Texas Dept of Criminal Justice
450 Offenders are Currently on Death Row
He** isn't hot enough for this one. Read the article!
Now being served:
Texas Dept of Criminal Justice
450 Offenders are Currently on Death Row
He** isn't hot enough for this one. Read the article!
Now being served:
Killer of Arlington optometrist set to die
Excerpt
With a 51/2-inch piece of broken glass taped at one end and hidden in his hand, the capital murder defendant tried to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor.
"He was coming at me and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!"' recalled Bob Gill, now a state district judge in Tarrant County. "He got to me and the fight was on. He and I went down. I knew what was in his hand and I grabbed that arm with both my hands."
Neither Gill nor the other attorney, Chris Phillips, was seriously hurt in the November 1992 attack but both were removed from the case.
Ransom went on to trial and was convicted of capital murder for gunning down Herbert Primm, 47, an optometrist and part-time gun dealer, outside Primm's Arlington home Dec. 7, 1991. Ransom was 18 at the time.
Gill wound up being a witness to help show how Ransom was a continuing threat, one of the questions jurors had to answer when determining a death sentence.
Ransom's lethal injection was set to be carried out Wednesday evening.
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http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/03/jul03.htm
Date of scheduled execution State Victim name Inmate name Status July 23, 2003 Texas Herbert Primm Cedric Ransom pending Cedric Ransom, the convicted killer of an optometrist who authorities say once attacked his lawyer and a prosecutor with a knife, was sentenced to death in a heavily guarded courtroom in Fort Worth. Jurors deliberated a little more than 2 hours before returning the verdict, the 2nd death sentence that Ransom received. The Fort Worth man's original death sentence was erased in 1994 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial judge made an error in jury selection. Ransom was convicted of capital murder in 1992 for the robbery and slaying of Herbert Primm, who was shot to death in his driveway. At the time, Ransom was under indictment for 3 other murders and robberies. Ransom and three accomplices went to Primm's house on Dec. 7, 1991, planning to steal guns from the optometrist and part-time weapons dealer, according to trial testimony. Primm begged the men to take the guns and spare his life, but Ransom shot him in the head, prosecution witnesses testified. In closing arguments at the second trial in February of 1997, Assistant District Attorney Richard Bland rattled off the list of convictions and charges against Ransom. He said Ransom smuggled a crude knife into his 1992 trial, using it to attack his lawyer and a prosecutor, and had assaulted a corrections officer in the Forth Worth jail. Ransom and fellow death row inmate Willie Pondexter made an escape attempt in June 1997 -- cutting through a fence at the Ellis I Unit with a hacksaw blade, climbing onto the roof and making a run for the two perimeter fences. The attempt was foiled when a guard spotted the inmates and ordered them to stop. Both did.
A two-fer! Shooting a baby in a crib - that's just over the top. Another guy named "Wayne" who went astray in life...
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Cedric Ransom
Murderer from Fort Worth executedHe used glass shard to try to stab attorney, prosecutor during trial
07/24/2003
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Fort Worth man who attacked one of his own attorneys and a prosecutor during his capital murder trial was executed Wednesday for robbing and fatally shooting a gun dealer, one of four slayings authorities linked him to during a 17-day spree in 1991.
In a brief final statement, Cedric Ransom thanked a friend and spiritual adviser who were present to watch him die.
"You have been beautiful to me. Without you in my life, I would not have been able to make it like this. Probably I would have put up a good fight. You have calmed me," he said.
Mr. Ransom, 29, was the 19th Texas inmate executed this year.
"He was a bad guy," said Richard Bland, one of the Tarrant County prosecutors who tried Mr. Ransom's case.
Besides the Dec. 7, 1991, slaying of optometrist and part-time gun dealer Herbert Primm, Mr. Bland said Mr. Ransom was involved in three fatal robberies of convenience stores.
Also Online
Texas Executions: Coverage from TXCN.com Related links Texas Department of Criminal Justice Scheduled executions Offenders on death row "Most people go to an ATM to get cash," Mr. Bland said. "He'd go to convenience stores and not leave any witnesses."
In late appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Ransom contended that he was mentally retarded and should be ineligible for execution. The high court rejected the appeals.
At the conclusion of jury selection during his trial, Mr. Ransom used a smuggled 5 ½-inch piece of broken glass hidden in his hand to try to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Mr. Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor.
"He was coming at me, and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!' " recalled Bob Gill, now a state district judge in Tarrant County. "He got to me and the fight was on. He and I went down. I knew what was in his hand, and I grabbed that arm with both my hands."
No one was seriously hurt in the November 1992 attack.
Mr. Ransom was later convicted of capital murder for gunning down Mr. Primm, 47, outside Mr. Primm's Arlington home.
Mr. Gill, removed from the case, wound up being a witness to help show how Mr. Ransom was a continuing threat, one of the questions jurors had to answer when determining a death sentence.
Mr. Ransom's death sentence was overturned in 1994 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial judge improperly excluded a potential juror. Prosecutors returned him to court in 1997 for another sentencing trial in which, against his lawyers' advice, he took the stand, denied he was guilty of the Primm slaying but confessed to multiple convenience-store murders.
The second jury also sentenced him to die.
Testimony showed that Mr. Ransom and three companions went to Mr. Primm's house to look at some guns. Mr. Primm, who held a federal firearms license, opened the trunk of his car – and the four pulled out their own weapons.
According to testimony, Mr. Primm told the gun thieves to "just take them," but Mr. Ransom bent him over the hood of the car and then shot Mr. Primm once in the head with a .44-caliber pistol. He was arrested three days later.
While in jail, he attacked a jailer, records show. And while on death row outside Huntsville in 1997, he and a second condemned inmate used a hacksaw blade to cut through a fence and were on their way to escaping when they were spotted by a guard.
"There is no question at all," Mr. Gill said. "This is one of the more dangerous guys I've come across in 20 years in the criminal courts."
Mr. Ransom's three companions in the Primm slaying also are in prison, serving terms of at least 20 years.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/072403dntexexecute.a14e.html
