[Deathpenalty] death penatly news----TEXAS, ALA., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

July 26







TEXAS----new execution date

Bastrop County man scheduled for execution amid claims of innocence----Texas 
death row inmate Rodney Reed has been set to die by lethal injection on Nov. 
20, 2019. He has maintained his innocence in the April 1996 abduction, rape and 
strangling of 19-year-old Stacy Stites, whose body was found off the side of a 
road in Bastrop County.



A Bastrop County man who has long professed his innocence in a controversial 
capital murder case is now scheduled for execution after more than 2 decades on 
Texas death row.

Rodney Reed, who was convicted of raping and killing 19-year-old Stacey Stites, 
is slated to die by lethal injection on Nov. 20, a prison spokesman confirmed 
Thursday.

The local judge’s decision to greenlight the new execution — Reed’s 2nd in the 
last 5 years — comes amid controversy about the timing of the state’s request 
for a new death date. One day earlier, the Bastrop Advertiser published a story 
about a protest held by Reed’s family in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----43

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----561

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

44---------Aug. 15----------------Dexter Johnson----------562

45---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen--------563

46---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------564

47---------Sept. 10---------------Mark Anthony Soliz------565

48---------Sept. 25---------------Robert Sparks-----------566

49---------Oct. 2-----------------Stephen Barbee----------567

50---------oct. 10----------------Randy Halprin-----------568

51---------Oct. 16----------------Randall Mays------------569

52---------Oct. 30----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------570

53---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall-------------571

54---------Nov. 20----------------Roney Reed------------572

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








ALABAMA----new death sentence

Alabama man gets death in shooting of 1-year-old daughter



A judge has sentenced an Alabama man to die in the shooting death of his 
1-year-old daughter.

Madison County Circuit Judge Ruth Ann Hall imposed the death penalty on 
37-year-old Lionel Rory Francis on Thursday.

Jurors convicted Francis of capital murder in May. They recommended the death 
penalty for the 2016 gunshot killing of his 20-month-old daughter, Alexandria 
Francis.

Francis told police the shooting was accidental.

But a forensic expert testified that evidence indicated the gun was placed on 
the child’s forehead. Jurors also heard a recorded phone call in which the 
girl’s mother, Ashley Ross, dismissed the man’s claims that the shooting was an 
accident.

Francis told the judge he is appealing.

Francis is the 1st person to be sentenced to death in Huntsville in more than a 
decade.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Madison County judge hands down death sentence for the 1st time in 11 years



Thursday morning, a Madison County Judge sentenced convicted killer Lionel 
Francis to death. This comes 2 months after a jury found him guilty of capital 
murder in the shooting death of his 20-month-old daughter, Alexandria.

This is 1st time in a decade a Madison County judge handed down the death 
penalty. Benito Alabrran was the last person to receive the death penalty back 
in 2008. He was found guilty of killing Huntsville police officer Daniel 
Golden.

A jury voted 11-1 to give Francis the death penalty, the judge upheld their 
decision.

Francis walked in silence to the courtroom, escorted by several officers. He 
showed no emotions while he listened to both sides argue their case.

Tim Douthit, Assistant District Attorney for Madison County, tells WAFF 48 the 
punishment fits the crime. “It’s not a happy situation, justice doesn’t always 
make you feel good, but this was justice."

Bruce Gardner, Francis’ attorney, was not surprised by the judges decision. “It 
was not surprising, but it’s still very very humbling and disappointing.”

Gardner asked the judge to relieve him of his duties as Francis’ attorney as 
Francis begins the appeal process.

Francis was found guilty of killing his young daughter in May.

(source: WAFF news)








CALIFORNIA:

White supremacist’s death sentence overturned because of prosecution’s focus on 
beliefs



The California Supreme Court unanimously overturned the death sentence of a San 
Diego man Thursday, ruling that the prosecution improperly focused on the 
defendant’s racist beliefs.

In a decision written by Justice Leondra R. Kruger, the state high court said 
the prosecutor made inflammatory arguments about the defendant’s racist tattoos 
and white supremacist beliefs “for the very sake of highlighting their 
offensiveness” rather than for a legitimate purpose connected to the crime.

The 1st Amendment does not permit the prosecution to ask a jury to return a 
particular verdict because the defendant holds offensive beliefs, the court 
said. Instead, there must be a nexus to the crime or the defendant’s propensity 
for violence.

The ruling means that Jeffrey Scott Young, convicted of the 2 1st-degree 
murders, an attempted murder and a carjacking, must be given a new trial on 
whether he should be condemned to death or his sentence will be reduced to life 
without possibility of parole.

The killings occurred during a 1999 robbery of a Five Star Park, Shuttle & Fly 
parking lot near the San Diego International Airport.

An employee of the parking lot planned the robbery, and Young and 2 accomplices 
committed it.

During closing arguments at the penalty phase of the trial, the San Diego 
prosecutor focused on the fact that Young wore racist tattoos and displayed 
Nazi symbols. She said he also conveyed his racist beliefs to his children.

Kruger said a defendant’s beliefs, however obnoxious, may not be taken into 
account by a sentencing jury.

“Evidence of a defendant’s racist beliefs is not relevant if offered merely to 
show the moral reprehensibility of the beliefs themselves,” Kruger wrote.

She said the trial judge should have not have allowed the arguments.

“This case included the tragic circumstances of the robbery murders, which 
involved the needless close-range shooting of 2 defenseless employees who 
appeared to be complying with the robbers’ demands,” and other incriminating 
evidence, Kruger wrote.

“But for whatever reason, the prosecution chose not to rely on this evidence 
alone,” she added.

Instead, the prosecution put 7 different witnesses on the stand to testify 
about Young’s racism and focused on it in her closing arguments even though the 
crimes were race-related.

“The prosecutor openly and repeatedly invited the jury to do precisely what the 
law does not allow: to weigh the offensive and reprehensible nature of 
defendant’s abstract beliefs in determining whether to impose the death 
penalty,” Kruger wrote.

Young was arrested three years after the crime. He was convicted of shooting 
and killing Teresa Perez and Jack Reynolds, 2 employees of the parking lot, 
shooting at bystander Daniel Maman while fleeing and stealing the car of 
another bystander, Jim Gagarin.

(source: Los Angeles Times)