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Death row convict granted hearing of mental retardation 03/13/2003 Associated Press AUSTIN - A Dallas man on death row for 13 years for killing a security guard was granted a new hearing by a Texas appeals court Wednesday to address claims that he is mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that people with mental retardation cannot be executed because it violates the constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Gayland Bradford, 34, was convicted in the shooting death of Brian Edward Williams, 29, during a robbery at a south Dallas convenience store in 1988. At Bradford's...

Texas to execute 300th inmate 03/12/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - In the 22 years since convicted killer Delma Banks arrived on Texas death row, he's watched 299 prisoners be taken away for execution. Barring a U.S. Supreme Court reprieve, he'll be No. 300 Wednesday night. "You're talking to men, one day they move them out and they don't return," Banks, 44, condemned for a fatal shooting near Texarkana, recently told the Houston Chronicle. In spending more than half of his life awaiting lethal injection, Banks has been on death row longer than the 16-year-old victim in his case,...

Execution of repeat burglar set 03/11/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Death row inmate Bobby Glen Cook admits to being a thief but insisted he was no killer. "I've never been violent," says Cook, 41, condemned for the 1993 shooting death of an East Texas fisherman. "Just thefts." Cook, with an extensive criminal record, faced lethal injection Tuesday night for the murder of Edwin Earl Holder, 42, of Buffalo. Also Online Texas Executions: Coverage from TXCN.com Offender profile: Bobby Glen Cook Related links Texas Department of Criminal Justice Scheduled executions Offenders on death row At the time of the...

'No protest' on Osama execution 07mar03 AUSTRALIA would not intervene if Osama bin Laden was to be executed, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said. The Australian Government opposed capital punishment in principle, but its stance did not necessarily apply to the al-Qaeda mastermind, Mr Downer said today. His comments follow Prime Minister John Howard's statement today that he thought everyone would welcome bin Laden's death. Mr Howard told American viewers that if bin Laden was caught, he would be dealt with in accordance with United States law and that provided for capital punishment. "The Government doesn't support the death penalty...

Feb. 24, 2003, 9:16AM `I'm trying to get off death row' Inmate seeking stay with retardation claim By RACHEL GRAVES Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Christobal Perez / Chronicle Death row inmate Richard Head claims he is mentally retarded and therefore should not be executed for the 1997 slaying of a woman in a wheelchair. Prosecutors say Williams has low-average intelligence but is not retarded. LIVINGSTON -- Squashed in a tiny, barred cell and wearing a white prison jumpsuit, Richard Head Williams displayed a shy, gaptoothed smile and posed for a photographer as though he were a fashion model, not a...

Two Central Intelligence Agency operatives have been captured by Marxist guerrillas in Colombia, it appeared yesterday, while another two were dead, perhaps assassinated, after a light aircraft they were travelling in crash-landed. United States officials were prepared only to admit that one of their aircraft, carrying four American citizens and a Colombian, was forced to make an emergency landing in the guerrilla-dominated southern province of Caqueta. "Somewhere during the flight, the engine cut out and they were looking for a place to put down," said a State Department spokesman, Chip Barclay. Sources in the Colombian defence ministry have indicated there...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- The state has executed a man convicted of stabbing and strangling an 18-year-old college student after he lured her to a bogus job interview. Richard E. Fox, 47, died by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He had confessed to the slaying, and his attorneys last week said there were no legal issues left to review. It was Ohio's sixth execution since the state resumed the death penalty in 1999. "He's been very upbeat, spending the last few hours with his family members," said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, hours...

Convicted killer in gay-bashing case set to die 02/06/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Convicted killer Henry Dunn Jr. says a murder conviction that earned him a trip to Texas' death row wasn't a gay-bashing hate crime, at least not on his part. Dunn, 28, doesn't deny being present when 23-year-old Nicolas West was gunned down during an abduction and robbery near Tyler more than nine years ago, but says the man primarily to blame was a companion also condemned for the slaying. "I did admit to being at the crime scene," Dunn said from a cage in the...

It did not appear to have been covered today but, yesterday, February 4, 2003, the state of Texas executed the murderer John Elliot. He was the 7th evil doer that Texas has disposed of so far this year.Elliot's case brought out the usual leftest whackos protesting his punishment. These whackos always pick some sort of particular fact in the murderer's makeup on which to base a claim that he should not be executed. "He was under age18 when him murdered all those people," "he is border line retarded," "he has found religion and is a different person," and "the jury...

FREDERICK ANTHONY Romano remembers the night. More than 15 years later, he remembers it as if it happened within the last week. It was Sunday night, Nov. 1, 1987. Seventeen-year-old Romano had gone to bed. His mother, Betty Romano, was in the house with him and his father, Frederick Joseph Romano. Soon the father received a call from his son-in-law Keith Garvin, a Navy petty officer who had returned to his base in Oceana, Va. Garvin had called his wife, Dawn Garvin, to let her know he had arrived back safely. But there was no answer. After two calls to...

Convicted killer with U.S.-British citizenship set to die 02/03/2003 Associated Press LIVINGSTON, Texas - John Elliott already was a convicted murderer and burglar but was out of prison on early release and on probation when he was arrested for participating in a gang rape and then using a chain to fatally beat an 18-year-old Austin woman. "If that happened today, what kind of firestorm would there have been in the media?" Juan Gonzales, an Austin homicide sergeant in 1986 who investigated the slaying of Joyce Munguia, said Monday. "He had no business being out in society again, at least...

Inmate executed for 1988 burglary-slaying 01/31/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Delivering his final statement in French and English, a burglar who authorities said began his career while in elementary school was executed Thursday for fatally bludgeoning an Amarillo man with a tire iron during a home burglary. "I love all of you," Granville Riddle said, speaking first in French and then in English. "I have no grudges against anyone and I would like to say to the world I have always been a nice person. "I've never been mean-hearted or cruel. I wish everybody well." With his Swiss...

Convict to die for burglary-slaying 01/30/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Convicted killer Granville Riddle describes himself as ordinary. "I'm just a normal small town boy," he says on an Internet Web site devoted to prisoners seeking pen pals. "I am caring and I am considerate." His record disputes that, culminating with a capital murder conviction and a scheduled trip to the Texas death chamber Thursday evening. AP Granville Riddle "He's been a problem for law enforcement since he got old enough to even think about being a problem for law enforcement," says Randall Sims, an assistant district attorney...

Execution set for killer of two nurses 01/29/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - It was a smoke alarm that brought emergency workers to a Beaumont massage therapy clinic, but when they arrived they discovered no evidence of a fire. Instead, they found two women, both fatally shot. A former clinic patient, Richard Dinkins, faced execution Wednesday night for their deaths. His appeals were exhausted and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles this week refused to spare him from becoming the fifth Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the second of three on consecutive evenings this...

Killer of Austin store clerk set for execution 01/28/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Former gang member and drug dealer Alva Curry remembers when he and a companion burst into an Austin convenience store more than 11 years ago and fatally shot the clerk during a robbery that netted them $220. "I don't think I even had a goal," Curry says. "I had been drinking but I'm not using that as an excuse." The attack was caught on tape by the store's security camera. AP Alva Curry A week later, Curry and friend Mark Davis were at it again,...

Supreme Court to allow execution of mentally ill inmate 01/25/2003 The Associated PressCONROE, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for a new execution date to be set for a convicted killer granted a last-minute stay in late 2002 because he is mentally ill.The high court quietly lifted its Nov. 6 stay last Tuesday for James Colburn, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who has spent time in a prison psychiatric ward several times.The former carpenter and bricklayer confessed to police and, last year, to reporters that he choked and stabbed 55-year-old Peggy Louise Murphy to death on June...

Execution halted; lawyer says FW man is retarded County court to determine killer's mental capacity 01/22/2003 By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday stayed the execution of a 41-year-old Fort Worth murderer after his attorney argued that the man is retarded. Elkie Lee Taylor, 41, a former laborer, had been scheduled to die Thursday for using a coat hanger to strangle retiree Otis Flake, 64, to death in 1993 in Fort Worth. Mr. Taylor and an accomplice robbed the man's home of a television, pots, pans, dishes and other items....

(Editor's Note: The following is a reprint of an award-winning column originally published June 20, 2000, in light of this past weekend's actions by Illinois governor George Ryan, who commuted the sentences of every Illinois death row inmate.) Breakfast conversation ranges far and wide at Sparky's Diner, where the problems of any given day are dispatched with the finest Texas wisdom. Or not. So, I should not have been surprised to find myself in the middle of the current death penalty debate. A study out of Columbia University found 68 percent of all death penalty cases appealed between 1973 and...

Man who killed child set to be executed 01/15/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Arturo Marines remembers going to bed after eating pizza and drinking milk with his 5-year-old daughter, Adriana, who remained curled up on the family's couch with her cousin to watch a fairy tale: "Sleeping Beauty." Shortly after falling asleep, the father awoke to the sound of the front door of his Corpus Christi home being kicked in, then gunshots. He held his daughter's lifeless body. It was a nightmare, Arturo Marines says. But he hopes to close one chapter on Wednesday night when he witnesses...