CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

March 9, 2010

TEXAS DEATH PENALTY PROCEDURE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , , , — johntfloyd @ 12:37 am

Judge Acknowledges Innocent People Have Likely been Executed

Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Kevin Fine on Thursday, March 4, 2010, created a tsunami of controversy in the Texas legal community when he reportedly made a comment that he was declaring the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The comment was made during a hearing on a motion filed by defense attorneys in the case of John Edward Green Jr. who is facing a capital murder charge. What Judge Fine actually did was to declare Article 37.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure unconstitutional which is the statute that outlines the procedures for imposing the death sentence in this state.

“Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty, so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?” Judge Fine mused from the bench. “I don’t think society’s mindset is that way now.”

The reaction to Judge Fine’s comment/ruling was immediate and volatile. Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos issued a statement respectfully disagreeing with the ruling: “We respectfully, but vigorously, disagree with the trial judge’s ruling, as it has no basis in law or fact. Words are inadequate to describe the Office’s disappointment and dismay with the ruling; sadly it will delay justice for the victims and their families. We will pursue all [appeal] remedies.”

But Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott were not so understanding in their reactions to Judge Fine’s ruling. Abbott called the decision “an act of unabashed judicial activism.”

(more…)

March 15, 2009

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , , — johntfloyd @ 1:45 pm

AN INDICTMENT BY A DEATH ROW SURVIVOR

By: Billy Sinclair

I am pleased to announce, through the website of the John T. Floyd Law Firm, that my wife, Jodie, and I have recently released our second book, Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor. Released by the prestigious publishing house Arcade Publishing (New York), Capital Punishment is a collection of fourteen essays that examines the entire spectrum of the subject of the death penalty: its methods of executions, its Southern regional phenomenon, its racism, its tortuous botched executions, and its impact on our society.

Capital Punishment is not an academic study. The death penalty is told through the human drama it inevitably creates: the persons put to death, those put them to death, and those who tried to stop it. When Jodie and I decided to write my prison memoir, A Life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story (Arcade Publishing, New York 2000), we did so with one overriding objective—to tell as honestly and realistically as possible the story of one man’s struggle to survive inside one of the nation’s most brutal and violent prisons, the Louisiana State Penitentiary. We would like to believe that we were true to that literary objective. The media critics thought we were as the following book reviews suggest:

Associated Press – “A hopeful tale of an unbreakable human spirit.”

New York Times Book Review – “A numbing tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.

Boston Globe – “Well researched, persuasive, and morbidly compelling … Sinclair’s firsthand account of life in prison offers an authentic, sometimes grisly narrative.”

New Orleans Times-Picayune – “What Sinclair’s book does most eloquently is to tell us how little we know about justice.’

Loyola New Orleans Magazine – “Louisiana’s corrupt prison system, sex, violence, and a mismatched love story unfold in the nonstop, gut-wrenching pages of … a seamless narrative.”

Publishers’ Weekly – “A powerful tale, and readers will be shaken by the sorrow, greed, and corruption they encounter in it.”

But we approached the writing of Capital Punishment with a completely different literary objective. We had an obvious biased objective from the outset. We tell the reader as much in the “Preface” of the book. We both strenuously oppose the death penalty, and as individuals and authors, we have often spoken out against it and published written opposition to it. But first and foremost we are journalists. Jodie earned a master degree in journalism from the prestigious Columbia University School of Journalism and was an award-winning television journalist for many years who witnessed the execution of Gary Lockhart in Huntsville in 1997. I was the recipient of the highly acclaimed George Polk and Sidney Hillman journalism awards writing about death penalty as co-editor of the THE ANGOLITE, the newsmagazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. (more…)

March 13, 2009

BOOK RELEASE

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , — johntfloyd @ 5:05 pm

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:
AN INDICTMENT BY A DEATH ROW SURVIVOR

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd

I am happy to announce the release of another book by my good friends Billy and Jodie Sinclair entitled Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor, released by Arcade Publishing (New York). The book is a compelling collection of essays commenting on the death penalty from many different perspectives about this controversial and, in my opinion, most despicable, inhumane and arcane of punishments that continues to thrive in this so called modern world.

I have always been an opponent of the death penalty. I first seriously considered the issue in 1987 when I was in college and was required to do a research paper on the subject. Our assignment was to look at the death penalty objectively from both sides. It was the type of project typical of a freshmen government class intended to force the student to examine both sides of a controversial issue in order to appreciate its pro and con policy arguments. I was shocked when I came across a pro-death penalty article which attempted to do a cost/benefit analysis on the issue. The author supported the death penalty even after factoring in the variable that perhaps 30 innocent people had been executed. This study concluded that the cost of 30 innocent souls being executed was outweighed by the benefits derived from the death penalty, namely deterrence and justice/revenge for the crime victim’s friends and families.

I guess until that point in my life, I had never seriously considered the possibility that innocent people might be found guilty and sentenced to death. I had certainly never considered the horrid possibility that such innocents would have been executed.

That was enough for me. In my naïve state as a college freshman, I had single handedly concluded that the death penalty was immoral simply because an innocent person might be executed. Simple and straight forward, huh?

As I continued my college education, my opposition to the death penalty only solidified, but the reasons for that opposition remained basically the same. From my vantage point it was intrinsically immoral to exact the most serious, final and irrevocable punishment, if the system could not guarantee that innocent people would not be executed. (more…)

February 11, 2009

ANDRE THOMAS: INSANE IN TEXAS

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , , , , , — johntfloyd @ 5:38 am

Executing the Insane: Past Witch Hunt; Current Shame

By Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Just after noon on December 9, 2008 a corrections officer assigned to Texas’ death row was making a normal security round in Building 10 when he observed what appeared to be blood on the face of condemned inmate Andre Thomas. The inmate told the officer he had pulled out his last good eye and eaten it. Prison doctors quickly determined the condemned inmate needed additional medical treatment. Security staff transported him to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. After Thomas received medical treatment, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Corrections transferred him to the Jester 4 Psychiatric Unit in Richmond where he remains as of this writing.

Andre Thomas is no doubt still insane today. He was also insane on March 27, 2004 when he slaughtered three people. In fact, he was insane long before March 27, 2004. Everyone in Grayson County seemed to know it. Leyha Marie Hughes’ father especially knew it, He repeatedly told the local police after his daughter’s murder that “Andre Thomas was crazy, unstable, everyone knew him and his entire family was crazy.” Even Thomas himself seem to know he was crazy. As the Grits-for-Breakfast blog reported on January 21, 2009, Thomas twice unsuccessfully sought psychiatric help from a Grayson County hospital before March 27, 2004—the day he killed Leyha Marie Hughes. In fact, the very day before he killed the little 13-month-old Leyha, a social worker named Sherrie St. Cyr and physician named William Bowen spoke to Thomas in the emergency room at the Texoma Medical Center. Both thought he was psychotic and should be admitted to a psychiatric facility. But, tragically, he was not.

Finally, on March 27, 2004, it happened. What Leyha’s father knew would happen at some time. Something snapped inside the disordered head of Andre Thomas. He walked to the home of his ex-wife, Laura Boren Thomas. Armed with a knife, he arrived at the residence at 7:22 a.m. He kicked in the front door. He found Laura, their four-year-old-son Andre, and baby Leyha home alone. What happened next was a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” revisited. Andre repeatedly stabbed Laura, Andre, and Leyha before brutally mutilating them by removing their hearts from their lifeless bodies. Each victim was left with large, gaping wounds in their chest.

Thomas placed the three bloody hearts in his pockets and calmly walked out of the house. He must have felt pretty good. He had just finished “God’s work.” He believed the three people he had just slaughtered were “evil” and possessed by demons. God had recently told him that Laura had been acting like a “jezebel” and that little Andre was the “anti-Christ.” (more…)

September 10, 2008

THE AFFAIR OF A JUDGE, DA, AND A KILLER

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer, Homicide Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , , , — johntfloyd @ 6:26 pm

By:  Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

Would you want a Judge presiding over a criminal case against you sleeping with the District Attorney prosecuting that case?

Didn’t think so. Most people wouldn’t. You expect a Judge to be neutral, free of the slightest appearance of impropriety. You expect a District Attorney to be zealous, honest, and even-handed in the prosecution of criminal cases. Those general expectations – what the State Bar calls the rules of ethical conduct – are compromised when a District Attorney prosecutes a case before a Judge with whom the District Attorney is having a sexual liaison.

That controversial issue has become a highly-publicized feature in the capital murder case of Charles Dean Hood. Attorneys working to save Hood from lethal injection charged, and ultimately proved, that 19 years ago when the condemned inmate was tried and convicted in a Collin County District Court, former District Attorney Tom O’Connell, who prosecuted Hood, was reportedly having a romantic affair the former trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, who presided over the trial.

Hood was scheduled for execution on September 10, 2008, but the day before the execution was to be carried out, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a reprieve in the case. The appeals court, on which Holland had previously served as a judge, ducked the sexual liaison issue involving Holland and O’Connell and instead issued the reprieve on what the court said were “developments in the law regarding (jury) nullification instructions.”

The appeals court had previously rejected this same jury instruction issue in Hood’s case but said it was now “prudent to reconsider the decision we [previously] issued.” (more…)

August 9, 2008

TWO EXECUTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

Filed under: Death Penalty Crimes Lawyer, Homicide Crimes Lawyer — Tags: , , , — admin @ 1:15 pm

By Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

The State of Texas executed two foreign nationals during the week of August 5 and 7, 2008. Both men, Jose Ernesto Medellin and Heliberto Chi, were found guilty of committing brutal murders. There was little doubt about their guilt. Had they not been foreign nationals, their executions would have passed under the Texas execution radar basically unnoticed. This is a sad fact in this great state where executions have become all too common.

But they were foreign nationals and their executions had, and will continue to have, international legal and political implications. The controversy associated with these executions centers on this country’s refusal to honor – if not the intent, the spirit – of its international treaty obligations. The treaty obligation in Medellin’s case involved Vienna Convention which provides that when a person is arrested in a foreign country, the arresting officials have an obligation to inform that person of his/her right to consult with, and seek assistance from, the “consular” of their country. Medellin, a Mexican national, was not advised of his “consular rights” when arrested in Harris County in 1994.

Chi’s case, a Honduran national, involved a different treaty – a 1927 U.S. Bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Honduras. Unlike the Vienna Convention, the Honduran Bilateral Treaty was “self-executing” – meaning the treaty did not require legislation by the United States Congress to have full force and effect. Last March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Medellin case that the Vienna Convention was not self-executing and, therefore, did not have automatic effect on federal law in this country because Congress had never passed legislation to give rights guaranteed under the treaty full legal force.

The Vienna Convention became a bone of international contention in 2004 when the International Court of Justice, located in the Hague, issued a decision that said the United States had violated the “consular rights” of 51 Mexican nationals convicted of capital crimes in this country and, therefore, they were entitled to a review of their convictions and death sentences. Although his case was not one of the 51 Mexican nationals involved in the ICJ decision, Medellin’s case became the one that ultimately worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court and led to the precedent ruling that the Vienna Convention was not “self executing.” (more…)

August 5, 2008

THE INEQUITY OF ONE DEATH, ONE LIFE; Inequities in the Application of the Death Penalty

Filed under: Houston Criminal Lawyer — Tags: , , , — admin @ 6:51 pm

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

On July 23, 2008 the State of Mississippi executed Dale Leo Bishop for his involvement in the beating death of 22-year-old Marcus James Gentry. The Bishop execution was significant only because he became the third person put to death in this country who did not actually kill the victim while the actual killer received life imprisonment.

In 1998 Bishop, Gentry, and Jessie Johnson engaged in a night of heavy drinking and drug use. They ended up in Gentry’s car on an isolated dirt road near Saltillo, a community in northern Mississippi. A dispute broke out among the men leading Johnson and Bishop to attack Gentry. Johnson struck Gentry 23 times with a hammer before it lodged in the victim’s throat. Bishop was convicted because he held Gentry by the neck during the murderous assault.

Johnson was tried separately from Bishop, convicted, and received a life sentence without parole. Bishop was also convicted by a jury, but elected to have the trial judge impose sentencing. Even though Johnson admitted that he struck the fatal blows that killed Gentry, the judge nonetheless sentenced Bishop to death.

The two others cases in which the actual killer received life while the lesser participant was put to death were Steven Hatch, who was put to death in Oklahoma in 1996, and Doyle Skillern, who was put to death in Texas in 1985. (more…)

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