December 2021 | Page 22 of 26

George Ochoa Oklahoma Execution

George Ochoa was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a double murder committed during a robbery. According to court documents George Ochoa and Osvaldo Torres would force their way into a home and would shoot and kill the two homeowners, 38 year old Francisco Morales and his 35 year old wife, Maria Yanez. Both George Ochoa and Osvaldo Torres would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Osvaldo Torres was granted clemency and was resentenced to life without parole. George Ochoa would be executed by lethal injection on December 4, 2012

George Ochoa More News

An Oklahoma death row inmate was executed Tuesday for the 1993 shooting deaths of an Oklahoma City couple.

George Ochoa, 38, was given an injection of lethal drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester less than a month after the state Pardon and Parole Board rejected Ochoa’s request that it recommend Gov. Mary Fallin reduce his death sentence to life in prison.

Ochoa is one of two men convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Francisco Morales, 38, and Maria Yanez, 35. Investigators say Morales was shot 12 times and Yanez 11 times in their bedroom on July 12, 1993. The couple’s three children were inside the house at the time of the shootings.

Ochoa claimed he had been shocked and suffered injuries during his incarceration, but prosecutors said his claims of hallucinations and harm were likely an attempt to feign mental incompetence. Courts prohibit the execution of people who do not understand why they are being punished.

Officials said earlier psychological evaluations showed no evidence of delusions or hallucinations, and that claims about such didn’t start until he was charged.

Ochoa lost a late attempt at having his execution postponed when the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied his request for a stay. A federal appeals court on Monday rejected arguments that Ochoa was mentally unfit to be executed and a challenge to the state’s procedure for determining sanity.

Prosecutors said there was little evidence to suggest a motive for the killing, but no doubt that Ochoa and his co-defendant, Osbaldo Torres, 37, were responsible. Ochoa and Torres were stopped by police near the crime scene and were described by police as “sweating and nervous,” court records show.

Torres, a Mexican citizen, was also convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in the shootings, but his sentence was reduced by then-Gov. Brad Henry in 2004. Henry imposed a sentence of life without parole after Mexican government officials raised concerns that Torres was not given a chance to speak with the Mexican consulate after being accused, as required by international conventions

https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-executes-george-ochoa-for-the-1993-shooting-deaths-of-couple-while-children-at-home

Carroll Cole Preteen Killer To Serial Killer

Carroll Cole was a serial killer who would be executed by the State of Nevada for a series of murders however it is his earliest murder that most people remember. When Carroll Cole was just eight years old he would drown another eight year old while the two were swimming. The death would be ruled to be accidental however when Carroll Cole was writing his biography in prison he would confess to this murder.

Carroll Cole would be in and out of mental hospitals throughout his teens and for some reason they would let him out even though many of the staff were against it. Carroll Cole would soon get married to a prostitute and then burn down a motel as he believed his wife was having sex with other men there. Carroll Cole would be convicted of arson and sent to prison

Once out of prison Carroll Cole would be arrested again after attempting to strangle an eleven year old girl. Again Carroll Cole was sent to prison and this time for five years

Once free from prison Carroll Cole attempted to strangle two women however this time he ended up in another mental hospital. Again the staff would free Carroll after a few years. Carroll Cole would head to California

The first woman was killed in San Diego in 1971 and would murder another woman only a few weeks later. Carroll tried to explain the killings by saying the women were having affairs on their husbands so deserved to die as it reminded him of his mothers actions

Carroll Cole would get married yet again in 1973 and the marriage was as strained as his first one. Carroll Cole would frequently leave the home where he would murder more women.

Carroll would go to Las Vegas where he would murder yet another woman before fleeing the State and heading to Texas. While in Texas Cole would murder three more women by strangulation however he was caught at the murder scene during the third murder.

Carroll Cole would end up confessing to fifteen murders and would be sentenced to life without parole in Texas however the murder in Las Vegas would come back to haunt him as he was convicted in Nevada and sentenced to death. Carroll Cole would be executed by lethal injection in 1985.

Carroll Cole More News

Convicted killer Carroll Edward Cole, who insisted that prolonging his life would be a waste of tax dollars, died by lethal injection here early Friday, the first execution in the Far West since 1979.

Cole, convicted of killing five women, fulfilled his death wish shortly after 2 a.m., when officials at Nevada’s maximum-security prison sent powerful doses of three undisclosed drugs flowing though an intravenous needle in the condemned man’s arm.

Strapped to a padded table in a converted gas chamber, Cole, 47, blinked repeatedly but showed no emotion waiting for the lethal drugs to course through his veins. He had been sedated earlier to prevent any final resistance.

Seventeen reporters and eight designated witnesses–nearly all of them court or law enforcement officials–had gathered to watch the execution. But looking out from behind one of the chamber’s three large windows, Cole seemed to notice only two of the witnesses, Mike and Judy Newton, a Las Vegas couple writing his biography.

His last words were to them: “It’s all right,” he mouthed through the glass.

Took Five Minutes

Moments later, as the lethal drugs began to flow, Cole closed his eyes, coughed and appeared to convulse, gasping for breath. Over the next several seconds, his chest heaved mechanically and his head slowly arched back. His lips parted; his eyelids opened slightly.

Then, he lay still. It had taken Cole five minutes to die.

“He was ready to go; he wanted to go,” said his attorney, Edward G. (Ted) Marshall, one of the official witnesses.

The last execution west of Texas occurred Oct. 22, 1979, on the very spot where Cole died. On that day, Jesse Walter Bishop of Garden Grove, Calif., went to the gas chamber for gunning down a honeymooner in a Las Vegas casino robbery.

Cole’s execution–the 50th since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976–marked the first time that execution by lethal injection was used in this state, where the gas chamber was born in 1924.

Nevada lawmakers authorized the use of lethal injections last year after George W. Sumner, director of state prisons, complained that the old chamber had leaks. Supporters of the switch declared it a more humane means of executing Cole and the other 28 men and two women on Nevada’s Death Row.

A one-time San Diego resident who was raised in Richmond, Calif., the stubby, tattooed Cole was convicted in Texas of strangling three Dallas women in 1980. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Confessed to 13 Murders

In February, 1984, Cole was extradited to Nevada, where seven months later he received the death sentence for strangling two Las Vegas women in 1977 and 1979.

Cole confessed to 13 murders and once told a psychiatrist that he killed 35 people, all but one of them women whom he usually picked up in bars.

To the end, Cole rejected all legal efforts to save him.

“I just messed up my life so bad that I just don’t care to go on,” he told one interviewer last week.

Given Cole’s insistence that he be put to death, not even the American Civil Liberties Union attempted to intervene in his behalf.

But there was one last-minute effort to save his life.

On Thursday night, Nevada’s five Supreme Court justices met briefly to review a petition filed earlier in the day by three Death Row inmates anxious to delay Cole’s date with death.

Fearing that his willingness could hasten their own scheduled executions, the inmates contended that Cole was mentally unbalanced and entitled to better psychiatric evaluation than was available at the prison.

The high court disagreed, deliberating about half an hour before denying a stay of execution.

Cole spent his last day under constant watch in a special, third-story cell less than 20 paces from the death chamber.

He wore new prison denims and his old white sneakers. The laces of the shoes had been removed to prevent any possibility of his hanging himself.

Dines on Shrimp and Chowder

At 5:30 p.m., Cole was served his last meal. He was given what he had requested: tossed salad with French dressing, jumbo shrimp, French fries and Boston clam chowder. He also finished off what remained of the 25 pounds of cookies and candy sent him last week by the Newtons.

Then Cole, a Catholic, wiled away his final hours playing cards with the prison priest.

At 12:20 a.m., he received the first of two shots of Valium intended to calm him. He hardly seemed to need it.

“He wasn’t nervous at all,” said Harol L. Whitley, the prison warden.

Outside, on the parking lot of the sober, gray granite prison, about a dozen people gathered under a crescent moon to light candles in protest of Cole’s execution.

“It’s a time to witness against the whole concept of vengeance,” said a spokesman for the group, Reno community organizer Bob Fulkerson.

At 1:43 a.m., wearing leg irons and a chain attached to his waist and wrists, Cole was escorted into the death chamber and lifted onto the table by four corrections officers who had volunteered for the job. When the medical equipment was in place 23 minutes later, the execution began.

Positioned behind a wall so that he could not be identified, a volunteer from the prison staff inserted a syringe filled with lethal liquid into the intravenous needle.

In all, Cole was injected with three drugs to stop his heart and disrupt his breathing.

There was no noise, except for the whirring of a nearby wall fan. The witnesses–one or two of them dabbing moist eyes–watched quietly as Cole convulsed.

Cole was declared dead at 2:10 a.m.

Family Didn’t Attend

His body was taken to a Carson City mortuary, where a prominent Las Vegas neurologist planned to examine Cole’s brain for any biological evidence that might explain his life of violence.

Cole is survived by a brother and three sisters. None attended his execution, and his body was not claimed.

After an autopsy, his remains were to be cremated.

The cell blocks, steaming in the cold night air, were silent as Cole’s body was wheeled to a waiting station wagon for the three-mile ride to the mortuary.

The temperature by 2:35 a.m. had dipped to 26 degrees as the vehicle made its way past the prison gate.

The death penalty protesters keeping vigil on the parking lot had already gone home.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-12-07-mn-14259-story.html

Willie Smith Alabama Execution

Willie Smith was executed by the State of Alabama for the kidnapping and murder of a woman. According to court documents Willie Smith would kidnap the victim Sharma Johnson who was brought to an ATM and forced to make a withdrawl. Willie Smith would murder Sharma Johnson by shooting her in a cemetery. Willie Smith would be executed by lethal injection on October 21 2012

Willie Smith More News

Alabama carried out its first execution since March 2020 Thursday night as 52-year-old Willie B. Smith III was executed by lethal injection. Attorney General Steve Marshall said Smith’s time of death was 9:47 p.m.

Smith was convicted of kidnapping and murder in the 1991 killing of 22-year-old Sharma Johnson in Birmingham. According to court documents, Smith took Johnson from an ATM location at gunpoint, robbed her of $80 and shot her execution-style in a cemetery.

Leaders from across Alabama issued statements following the execution Thursday night.

Gov. Kay Ivey:

“Sharma Ruth Johnson was abducted at gunpoint, threatened while in the trunk of the car, terrorized, assaulted, and ultimately, Willie B. Smith, III brutally killed her. In that final moment of this young lady’s short life, Mr. Smith, after learning Ms. Johnson was related to a law enforcement officer, made the choice to put a shotgun to her head, stealing this woman’s future.

“Even after these heinous crimes were committed, Mr. Smith made the choice to burn the vehicle to hide his fingerprints. He knew full well he was doing wrong. This was an absolutely horrendous act against Ms. Johnson. It is also an attack on our men and women in blue.

“In dealing with this unimaginable and tragic loss, her loved ones have endured years of Mr. Smith attempting to avoid due punishment and then a delayed execution earlier this year. Mr. Smith had more time on death row than Ms. Johnson had in this life.

“The evidence in this case was overwhelming, and justice has been rightfully served. The carrying out of Mr. Smith’s sentence sends the message that the state of Alabama will not tolerate these murderous acts. I pray that the loved ones of Ms. Johnson can be closer to finding peace.”

Attorney General Steve Marshall:

“Justice has been served. Tonight, Willie Smith was put to death for the heinous crime he committed nearly three decades ago: the abduction and execution-style murder of an innocent young woman, Sharma Johnson.

“When a capital murderer is due to receive his just punishment, one always hears accusations of “cruel and unusual punishment,” with that term rarely used in a way that accords with its constitutional meaning — and absolutely never used in reference to the victim’s loved ones.

“The family of Sharma Johnson has had to wait 29 years, 11 months, and 25 days to see the sentence of Sharma’s murderer be carried out. Finally, the cruel and unusual punishment that has been inflicted upon them — a decades-long denial of justice — has come to an end.

“I ask the people of Alabama to join me in praying for Sharma’s family and friends, that they might now be able to find peace and closure.”

https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-leaders-statements-on-execution-of-willie-b-smith-iii/38031292#

Ethan Crumbley Michigan School Shooter

Fifteen year old Ethan Crumbley has been charged with four counts of murder in the school shooting that took place at Oxford High School in Michigan. According to police reports Ethan Crumbley arrived at school armed with a 9mm Sig Sauer and opened fire killing four students. Ethan Crumbley who allegedly told police that he was being bullied at school left a few cryptic social media messages before the tragedy occurred. Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin. Justin Shilling, 17, died in the hospital on Wednesday morning. Ethan Crumbley has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one count of terrorism causing death, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Ethan Crumbley More News

Ethan Crumbley, who is accused of killing four fellow students at a Michigan high school, will be tried as an adult and faces murder, assault and weapons charges.He will also face one count of terrorism causing death, a rare charge for a school shooting.The events unfolded Tuesday at Oxford High School when, law enforcement officials say, the 15-year-old shot at people in a school hallway, firing more than 30 shots at people and through classroom doors. Three people died Tuesday and another passed away at a hospital Wednesday.

Seven others — six students and a teacher — were wounded, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

The county’s top prosecutor addressed the terrorism charge.

“There is no playbook about how to prosecute a school shooting and candidly, I wish I’d never even had — it didn’t occur so I wouldn’t have to consider it, but when we sat down, I wanted to make sure all of the victims were represented in the charges that we filed against this individual,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told CNN. “If that’s not terrorism, I don’t know what is.”She said there is a lot of digital evidence in the case — video and things on social media.”But you probably don’t even need to see that to know how terrifying it is to be in close proximity of another student shooting and killing fellow students. I mean, it’s terror,” she added.

“Like every other child that was in that building, and I address that about the terrorism charge, we must have an appropriate consequence that speaks for the victims that were not killed or injured but also, they were affected, how do they go back to school?”She said many students can’t eat or sleep.”Their parents are sleeping next to them and we shouldn’t ignore that,” she told CNN. “There are obviously four children who were murdered and many others injured but over 1,000 were also victimized as well.”At Crumbley’s arraignment Wednesday, prosecutor Marc Keast said Crumbley came out of a school bathroom and started firing. Crumbley walked down the hall at a “methodical pace” and fired more shots.This continued for another four or five minutes and he went to another bathroom, Keast said. When deputies arrived, Crumbley put the gun down and surrendered, the prosecutor said.The judge entered a plea of not guilty per his attorney’s request.

Michigan law defines an act of terrorism as a “willful and deliberate act that is all of the following:””An act that would be a violent felony under the laws of this state, whether or not committed in this state.”An act that the person knows or has reason to know is dangerous to human life.”An act that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence or affect the conduct of government or a unit of government through intimidation or coercion.”The criminal complaint against Crumbley refers to the third condition and says the act was committed against the Oxford High School community.Charging an accused school shooter with terrorism is rare. In 2018, an Ocala, Florida student who shot through a door and wounded another student, was charged with terrorism and later pleaded no contest to that count and other charges.

That incident occurred two months after gunman Nikolas Cruz shot more than 30 people as he moved for more than 10 minutes through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.Cruz was charged with 34 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder. He did not face a terrorism charge. He recently pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/us/michigan-deadly-shooting-terrorism-charge/index.html

Oxford High School Shooting Victims

A 14-year-old boy was discharged from a hospital on Wednesday.
A 14-year-old girl has improved from critical condition after being shot in the left chest and neck.
A 15-year-old boy who suffered a left leg gunshot wound was discharged on Tuesday.
A 17-year-old girl is in stable condition after being shot in the neck.
A 17-year-old girl is in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest.
A 17-year-old boy was discharged Tuesday after being shot in the hip.
A 47-year-old teacher who was shot in her left shoulder was discharged Tuesday.

Ethan Crumbley Parents: James and Jennifer Crumbley

Ethan Crumbley parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter for buying their son a 9mm Sig Sauer which was used in the tragic school shooting at Oxford High School leaving four students dead and many more injured. Apparently the parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, have fled to avoid being arrested

Authorities have said their son brought a gun to school on Tuesday and methodically fired at fleeing students. Four were killed and seven others injured, including a teacher..

Details of what led up to the rampage were revealed Friday during a court hearing and related news conference held by Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald.

She said James Crumbley purchased a 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 used in the shooting at a gun store in Oxford on Nov. 26. She said a store employee confirmed Ethan Crumbley was with his father at the time.

She said social media posts by the teen that day show the handgun along with the caption: “Just got my new beauty today.” The next day, McDonald said, one of Jennifer Crumbley’s social media posts read: “Mom and son day testing out his new Christmas present.”

The day before the shooting, a teacher at the high school observed the teen searching ammunition on his cell phone during class and she reported it to school officials, McDonald said. Jennifer Crumbley was contacted through voicemail and email about her son’s web search. McDonald said school officials received no response from either parent.

McDonald said Jennifer Crumbley exchanged text messages with her son about the incident that day, writing: “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”

The next day, the day of the shooting, the teen’s teacher saw an alarming note on his desk, McDonald said. The note contained a drawing of a semiautomatic handgun pointing at the words: “The thoughts won’t stop, help me.” She said it also contained a drawing of a bullet with the words “blood everywhere” and a drawing of a person who appeared to be shot and bleeding.

Further down on the drawing, McDonald said, were the words: “My life is useless,” and “The world is dead.”

James and Jennifer Crumbley were summoned to the school that morning and Ethan Crumbley was brought to the office with his backpack, McDonald said. She said the drawing, by that point, had been altered. She said the parents were shown the drawing and told they had to get their son into counseling within 48 hours.

“Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask their son if he had his gun with him or where his gun was located and failed to inspect his backpack for the presence of the gun, which he had with him,” McDonald said.

She said the parents resisted the idea of their son leaving school at that time and they left without him.

“He was returned to the classroom,” McDonald said.

She said that once news broke that there was an active shooter at the high school, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son at 1:22 p.m.: “Ethan, don’t do it.”

Then at 1:37 p.m., McDonald said, James Crumbley called 911 reporting that a gun was missing from his house and he believed his son may be the shooter. McDonald said the investigation revealed that the gun had been stored unlocked in a drawer in James and Jennifer Crumbley’s bedroom.

Ethan Crumbley was charged Wednesday as an adult with terrorism and multiple counts of first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder and gun crimes and could face up to life in prison.

The high school sophomore is accused of killing four students — Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17 — and injuring seven others during the mass shooting.

During Ethan Crumbley’s arraignment on Wednesday, Lt. Tim Willis of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said videos were recovered from the teen’s cellphone, including one “made by him the night before the incident wherein he talked about shooting and killing students the next day at Oxford High School.” He said a journal, detailing the teen’s desire to kill students, also was recovered.

Attorney Scott Kozak, who represented Ethan Crumbley during the arraignment but said he won’t be involved in the case moving forward, declined to comment after the teen’s arraignment on Wednesday. Ethan Crumbley is being held without bond at the Oakland County Jail.

During the hearing Wednesday, Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast said school surveillance video shows Ethan Crumbley went into a bathroom just before 12:51 p.m. Tuesday and came out a minute or two later with a gun. Keast said the teen “methodically and deliberately walked down a hallway, aiming the firearm at students and firing.”

Keast said the teen planned the shooting and “brought the handgun that day with the intent to murder as many students as he could.”

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2021/12/03/oxford-school-shooting-suspect-parents-james-jennifer-crumbley-charges/8849959002/

James and Jennifer Crumbley Photos

James and Jennifer Crumbley were arrested hiding in a Detroit art studio just miles from the Canadian border

James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of suspected Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, are expected to be arraigned Saturday and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were arrested early Saturday in Detroit after they did not show for their arraignment Friday in Rochester Hills and the U.S. Marshals Service offered a reward for information leading to their arrests.

The charges to James and Jennifer Crumbley come after it was revealed the handgun Ethan Crumbley is accused of using in the shooting Tuesday, a 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 pistol, was purchased four days earlier on Black Friday by James Crumbley. Other evidence, including social media posts and text messages were cited by Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald as evidence for the charges

Four students died and seven other people were injured in the mass shooting.

Ethan Crumbley faces four counts of first-degree murder, terrorism, and firearm possession charges and was charged as an adult.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2021/12/04/oxford-high-school-shooting-james-crumbley-jennifer-crumbley-charges/8850831002/

Preston Hughes Texas Execution

Preston Hughes was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder. According to court documents Preston Hughes would stab to death LaShandra Charles, 15, and her cousin Marcell Taylor, 3. According to police reports she told the officer that Preston attempted to rape her before she died. Preston Hughes was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Preston Hughes would be executed by lethal injection on November 15 2012

Preston Hughes More News

Preston Hughes III, who was convicted in the fatal stabbings of two Houston youths in 1988, was executed Thursday at 7:52 p.m. after the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal district court rejected his last-minute appeals. Hughes was the second Texas inmate executed in two days, following the execution of Ramon Hernandez on Wednesday, and is the last scheduled this year.

Hughes was convicted in 1989 of fatally stabbing LaShandra Charles, 15, and her cousin Marcell Taylor, 3, in a field behind a Fuddruckers restaurant in Houston. A police sergeant reported that Charles identified the name “Preston” and said, “He tried to rape me,” shortly before she died.

As Hughes’ execution date neared, lawyer Patrick McCann filed a clemency petition to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which makes recommendations to Gov. Rick Perry on whether to spare a death row inmate at the last minute. In the petition, McCann pointed to new evidence he found that indicated Hughes had been molested by an uncle.

McCann said that Hughes’ jury never heard that evidence, and it might have affected their decision about whether Hughes deserved execution. “They came out of that trial thinking Preston was a monster, not a tragically twisted boy, tortured by memories of sadistic abuse at the hands of an older figure of trust,” McCann wrote to the parole board. “No court of appeals has ever before seen this evidence.

An ongoing debate between lawyers as the execution neared concerned the actions of the detectives investigating the crime back in 1989.

After hearing the victim say Hughes’ first name, Houston police Sgt. Don Hamilton and other detectives located him in a nearby apartment complex and found blood on his clothing and a knife in his apartment. Hughes confessed to the murder during the investigation. During his trial, however, he denied involvement. No biological evidence tied him directly to the crime. He said the blood on the knife came from a rabbit he had killed months before. At Hughes’ trial, Hamilton said he continued to ask Charles questions, but could not understand many of the answers. “I could not understand it,” Hamilton told the jury. “It was more of a mumble.”

After reviewing autopsy reports, Tarrant County’s deputy medical examiner Robert White concluded that Charles would have died within 60 seconds of the stabbing. The officers claimed to hear her speak nearly 15 minutes later. “Even with instant extensive medical attention she would have been unconscious in a matter of seconds,” White wrote in a sworn affidavit that accompanied the clemency petition. “It is simply not medically feasible that this young woman … could have spoken to the officers.”

“The officers had to have flat out lied,” McCann said.

Assistant Attorney General Fredericka Sargent contended that McCann’s accusations were “wholly without merit.”

“Dr. White makes broad assumptions about how long Shandra could have been conscious after being stabbed, but he was not there,” she wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court. “Whatever Dr. White says now, nearly twenty-five years after the fact, does nothing to call into question the integrity of those first officers on the scene.”

During the course of the last year, McCann’s work has been doubted fervently by Hughes’ advocates, including blogger John Allen, who believe that Hughes never committed the crimes and that McCann failed to raise claims of innocence. “We’ve done everything we can to get McCann to defend him, and we failed,” Allen said. “I ceased communication with him.”

McCann responded by explaining that Texas and federal law set such a high burden of proof for new claims of “actual innocence” that he would never have succeeded in such efforts. But he could not comment on why he did not agree with Allen regarding Hughes’ innocence. “I find myself in an odd position,” he said, “because I’m ethically bound not to advance a claim I think is false.”

Hughes himself sought to have McCann replaced. “I’ve been trying to get rid of him for years,” he said recently from death row in Livingston. “I’ve asked him several times to withdraw from representing me. He’s ignored my request.” In September, Mr. Hughes filed a petition to have Mr. McCann replaced, and a court rejected it.

On Oct. 26, McCann attempted to sue the Texas Department of Criminal Justice over its lethal injection protocols in civil court. In July, the department switched to single-drug executions. McCann says that they did so without any oversight and that this infringed on Hughes’ rights. “If the head of TDCJ wanted to he could bring back hanging,” McCann said.

State District Judge R.K. Sandill told McCann that he would not be permitted to represent Hughes in civil court without his client’s signature. The Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, ordered Sandill not to stay Mr. Hughes’ execution.

On Monday, Allen filed a motion for DNA testing in state district court, asking the court to order testing of a vaginal swab that prosecutors at trial argued included Hughes’ DNA. On Thursday, the motion was denied.

Activist Ward Larkin, who has worked closely with Allen, attempted to file a second, different clemency petition with the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board rejected the petition, and Larkin sued the board. A federal civil court refused to rule on the matter, saying it did not have jurisdiction.

Before he was executed, Hughes thanked Allen and others for their work on his case and maintained that he did not commit the murder, according to officials at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “Please continue to fight for my innocence,” he said, “even though I’m gone.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2012/11/15/preston-hughes-executed-1988-murderpreston-hughes-/