Kyla
08-25-2004, 05:29 AM
Jasen Busby and James Allridge are in my thoughts and prayers. I pray the courts will intervene and stop this mess.
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON — Attorneys for two condemned inmates facing
execution this
week were trying to keep the prisoners from lethal
injection by
challenging the way Texas juries decide death
penalties.
Jasen Shane Busby, 28, was set to die Wednesday
evening for the fatal
shootings nine years ago of two teenage girls in
Cherokee County in
East Texas.
Twenty-four hours later, James Vernon Allridge, 41,
was set to follow
him to the Texas death chamber for the shooting death
of a Fort Worth
convenience store clerk during a robbery in 1985.
In similar appeals filed with the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals,
attorneys for the condemned pair argued a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling in
June in a Washington state case makes improper the
question of whether
convicted murderers present a future danger. Texas
jurors are asked to
make that determination when considering whether a
capital murder
convict should be sentenced to death.
That question asks jurors if evidence shows beyond a
reasonable doubt
there's a probability the defendant would commit
violent criminal acts
that would make him a continuing threat to society.
"The way this is structured, it really puts burden of
proof, I think,
on the defendant," said Scott Smith, Busby's lawyer.
"So that's what
we're asking them to look at."
According to the appeals for Busby and Allridge,
lawyers and courts,
but not jurors, understand that "probability" must
mean "more than a
mere possibility."
"Nearly everyone, from Charles Manson to the Pope, has
some chance,
however slight, of committing future violence," the
appeals argued.
The appeals also contend a life prison term is the
maximum sentence a
judge can impose if a jury can't agree on the
so-called special issue
questions that lead to a death sentence. But the
appeals argued a death
sentence based on a jury's answers to those questions
is a "tail that
wags the dog" escalation of the statutory maximum
sentence and improper
under recent Supreme Court decisions.
In addition, lawyers for Allridge, whose brother,
Ronald, was executed
in 1995 for the slaying of a woman during a restaurant
robbery in Fort
Worth, contended he's been rehabilitated during his 17
years in prison.
"He has reformed himself into a model prisoner,"
Allridge's appeal
said. "By all accounts, the Texas prison system has
succeeded in Mr.
Allridge's case. Executing him now based on a
17-year-old erroneous
prediction of future dangerousness, after his complete rehabilitation,
would be cruel and unusual punishment."
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined
Tuesday to accept a
similar argument, refusing in a 6-0 vote to commute
Allridge's sentence
to life or give him a 180-day reprieve.
In the courts, lawyers also argued the jury
deliberating his punishment
was not allowed to properly consider Allridge's
abusive childhood and
his domination by his violent older brother.
Busby, from Tyler, was 19 when he was arrested within
an hour of the
fatal shootings of Tennille Thompson, 18, and her
cousin, Brandy Gray,
16, at a mobile home in Antioch, west of Jacksonville.
A third person, Christopher Kelley, then 18, also was
shot but
survived. All were at the trailer after buying some
marijuana earlier,
according to court records of the case.
Kelley ran to a house nearby to seek help. Busby was
arrested after
police spotted him in Kelley's truck.
"We couldn't find a motive," James Cromwell, who was
Cherokee County
district attorney and tried the capital murder case,
said this week.
"In fact, he indicated he killed them for no reason
really. Those were
his written words: 'For no reason, really.'"
Cromwell said authorities also intercepted some 50
letters Busby wrote
to friends while he was in jail awaiting trial. In the
letters, he
bragged about the shootings, the now retired district
attorney said.
Busby would be the 11th Texas prisoner executed this
year. He declined
to speak with reporters as his execution date neared.
Allridge, described by attorneys in his clemency
petition to the Texas
parole board as "a skinny, nerdy kid who did whatever
his older brother
told him to do," was condemned for the slaying of
store clerk Brian
Clendennen, 21, during a $300 robbery in Fort Worth.
"I am deeply regretful any of this ever happened,"
Allridge, who had no
previous criminal record, said last week from death
row. "This should
never have happened ... I've never tried to shirk my responsibility."
___
August 25, 2004 - 12:02 a.m.
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON — Attorneys for two condemned inmates facing
execution this
week were trying to keep the prisoners from lethal
injection by
challenging the way Texas juries decide death
penalties.
Jasen Shane Busby, 28, was set to die Wednesday
evening for the fatal
shootings nine years ago of two teenage girls in
Cherokee County in
East Texas.
Twenty-four hours later, James Vernon Allridge, 41,
was set to follow
him to the Texas death chamber for the shooting death
of a Fort Worth
convenience store clerk during a robbery in 1985.
In similar appeals filed with the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals,
attorneys for the condemned pair argued a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling in
June in a Washington state case makes improper the
question of whether
convicted murderers present a future danger. Texas
jurors are asked to
make that determination when considering whether a
capital murder
convict should be sentenced to death.
That question asks jurors if evidence shows beyond a
reasonable doubt
there's a probability the defendant would commit
violent criminal acts
that would make him a continuing threat to society.
"The way this is structured, it really puts burden of
proof, I think,
on the defendant," said Scott Smith, Busby's lawyer.
"So that's what
we're asking them to look at."
According to the appeals for Busby and Allridge,
lawyers and courts,
but not jurors, understand that "probability" must
mean "more than a
mere possibility."
"Nearly everyone, from Charles Manson to the Pope, has
some chance,
however slight, of committing future violence," the
appeals argued.
The appeals also contend a life prison term is the
maximum sentence a
judge can impose if a jury can't agree on the
so-called special issue
questions that lead to a death sentence. But the
appeals argued a death
sentence based on a jury's answers to those questions
is a "tail that
wags the dog" escalation of the statutory maximum
sentence and improper
under recent Supreme Court decisions.
In addition, lawyers for Allridge, whose brother,
Ronald, was executed
in 1995 for the slaying of a woman during a restaurant
robbery in Fort
Worth, contended he's been rehabilitated during his 17
years in prison.
"He has reformed himself into a model prisoner,"
Allridge's appeal
said. "By all accounts, the Texas prison system has
succeeded in Mr.
Allridge's case. Executing him now based on a
17-year-old erroneous
prediction of future dangerousness, after his complete rehabilitation,
would be cruel and unusual punishment."
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined
Tuesday to accept a
similar argument, refusing in a 6-0 vote to commute
Allridge's sentence
to life or give him a 180-day reprieve.
In the courts, lawyers also argued the jury
deliberating his punishment
was not allowed to properly consider Allridge's
abusive childhood and
his domination by his violent older brother.
Busby, from Tyler, was 19 when he was arrested within
an hour of the
fatal shootings of Tennille Thompson, 18, and her
cousin, Brandy Gray,
16, at a mobile home in Antioch, west of Jacksonville.
A third person, Christopher Kelley, then 18, also was
shot but
survived. All were at the trailer after buying some
marijuana earlier,
according to court records of the case.
Kelley ran to a house nearby to seek help. Busby was
arrested after
police spotted him in Kelley's truck.
"We couldn't find a motive," James Cromwell, who was
Cherokee County
district attorney and tried the capital murder case,
said this week.
"In fact, he indicated he killed them for no reason
really. Those were
his written words: 'For no reason, really.'"
Cromwell said authorities also intercepted some 50
letters Busby wrote
to friends while he was in jail awaiting trial. In the
letters, he
bragged about the shootings, the now retired district
attorney said.
Busby would be the 11th Texas prisoner executed this
year. He declined
to speak with reporters as his execution date neared.
Allridge, described by attorneys in his clemency
petition to the Texas
parole board as "a skinny, nerdy kid who did whatever
his older brother
told him to do," was condemned for the slaying of
store clerk Brian
Clendennen, 21, during a $300 robbery in Fort Worth.
"I am deeply regretful any of this ever happened,"
Allridge, who had no
previous criminal record, said last week from death
row. "This should
never have happened ... I've never tried to shirk my responsibility."
___
August 25, 2004 - 12:02 a.m.