[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

July 27



TEXAS----impending execution

Killer of San Antonio Woman Set for Execution Thursday----Attorneys for a 
46-year-old Texas death row inmate convicted of fatally slashing a woman in her 
San Antonio apartment are trying to halt his execution.



A man dressed in black and wearing a hood and gloves kicked in the door of a 
San Antonio apartment where his drug supplier lived, attacked 2 people inside 
with a knife and fled, only to return because he dropped his car keys in the 
struggle.

By the time Taichin Preyor tried to flee a 2nd time, police had arrived and 
arrested him covered with the blood of his victims. He later said he was acting 
in self-defense when he stabbed and slit the throat of 24-year-old Jami Tackett 
and wounded her boyfriend.

The 46-year-old Preyor was set for lethal injection Thursday evening in 
Tackett's killing more than 13 years ago. It would be the 5th Texas execution 
this year and the 16th nationally.

Preyor's attorneys hoping to halt his execution argued in appeals that his 
previous trial and appeals lawyers "failed him at every turn" and that he 
deserves a reprieve so he can get a more fair appeals review. They say an 
inexperienced attorney from California with little knowledge of Texas law took 
on his appeal and relied on a disbarred attorney for assistance. His trial 
attorneys were deficient for not uncovering evidence and telling jurors of 
Preyor's traumatic and abusive childhood, his lawyers argued.

State attorneys said the late appeals were legally improper and that it was 
Preyor's decision to stay with the inexperienced lawyer. Also, the name of the 
disbarred lawyer never appears on any court documents in his case and he wasn't 
precluded from assisting Preyor's lawyer even if he was disbarred, the Texas 
attorney general's office said. His trial attorney handling punishment during 
the trial disputed the claim of a cursory investigation, saying Preyor's 
friends and relatives never shared evidence of childhood abuse.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 6-0 Tuesday against recommending 
clemency for Preyor and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to stop the 
punishment. Preyor's lawyers took their case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals after a federal judge in San Antonio also declined to halt the 
execution.

Testimony at Preyor's trial showed Tackett recognized Preyor on Feb. 26, 2004, 
when he barged into a bedroom, calling him by his nickname "Box." He attacked 
her boyfriend, who escaped to a neighbor's apartment and called for help. 
Evidence showed Preyor, also a drug seller and user since adolescence, then 
stabbed Tackett and cut her throat.

Tackett died before paramedics arrived but was able to tell police "the guy who 
ran from the apartment did this," John Economidy, Preyor's lead defense 
attorney, recalled this week.

"He is caught at the scene, and the dying declaration did not help us a whole 
lot," Economidy said.

Preyor, in the 2nd of 2 statements to San Antonio police, said Tackett and her 
boyfriend attacked him and that he "poked" at Tackett with a knife to protect 
himself.

"I felt like I was a victim," he said. "I was the one being robbed, and I 
defended myself."

A Bexar County jury decided he should die.

(source: Associated Press)

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Lawyers Say Death Row Inmate's String of Awful Attorneys Should Halt Thursday 
Execution



On the eve of TaiChen Preyor's scheduled execution date, his lawyers are 
scrambling to make requests for more time to change his death sentence to one 
of life-long imprisonment or, at least, to fully investigate his case.

His lawyers claim that Preyor's previous counsel was under-qualified and held 
back crucial information about his past, which they say could have affected the 
outcome of his trial and several appeals. The new team of lawyers have made 
requests to Texas' highest criminal court for more time to fully investigate, 
but it rejected the pleas saying Preyor's previous lawyer "competently 
represented" him. The lawyers have filed a request to the Fifth Circuit Court 
of Appeals and are waiting for its ruling, which is expected this morning.

Preyor was convicted for killing a 20-year-old San Antonio woman in 2004, and 
has been on death row for 12 years. The lawyers are not contesting the murder 
charge, but they're hoping to change the execution date in order to give them 
more time to do a deeper investigation, claiming Preyor's 2 previous lawyers 
weren't up to the task.

Their biggest issue? Preyor's main legal consultant, Phillip Jefferson, was a 
lawyer who was disbarred for "gross misconduct" and "indifference to the 
interests of his clients." Preyor's family alleged that Jefferson claimed he 
was retired and would need an active lawyer to file all of the official 
paperwork. That lawyer was Brandy Estelle, a California lawyer who works 
primarily in real estate law and probate. According to Preyor, Estelle used 
Wikipedia to help create her case because she was so unfamiliar with Texas' 
procedures and how to litigate a death penalty case. The family eventually 
fired the 2 lawyers for a slew of reasons including, issues with being double 
billed for services and a federal clerk calling a Texas legal assistance office 
to recommend that Preyor hire new lawyers because of misguided efforts on the 
part of Jefferson and Estelle.

The lawyers say that the previous counsel filed federal paperwork and appeals 
on Preyor's behalf when they weren't qualified to do so. In addition, they said 
that the previous consultants failed to provide information about Preyor's 
childhood, which is said to be riddled with domestic and sexual abuse.

"These experiences do not excuse his crime, but this...evidence, had it been 
presented, could have caused one juror to change their mind about a death 
sentence," the lawyers said in a press release.

The new group of lawyers took on the case and in April 2016, asked a federal 
court to approve and fund a new investigation of Preyor's case on his behalf. 
The money didn't come in until nearly a year later in May 2017.

"We're asking the court to give us the time and the space to actually litigate 
this issue and find the facts," lawyer Catherine Stetson said.

According to the Texas Tribune, the state and Bexar County have requested the 
execution date remain the same saying it "has been postponed for over a year in 
order to accommodate [Preyor] and his attorneys, but at the expense of the 
victims and the state's interest in finality."

But the lawyers contend that they were waiting for final approval to represent 
Preyor for 13 months out of the postponement time. During this time, they said 
the district judge was sitting on approval for representation and nearly 
$45,000 for the team. The lawyers said they've only had 2 months with proper 
funds to work on the case.

If Preyor is denied the extension request, his sentence on Thursday will mark 
the fifth execution in Texas this year - breaking a tie with Arkansas for the 
most executions in 2017. Preyor is 1 of 235 people on death row in a state that 
routinely conducts the most executions in the nation. Texas has 10 doses of its 
controversial execution drugs left in its supply and 6 other scheduled 
executions set before February 2018.

(source: sacurrent.com)

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

The Interview: Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg----For the 1st time in 
nearly 4 decades, Harris County's district attorney is a Democrat, and she has 
high aspirations.



Upon taking office in January, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg cleaned 
house, replacing dozens of prosecutors hired by her predecessor. Ogg made good 
on her campaign promise to decriminalize marijuana - a change that was once 
unthinkable in Texas' conviction capital.

Prominent Republicans have been just as quick to attack Ogg for being too 
lenient on "dope smokers." Perhaps still gliding on the high of a strong win, 
Ogg says that Texas is ripe for change and that the Harris County DA's office 
could be the catalyst.

Q: Officials in Texas have been gradually moving away from traditional 
tough-on-crime policy positions. Do you consider yourself tough on crime or 
smart on crime?

Ogg: I consider myself smart on crime, and I am part of the national reform 
movement. I ran the first gang task force in the state, and I ran a nonprofit 
called Crime Stoppers. It was while I was at Crime Stoppers that I started 
seeing how much differently we could do things. And so since that time, I have 
wanted to run for district attorney.

You decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Jeff Sessions 
has signaled that he seeks to ramp up the war on drugs. What power does the 
federal government hold over your policy decisions?

I enjoy total discretion under Texas law as to who I charge and with what 
crime. The federal government has never been able or even really wanted to 
influence local prosecutors in terms of individual charging decisions. I don't 
fear Sessions' interference, although I think that states - certainly states 
where marijuana is legal - may face states' rights battles with the federal 
government.

What pushback have you faced in Texas?

The lieutenant governor accused me of creating a sanctuary city. I think he's 
looking to pick a fight with Houston. It seemed like a partisan attack more 
than a substantive one. He said Houston would become a drug-user sanctuary, and 
then I heard the same language being used by [DA] Brett Ligon of Montgomery 
County. They have the same political consultant, Allen Blakemore.

I think it was posturing simply because I did something that was popular and 
pragmatic. The program will save about $27 million a year - either save it or 
redirect it. I think this presents a clear and present threat to the Republican 
power structure, the fact that local Democratic government in Harris County is 
moving forward on this reform agenda that has bipartisan support. They've got 
an eye toward the 2018 election cycle.

Will this attack have any impact on Harris County? Or is this all just noise 
and politics?

Anything is possible, but the evidence will speak for itself. In the first 6 
weeks of the program we've diverted 576 people [from jail], and the savings is 
over $1.5 million. The program will rise and fall based on whether we're 
continuing to save lives and money. Of those 576 people that have been diverted 
so far, I know that none of them have lost their job because of an arrest for a 
misdemeanor amount of marijuana. I know that none of them have been turned away 
from a housing opportunity because of the marijuana conviction. So far, so good 
on both the human and the fiscal front.

"We've diverted 576 people [from jail], and the savings is over $1.5 million. 
The program will rise and fall based on whether we're continuing to save lives 
and money."

The governor recently announced that he will be awarding $500,000 in state 
funding to your office, specifically for the Texas anti-gang task force. What's 
the plan for that money?

The governor's office didn't notify us about that grant.

No?

Nope, nobody in Harris County. Not the police chief. Not the sheriff. Not the 
district attorney. But we're glad to take their money on anti-gang efforts and 
thrilled that they want to invest in this area.

As anti-immigrant rhetoric becomes increasingly prevalent, how do you make sure 
that a person you're prosecuting is being judged for the crime and not for his 
or her immigration status?

Under the last administration, if an undocumented person was charged with a 
crime, the bail was automatically plus $35,000. So they made it very difficult 
for an undocumented person to bond out even on a misdemeanor. We eliminated 
that. Bail reform has been a big issue for me.

Do you believe in the death penalty?

Before I came to the district attorney's office in 1987, I had been opposed to 
the death penalty. I agreed to prosecute it, but it was 4 years before I tried 
my 1st death penalty case, and during that 4-year period, I underwent a 
personal change of belief.

We were in the middle of a huge crime wave. It was the late '80s, early '90s, 
people were being butchered here by the hundreds. Our murder rate was over 700 
a year. And I felt that the playing field just wasn't level for crime victims 
and that we needed to take dramatic action.

I know that sounds ironic, but that's how I felt. After I left the DA's office, 
I was a defense lawyer for 10 years. I had a lot of clients, and I really saw 
the pain and suffering that their families went through. ... I've come to see 
many changes in the law during my career, the most important of which related 
to the death penalty is the life-without-parole statute.

Now that's an option, and it wasn't when I was a prosecutor the 1st time 
around. In fact, the average length of time that somebody was serving for 
murder back in 1991 was 3 years. We knew that people were going to get out. Now 
there's an option to keep somebody in for their natural life.

I personally don't see [the death penalty] as a deterrent. It's just pure 
retribution. I'm a human being, and my views have changed before. It's possible 
they could change again. But while I ran, I left the death penalty on the 
table. I said I believed in it at the time. I still do.

Given that people of color are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, 
how important is diversity in the DA's office?

It's no secret that when I came in, I let leadership in this office go, and I 
replaced it with a far more diverse group of experienced and talented lawyers. 
I also am trying to diversify our lower ranks because we need prosecutors who 
the public can relate to. If they're all Caucasian, and they're all straight 
out of law school, they're just not going to have the life experience that I 
think is important when you have people's lives in your hands, like we do.

The state's largest county - with the most death penalty convictions and the 
largest criminal justice infrastructure - just elected a self-proclaimed 
reformer as its DA. What does that mean for Harris County and for Texas?

Well, Harris County voters pushed the refresh button because they wanted a 
significant change. They were tired of prosecutorial misconduct, of a district 
attorney who believed that jailing rape victims was fine.

If we exhibit good, solid governance over the next 4 years, we will prove that 
Democrats in leadership positions provide superior service. I think that 
represents a threat to the Republican stranglehold on Texas. If we're 
successful in reducing the crime rate and making a safer Harris County, it'll 
be hard for other urban areas to resist making similar changes.

"Voters were tired of prosecutorial misconduct, of a district attorney who 
believed that jailing rape victims was fine."

So change in Texas' political structure starts in the Harris County DA's 
office?

It could. We carried the ticket, with the most votes in Harris County. That's 
unprecedented for a district attorney. My race was at the bottom of the longest 
ballot in Texas, and yet I got the most votes in Harris County. I received 
108,000 more votes than my opponent. And I think that was a strong statement. I 
think a lot of people around the country are looking at Harris County - 
especially in light of the last national election - as a blue light in a red 
sea.

(source: Texas Observer)

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

Lawyers say driver doesn't deserve death penalty----Attorneys argue that he 
didn't intend to kill immigrants in trailer he hauled from Mexico



A lawyer for a trucker charged with illegally transporting dozens of migrants 
resulting in 10 deaths said Wednesday that his legal team plans to fight to 
keep prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against him.

And just days after the tragic incident landed James Matthew Bradley Jr. in 
handcuffs and the international spotlight, Border Patrol agents rescued 12 
migrants concealed in a trailer that tried to make it through the same 
checkpoint where Bradley's rig had reportedly passed inspection on Saturday 
night.

The rescued immigrants, from Honduras and Guatemala, were found upon a 
secondary inspection, and the temperature in the trailer was registered at 109 
degrees, the Border Patrol said in a news release. The driver, a United States 
citizen whose name was not released, was arrested.

Meanwhile, Maureen Franco, the federal public defender for the Western District 
of Texas, said Bradley, of Kentucky and Florida, is presumed innocent until 
proven guilty.

Inappropriate punishment

"He didn't intend to allegedly kill anyone, so (the death penalty) is not an 
appropriate punishment," said Franco of El Paso, whose district stretches along 
the border from that city to San Antonio, and north to Waco.

Away from the crush of cameras and reporters that overwhelmed Bradley's initial 
appearance earlier this week, Franco and 1 of her assistant public defenders, 
Alfredo Villarreal, quietly met with Bradley on Wednesday at the federal 
courthouse, instead of in jail.

They began what will be a long legal process to persuade local federal 
prosecutors that they should not advise their bosses in Washington that Bradley 
should be punished with death. Franco said another lawyer with death penalty 
defense experience, Oregon assistant federal public defender Kim Stevens, will 
assist Villarreal in defending Bradley.

"It's a death-eligible case," Franco said. "Whether or not (prosecutors) seek 
the death penalty is a decision to be made by the attorney general, who is 
currently Jeff Sessions."

In nearby holding cells of the courthouse, federal prosecutors processed nine 
of the 13 witnesses they have lined up so far to testify against Bradley, who 
has told law enforcement that he did not know there were dozens of immigrants 
in the sweltering trailer he was towing before he parked his tractor-trailer 
next to a Walmart on the Southwest Side, along Interstate 35, on Saturday 
night.

By the time police responded to the scene early Sunday morning, only 39 of the 
immigrants were left as several had fled or were picked up by unknown 
sport-utility vehicles. 8 were dead at the scene, and 2 more have since died.

Most were from Mexico

Of the 39 people found abandoned, at least 34 were Mexicans who came from about 
a dozen states including 14 people from the central state of Aguascalientes, 
the Mexican government announced Wednesday. And of the 10 dead, at least 7 were 
Mexican.

In a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Reyna Torres Mendivil, the Mexican 
consul general in San Antonio, said efforts to identify 2 of the dead continue.

"The most important thing is to identify the bodies. You can imagine how 
difficult this is. We are also in the process of contacting relatives in Mexico 
and the U.S. We are helping them with the repatriation of the bodies," she 
said.

The consul said that many calls have been received from family members 
searching for missing persons, and that the consul has assured them that they 
will be allowed to visit victims still in the hospital or try to identify the 
dead without fear of being detained or deported.

"We have been in touch with U.S. authorities, and anyone who is accompanied by 
a consular official will not be questioned about their status. They will be 
given access," she said.

Torres said that while at least 14 of the people found in the trailer are in 
the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service, some are being held as potential 
witnesses. None so far have been deported, she said.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Texas spends less than the national average on inmates, study finds



Texas prisons are some of the most populous, and the state's incarceration rate 
is among the highest, but Texas spends less than the national average per 
inmate, according to a new study from BackgroundChecks.org.

Looking at U.S. and state prison statistics, BackgroundChecks.org found that in 
2015 Texas' prison population was 149,159, the highest in the nation. A 2016 
Texas Department of Criminal Justice report notes that on Aug. 31, 2016 there 
were 134,547 prisoners on hand in Texas. The 2015 version counts 135,266 on the 
same day 1 year earlier.

But the group found that in 2015 Texas on average spent $22,012 per inmate, 
compared to the national average of about $33,849. Texas also spends less than 
the national median of aproximately $29,803.

New York spends the most on average in 2015 at $69,355 per inmate, and Alabama 
spends the least at $14,780, according to the group's analysis. New York's 
prison population was 53,181 in 2015, and Alabama's was 31,563, according to 
the study.

BackgroundChecks.org pulled data from state budgets, state expenditure reports, 
the Department of Justice, state correctional agencies and departments and the 
census, according to its website.

Texas has a higher rate of incarceration than most other states, according to 
the study. In 2015, Texas had an incarceration rate of 544 per 100,000 
residents. Only 7 states had higher incarceration rates: Arkansas, Arizona, 
Alabama, Oklahoma, Delaware, Alaska and Louisiana.

Texas had the 3rd-highest prison expenditures in 2015 at $3,283,213,997, with 
only New York and California ahead of it.

Texas also has more inmates than most states on death row. The Death Penalty 
Information Center, a nonprofit that looks at capital punishment issues, found 
that on Oct. 1, 2016, only California and Florida had more inmates on death row 
than Texas.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website lists over 230 offenders on 
death row, as of July 21, 2017, three of whom are from Nueces County.

5 states were omitted from the data: Mississippi, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Maine 
and Nebraska.

Which states spend the most per inmate?

1. New York, $69,355

2. California, $64,642

3. Connecticut, $62,159

4. New Jersey, $61,603

5. Rhode Island, $58,564

6. Vermont, $57,615

7. Massachusetts, $55,170

8. Alaska, $52,633

9. Maryland, $44,601

10. Oregon, $44,021

[source: BackgroundChecks.org]

Which States spend the least per inmate?

1. Alabama, $14,780

2. Louisiana, $16,251

3. Oklahoma, $16,497

4. Kentucky, $16, 681

5. Nevada, $17,851

6. Indiana, $18,065

7. Florida, $19,069

8. Georgia,19,977

9. South Carolina, $20,053

10. South Dakota, $20,748

[source: BackgroundChecks.org]

(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)

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Sherman man indicted for capital murder in unborn baby's death



A Sherman man is charged with capital murder after prosecutors said he 
assaulted his wife, which resulted in the death of her unborn baby.

Her husband was originally arrested for aggravated assault, but now he faces 
the maximum penalty.

Court documents said 28-year-old Sergio Jimenez got into a physical fight with 
his pregnant wife at their home on June 25, and a week later, she suffered a 
miscarriage.

Wednesday, a grand jury indicted him for capital murder.

"That's horrible for the mother, to lose a child like that, I couldn't imagine 
what she's going through," neighbor Elvia Angeles said.

Neighbors said they rarely saw Sergio Jimenez and his 24-year-old wife.

"Shocking to know it was right there, nobody knew it was going on or anything," 
Angeles said.

But back on June 25, court documents state Jimenez started a fight with his 
wife.

The wife said in the report that Jimenez pushed her onto the bed, suffocated 
her by putting a blanket over her face, strangled her and jumped up and down on 
her stomach with most of his body weight.

The wife also said Jimenez mentioned multiple times during the assault that he 
didn't believe he was the father of her baby.

"There were egregious facts to it, the way he treated her, the conduct itself, 
how he jumped on her midsection over and over and the mean things that he 
said," Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown said.

The wife went to Sherman police. They said they then interviewed Jimenez and 
got a warrant for his arrest for aggravated assault.

Police said hospital staff told the woman on the night of the assault that her 
5-week-old embryo looked normal, but a week later, she was rushed to TMC and 
miscarried.

"The conduct deserves harsher punishment that just an assault, he certainly 
caused the loss of that life and he needs to pay the consequence," Brown said.

Texas law states that an unborn child can be the victim of a murder case and 
the district attorney said they will pursue it as that.

"It's certainly bad enough that it should be capital murder, but we don't 
anticipate it being a death penalty case," Brown said.

If convicted, the penalty for capital murder is death or life in prison without 
the possibility of parole.

Jimenez is being held in the Grayson County Jail on a million dollar bond.

(source: KXII news)