Post by CCADP on Jul 31, 2005 17:38:19 GMT -5
www.heralddemocrat.com/articles/2005/07/31/texas_news/iq_1908155.txt
Texas killer put to death for Minnesota student's slaying
By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - With the parents of his victim watching through a window a few feet from him, a condemned Texas prisoner quietly went to his death for raping, strangling and slashing their daughter eight years ago at an Austin park.
David Martinez, 29, became the 10th inmate executed this year in Texas, which leads the nation in carrying out capital punishment.
The lethal injection Thursday evening came moments after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals that sought to block the execution.
Martinez was convicted of the July 1997 slaying of Kiersa Paul, 24, a sophomore art student at the University of Minnesota who was visiting her sister in Austin, decided to stay longer and had found a job as a cashier at a bakery. She and Martinez met through mutual friends where they all shot pool at an Austin club.
Paul's parents, from Bloomington, Minn., and another of their daughters were among the people in a death chamber witness area. They held hands tightly as Martinez made only brief eye contact with them. He had a short statement, sputtered and gasped before slipping into unconsciousness.
"Only the sky and the green grass goes on forever, and today is a good day to die," Martinez said.
David Martinez
Eight minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms, he was pronounced dead.
The night she died, Paul told her sister she was going to a popular Austin park along the Barton Creek greenbelt to meet a guy she knew only as "Wolf," which was Martinez's nickname.
The next morning her body was found by a jogger. Her wounds included at least eight slashes to her throat and an "X" carved into her chest.
Martinez was arrested days later. A Travis County jury deliberated only 15 minutes at his 1998 trial before convicting him of capital murder. Two weeks later, they decided he should be put to death.
In their appeals, defense attorneys argued prosecutors in Travis County should have done more to investigate claims of Martinez's abusive childhood. Jurors who determined he should be put to death should have had more of that information so they could have better considered whether a life prison term would have been more appropriate, lawyers said in their appeals.
"The case on guilt-innocence was fairly overwhelming," Darla Davis, a Travis County assistant district attorney who was one of the trial prosecutors, said Wednesday. "We had DNA, we had hair consistent with his in her hand, he had her belongings, and he had a knife with her blood on it."
Bill White, one of Martinez's trial lawyers, said the defense strategy at the capital murder trial was not to convince jurors of Martinez's innocence but to focus on punishment.
"Our goal was to bring forward evidence in terms of his own life in his family and how he grew up and the circumstances that certainly were not the best," White said. "My idea was to try to talk them out of death."
Court documents indicated Martinez's mother, who also witnessed the execution, may have abused and neglected him. Their house was filled with bird feces. His father was living elsewhere in an openly gay relationship and involved in the manufacture of sadomasochistic sex toys. When Martinez stayed there, he also may have been abused. Later, Martinez at times lived on the streets of Austin.
Appeals lawyers tracked down his father, but they said he refused to cooperate. He also had refused to testify at Martinez's trial.
At the time of the slaying, Martinez was on probation for a 1995 conviction for possession of an explosive device, a homemade hand grenade police found in his car during a traffic stop.
At least eight other Texas death row inmates have execution dates, two in each of the next four months.
Texas killer put to death for Minnesota student's slaying
By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - With the parents of his victim watching through a window a few feet from him, a condemned Texas prisoner quietly went to his death for raping, strangling and slashing their daughter eight years ago at an Austin park.
David Martinez, 29, became the 10th inmate executed this year in Texas, which leads the nation in carrying out capital punishment.
The lethal injection Thursday evening came moments after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals that sought to block the execution.
Martinez was convicted of the July 1997 slaying of Kiersa Paul, 24, a sophomore art student at the University of Minnesota who was visiting her sister in Austin, decided to stay longer and had found a job as a cashier at a bakery. She and Martinez met through mutual friends where they all shot pool at an Austin club.
Paul's parents, from Bloomington, Minn., and another of their daughters were among the people in a death chamber witness area. They held hands tightly as Martinez made only brief eye contact with them. He had a short statement, sputtered and gasped before slipping into unconsciousness.
"Only the sky and the green grass goes on forever, and today is a good day to die," Martinez said.
David Martinez
Eight minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms, he was pronounced dead.
The night she died, Paul told her sister she was going to a popular Austin park along the Barton Creek greenbelt to meet a guy she knew only as "Wolf," which was Martinez's nickname.
The next morning her body was found by a jogger. Her wounds included at least eight slashes to her throat and an "X" carved into her chest.
Martinez was arrested days later. A Travis County jury deliberated only 15 minutes at his 1998 trial before convicting him of capital murder. Two weeks later, they decided he should be put to death.
In their appeals, defense attorneys argued prosecutors in Travis County should have done more to investigate claims of Martinez's abusive childhood. Jurors who determined he should be put to death should have had more of that information so they could have better considered whether a life prison term would have been more appropriate, lawyers said in their appeals.
"The case on guilt-innocence was fairly overwhelming," Darla Davis, a Travis County assistant district attorney who was one of the trial prosecutors, said Wednesday. "We had DNA, we had hair consistent with his in her hand, he had her belongings, and he had a knife with her blood on it."
Bill White, one of Martinez's trial lawyers, said the defense strategy at the capital murder trial was not to convince jurors of Martinez's innocence but to focus on punishment.
"Our goal was to bring forward evidence in terms of his own life in his family and how he grew up and the circumstances that certainly were not the best," White said. "My idea was to try to talk them out of death."
Court documents indicated Martinez's mother, who also witnessed the execution, may have abused and neglected him. Their house was filled with bird feces. His father was living elsewhere in an openly gay relationship and involved in the manufacture of sadomasochistic sex toys. When Martinez stayed there, he also may have been abused. Later, Martinez at times lived on the streets of Austin.
Appeals lawyers tracked down his father, but they said he refused to cooperate. He also had refused to testify at Martinez's trial.
At the time of the slaying, Martinez was on probation for a 1995 conviction for possession of an explosive device, a homemade hand grenade police found in his car during a traffic stop.
At least eight other Texas death row inmates have execution dates, two in each of the next four months.