Texas Execution

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 20th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would b the state's 443rd 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 42 executions in the nation this year; 1,178 since 1977.

AP's Michael Graczyk files, "Bible at issue in Texas execution case," via the Houston Chronicle.

A 32-year-old man convicted of using a rifle to fatally beat and shoot an East Texas man during a burglary is headed to the death chamber.

It's a case where lawyers questioned whether jurors in their deliberations may have improperly used a Bible to justify their decisions.

State and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have upheld the conviction and death sentence of Khristian Oliver. He's condemned for the 1998 slaying of 64-year-old Joe Collins at his home outside Nacogdoches.

Chronicle columnist Lisa Gray writes a must-read, "Life, death and the prodigal son."

Every death penalty case raises big, Biblical themes: vengeance versus mercy, punishment versus redemption, the Old Testament versus the New.

But never have those themes been plainer than they are in the case of 32-year-old Khristian Oliver, who — pending a last-minute stay of execution — will be executed this evening.

During his murder trial in Nacogdoches, jurors brought four Bibles into the jury room. To decide his fate, they turned to the Old Testament, to eye-for-an-eye verses including Numbers 35:19: The revenger of blood shall himself slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.

Of course, jurors are supposed to interpret state law, not the Bible. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those jurors “had crossed an important line” by using specific Bible verses to decide whether Oliver would live or die, that the U.S. Constitution prohibits that sort of “external influence.” And last month, Amnesty International called to have Khristian's sentence commuted.

But so far, the Old Testament penalty stands.

Biblical themes have long been the domain of Khristian's father, Kermit Oliver, a well-known painter and the first African-American artist represented by a major Houston gallery.

Kermit often used his family as models in his allegorical paintings: His fans recognize his wife, Katie, who is also a painter, and their three children. Khristian, the youngest, is the blond one, the boy who looks white, lighter-skinned even than his light-skinned parents. Not long after his birth, he was the central figure in Young Mitras in Gown Designed for His Presentation to the Temple.

And:

In his 10 years on death row, Khristian earned a paralegal degree. He illustrated books for his daughter. And he began reading the classics that his father loves: the works of Plato, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Significantly, the once rebellious son of painters began to paint, working with the cheap watercolor sets available in prison. On visits, his parents would give him “challenges” to sharpen his skills.

Alvia Wardlaw, who curated Kermit Oliver's 2005 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, says that as Khristian developed as a painter his works filled with color and light. Like Kermit, he began to paint the allegories.

Supporters have sent letters to Gov. Rick Perry pleading for a stay of execution — time to run DNA tests on the rifle — or that his sentence be changed to life in prison.

On Wednesday, Houston friends of the family were considering where they could gather to wait for tonight's news. One possibility was Trinity Episcopal Church's Morrow Chapel, where the altarpiece is a painting Kermit made a few years after Khristian's trial. Resurrection is one of his most powerful works.

A photograph of the painting is at the LINK

The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel reports, "Khristian Oliver set to die by lethal injection." It's written by Christy Wooten.

According to TDCJ, five additional executions are scheduled in Texas during 2009.  Four execution dates have already been set for 2010 in Texas.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 20th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would b the state's 443rd 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 42 executions in the nation this year; 1,178 since 1977.

AP's Michael Graczyk files, "Bible at issue in Texas execution case," via the Houston Chronicle.

A 32-year-old man convicted of using a rifle to fatally beat and shoot an East Texas man during a burglary is headed to the death chamber.

It's a case where lawyers questioned whether jurors in their deliberations may have improperly used a Bible to justify their decisions.

State and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have upheld the conviction and death sentence of Khristian Oliver. He's condemned for the 1998 slaying of 64-year-old Joe Collins at his home outside Nacogdoches.

Chronicle columnist Lisa Gray writes a must-read, "Life, death and the prodigal son."

Every death penalty case raises big, Biblical themes: vengeance versus mercy, punishment versus redemption, the Old Testament versus the New.

But never have those themes been plainer than they are in the case of 32-year-old Khristian Oliver, who — pending a last-minute stay of execution — will be executed this evening.

During his murder trial in Nacogdoches, jurors brought four Bibles into the jury room. To decide his fate, they turned to the Old Testament, to eye-for-an-eye verses including Numbers 35:19: The revenger of blood shall himself slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.

Of course, jurors are supposed to interpret state law, not the Bible. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those jurors “had crossed an important line” by using specific Bible verses to decide whether Oliver would live or die, that the U.S. Constitution prohibits that sort of “external influence.” And last month, Amnesty International called to have Khristian's sentence commuted.

But so far, the Old Testament penalty stands.

Biblical themes have long been the domain of Khristian's father, Kermit Oliver, a well-known painter and the first African-American artist represented by a major Houston gallery.

Kermit often used his family as models in his allegorical paintings: His fans recognize his wife, Katie, who is also a painter, and their three children. Khristian, the youngest, is the blond one, the boy who looks white, lighter-skinned even than his light-skinned parents. Not long after his birth, he was the central figure in Young Mitras in Gown Designed for His Presentation to the Temple.

And:

In his 10 years on death row, Khristian earned a paralegal degree. He illustrated books for his daughter. And he began reading the classics that his father loves: the works of Plato, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Significantly, the once rebellious son of painters began to paint, working with the cheap watercolor sets available in prison. On visits, his parents would give him “challenges” to sharpen his skills.

Alvia Wardlaw, who curated Kermit Oliver's 2005 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, says that as Khristian developed as a painter his works filled with color and light. Like Kermit, he began to paint the allegories.

Supporters have sent letters to Gov. Rick Perry pleading for a stay of execution — time to run DNA tests on the rifle — or that his sentence be changed to life in prison.

On Wednesday, Houston friends of the family were considering where they could gather to wait for tonight's news. One possibility was Trinity Episcopal Church's Morrow Chapel, where the altarpiece is a painting Kermit made a few years after Khristian's trial. Resurrection is one of his most powerful works.

A photograph of the painting is at the LINK

The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel reports, "Khristian Oliver set to die by lethal injection." It's written by Christy Wooten.

According to TDCJ, five additional executions are scheduled in Texas during 2009.  Four execution dates have already been set for 2010 in Texas.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.