Post by CCADP on Aug 25, 2005 9:44:31 GMT -5
Newton maintains her innocence, keeps hope -- A new clemency petition
continues the legal duel as execution looms for woman convicted of killing
family
A cloud of verbal gunsmoke hung over Frances Newton's capital-murder case
Wednesday as defense attorneys and prosecutors dueled about the existence
of a mystery pistol allegedly seized as evidence from the scene of the
1987 execution-style killings of Newton's husband and 2 young children.
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal adamantly denied the existence of such a
weapon and accused defense attorney David Dow of making up his theory "out
of whole cloth."
The reality of a second gun is key to defense efforts to save Newton,
convicted of killing her family to reap $100,000 in insurance benefits,
from a Sept. 14 execution. The killer's attorneys hope the existence of a
second pistol would diminish damning prosecution evidence that Newton
dumped the murder weapon miles from her home on the night of the killings.
Markings on .25-caliber bullets test-fired from that weapon repeatedly
have been found to match those removed from the victim's bodies.
"What we think happened is that multiple guns were recovered," Dow said,
"and that the serial numbers were not noted at the time, the location of
recovery not noted, the time of recovery not noted. By the time they made
it to the ballistics lab, it was not known which gun was recovered where."
In filings on Newton's behalf with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and
the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Dow and his Texas Innocence
Network colleague Jared Tyler contend that the existence of a 2nd pistol
was confirmed by a Harris County prosecutor in a June 2004 television
interview with Dutch reporters.
In that broadcast, Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson said a weapon
had been found, but she noted that it belonged to Newton's husband, had
not been fired and had no significance in the investigation. Now, though,
Wilson has advised Rosenthal and the appeals court that she was wrong.
Bullets, but no gun, were recovered from the murder scene.
Dow, who argued in his filings that prosecutors improperly had kept the
second gun's existence from defense attorneys, called Wilson's recantation
"incredible."
Rosenthal countered that if a second pistol had been recovered, it would
have been listed in an inventory of evidence.
"The defense attorneys read our file," he said. "We didn't hide anything
from them."
As the legal skirmish continues, Newton, 40, spends what may be her final
days in a death row cell at Gatesville's Mountain View Unit. In a tearful
prison interview this week, she again insisted on her innocence and
denounced state and federal courts of "rubber stamping" the jury's
sentence of death during reviews of her case in the past 13 years.
"For a long time," she said, "I believed in the death penalty. I would
have thought that a person who harmed her children should be punished to
the fullest extent of the law. But now I know that the system can't be
trusted to be right. I've been wrongly accused, wrongly convicted.
"It's happened to me; it's happened to other people."
Newton, who once attended the University of Houston-Downtown and aspired
to be a TV news reporter, has spent nearly 17 years on death row for the
April 7, 1987, murder of her husband, Adrian Newton, 23, her son, Alton,
7, and her daughter, Farrah, 21 months.
If executed, she would be the 1st black woman legally put to death in
Texas since the Civil War. 2 other women have received lethal injections
since the state resumed executions in 1982.
In announcing filing of a clemency petition Wednesday, Dow noted that
defense lawyers have gained the support of two jurors who sentenced Newton
to die in asking that her life be spared. Former prison public information
officers Larry Todd and Larry Fitzgerald also have signed affidavits
asking that her death sentence be commuted to life in prison, Dow said.
Dow said the parents of Newton's husband have voiced support for stopping
the execution, but that claim could not be verified Wednesday.
The attorney also said a one-time prisoner in the Harris County Jail, a
former husband of one of Newton's cousins, claimed that another prisoner
boasted of killing the family. Dow conceded that claim has not been
verified.
Issues surrounding the gun from which the fatal bullets were fired have
surfaced repeatedly. In December, Gov. Rick Perry granted Newton an
execution-day reprieve so that the presumed murder weapon, a .25-caliber
pistol, could again undergo ballistics testing.
Trial testimony indicated the pistol belonged to Michael Mouton, who
loaned it to Newton's lover, Jeffery Frelow. Prosecutors argued in court
that Newton had access to the weapon.
Telling her story
In this week's interview, Newton insisted she never saw the weapon until
the day of the killings when she unexpectedly found it in her kitchen
cabinet as she searched for her husband's drugs.
Newton said she had overheard her husband - a user and seller of marijuana
and cocaine - and his brother talking about possible "trouble," presumably
with drug suppliers. Newton said her husband owed suppliers $500 and
sometimes hid from them under the bed.
She said she removed the pistol from the house to eliminate the
possibility of bloodshed, dumping it miles away in a burned-out home owned
by her relatives.
Newton said she never used drugs and that although her husband indulged,
he remained "a good dad."
"He was very patient with the kids," she said. "He loved the children."
Newton said she rarely worried about his marijuana use. "It mellowed him
out," she recalled. But she found his friends, who rarely seemed to work,
somewhat troubling. And she became increasingly concerned as he started
staying out late and became short-tempered. She attributed that to her
husband's cocaine use.
Along with his drug usage, Adrian Newton's infidelity and his contrite
confessions and pledges to reform were hallmarks of the couple's marriage.
On the day of the killings, Newton said, the couple had reconciled and
agreed to eschew extramarital affairs.
Newton, who became pregnant with the couple's 1st child at 14, said she
loved her husband and children.
Occasionally pausing to wipe away tears, Newton recalled that Alton was
"definitely all boy" and often protected his younger sister.
She recalled one incident in which the little girl mischievously took
single bites out of apples displayed in a fruit bowl.
"Alton took the apples and turned the bite marks to the back so I wouldn't
see what she had done," Newton recalled. "Farrah was very loving."
Herself one of 12 children, Newton said she always yearned for a family.
As her husband was sporadically employed, she was the family's primary
breadwinner, holding a series of "accounting" jobs.
Trial testimony revealed that she was fired from a Houston department
store for stealing and later was convicted of forgery.
"Not everything in my life has been pretty," Newton admitted.
A father's advice
Still, she said, it was her family's welfare and not greed that propelled
her to buy life insurance policies for herself, her husband and daughter
just three weeks before the killings.
She said her father's admonition to buy insurance - given after a relative
lost 3 children in a house fire and lacked the money for proper burials -
was a key consideration.
She said a persuasive insurance agent then convinced her to buy the
policies, which, she was told, doubled as a savings plan.
Testimony at her trial showed both Newton and her mother quickly filed for
benefits from the policies.
As attorneys spar and the courts grind toward a resolution in her case,
Newton said she occasionally ponders the prospect of execution.
"But the worst thing that can happen to me has already happened," she
said. "My husband and children have been murdered, and I've been accused
and convicted. ... I know, though, that I am innocent.
"I don't know how or why, but I believe that it will all work out, and I
keep that hope."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
continues the legal duel as execution looms for woman convicted of killing
family
A cloud of verbal gunsmoke hung over Frances Newton's capital-murder case
Wednesday as defense attorneys and prosecutors dueled about the existence
of a mystery pistol allegedly seized as evidence from the scene of the
1987 execution-style killings of Newton's husband and 2 young children.
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal adamantly denied the existence of such a
weapon and accused defense attorney David Dow of making up his theory "out
of whole cloth."
The reality of a second gun is key to defense efforts to save Newton,
convicted of killing her family to reap $100,000 in insurance benefits,
from a Sept. 14 execution. The killer's attorneys hope the existence of a
second pistol would diminish damning prosecution evidence that Newton
dumped the murder weapon miles from her home on the night of the killings.
Markings on .25-caliber bullets test-fired from that weapon repeatedly
have been found to match those removed from the victim's bodies.
"What we think happened is that multiple guns were recovered," Dow said,
"and that the serial numbers were not noted at the time, the location of
recovery not noted, the time of recovery not noted. By the time they made
it to the ballistics lab, it was not known which gun was recovered where."
In filings on Newton's behalf with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and
the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Dow and his Texas Innocence
Network colleague Jared Tyler contend that the existence of a 2nd pistol
was confirmed by a Harris County prosecutor in a June 2004 television
interview with Dutch reporters.
In that broadcast, Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson said a weapon
had been found, but she noted that it belonged to Newton's husband, had
not been fired and had no significance in the investigation. Now, though,
Wilson has advised Rosenthal and the appeals court that she was wrong.
Bullets, but no gun, were recovered from the murder scene.
Dow, who argued in his filings that prosecutors improperly had kept the
second gun's existence from defense attorneys, called Wilson's recantation
"incredible."
Rosenthal countered that if a second pistol had been recovered, it would
have been listed in an inventory of evidence.
"The defense attorneys read our file," he said. "We didn't hide anything
from them."
As the legal skirmish continues, Newton, 40, spends what may be her final
days in a death row cell at Gatesville's Mountain View Unit. In a tearful
prison interview this week, she again insisted on her innocence and
denounced state and federal courts of "rubber stamping" the jury's
sentence of death during reviews of her case in the past 13 years.
"For a long time," she said, "I believed in the death penalty. I would
have thought that a person who harmed her children should be punished to
the fullest extent of the law. But now I know that the system can't be
trusted to be right. I've been wrongly accused, wrongly convicted.
"It's happened to me; it's happened to other people."
Newton, who once attended the University of Houston-Downtown and aspired
to be a TV news reporter, has spent nearly 17 years on death row for the
April 7, 1987, murder of her husband, Adrian Newton, 23, her son, Alton,
7, and her daughter, Farrah, 21 months.
If executed, she would be the 1st black woman legally put to death in
Texas since the Civil War. 2 other women have received lethal injections
since the state resumed executions in 1982.
In announcing filing of a clemency petition Wednesday, Dow noted that
defense lawyers have gained the support of two jurors who sentenced Newton
to die in asking that her life be spared. Former prison public information
officers Larry Todd and Larry Fitzgerald also have signed affidavits
asking that her death sentence be commuted to life in prison, Dow said.
Dow said the parents of Newton's husband have voiced support for stopping
the execution, but that claim could not be verified Wednesday.
The attorney also said a one-time prisoner in the Harris County Jail, a
former husband of one of Newton's cousins, claimed that another prisoner
boasted of killing the family. Dow conceded that claim has not been
verified.
Issues surrounding the gun from which the fatal bullets were fired have
surfaced repeatedly. In December, Gov. Rick Perry granted Newton an
execution-day reprieve so that the presumed murder weapon, a .25-caliber
pistol, could again undergo ballistics testing.
Trial testimony indicated the pistol belonged to Michael Mouton, who
loaned it to Newton's lover, Jeffery Frelow. Prosecutors argued in court
that Newton had access to the weapon.
Telling her story
In this week's interview, Newton insisted she never saw the weapon until
the day of the killings when she unexpectedly found it in her kitchen
cabinet as she searched for her husband's drugs.
Newton said she had overheard her husband - a user and seller of marijuana
and cocaine - and his brother talking about possible "trouble," presumably
with drug suppliers. Newton said her husband owed suppliers $500 and
sometimes hid from them under the bed.
She said she removed the pistol from the house to eliminate the
possibility of bloodshed, dumping it miles away in a burned-out home owned
by her relatives.
Newton said she never used drugs and that although her husband indulged,
he remained "a good dad."
"He was very patient with the kids," she said. "He loved the children."
Newton said she rarely worried about his marijuana use. "It mellowed him
out," she recalled. But she found his friends, who rarely seemed to work,
somewhat troubling. And she became increasingly concerned as he started
staying out late and became short-tempered. She attributed that to her
husband's cocaine use.
Along with his drug usage, Adrian Newton's infidelity and his contrite
confessions and pledges to reform were hallmarks of the couple's marriage.
On the day of the killings, Newton said, the couple had reconciled and
agreed to eschew extramarital affairs.
Newton, who became pregnant with the couple's 1st child at 14, said she
loved her husband and children.
Occasionally pausing to wipe away tears, Newton recalled that Alton was
"definitely all boy" and often protected his younger sister.
She recalled one incident in which the little girl mischievously took
single bites out of apples displayed in a fruit bowl.
"Alton took the apples and turned the bite marks to the back so I wouldn't
see what she had done," Newton recalled. "Farrah was very loving."
Herself one of 12 children, Newton said she always yearned for a family.
As her husband was sporadically employed, she was the family's primary
breadwinner, holding a series of "accounting" jobs.
Trial testimony revealed that she was fired from a Houston department
store for stealing and later was convicted of forgery.
"Not everything in my life has been pretty," Newton admitted.
A father's advice
Still, she said, it was her family's welfare and not greed that propelled
her to buy life insurance policies for herself, her husband and daughter
just three weeks before the killings.
She said her father's admonition to buy insurance - given after a relative
lost 3 children in a house fire and lacked the money for proper burials -
was a key consideration.
She said a persuasive insurance agent then convinced her to buy the
policies, which, she was told, doubled as a savings plan.
Testimony at her trial showed both Newton and her mother quickly filed for
benefits from the policies.
As attorneys spar and the courts grind toward a resolution in her case,
Newton said she occasionally ponders the prospect of execution.
"But the worst thing that can happen to me has already happened," she
said. "My husband and children have been murdered, and I've been accused
and convicted. ... I know, though, that I am innocent.
"I don't know how or why, but I believe that it will all work out, and I
keep that hope."
(source: Houston Chronicle)