"Former death row inmate agrees to life without parole," is the San Antonio Express-News report written by Craig Kapitan.
A former youth pastor who spent three years on death row for the murder of his pregnant teen girlfriend was given a new sentence Thursday: life in prison without parole.
In exchange for prosecutors no longer seeking the death penalty, Adrian Estrada, 27, agreed to forgo all rights to appeal the case.
A jury sentenced Estrada to death in 2007 for the Dec. 12, 2005, stabbing and strangulation of Stephanie Sanchez, 17. He had been a youth pastor at El Sendero Assembly of God when he impregnated the teen several times, according to testimony from his trial.
But during the sentencing phase, an expert for the state accidentally gave misleading information to jurors on the danger Estrada could pose to society in the future, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled last year. The appellate court ordered the punishment phase retried.
Defense lawyer Brian Stull, a North Carolina-based staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project, appeared to struggle with emotion Thursday as he read aloud a letter his client had written to the victim's family.
“I understand my actions have caused many people tremendous amounts of pain,” Estrada wrote. “I regret many things I did, particularly the way I treated (Sanchez).”
Estrada was too nervous to read the letter himself, Stull said.
And:
Although he's the first, Estrada might not be the only death row inmate who gets a second chance at punishment because of the erroneous testimony of prison expert A.P. Merillat, said Stull of the ACLU.
Merillat told jurors in the Estrada case that after 10 years in prison, Estrada could potentially be given a lower, less restrictive inmate classification that might result in him being put in the prison's general population. To give the death penalty, jurors have to decide a defendant would be a future danger to society, including fellow prison inmates.
Jurors mentioned the testimony in a note to the judge while deliberating.
“He has made the same error in other cases,” Stull said of Merillat. “We think it could have wide-ranging ramifications. Each case has to play itself out in court.”
The ACLU Capital Punishment Project, which represented Estrada, issued a news release, "ACLU Client Agrees To Life In Prison After Death Sentence Thrown Out Because Of False Testimony. Death Penalty System In Texas And Across Country Riddled With Flaws And Errors."
An American Civil Liberties Union client whose death sentence was thrown out last year after the highest criminal court in Texas ruled it was based on the false testimony of a state expert agreed today to a new sentence of life in prison.
Adrian Estrada’s death sentence was thrown out last June after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that A.P. Merillat, who investigates prison crimes for Texas, wrongly testified that, if allowed to live, Estrada could receive a prisoner classification that would allow him to leave the prison grounds. This testimony led the jury to find that Estrada posed a future threat to society. Merillat, who has testified in numerous other death penalty cases in Texas, told prosecutors after Estrada’s sentence was thrown out, “I don’t know if my presence in your courthouses would serve you or your cases well.”
“Death sentences such as Mr. Estrada’s that are based on false or misleading testimony are just one of the many fatal flaws of the U.S. death penalty system,” said Brian Stull, an attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “The nation’s death penalty system is riddled with error and death sentences are handed out in unfair and unjust manners. This case provides clear evidence of the urgent need for Texas and all other death penalty states to abolish capital punishment and replace it with the sentence of permanent imprisonment.”
Jurors in Estrada’s 2007 sentencing trial were incorrectly told by Merillat that if Estrada were given a sentence of life without parole instead of the death penalty, he could be eligible for a classification level that would allow him to leave the prison grounds after 10 years of imprisonment. Two juror notes strongly suggested that Merillat’s false testimony led to their decision to sentence Estrada to death.
In a 66-page ruling issued in June, Jude Barbara Hervey of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals wrote, “This information, now properly before this court, demonstrates there is a fair probability that appellant’s death sentence was based upon incorrect testimony as evidenced by the jury’s notes. We believe that the Supreme Court would find this to be constitutionally intolerable.”
Estrada agreed to his new sentence before state District Court Judge Sid Harle in Bexar County, TX.
Earlier coverage of Adrian Estrada's case begins at the link.
Related posts are in the expert witnesses, mitigation, and sentencing indexes.
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