Texas is set to carry out its 11th execution of 2012, tonight in Huntsville. It would be the 488th post-Furman executions since 1982. Texas has the nation's most active death chamber and accounts for more than 37% of the executions in America's death penalty states.
"Pardons board rejects cop killer's request for clemency," is Allan Turner's report in the Houston Chronicle.
Harris County cop killer Anthony Haynes moved a step closer to execution on Tuesday when the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected his request that it recommend his death sentence be commuted to life in prison.
Haynes alternately had asked the board to recommend to Gov. Rick Perry that his execution be stayed for 90 days to allow for a review of his case. The board also rejected that request.
Haynes, 33, the son of a former Houston arson investigator, is to be put to death on Thursday for the fatal May 1998 shooting of off-duty Houston police Sgt. Kent Kincaid, 40.
The Austin Chronicle reports, "Two More in Line for Death Penalty," by Jordan Smith.
Jurors in Haynes' case deliberated for three days before sentencing the teen to death.That sentence was overturned, however, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Haynes' defense that an unusual jury-selection setup in Haynes' case had denied his right to equal protection under law. Indeed, two different judges presided over Haynes' jury selection; one heard prosecutors interview individual jurors, and a second heard the lawyers' arguments for striking from service the potential jurors. As it turned out, the state used its power to strike all but one of the black potential jurors, arguing that it was not their race that excluded them (which would be illegal), but their "demeanor." But Haynes' appeal attorney argued that the judge who allowed those strikes had not actually witnessed the jurors' questioning and thus could not actually have seen whether their demeanor would be a basis on which to have them struck. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately disagreed with the 5th Circuit, ruling that there was no rule that would require a judge to "personally observe" the juror questioning when deciding whether a juror is lawfully struck from service.
To date, there have been 32 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,309 post-Furman executions since 1977.
Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CST), Thursday.
According to TDCJ, eight additional executions have been scheduled by Texas district courts, including two set for 2013. The next scheduled Texas execution in October 24.
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