Crutsinger had pushed to stop his execution based on claims of bad lawyering during his trial and in the appellate process.
Texas death row
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas executed Larry Swearingen for a 1998 Texas slaying. His lawyer says bad science got him on death row.
Swearingen consistently maintained his innocence in the strangling death of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. Texas prosecutors, however, had no doubt he was her killer.
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Texas Legislature 2019
Texas House OKs bill to ban death penalty for those with severe mental illness
Under the measure, defendants who have active psychotic symptoms of certain mental illnesses at the time of the crime would be ineligible for capital punishment. The bill now heads to the more conservative Senate.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Execution stopped for Dexter Johnson, sentenced to death after Harris County rape and murder
Johnson was convicted in the 2007 murders of Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo in Harris County, a crime he committed at 18. He was set for execution Thursday before a court ruled that his new lawyer should have more time to look into federal appellate issues.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2019
Texas House offers a new way to determine whether a defendant has intellectual disabilities — and is ineligible for execution
The lower chamber gave initial approval to a bill creating a pretrial process to determine if a capital murder defendant is intellectually disabled — more than 15 years after the U.S. Supreme Court said executing such prisoners is cruel and unusual punishment.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas executes John William King in racist dragging death of James Byrd Jr.
King and two other white men were convicted in the brutal East Texas murder of Byrd, who was black. King was the second man executed for the crime; another man is serving a life sentence.
Posted inState Government
Texas court stops execution of Mark Robertson after claims of racist jury selection
The court issued a stay of Thursday’s execution after his lawyers argued that Robertson’s original trial lawyer discriminated against potential jurors who were black.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Prosecutor declares freed Texas death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown innocent, paving way for state compensation
Brown was freed from nearly a decade on death row in 2015, but because he was never declared “actually innocent,” he couldn’t get compensation for wrongful imprisonment — until Friday.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Texas executes Billie Coble, the oldest man put to death in the state during modern era of the death penalty
As the state put the 70-year-old to death, his son banged on the death chamber window. After an altercation with law enforcement, Coble’s son and another relative were removed from the witness room and arrested.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2019
Texas still doesn’t have a law on intellectual disability and the death penalty. Will that change this year?
Nearly two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional to execute those with intellectual disabilities, Texas still has no process on determining the condition — leaving life-and-death decisions in the hands of courts with very different methods.
