The Houston Chronicle reports, "Appeal filed for woman set become state's 500th executed killer." It's by Allan Turner.
Lawyers for a Dallas woman scheduled to become Texas' 500 execution
since the death penalty was reinstated have filed an appeal, claiming
blacks were improperly excluded from her jury and her previous attorneys
did nothing about it.
Kimberly McCarthy,
52, an African-American woman convicted of murdering her 71-year-old
Anglo neighbor during a 1997 robbery to raise money to buy drugs, is
scheduled to be executed next Wednesday for the July 1997 murder of Dorothy Booth.
She would be the 500th killer executed in Texas since executions were
resumed in 1982, and the fourth woman to be executed by lethal
injection.
Maurie Levin of the University of Texas Capital Punishment Clinic filed the appeal to the Dallas trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals late Tuesday.
In it she asserts that Dallas County prosecutors inappropriately
eliminated three African-Americans from serving on McCarthy's jury. Only
one black sat on the jury that sentenced her to death. Two of the three
prosecutors, Levin charges, were trained under former Dallas County
District Attorney Henry Wade, a prosecutor whose three-decade tenure was criticized for discriminating against minorities.
The appeal cites a 2005 Dallas Morning News study that "being black
was the most important trait affecting which jurors prosecutors
rejected."
The appeal argues that McCarthy's trial lawyer was ineffective in not
challenging the elimination of blacks, and that her first state appeals
lawyer also was ineffective for not raising the issue.
"Appeal seeks halt to Texas woman's execution," is the AP filing, via KTRK-TV.
McCarthy's appeal, filed Tuesday to the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals, contends black jurors improperly were excluded from her trial
by Dallas County prosecutors and her lawyers should have challenged the
exclusions both at the trial and in early appeals. McCarthy is black;
her victim white. Of the 12 jurors at her trial, one was not white.
Maurie
Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing McCarthy, said
the punishment should be stopped and McCarthy's case reviewed in light
of a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision three weeks ago that backed another
Texas prisoner who raised similar arguments about deficient legal help.
"I do think her case does present some of the topical issues of
this decade," Levin said Wednesday, referring to a "pervasive influence
of race in administration of the death penalty and the inadequacy of
counsel -- a longstanding issue here."
The failings of McCarthy's earlier appellate help means no court ever has looked at McCarthy's claims, she said.
Jordan Smith writes, "Texas Poised to Hit 500th Execution," for the Austin Chronicle.
McCarthy was first slated to be executed in January, but that date
with death was halted by a Dallas County judge in order to consider a
claim that minority potential jurors were improperly struck by
prosecutors from serving in McCarthy's trial (it was actually her second
trial; her initial 1998 conviction was overturned after the courts
found that the state improperly included into evidence a statement
McCarthy made to police after she had "unambiguously" invoked her right
to counsel). In a letter to Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, McCarthy's attorney Maurie Levin
pointed out that at the time of McCarthy's trial racial discrimination
"pervaded" the county's jury selection process. Levin also noted that
Watkins had told The Dallas Morning News that he would advocate during the recently concluded 83rd Legislature for passage of the Texas Racial Justice Act, which would allow death row inmates to appeal based on claims that racism played a role in their conviction.
McCarthy's execution was postponed until April 3 and then again, to
June 26, on Watkins' request, in order to afford the Legislature time to
consider whether to pass a racial justice law – either Dallas Sen. Royce West's Senate Bill 1270 or Houston Rep. Senfronia Thompson's House Bill 2458. Neither bill was successful. Thompson's bill received a hearing in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, but was not called up for a vote; West's measure wasn't even given a hearing. Those bills were fashioned after the landmark Racial Justice Act passed by North Carolina; in early June, the Republican-led legislature there repealed the RJA.
Nonetheless, litigation is expected to continue as McCarthy's date
draws nearer. Indeed, an appeal filed June 18 again raises claims
related to racial bias. A separate filed motion seeks also to recuse CCA
Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and Judge Michael Keasler
from considering McCarthy's appeals based on the fact that both judges
once served as prosecutors in Dallas where McCarthy's case – and racial
bias claims – originated.
"Texas poised to execute 500th prisoner as lawyers fight to save her life," is Guardian coverage by Ed Pilkington, reporting from New York.
Lawyers in Texas
are fighting to save the life of a female prisoner scheduled to become
the 500th person to be executed by the state since the death penalty was
reinstated in America in 1976.
Barring a last-minute stay,
Kimberly McCarthy, 52, will face lethal injection next Wednesday for the
1997 murder of her neighbour. Should the execution be carried out, she
would be the 500th person put to death by Texas, a state that has shown
more enthusiasm in modern times for capital punishment than any other.
The
next seven days will be the culmination of an emotional and legal
rollercoaster for McCarthy. This is her third appointment with the death
chamber in the space of five months.
"She is a very spiritual
person. She believes what's meant to be is meant to be, and it's all in
God's hands," said Maurie Levin, McCarthy's legal counsel since January.
Now Levin has filed a new motion to stay execution with the Texas court of criminal appeals. The filing argues that McCarthy has suffered from two fundamental flaws that persistently crop up in death penalty cases.
The basis for the appeal is the Supreme Court's May ruling in Trevino v. Thaler, that an earlier high court ruling on standards for review of ineffective assistance of counsel claims applied in Texas cases. News coverage and commentary on Trevino begins at the link.
Earlier coverage of Kimberly McCarthy's case begins at the link. Related posts are in the female and race category indexes.