Kwame Rockwell was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a robbery murder. According to court documents Kwame Rockwell would shoot and kill Daniel Rojas and Jerry Burnett during the course of a robbery. Kwame Rockwell would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The execution of a man who robbed a Fort Worth gas station in 2010 was delayed Friday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Kwame Rockwell, 42, was set to be executed Oct. 24 for the deaths of a gas station clerk and delivery man in a Fort Worth robbery. Rockwell and two other men robbed the store and fatally shot Daniel Rojas and Jerry Burnett, according to court records. In 2012, Rockwell was convicted for the murder of Rojas.
On Friday, a majority of Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judges ordered Rockwell’s execution be delayed, the Texas Tribune reported. They also ordered a judge to appoint two mental health experts and re-examine Rockwell for execution.
On Wednesday, Rockwell and his attorneys filed a motion to stay the execution, arguing Rockwell’s schizophrenia prevents him from understanding his execution and the murder conviction.
According to state law, a person must be competent in order to be executed.
Rockwell’s attorneys said he has a lifelong history of severe mental illness with fixed delusions that snakes and demons surround him and invade his body, The Associated Press reported.
Rockwell was also diagnosed with schizophrenia in prison, according to an appeal he made in April 2017.
On Oct. 4, Rockwell’s attorney filed a motion to delay Rockwell’s execution.
On Oct. 12, the Court of Criminal Appeals denied the motion, saying Rockwell did not show substantial evidence of incompetency, according to court records.
Multiple experts have examined Rockwell and suggested he is feigning his symptoms, the prosecuting office said in the response to Rockwell’s first execution stay motion. The objection motion also said Rockwell staged a suicide in jail, showing he was feigning mental health symptoms.
Rockwell’s attorneys, however, said he is kept in a psychiatric facility and prescribed anti-psychotic medication. They filed again to have Rockwell’s execution stayed.
In April 2017, a federal appeals court rejected an appeal from Rockwell, who argued he had poor legal help at his Tarrant County trial when his lawyers decided to not present evidence he may be schizophrenic and that he used steroids.
In the 2017 appeal, Rockwell said his lawyers in the murder case did not adequately investigate his schizophrenia and present evidence of it to the jury. He said once he was convicted, jail medical staff examined him, monitored his symptoms and prescribed him an anti-psychotic drug.
In March 2010, Rockwell and two other men entered the Valero gas station while wearing dark clothing and black ski masks. Chance Smith, who is serving a 20-year sentence for the robbery, testified Rockwell shot the clerk and delivery man inside the store, according to court records.
Roderick Harris was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a double murder. According to court documents Roderick Harris forced his way into a home at gunpoint and in the process of a robbery would shoot and kill two men. Roderick Harris would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Dallas County jurors deliberated for two days before deciding Monday that there was nothing in killer Roderick Harris’ background that would warrant sparing him from death.
Harris, 27, stood looking down at the defense table with his hands in his pockets as state District Judge Mike Snipes read the jury’s verdict. The jury left the room, and Harris sat as the judge formally gave Harris the death sentence.
The same jury earlier this month found Harris guilty after he robbed a home, terrorizing a family, including three children, before shooting and killing brothers Alfredo and Carlos Gallardo.
After the verdict, their sister, Blanca Garcia, said during a victim impact statement that Harris’ damage to her family “will never be forgotten.”
“I just want to ask this man why he would do that, because he broke our hearts,” said Garcia, who seemed to struggle to find the right words as she spoke to Harris through an interpreter.
Garcia said that she was glad of the jury’s verdict. But she noted that had the jury instead voted for life without parole, her family would still be suffering.
“Either way, I am sad because I will never see my brothers again,” she said.
Harris stormed into the family’s trailer in southeast Dallas in March 2009 and demanded cash, jewelry and drugs. The family gave him what little they had — $2, a ring and a necklace. They had no drugs. During the home invasion, one of the children translated Harris’ words into Spanish because some in the family could not understand him.
Harris pistol-whipped the brothers and ordered the family into a bathroom closet. Harris later pulled out Alfredo Gallardo, 45. Alfredo Gallardo pushed Harris into the bathtub and fell on top of Harris. Harris shot Alfredo Gallardo twice. Harris shot Carlos Gallardo, 36, when he tried to help his brother.
At least one of the children witnessed the shootings as she watched from inside the closet, according to testimony.
Harris was arrested leaving the home after getting into a shootout with police, who had been alerted to the crime after one family member escaped through a window. Harris was shot twice. The officers were not hurt.
During closing arguments, prosecutors had urged jurors to agree to a death sentence, reminding them that Harris has been a gang member and accused in other robberies, including a case where three brothers were shot, one fatally.
“You know the evil that is Roderick Harris,” prosecutor Justin Lord said. “He will pose a threat to anyone and everyone he’s around because that’s who he is.”
Defense attorneys pleaded for jurors to consider life without parole because of his upbringing. Harris grew up in a home where violence was common. He was abandoned by his father and neglected by his mother, who used marijuana daily when she was pregnant with him. Mental illness also runs in his family.
Defense attorney Brad Lollar also appealed to jurors to consider that the death penalty is “archaic,” “barbaric” and “immoral.”
Lollar told jurors that if a death sentence would bring back those Harris killed, “I’d be the first one to vote yes.”
Harris was only convicted of killing Alfredo Gallardo. He could face a trial for his other crimes, but that is unlikely because he was sentenced to death.
Tyrone Cade was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a double murder. According to court documents Tyrone Cade would stab to death his girlfriend and her daughter following an argument. Tyrone Cade would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The state’s’ highest criminal court has rejected an appeal from an Irving man sent to death row for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her teenage daughter in 2011.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision Wednesday upholds the findings of 44-year-old Tyrone Cade’s trial court which held a hearing to review what Cade’s lawyers said were 16 errors from his trial in 2012. Most of the arguments centered on whether Cade’s trial attorneys were constitutionally deficient.
Tyrone Cade was convicted of killing 37-year-old Mischell Fuller and her daughter, 18-year-old Desaree Hoskins, at their home in Irving. Fuller was stabbed 28 times, Hoskins 39 times. Cade’s trial lawyers argued he was insane at the time. He earlier served three years in prison for sexual assault.
Steven Nelson was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for robbing a church and killing a Pastor. According to court documents Steven Nelson,Anthony Gregory Springs and Clifford Jefferson would enter a church and in the process of robbing it would murder Rev. Clint Dobson. Steven Nelson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Jurors sentenced the man convicted of killing a North Texas pastor to death, then Steven Lawayne Nelson broke a sprinkler head, flooding the courtroom.
Jurors deliberated the sentence for about an hour and a half Tuesday before sending Nelson to death row for killing Rev. Clint Dobson.
During victim impact statements, Dobson’s widow took the stand to address her husband’s killer.
“I refuse to let you get the best of me,” Laura Dobson said. “No one will remember you, but many people will remember Clint.”
Nelson was taken to a holding cell where he broke the sprinkler head sending dark water into the courtroom. Fort Worth firefighters had to be called out to deal with the broken sprinkler.
Earlier in the morning, during closing arguments, prosecutors said Nelson deserves the death penalty because his crime was heinous and vicious.
Prosecutors said Nelson killed Dobson and severely beat a secretary at Arlington’s NorthPointe Baptist Church because he wanted to steal a car.
Prosecutors say Nelson has committed crimes since he was a young teen and has been given many chances to rehabilitate, but his crimes escalated. They say he killed an inmate while jailed before this murder trial.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that he assaulted jailers, broke sprinkler heads to cause jailhouse flooding, broke the stun belt on his ankle during a break in the capital murder trial and that he was found in possession of razor blades.
“The facts of this case made it clear that the death penalty was the only viable option,” Bob Gill of the District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. “Sparing Steven Nelson would have condemned other future victims.”
Defense attorneys asked jurors to spare Nelson’s life. They say he was a neglected child who didn’t get the help he needed.
Bartholowmew Granger was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for a murder. According to court documents Bartholowmew Granger would shoot and kill a stranger while attempting to shoot his daughter outside of a courtroom. Bartholowmew Granger would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Deborah Ray Holst reminds her grandchildren that an angel is watching them — Mawmaw Minnie. Holst’s mother, Minnie Ray Sebolt, was killed at the Jefferson County Courthouse five years ago, shot outside the entrance while accompanying a friend to help her get VA benefits.
“I don’t use the word killed,” said Holst, 60. “He murdered her.”
In the five years since the shooting, in which Bartholomew Granger fired at his daughter and ex-girlfriend, Samantha and Claudia Jackson — killing Sebolt and injuring a bystander — Holst said she has thought about her mother every day.
She talks to Claudia about once a year, keeping up with how she and Samantha are doing, and tells her grandchildren stories about Mawmaw.
One person she hasn’t spoken to is Bartholomew Granger, 46, who spends his days in a one-person cell on death row at a state prison in Livingston.
Granger was sentenced to death in 2013, after a jury found him guilty of capital murder. Prosecutors proved he intended to kill his daughter, a crime of retaliation against a trial witness, and transferred that intent to Sebolt’s death.
He has appealed the ruling twice. His most recent appeal is pending at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
From behind a barrier in a visitation room at the prison, Granger said he remembers only pieces of the day before he woke up in the hospital and was told he shot someone at the courthouse. Eruption of gunfire
“We all still remember it. Everybody still remembers it,” said Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham. “If you were here on that day, it was etched in your mind.”
At the time, Wortham was the 58th District Court Judge. On March 14, the day of the shooting, he was in Mexico on vacation. In 2013, he presided over Granger’s trial, at which the jury sentenced him to death.
Courthouse security guard Edmund Woodsmall had just arrived at work that day and was in the jury impaneling auditorium next to the entrance when he heard gunshots and glass breaking. “Bullets were flying through the glass, they broke one of the doors,” he said.
Sebolt had already been shot and was on the ground outside the revolving door when he looked out, he said.
“I just stayed over here and made sure nobody could get in,” Woodsmall said, motioning to the entrance, where he still works.
The same security system is in place at the courthouse today, he said. All entrants must pass through a metal detector and have their bag scanned.
Beaumont Police Chief Jimmy Singletary, who was appointed six months earlier, was saying goodbye to a newly appointed chaplain when he heard the gunshots. He rushed him safely to his car and then headed to the courthouse.
He said officers still poke fun at him for jumping over the 3-foot barricade beside the courthouse. “It amazes me what goes through your head in such a short period of time,” Singletary said.
When they were able to go outside, Woodsmall said security guards checked on Sebolt and another woman who had been shot. Sebolt was already dead.
Meanwhile, officers shot at Bartholomew Granger as he fled the courthouse and tried to drive away, surveillance footage shows.
Wortham said 56 bullet shell casings were recovered from the roadway connecting the entrance of the courthouse to Milam Street. Fifty matched law enforcement weapons, and another six weren’t identified, possibly fired by private citizens.
As Granger fled, Singletary hid behind a traffic pole trying not to get hit by his own officers firing at the truck, he said.
He said in his 46 years on the force he couldn’t recall a dangerous incident as significant as this one. Granger said he remembers bringing a gun to the courthouse that day, though he claims not to know much of what happened later.
“I remember being at the courthouse, I remember seeing Claudia and Samantha,” he said. He continues to accuse the women of lying about him and falsely accusing him of sexual assault.
“The only person I remember shooting at was my daughter,” Granger said. “I shot at her eight times.”
“All of a sudden, everything was black. When I came to, I ran out of the building, started turning the truck around,” he said. “I thought they were going to keep shooting.” Singletary said Granger made eye contact with him as he drove past him heading straight-on into a strip of bullets.
“I got around the corner, the truck died,” Bartholomew Granger said. “I ran into the office building, there were some people.”
The office building was the warehouse of RCI, a construction company
Prosecutors said Granger held four people hostage in the office, though he claimed he told them, “I’m not going to shoot, I just want the cops to stop shooting.”
Granger, who had been hit as he fled the courthouse, started to black out, and the hostages tackled him, Wortham said.
He was later indicted on four counts of aggravated kidnapping.
Holst’s daughter received a phone call from the woman Sebolt was at the courthouse with, telling her “your Mawmaw’s been shot.”
Granger sticks to his belief that Sebolt was shot and killed by police fire, which Wortham calls an impossibility because law enforcement didn’t arrive until after she was shot.
“I’m sorry that someone lost a life, but I didn’t take a life,” said Granger, who said he can’t feel remorse because that would mean admitting to killing her. “I have empathy and sympathy for the family,” he said. He said he prays for Sebolt every night.
That’s no comfort to Holst, who said she looks forward to his as-yet-unscheduled execution date. “My taxes, my children’s taxes, are paying for that piece of crap to get free medical, free dental, three meals a day,” Holst said. “I’m a Christian, my mother was a Christian, but I can’t forgive him, and I can’t wait for him to get the needle.”
Throughout his days, which consist mostly of reading graphic novels and listening to the radio, Granger said he sits in his cell thinking of the day that led to his confinement.
“I’d rather die than be in prison for life,” Granger said. If he were ever released, he said, the first thing he would do is eat a Taco Bell chalupa. After that, he said, “I’d just want to be left alone.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, Holst said Claudia Jackson reached out to the Sebolt family and apologized. “We said we appreciate the thought, but there is no animosity. They’re victims too, even more so,” she said.
While the two families were trying to make sense of what they had just endured, Singletary said his officers were tense.
“If it ever gets to the point where it doesn’t affect you, you need to get another job,” Singletary said about the experience of the day. “It affects you, but you have to be able to control it.”
Holst has kept a close eye on Granger’s appeals, she said. His most recent, according to attorney Gretchen Sween with the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, is a habeas corpus proceeding addressing the process of his trial.
The appeal is challenging the constitutionality of the proceedings in district court, Sween said. Sween filed objections with the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals in December, including that trial lawyers Sonny Cribbs and James Makin failed to present relevant evidence, that the court denied Granger due process by not holding a hearing on his objections, and that the district court should not have adopted facts as presented by the state.
“There’s a floor of the kind of representation everyone is entitled to,” she said. “Our argument is that he didn’t even receive that.”
Sween said there has not been a hearing on this appeal. Last month, the court ordered the Jefferson County District Clerk to submit six of the exhibits from Granger’s first trial to the court for inspection
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