According to court documents David Renteria would kidnap Alexandra Flores from a Walmart. The little girl’s nude body which had been badly burned would be found the next day in an alley sixteen miles away
David Renteria would be tied to the kidnapping and murder by DNA. Renteria attempted to tell the jury at his trial he was forced by a gang to kidnap Alexandra Flores and that the gang murdered the little girl
David Renteria execution is scheduled for later tonight, November 16 2023
David Renteria was executed by lethal injection on November 16 2023
David Renteria Case
A Texas inmate convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl taken from an El Paso store and then burning her body nearly 22 years ago is scheduled for execution Thursday evening.
David Renteria, 53, was condemned for the November 2001 death of Alexandra Flores. Prosecutors said that Alexandra was Christmas shopping with her family at a Walmart store when she was abducted by Renteria. Her body was found the next day in an alley 16 miles from the store.
Renteria has long claimed that members of the Barrio Azteca gang, including one named “Flaco,” forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family — and that it was the gang members who killed her.
Authorities say Renteria’s lawyers did not raise this defense at his trial and evidence in the case shows that he committed the abduction and killing alone. Prosecutors said that blood found in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA. His palm print was found on a plastic bag that was put over her head before her body was set on fire. Prosecutors said Renteria was a convicted sex offender on probation at the time of the killing.
Renteria’s scheduled execution is one of two set to be carried out in the U.S. on Thursday. In Alabama, Casey McWhorter is set to receive a lethal injection for fatally shooting a man during a 1993 robbery.
Attorneys for Renteria have filed unsuccessful appeals asking state and federal courts to halt the execution, which is set take place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. A final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was expected after appeals to a lower court concluded.
Renteria’s lawyers argue they have been denied access to the prosecution’s file on Renteria, which they argued violates his constitutional rights. His legal team said the prosecution hindered their ability to investigate Renteria’s claims that gang members were responsible for the girl’s death.
The claims by Renteria’s lawyers are based on witness statements released by El Paso police in 2018 and 2020 in which a woman told investigators that her ex-husband, a Barrio Azteca member, was involved in the death of a girl who had gone missing from a Walmart.
Renteria “will be executed despite recently uncovered evidence of actual innocence, evidence that he is innocent of the death penalty,” Tivon Schardl, one of the defense lawyers, said in court documents.
A federal judge in 2018 said that the woman’s statement was “fraught with inaccuracies” and was “insufficient to show Renteria’s innocence.”
In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.
On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Renteria’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.
Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl, the youngest of eight children in her family. The grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.
In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful. Renteria’s lawyers had argued that a statement he made to police after his arrest — in which he expressed sympathy for the girl’s family and that her death was “a tragedy that should never have happened” — was an expression of remorse. The appeals court said Renteria’s expression of remorse was “made in the context of minimizing his responsibility for the offense.”
During a new resentencing trial in 2008, Renteria was again sentenced to death.
David Renteria would be the eighth inmate in Texas to be put to death this year. If Renteria and McWhorter both receive a lethal injection Thursday, there would be 23 executions this year in the U.S.
A Texas man convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago and burning her body was executed Thursday evening.
David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra Flores. Renteria prayed, sang and asked for forgiveness before his execution.
“I’m sorry for all the wrongs I have done. And for those who have called for my death, who are about to murder me, I forgive you,” he told those present in a loud, clear voice. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a powerful sedativ
Renteria sang a hymn in Spanish, then prayed with a spiritual adviser standing next to him, and sang another hymn in English after witnesses, including relatives of his victim, entered the death chamber and watched through a window a few feet (meters) from him.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about the fateful events of that day and what transpired,” he said, looking at his victim’s relatives. “There are no words to describe what you’re going through, and I understand that.”
He told his sister and a friend, watching through another window, that he was “good … strong.”
“I love you all, I truly do. I’ll see you in the next life.”
He then began reciting The Lord’s Prayer as the drugs began flowing. “Our father, who art in heaven” is as far as he got. “I taste it,” he said of the drug, mumbled something, took two loud breaths and snored twice before all movement stopped
Ignacio and Sandra Frausto held a photo collage of their slain sister, the baby among eight children in their family, while speaking with reporters after they had watched Renteria die.
“I want to recognize her, not forget about her,” Ignacio Frausto said through sobs. “It took 22 years but the time came. It is done. We can finally and really begin to heal — 22 years of wondering what was going to happen.”
Prosecutors said Flores was at the El Paso store on Nov. 18, 2001, during a Christmas shopping outing when she was abducted from the store, strangled and her body set on fire. The body was found the next day in an alley some 16 miles (25 kilometers) away.
Renteria’s execution proceeded after the U.S. Supreme Court declined two separate defense requests for a stay earlier in the day.
One request stemmed from efforts by Renteria’s attorneys to gain access to evidence they said could have shown he was not responsible for her death. Another appeal rejected by the high court without comment late Thursday focused on claims the state’s supply of pentobarbital, the execution drug, had degraded and would cause him “terror” and “severe pain” in violation of the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Authorities said evidence showed David Renteria, a convicted sex offender, carried out the abduction and killing alone and that his lawyers did not raise that defense at his trial. Blood found in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA, according to prosecutors, who added that his palm print was found on a plastic bag put over the girl’s head before her body was set on fire.
David Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl. Grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.
The execution was one of two carried out Thursday in the United States. In Alabama, inmate Casey McWhorter received a lethal injection Thursday evening for a murder conviction in the fatal shooting of a man during a 1993 robbery.
David Renteria had long claimed that members of a gang called Barrio Azteca, including a person using the nickname “Flaco,” forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family — and that it was the gang members who killed her.
In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.
In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful.
During a new resentencing trial in 2008, David Renteria was again sentenced to death.
David Renteria was the eighth inmate in Texas put to death this year. There have been 23 executions in the U.S. this year, including the two carried out on Thursday.
Brent Brewer is scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas on Thursday November 9 2023 for the murder of 66-year-old Robert Laminack
According to court documents Brent Brewer would ask Robert Laminack for a ride which he would agree to. Somewhere along the ride Brewer would force Laminack to pull over and would rob and murder him by stabbing him to death
Brent Brewer who has been on Texas death row for thirty years attempted to get his execution delayed due to a Doctor who testified at his trial who was later deemed unreliable
If Brent Brewer execution goes forward it will be the seventh person executed by Texas in 2023
Brent Brewer was executed on Thursday November 9/2023
Brent Brewer News
Texas death row inmate Brent Brewer is scheduled for execution on Thursday after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected efforts to stay his execution date to review an error in testimony, which has later been deemed “junk science” in its court.
Brewer was sentenced to death and convicted of murder in 1990 after robbing and killing 66-year-old Robert Doyle Laminack, a flooring store owner from Amarillo. Laminack offered Brewer and his girlfriend, a woman named Krystie Lynn Nystrom, a ride, and while en route, Brewer stabbed the victim, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
While the crime is not in dispute and 30 years later, a now remorseful Brewer has proven to maintain good behavior while incarcerated and shown patterns that counter the critical testimony from an expert witness during the sentencing for his crime, according to the Death Penalty Information Center website.
Brewer’s defense team argued his death sentence relied on testimony from Dr. Richard Coons an expert witness and practicing psychiatrist who was later deemed unreliable, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.
“Coons testified in dozens of capital cases,” a portion of the website reads. In 2010 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted that Coons, testimony was unable to cite any academic literature or research to substantiate his “self-developed” methodology, according to the Death Penalty Information website. The court acknowledged that while Coons’ practice may be intuitive, it is not scientifically reliable.
However, no courts have ruled that Coons’ testimony is a reversible error.
Brewer was initially sentenced to death in 1991 for murder during the robbery. He was granted sentencing relief by the federal courts in 2007. Coons testified at his 2009 sentencing retrial, claiming without ever having met Brewer that his then 19-year history of non-violence in prison was not a reliable predictor of whether he would be dangerous in the future, according to defense attorney Shawn Nolan.
Coons testified that he would “probably” join a prison gang while incarcerated, depicting him “as a terminally dangerous menace to society.” After hearing Coons’ testimony, the jury sentenced Brewer to death,” a portion of the Death Penalty Information Center website said.
Brewer is scheduled for execution this Thursday, Nov. 9. Upcoming state executions include David Renteria on Nov. 19 and Ivan Cantu, scheduled for Feb. 28, 2024.
The state of Texas executed Brent Brewer, who spent three decades on death row on Thursday evening for the 1990 murder of Robert Laminack. It was the seventh execution of 2023.
In late appeals, Brewer’s lawyers argued that his death should be delayed to consider the issue of unreliable testimony, or what his lawyers called “junk science,” but late Thursday afternoon the U.S. Supreme Court denied that request. Earlier this week, Texas’ highest criminal appeals court declined similar motions to stay Brewer’s execution.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected Brewer clemency appeal on Tuesday. Brewer’s legal team requested a lesser penalty for him on the grounds that one of the state’s expert witnesses used unreliable methodologies to testify and that a juror says they mistakenly sentenced Brewer to death.
At 6:23 p.m., Brewer was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital. He died 15 minutes later.
“I would like to tell the family of the victim that I could never figure out the words to fix what I have broken. I just want you to know that this 53-year-old is not the same reckless 19-year-old kid from 1990. I hope you find peace,” Brewer said in a final statement.
Brent Brewer was convicted of killing Laminack, who owned a business in Amarillo, according to court documents. Brewer asked Laminack for a ride to a Salvation Army with his girlfriend Kristie Nystrom. While en route, Brewer stabbed the 66-year-old Laminack and stole $140 in cash.
Brewer was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder, but in 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court found that his jury was not given sufficient opportunity for the jury to consider a less severe punishment. Two years later, another jury also sentenced Brewer to death.
Michele Douglas was one of the 2009 jurors. After listening to the evidence, Douglas believed that Brewer didn’t intend to kill Laminack, “things simply got out of hand, with a tragic outcome,” she wrote in an Houston Chronicle opinion piece last week, requesting clemency for Brewer.
During the trial, Douglas did not want to vote in favor of capital punishment for Laminack’s murder, which she did not think was premeditated. Douglas said she misunderstood the jury instructions.
“Believing — incorrectly — that my vote was meaningless, I acquiesced in the majority’s death penalty verdict. I cried when it was read in court. I was haunted afterwards,” Douglas wrote last week.
A death sentence requires a unanimous vote from the jury in Texas. Over the years, jurors in different capital cases across the state have said the instructions are not clear and they would have voted for life sentences without the possibility of parole if they had known that was an option. Lawmakers in the Texas House have passed legislation during several sessions attempting to clarify the instructions but those bills failed to get support from the Senate.
“There’s nothing political about this — it’s about whether the awesome power of the government to take a life is given to it knowingly rather than by what amounts to trickery,” said Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, in a statement about the role of misleading jury instructions in Brewer’s case ahead of Brewer’s execution. “This simply can’t continue; it’s morally wrong. I call on leaders in both parties and both chambers to pass this legislation swiftly at the next possible opportunity.”
During Brewer’s 2009 sentencing, the state called on forensic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Coons to testify about the danger Brewer posed to those in prison. Coons was a regular expert, called on by the state in dozens of death penalty cases, to forecast how defendants would behave in the future.
Coons asserted that a significant amount of crime goes unreported in prisons, and while Brewer’s record was largely clean, it was likely the defendant would commit more acts of violence.
But three years after Coons testified on Brewer’s dangerousness, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the psychiatrist’s techniques for predicting the risks defendants posed were unreliable.
“We see this case as a kind of an outlier, based on all of these things that have happened in this case, including the junk science that was presented,” Shawn Nolan, Brewer’s attorney, told The Texas Tribune on Monday.
But on Tuesday, the same court rejected Brewer’s motions to stay his execution, which were part of his legal team’s effort to challenge the use of Coons’ testimony in Brewer’s sentencing. Coons never evaluated Brewer yet still told the jury that the defendant would pose a risk to those in prison. The appeals court maintained that Brewer’s lawyer at the time did not sufficiently object to Coons testimony.
“His execution is the farthest thing from justice,” Nolan said in a statement after the Supreme Court declined to intervene ahead of Brewer’s execution. “Texas used the unscientific, baseless testimony of Dr. Richard Coons to claim Brent would be a future danger, although the state and the courts have admitted for years that this exact doctor’s testimony was unreliable and should not be considered by juries in capital cases.”
Nolan filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to pause the Nov. 9 execution date to consider the issue with Coons’ testimony, according to court documents.
Last year in federal court, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk found that Brewer’s 2009 trial lawyers acted reasonably by not objecting to Coons’ testimony before his methodologies were ruled unreliable. Earlier this year the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Kacsmaryk’s opinion.
Nolan said Brewer joined the religious programming available to those on death row and since then he has grown as a person of faith, which was also cited in Brewer’s clemency application.
“Worries are kind of small when you’ve taken someone’s life, you know, when someone is permanently gone like that. But I am sorry for what I did,” Brewer said in a video included in his clemency application. “Even if it doesn’t change the outcome, at least they get to hear it before I go.”
According to court documents William Speer was serving a life sentenced for murder when he and another prisoner, Anibal Canales, would beat to death another prisoner: Gary Dickerson in July 1997 at the Telford state prison
Apparently William Speer is the leader of a large religious group on Texas death row and has spent years on death row with no discipline issues. The sister of Gary Dickerson is asking that William’s life could be spared
UPDATE – William Speer execution has been put on hold by the Texas Supreme Court
William Speer News
A Texas inmate faces execution Thursday for killing another prisoner more than 26 years ago, but the victim’s sister and religious leaders have asked authorities to spare his life.
William Speer, 49, is set to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for strangling to death Gary Dickerson in July 1997 at the Telford state prison, located near New Boston in northeast Texas.
“I am so aware of the things that I’ve done. I’m so aware of the pain and the hurt that I’ve caused. I could just say that I’m sorry,” Speer said in a video submitted as part of his clemency petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
William Speer’s lawyers say he has transformed while in prison, expressed regret for his actions and now helps lead a religious program that ministers to other death row inmates.
His attorneys have asked state and federal courts to halt the execution. One request for a stay focuses on allegations that prosecutors at his 2001 trial failed to disclose evidence, presented false testimony and that his trial lawyers failed to present evidence about Speer’s troubled childhood. They say Speer was physically and sexually abused as a child. Prosecutors have denied the allegations against them.
William Speer’s attorneys had also asked to stop his execution over claims the state’s supply of pentobarbital, the drug used in executions, was exposed to extreme heat during a recent fire, making it unsafe. A federal judge and Texas’ top criminal appeals court this week denied appeals on this claim. A similar allegation made by another inmate, Jedidiah Murphy, was unsuccessful and he was executed earlier this month.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office said the execution drugs were tested after the fire for potency and sterility. Murphy’s execution showed the state can “handle Speer’s execution in a safe and humane manner,” authorities said.
At the time of inmate Dickerson’s killing, Speer had been serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a friend’s father, Jerry Collins, at the man’s Houston area home. Speer was 16 then.
The paroles board on Tuesday voted 7-0 against commuting Speer’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.
Speer killed Dickerson in a bid to join the Texas Mafia prison gang, prosecutors said. The gang ordered the hit after mistakenly concluding Dickerson had informed authorities about tobacco it had tried to smuggle into the prison.
Speer and another inmate, Anibal Canales Jr. were sentenced to death for the killing. Canales remains on death row.
At Speer’s trial, Sammie Martin, who is Dickerson’s only living sibling, told jurors her mother was devasted by her brother’s death.
But Martin has now asked that Speer’s life be spared
I have spent much time reflecting on what justice my brother and my family deserved,” Martin wrote in federal court documents filed this week. “In my heart, I feel that he is not only remorseful for his actions but has been doing good works for others and has something left to offer the world.”
Martin said she was never informed by prosecutors about Speer’s scheduled execution.
In court documents filed this week, lawyers with the Texas Attorney General’s Office said that despite Martin’s feelings about Speer’s execution, “the state retains its interest in deterring gang murders and prison violence, as well as seeing justice done for Dickerson.”
A group of religious leaders from around the country have also asked that Speer be spared. In a letter to the paroles board and Gov. Greg Abbott, they wrote that Speer’s religious work with other prisoners “does not excuse his actions, but it gives us a fuller picture of who Will is as a human, Christian, leader, and teacher.”
Speer would be the seventh inmate in Texas and the 21st in the U.S. put to death this year.
According to court documents Jedidiah Murphy would carjack the elderly woman, Bertie Lee Cunningham, and forced her at gunpoint to drive to a remote location. Once there Jedidiah Murphy would force the woman into the trunk of the car. Jedidiah would then drive to another location where Bertie Lee Cunningham would be murdered
Jedidiah Murphy would be executed by lethal injection on October 10 2023
Jedidiah Murphy Execution
A Texas man who unsuccessfully challenged the safety of the state’s lethal injection drugs and raised questions about evidence used to persuade a jury to sentence him to death for killing an elderly woman decades ago was executed late Tuesday.
Jedidiah Murphy, 48, was pronounced dead after an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the October 2000 fatal shooting of 80-year-old Bertie Lee Cunningham of the Dallas suburb of Garland. Cunningham was killed during a carjacking.
“To the family of the victim, I sincerely apologize for all of it,” Murphy said while strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber and after a Christian pastor, his right hand on Murphy’s chest, prayed for the victim’s family, Murphy’s family and friends and the inmate.
“I hope this helps, if possible, give you closure,” Murphy said.
He then began a lengthy recitation of Psalm 34, ending with: “The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned.”
After telling the warden he was ready, Murphy turned his head toward a friend watching through a window a few feet from him, telling her, “God bless all of y’all. It’s OK. Tell my babies I love them.”
Then he shouted out: “Bella is my wife!”
As the lethal dose of pentobarbital took effect, he took two barely audible breaths and appeared to go to sleep, The pastor stood over him, his left hand over Murphy’s heart, until a physician entered the room about 20 minutes later to examine Murphy and pronounce him dead at 10:15 p.m., 25 minutes after the drug began
The execution took place hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an order that had delayed the death sentence from being carried out. The high court late Tuesday also turned down another request to stay Murphy’s execution over claims the drugs he was injected with were exposed to extreme heat and smoke during a recent fire, making them unsafe and leaving him at risk of pain and suffering.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday had upheld a federal judge’s order from last week delaying the execution after Murphy’s lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking DNA testing of evidence presented at his 2001 trial.
But the state attorney general’s office appealed the 5th Circuit’s decision, with the Supreme Court ruling in Texas’ favor.
In their filings, Murphy’s attorneys had questioned evidence of two robberies and a kidnapping used by prosecutors to persuade jurors during the penalty phase of his trial that Murphy would be a future danger — a legal finding needed to secure a death sentence in Texas.
Murphy admitted he killed Cunningham but had long denied he committed the robberies or kidnapping. His attorneys argued these crimes were the strongest evidence prosecutors had to show Murphy would pose an ongoing threat, but that the evidence linking him to the crimes was problematic, including a questionable identification of Murphy by one of the victims.
Prosecutors had argued against the DNA testing, saying state law only allows for post-conviction testing of evidence related to guilt or innocence and not to a defendant’s sentence. They also called Murphy’s request for a stay “manipulative” and say it should have been filed years ago.
“A capital inmate who waits until the eleventh hour to raise long-available claims should not get to complain that he needs more time to litigate them,” the attorney general’s office wrote in its petition to the high court.
Prosecutors said the state presented “significant other evidence” to show Murphy was a future danger.
In upholding the execution stay, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had said another case before it that was brought by a different Texas death row inmate raised similar issues and it was best to wait for a ruling in that case.
Murphy had long expressed remorse for killing Cunningham.
“I wake up to my crime daily and I’ve never gone a day without sincere remorse for the hurt I’ve caused,” Murphy wrote in a message he sent earlier this year to Michael Zoosman, who had corresponded with Murphy and is co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. Murphy is Jewish.
Murphy’s lawyers had said he also had a long history of mental illness, was abused as a child and was in and out of foster care.
Zoosman said Murphy’s repentance should have been considered in his case but “the reality is we don’t have a system that’s based on restorative justice. We have a system that’s based on retributive vengeance.”
Murphy’s lawyers late Tuesday afternoon also asked the high court to stop the execution over allegations the lethal injection drugs the state would use on him were possibly damaged during an Aug. 25 fire at the Huntsville prison unit where they were stored. The Supreme Court denied that request without comment, in line with similar rulings by a federal judge and a state appeals court.
Murphy was the sixth inmate in Texas and the 20th in the U.S. put to death this year.
Arthur Brown who was sentenced to death by the State of Texas is scheduled to be executed tonight, March 9 2023. According to court documents Marion Dudley, Arthur Brown Jr., and Tony Dunson would go to a residence on Brownstone Lane in Houston Texas. Six people inside of the residence would be tied up and shot. Four of the six would die from their injuries. Marion Dudley would be convicted and sentenced to death and executed back in 2006. Tony Dunson would plead guilty and testify against the other two for a reduced sentence and would be sentenced to life with parole eligibility in 2026. Arthur Brown would be convicted and sentenced to death.
Arthur Brown lawyers are attempting to get his case back in the courts in order to delay the execution or to get his death sentence overturned by claiming that their client is innocent and due to a mental impairment should not be executed. Arthur Brown has been on death row for 30 years
Arthur Brown Execution More News
On Thursday evening, Texas plans to execute Arthur Brown Jr. for the 1992 shooting deaths of four Houstonians in a drug house.
Though Arthur Brown has been on death row for nearly 30 years, legal claims filed after new death penalty public defenders took over the case last year make several dramatic arguments, including that Brown is innocent of the murders. Last week, Texas’ Office of Capital and Forensic Writs asked courts to halt Brown’s execution, arguing Houston prosecutors for decades hid evidence pointing to another suspect.
The attorneys also argue Arthur Brown is intellectually disabled to the point where it is unconstitutional to execute him under previous court rulings. And they claim Brown’s trial was tainted by racism, saying a white juror has since said she knew immediately the Black defendant was a “thug” and had no doubt he would kill again.
“Arthur Brown Jr. is an innocent and intellectually disabled man incarcerated on Texas’s death row as a result of sloppy police work, prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence, corrupted eyewitness identifications, [and] false forensic testimony,” the public defenders said in their filings last week.
So far, the appeals have been unsuccessful in state and federal courts, with judges largely saying the claims did not clear the high bar to consider appeals this late.
Harris County prosecutors deny they shielded evidence, saying attorneys could have found a witness interview pointing to another suspect earlier. The district attorney’s office also disputes that Arthur Brown qualifies as intellectually disabled and argued the racial bias claim could have been raised earlier in the decades since Brown was sentenced.
“Simply put, the applicant’s ‘new’ evidence is of little value, and pales in comparison to the weight of inculpatory evidence,” prosecutors said.
As of Wednesday evening, Arthur Brown had a final plea pending at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding his intellectual disability claim. If the high court rejects it, the 52-year-old man will be executed after 6 p.m. in the Huntsville prison’s death chamber.
Arthur Brown and two other men were convicted in the 1992 execution-style killings of Jose Guadalupe Tovar, Jessica Quinones, Audrey Brown and Frank Farias. The four victims each were tied up in Tovar’s Houston home and shot in the back of the head.
Tovar and his wife, Rachel, were known drug dealers who supplied cocaine and marijuana to Brown and the other men, according to court documents. Rachel Tovar and Nicolas Cortez were also shot in the head but survived.
The murders and Brown’s subsequent trial were sensational, with allegations of police and prosecutorial coercion of witnesses, shocking recantations on the stand and Brown’s sister jailed in contempt and later charged with perjury.
Three of Brown’s sisters testified for the state, placing Brown at one of their houses in Houston the night of the murders after a drug buy, according to court documents. Two said he offered to pay them to take his van filled with drugs back to where he lived in Alabama, while he flew home the next day.
After being held in contempt for initially refusing to testify despite having been granted immunity, one sister, Carolyn Momoh, testified that Arthur Brown had told her he had “shot six Mexicans.” On cross-examination, Momoh said her earlier statement was false, and she and the other sister said on the stand that they testified because police had threatened to take their kids away if they did not.“I was told I had to testify to that statement,” Momoh said, according to the filing. She was later prosecuted on a perjury charge for changing her testimony.
Two other men, Marion Dudley and Antonio Dunson, were also convicted of capital murder in the case. Dudley, who maintained his innocence until his death, was executed in 2006. Dunson is serving a life sentence.
Defense attorneys have always considered the case against Brown flimsy at best. Aside from the recanted testimony, prosecutors largely relied on eyewitness accounts by the slayings’ two survivors, both of whom had questionable recall after being shot in the head.
At trial, Rachel Tovar and Cortez both identified Brown as their assailant, but Tovar gave conflicting information to police in the hospital, and Cortez had earlier failed to pick Brown out of a photo lineup, according to court filings. In Dunson’s subsequent trial, Cortez again failed to identify Brown from photos.
The physical evidence tied to the murders — guns believed to be tied to Brown and believed to have fired the fatal rounds — were recovered elsewhere, including on another man after he was killed in a similar attempted robbery at a drug dealer’s house in Alabama. That man, Terrell Hill, was the focus of the defense’s theory at trial, pinning him as the likely shooter.
The science used to connect the guns to the bullets found at the scene was later discredited on appeals, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals still upheld Brown’s sentence. The judges ruled the jury still likely would have convicted Brown without the ballistic evidence.
But in a police interview kept out of trial and undisclosed to Brown’s attorneys until this year, the son of Rachel Tovar said his mother used a nickname for Hill when describing her assailants to police in the hospital. She told police in one interview she heard the nicknames “Red” and “Squirt” being used in the attack and that her son would know them from answering the door.
When police interviewed her son, Anthony Farias, he repeatedly said Red’s real name was “Terrell,” according to Brown’s new filing. Prosecutors did not call Farias to testify at trial, which meant they did not have to give defense attorneys a copy of his interview — a point Brown’s lawyers called into question at trial.
“They took a two-hour video tape of Anthony Farias. What did Anthony Farias have that was so important that they videotaped it and why isn’t he here to testify?” the prisoner’s attorney said at his 1993 trial, according to court records.
Now, Brown’s attorneys say the evidence requires a renewed look at his innocence claim.
“Mr. Brown presents to this Court long-suppressed information by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) pointing to Marcus Terrell Hill, a Tuscaloosa drug dealer who was shot and killed trying to rob a crack house in Alabama while in possession of the alleged murder weapon in this case, as the party responsible for the murders for which Mr. Brown and his co-defendants were wrongly convicted,” public defenders wrote in appeals last week.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office said the interview could have been acquired by appellate attorneys years ago when lawyers conducted public information reviews of the state files. It’s unclear if the video tape was in the case file at that time. The state also said Faria’s testimony would have added little weight anyway, as it was hearsay.
Plus, prosecutors said Hill had an alibi. His cousin had said, backed up by rental car records, they arrived in Houston the day before the murders but couldn’t find a hotel room so they drove back to Alabama, according to court records.
Ogg’s office stood behind Brown’s conviction, noting that Brown’s friends referred to him as Squirt, and prosecutors credited Rachel Tovar and Cortez’s visual identifications of Brown. The state also continued to point to Momoh’s quickly recanted testimony, saying Brown told her he shot Mexicans and that her gun had gone missing.
“Victims’ rights matter,” said Assistant District Attorney Joshua Reiss. “The victims in this case have suffered for decades from the carnage that Arthur Brown Jr. caused them to live with.”
Aside from Brown’s innocence claim, his attorneys have also attempted to halt his execution on claims that he is intellectually disabled.
Since 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of those with an intellectual disability, deeming it violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
In Brown’s case, attorneys provided evidence that Brown had been in special education classes since he was a young child and was deemed “educable mentally retarded” in elementary school. In third grade, his IQ was measured at 70, generally considered within the range of intellectual disability. Brown’s attorneys also note he was typically thought of as “slow” throughout his life, and his friends and family learned to talk to him in simple language.
Prosecutors countered that Arthur Brown was not intellectually disabled but instead had a learning disability. They noted that his IQ scores in middle school bumped up to the high 80s, with the school psychologist suggesting he be moved from the class for the “mentally retarded” to a class for students with learning disabilities.
In his final appeal, Brown’s attorneys are hoping the disability claim will prompt the nation’s high court to halt his execution. For years, the high court has knocked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ methods for determining such disabilities, sending one case back repeatedly.
“No court has ever heard the merits of this Eighth Amendment claim because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has applied a novel procedural bar to his ID claim, wholly inconsistent with its practice in numerous other cases,” Brown’s lawyers said in their Wednesday filing.
Texas has executed an inmate convicted of the drug-related killings of four people more than 30 years ago, including a woman who was nine months pregnant.
Arthur Brown Jr., 52, insisted he was innocent before receiving a lethal injection Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1992 slayings, which took place in a Houston home during a drug robbery.
Authorities said Brown was part of a ring that shuttled drugs from Texas to Alabama and had bought drugs from Jose Tovar and his wife Rachel Tovar.
Killed during the drug robbery were 32-year-old Jose Tovar; his wife’s 17-year-old son, Frank Farias; 19-year-old Jessica Quiñones, the pregnant girlfriend of another son of Rachel Tovar; and 21-year-old neighbor Audrey Brown. All four had been tied up and shot in the head. Rachel Tovar and another person were also shot but survived.
“I don’t see how anybody could have just killed a pregnant woman and then made her suffer so much. It’s just beyond words,” Quiñones’ older sister, Maricella Quiñones, said before the execution.
Brown was the fifth inmate put to death in Texas this year and the ninth in the U.S. His execution was the second of two in Texas this week. Another inmate, Gary Green, was executed Tuesday for killing his estranged wife and her young daughter
Brown was defiant in his final statement.
“What is happening here tonight isn’t justice,” he said. “It’s the murder of another innocent man.”
He said he’d proved his innocence “but the courts blocked me.”
Texas executes man convicted of killing 4, including woman who was 9 months pregnant
March 9, 2023 / 9:16 PM / AP
Texas has executed an inmate convicted of the drug-related killings of four people more than 30 years ago, including a woman who was nine months pregnant.
Arthur Brown Jr., 52, insisted he was innocent before receiving a lethal injection Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1992 slayings, which took place in a Houston home during a drug robbery.
Authorities said Brown was part of a ring that shuttled drugs from Texas to Alabama and had bought drugs from Jose Tovar and his wife Rachel Tovar.
Killed during the drug robbery were 32-year-old Jose Tovar; his wife’s 17-year-old son, Frank Farias; 19-year-old Jessica Quiñones, the pregnant girlfriend of another son of Rachel Tovar; and 21-year-old neighbor Audrey Brown. All four had been tied up and shot in the head. Rachel Tovar and another person were also shot but survived.
“I don’t see how anybody could have just killed a pregnant woman and then made her suffer so much. It’s just beyond words,” Quiñones’ older sister, Maricella Quiñones, said before the execution.
Brown was the fifth inmate put to death in Texas this year and the ninth in the U.S. His execution was the second of two in Texas this week. Another inmate, Gary Green, was executed Tuesday for killing his estranged wife and her young daughter.
FILE – This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Arthur Brown Jr. Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP
Brown was defiant in his final statement.
“What is happening here tonight isn’t justice,” he said. “It’s the murder of another innocent man.”
He said he’d proved his innocence “but the courts blocked me.”
“The state hid the evidence so long and good that my own attorneys couldn’t find it,” he said in a loud voice, looking at the ceiling of the death chamber while strapped to a gurney and not making any eye contact with a half-dozen relatives of his victims who watched through a window a few feet from him.
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital took effect, he took two deep breaths, gasped and then began snoring. After six snores all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 17 minutes later, at 6:37 p.m.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who was among the execution witnesses, disputed Brown’s claims of innocence.
“He has been the beneficiary of a judicial system that bent over backward at the local, state and federal levels, all the way to the United States Supreme Court, who have all affirmed his conviction and sentence,” she said.
Three members of Jessica Quinones’ family, including her mother, also were among the witnesses and released a statement saying the day was neither one of joy nor celebration but “profound relief and gratitude.”
“After 30 years of anguish and uncertainty, we are finally able to rest knowing the monster who destroyed so many lives will never again torment the body or soul of another,” they said.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Thursday declined an appeal from Brown’s attorneys to halt the execution. They had argued that Brown was exempt from execution because he was intellectually disabled, a claim disputed by prosecutors. The high court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled.
“Mr. Brown’s intellectual limitations were known to his friends and family. … Individuals that knew Mr. Brown over the course of his life have described him consistently as ‘slow,'” his attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.
One of Brown’s accomplices in the shootings, Marion Dudley, was executed in 2006. A third partner was sentenced to life in prison.
Brown, who was from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had long maintained another person committed the killings.
Brown’s attorneys had previously filed other appeals that had been rejected by lower courts. They argued he was innocent and that a witness actually implicated another suspect. They also claimed Brown’s conviction was tainted by racial bias, alleging one of the jurors decided he was guilty because he was Black.
A judge in Houston on Tuesday denied a request by Brown’s attorneys for DNA testing of evidence that they said could have exonerated their client.
Josh Reiss, chief of the Post-Conviction Writs Division with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, called Brown’s last-minute appeals a delay tactic.
Reiss said school records submitted at Brown’s trial showed while the inmate was initially thought to possibly be intellectually disabled in the third grade, by ninth grade that was no longer the case. The prosecutor also said Brown’s claims of innocence were problematic as the other suspect alleged to be the killer was found by investigators to not have been in Houston at the time.
Texas executes man convicted of killing 4, including woman who was 9 months pregnant
March 9, 2023 / 9:16 PM / AP
Texas has executed an inmate convicted of the drug-related killings of four people more than 30 years ago, including a woman who was nine months pregnant.
Arthur Brown Jr., 52, insisted he was innocent before receiving a lethal injection Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1992 slayings, which took place in a Houston home during a drug robbery.
Authorities said Brown was part of a ring that shuttled drugs from Texas to Alabama and had bought drugs from Jose Tovar and his wife Rachel Tovar.
Killed during the drug robbery were 32-year-old Jose Tovar; his wife’s 17-year-old son, Frank Farias; 19-year-old Jessica Quiñones, the pregnant girlfriend of another son of Rachel Tovar; and 21-year-old neighbor Audrey Brown. All four had been tied up and shot in the head. Rachel Tovar and another person were also shot but survived.
“I don’t see how anybody could have just killed a pregnant woman and then made her suffer so much. It’s just beyond words,” Quiñones’ older sister, Maricella Quiñones, said before the execution.
Brown was the fifth inmate put to death in Texas this year and the ninth in the U.S. His execution was the second of two in Texas this week. Another inmate, Gary Green, was executed Tuesday for killing his estranged wife and her young daughter.
FILE – This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Arthur Brown Jr. Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP
Brown was defiant in his final statement.
“What is happening here tonight isn’t justice,” he said. “It’s the murder of another innocent man.”
He said he’d proved his innocence “but the courts blocked me.”
“The state hid the evidence so long and good that my own attorneys couldn’t find it,” he said in a loud voice, looking at the ceiling of the death chamber while strapped to a gurney and not making any eye contact with a half-dozen relatives of his victims who watched through a window a few feet from him.
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital took effect, he took two deep breaths, gasped and then began snoring. After six snores all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 17 minutes later, at 6:37 p.m.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who was among the execution witnesses, disputed Brown’s claims of innocence.
“He has been the beneficiary of a judicial system that bent over backward at the local, state and federal levels, all the way to the United States Supreme Court, who have all affirmed his conviction and sentence,” she said.
Three members of Jessica Quinones’ family, including her mother, also were among the witnesses and released a statement saying the day was neither one of joy nor celebration but “profound relief and gratitude.”
“After 30 years of anguish and uncertainty, we are finally able to rest knowing the monster who destroyed so many lives will never again torment the body or soul of another,” they said.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Thursday declined an appeal from Brown’s attorneys to halt the execution. They had argued that Brown was exempt from execution because he was intellectually disabled, a claim disputed by prosecutors. The high court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled.
“Mr. Brown’s intellectual limitations were known to his friends and family. … Individuals that knew Mr. Brown over the course of his life have described him consistently as ‘slow,'” his attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.
One of Brown’s accomplices in the shootings, Marion Dudley, was executed in 2006. A third partner was sentenced to life in prison.
Brown, who was from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had long maintained another person committed the killings.
Brown’s attorneys had previously filed other appeals that had been rejected by lower courts. They argued he was innocent and that a witness actually implicated another suspect. They also claimed Brown’s conviction was tainted by racial bias, alleging one of the jurors decided he was guilty because he was Black.
A judge in Houston on Tuesday denied a request by Brown’s attorneys for DNA testing of evidence that they said could have exonerated their client.
Josh Reiss, chief of the Post-Conviction Writs Division with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, called Brown’s last-minute appeals a delay tactic.
Reiss said school records submitted at Brown’s trial showed while the inmate was initially thought to possibly be intellectually disabled in the third grade, by ninth grade that was no longer the case. The prosecutor also said Brown’s claims of innocence were problematic as the other suspect alleged to be the killer was found by investigators to not have been in Houston at the time.
“It was an absolutely brutal mass murder,” Reiss said, adding: “These families deserve justice.”
Maricella Quiñones said her sister was an innocent victim who wasn’t aware the Tovars were dealing drugs from the home. She said her mother also blames the Tovars for what happened.
“My mother’s not the same since my sister passed away,” she said.
She described her sister as a “very loving, caring person” who had looked forward to being a mother.
She said her family would likely never get closure.
“We lost two persons. Alyssa never got a chance at life,” she said, referring to her sister’s unborn child.
Brown was one of six Texas death row inmates participating in a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s prison system from using what they allege are expired and unsafe execution drugs. Despite a civil court judge in Austin preliminarily agreeing with the claims, five of the inmates have been executed this year.
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