State's highest criminal court hears Darlie Routier's appeal - Baby killer may get off?

Associated Press ^ | March 27, 2002 | A/P Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

	Posted on Wed, Mar. 27, 2002
	State's highest criminal court hears Darlie Routier's appeal By The Associated Press AUSTIN - Convicted child killer Darlie Routier should get a new trial because the transcript of her 1997 trial is filled with problems and prevents her attorneys from raising important legal questions, her attorney argued Wednesday. "This whole record (transcript) issue is so outrageous," said her attorney, Stephen Cooper. "It impacts other fundamental constitutional rights of my client, to boot." Arguing before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Cooper said questions surrounding the trial transcript prevent him from probing whether a conflict existed with Routier's original attorney because he also represented her husband in a hearing. John Rolater Jr., a lawyer from the Dallas County district attorney's office, said the trial transcript is in good shape and should be used for the appeal. Routier, a homemaker at the time, was arrested two weeks after her sons Damon, 5, and Devon, 6, were stabbed to death in their upscale Rowlett home on June 6, 1996. Routier was tried and convicted by a Kerrville jury for Damon's death and was given a death sentence. She has maintained her innocence and blames the stabbings on an intruder. Attorneys for Routier had filed an appeal that raises questions about whether her husband had a role in the killings. The appeal didn't blame her husband, Darin Routier, for the crime but states that a conflict involving Darlie Routier's attorney prevented the lawyer from questioning any inconsistencies his account of the event. The appeal alleged Darlie Routier deserves a new trial because her trial attorney had previously represented Darin Routier. Darin Routier maintains neither he nor his wife committed the crime. The appeal cited more than a dozen other claims of trial error.

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© 2001 dfw and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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[MeekOneGOP]

Easy Link
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/2946733.htm

I used to work at the same company with Darlie and Darin Routier in the late 80s...

[MeekOneGOP]

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[MeekOneGOP]

fyi

[xJones]

You worked with them? What were the Routiers like in your recollection? I remember reading some strange newspaper accounts of their behavior the night their two older sons died and in the days immediately afterward.

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks -- I used to live in Boerne just down the road from Kerrville! This is unbelieveable that she may get off on a technicality. How were they when you knew them?

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

And your opinion on their guilt or innocence would be........

[MeekOneGOP]

What were the Routiers like in your recollection?

The short story is Darlie had her own clique at work and if you weren't part of it,
you weren't anything. Darin was more social and amicable........

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks -- I used to live in Boerne just down the road from Kerrville!. . . .How were they when you knew them?

I went to the Lion's Club camp in Kerrville a long time ago.....See #7

[MeekOneGOP]

And your opinion on their guilt or innocence would be........

I followed the case very closely. My opinion is that the forensic evidence is very damning.
She's guilty, no doubt, IMHO - based on the forensics.......

"Their?" She is guilty. I think Darin had nothing to do with it.........

[PhiKapMom]

Can imagine that gives you a strange feeling to actually know these people!

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I had a friend who knew Darlie in High School and swore there was no way she could have been guilty.....but I followed the case in Texas too, and thought there was just too much evidence pointing to her....... thanks for the response......

[MeekOneGOP]

Absolutely it does. You cannot imagine how I felt that morning I woke up and was fixing my own breakfast with the TV going and heard "Rowlett", "Babies" and "Murder" in the same sentence.

When I got to work and asked around and found out the WHO of the family, I was blown away. When the story was given on TV, the names weren't revealed.......

[MeekOneGOP]

You're welcomed. I'm convinced. I followed all the TV and news coverage.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Are you in the same city? There was a tv documentary not long ago and they were VERY sympathetic toward her.....I still didn't buy their re-write of the evidence........

I got the same feeling from the Van Damm family........

[MeekOneGOP]

Are you in the same city? There was a tv documentary not long ago and they were VERY sympathetic toward her.....I still didn't buy their re-write of the evidence........

Yes. I live in the same city as the Routiers used to live in.......

I think I may have seen the same "re-write" you refer to. I don't buy it, if it's the same one I saw....

The forensic evidense was quite convincing to me. All the detail. Only HER bloody footprints. The knives in the household used in the crime. The "undisturbed dust" in the window sill the "intruder" entered the garage from. The whole nine yards.....

[MeekOneGOP]

I'm gonna sign off for now, folks. G'night all!

[stryker]

There is no such thing as a technicality. There are constitutional rights that guarantee that the proper persons are convicted of the crimes they committed. When these rights are not honored, the defendant must be tried again. We have fought innumerable wars, spilled rivers of blood, and spent countless fortunes to preserve these rights, and when you reduce them linguistically to mere technicalities you blasphemy the millions of dead who died to preserve those rights for you. Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, J.D. Masters work in Political Philosophy, Valedictorian, BTW.

[sinkspur]

We have fought innumerable wars, spilled rivers of blood, and spent countless fortunes to preserve these rights, and when you reduce them linguistically to mere technicalities you blasphemy the millions of dead who died to preserve those rights for you.

Granting a new trial based on improper transcriptions IS a technicality, your academic achievements notwithstanding (as if anybody really cares).

There's little doubt about this woman's guilt.

"Rivers of blood" weren't spilt over crap like Miranda rights.

[SpookBrat]

I'm from Kerrville and I know TWO of the men who were on the jury. One was my cousin. The evidence was gruesome and they felt she did it. They always felt the husband had something to do with it. I wouldn't know, I'm just repeating what my cousin said.

[SpookBrat]

I saw that stupid documentary. She's such a liar. She belly ached the whole darn time about her own injustice and never shed a tear over her butchered babies. What a B*****!

Also, at the end of it, there was a juror on there, who had second thoughts after hearing more evidence after the case. I gotta tell ya.....that man lived two houses down from me all my childhood and he is the town dork. I can't believe they even let him serve on the jury. He is such a cheese head.