Following Rick Perry's rejection of clemency for Robert Thompson, recommended by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Texas conducted its 23nd execution of 2009, last night in Huntsville. It was the 446th Texas execution since 1982. Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's post-Furman executions.
To date, there have been 48 executions in the nation this year; 1,184 since 1977.
According to TDCJ, one more execution is scheduled in Texas during 2009, on December 3rd. Five execution dates have already been set in Texas for 2010.
As noted in the preceding post, Governor Perry's statement is here.
"Perry rejects clemency in death penalty case," is the title of Mike Ward's report in today's Austin American-Statesman.
Thompson did not fire at the slaying victim, though he participated in the robbery and shot another clerk four times, according to official reports. The second clerk lived.Perry's decision came after the state Board of Pardons and Paroles had voted 5-2 on Wednesday to recommend that Perry commute Thompson's death sentence to life in prison, a rare move for the panel.
It was the second time in two years that the parole board had made such a recommendation in a case involving Texas' controversial "law of parties," which allows accomplices in capital crimes to face the death penalty even if they did not actually kill. Perry commuted the other sentence.
More than a half dozen other Texas inmates have been executed under the law of parties in recent years, despite last-minute requests for clemency.
Thompson was sentenced to death for being an accomplice when Mohammed, 29, was shot. Thompson's partner in crime and the triggerman, Sammy Butler, was sentenced to life in prison.
Allan Turner writes, "Killer executed after Perry rejects panel's advice," for the Houston Chronicle.
Robert Lee Thompson, 34, didn't fire the shot that killed clerk Mansoor Rahim, also identified as Mansoor Rahim Mohammed, during a robbery of the Seven Evenings convenience store on Braeswood Boulevard. But a Harris County jury sentenced him to death under the state's “law of parties,” which holds accomplices as responsible for a murder as the person who does the killing. The triggerman, Sammy Butler, was sentenced to life in prison after prosecutors failed to prove he intended to kill Rahim.
In the punishment phase of Thompson's trial, prosecutors contended the men had been involved in at least eight other robberies, some of which resulted in the deaths of store employees.
Thompson's case marked the third time the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has recommended that a death sentence be commuted to life in prison during Perry's years as governor. He has voluntarily commuted only one death sentence during his tenure as governor.
The AP report by Michael Graczyk is"Man executed after Perry rejects parole board's clemency, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The parole board’s 5-2 vote came in response to a petition from Patrick McCann, Thompson’s attorney, who argued that Thompson’s case was similar to that of Kenneth Foster, who was also convicted and sentenced to die under the law of parties.
Foster was only the second inmate since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982 who won a recommendation from the parole board as his execution loomed. The first recommendation was for Kelsey Patterson, a mentally ill inmate, in 2004
Perry rejected the board’s recommendation, and Patterson was executed. But he commuted Foster’s sentence.
Perry’s explanation for commuting Foster’s sentence was that Foster and his co-defendant were tried together on capital murder charges for a slaying in San Antonio. In Thompson’s case, he and Butler were tried separately.
At least a half-dozen other Texas inmates have been executed under the law of parties.
Since 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the death penalty for co-conspirators who don’t kill. The justices made an exception in 1987, however, ruling that the Eighth Amendment didn’t prohibit the execution of someone who plays a major role in a felony that results in murder and whose mental state is one of reckless indifference.
At the Dallas Morning News Death Penalty blog, Michael Landauer posts, "A simple reform on law of parties."
If lawmakers are not willing to change the so-called law of parties in Texas, where an accomplice can be executed for a capital crime, then I have one simple proposal. Why not require by law that the triggerman be tried first?
In the case of Robert Lee Thompson, executed last night despite a rare recommendation of clemency from the parole board, it would have made the trial a bit fairer. As it is, Thompson was tried first. In his punishment phase, others testified about other crimes he had committed. Prosecutors argued that he had wanted to deliver a fatal shot to the clerk he inujured, but his gun was out of bullets.
Later, int he trial of the gunman who did fire a fatal bullet, prosecutors failed to secure a death penalty because jurors were not sure murder was the motive. Robbery seemed to be.
There's a lot of assuming going on in cases like this. But one jury found as a matter of fact that the accomplice knew that murder was going to be the result of the crime. Another jury didn't see it that way. Duel trials aren't fair, either.
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