[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA., OKLA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 26



TEXAS:

New Book Probes Ethical Issues That Led to Death Sentence for Darlie Routier



In the wake of more than 1,500 exonerations across the country (150 of which 
were for inmates on death row) and growing demands for reforms within the 
justice system, award-winning journalist Kathy Cruz uses a new lens to examine 
the controversial Darlie Routier case - and what may be a true Texas mystery.

In Dateline: Purgatory, Cruz enlists current day legal experts to weigh in on 
the shocking transgressions that resulted in one of the country's most 
troubling death penalty convictions. With the help of the infamous death row 
inmate and a former FBI Special Agent known as "Crimefighter," the veteran 
journalist would find that her journey through Purgatory was as much about 
herself as it was about the woman dubbed "Dallas's Susan Smith."

Under a starry sky on the snowy slopes of Purgatory, Colorado, Darlie Lynn Peck 
linked her destiny with that of an ambitious young man from Lubbock, Texas 
named Darin Routier. 10 years later, a horrific crime known as "6-6-6" would 
thrust the couple into the national spotlight.

The brutal murders of young Devon and Damon Routier in the early morning hours 
of June 6, 1996 would put their mother - Darlie Routier - at the heart of one 
of the most notorious murder cases in modem Texas history - despite her own 
throat having been slashed to within 2 millimeters of her carotid artery.

The actions of a small town police department and Dallas County's justice 
system created a perfect storm that swept up the young mother and landed her on 
death row. There she has remained, in a 9-feet- by-6-feet cell, despite claims 
of her innocence by those who know her, findings about the alarming fallibility 
of bloodstain analysis - and her husband's admission that at the time of the 
murders he was soliciting help to stage a home burglary to commit insurance 
fraud.

"Everybody knows the Texas criminal justice system doesn't work, but few know 
why and how. Kathy Cruz does, and Dateline: Purgatory proves it. This richly 
detailed and well-narrated book affords a view of the Texas system rarely seen 
by the outside world. It shows how ambitious prosecutors, compliant judges, and 
naive jurors can make for a lethal combination. It also shows the terrible 
human cost involved when justice becomes what it is in Texas: a team sport in a 
rigged game. Anyone who wants to understand the true nature of Texas injustice 
should read this book. Ms. Cruz has done the world a favor by writing it," says 
Jeff Blackburn, founder and chief counsel, Innocence Project in Texas.

(Kathy Cruz is a former reporter for The Dallas Morning News, now working as a 
staff writer at the Hood County News in Granbury, Texas. She has won numerous 
Journalists of the Year honors from the Texas Press Association, as well as 
many other awards from regional, state, and national press associations. She is 
the co-author of You Might Want to Carry a Gun: Community Newspapers Expose Big 
Problems in Small Towns. Cruz is the recipient of 5 awards for excellence in 
legal reporting, including a Texas Gavel Award and four Stephen Phibin Awards 
from the Dallas Bar Association - tow of which were grand prizes.

Books may be purchased by calling 1-800-826-8911, visiting www.prs.tcu.edu, or 
visiting your local bookstore.

(source: Freestone County Times)








ALABAMA:

With 2 condemned inmates freed in 1 month, another Alabama death row inmate 
claiming innocence



Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent 28 years on Alabama's death row for two murders 
despite his claims of innocence, walked free earlier this month after 
prosecutors admitted they couldn't prove his guilt.

Another inmate who maintains he was wrongly convicted in a separate killing is 
now challenging his death sentence in a case with eerie similarities to 
Hinton's, down to allegations of botched ballistics evidence, a questionable 
eyewitness identification and the judge and prosecutor who handled both trials.

Donnis George Musgrove, who been on death row for 27 years but says he is 
innocent, is asking a federal judge to overturn his case - the 1st step toward 
what his lawyers hope will be freedom for a man they contend was wrongly 
convicted during a trial fraught with unconstitutional errors, cooked-up 
evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, inept defense work and outright lies.

Experts have proven that a shell casing used during the trial to link Musgrove 
to the Sept. 27, 1986, slaying of Coy Eugene Barron had nothing to do with the 
crime, the defense claims, and police pressured Barron's wife to identify 
Musgrove as the shooter even though she first told police she saw nothing.

The Jefferson County prosecutor at Musgrove's trial used bogus evidence to win 
the conviction against an overmatched defense lawyer, just as he did to Hinton 
a few years earlier, the defense contends.

"We believe there were constitutional errors in his trial and they were so 
great he deserves a new trial," said Cissy Jackson, an attorney for Musgrove. 
"He was wrongly convicted."

While the state attorney general's office hasn't yet responded to Musgrove's 
arguments in court and declined comment this week, it has defended the 
conviction for nearly 30 years and once got the Alabama Supreme Court to 
reverse a lower state appellate court that overturned the case.

Musgrove's claims come at a time when capital punishment is under scrutiny in 
Alabama. Just in the weeks since Hinton was freed, another man who spent years 
on Alabama's death row also was released.

A ruling by a state judge cleared the way for the release on April 16 of 
William Ziegler, initially convicted in a 2001 killing in Mobile. A judge 
overturned Ziegler's conviction in 2012, and Ziegler was released after 
reaching a deal to plead guilty to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting a 
slaying in return for his release after more than 15 years behind bars.

Hinton was convicted of killing 2 workers during robberies at 2 fast-food 
restaurants in Birmingham in 1985. A survivor at a 3rd restaurant robbery 
picked Hinton out of a photo lineup, turning investigators' attention toward 
him.

The only evidence linking Hinton to the killings were bullets that state 
experts at the time said had markings that matched a .38-caliber revolver that 
belonged to Hinton's mother, and the defense said Hinton was working at a 
locked warehouse 15 miles away at the time of the slayings.

A defense analysis during appeal showed that bullets did not match the gun, but 
the state wouldn't re-open the case. A breakthrough came last year when Hinton 
won a new trial after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled his trial attorney was 
"constitutionally deficient."

Faced with Hinton's claims of innocence, the Jefferson County district 
attorney's office this month moved to drop the case after their forensics 
experts agreed that the crime-scene bullets couldn't be matched to the gun.

Musgrove and co-defendant David Rogers were convicted of capital murder on Feb. 
11, 1988, a few years after Hinton. Just as in Hinton's case, the 2 were tried 
before Jefferson County Circuit Judge James Garrett, who has since retired, by 
then Assistant District Attorney Bob McGregor, who has since died.

Police in north Alabama arrested Musgrove and Rogers - both convicted car 
thieves who had fled a state work-release center - following an auto chase 
weeks after Barron's slaying.

Barron's wife Libby initially told police she couldn't identify the men who 
entered their darkened home late at night and shot her husband in the bedroom, 
and at first she failed to select Musgrove out of a lineup, according to the 
defense. But the woman quickly identified Musgrove and Rogers after meeting 
privately with the detective, Musgrove's lawyers contend.

Prosecutors said a 9 mm shell casing found at the scene of Barron's slaying was 
linked to a pistol Musgrove used in an assault 3 months earlier, and jurors 
heard from a supposed jailhouse informant who claimed that Rogers told him 
about Barron's killing and implicated Musgrove.

But the informant, Billy Don Springer, later recanted in a sworn statement that 
said he'd been put up to the testimony by police and McGregor, the assistant 
district attorney who had prosecuted Hinton earlier.

The defense says in court documents that later scientific tests prove the 9 mm 
casing used as evidence against Musgrove was planted at the scene and wasn't 
tied to the crime at all. And besides, Musgrove's lawyers contend: Witness 
testimony and phone records showed he was in Florida, hundreds of miles away, 
at the time of the killing.

Add it all up, the defense claims, and Musgrove should be set free.

"To successfully plead actual innocence, a petitioner must show that his 
conviction resulted from a constitutional violation," Musgrove's lawyers wrote 
in court documents submitted to U.S. District Judge David Proctor, who is 
considering the case. "Here, the evidence shows decisively that Mr. Musgrove is 
innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to death."

The challenge comes too late for help Musgrove's co-defendant Rogers, who died 
in prison.

While McGregor also is dead, he self-published a book in 2009 depicting both 
Hinton and Musgrove as cold-blooded killers. The book, titled "Whiskey Bent and 
Hell Bound," has a gun and a bottle of whiskey on the cover. The book depicts 
prosecutors as "white hats" and defense lawyers as "black hats" taking up for 
"bad men and blood spillers."

McGregor, whose zealous tactics were attacked by lawyers for Hinton and 
Musgrove, described Hinton's case as a favorite cause of "anti-death-penalty 
gangsters." Hinton, he wrote, "just radiated guilt and pure evil" - words that 
seem ironic now that Hinton is free based on a claim of innocence.

In the book, the prosecutor described Musgrove and Rogers as being "thugs" 
employed by a drug dealer who wanted Barron killed over suspicions he stole 40 
pounds of marijuana.

"This act of ultimate violence was somewhat out of character since both were 
professional car thieves by trade," McGregor wrote. "But no one doubted that 
they were capable of murder if the price was right."

The man mentioned by McGregor as the alleged drug didn't testify against 
Musgrove and Rogers and was never prosecuted in the slaying.

"They had 2 guys on death row. That was all they needed," said Jackson, 
Musgrove's lawyer.

(source: Associated Press)








OKLAHOMA:

Death penalty upheld in Oklahoma case



The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has let stand a death sentence for a Del 
City man convicted of murdering his girlfriend's 3-year-old son by brutally 
beating and burning him.

An appeals court has let stand a death sentence for a Del City man convicted of 
murdering his girlfriend's 3-year-old son by brutally beating and burning him.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the claim of Richard Fairchild 
that he did not receive a fair trial in Oklahoma County District Court for the 
1993 child-abuse murder of Adam Scott Broomhall.

Judges of the Denver-based appeals court ruled 3-0 Thursday in a lengthy 
decision against Williams on 6 issues raised to support his claim.

Court records state Fairchild admitted hitting the child several times with 
strong blows and holding his body against a hot wall heater because the boy 
wouldn't stop crying after waking up. "The more he screamed the more I just 
kept on hitting him," Fairchild, who was 33, was quoted as telling a detective 
at the time of the crime.

Fairchild and the boy's mother had been drinking heavily that night, police 
said.

Fairfield's attorney argued that Fairchild's constitutional rights were 
violated because instructions to jurors purportedly did not adequately explain 
a possible sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

The attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Randy Bauman of Oklahoma City, 
also raised the issue that Fairchild's rights were violated because the 
instructions did not include a possible verdict of a lesser crime than 
1st-degree murder. Bauman also argued that Fairchild's previous attorneys in 
earlier stages of the case were ineffective in representing him.

(source: The Oklahoman)








USA:

After years delay, theater shooting trial starts Monday



Nearly 3 years after police arrested James Holmes outside a suburban Denver 
movie theater where he shot and killed 12 people, prosecutors are set to lay 
out why they believe jurors should order his execution.

Opening arguments begin Monday afternoon in the slow-moving case against 
Holmes, who is also accused of injuring about 70 others as he rampaged through 
the movie theater during a midnight showing of The Dark Night Returns. Holmes, 
a former neuroscience graduate student, has pleaded not guilty by reason of 
insanity, and defense lawyers argue he was in the grips of a psychotic episode 
when he entered the theater and opened fire.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Holmes planned and prepared for weeks if 
not months, accumulating ammunition, practicing with his weapons, and building 
explosives that he used to booby-trap his apartment.

Exactly what evidence and arguments will be made have remained largely a secret 
thanks to a gag order dropped on the case within hours of Holmes' arrest. Under 
Colorado law, the same 12-member jury that will decide Holmes' guilt or 
innocence also will decide whether he should be executed if he's convicted.

Barry Slotnick, a New York-based defense lawyer famed for defending clients 
such as subway shooter Bernhard Goetz, casino magnate Steve Wynn, and former 
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, said the stakes could not be higher in this 
case. The pressure on both sides will be intense.

"The death penalty is extreme as you can get," he said.

"You have to keep an open mind throughout the trial, remembering that Mr. 
Holmes is presumed innocent."

Judge Carlos Samour, 18th Judicial District Court, Arapahoe County, Colo.

The trial is expected to last as long as 4 months, as prosecutors call 
potentially hundreds of witnesses from police officers to first responders in 
their efforts to prove the more than 150 charges Holmes faces. The charges 
include 1 count of murder with deliberation and 1 count of murder with extreme 
indifference for each person killed.

Holmes' parents say their son suffers from mental illness and previously begged 
prosecutors to agree to a plea deal that would see him locked up for life and 
spared execution. Prosecutors declined, saying they believe only his death can 
bring justice for the victims and their loved ones.

"In this case, for James Egan Holmes, justice is death," District Attorney 
George Brauchler said in April 2013.

Holmes has undergone 2 formal - and still confidential - mental-health 
evaluations. His mental health will play a central role in the trial, but 
prosecutors, defense attorneys and Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. all have warned 
jurors that they'll see terrible photos and videos and hear harrowing stories 
of death, loss and injury.

The court will make mental-health counseling available to jurors following the 
trial.

"They're in for a rough ride," said Max Wachtel, a Denver psychologist and 
mental-health consultant for KUSA-TV. "They're going to have a really hard time 
with this."

One of Wachtel's then-students, Alex Teves, was killed in the shooting while 
shielding his girlfriend from gunfire.

At a January 2013 preliminary hearing, prosecutors presented seemingly 
overwhelming evidence that showed Holmes methodically planning his July 20, 
2012, attack at Aurora's Century 16 theater complex. He bought an assault 
rifle, shotgun, 2 semiautomatic pistols, more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition, 
bomb-making material and other gear for nearly 2 months before the shootings.

Photos from his cellphone showed he had staked out the rear of the theater and 
exit doors before the shootings. Aurora police arrested Holmes in the rear of 
the theater parking lot minutes after the attack.

Holmes' demeanor and appearance have changed since the attack. When arrested, 
he had bright orange hair and wore a red jail jumpsuit to court appearances. 
But to avoid tainting the jury, the judge has permitted Holmes to wear street 
clothes - usually a button-down shirt and khaki pants - to court.

His hair appears to have returned to its natural red-brown color, and he wears 
reddish tortoiseshell glasses and occasionally interacts with his defense team. 
Unseen by jurors, Holmes will be shackled to the floor for security reasons.

"You have to keep an open mind throughout the trial, remembering that Mr. 
Holmes is presumed innocent," Samour told the jury after it was sworn in 
earlier this month. "Folks, we are depending on you to uphold the oath you have 
taken."

Scott Robinson, a prominent Denver defense lawyer who has watched the case 
closely, said the trial likely will provide some answers, including about the 
kind of mental-health care Holmes had before the shooting and what might have 
been done to prevent the carnage.

"We will learn a lot about why," Robinson said. "We won't be able to understand 
it, I guarantee."

(source: USA Today)