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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)
Condemned killer Johnny
Joe Martinez said Wednesday he appreciated a
letter written by the
mother of his victim asking that his life be spared
but doubts it will stop
his execution next week.
"I'm thankful, I'm very
grateful for what she's doing," Mr. Martinez, 29,
said Wednesday from death
row when informed that Lana Norris had written
the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles urging the panel to commute his
death sentence to life
imprisonment.
"She's an unbelievable
woman. She had no hatred toward me at all. It
didn't help prepare me
for death, but it lifted a tremendous weight off
my shoulders."
Ms. Norris is the mother
of Clay Peterson, whom Mr. Martinez killed in a
convenience store robbery
in Corpus Christi in 1993. Last week she wrote
a letter asking that
his sentence be commuted to life. The request came
several days after an
intense mediation session with Mr. Martinez.
Mr. Martinez said he hoped
the board would consider the "very unusual"
request but wasn't sure
it would do any good.
In her letter, Ms. Norris
asked to speak personally with each board
member. Gerald Garrett,
chairman of the board, said Wednesday that he has
not had enough requests
for a public hearing from board members.
Public hearings for death
row inmates seeking clemency are almost unheard
of. Mr. Garrett said
no public hearings concerning clemency for death row
inmates have been held
since he joined the board in 1995.
Public interest in the Martinez case has been modest, Mr. Garrett said.
If a hearing is not held,
board members will follow usual procedure and
vote by fax.
Ms. Norris' letter asked
board members "please, do not cause another
mother to lose her son
to murder, needlessly." Mary Lou Cheverra, Mr.
Martinez's mother, said
she was grateful Ms. Norris wrote the letter.
"I'm so glad she has forgiven
him," she said. "And I'm just hoping and
praying that that letter
and her talk with him helps."
Ms. Cheverra said she
and her son correspond frequently, but she has not
written a letter on his
behalf to the parole board.
She will, however, be there for him next week if his execution proceeds.
She said that if their
positions were reversed, she would do as Ms.
Norris has done. "I believe
in the Lord, and the Lord forgives us," she
said.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
Murder Victims Families
For Reconciliation Calls For Clemency
***************************************************************
MURDER VICTIMS FAMILIES
FOR RECONCILIATION PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
Linda White, MVFR Texas
Board Member
713-502-8981
Renny Cushing, Executive
Director
617-868-0007
617-930-5196 (cell)
www.mvfr.org
2161 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
May 21, 2002 -- Texas
members of Murder Victims Families for
Reconciliation (MVFR),
a national organization that opposes the
death penalty, Tuesday
asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry to grant a
30-day stay to death
row inmate Johnny Joe Martinez.
Martinez is scheduled
to be executed Wednesday evening. On Monday,
despite the plea from
the victim's parents that Martinez' life be
spared, the Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles voted 9 to 8 against
clemency. It is believed
to be only the second time in recent
history that a clemency
petition before the board had garnered
that many votes.
On Tuesday, Linda White,
a resident of Magnolia, Texas and an
MVFR board member, urged
Gov. Perry in a letter to consider
granting Martinez a reprieve.
"Proceeding to kill Mr. Martinez
now against the wishes
of Clay Peterson's surviving parents would
dishonor the memory of
their son, cause further trauma to his
parents and serve no
public good," wrote White, whose daughter
was kidnapped, raped
and murdered in Texas in 1986. "As Mrs.
Norris wrote in her letter
to state pardons officials in support=20
of clemency for Mr. Martinez,
to execute him would be a 'double
crime against society'
because it would create another family
who has lost a son."
(NOTE TO EDITORS AND REPORTERS:
A copy of White's letter to
Gov. Perry may be obtained
by contacting Murder Victims Families
for Reconciliation at
the above phone numbers.)
Renny Cushing, executive
director of MVFR, said Martinez
represents a classic
case for clemency because he has shown
remorse for his crime
and because his record demonstrates he
does not pose a future
danger to society. "Clemency was
invented for a case like
this," Cushing said. "The fact that the=20
Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles -- which is believed to have
commuted only one death
sentence in modern history -- came
within one vote of granting
life to Mr. Martinez shows that
Governor Perry should
carefully study this case and not simply
rubberstamp yet another
execution."
Cushing noted that Clay
Peterson's parents were not consulted
when the state decided
to seek a death sentence for Martinez.
"Now the parents have
directly asked the Board of Pardons and
Paroles to spare his
life, and the Board has turned down their
request. Governor Perry
should grant a 30-day stay
so that the Board can
reconsider its decision."
Houston Chronicle
PORTLAND (AP) - Caught
on videotape, the horror of
20-year-old convenience
store clerk Clay Peterson's
1993 slaying was enough
for a jury to declare a
death sentence and a
mother to count every pill in
the house, contemplating
suicide.
Lana Norris has long since
sensed that her dead son
had forgiven his killer,
but it wasn't as easy for her.
"I had spent five years
telling people it was not my
place to forgive," Lana
Norris, now 48, said during
an interview in a South
Texas bayfront home richly
decorated with doves,crosses
and other symbols of her
Christian faith.
She said that faith allowed
her finally to heal and
was behind her unusual
letter requesting that the
Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles spare the life of
her son's murderer.
Although not opposed to the death
penalty, she said she
believed Johnny Joe Martinez,
now 29, had repented
and she had been called to help
save his life.
On Monday, that request was denied, leaving Martinez's
fate to appeals pending
in different courts. At least
one alleges that Martinez
had shoddy court-appointed
defense.
"We respect the judicial
process and the decisions
they've reached," Lana
Norris said. "We are very sad
for Johnny and his family."
Board members voted 12-5
by fax against a 180-day
reprieve and 9-8 against
commuting the sentence.
"The letter itself did
not garner a vote. It was part
of a bigger scheme of
things," said board
Chairman Gerald Garrett.
Gov. Rick Perry still may elect to delay the sentence.
"As a matter of policy
the governor does not comment
on cases while there
is some legal matter pending,"
spokeswoman Kathy Walt
said.
A woman who describes
herself as someone with "a lot
of spunk," Lana Norris
returned Sunday from a four-day
Christian retreat and said she couldn't understand why
the letter had drawn so much attention. Her 3-year-old
adopted daughter -- Clay
had been her only child --
waited near the top of
the stairs to spend time with
her mother.
"Mine is not a story of
an amazing me," she said.
"It's a response to a
story of an amazing, loving, healing, savior."
"There's a life at stake."
Clay Peterson's father,
Paul Peterson of Dallas,
likewise wrote the board,
saying, "I do not believe
that (Clay) would have
demanded the Old Testament
punishment of an eye
for an eye, but instead would
have followed the teachings
of Christ to forgive not
seven times, but seventy
times seven."
Johnny Martinez is scheduled
for lethal injection on
Wednesday night for fatally
stabbing Peterson 8 times
in the neck, back and
shoulders during a robbery in
Corpus Christi. The attack
came one day after Clay
Peterson celebrated his
20th birthday.
About 18 months ago, Lana
Norris said, she sensed the
need to visit with Johnny
Martinez and get a sense of
"where he was at" spiritually.
She said the meeting,
part of a relatively
new mediation program established
in Texas prisons, led
her to believe Johnny Martinez
was no longer a threat
to society.
"Meeting this man face
to face, holding his hand and
him praying with me ...
this man was terrified of me,"
she said. "Johnny
is not a 19-year-old kid any more.
Johnny has faced his
own mortality and he has learned
from that."
He would have been in
his mid-50s before he had a
chance for parole and
could have spent his time in
prison counseling other
inmates, she said. She herself
counsels inmates on victimization,
traveling to prisons
around the state.
During an interview from death row last week, Martinez
told The Associated Press he didn't believe the letter
would save him. He described his meeting with her as "intense."
"She's an unbelievable
woman," he said. "She had no
hatred toward me at all.
It didn't help me prepare for
death but it lifted a
tremendous weight off my
shoulders. ...She wanted
to let me know it was OK."
Commutations are rare
in Texas. In a 1998 case that
drew worldwide attention,
including pleas for mercy
from Pope John Paul II
and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the
board voted 16-0 against
sparing the life of
born-again Christian
Karla Faye Tucker.
"There's a paradigm out
there that almost prescribes
the response to homicide:
that you need a ritual
killing by the state
in order to heal," said Renny
Cushing of the Cambridge,
Mass.-based Murder Victims'
Families for Reconciliation.
"When you don't take
that position, you find
that those who are in a
position of power don't
always accord you the respect
that other victims have."
Lana Norris said she had felt tethered to the Martinez
family since the murder, and she thought of them every
time she thinks of her dead son.
"Please, do not cause
another mother to lose her son
to murder, needlessly,"
she wrote in her letter.
But Dianne Clements of
Justice for All, which
advocates capital punishment,
said people like Norris allow
their hearts to misguide
them.
"If we fail to impose
punishment based on the fact
that it would cause suffering
to the person's family,
we would never impose
any punishment," she said. "The
purpose of the sanction
is to demonstrate society's
response to the wrong
that has been done. The heart
of this proclamation
is justice, it's not murder."
This article is online
at: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1418121
2 Courts Decline to Intervene; Civil Rights Filing Still Planned
Two federal courts refused
to intervene in the case
of convicted murderer
Johnny Joe Martinez, who is
scheduled to die Wednesday
evening, despite a request
from his victim's mother
that his sentence be
commuted.
The U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear an appeal from
Johnny Martinez, and
the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals rejected a civil
rights lawsuit claiming that
Mr. Martinez did not
have full access to the courts
because of poor legal
representation at the state
appellate level.
Johnny Martinez's attorney,
David Dow, said he
expected the Supreme
Court to decline his appeal but was
somewhat surprised that
the 5th Circuit rejected the
civil rights case.
"We're clearly correct
on the law," said Mr. Dow, who
teaches at the University
of Houston School of Law.
"But we'll see what the
Supreme Court thinks."
He plans to file the civil
rights case on Wednesday
with the Supreme Court.
Johnny Martinez, 29, who
was convicted of stabbing
convenience store clerk
Clay Peterson to death 9 years
ago, is scheduled to
die by injection at 6 p.m.
Clay Peterson's mother
had written the Board of
Pardons and Paroles asking
that Johnny Martinez's sentence be
commuted so he could
help rehabilitate other inmates.
Johnny Martinez, who had
no criminal history, called
authorities 15 minutes
after the stabbing and turned
himself in to police.
On Monday the Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles voted
9-8 against commuting
Johnny Martinez's sentence to
life. They also
rejected a temporary reprieve by a
vote of 12-5.
Mark Skurka, first assistant
district attorney in
Nueces County, who prosecuted
Johnny Martinez said the
Parole Board's decision
was correct.
"Twelve people on the
jury made the decision, so I
think this is in line
with what the jury voted for,
the death sentence and
now it's going to be carried
out," he said.
David Dow said he filed
a request for a 30-day reprieve
with Gov. Rick Perry's
office on Monday to get the
delay he needed to file
another clemency application
with the parole board.
Gov. Rick Perry has granted
only two such requests
under extraordinary circumstances
– one on Sept. 11,
and another in March,
when an inmate offered
information in unsolved
cases.
David Dow acknowledged
that the chances of stopping
Johnny Martinez's execution
are slim.
"I'm never optimistic,"
the veteran defense attorney
said. "Always hopeful."
By DIANE JENNINGS, The
Dallas Morning News
A confessed killer, Johnny Joe Martinez,
is scheduled to die by injection
next week.
The mother of his victim is trying to stop it.
In a rare move, she has sent a letter
to the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles, asking that Mr. Martinez's
death sentence be commuted to life.
"To execute Mr. Martinez would be a
double crime against society," wrote
Lana Norris, whose plea came after
an unusual face-to-face meeting with
her son's killer.
Ms. Norris, who also asked to talk personally
with each member of the
board, says she believes in the death
penalty. She and her 2nd husband,
Thomas Dillon, now deceased, backed
a law to allow victims' families to
witness executions in Texas' death
chamber.
Her letter makes it clear how devastated
she was by the vicious stabbing
death of her son, Clay Peterson, "my
precious baby boy," as he worked an
overnight convenience-store shift 9
years ago.
"I have hurt more than I knew possible,"
she wrote. "I no longer wanted
to live and even counted the pills,
considering suicide in those early
days. While I never took the pills,
I just wanted out of the pain."
But, she added, she doesn't want another
mother the killer's to go
through the same agony. "Please, do
not cause another mother to lose her
son to murder, needlessly!" she wrote.
Any impact of Ms. Norris' letter won't
be known for several days. Gerald
Garrett, chairman of the board of Pardons
and Paroles, said he doesn't
know whether he will schedule a public
hearing to consider the case; if
not, members will vote by fax machine,
as usual, on whether the sentence
should be carried out.
Ms. Norris declined to talk with The
Dallas Morning News about the letter
except to say that, "I've been blessed
by an extraordinary God and as a
result of that have probably been healed
more than most victims."
She said she prayed long and hard about
the decision before writing the
letter May 7. She wrote it 4 days after
meeting with Mr. Martinez, 29, in
a mediation program offered by the
prison system.
Mediation involving victims and offenders
in Texas has been available
since 1994 at the request of victims.
Only a handful out of the roughly
100 sessions held to date have involved
death row inmates, said Edwardo
Mendoza, the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice's mediation
coordinator.
Few victims' families in death row cases
have sought mediation, and some
convicts have refused them, perhaps
because their cases are still on
appeal.
Information stemming from mediation
is confidential and not given to the
parole board for consideration of cases.
Ms. Norris asked for a mediation session
even though Mr. Martinez had not
responded to a previous letter. After
both parties underwent extensive
counseling to prepare for the session,
they met in the chapel of the
prison unit in Livingston that houses
death row.
Here are the contents
of a letter Lana Norris wrote to state pardons
officials, seeking clemency
for her son's killer:
Dear Sir:
It is my understanding that there is
a petition on the commutation of the
death sentence to a life sentence in
this case. I would like to have this
letter considered as part of your decision
in this issue. If possible, I
would also like the opportunity to
talk with each of you personally,
either by phone or in person. As Clay
Peterson's mother, I feel that I
have been affected by this crime more
than any other person, with the
exception of my precious baby boy,
Clay.
Clay was 20 years old at the time of
this crime. Even in the turmoil that
existed in the beginning, I knew that
Clay was okay and had forgiven
Johnny Joe Martinez (hereafter referred
to as Mr. Martinez). Yet, I did
not know if the death sentence was
appropriate. I was not and never have
been asked if the death sentence was
what I wanted. While I know that
this case is the State of Texas vs.
Mr. Martinez, my desires should be
considered. I realize that I was too
close to the case and too
emotionally distraught to be able to
look at things objectively at the
time of the trial.
For over 8 1/2 years, I have struggled
with the knowledge that I was in
some way connected to an inmate on
death row. Many times, each day, I
think of Clay, and always my thoughts
turn to Mr. Martinez. I am not
trying to minimize the hurt and struggle
I have been through. I have hurt
more than I knew possible. I have felt
anger, regret and every possible
emotion. For a time, I lost hope and
was clinically depressed. I no
longer wanted to live and even counted
the pills, considering suicide in
those early days. While I never took
the pills, I just wanted out of the
pain.
For 8 1/2 years, I have revisited the
pain of that night many times. I
have struggled with the pain of knowing
that Clay would not want this
execution. To some extent, having an
inmate on death row has complicated
my recovery process. For the last couple
of months, I have struggled with
this issue even more. While I do believe
in the death penalty, with the
date of execution drawing near, I have
done much soul searching. When
Clay was killed, his crime was more
than a crime against me and his
family. It was a crime against society.
Clay was a loving, caring, young man.
He was active in Christian youth
ministry and would have had a positive
impact on many throughout his
life. While Mr. Martinez had a different
start in life, there was nothing
before this incident that would have
led anyone to believe this crime
would happen. Last Friday, May 3, I
had the opportunity to do mediation
with Mr. Martinez. There is no doubt
in my mind, that to execute Mr.
Martinez would be a double crime against
society. Here is a young man
that has truly repented and regrets
his actions of July 15, 1993. If his
sentence is commuted to a life sentence,
he will be 54 before his 1st
possible chance of parole. During that
time, he could be a positive
influence on other inmates that he
comes in contact with. He may be able
to help them understand how to change
their life and direction for the
better.
Please, do not cause another mother to lose her son to murder, needlessly!
In His Love,
Lana K. Norris
The murder victim's father issued this statement to the public:
My son, Clay Peterson, was a Christian
who witnessed to many people in
the South Texas area in his short life.
I do not believe that he would
have demanded the Old Testament punishment
of an eye for an eye, but
instead would have followed the teachings
of Christ to forgive not 7
times, but 70 times seven. I can do
no less.
Society must protect itself from those
who do not value the lives and
property of others. However, I doubt
that Johnny Martinez would be a
threat to society by the time he would
be eligible for parole if his
sentence were commuted to life.
Paul B. Peterson
The session lasted about 4 hours, said
Mr. Martinez's defense attorney,
David Dow, who witnessed the meeting.
He described it as an extraordinary
event that began with Ms. Norris holding
Mr. Martinez's shackled hands in
prayer.
'I killed her only son'
Mr. Dow said his client was nervous before the session.
"I killed her only son," he told Mr.
Dow as he waited for the session to
begin.
The killing occurred July 15, 1993.
After a night of drinking, Mr.
Martinez, then 20, robbed a Corpus
Christi convenience store. Mr.
Peterson, a college student who had
celebrated his 20th birthday the day
before, was stabbed 8 times in the
neck, back and shoulders. The brutal
killing was caught on videotape by
a store surveillance camera.
About 15 minutes after the stabbing,
Mr. Martinez called 911 from a
nearby motel, told the police dispatcher
what he had done and said he
would wait for authorities to arrive.
He surrendered without resistance,
expressed remorse and later confessed.
During mediation, Ms. Norris told Mr.
Martinez she wanted answers about
what happened that day. The answer
was similar to what he said at trial
nine years ago: "I don't know why.
That's a question I will never be able
to answer."
Mr. Dow said there was no anger in the
mediation session. "I don't think
there were any raised voices."
There were tears and occasional smiles.
About halfway through the session, Mr.
Dow said, Ms. Norris told Mr.
Martinez that she believed in the death
penalty but added, "I don't think
it's right for you."
At that point, Mr. Martinez asked whether
she would write a letter on his
behalf. Ms. Norris said she would think
about it; she called Clay's
father, Paul Peterson, who lives in
the Dallas area, before sending the
letter a few days later.
Mr. Peterson, who is divorced from Ms.
Norris, said he understood why she
wrote the letter. Though he, too, supports
the death penalty, he said he
doesn't object to a commutation for
Mr. Martinez.
'70 times 7'
His son discussed his Christian beliefs
with many people and "would have
followed the teachings of Christ to
forgive not seven times but seventy
times seven," Mr. Peterson said. "I
can do no less."
He said he had no desire to go through
mediation with Mr. Martinez, but
after talking with Ms. Norris, "I doubt
that Johnny Martinez would be a
threat to society by the time he would
be eligible for parole if his
sentence were commuted to life."
Mr. Dow said he is considering some
last-minute legal maneuvers in the
case, but Mr. Martinez's fate now rests
largely with the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles. The 18-member
board is expected to vote this week on
Mr. Martinez's case.
Chairman Gerald Garrett said a letter
asking for clemency from a relative
of the victim is "out of the norm."
Because Ms. Norris was among those
most directly affected by the crime,
it would have more impact than most
letters received by the board.
"Here is a young man that has truly
repented and regrets his actions of
July 15, 1993," she wrote. "If his
sentence is commuted to a life
sentence, he will be 54 before his
1st possible chance of parole. During
that time, he could be a positive influence
on other inmates that he
comes in contact with."
No hint of violence
Mr. Martinez is different from most
death row inmates, said Mr. Dow,
because he "had absolutely no markers
in his own personal history that
would have suggested that he was going
to stab somebody to death one day.
He had no prior convictions; in fact
he had no prior history of
violence."
Mr. Dow says his client, a high school
dropout, was abused as a youngster
and left home at age 14.
To receive the death penalty in Texas,
an offender must be shown to pose
a future danger to society. Nueces
County District Attorney Carlos Valdez
said he knew Mr. Martinez had no history
of criminal behavior but the
brutality of the crime was enough to
seek the death penalty.
"We thought the offense itself, which
was captured on videotape, showed
the viciousness of the case and the
case called for the death penalty,"
Mr. Valdez said.
Mr. Valdez said he consulted with family
members before seeking the death
penalty; Ms. Norris and Mr. Peterson
say they were not asked.
Clemency from the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles, which must be
approved by the governor, is rare.
"I was appointed in 1995," Mr. Garrett
said, "And during my tenure, Mr.
[Henry Lee] Lucas is the only person
that has received a commutation
recommendation."
Mr. Lucas, who confessed to being a
serial killer, had his death sentence
commuted to life in 1998, because of
doubts about his truthfulness.
District Attorney Valdez said he didn't
know if Ms. Norris' plea would
sway the parole board to commute Mr.
Martinez's sentence, but he didn't
think it should. "If anybody's thinking
about changing their mind, I
suggest they watch the video of the
killing," he said.
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