Texas schedules 6 executions for January

AP Via The Dallas Morning News ^ | 01/10/2009 | staff

[txroadkill]

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Texas is wasting little time claiming its annual notoriety as the nation's most active capital punishment state.

Convicted killer Curtis Moore, condemned for killing three people during a drug-related robbery in 1995 in Fort Worth, is set for lethal injection this week – the first execution in the U.S. in 2009.

It's the first of eight scheduled executions this month in the U.S., all but two of them in Texas.

Moore, 40, is set to die Wednesday. Two more executions are set for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit next week, then three more the following week.

The six Texas inmates set to die this month are among at least 14 with execution dates already this year. Nationwide, they are among more than two dozen with dates already in 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty group.

[txroadkill]

< - Snip ->

"The people in Texas are duped. They think the justice system is working," said Larry Swearingen, 37, facing execution Jan. 27 for the strangulation of Melissa Trotter, a 19-year-old student abducted from Montgomery College north of Houston 10 years ago.

Swearingen, who hopes late appeals will spare him, believes that his court-appointed trial lawyers "worried about their next appointment," were part of "the bubba system" and that his conviction was orchestrated.

Since the AP Decided to give Swearingen a couple of lines in print I thought we should all know just what Larry did

http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagNews/release.php?print=1&id=1901

 

AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information about Larry Ray Swearingen, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. Wednesday, January 24, 2007.

On July 11, 2000, Swearingen was sentenced to die for the kidnapping, rape and strangulation of Melissa Trotter. A summary of the evidence presented at trial follows.

 FACTS OF THE CRIME

After meeting Trotter, a nineteen-year-old college student, in December 1998, Larry Swearingen told his co-workers and friends that he had met an attractive college girl and hinted that he wanted to have sex with her. In the early afternoon of December 8, Swearingen and Trotter were seen departing together from Montgomery College in Conroe after talking to each other in the school library.

Trotter’s friends and family never again saw the college student alive. Swearingen became the focus of an investigation into the woman’s disappearance, because he was the last person seen with her. On December 11, Swearingen was arrested on unrelated outstanding warrants.

On January 2, 1999, Trotter’s partially nude body was discovered in Sam Houston National Forest. She had been strangled, with a piece of torn hosiery found around her neck. Evidence showed she had been raped.

Fiber evidence showed that Trotter had been in Swearingen’s trailer, on the floor and perhaps the bed, and in the cab of his pickup truck. And evidence in the truck cab showed that some of her hair had been pulled forcibly from her head. Although neither Swearingen nor his wife smoked, a pack of cigarettes, Trotter’s brand, was found in Swearingen’s trailer. A piece of hosiery, the companion to that piece used to strangle Trotter, was found in a trash heap beside Swearingen’s trailer. Hair evidence linked the hosiery to Swearingen’s wife. Cell phone records showed that on the day that Trotter disappeared, Swearingen traveled from his trailer to the area where the body was found. After Trotter disappeared, Swearing told friends that he was in trouble and that the police would be after him.

While in jail awaiting trial, Swearingen, using a Spanish-English dictionary, composed a letter in crude Spanish, purportedly written by an individual named “Robin.” In the letter “Robin” identified Trotter’s killer as an individual named “R.D.” The prosecution alleged that Swearingen composed the letter, arranged for it to be hand-copied by a cellmate, and had the letter delivered to authorities, to deflect blame from himself.

In the punishment phase of his trial, evidence was introduced that Swearingen had committed two unadjudicated rapes, one unadjudicated assault on his ex-wife, and that while awaiting trial, he had tried to escape.

Melissa Aline Trotter

11-26-79 · 12-08-98

 

[taxesareforever]

Six executions. Shouldn’t that be called a hat trick in execution lingo?

[GeronL]

still takes too long

[tallyhoe]

Yea I’m for the trial, found guilty, walk them out back an into a firing squad!

[count-your-change]

And..his lawyer said,
“Your Honor, How can my client get a fair trial with all this evidence against him?”

[rfreedom4u]

Could they just “daisy chain” the IV’s and take care of all of them at once?

[count-your-change]

From another thread,

“A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told authorities he ate it”

Executing guys like this sounds like an act of mercy to them.

[End Times Sentinel]

Texas is wasting little time claiming its annual notoriety as the nation's most active capital punishment state.

Convicted killer Curtis Moore, condemned for killing three people during a drug-related robbery in 1995 in Fort Worth, is set for lethal injection this week – the first execution in the U.S. in 2009.

Let's see, Moore waited 13 years for justice to be served and Swearingen waited 10.

I'm not suggesting that punishment be meted out upon apprehension, but 10+ years? And that's Texas that's leading the way on this! Mumia still pollutes the air with his CO2 17 years after he murdered Danny Faulkener.

What are we waiting for???

Owl_Eagle
”You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in.  I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being”

-Hillary Clinton

(Yes, she really said that

Peggy Noonan

The Case Against Hillary Clinton, pg 55)

[GeronL]

at least one a day

[chuckles]

We are just trying to do our part.

[Ronin]

I have no problems with executing these scumbags but I am a little puzzled why the request for a DNA test was turned down. If they’ve got the right man, the DNA should prove it.

[SECURE AMERICA]

It’s the first of eight scheduled executions this month in the U.S., all but two of them in Texas.

One of the few States that our founding fathers would believe was still based on the principles and goals that they established...

[SECURE AMERICA]

Mumia still pollutes the air with his CO2 17 years after he murdered Danny Faulkener.
What are we waiting for???

Sorry NO CHANCE.
If Mumia broke out of jail raped and murdered 2 children on the sidewalk in front of the jail with 52 eye witnesses and a traffic camera recording he would still never be executed. Mumia is the poaster child for liberals progessives socialist and terorist throughout the world.
They have spent 17 years of time and millions of dollars promoting his cause. They would never allow him to be executed for any reason..

[ScottinVA]

Like comedian Ron White said: “Ya kill someone in Texas, we’re gonna kill ya back.”

[Recon Dad]

As the comedian Ron White says unlike other states Texas has installed an express lane to the gas chamber. In this case 6 items or less will do just fine.

[ScottinVA]

“They would never allow (Mumia) to be executed for any reason..”

I say we should move him to Texas.

[Feckless]

That's been my answer to anti-death penalty types. Lay as many of them as want to stop the execution between the perp and the drugs and kick them off at about 60psi....

I've also figured a way to get Libs and Drive Bys on our side. Stop calling them Executions and refer to them as REALLY late term abortions.....

[Leisler]

Got to get the liberals on board. Should not call these executions but abortions. Really, really late abortions. If these people had been aborted, the crimes would never have occurred.

Or another way of getting lefty support, lets just call these executions, early euthanasia. These poor unfortunates have only a polluted, high fat diet, capitalist exploiting hell hole of Amerika to look forward to, so let’s just let them be one with Buddha, or the Universe or ....whatever, and ‘assist’ them.
You know, because they would be happier that way.

[Leisler]

That would be a double hat trick.

Maybe call it a Ace +1.

I think executioners should get stripes or hash marks. You know, one for every ten or so. Really build up their status, get young people interested in a career.

[Op-Head]

Hang ‘em high or fry ‘em dry! I love Texas!