Post by CCADP on Aug 25, 2005 9:45:10 GMT -5
Report of Second Gun Is Used in Defense of a Texas Woman Facing Death
After nearly 17 years on death row and a last-minute reprieve in December,
a Texas woman facing lethal injection next month in the killings of her
husband and two children is raising new claims of innocence based largely
on conflicting accounts of whether a mysterious 2nd gun had been recovered
and never revealed to the defense.
Citing a prosecutor's claimed slip of the tongue, lawyers for the inmate,
Frances Newton, 40, argued Wednesday in their latest clemency petition
that the state may have tested the wrong gun after the slayings in 1987.
The prosecutor, Roe Wilson, assistant district attorney here in Harris
County, said in court papers on Tuesday that she had no recollection of
having told Dutch television in June that a previously unreported gun had
been found at the crime scene but that a viewing of the videotape showed
"she made such erroneous statement." Actually, she told the Court of
Criminal Appeals, she meant to say "ammunition."
Defense lawyers also said other new information cast doubt on the guilt of
Ms. Newton, who would be the third woman put to death in Texas since
capital punishment resumed in 1982 and the 1st black woman executed in the
state since the Civil War.
This included, they said, a sworn account from a relative of Ms. Newton's
who had been incarcerated in the Harris County jail in 1987 and 1988 and
told of a cellmate who had boasted of going to the Newtons' house the
night of the slayings to collect a drug debt "with orders to kill
everybody present if the man did not have the money."
Defense lawyers also said that they had tracked down 3 of the original
jurors who now say they would not have voted to convict her if they had
known of all the evidence, and that two former Texas criminal justice
officials were urging that Ms. Newton's life be spared because she was not
a future danger to society, a necessary finding for execution.
But the crucial new factors involved another possible gun, lawyers said.
"The family was buying a lot of guns," her main lawyer, David R. Dow of
the Texas Innocence Network of the University of Houston Law Center, said
in a telephone conference call with reporters. "We have real doubt about
which gun Frances Newton had access to."
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, ruling Wednesday on an earlier
appeal, rejected the claims, reaffirming that a .25-caliber Ruger pistol
tied to Ms. Newton was the murder weapon, "even assuming that 50 other
guns had been found," and that Ms. Newton had tried to hide the gun after
killing her family for insurance money.
Prosecutors also dismissed the latest defense claims as baseless. "Mr. Dow
is making this up out of whole cloth," said District Attorney Charles A.
Rosenthal Jr. of Harris County in an interview. "I'm very clear: 1 gun was
recovered in the case."
The legal struggle is only likely to intensify as the Sept. 14 execution
date approaches. Ms. Newton had been scheduled to die last Dec. 1, but
hours before, she was spared by a rare 120-day reprieve granted by Gov.
Rick Perry, acting on a equally rare recommendation for a delay by the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The panel and the governor said more
time was needed to review disputed evidence.
The ballistics were retested and confirmed the original results, the
criminal appeals court said in its ruling. But Mr. Dow contended the court
did not address the latest questions about a possible other gun. He also
said that Ms. Newton's dress had been destroyed in the original testing
for explosives residue and that the disputed results could not be
restudied.
The case goes back to April 7, 1987, when Ms. Newton's husband, Adrian,
and their 2 children Alton, 7, and Farrah, 21 months, were shot to death,
each with one bullet, in their Houston-area apartment. The couple had had
a strained relationship, with husband and wife dating other people. Mr.
Newton was also involved with drugs. A distraught Ms. Newton said she and
a cousin found the bodies when they came home.
But the cousin also told the police that hours before, she saw Ms. Newton
take a blue knapsack out of her car and put it in an abandoned building.
The police found a pistol in the backpack, and experts testified it had
fired the fatal shots. Evidence also showed that 3 weeks before the
killings she had taken out $50,000 in life insurance on her husband,
signing his name, and also on Farrah, although not on Alton.
Defense pleadings say she bought the policies under pressure from a broker
months after three of her cousins died in a fire. They also say the
established timeline would have left her less than half an hour to kill
her family and remove all traces of blood, none of which were found on her
or her clothes or the gun.
Hints that an unreported gun might been recovered at the scene cropped up
at the trial, but Mr. Dow said Ms. Newton's court-appointed counsel, Ron
Mock, failed to investigate. Mr. Mock was later barred from capital cases.
Confirmation, Mr. Dow said, appeared to come from an interview that a
Dutch television reporter, Ton Vriens, conducted with Ms. Wilson, the
prosecutor, in June. She said: "There is no second gun theory. The police
recovered a gun from the apartment that belonged to the husband. It was -
had not been fired, not involved in the offense, it was simply a gun he
had there."
Mr. Dow said such information would have had to be turned over to the
defense and had not been.
Ms. Wilson's office said she was out this week. District Attorney
Rosenthal said Ms. Wilson had simply misspoken, explaining to him in a
memo: "In the videotape I say that the police recovered a gun from the
crime scene apartment, Newton's husband's apartment. This is not correct.
The correct statement is that the police recovered unfired ammunition in
various places in the apartment."
Mr. Dow said he did not understand how a prosecutor could confuse a gun
and ammunition.
(source: The New York Times)
After nearly 17 years on death row and a last-minute reprieve in December,
a Texas woman facing lethal injection next month in the killings of her
husband and two children is raising new claims of innocence based largely
on conflicting accounts of whether a mysterious 2nd gun had been recovered
and never revealed to the defense.
Citing a prosecutor's claimed slip of the tongue, lawyers for the inmate,
Frances Newton, 40, argued Wednesday in their latest clemency petition
that the state may have tested the wrong gun after the slayings in 1987.
The prosecutor, Roe Wilson, assistant district attorney here in Harris
County, said in court papers on Tuesday that she had no recollection of
having told Dutch television in June that a previously unreported gun had
been found at the crime scene but that a viewing of the videotape showed
"she made such erroneous statement." Actually, she told the Court of
Criminal Appeals, she meant to say "ammunition."
Defense lawyers also said other new information cast doubt on the guilt of
Ms. Newton, who would be the third woman put to death in Texas since
capital punishment resumed in 1982 and the 1st black woman executed in the
state since the Civil War.
This included, they said, a sworn account from a relative of Ms. Newton's
who had been incarcerated in the Harris County jail in 1987 and 1988 and
told of a cellmate who had boasted of going to the Newtons' house the
night of the slayings to collect a drug debt "with orders to kill
everybody present if the man did not have the money."
Defense lawyers also said that they had tracked down 3 of the original
jurors who now say they would not have voted to convict her if they had
known of all the evidence, and that two former Texas criminal justice
officials were urging that Ms. Newton's life be spared because she was not
a future danger to society, a necessary finding for execution.
But the crucial new factors involved another possible gun, lawyers said.
"The family was buying a lot of guns," her main lawyer, David R. Dow of
the Texas Innocence Network of the University of Houston Law Center, said
in a telephone conference call with reporters. "We have real doubt about
which gun Frances Newton had access to."
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, ruling Wednesday on an earlier
appeal, rejected the claims, reaffirming that a .25-caliber Ruger pistol
tied to Ms. Newton was the murder weapon, "even assuming that 50 other
guns had been found," and that Ms. Newton had tried to hide the gun after
killing her family for insurance money.
Prosecutors also dismissed the latest defense claims as baseless. "Mr. Dow
is making this up out of whole cloth," said District Attorney Charles A.
Rosenthal Jr. of Harris County in an interview. "I'm very clear: 1 gun was
recovered in the case."
The legal struggle is only likely to intensify as the Sept. 14 execution
date approaches. Ms. Newton had been scheduled to die last Dec. 1, but
hours before, she was spared by a rare 120-day reprieve granted by Gov.
Rick Perry, acting on a equally rare recommendation for a delay by the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The panel and the governor said more
time was needed to review disputed evidence.
The ballistics were retested and confirmed the original results, the
criminal appeals court said in its ruling. But Mr. Dow contended the court
did not address the latest questions about a possible other gun. He also
said that Ms. Newton's dress had been destroyed in the original testing
for explosives residue and that the disputed results could not be
restudied.
The case goes back to April 7, 1987, when Ms. Newton's husband, Adrian,
and their 2 children Alton, 7, and Farrah, 21 months, were shot to death,
each with one bullet, in their Houston-area apartment. The couple had had
a strained relationship, with husband and wife dating other people. Mr.
Newton was also involved with drugs. A distraught Ms. Newton said she and
a cousin found the bodies when they came home.
But the cousin also told the police that hours before, she saw Ms. Newton
take a blue knapsack out of her car and put it in an abandoned building.
The police found a pistol in the backpack, and experts testified it had
fired the fatal shots. Evidence also showed that 3 weeks before the
killings she had taken out $50,000 in life insurance on her husband,
signing his name, and also on Farrah, although not on Alton.
Defense pleadings say she bought the policies under pressure from a broker
months after three of her cousins died in a fire. They also say the
established timeline would have left her less than half an hour to kill
her family and remove all traces of blood, none of which were found on her
or her clothes or the gun.
Hints that an unreported gun might been recovered at the scene cropped up
at the trial, but Mr. Dow said Ms. Newton's court-appointed counsel, Ron
Mock, failed to investigate. Mr. Mock was later barred from capital cases.
Confirmation, Mr. Dow said, appeared to come from an interview that a
Dutch television reporter, Ton Vriens, conducted with Ms. Wilson, the
prosecutor, in June. She said: "There is no second gun theory. The police
recovered a gun from the apartment that belonged to the husband. It was -
had not been fired, not involved in the offense, it was simply a gun he
had there."
Mr. Dow said such information would have had to be turned over to the
defense and had not been.
Ms. Wilson's office said she was out this week. District Attorney
Rosenthal said Ms. Wilson had simply misspoken, explaining to him in a
memo: "In the videotape I say that the police recovered a gun from the
crime scene apartment, Newton's husband's apartment. This is not correct.
The correct statement is that the police recovered unfired ammunition in
various places in the apartment."
Mr. Dow said he did not understand how a prosecutor could confuse a gun
and ammunition.
(source: The New York Times)