Jeana (DP)
Former Member
Delay woman's execution, board says
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted Tuesday to recommend Gov. Rick Perry delay the scheduled execution this week of condemned inmate Frances Newton for 120 days.
Newton, 39, is set for lethal injection Wednesday for the 1987 shooting deaths of her husband and two children at their Harris County apartment. In Texas, she could become the first black woman executed and only the fourth woman executed since the Civil War.
In a 5-1 vote, the board agreed with Newton and her attorneys that she should be given the extra time so her attorneys can investigate claims that she may be innocent, that evidence against her should be retested and that she had poor legal representation at her trial.
Perry can agree with the board or ignore their recommendation and allow the execution.
There was no immediate comment from the governor's office.
"I'm cautious until the governor endorses the recommendation," said David Dow, one of Newton's lawyers. "There's been a previous clemency request he's not endorsed, so I'm a little bit nervous."
Earlier this year Perry rejected a clemency recommendation for mentally ill death row inmate Kelsey Patterson, who was later executed.
Prosecutors said Newton killed her husband, Adrian, 23, and two children, Alton, 7, and Farrah, 20 months, to collect $100,000 in insurance benefits on policies she recently had purchased.
An appeal seeking a delay in the punishment was dismissed Monday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A similar appeal remained before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
"I didn't murder my husband and my children and I wasn't going to plea bargain for anything, and I still won't," Newton told The Associated Press in a recent interview at the Mountain View Unit near Gatesville, where the state's nine condemned women are imprisoned.
Newton was offered a life prison term before her capital murder trial in exchange for a guilty plea, a deal she said she rejected. Under guidelines at the time, she could have been nearly eligible for parole by now.
Her appeals attorneys, arguing she could be innocent, want time to conduct new ballistics tests on the .25-caliber pistol prosecutors said was the murder weapon and chemical analysis on the clothing she was wearing April 7, 1987, the evening of the slayings. They also argued her trial lawyers were incompetent and failed to properly investigate the case.
Prosecutors have opposed the requests, saying the claims raised no new issues and were resolved at her trial.
In Huntsville, preparations began for Newton's lethal injection.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said prison officials were informed Newton wanted no last meal served to her Wednesday afternoon in a small holding cell just outside the death chamber. She also designated her parents, two sisters and a brother, along with a spiritual adviser, to witness her death.
Newton was to be moved at an undisclosed time about 140 miles from Gatesville to the Goree Unit south of Huntsville, where she will be allowed visitors early Wednesday. Later that day, she'll be taken to the Huntsville Unit in downtown Huntsville.
The only change in the death house routine would be the addition of women corrections staffers, Lyons said.
"Usually there are no females back there," she said.
Newton would be the 24th Texas inmate executed this year, equaling the total of executions in the state last year. A record 40 were injected in 2000.
She would be the third woman in modern times executed in Texas, where 336 prisoners have been put to death since 1982. Nationally, she'd be the 11th woman executed and the first since Florida injected a woman in October 2002.
www.dallasnews.com
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted Tuesday to recommend Gov. Rick Perry delay the scheduled execution this week of condemned inmate Frances Newton for 120 days.
Newton, 39, is set for lethal injection Wednesday for the 1987 shooting deaths of her husband and two children at their Harris County apartment. In Texas, she could become the first black woman executed and only the fourth woman executed since the Civil War.
In a 5-1 vote, the board agreed with Newton and her attorneys that she should be given the extra time so her attorneys can investigate claims that she may be innocent, that evidence against her should be retested and that she had poor legal representation at her trial.
Perry can agree with the board or ignore their recommendation and allow the execution.
There was no immediate comment from the governor's office.
"I'm cautious until the governor endorses the recommendation," said David Dow, one of Newton's lawyers. "There's been a previous clemency request he's not endorsed, so I'm a little bit nervous."
Earlier this year Perry rejected a clemency recommendation for mentally ill death row inmate Kelsey Patterson, who was later executed.
Prosecutors said Newton killed her husband, Adrian, 23, and two children, Alton, 7, and Farrah, 20 months, to collect $100,000 in insurance benefits on policies she recently had purchased.
An appeal seeking a delay in the punishment was dismissed Monday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A similar appeal remained before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
"I didn't murder my husband and my children and I wasn't going to plea bargain for anything, and I still won't," Newton told The Associated Press in a recent interview at the Mountain View Unit near Gatesville, where the state's nine condemned women are imprisoned.
Newton was offered a life prison term before her capital murder trial in exchange for a guilty plea, a deal she said she rejected. Under guidelines at the time, she could have been nearly eligible for parole by now.
Her appeals attorneys, arguing she could be innocent, want time to conduct new ballistics tests on the .25-caliber pistol prosecutors said was the murder weapon and chemical analysis on the clothing she was wearing April 7, 1987, the evening of the slayings. They also argued her trial lawyers were incompetent and failed to properly investigate the case.
Prosecutors have opposed the requests, saying the claims raised no new issues and were resolved at her trial.
In Huntsville, preparations began for Newton's lethal injection.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said prison officials were informed Newton wanted no last meal served to her Wednesday afternoon in a small holding cell just outside the death chamber. She also designated her parents, two sisters and a brother, along with a spiritual adviser, to witness her death.
Newton was to be moved at an undisclosed time about 140 miles from Gatesville to the Goree Unit south of Huntsville, where she will be allowed visitors early Wednesday. Later that day, she'll be taken to the Huntsville Unit in downtown Huntsville.
The only change in the death house routine would be the addition of women corrections staffers, Lyons said.
"Usually there are no females back there," she said.
Newton would be the 24th Texas inmate executed this year, equaling the total of executions in the state last year. A record 40 were injected in 2000.
She would be the third woman in modern times executed in Texas, where 336 prisoners have been put to death since 1982. Nationally, she'd be the 11th woman executed and the first since Florida injected a woman in October 2002.
www.dallasnews.com
