softheart
10-26-2004, 06:22 PM
I just got this news, I am speechless at this point and will let you know the minute I hear anymore.
What Hell for him and his family and his loved ones.
I HATE THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry:
softie
For those of you who are wondering.the stay for Dominique was lifted. They
are now waiting on the decision of the US Supreme Court to decided whether
to go ahead with the execution or not. At least that was the news on
Houston television news at 6 pm.
Texas inmate's execution back on, reprieve overturned
10/26/2004
By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press
A federal appeals court lifted a reprieve Tuesday afternoon that had blocked
the scheduled execution of a Texas prisoner set for later in the evening for
the slaying of a Houston man a dozen years ago.
Lawyers for condemned inmate Dominique Green went to the U.S. Supreme Court
to try to save Green's life.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas had blocked Green's execution after his
attorneys argued that boxes of improperly stored and catalogued evidence
kept by the Houston Police Department crime lab and recently discovered
could contain information relevant to the case.
Green's lethal injection, scheduled for after 6 p.m. CDT, should be stopped
until attorneys can look through all the files, they argued.
The Texas attorney general's office, which handles capital-case appeals when
they reach the federal courts, appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in New Orleans and the court overturned the reprieve.
Harris County prosecutors have said all evidence in the case had been
accounted for in Green's case.
If carried out, the execution would be the 18th this year in Texas and the
fifth this month.
"I'm not expecting anything," Green, 30, told a prison spokeswoman after
arriving at a small holding cell outside the death chamber. "I'm just
waiting to see what happens."
He ordered no last meal, spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.
The execution had been opposed by relatives of the man Green was convicted
of killing and by religious leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Joseph Fiorenza, the Roman Catholic bishop of
Galveston-Houston.
Green was convicted of gunning down Andrew Lastrapes Jr. during a $50
robbery outside a Houston convenience store.
Despite requests from Lastrapes' widow and two sons, the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles refused in a 6-0 vote to issue a 120-day reprieve. The
panel also voted 5-1 against commuting Green's sentence to life in prison.
"That's sort of the reality for Texas," said David Atwood, director of the
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "We always know this is an
uphill battle for anybody on death row."
Green acknowledged being at the scene where Lastrapes was fatally shot in
the early morning hours of Oct. 14, 1992, but he insisted he wasn't the
gunman.
Two companions, who like Green were black, testified against him at his
trial and received lesser sentences for robbery. A fourth person at the
scene, a white man, never was indicted, spurring complaints of racial bias
from Green's appeals lawyers and Lastrapes' family.
Harris County prosecutors said the case against the fourth person went to a
grand jury, but the panel refused to indict.
In interviews from death row, Green said he grew up and matured since
arriving there with the capital murder conviction and an extensive juvenile
record for weapons, drugs and burglary offenses.
"I would like to be able to say the last 12 years haven't been for nothing,"
Green said last week, pointing to his clean record and his mentoring of
other young condemned inmates. "Now is a time to show them strength. I can
still be a positive influence. I'm going to always be an influence, to make
people smile."
In a rare face-to-face session in a Texas prison between a death row inmate
and a relative of a murder victim, Andre Lastrapes-Luckett met for 90
minutes Monday with the man convicted of killing his father.
"Texas is going to put a righteous person to die like an animal, putting him
on a table, strapping him up, putting those needles in his arms, putting him
to sleep," Lastrapes-Luckett said. "We're not dogs. We're human beings just
like everybody else. He's a human being, just like me, just like you."
"That's just a very personal thing," Roe Wilson, an assistant district
attorney in Harris County who handles capital murder appeals. "Legally, it
doesn't mean anything."
Green was arrested three days after the fatal shooting. Officers spotted a
stolen car and chased it for 50 miles before it ran off a highway. Green
fled into some woods and was caught. According to testimony at his trial, a
gun in the car was traced to the Lastrapes slaying.
Appeals attorneys said problems at the Houston police crime lab raised
questions about the validity of that evidence.
At his trial, nine victims identified Green as the person who robbed them
during a 3-day crime spree. His defense lawyers argued he had been abused by
a mentally ill mother and turned to the streets to help provide support for
two younger brothers.
The AP wire
What Hell for him and his family and his loved ones.
I HATE THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry:
softie
For those of you who are wondering.the stay for Dominique was lifted. They
are now waiting on the decision of the US Supreme Court to decided whether
to go ahead with the execution or not. At least that was the news on
Houston television news at 6 pm.
Texas inmate's execution back on, reprieve overturned
10/26/2004
By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press
A federal appeals court lifted a reprieve Tuesday afternoon that had blocked
the scheduled execution of a Texas prisoner set for later in the evening for
the slaying of a Houston man a dozen years ago.
Lawyers for condemned inmate Dominique Green went to the U.S. Supreme Court
to try to save Green's life.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas had blocked Green's execution after his
attorneys argued that boxes of improperly stored and catalogued evidence
kept by the Houston Police Department crime lab and recently discovered
could contain information relevant to the case.
Green's lethal injection, scheduled for after 6 p.m. CDT, should be stopped
until attorneys can look through all the files, they argued.
The Texas attorney general's office, which handles capital-case appeals when
they reach the federal courts, appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in New Orleans and the court overturned the reprieve.
Harris County prosecutors have said all evidence in the case had been
accounted for in Green's case.
If carried out, the execution would be the 18th this year in Texas and the
fifth this month.
"I'm not expecting anything," Green, 30, told a prison spokeswoman after
arriving at a small holding cell outside the death chamber. "I'm just
waiting to see what happens."
He ordered no last meal, spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.
The execution had been opposed by relatives of the man Green was convicted
of killing and by religious leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Joseph Fiorenza, the Roman Catholic bishop of
Galveston-Houston.
Green was convicted of gunning down Andrew Lastrapes Jr. during a $50
robbery outside a Houston convenience store.
Despite requests from Lastrapes' widow and two sons, the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles refused in a 6-0 vote to issue a 120-day reprieve. The
panel also voted 5-1 against commuting Green's sentence to life in prison.
"That's sort of the reality for Texas," said David Atwood, director of the
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "We always know this is an
uphill battle for anybody on death row."
Green acknowledged being at the scene where Lastrapes was fatally shot in
the early morning hours of Oct. 14, 1992, but he insisted he wasn't the
gunman.
Two companions, who like Green were black, testified against him at his
trial and received lesser sentences for robbery. A fourth person at the
scene, a white man, never was indicted, spurring complaints of racial bias
from Green's appeals lawyers and Lastrapes' family.
Harris County prosecutors said the case against the fourth person went to a
grand jury, but the panel refused to indict.
In interviews from death row, Green said he grew up and matured since
arriving there with the capital murder conviction and an extensive juvenile
record for weapons, drugs and burglary offenses.
"I would like to be able to say the last 12 years haven't been for nothing,"
Green said last week, pointing to his clean record and his mentoring of
other young condemned inmates. "Now is a time to show them strength. I can
still be a positive influence. I'm going to always be an influence, to make
people smile."
In a rare face-to-face session in a Texas prison between a death row inmate
and a relative of a murder victim, Andre Lastrapes-Luckett met for 90
minutes Monday with the man convicted of killing his father.
"Texas is going to put a righteous person to die like an animal, putting him
on a table, strapping him up, putting those needles in his arms, putting him
to sleep," Lastrapes-Luckett said. "We're not dogs. We're human beings just
like everybody else. He's a human being, just like me, just like you."
"That's just a very personal thing," Roe Wilson, an assistant district
attorney in Harris County who handles capital murder appeals. "Legally, it
doesn't mean anything."
Green was arrested three days after the fatal shooting. Officers spotted a
stolen car and chased it for 50 miles before it ran off a highway. Green
fled into some woods and was caught. According to testimony at his trial, a
gun in the car was traced to the Lastrapes slaying.
Appeals attorneys said problems at the Houston police crime lab raised
questions about the validity of that evidence.
At his trial, nine victims identified Green as the person who robbed them
during a 3-day crime spree. His defense lawyers argued he had been abused by
a mentally ill mother and turned to the streets to help provide support for
two younger brothers.
The AP wire