nighthawk_75253
05-23-2002, 03:01 AM
From: "A.S." <april0416@y...>
Date: Wed May 22, 2002 9:39 pm
Subject: Fwd: death penalty news---TEXAS----execution
Rick Halperin <rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu>
wrote:
May 22, 2002
TEXAS---execution
Convenience store killer executed
today
Convicted killer Johnny Joe
Martinez was executed this
evening for
fatally stabbing a Corpus Christi
convenience store clerk 9 years
ago.
In a lengthy final
statement, Martinez was
apologetic and bitter,
blaming
his state appointed appeals
lawyers for his death.
"I know I'm fixing to die,
but not for my mistakes,"
Martinez said. "My
trial lawyers, they are the
ones who are killing me."
Martinez had insisted that
his initial appeals lawyers
were incompetent and
inexperienced and failed to
take the proper steps to get
him off death row.
Late appeals, including some
to the Supreme Court this
week, were rejected.
He apologized to the parents
of his victim, Clay
Peterson. Peterson's
mother, Lana Norris, lobbied
for his sentence to be
reduced to a life term.
"I want to thank you," he
said, referring to Norris.
"It meant a lot to me."
His voice shaking, Martinez
said he failed to call his
own mother Wednesday.
"Tell my mother I love her
too. I didn't call her
because I just couldn't,"
Martinez said.
"I'm fine. I'm happy. I love
you all. See you on the
other side," he said
before taking a deep breath
and slipping into
unconsciousness. He was
pronounced dead at 6:30
p.m., 12 minutes after the
lethal dose began.
Martinez's case gained
notoriety when Norris joined
the prisoner in asking
the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles to spare the
29-year-old Kingsville
man by commuting his
sentence to life in prison.
The board, in an unusually
close 9-8 vote Monday,
refused the clemency
request.
Attempts in the courts
earlier this week to stop
the execution were
unsuccessful and the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected a
pair of appeals about an
hour before his scheduled
lethal injection.
While not violent, prison
officials described him as
"passively resisting"
as he was taken from the
Polunsky Unit of the Texas
Department of Criminal
Justice, home of death row,
for the 45-mile drive to the
Huntsville Unit,
where executions are carried
out.
"I'm not going to walk,"
Martinez told prison guards.
"You're going to have
to carry me."
They did, then repeated the
procedure when he refused to
walk himself into a
cell just outside the death
chamber.
Martinez, who worked as a
medical care technician at a
home for the mentally
retarded, said he was drunk
and had smoked marijuana at
a party when he
walked into the store where
Peterson was working alone
about 3 a.m. July
15, 1993.
The robbery of $25.65 from
the cash register and the
gruesome killing of the
20-year-old Peterson was
caught on videotape by the
store's security camera.
"When you see that, you
think: God, what a monster!"
Martinez said recently
from death row. "I couldn't
watch it. I couldn't believe
it was me...
"There's not one day I don't
think about what I did. I
wish I could bring
him back. To this day, I
still can't believe I did
something like that."
As shown on the video,
Martinez put a knife to
Peterson's throat, got money
from the cash register, then
attacked him.
"To this day, I can't tell
you how many times he was
stabbed," Martinez
said.
"He plunges the knife into
the guy's neck 4 times,"
Mark Skurka, the
Nueces County assistant
district attorney who
prosecuted Martinez, said,
recalling the images from
the tape. "It's horrible.
(Peterson) goes down
face first. Johnny Joe
Martinez tries to get around
him and the guy tries
to get back up. And he stabs
him 4 more times in the
back."
The video then shows
Martinez running out of the
store and a companion in
the parking lot driving off
without him.
On the tape, the wounded
Peterson climbs to the
counter.
"You see a hand come up and
grab the phone," Skurka
said. "He's talking like
he's drowning. You see his
bloody hand... You basically
see the guy die on
camera. He slips down... You
see the blood spurting all
over the place. Then
it's deadly quiet until the
cops get there.
"It's very moving, very
riveting. It was very
upsetting to the jury."
When Martinez gave a
confession to police, he
said the stabbing came after
Peterson struggled. The
video disputed the claim.
"The kid never made a move
to resist," Skurka said.
"Johnny Joe Martinez
didn't know there was a
security video."
In her letter to the parole
board, Peterson's mother
urged Martinez, who she
met earlier this month in
prison, be saved so another
mother could avoid
losing a son to murder. The
rejection left her sad, she
said.
"We will be praying for
Johnny and his family," she
said.
Skurka said it was important
to note a jury decided
Martinez's fate.
"Not the mother, not me," he
said. "12 people apparently
looked at the
video and decided this guy
was a future danger."
Martinez becomes the 13th
condemned inmate to be put
to death this year
in Texas and the 269th
overall since the state
resumed capital punishment
on December 7, 1982.
Martinez becomes the 29th
condemned inmate to be put
to death this year
in the USA and the 778th
overall since America
resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press
& Rick Halperin)
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````````````````````````````````````
Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became
endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being
must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963.
Date: Wed May 22, 2002 9:39 pm
Subject: Fwd: death penalty news---TEXAS----execution
Rick Halperin <rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu>
wrote:
May 22, 2002
TEXAS---execution
Convenience store killer executed
today
Convicted killer Johnny Joe
Martinez was executed this
evening for
fatally stabbing a Corpus Christi
convenience store clerk 9 years
ago.
In a lengthy final
statement, Martinez was
apologetic and bitter,
blaming
his state appointed appeals
lawyers for his death.
"I know I'm fixing to die,
but not for my mistakes,"
Martinez said. "My
trial lawyers, they are the
ones who are killing me."
Martinez had insisted that
his initial appeals lawyers
were incompetent and
inexperienced and failed to
take the proper steps to get
him off death row.
Late appeals, including some
to the Supreme Court this
week, were rejected.
He apologized to the parents
of his victim, Clay
Peterson. Peterson's
mother, Lana Norris, lobbied
for his sentence to be
reduced to a life term.
"I want to thank you," he
said, referring to Norris.
"It meant a lot to me."
His voice shaking, Martinez
said he failed to call his
own mother Wednesday.
"Tell my mother I love her
too. I didn't call her
because I just couldn't,"
Martinez said.
"I'm fine. I'm happy. I love
you all. See you on the
other side," he said
before taking a deep breath
and slipping into
unconsciousness. He was
pronounced dead at 6:30
p.m., 12 minutes after the
lethal dose began.
Martinez's case gained
notoriety when Norris joined
the prisoner in asking
the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles to spare the
29-year-old Kingsville
man by commuting his
sentence to life in prison.
The board, in an unusually
close 9-8 vote Monday,
refused the clemency
request.
Attempts in the courts
earlier this week to stop
the execution were
unsuccessful and the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected a
pair of appeals about an
hour before his scheduled
lethal injection.
While not violent, prison
officials described him as
"passively resisting"
as he was taken from the
Polunsky Unit of the Texas
Department of Criminal
Justice, home of death row,
for the 45-mile drive to the
Huntsville Unit,
where executions are carried
out.
"I'm not going to walk,"
Martinez told prison guards.
"You're going to have
to carry me."
They did, then repeated the
procedure when he refused to
walk himself into a
cell just outside the death
chamber.
Martinez, who worked as a
medical care technician at a
home for the mentally
retarded, said he was drunk
and had smoked marijuana at
a party when he
walked into the store where
Peterson was working alone
about 3 a.m. July
15, 1993.
The robbery of $25.65 from
the cash register and the
gruesome killing of the
20-year-old Peterson was
caught on videotape by the
store's security camera.
"When you see that, you
think: God, what a monster!"
Martinez said recently
from death row. "I couldn't
watch it. I couldn't believe
it was me...
"There's not one day I don't
think about what I did. I
wish I could bring
him back. To this day, I
still can't believe I did
something like that."
As shown on the video,
Martinez put a knife to
Peterson's throat, got money
from the cash register, then
attacked him.
"To this day, I can't tell
you how many times he was
stabbed," Martinez
said.
"He plunges the knife into
the guy's neck 4 times,"
Mark Skurka, the
Nueces County assistant
district attorney who
prosecuted Martinez, said,
recalling the images from
the tape. "It's horrible.
(Peterson) goes down
face first. Johnny Joe
Martinez tries to get around
him and the guy tries
to get back up. And he stabs
him 4 more times in the
back."
The video then shows
Martinez running out of the
store and a companion in
the parking lot driving off
without him.
On the tape, the wounded
Peterson climbs to the
counter.
"You see a hand come up and
grab the phone," Skurka
said. "He's talking like
he's drowning. You see his
bloody hand... You basically
see the guy die on
camera. He slips down... You
see the blood spurting all
over the place. Then
it's deadly quiet until the
cops get there.
"It's very moving, very
riveting. It was very
upsetting to the jury."
When Martinez gave a
confession to police, he
said the stabbing came after
Peterson struggled. The
video disputed the claim.
"The kid never made a move
to resist," Skurka said.
"Johnny Joe Martinez
didn't know there was a
security video."
In her letter to the parole
board, Peterson's mother
urged Martinez, who she
met earlier this month in
prison, be saved so another
mother could avoid
losing a son to murder. The
rejection left her sad, she
said.
"We will be praying for
Johnny and his family," she
said.
Skurka said it was important
to note a jury decided
Martinez's fate.
"Not the mother, not me," he
said. "12 people apparently
looked at the
video and decided this guy
was a future danger."
Martinez becomes the 13th
condemned inmate to be put
to death this year
in Texas and the 269th
overall since the state
resumed capital punishment
on December 7, 1982.
Martinez becomes the 29th
condemned inmate to be put
to death this year
in the USA and the 778th
overall since America
resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press
& Rick Halperin)
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````````````````````````````````````
Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became
endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being
must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963.