The latest death penalty news from The Texas Tribune.
At a hearing Monday in a Bowie County state district court, lawyers for Delma Banks Jr. will ask the court to disqualify prosecutors who the U.S. Supreme Court ruled suppressed evidence and deliberately covered up mistakes in a 1980 murder trial that sent the young black man to death row. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/BanksDocs.jpg)
Aaronson on the latest attack on Planned Parenthood, Aguilar previews the sanctuary cities debate, Grissom on a death row inmate's unsuccessful appeal, Hamilton on the UT System's faculty "productivity" data dump, Philpott on the prospect of lawsuits over education cuts, Ramsey on puppies and other distractions, Ramshaw on a tobacco fight, my interview with the presidents of UT-Austin and Texas A&M, M. Smith on a former State Board of Ed member who may have violated state ethics law, Stiles interactively displays the effects of House redistricting and Tan on the Senate budget end game: The best of our best content from May 2 to 6, 2011. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Tribweek05042011.jpg)
Less than a month before his scheduled execution, Cary Kerr had no attorney. And the ones he had had up to that point, he argued, didn’t do him much good. Tonight, his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution was turned down. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Kerr_1.jpg)
Harris County paid a forensic psychologist who was reprimanded earlier this month more than $300,000 to test defendants for intellectual disabilities from 2002 until 2008. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/DeathRow-1-fix.jpg)
Hamilton on Victoria's efforts to divorce the University of Houston, Ramshaw on a disagreement between right-to-life groups over laws governing when life ends, E. Smith's TribLive interview with Sen. Kel Seliger and Rep. Burt Solomons on redistricting, Aguilar's interview with the mayor of Juárez, Tan on the continuing hunt for money to buy down budget cuts, Grissom on a psychologist who found more than a dozen inmates mentally competent to face the death penalty, Stiles and yours truly on the House redistricting maps and Galbraith on cutting or killing a tax break for high-cost natural gas producers: The best of our best content from April 11 to 15, 2011. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Tribweek_0415_2011.jpg)
A psychologist who examined 14 inmates now on Texas’ death row — and two others who were subsequently executed — and found them intellectually competent enough to face the death penalty has agreed never to perform such evaluations again. Full Story
The Texas Forensic Science Commission is meeting to discuss a draft report on the controversial arson convictions and death sentences of Cameron Todd Willingham and Ernest Ray Willis. Read and search the report here. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/110709_bradley_001_jv.png)
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, convicted of igniting the 1991 blaze that destroyed his home and killed his three young daughters. Click here for a timeline of the major events in the Willingham saga. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/TWillingham-LeadArt_2.png)
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 30-day stay for death row inmate Cleve Foster, who was scheduled tonight to become the first Texas inmate executed using the state's new three-drug lethal injection cocktail. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/syringes0001.png)
The 3rd Court of Appeals today denied two death row inmates' request to stop the state from using a new lethal injection drug. Full Story
Texas laws more strictly regulate euthanasia of animals than the lethal injection of death row inmates, according to a report released Sunday by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Law School. Full Story
Tan's wall-to-wall coverage of the budget (with more from the rest of the Trib crew, interviews with some of the freshmen seeing this up close for the first time and a map of how it works), Philpott on the similarities between budget worries in Texas and those elsewhere, M. Smith explains school finance, Ramshaw on the dwindling insurance options for orphans, Grissom on legal fights over the drugs used for state executions, Aguilar on the run-up to the debate over sanctuary cities, Stiles maps the diversity of Texas counties, Galbraith on efforts to recycle plastic bags and Hamilton on calls for "entrepreneurship" at the University of Texas: The best of our best content from March 28 to April 1, 2011. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Txtribweek_20110401.jpg)
Travis County District Court Judge Stephen Yelenosky this afternoon denied the request of two death row inmates to temporarily halt executions with Texas' new lethal injection drug. Lawyers for Cleve Foster and Humberto Leal said they would immediately appeal the judge's decision. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Lethal-Injection_Split.jpg)
Texas' decision to change one of the drugs used for lethal injections has sparked a lawsuit, calls for federal investigation of the criminal justice department and pleas from the drugmaker not to use its product for executions. Full Story
Lawyers for two Texas death row inmates today asked state and federal law enforcement to investigate whether prison officials illegally obtained death penalty drugs the state used in nearly all of its 466 executions. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/103109-terrhaute-gurney-.jpg)
Two death row inmates sued the state today, arguing that the decision to use a new lethal injection drug was made too secretly and too hastily. Full Story
Former "Walls Unit" warden Jim Willett narrates a photographic tour of the Texas Prison Museum, where he is the executive director. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/Screen_shot_2011-03-25_at_5.43.30_PM.png)
Jim Willett had not intended to spend the better part of his adult life working in Texas’ sprawling prison system. But the business student turned prison guard worked 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and oversaw 89 executions. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/TxTrib_TexasPrisonMuseum_CBM15.jpg)
Cleve Foster will be the first Texas inmate to receive the anesthetic drug pentobarbital — instead of sodium thiopental — in the three-drug cocktail that will be used in his execution on April 5. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/needles_lethalinjection.jpg)
The next execution is scheduled to take place April 5 — less than a month from now — but the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has not yet decided which drug it will use to replace sodium thiopental, one of three used in the state's execution protocol. Full Story