Howard. "That guy came in with a drop on 
him."

Interviewed before Friday's stay, Sistrunk said he planned to witness Jennings' 
execution.

"Justice delayed is justice denied," he said. "For him to live this long on 
death row - longer than my partner - I don't see the point. He should have been 
gone long ago."

Still, said the retired officer, "I have no real malice toward him. I did at 
one time, but that's behind me ... I hope he gets to heaven. He's a kid who 
went wrong."

(source: HoustonChronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

20---------October 5----------------Barney Fuller---------538

21---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------539

22---------November 2---------------Ramiro Gonzales-------540

23---------December 7---------------John Battaglia--------541

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

We can argue about whether death penalty is too 'cruel' to be legal, but it's 
certainly too 'unusual' to be fair


The death penalty is too expensive. It is not a proven deterrent. And it fails 
to recognize the very human nature of our justice system, one where mistakes 
are too common and well-documented to comfortably co-exist with the finality of 
the electric chair or the gas chamber or lethal injection.

And as it gets more and more rare, it's increasingly likely that the death 
penalty is simply too unusual to be permitted by our Constitution. That's an 
argument advanced last year by Justice Stephen Breyer, who noted in a 
dissenting opinion that among the more than 3,000 counties in America, 
defendants in only a tiny fraction of them were sentenced to death.

He cited only 15 counties - including Dallas and Harris in Texas - that have 
imposed the sentence 5 or more times since 2010. Last week, The New York Times 
noted that in the subsequent year, that number has risen by just 1, to 16.

But in the 40 years since the justices decided in 1976 to reverse its 
conclusion that the death penalty was unconstitutional, both its popularity and 
legal standing have steadily fallen. In 1986, the court outlawed executions for 
the insane, for example. In 2002, it ruled out executing those with mental 
retardation. And in 2005, it barred its use against anyone whose crime was 
committed while under the age of 18.

In Texas and elsewhere, questions about the reliability of convictions, even in 
capital cases, have multiplied yearly. In his dissent, Breyer notes that even 
in the past 3 decades mounting evidence suggests innocent people have been 
executed. 2 of the cases he cites happened in Texas.

For those reasons, he has urged his colleagues to stop arguing at the edges of 
the death penalty and confront head-on new questions about its 
constitutionality. In doing so, he urges a new focus on whether the fact that 
the vast majority of courts have moved away from the death penalty means that 
it is too unusual to be legal in the places, like Dallas County, where it is 
still regularly handed down.

His colleagues, who have been whittling away at the death penalty for years, 
should follow his lead.

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)

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

My friend on death row: How a Toronto mom befriended a death-row inmate----In 
November, a Toronto singer-songwriter who befriended a death-row inmate will 
fly to Texas to watch him die.


In early November, Bri-anne Swan, a Toronto singer-songwriter and 33-year-old 
mother of two, will fly to Texas to witness the execution of a man with whom 
she has developed an unlikely friendship.

Swan has been exchanging letters with death-row inmate Ramiro Gonzales for 2 
years. They had never met before she wrote her 1st note to him in 2014. They 
were born and raised 5,000 kilometres apart - she in small-town Ontario, he in 
poverty in rural Texas.

Gonzales, 33, has been in prison for his entire adult life. He was sentenced to 
die after he confessed to the 2001 murder of an 18-year-old woman in Medina 
County, Texas. Now he draws pictures for Swan's children in his cell. He pens 
poetry. He uses an ultrasound image of her son as a bookmark. He writes to her 
about his faith in God and his regret.

"People aren't just the worst thing they have ever done or the best thing they 
have ever done," Swan says.

Swan lives in Leslieville with her husband, Jason Meyers, and their 2 boys - 
Simon, 2, and Isaiah, 4. She is training to be a psychotherapist. Meyers works 
in the non-profit sector and is studying to be a minister in the United Church 
of Canada. They are members of the Rosedale United Church, a congregation with 
a strong tradition of community service and advocacy.

Despite the demands of her studies and home life, Swan has lately been writing 
to Gonzales every other day. She has petitioned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the 
state's board of parole and pardons to grant him clemency. In June, after 
Gonzales invited her to his execution, she held a church concert to fundraise 
for her trip. In August, after his original execution date was postponed, she 
kept her travel plans and flew south to meet him.

Theirs is not a typical prison pen-pal relationship. For one thing, Swan made 
it clear from the outset that she is happily married and interested only in 
friendship, and Gonzales told her he preferred it that way.

"Please do not think that I wish for you to pity me at any level," he wrote in 
his 1st letter. "Initially, I requested a friend and I hope that we can become 
just that."

Though Swan's husband and church congregation have been supportive, some 
friends and family members do not understand what has driven her to do this. 
Those who don't get it have avoided voicing their disagreement, but Swan can 
feel their questions hanging in the silence:

Why did she initiate a friendship with a faraway stranger who committed 
terrible crimes?

And why on earth would she agree to fly to Texas to watch him die?

Becoming pen pals

2 years ago, when Swan was pregnant with her 2nd child and battling insomnia, 
she got lost in a late-night Internet search on capital punishment, a practice 
she had long been appalled by.

Scrolling through profiles on a website where death-row prisoners advertise for 
pen pals, Swan clicked on the name Ramiro Gonzales and saw a picture of a 
boyish Hispanic man with a tattoo on his left cheek.

Swan was moved by his life story. According to local news reports, Gonzales had 
been abandoned by his biological mother and raised by his grandparents. As a 
child, he had been sexually abused by a male relative. He lost a beloved aunt 
in a car crash. As a teen, he became addicted to drugs and alcohol, which led 
to "stupidity," he wrote in his profile.

In 2002, Gonzales was found guilty of kidnapping and raping a real estate agent 
in Bandera County, near San Antonio, Texas. While awaiting transport to prison, 
he confessed to a 2nd crime: the murder of 18-year-old Bridget Townsend, who 
had gone missing in a neighbouring county in 2001. Investigators had no leads 
on her disappearance until Gonzales told them he had kidnapped Townsend from 
the home of his drug dealer and drove her to a secluded area, where he raped 
and shot her.

In the decade since he was sentenced to death in 2006, Gonzales has found God 
and expressed deep remorse for his crimes.

"I'm a very spiritual person and I totally live by integrity, self dignity, and 
self respect," he wrote in his pen-pal profile. "I hope I qualify for someone's 
friendship."

While Swan and Gonzales clearly came from different worlds, she noted the 
similarities in their personal histories. They were the same age. They had both 
grown up on farms. They were both Christians.

"I think I'm going to write to him," she told her husband a few days after 
discovering the pen-pal page.

Swan grew up with 3 younger brothers just outside the village of Moonstone, 
Ont., near Orillia. Her father was a butcher who also ran a small business 
selling and installing satellite dishes. Her mother worked for various social 
service organizations.

In high school, Swan befriended a set of twins who started a social justice 
club and quickly became one of the group's most passionate members. She joined 
Amnesty International letter-writing campaigns, participated in 30-hour famine 
fundraisers and spearheaded a move to bring a guest speaker into her high 
school to discuss homophobia.

Those who know her well say she has always been a champion of the underdog. She 
is not content to accept simple answers to big questions. It is in her nature 
to assume things are more complicated than they seem, and to search for 
underlying causes.

"She always was different than everyone else, in a good way," says Georgina 
Lopez, one of the twins from the social justice club. "She can be really 
passionate about things, and she likes to be kind of controversial." Swan was 
always protesting an injustice or standing behind a cause, Lopez says, so her 
latest endeavour came as no surprise.

"It sounds just like Bri-anne - getting to know someone and seeing the true 
personality behind them, the true person."

Swan's 1st letter to Gonzales was a simple introduction: "My name is Bri-anne. 
I live in Toronto, Canada. I saw your profile online looking for a pen pal and 
am wondering if you might be interested in writing with me."

His reply was earnest: "I wish to speak to your heart as a person in the hopes 
that you would give me a chance to bring before you the person that I really 
am."

Jason Meyers says his wife's friendship with Gonzales and her growing 
involvement in the anti-death penalty movement has given her a renewed sense of 
purpose. As Christians and members of the United Church, he says, it is their 
duty to find ways to bring light into the world, especially in places that 
don???t get a lot of light - and that's exactly what Swan is doing.

"I'm really proud of the work that she has done and the relationship that she 
has developed with this person who is about as far out on the margins of 
society as you can get," he says.

Swan had another reason for reaching out to Gonzales that she was not 
immediately conscious of. She noted that he was both a victim and perpetrator 
of sexual assault. Swan, too, had experienced sexual violence in her past. She 
felt empathy for the boy who had been through what she had, and curiosity about 
the man who committed sexual assault.

"I don't even think it was totally thought out but there was maybe this piece 
of wanting to understand how the gears worked in somebody who could do 
something like that," she says.

Swan says that if she set out unconsciously looking for answers, she never 
really got them because Gonzales is a different person today.

"While the crime he committed was heinous, the man who is set to be executed is 
not the same boy who killed Bridget 15 years ago," she said recently in a 
letter to the Texas governor, which she shared on her website, where she has 
been writing about her friendship with Gonzales. "18-year-old Ramiro was 
broken, hopeless and severely addicted to drugs - substances he turned to as a 
teenager to cope with the loss of a beloved aunt and years of sexual abuse by a 
male relative."

Swan is aware that she only knows the best of Gonzales, and that there may be 
another side of him that he doesn't reveal in his letters, but she believes him 
to be genuine and truly remorseful. "The Ramiro I know is a very gentle, kind 
person," she says.

In May, after nearly 2 years of letter writing, Gonzales asked her to attend 
his execution. After discussing it with her husband, she accepted.

"There is a certain honour and privilege in being asked to be one of the few 
people that can be there," she says. "If it makes even the teensiest little bit 
of difference to him that I would be in the room, then I want to be there."

Swan can understand why some people don't get it. Her mother has expressed 
concern for her safety - travelling alone to a prison in Texas, especially near 
the end of a fraught U.S. presidential election campaign. Her father, she says, 
has been mostly silent on the issue.

"They didn't know I was writing to him until I explained that I was going to 
his execution, so it's a big thing to drop on your parents," she says.

In early summer, when she learned that Gonzales's August execution date had 
been postponed until November, Swan decided to visit him anyway.

The visit

In the weeks leading up to her Texas trip, Swan felt nervous. She wondered what 
would happen if she and Gonzales had nothing to talk about in person. What if 
they didn't connect in life as they had through letters?

In early August, she flew from Toronto to Houston and checked into an Airbnb. 
The next afternoon, she drove her rental car 100 kilometres north to the town 
of Livingston, home of the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, which houses the state's 300 
death-row inmates.

After a bit of confusion getting through security, Swan was ushered into a 
small room and seated in a booth on one side of a glass wall. She got snacks 
from the vending machine while she waited. Gonzales had requested 2 salads with 
ranch dressing, a banana, yogurt, chips and a Dr Pepper, which he told her 
would be the best food he'd have all week. Swan got herself a root beer.

Around 8 that Saturday night, Gonzales was brought into the room and seated on 
the other side of the glass. They both beamed, Swan says, and any anxieties she 
had about them not connecting faded within the first few minutes.

"It didn't actually feel like this was the 1st time we had met," she later 
reflected. "It was as comfortable as sitting in a maximum security prison, 
talking to somebody behind glass could possibly be."

Over several days and 3 visits, they spoke through the glass over the crackling 
prison telephones about their families, their faith in God, his life in prison, 
her music.

Outside the prison, Swan met Gonzales's sister, who sent her home with a bag of 
tamales. She met his lawyer, who is working on ways to further delay or halt 
the execution. She appeared as a guest singer on a Houston radio station that 
hosts a prison show.

The goodbye was difficult. It wasn't like they could cheerfully look forward to 
November.

"Essentially, the next time we see each other, he is going to be preparing to 
be killed by the state of Texas," Swan says.

Swan often thinks about the families of Gonzales's victims, and wonders how 
they cope with everything that they have been through. They, too, have her 
empathy. She has received angry letters from people who have read her blog 
posts about Gonzales and tell her that he does not deserve a friend.

"I am aware that I only know the best of Ramiro," she says. "No one is 
advocating that he be released from jail, just that he not be executed."

In a reflection posted on her website after the August visit, Swan made a 
heartfelt pitch to those who wish Gonzales and others like him dead.

"I would challenge anybody who is a proponent of the death penalty to spend 
some time getting to know somebody like Ramiro," she wrote. "Write with them. 
Meet them. Learn about their life story. Do it with an open heart and then at 
the end decide whether or not this person should be killed."

Excerpts from Gonzales's letters

"Concerning your statement about, going through the most difficult times 
creates the greatest spiritual or personal growth, well, for me, I still do not 
understand it all. The truth is, I am here to die. In reality, I am merely 
waiting for my number to be called, and then it is off to the slaughter house. 
Sounds crazy and visious, but that is the truth."

"It is a vitality to stay strong mentally in this place because if you do not, 
you will loose you mind. I have seen a few of the strongest guys one day in 
their right minds and the next day lost, just totally lost mentally."

"I am also glad that you guys really liked the drawing that I did for Isaiah. I 
am sure he too was thrilled. I will say this again, I wish I could have seen 
his face. It gives me joy to be able to have that part in their lives as well. 
Which is something that I wanted for you to know. I do thank you for allowing 
me that much Bri-anne. Being a part of your life and the lives of your kiddos."

(source: The Toronto Star)

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

2 indicted in shooting death of 7-year-old girl as she walked through park


The Bexar County District Attorney's Office announced on Friday the grand jury 
indictments against two men charged with the murder of a 7-year-old girl.

Frank Gomez, 28, and Manuel Watson, 22, are charged with capital murder in the 
death of Iris Rodriguez.

Iris was walking with her mother and her mother's boyfriend through Cuellar 
Park on June 1 when they were confronted by Gomez and Watson, say 
investigators.

Police say Gomez and Watson opened fire, hitting Iris in the head. Her mother 
was shot in the arm.

Gomez and Watson could get the death penalty if they are convicted in her 
death.

A 3rd suspect in the case, Jonathan Campos, committed suicide at the Bexar 
County Jail in July. A 4th suspect, Peter Gonzalez, has not been indicted in 
the case.

(source: foxsanantonio.com)






VIRGINIA:

Death penalty sought against man accused of murdering Leesburg woman


David Mariotti was jailed in July after he was accused of strangling an 
84-year-old woman to death with a rope in her Leesburg home.

Now the 34-year-old Mariotti could face the death penalty if convicted of the 
1st-degree murder charge.

Citing the crime as "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel," prosecutors have 
decided to seek the death penalty against Mariotti.

Mariotti, of Fruitland Park, and Tracie Jo Naffziger, 40, of Wildwood, were 
both charged in the murder after Mariotti reportedly confessed that he attacked 
Bernadine Montgomery on June 16 after the widow caught Naffziger pillaging her 
Palmora Park home and threatened to call police.

High on heroin and afraid to go back to jail, Mariotti admitted he tore a piece 
of rope from Montgomery's couch, wrapped it around her neck and strangled her 
to death, according to a probable cause affidavit.

ariotti had gone to Montgomery's home with Naffziger to help the widow with 
chores.

The couple reportedly laid her body on the couch and covered it with pillows 
and blankets for several days as they took her car on joyrides, used her credit 
cards and sold her belongings to pawn shops.

Assistant State Attorney Rich Buxman could not be reached for comment Friday. 
But in paperwork he filed in the Lake County courthouse, he made several points 
he believes the state can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The victim ... was particularly vulnerable due to advanced age or disability," 
Buxman stated as 1 factor.

He added the felony also was committed to avoid arrest and for financial gain.

Mariotti remains in the Lake County Jail without bail on the charges that also 
include dealing in stolen property and falsification of ownership to a 
pawnbroker from the Montgomery case. New charges were added last week after he 
was accused of smuggling drugs to his inmate girlfriend before his arrest in 
the murder case.

Naffziger was charged with accessory to murder and other charges similar to 
Mariotti in the case. She also remains in jail without bail.

The couple reportedly used Montgomery's vehicle to dump her body in a wooded 
area along State Road 19 in Putnam County. A number of federal, state and local 
agencies have joined in the search to recover Montgomery's remains.

Leesburg police Lt. Joe Iozzi said Friday that investigators are still looking 
for the body.

(source: The Daily Commercial)