East Texas inmate Julius Murphy’s execution is off the November calendar – for now. The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals on Monday stayed the 36-year-old’s execution, after his legal team presented claims of prosecutorial misconduct in his 1998 capital murder trial.
death penalty
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Death Row Inmate Claims Witnesses Coerced
Attorneys for East Texas inmate Julius Jerome Murphy, scheduled for execution in early November for killing a stranded motorist, claimed in court papers filed Friday that prosecutors threatened and coerced witnesses to unjustly convict him.
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Health care, Politics
God & Governing: Life
Check out “God & Life” — part 3 of our “God & Governing” documentary-style series — to see how lawmakers’ personal faith guides the abortion fight in the Texas Legislature.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas Prisons Deny Making Execution Drugs
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Friday shot down allegations that it is manufacturing its own hard-to-find execution drugs after federal defense attorneys in an Oklahoma death row case accused the Texas prison system of doing exactly that.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Panetti Lawyers Want His Competence Evaluated
Lawyers for death row inmate Scott Panetti will get a chance Wednesday to argue that their client’s ongoing mental illness — and the state’s failure to evaluate his mental state — should forestall his execution for two 1992 killings.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
New Crime Lab Protocol Leads to Reviews of “Mixed DNA” Evidence
A new standard, used by crime labs in Texas and nationwide when analyzing multiple sets of DNA taken from evidence, has prompted questions and a review of court cases dating back to 1999.
Posted inState Government
Updated: Faces of Death Row in Texas
Ten inmates have been executed in Texas this year; 253 others are living with a death sentence. Revisit our database of these men and women, filterable by age, race, sex and the length of their stay on death row.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Jailhouse Snitch Claims Secret Deal in Death Case
A second jailhouse informant claims he was offered a secret deal to testify in a death penalty case by former Navarro County prosecutor John Jackson, who has been accused of similar misconduct in the conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TDCJ Official: Supreme Court’s Ruling Won’t Impact Texas Executions
A U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday that upheld the use of an execution drug used in Oklahoma will not change how death row inmates in Texas are executed, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Visualization: A Shrinking Texas Death Row
The number of inmates on Texas’ death row is falling. At its peak in 1999, 460 men and women were living with a death sentence in Texas, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Today, there are 260.
