[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, IDAHO

[Rick Halperin]

July 10



TEXAS:

5 things to know about the Brandon Daniel death penalty case


A Travis County judge on Friday could rule on whether Brandon Daniel, convicted 
of capital murder in the 2012 killing of an Austin police officer, is competent 
and can dismiss his lawyers, which would allow him to try to expedite his 
execution.

Daniel, 27, first made his request to dismiss his counsel to Judge Brenda 
Kennedy through a letter he penned in March. He understood the weight of his 
actions, he wrote, and was prepared for the consequences. Preferring to tread 
on the side of caution, Kennedy last month said she wanted a psychiatrist to 
speak to him before she made a decision.

Here are 5 things to know about the case:

1. Brandon Daniel shot and killed officer Jaime Padron on April 6, 2012, as the 
2 struggled on the floor of a Wal-Mart near Interstate 35 and Parmer Lane in 
North Austin. Padron, a Marine veteran and father of 2 young girls, had been 
responding to a call about a possible shoplifter who was likely intoxicated.

2. Daniel was sentenced in February 2014 to execution in the 1st death penalty 
case Travis County had seen in nearly 3 years and the 1st in more than 3 
decades to involve the slaying of an officer.

3. With so much evidence against him - including eyewitnesses and security 
camera footage that captured the fatal encounter - the toughest challenge for 
jurors was not weighing his guilt but his punishment. Defense lawyers focused 
on showing he was not the typical death row killer. Their witnesses described 
him as a promising software engineer from the Denver suburbs who studied at 
Colorado State University and worked at Hewlett-Packard in Austin.

4. A defense psychologist testified Daniel had taken massive doses of Xanax, 
was acutely psychologically disturbed and had little value for his own life and 
the lives of others when he killed Padron.

5. Friends and family described Padron as a devoted public servant and loving 
father. He had joined the Marines in the summer of 1989 and was a veteran of 
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He worked as a patrol officer in San Angelo for more 
than 13 years before joining Austin police just 3 years before he was killed.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

Darlie Routier's case will premier July 12 on CNN at 9pm central time. The 
series is Death Row Stories.

(source: DPSK/RH)






IDAHO----death row inmate dies

Idaho death row inmate Darrell Payne dies after lengthy illness


Idaho's death row inmates

Of the 40 inmates given the death penalty in Idaho since 1979, 1/2 have had 
their death sentences reversed.

3 inmates have been executed: Keith Wells in 1994, Paul Rhoades in 2011 and 
Richard Leavitt in 2012.

3 inmates have been freed because of new evidence: Donald Paradis was released 
in 2001 after spending 21 years on death row; Thomas Gibson, Paradis' 
co-defendant, was released in 2003 after spending 22 years on death row; and 
Charles Fain was released in 2001 after spending 18 years on death row.

4 inmates have died while in custody: Mark Aragon died of illness in 1988; 
James Wood died of natural causes in 2004; Michael Jauhola died in 2014 of 
illness; and Darrell Payne died of illness on July 9.

10 inmates remain on death row:

-- Azad Abduallah: Sentenced in Ada County in 2004 for the death of his wife.

-- David Card: Sentenced in Canyon County in 1989 for shooting 2 people.

-- Thomas Creech: Sentenced in Ada County in 1983 for beating an inmate to 
death.

-- Timothy Dunlap: Sentenced in Caribou County in April 1992 for killing a 
woman during a bank robbery.

-- Zane Fields: Sentenced in Ada County in 1991 for a stabbing death.

-- James Hairston: Sentenced in 1996 in Bannock County for the fatal shooting 
of 2 people.

-- Erick Hall: 2 separate Ada County death sentences in 2004 and 2008 for the 
rape and murder of 2 women in 2000 and 2003.

-- Gerald Pizzuto: Sentenced in Idaho County in 1986 for the beating deaths of 
2 people.

-- Robin Row: The only woman on death row. Sentenced in Ada County in 1993 for 
the arson deaths of her husband, son and daughter.

-- Gene Stuart: Sentenced in Clearwater County in 1982 for beating a 
3-year-old boy to death.

Darrell Edward Payne was sent to death row in 2002 for the kidnapping, rape, 
robbery and murder of 22-year-old Samantha Maher.

The Boise State student was abducted in Julia Davis Park on July 6, 2000, as 
she was on her way to school. Payne attacked her, shot her in the back of the 
head and dumped her body in a sewage pit at his rural Nampa home. He then fled 
in Maher's car to Eugene, Ore. 2 days later, he called his wife and told her he 
may have killed a woman and hid her body on the property.

Just 9 days before killing Maher, Payne raped 2 14-year-old girls on the 
Greenbelt near Barber Park on June 27, 2000.

Payne, 49, died Thursday after an extended illness at the Idaho Maximum 
Security Institution, the Idaho Department of Correction reported. The 
department provided no other details about the illness.

In addition to receiving the death sentence for the Maher's murder, Payne 
received a sentence of life in prison for kidnapping, raping and robbing Maher.

Payne also received a life sentence for raping the 2 14-year-old girls on June 
27, 2000. As part of the plea agreement in the Barber Park rape case, Ada 
County prosecutors agreed not to charge him in connection with a rape of a 
woman in her apartment near Maple Grove Road on June 8, 2000.

Payne had his 2002 death sentence overturned by the Idaho Supreme Court in 2008 
over errors in the original sentencing hearing. Payne was resentenced to death 
in 2010.

(source: Idaho Statesman)