[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, LA., TENN., ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

October 20




TEXAS----stays of 2 impending executions

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halts execution of Kwame Rockwell----It was the 
2nd time the appellate court has stopped an execution this month.



For the 2nd time this month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has halted an 
execution days before it was set to proceed.

Kwame Rockwell, 42, was set for execution Wednesday, Oct. 24. In a late appeal, 
his lawyers asked the high court to stop his execution, claiming he was 
incompetent for the punishment due to his schizophrenia. To be executed, an 
inmate must be able to understand his death is imminent and link it to the 
murder in which he was convicted.

Rockwell was convicted in the 2010 deaths of a gas station clerk and delivery 
man in Fort Worth, according to court records. Rockwell and 2 other men robbed 
the store and shot the 2 men, killing Daniel Rojas instantly and causing the 
death of Jerry Burnett 10 days later.

Though it wasn't brought up at his trial, Rockwell was later diagnosed with 
schizophrenia in prison. His attorneys raised the issue in Tarrant County early 
this month, but the court ruled that Rockwell hadn't shown a substantial doubt 
regarding his competency.

On Friday, a majority of the judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals 
disagreed, sending the case back to the trial court and ordering the judge to 
appoint at least 2 mental health experts and re-examine Rockwell's competency 
for execution. Three judges, Sharon Keller, Michael Keasler and Barbary Hervey, 
voted to proceed with the execution.

On an early March morning in 2010, Rockwell and 2 other men, dressed in black 
and ski masks, entered the Valero gas station next to Rockwell's used car 
business, according to a court opinion. Rockwell had decided to rob the gas 
station because he was in danger of losing his lease.

A co-defendant, Chance Smith - who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for 
the crime - testified at trial that Rockwell was the brains behind the 
operation and the one who was carrying the gun. He shot Burnett, the delivery 
man, in an aisle, and then, after taking money from the register and office, 
killed Rojas, the clerk, according to the opinion.

Rockwell was arrested in San Antonio 4 days later, when police barged into a 
convenience store bathroom he had barricaded himself in and found him 
threatening to kill himself with a broken piece of glass.

After he was convicted and sentenced to death in January 2012, the prison 
system diagnosed Rockwell with schizophrenia, and his appellate attorneys 
sought relief based on this new development. They claimed that Rockwell had 
told his trial attorneys that he'd suffered from paranoia and hallucinations at 
one point, but they thought it was a ruse and told him to "cease and desist the 
crazy talk," according to a court filing.

The prosecuting office pointed out that Rockwell had earlier told his lawyers 
that he had no mental health problems, and the courts rejected his appeal.

But competency for execution is a question that is raised when execution is 
imminent since it relies on an inmate's current mental state, and Rockwell's 
lawyers objected when the trial court ruled against stopping his scheduled 
execution earlier this month. They pointed to a psychologist's sworn statement 
that said within the last 3 months, Rockwell said he believed he was God and 
that demons built the walls of his incarceration.

(source: Texas Tribune)

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

Execution date called off for Fort Worth man convicted of murdering bus rider



A Tarrant County judge called off the upcoming execution of Emanuel Kemp, a 
Fort Worth killer once deemed too insane to be put to death.

But his scheduled punishment was canceled not over concerns about his sanity, 
but in light of a need for further DNA testing, according to court filings.

Kemp was scheduled to die on Nov. 7 for a decades-old crime. The high-school 
dropout had been out of prison for just 5 days when he hijacked a public 
transit bus at knifepoint in 1987, forcing the driver to drive around town 
while he raped and murdered the only passenger, Johnnie Mae Gray.

The 34-year-old died from nine stab wounds to the chest and throat according to 
Texas prison records. The driver was stabbed in the neck but lived.

Kemp was arrested three days later and sent to death row the following year 
after a whirlwind 6-day trial.

In the years after his conviction, Kemp was diagnosed with paranoid 
schizophrenia, according to his attorney, Greg Westfall.

"He has been very psychotic to entirely utterly out there since about 1990," 
Westfall said.

By the mid-90s, 1 court deemed Kemp incompetent for execution, though a higher 
court later reversed that decision after years of medication.

Since then, his attorneys raised claims of bad lawyering, violations of due 
process, questions about jury selection and denial of funds to get mental 
health experts.

After he lost in federal court in the early 2000s, according to Westfall, the 
Tarrant County District Attorney's Office under another administration agreed 
not to seek another death date - so the decision to schedule a November 
execution came as a surprise to defense counsel.

"It was agreed that he was too insane to execute," Westfall said earlier this 
year. "Since then, the leadership there has changed and now they have sought an 
execution date. It was really out of the blue."

But on Friday, the trial court greenlit an order withdrawing the execution date 
"so that matters related to his Motion for Forensic DNA Testing Can be fully 
litigated," according to court filings.

The state, according the paperwork notes, has agreed to the motion.

Neither Westfall nor the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office could be 
reached Monday for comment.

The canceled execution is now the 2nd death date called off from Tarrant County 
in the past week.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed an October death date scheduled for 
Juan Segundo, who was sent to death row in 2005 for the cold case murder of 
11-year-old Vanessa Villa. The order opens the door to investigate claims that 
he's too intellectually disabled to be put to death.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----37

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----555

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

38---------Nov. 14----------------Robert Ramos------------556

39---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------557

40---------Dec. 11----------------Alvin Braziel, Jr.------558

41---------Jan. 15----------------Blaine Milam------------559

42---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------560

43---------Feb. 28----------------Billy Wayne Coble-------561

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

TX Supreme Court reverses course, will hear case over execution drug supplier 
secret



"Texas Supreme Court reverses course, will hear case over whether state can 
keep execution drug supplier secret" was first published by The Texas Tribune, 
a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans - and engages 
with them - about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

In June, it looked like Texas would have to name a pharmacy that had supplied 
the state with execution drugs. But with a Texas Supreme Court reversal on 
Friday, that decision is now up in the air.

This summer, the high court declined to review a Austin-based 3rd Court of 
Appeals decision that found the Texas Department of Criminal Justice must 
provide identifying information for an execution drug supplier. But the state 
requested a rehearing, and on Friday, the justices granted it.

The case is now on hold until after oral arguments on Jan. 23.

The lawsuit represents an ongoing battle over the secrecy that surrounds Texas' 
execution drugs as other states struggle to keep lethal doses in stock.

Brought forward in 2014 by three Texas death penalty lawyers, the suit sought 
the name of a pharmacy that provided compounded pentobarbital, the sole drug 
currently used in Texas executions. The suit was filed after Republican Gov. 
Greg Abbott, then the attorney general, said the state could withhold 
identifying information of drug suppliers because the pharmacies faced “real 
harm.” Previously, he had said in three rulings that the information was 
public.

The death row lawyers have said they requested the information to ensure 
potency and purity of the drugs used to put their clients to death, citing drug 
scarcity and botched executions. In the same year as the lawsuit was filed, 
several states gained national attention for grizzly executions using new, 
experimental drug combinations.

"This is the gravest task that the state carries out, and the Supreme Court is 
giving it due consideration given the seriousness of the issue," said Maurie 
Levin, one of the lawyers named in the lawsuit, of the Friday decision. "I 
trust that the court will uphold the principals of transparency and open 
government that are the foundation of this litigation."

Before the decision on Friday, Texas had lost the lawsuit at every point in the 
court process. Though the 2015 Texas Legislature passed a law that made secret 
any identifying information of those involved in executions, including drug 
suppliers, the law was not retroactive. It's unclear whether the 2014 supplier 
is the same pharmacy that provided drugs most recently to the state in June.

The department claimed in its last-ditch request for a rehearing that revealing 
the identity of its supplier could endanger the pharmacy as well as the 
existence of the death penalty nationwide. In a plea for the Texas Supreme 
Court to reconsider its June decision, the state said the high court's denial 
had caused a pharmacy that had provided drugs to the state to say in an 
anonymous affidavit that it would no longer conduct business with Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice if its identity was revealed. It's unknown if 
the anonymous pharmacy is the state's current supplier.

"This scenario confirms the U.S. Supreme Court's recent warning on this issue," 
wrote Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, referring to a 2015 decision by 
Justice Samuel Alito on lethal injection drugs. "Death-penalty opponents have 
created 'practical obstacle[s]' to carrying out the death penalty by 
'pressur[ing] pharmaceutical companies to refuse to supply the drugs used to 
carry out death sentences.'"

But according to the lower appellate court's ruling in 2017, the state needs to 
show that the disclosure of such information would create a substantial threat 
of physical harm - not economic harm or unwanted attention - if it wants to 
withhold the information. The court emphasized it is not the role of the court 
to focus on threats of harm to "privacy or economic interests."

The death penalty lawyers snapped back at the state in their response filed 
last month, claiming Texas' claims of threats to the death penalty were 
overblown. They said there has never been any violence toward execution drug 
suppliers, and emphasized that any decision by this court would only be limited 
to naming the 2014 supplier, since the 2015 shield law would keep secret any 
suppliers after that.

"Guess what? Contrary to the tack taken in the motion for rehearing, the sky is 
not falling," the filing said.

(source: The Texas Tribune)








LOUISIANA:

Murder appeal denied; Reeves remains on death row



The state Supreme Court has denied an appeal for a man found guilty and 
sentenced to death for the murder of 4-year-old Mary Jean Thigpen in 2001.

Jason Manuel Reeves, 43, was convicted in 2004 of abducting Thigpen from Moss 
Bluff on Nov. 1, 2001, and then raping her before stabbing her 16 times and 
slicing her neck.

His 1st trial began Oct. 27, 2003, but was declared a mistrial after the jury 
was unable to meet a unanimous verdict on the 1st-degree murder charge.

Reeves' 2nd murder trial ended with jurors finding him guilty on Nov. 4, 2004. 
He was sentenced to death by legal injection on Dec. 10, 2004.

Judge Mike Canaday signed a death warrant in 2012, but the defense appealed, 
saying Reeves suffered from an intellectual disability. Canaday ruled in May 
2015 against that assertion. In April 2016, the state's Supreme Court upheld 
that ruling and Reeves' death sentence.

Last year, Canaday heard motions in state district court that centered on 
Reeves' statement that he had received ineffective counsel.

The proceedings were contentious at times as prosecutors clashed with the 
defense over various issues.

"Your client confessed to this murder, did he not?" asked then-prosecutor Carla 
Sigler to defense attorney Kerry Cuccia of the Capital Defense Project.

Cuccia fired back, "Yes, after 3 days of intense interrogations."

Sigler continued, asking Cuccia, "Your theory was degraded DNA, correct?"

"No, ma'am," said Cuccia. "It isn't a theory. It's fact; it's science."

Sigler, who has since left the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney's Office to 
go into private practice, shook her head before asking, "Are you suggesting 
this DNA evidence was planted or faked?"

"That could be one reasonable conclusion," Cuccia said. "All I'm saying is that 
there is reasonable doubt in this case. Especially when it concerns where this 
DNA sample even came from."

Sigler also questioned state district Judge Ron Ware, who had worked as an 
attorney on Reeves' case for his 2nd trial, asking him how he and his 
co-counsel prepared for the case.

"We had 12 boxes of materials from the 1st trial, transcripts, and many things 
to go through," Ware said. "I read through all of those, spoke and visited with 
Jason Reeves from time to time, and tried to process everything. But I had 
other big cases going on at the same time. I didn't have adequate time to fully 
prepare for the case. My time was compressed."

But Ware did tell Sigler he felt prosecutors had a strong case against Reeves.

In denying this latest appeal by the defendant, the state Supreme Court said, 
in part, "Once again, Reeves improperly attempts to re-litigate an issue upon 
which he has already sought review." Reeves had previously raised the issue of 
what he called ineffective counsel. He has continued to push for a new trial 
and to appeal his conviction and death sentence.

The court also said, "Reeves contends penalty-phase counsel failed to discover 
and present evidence and additional expert witnesses to help explain the 
effects of his difficult childhood, and the history of sexual abuse he 
suffered."

The court found that Reeves "did not disclose to his penalty phase counsel any 
of the additional sexual abuse revealed in these newly-discovered documents, 
meaning that the best potential source of this information proved most 
unhelpful to his own defense. As a result, it is not clear that counsel failed 
to engage in a reasonable mitigation investigation."

Reeves has been on death row at Angola since 2004.

(source: americanpress.com)

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

A Louisiana cry for life and call for death



14 years ago this week, Derrick Todd Lee received the death penalty in 
Louisiana. He was the state's most notorious and prolific serial killer. I was 
there in the courtroom when the verdict was handed down.

It was a cool Tuesday evening, and I was leaving a reception for former 
congressman Billy Tauzin at the Old State capital in downtown Baton Rouge. 
Billy and I had fought many battles together when we both served in the 
Louisiana legislature back in the 1970s. He had fought and won a separate 
confrontation with cancer, and a number of Billy's friends all turned out to 
celebrate a full life he had led.

I headed to my parked car about a block away across the street from the East 
Baton Rouge Courthouse. It was 8 o'clock in the evening, and as I approach my 
car, I could see numerous television lights and a large crowd on the front 
steps of the courthouse.

"What's going on?" I ask one of the reporters I knew. "The jury's still 
deliberating whether Derrick Todd Lee lives or dies," he told me. "Will they 
come up with the verdict tonight?" I asked. "It's getting late." He nodded and 
said: "That's what we hear. They're supposed to push on till they make a 
decision. They'll want to go home," he answered.

I walked into the courthouse and took the elevator up to the 6th floor to the 
courtroom of the presiding judge, Richard Anderson. Sheriff's deputies were 
everywhere and security was tight. I went through the metal detector and walked 
into a packed courtroom.

Col. Greg Phares was in charge of the numerous deputies surrounding the walls 
in the courtroom. Angola prison warden Burl Cain and I talked for a while. 
"Whatever happens, I've got a full night ahead of me. He will go to Angola 
tonight for the rest of his life, however long that is," the warden mused.

About then, the bailiff quieted the courtroom and the jury filed in. The 
process was short. A signed verdict sent to the clerk, who read out the 
decision. Derrick Todd Lee should be put to death. Then tears and sobs from the 
victims' families, from Lee's relatives, even the district attorney's wife 
wiped away a few tears now that the ordeal was over.

So should Derrick Todd Lee die? There was an overwhelming community feeling 
that, yes, he should. The guy is charged with killing 7 women. And there may be 
more. If you were looking for the right poster face for the death penalty, you 
can't do better than Lee.

Putting aside the arguments for opposing the taking of anyone's life, what 
possible reason would there be not to execute him? One is money. It costs on 
average 4 to 5 times more to invoke capital punishment than it does to put him 
away for life. The costs of appeal, including attorney's fees that are almost 
always paid by the state, often run several million dollars. It's much cheaper 
to stick him in a cell and spend a few dollars a day to feed him.

And you can make a pretty good argument that if you want to put someone through 
hell, stick them in a maximum-security prison where he will either be 
brutalized by the prison population, or confined in solitary where he lives 
almost like an animal in total boredom. Some would argue this punishment is 
worse than the death penalty.

But we demand an eye for an eye. Oh, it may take a decade or more. But the odds 
were, that one day Lee would die. John McKeithen, Edwin Edwards and Buddy Romer 
each told me the toughest decision they ever faced as governor was whether to 
let a condemned man die. It was the 1st decision Roemer had to make the day he 
was sworn in. But they always let it happen.

2 different people that night at 2 different events. One a celebration of a 
full and continuing life. The other, just a block away, a decision to take away 
a life.

The challenge, of course, is to live a life of dignity. To see your own 
existence as a heightened example of universal experience - a life that is 
fulfilling in a way that is somehow larger-than-life. On that night 14 years 
ago, it was obvious that 1 succeeded and 1 failed.

(source: Jim Brown is a Louisiana legislator, Secretary of State and Insurance 
Commissioner----bayoubuzz.com)








TENNESSEE:

Zagorski reprieve ends Monday, but execution questions remain



At the stroke of midnight Sunday going into Monday, a 10-day execution reprieve 
ends for Edmund Zagorski.

Governor Haslam issued the reprieve last week for the death row inmate 
convicted of killing 2 Middle Tennessee men in 1983.

Zagorski was within hours of execution on Oct. 11 when Haslam used the powers 
of his office to issue a 10-day reprieve.

It followed the death row inmate's request that he be executed by the electric 
chair earlier in the week, but the state argued the choice, which death row 
inmates are given in Tennessee, came too late.

At the same time, there was a flurry of court filings back and forth all the 
way to the U-S Supreme court that included lingering questions about the drugs 
used for lethal injection.

The governor told reporters Thursday the idea of Zagorski's reprieve was to 
"step back and make sure everyone is prepared in the right way."

Mr. Haslam was asked if the Tennessee Department of Corrections was ready to 
use the electric chair last week.

He said department Commissioner Tony Parker told him "if you want us to do this 
tonight...we can do that."

The governor then decided on the reprieve, but he says it was not a case of 
reconsidering Zagorski's execution.

"It was just when the method changed...you are always open, listening," added 
the governor. "The purpose of the reprieve was not to reconsider the 
circumstance."

Still in effect is a temporary order from a federal court in Nashville 
preventing Zagorkski's execution by lethal injection.

The state is expected to ask the state supreme court for a new execution date 
for Zagorski once the governor's reprieve expires next week.

(source: WKRN news)








ARKANSAS:

Mark Chumley Found Guilty of Capital Murder for Death of NWA Woman



A local man has been found guilty for his involvement in the murder of a 
Northwest Arkansas woman.

Mark Chumley, 49, was convicted of capital murder for being an accomplice to a 
capital murder for the 2015 death of Victoria Annabeth Davis.

The state is seeking the death penalty.

Davis was held captive for hours before she was beaten to death by Chumley and 
4 others.

The victim's husband already pleaded guilty to the same charge and was 
sentenced to 37 years in prison.

The 3 other defendants are being held in the Washington County Detention 
Center.

Chumley first went to trial in May, but a mistrial was declared.

(source: KNWA news)