[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 1




TEXAS----execution

John Battaglia jokes with his ex-wife before being put to death for killing 
their girls as she listened in horror


John David Battaglia went out with a joke and a grin.

Battaglia, 62, offered no apologies and showed no remorse for killing his 
daughters at his Deep Ellum loft in 2001.

He seemed jovial, strapped to a gurney while witnesses arrived to watch his 
execution at the state's Huntsville Unit.

As they filed in, he looked around and asked, "How many people are there? Oh, 
that's a lot."

The one-time accountant even said hello to his ex-wife, Mary Jean Pearle, who 
was there to watch him die.

"Well, hi, Mary Jean. I'll see y'all later. Bye," he said. "Go ahead, please."

He closed his eyes for several moments, and shortly after the lethal injection 
was administered, he looked at the chaplain at his feet, smiled and asked, "Am 
I still alive?"

Battaglia grinned and then sighed.

"Oh, here, I feel it," he said.

It took about 22 minutes for him to be pronounced dead at 9:40 p.m.

His execution brought an end to a lengthy legal battle to save his life. He was 
twice granted a stay so his mental competency could be evaluated, and his 
attorneys filed last-ditch efforts Thursday to delay the execution.

Battaglia received national attention in May 2001 after he gunned down his 
9-year-old daughter, Faith, and 6-year-old Liberty at his Deep Ellum loft while 
their mother listened helplessly on the phone.

At the time, he was on probation for hitting his ex-wife, the girls' mother, 
and she had been trying to have him arrested for violating that probation.

"Mommy, why do you want Daddy to have to go to jail?" Faith was told to ask her 
mother, moments before the girl begged for her life. "No, Daddy. Don't do it."

Last week, his attorneys filed a request for a stay of execution to the U.S. 
Supreme Court saying that Battaglia does not fully understand why he was being 
put to death.

"Although he is aware of the state's rationale for his execution, he does not 
have a rational understanding of it," appellate attorneys Michael Mowla and 
Gregory Gardner wrote.

Battaglia, himself, said in a 2014 interview with The Dallas Morning News that 
he doesn't recall committing the crime and still considers the girls his "best 
little friends."

"I don't feel like I killed them," he said.

Deadly Affection: Killer saw himself as loving father

In his Texas appeals, his attorneys wrote that Battaglia was "convinced that 
his trial and conviction were a sham" and that his death sentence was all part 
of a conspiracy involving "the KKK, child molesters and homosexual lawyers."

On Thursday, one woman stood outside the prison unit with a pink poster board 
that bore a photo of Battaglia and the words "Texas executes mentally ill."

A state judge and the state appeals court, however, described Battaglia as 
highly intelligent, competent and not mentally ill. They argued he was faking 
mental illness to avoid execution.

Testimony at a hearing showed Battaglia used the prison library to research 
capital case rulings on mental competence and discussed with his father the 
"chess game" of avoiding execution.

The last-minute federal appeal filed Thursday alleged that the execution 
violated Battaglia's constitutional rights because Texas was using expired 
drugs for the lethal injection.

Court records show Battaglia's attorneys argued that William Rayford, the other 
killer from Dallas executed this week, tried to sit up and jerked his head 
after the lethal drugs were administered.

Rayford's execution was delayed for a couple of hours because of late appeals 
to stay his punishment.

But as his execution neared, Battaglia's appeals were struck down one after 
another: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal that argued a 
lower court improperly refused his lawyers money to hire an expert to further 
examine legal claims he's mentally incompetent for execution. Attorneys also 
took an appeal related to that issue to the Supreme Court. The high court, too, 
denied the complaint.

Pearle, the killer's ex-wife and the mother of his victims, was at the 
Huntsville Unit on Thursday to witness his execution — almost 17 years after 
she listened to Faith and Liberty die and pleaded for them to run away from 
their father.

On Thursday, she leaned in as close as she could to the glass window separating 
the witnesses from the death chamber. Pearle watched as Battaglia's breathing 
grew heavy and then stopped. A doctor examined him and then pulled a white 
sheet over his head.

  "I've seen enough of him," Pearle said as walked away.

Battaglia becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be executed this year in the 
nation, all in Texas, and the 2nd killer from Dallas put to death this week. 
Battaglia is the 548th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since the 
state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982, and the 30th overall in 
the state since Greg Abbott became governor.

Battaglia becomes the 1468th condemned inmate to be put to death since the 
nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

The USA's next scheduled execution is set for Feb. 13th in Ohio, and 3 
executions are currently set to occur on Feb. 22, in Florida, Texas and 
Alabama.

(sources: Dallas Morning News & Rick Halperin)