Post by ex member on Apr 20, 2005 9:28:15 GMT -5
As you all may know, there was a double execution scheduled for tonight in Texas. Douglas Roberts and Milton Mathis. Well, yesterday Milton received a stay!!!
Court blocks execution of Houston killer
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted one of the two executions set for Wednesday when it granted a reprieve to condemned inmate Milton Mathis, whose lawyers contended may be mentally retarded.
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Mathis, 26, was to have been the second of two convicted killers to receive lethal injection Wednesday evening. He was convicted of the fatal shootings of two men at a Houston crack house in December 1998.
In a short five-paragraph order, the court today said arguments about Mathis' mental retardation should be reviewed by his trial court in Fort Bend County.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of the mentally retarded.
Mathis' attorneys also contended his execution, if carried out, would violate his rights unless he could get a full hearing on the claims of mental retardation.
Still scheduled to die Wednesday is Douglas Roberts, 42, for the abduction and fatal stabbing of a San Antonio man in 1996.
The double execution would have been the first in Texas in nearly five years and just the fourth time there's been a multiple execution on a single day in the state since executions resumed here in 1982.
Roberts, at his request, had no appeals pending in the courts to try to stop his punishment. It would be the fifth execution of the year in Texas.
Court blocks execution of Houston killer
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted one of the two executions set for Wednesday when it granted a reprieve to condemned inmate Milton Mathis, whose lawyers contended may be mentally retarded.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mathis, 26, was to have been the second of two convicted killers to receive lethal injection Wednesday evening. He was convicted of the fatal shootings of two men at a Houston crack house in December 1998.
In a short five-paragraph order, the court today said arguments about Mathis' mental retardation should be reviewed by his trial court in Fort Bend County.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of the mentally retarded.
Mathis' attorneys also contended his execution, if carried out, would violate his rights unless he could get a full hearing on the claims of mental retardation.
Still scheduled to die Wednesday is Douglas Roberts, 42, for the abduction and fatal stabbing of a San Antonio man in 1996.
The double execution would have been the first in Texas in nearly five years and just the fourth time there's been a multiple execution on a single day in the state since executions resumed here in 1982.
Roberts, at his request, had no appeals pending in the courts to try to stop his punishment. It would be the fifth execution of the year in Texas.