Criminal Appeals Court Grants Rare Execution Stay
CONROE — In a rare move today, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, stayed the scheduled August 18 execution of Larry Swearingen.
He was convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. The Montgomery Community College student’s body was discovered in the Sam Houston National Forest on Jan. 2, 1999, nearly a month after she disappeared from campus. Witnesses said they saw Trotter leaving the campus with Swearingen on Dec. 8, 1998 — the last time she was seen alive.
Swearingen’s lawyers have filed repeated pleas in state and federal court ...
Comments (9)
Kyle King via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Rare...shamefully rare. No one has ever provided me with a rational...much less civilized, morally justifiable, or just...reason why we kill people who kill people to teach people that killing is wrong. Not even close...
Cecilia Solis-Sublette via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Before reading the article, my immediate thought was: "A stay? Whad did the victim return from the grave to vindicate the accused?" After reading the article I realize I was not too far off. Sad.
Cecilia Solis-Sublette via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Before reading the article, my immediate thought was: "A stay? What, did the victim return from the grave to vindicate the accused?" After reading the article I realize I was not too far off. Sad.
Chris Thornton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
...then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. ~ Exodus 21:23-25
Honor Kirk
The trial errors, the exclusion of exculpatory evidence, and the forensics all say this man deserves a new trial.
Texas' prosecutors rush to secure a conviction and the death penalty at all costs have already cost an inncocent man his life. Lets make sure that people are actually guilty of the crime for which they are being executed before we make another irreversible mistake.
Lets go on the science and the merits of the case, not some outdated biblical texts written by cattle-slaughtering primitives....
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Frances Demps via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Chris, what about, "Thou shall not kill". It doesn't say,...except for the state of Texas, or except as punishment. I actually think some criminals deserve the death penalty. Just trying to point out that you can use the Bible to back-up any position.
Sanders Kaufman Jr. via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Frances,
Evanglical Republicans have changed that.
Now, instead of god saying "thou shalt not kill", he said "thou shall not murder".
They've also changed the one about "thou shall not bear false witness" to "thou shall not bear.... against your fellow man".
They have, quite literally, taken the Chrst out of Christianity.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ Sanders Kaufman - So much for the "lving word of God". This from a group that have tried to insert the bible in our laws and Government. Now we learn, they have redacted their own vision of God.
Sheryl Gallien
Larry knows what he did and he will meet his maker. I sat day after day and watch his emotionless face during autopsy photos and all. I saw women shake that he had dated or had relations with that he had not seen some in over 7 yrs. They shook in fear of him.
They need to sit where me and my family sat for all those weeks in trial and search 350 square miles looking for her. And then come back and give him yet another stay.
I ask God Almighty to have Mercy on the souls of you idiots making these decesions and dare you to form relations and sleep in a cell with Larry Ray overnight. I bet it will change your mind of him.
Remember she was 5'4 and 97 lbs and he was 6'2 and 228. Wow what a man!!! He is and has always been a COWARD!!!!