Texas is scheduled to carry out its sixth execution of 2012, tonight in Huntsville. It would be the state's 483rd post-Furman execution since 1982. Texas has far and away the most active execution chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions.
The San Antonio Express-News reports, "1996 slaying victim's family awaits killer's final hours," by Michelle Mondo.
For more than 15 years, David Cook's mother waited for the day her son's convicted killer would be executed.
Barring last minute appeals, that day has been set for a second time and Anthony Bartee, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday. If the execution proceeds as planned, it comes two months after Bartee received a stay from his first scheduled date in February.
And:
David Dow, Bartee's attorney won the stay just days before the Feb. 28 execution date because DNA testing previously ordered had not been done on hairs found on the victim's hand. Those results were returned in mid-April and the report showed the mitochondrial DNA — shared by maternal relatives — matched that of David Cook.
State District Court Judge Mary Román ruled the results wouldn't have impacted the outcome of the trial and said Bartee's new execution date would not be withdrawn. Dow appealed that decision Monday arguing that glasses and cigarettes collected at the time of the killing should also be tested.
Dow also is asking his client's sentence be commuted to life without parole or that he get a 120-day reprieve to go over additional tests.
Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link.
Bartee's execution would be the 244th execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry. He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000. 152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.
To date, there have been 18 executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,295 post-Furman executions since 1977.
Last night, Oklahoma executed Michael Selsor; He had been on the state's death row since 1976. It was Oklahoma's third execution of 2012.
Reuters posts, "Oklahoma executes man sentenced to death twice," written by Steve Olafson. It's via the Chicago Tribune.
A convicted Oklahoma killer who was spared execution once but asked for a new trial and was sentenced to death a second time was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday.
Michael B. Selsor, 57, was the 18th person executed in the United States this year and the third person executed in Oklahoma in 2012. He was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. local time (1106 GMT) at the state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, a prison spokesman said.
And:
Selsor was sentenced to death in 1976, but later that year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Oklahoma's capital punishment law was unconstitutional and his sentence was modified to life in prison.
With Oklahoma's death penalty briefly in limbo, the state's criminal appeals court decided in 1976 that former death row inmates whose sentences were modified would not face the death penalty again should they win new trials. The death penalty in Oklahoma was restored in 1977.
Selsor sought a new trial and received one in 1998. But again he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in 1997 overruled one of its earlier rulings affecting inmates like Selsor, opening the death penalty option at his new trial, according to one of his lawyers Gary Peterson.
Selsor immediately appealed his second death sentence but was told he had no right to be warned that Oklahoma law could be changed to make him eligible for the death penalty at his second trial, Peterson said.
"It's a tragic story," Peterson said. "He just had the legal rug pulled out from under him."
TDCJ notes that seven additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012.
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